In recent years, a dramatic increase in the study of infrastructure has occurred in the social sciences and humanities, following upon foundational work in the physical sciences, architecture, planning, information science, and engineering. This article, authored by a multidisciplinary group of scholars, probes the generative potential of infrastructure at this historical juncture. Accounting for the conceptual and material capacities of infrastructure, the article argues for the importance of paradox in understanding infrastructure. Thematically the article is organized around three key points (...) that speak to the study of infrastructure: ruin, retrofit, and risk. The first paradox of infrastructure, ruin, suggests that even as infrastructure is generative, it degenerates. A second paradox is found in retrofit, an apparent ontological oxymoron that attempts to bridge temporality from the present to the future and yet ultimately reveals that infrastructural solidity, in material and symbolic terms, is more apparent than actual. Finally, a third paradox of infrastructure, risk, demonstrates that while a key purpose of infrastructure is to mitigate risk, it also involves new risks as it comes to fruition. The article concludes with a series of suggestions and provocations to view the study of infrastructure in more contingent and paradoxical forms. (shrink)

This bibliography constitutes the most extensive compilation of references on Nathaniel Branden yet published.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Ressourcement Thomism: Sacred Doctrine, the Sacraments, & the Moral Life ed. by Reinhold Hütter and Matthew LeveringMatthew ShadleRessourcement Thomism: Sacred Doctrine, the Sacraments, & the Moral Life Edited by Reinhold Hütter and Matthew Levering Washington, D.C.: Catholic University of America Press, 2010. 409 pp. $64.95This edited volume is a festschrift in honor of Romanus Cessario, OP, but, as its title suggests, it also has the larger (...) goal of showing that “ressourcement does not dispense with, but in fact requires, Thomism” (3). The contributors’ efforts to bring to light the insights of Aquinas are organized into three sections: theological method, sacramental theology, and moral theology.Readers of this journal will be most interested in the latter section. Highlights include Craig Steven Titus’s response to Jean Porter’s criticism of Aquinas’s doctrine of the unity of the virtues, in which Titus claims that Aquinas has a more developed awareness of moral struggle and development, even among the virtuous, than Porter allows, and that therefore Aquinas is not averse to the idea of a “flawed saint” (331). Steven A. Long distinguishes between acts that are necessary for the completion of a given end and those that are not, arguing that for the former the end defines the species of the act whereas the latter possess their own end and species independent of further intentions. Long’s purpose is to refute Martin Rhonheimer’s contention that condoms can be used by married couples to prevent the spread of HIV/AIDS by showing that the use of condoms is not necessary for this purpose (since abstinence is also available), and therefore that such use must be considered an act of contraception regardless of any other good intentions involved. Joseph W. Koterski provides an excellent overview of the classical roots of the natural law theory and its modern exponents that could be useful in undergraduate and graduate courses, although the essay seems mismatched for the volume since the likely reader will probably find little new in it.An evaluation of the overall project of the volume requires a reading of the essays in the first section on theological method. Thomas Joseph White points to the Dominican theologians Marie-Dominique Chenu and Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange as two extremes in the debate over historicity in theology: “in one we find history without sufficient recourse to dogma, while in the other we have dogma without sufficient recourse to history” (96). White insists that [End Page 218] theologians must find the proper balance between the two. It is not entirely apparent that those loosely identified with ressourcement Thomism have found this balance, if “recourse to history” includes sensitivity to the questions and concerns of one’s own age. In many of the essays in this volume it is unclear whose questions the authors’ exegeses of Aquinas are meant to answer, although other essays are quite engaging. Of course historical exegesis is necessary, but those involved in the mid-twentieth-century patristic ressourcement understood that the recovery of the sources was necessary precisely as an answer to the burning questions of the contemporary world. This is not accommodation, since the Christian tradition proposes something new to the world, but it proposes it with the confidence that human questioning is rooted in the innate desire for the triune God. The advocates of the earlier ressourcement saw the Thomism of their day as an obstacle to this dialogue between the Christian tradition and the contemporary world. The project of ressourcement Thomism will succeed to the extent that it shows how the teachings of Thomas Aquinas can contribute to this dialogue. [End Page 219]Matthew ShadleLoras CollegeCopyright © 2013 Society of Christian Ethics... (shrink)

Applied Christian Ethics addresses selected themes in Christian social ethics. Part one shows the roots of contributors in the realist school; part two focuses on different levels of the significance of economics for social justice; and part three deals with both existential experience and government policy in war and peace issues.

There is an old saw in health policy that everyone wants health care that is good, fast, and cheap — but it’s impossible to have more than two of these at one time.A similar bit of folk wisdom seems intuitively true for the development and testing of new pharmaceutical products. The public is in a bind. We want breakthrough drugs, and fast. But we also want these drugs to be affordable, thoroughly tested, safe, and effective. It seems we can’t have (...) it all.In this paper, we will not claim that one can have it all — but that we can do far better than we are at present. First, we review extensive data on contemporary problems in the design, conduct, and analysis of industry-sponsored clinical trials. Finding major issues that have been solidly documented over more than a decade, we provide many examples of the multifarious ways in which industry-funded trials have been manipulated to raise the likelihood of producing industry-friendly results. (shrink)

In “Diversifying Effective Altruism’s Longshots in Animal Advocacy”, Matthew C. Halteman acknowledges the value of aspects of the EA method but considers two potential critical concerns. First, it isn’t always clear that effective altruism succeeds in doing the most good, especially where long-shots like foiling misaligned AI or producing meat without animals are concerned. Second, one might worry that investing large sums of money in long-shots like these, even if they do succeed, has the opportunity cost of (...) failing adequately to combat systemic injustice in the shorter term. This chapter explains each of these reservations and goes on to suggest some exciting new initiatives—institution-building in Black veganism, higher education, and religious communities—that could mitigate these reservations, energize and diversify the movement, and remain true to the EA method of supporting underexploited but potentially high-impact causes that produce non-fungible goods otherwise unlikely to be funded. (shrink)

The past 25 years have seen a rapid growth of knowledge about brain mechanisms involved in visual mental imagery. These advances have largely been made independently of the long history of philosophical – and even psychological – reckoning with imagery and its parent concept ‘imagination’. We suggest that the view from these empirical findings can be widened by an appreciation of imagination’s intellectual history, and we seek to show how that history both created the conditions for – and presents (...) challenges to – the scientific endeavor. We focus on the neuroscientific literature’s most commonly used task – imagining a concrete object – and, after sketching what is known of the neurobiological mechanisms involved, we examine the same basic act of imagining from the perspective of several key positions in the history of philosophy and psychology. We present positions that, firstly, contextualize and inform the neuroscientific account, and secondly, pose conceptual and methodological challenges to the scientific analysis of imagery. We conclude by reflecting on the intellectual history of visualization in the light of contemporary science, and the extent to which such science may resolve long-standing theoretical debates. (shrink)

The behavior of some systems is non-computable in a precise new sense. One infamous problem is that of the stability of the solar system: Given the initial positions and velocities of several mutually gravitating bodies, will any eventually collide or be thrown off to infinity? Many have made vague suggestions that this and similar problems are undecidable: no finite procedure can reliably determine whether a given configuration will eventually prove unstable. But taken in the most natural way, this is trivial. (...) The state of a system corresponds to a point in a continuous space, and virtually no set of points in space is strictly decidable. A new, more pragmatic concept is therefore introduced: a set is decidable up to measure zero (d.m.z.) if there is a procedure to decide whether a point is in that set and it only fails on some points that form a set of zero volume. This is motivated by the intuitive correspondence between volume and probability: we can ignore a zero-volume set of states because the state of an arbitrary system almost certainly will not fall in that set. D.m.z. is also closer to the intuition of decidability than other notions in the literature, which are either less strict or apply only to special sets, like closed sets. Certain complicated sets are not d.m.z., most remarkably including the set of known stable orbits for planetary systems (the KAM tori). This suggests that the stability problem is indeed undecidable in the precise sense of d.m.z. Carefully extending decidability concepts from idealized models to actual systems, we see that even deterministic aspects of physical behavior can be undecidable in a clear and significant sense. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:The Role of Glass in Interior Architecture:Aesthetics, Community, and PrivacyMatthew Ziff (bio)Design education seeks to infuse students with knowledge, skills, and attitudes, regarding the design of the built environment. In the areas of knowledge and attitude, sophistication and competence are developed through both practice (largely carried out in the design studio environment), and engagement with critical analysis (largely carried out in seminar classes and traditional lecture format class environments). (...) For design students the world of design is both to be known and understood, and to be created, at their own studio desk. In order to both know and create design, students often behave like nocturnal predators, seeking what is necessary in a mode that is often unobserved, and then returning to digest their catch, to produce responsive and synthetic work. One arena in which design students find rich fields of information is that of material characteristics. Materials used in the design and construction of the built environment form a significant portion of the skeleton of a designer's body of knowledge, skills, and attitudes toward design. A current hotbed of material character and application is that of the world of glass. This essay is an exploration of some of the issues that the architectural uses of glass raise from the point of view of design student exploration.Materials evoke physical and psychological responses. Human beings are complex creatures and an individual's response to specific material applications can be unpredictable. Even so, it is reasonable to expect that there are shared attitudes that form the basis for responses to the physical character of the built environment. From delight, to confusion, materials used in the architecture of things large and small, from buildings to fountain pens, contain literal meaning, or expression of method, as well as possible symbolic and cultural meaning. The contemporary use of glass, particularly in interior architecture, presents a vivid arena for emotional and intellectual stimulation and response. [End Page 10]Glass planes that are sheer, opaque, translucent, colorful, brittle, imposing in mass, irregular in surface texture, flawlessly smooth, deformed through casting or by application of pressure and heat, are being used to create spaces that convey ambiguous relationships between private experience and public display. What is an ambiguous relationship? It is one to which a reasonable response is a high degree of uncertainty regarding the course of action one might take, or in the degree of understanding of the context one can develop. To know that the stair in the train station leads to track 4 is a condition that can be created by the use of unambiguous design; a visual connection from where one has to make a choice of paths to follow to the destination, track 4, creates a clear understanding of where track 4 is to be found. If track 4 can be seen from the position at which a choice is required, then certainty, clarity, is possible, if not probable. Visual connection is exactly what clear glass allows, and provides, yet ambiguity results because of the physical, hard barrier, transparency aside. "I can see track 4, but I cannot get there". The clarity provided by being able to see through glass, or even by being able to see light coming through translucent glass, is not sufficient to offset the uncertainty, or the mixed message, of not being able to get there, to touch what we can see.Glass in interiors offers a tactile and sensory titillation; the excitement of knowing that with a single swing of a hammer, or an umbrella handle, the beautiful sheet of curved frosted lemon ice colored tempered glass can be shattered into fragments.Windows have long been the predominant interior and exterior architectural element in which glass has played a major role. The glass used in Windows on the World, the famous restaurant atop the World Trade Center, destroyed during its collapse, and the glass used in a simple double hung window in a one story ranch house each share architectural duties of providing view from inside to outside, light transmission from outside to inside, heat gain, and acoustical isolation. Human eyes are sometimes described as "windows to the soul," which suggests the ability to... (shrink)

Effective human–robot teaming increasingly requires humans to work with intelligent, autonomous machines. However, novel features of intelligent autonomous systems such as social agency and incomprehensibility may influence the human’s trust in the machine. The human operator’s mental model for machine functioning is critical for trust. People may consider an intelligent machine partner as either an advanced tool or as a human-like teammate. This article reports a study that explored the role of individual differences in the mental model in a simulated (...) environment. Multiple dispositional factors that may influence the dominant mental model were assessed. These included the Robot Threat Assessment, which measures the person’s propensity to apply tool and teammate models in security contexts. Participants were paired with an intelligent robot tasked with making threat assessments in an urban setting. A transparency manipulation was used to influence the dominant mental model. For half of the participants, threat assessment was described as physics-based ; the remainder received transparency information that described psychological cues. We expected that the physics-based transparency messages would guide the participant toward treating the robot as an advanced machine, while psychological messaging would encourage perceptions of the robot as acting like a human partner. We also manipulated situational danger cues present in the simulated environment. Participants rated their trust in the robot’s decision as well as threat and anxiety, for each of 24 urban scenes. They also completed the RoTA and additional individual-difference measures. Findings showed that trust assessments reflected the degree of congruence between the robot’s decision and situational danger cues, consistent with participants acting as Bayesian decision makers. Several scales, including the RoTA, were more predictive of trust when the robot was making psychology-based decisions, implying that trust reflected individual differences in the mental model of the robot as a teammate. These findings suggest scope for designing training that uncovers and mitigates the individual’s biases toward intelligent machines. (shrink)

Shors & Matzel set up a straw man, that LTP is a memory storage mechanism, and knock him down without due consideration of the important relations among different levels of organization and analysis regarding LTP, learning, and memory. Assessing these relationships requires analysis and hypotheses linking specific brain regions, neural circuits, plasticity mechanisms, and task demands. The issue addressed by the authors is important, but their analysis is off target.

Melancholia is a commonly experienced feeling, and one with a long and fascinating medical history which can be charted back to antiquity. Avoiding the simplistic binary opposition of constructivism and hard realism, this book argues that melancholia was a culture-bound syndrome which thrived in the West because of the structure of Western medicine since the Ancient Greeks, and because of the West's fascination with self-consciousness. While melancholia cannot be equated with modern depression, Matthew Bell argues that concepts from (...) recent depression research can shed light on melancholia. Within a broad historical panorama, Bell focuses on ancient medical writing, especially the little-known but pivotal Rufus of Ephesus, and on the medicine and culture of early modern Europe. Separate chapters are dedicated to issues of gender and cultural difference, and the final chapter offers a survey of melancholia in the arts, explaining the prominence of melancholia - especially in literature. (shrink)

On initial analysis, Indian Buddhist philosophers seem to have an inconsistent set of commitments with regard to the nature of action. First, they are committed to the reality of karman (Skt: action), which concerns the moral quality of actions and the short- and long-term effects of those actions on the agent. Second, they are committed to an understanding of karma as deeply connected with intention or volition (cetanā). Third, they are committed to the idea that, through Buddhist practice, one (...) may become liberated from the afflictions of craving, aversion, and ignorance and achieve nirvāṇa. Yet, fourth, while Buddhist philosophers are committed to the reality of action and its results, they are also committed to the unreality of any substantial self or agent of actions. How can one affirm the reality of volition, action, efficacious practice, and liberation, while denying the existence of agents, practitioners, or liberated beings? Reconciling the doctrine of no-self (anātman) with an account of agency and karma was a central task of great Buddhist philosophers such as Vasubandhu (fl. 4th to 5th century CE). This chapter will discuss Buddhist philosophy of action in the context of their views of the self, general ontology, ethics, and soteriology. (shrink)

In July 2012, the Kazimierz Naturalist workshop gathered in Kazimierz-Dolny, Poland to discuss the topic Naturalizing Religion. A group of 16 presenters with backgrounds in philosophy, cognitive science, psychology, and religious studies gave presentations with a general focus on the burgeoning field of the cognitive science of religion . This included keynotes from Robert McCauley, Jesper Sørensen, Helen de Cruz, and John Wilkins . The current special issue contains three of the papers presented during the 4-day-long conference. They represent (...) the scope and variety of the presentations, addressing both theoretical and empirical issues in the discussions of the new science of religion. The first paper, ‘Reduction, Explanation, and the New Science of Religion,’ by Christopher Pearson and Matthew P. Schunke, is a theoretical exploration of the term reduction and the ways in which it is applied to the scientific study of religion. Pearson and Schunk .. (shrink)

Differences between human beings have long been used to justify a range of degrading, exclusionary, and murderous practices that strip people of their humanity and dignity. While considerable scholarship has been devoted to such dehumanization, Matthew S. Weinert asks how we might conceive its reverse—humanization, or what it means to “make human.” Weinert proposes an account of making human centered on five mechanisms: reflection, recognition, resistance, replication of dominant mores, and responsibility. Examining cases such as the UN Security (...) Council’s engagements with crises and the International Court of Justice’s grappling with Kosovo’s unilateral declaration of independence, he illustrates the distinct and contingent ways these mechanisms have been deployed. Theoretically, the cases evince a complex, evolving relationship between state-centric and human-centric views of society, ultimately revealing the normative potentialities of both. Though the case studies concern specific human relations issues on an international level, Weinert argues in favor of starting from the shared problem of being human and of living in a world in which the humanity of countless groups has been demeaned or denied. Working outward from that point, he proposes, we obtain a more pragmatically grounded understanding of the social construction of the human being. (shrink)

Philosophers have long been interested in a series of interrelated questions about natural kinds. What are they? What role do they play in science and metaphysics? How do they contribute to our epistemic projects? What categories count as natural kinds? And so on. Owing, perhaps, to different starting points and emphases, we now have at hand a variety of conceptions of natural kinds—some apparently better suited than others to accommodate a particular sort of inquiry. Even if coherent, this situation (...) isn’t ideal. My goal in this article is to begin to articulate a more general account of ‘natural kind phenomena’. While I do not claim that this account should satisfy everyone—it is built around a certain conception of the epistemic role of kinds and has an obvious pragmatic flavour—I believe that it has the resources to go further than extant alternatives, in particular the homeostatic property cluster view of kinds. (shrink)

The aim of this volume is to critically assess the philosophical importance of phenomenology as a method for studying the normativity of meaning and its transcendental conditions. Using the pioneering work of Steven Crowell as a springboard, phenomenologists from all over the world examine the promise of phenomenology for illuminating long-standing problems in epistemology, the philosophy of mind, action theory, the philosophy of religion, and moral psychology. The essays are unique in that they engage with the phenomenological tradition not (...) as a collection of authorities to whom we must defer, or a set of historical artifacts we must preserve, but rather as a community of interlocutors with views that bear on important issues in contemporary philosophy. The book is divided into three thematic sections, each examining different clusters of issues aimed at moving the phenomenological project forward. The first section explores the connection between normativity and meaning, and asks us to rethink the relation between the factual realm and the categories of validity in terms of which things can show up as what they are. The second section examines the nature of the self that is capable of experiencing meaning. It includes essays on intentionality, agency, consciousness, naturalism, and moral normativity. The third section addresses questions of philosophical methodology, examining if and why phenomenology should have priority in the analysis of meaning. Finally, the book concludes with an afterword written by Steven Crowell. Normativity, Meaning, and the Promise of Phenomenology will be a key resource for students and scholars interested in the phenomenological tradition, the transcendental tradition from Kant to Davidson, and existentialism. Additionally, its forward-looking focus yields crucial insights into pressing philosophical problems that will appeal to scholars working across all areas of the discipline. ks us to rethink the relation between the factual realm and the categories of validity in terms of which things can show up as what they are. The second section examines the nature of the self that is capable of experiencing meaning. It includes essays on intentionality, agency, consciousness, naturalism, and moral normativity. The third section addresses questions of philosophical methodology, examining if and why phenomenology should have priority in the analysis of meaning. Finally, the book concludes with an afterword written by Steven Crowell. Normativity, Meaning, and the Promise of Phenomenology will be a key resource for students and scholars interested in the phenomenological tradition, the transcendental tradition from Kant to Davidson, and existentialism. Additionally, its forward-looking focus yields crucial insights into pressing philosophical problems that will appeal to scholars working across all areas of the discipline. (shrink)

Reason is often thought of as a fixed entity, as a definitive body of facts that do not change over time. But during the Enlightenment reason was also seen as a process, as a set of skills enacted on a daily basis. How, why, and where were these skills learned? Concentrating on the notebooks created by Scottish students over the course of the long eighteenth century, Matthew Eddy argues that notekeeping was a mode of writing and rewriting reason. (...) He reveals it as a capability-building exercise that enabled students to mobilize everyday forms of material culture in a way that empowered them to judge and enact the enlightened principles they encountered in the classroom. The cognitive skills required to make and use notebooks were not simply aids to reason-they were part of reason itself. The book begins by problematizing John Locke's comparison of the mind to a blank piece of paper, the tabula rasa. Although it is one of the most recognizable metaphors of the British Enlightenment, scholars seldom consider why it was so successful for those who used it. Eddy makes a case for using the material culture of early modern manuscripts to expand the meaning of the metaphor in a way that offers a clearer understanding of the direct relationship that notekeepers learned to draw between reasoning and notekeeping. Starting in the home, moving to schools, and then ending with universities, the rest of the book explores this argument by reconstructing the relationship from the bottom up. Media and the Mind will prove useful to those interested in book history, manuscript culture, history of education, history of childhood, Scottish Enlightenment philosophy, and the Enlightenment broadly understood. (shrink)

What is a self? What does it mean to have selfhood? What is the relationship between selfhood and identity? These are puzzling questions that philosophers, psychologists, social scientists, and many other researchers often grapple with. -/- Self and Identity is a book that explores and brings together relevant ideas on selfhood and identity, while also helping to clarify some important and long standing scientific and philosophical debates. It will enable readers to understand the difference between selves in humans and (...) other animals, and the different selves that we come to possess from when we are born to when we become old. It also explains how and why the self might break down due to mental illness, thereby providing insight into how we might treat illnesses such as dementia and depression, both of which are conditions that fundamentally affect our selfhood. -/- Taking an important step towards clarifying our understanding of human selfhood and applying it to mental illness, this book will be of great interest to researchers and postgraduate students exploring philosophical questions of selfhood, as well as those examining the connection to clinical disorders. (shrink)

John Locke s An Essay Concerning Human Understanding begins with a clear statement of an epistemological goal: to explain the limits of human knowledge, opinion, and ignorance. The actual text of the Essay, in stark contrast, takes a long and seemingly meandering path before returning to that goal at the Essay s end one with many detours through questions in philosophy of mind, metaphysics, and philosophy of language. Over time, Locke scholarship has come to focus on Locke s contributions (...) to these parts of philosophy. In Locke s Science of Knowledge, Priselac refocuses on the Essay s epistemological thread, arguing that the Essay is unified from beginning to end around its compositional theory of ideas and the active role Locke gives the mind in constructing its thoughts. To support the plausibility and demonstrate the value of this interpretation, Priselac argues that contrary to its reputation as being at best sloppy and at worst outright inconsistent Locke s discussion of skepticism and account of knowledge of the external world fits neatly within the Essay s epistemology. ". (shrink)

The earlier volume in this series dealt with two religions of Indian origin, namely, Buddhism and Jainism. The Indian religious scene, however, is characterized by not only religions which originated in India but also by religions which entered India from outside India and made their home here. Thus religious life in India has been enlivened throughout its history by the presence of religions of foreign origin on its soil almost from the very time they came into existence. This volume covers (...) three such religions—Zoraoastrianism, Judaism, and Islam. In the case of Zoraostianism, even its very beginnings are intertwined with India, as Zoroastrianism reformed a preexisting religion which had strong links to the Vedic heritage of India. This relationship took on a new dimension when a Zoroastrian community, fearing persecution in Persia after its Arab conquest, sought shelter in western India and ultimately went on to produce India’s pioneering nationalist in the figure of Dadabhai Naoroji ( 1825-1917), also known as the Grand Old Man of India. Jews found refuge in south India after the destruction of the Temple by the Romans in 70 C.E. and have remained a part of the Indian religious scene since then, some even returning to Israel after it was founded in 1948. Islam arrived in Kerala as soon as it was founded and one of the earliest mosques in the history of Islam is found in India. Islam differs from the previously mentioned religions inasmuch as it went on to gain political hegemony over parts of the country for considerable periods of time, which meant that its impact on the religious life of the subcontinent has been greater compared to the other religions. It has also meant that Islam has existed in a religiously plural environment in India for a longer period than elsewhere in the world so that not only has Islam left a mark on India, India has also left its mark on it. Indeed all the three religions covered in this volume share this dual feature, that they have profoundly influenced Indian religious life and have also in turn been profoundly influenced by their presence in India. (shrink)

We support the goal to integrate models of culture and cognition. However, we are not convinced that the free energy principle and Thinking Through Other Minds will be useful in achieving it. There are long traditions of modeling both cultural evolution and cognition. Demonstrating that FEP or TTOM can integrate these models will require a bit more math.

Funding agencies and large public scientific institutions are increasingly using the term “research portfolio” as a means of characterizing their research. While portfolios have long been used as a heuristic for managing corporate R&D, they remain ill-defined in a science policy context where research is aimed at achieving societal outcomes. In this article we analyze the discursive uses of the term “research portfolio” and propose some general considerations for their application in science policy. We explore the use of the (...) term in private R&D and related scholarly literature in existing science policy practices, and seek insight in relevant literature in science policy scholarship. While the financial analogy can in some instances be instructive, a simple transposition from the world of finance or of corporate R&D to public research is problematic. However, we do identify potentially fruitful uses of portfolio analysis in science policy. In particular, our review suggests that the concept of research portfolio can indeed be a useful analytical instrument for tackling complex societal challenges. Specifically, the strands of scholarship identified suggest that the use of research portfolio should: i) recognize the diversity of research lines relevant for a given societal challenge, given the uncertainty and ambiguity of research outcomes; ii) examine the relationships between research options of a portfolio and the expected societal outcomes; and iii) adopt a systemic perspective to research portfolios – i.e. examine a portfolio as a functional whole, rather than as the sum of its parts. We argue that with these considerations, portfolio-driven approaches may foster social inclusion in science policy decisions, help deliberation between “alternative” portfolios to tackle complex societal challenges, as well as promote cost-effectiveness and transparency. (shrink)

Solving the 4-d Einstein equations as evolution in time requires solving equations of two types: the four elliptic initial data (constraint) equations, followed by the six second-order evolution equations. Analytically the constraint equations remain solved under the action of the evolution, and one approach is to simply monitor them (unconstrained evolution). The problem of the 3-d computational simulation of even a single isolated vacuum black hole has proven to be remarkably difficult. Recently, we have become aware of two publications that (...) describe very long term evolution, at least for single isolated black holes. An essential feature in each of these results is constraint subtraction. Additionally, each of these approaches is based on what we call “modern,” hyperbolic formulations of the Einstein equations. It is generally assumed, based on computational experience, that the use of such modern formulations is essential for long-term black hole stability. We report here on comparable lifetime results based on the much simpler (“traditional”) ${\dot g} - {\dot K}$ formulation. With specific subtraction of constraints, with a simple analytic gauge, with very simple boundary conditions, and for moderately large domains with moderately fine resolution, we find computational evolutions of isolated non-spinning black holes for times exceeding 1000 GM/c2. We have also carried out a series of constrained 3-d evolutions of single isolated black holes. We find that constraint solution can produce substantially stabilized long-term single hole evolutions. However, we have found that for large domains, neither constraint-subtracted nor constrained ${\dot g} - {\dot K}$ evolutions carried out in Cartesian coordinates admit arbitrarily long-lived simulations. The failure appears to arise from features at the inner excision boundary; the behavior does generally improve with resolution. (shrink)

In this paper I explore privacy as a concept that becomes relevant and sometimes necessary under specific circumstances, but unnecessary in others. Privacy, I suggest, can be thought of as the right to be left alone and is integral to related concepts such as freedom, liberty, and independence. In light of the ongoing expansion of data-mining technologies, business models, and emerging modes of governance, I suggest that privacy is simultaneously more necessary and more at risk than ever. Privacy, in other (...) words, is fragile and must be appreciated, understood, and defended. At the same time, privacy is increasingly an obstacle for businesses, governments, and financial interests, all of whom are eager to extract our data, manage our expectations, and shape and control our desires. To achieve their objectives, I describe how these organizations have long used propaganda and persuasive techniques to shape and manage the opinions, values, and expectations of the public. These days, I argue, the meaning of privacy is being made to evolve in order to bolster these organizations’ interconnected efforts to expand their power and control and to pave the way for the imposition of digital IDs. I also reflect on the way propaganda is being used today, the ways it has been described in the past, and the ways it will evolve in the future—either in defense of freedom, liberty, and independence, or in service of organizations intent on expanding their power and control over managed populations. (shrink)

This chapter examines the political theory found in the primary texts of early Buddhism and related contemporary scholarship. It argues that the early texts contain both a theory of government, which endorses enlightened monarchy based on a primitive social contract, and a political theory, which rests on the ideas that human beings are not selves, that politics is necessary but not very important, and that moral norms are advice rather than absolute duties. This reading directly contradicts the long Western (...) tradition of seeing Buddhism as anti-political. It also argues that modern readings of the Buddhist political tradition as republican are mistaken. (shrink)

Given the rise of genetic etiological beliefs regarding psychiatric disorders, a growing body of research has focused on trying to elucidate the effects that such explanatory frameworks might be having on how mental disorders are perceived by patients, clinicians, and the general public. Genetic and other biomedical explanations of mental disorders have long been seen as a potential tool in the efforts to destigmatize mental disorders, given the harshness of the widespread negative attitudes about them and the important negative (...) clinical and social impacts of this stigma. The conventional wisdom has appeared to be that because the effects of genes are seen as falling outside individual control, conceiving of mental disorders as caused by genes casts patients as blameless, thereby reducing stigmatization. Indeed, the results of experimental and correlational research have now robustly linked genetic and other biomedical explanations for mental disorders with reductions in the extent to which people are blamed for their psychiatric symptoms. However, research examining the impact of genetic and other biomedical explanations of mental disorders has also suggested that they can have significant downsides. The most consistently observed negative effect of these kinds of explanations is that they can apparently lead to the assumption that mental disorders are unlikely to improve or abate. Genetic and other biomedical explanations of mental disorders can also increase people’s confidence in the effectiveness of biomedical treatments (such as pharmacotherapy) but decrease their confidence in the effectiveness of “nonbiomedical” treatments (such as psychotherapy). (shrink)

In Question 31 of the Summa theologiae, Prima secundae, Aquinas puts forward a distinction between bodily pleasure and joy, then argues for the superiority of the latter over the former. Given this, the reader expects an analysis of joy to follow, yet Aquinas does not devote a single question to its examination in his treatment of the passions. Indeed, scholars have long puzzled over Aquinas’s choice to instead focus the majority of his treatment on bodily pleasure. I contend that (...) a close examination of questions 31–39 reveals the fittingness of Aquinas’s treatment of joy in his section on the passions. I argue that his careful usage of joy can be seen as an intentional didactic strategy that points the reader beyond the passions and towards the fruits of the Holy Spirit that spring from infused virtue. By causing the reader to hope for an examination of true joy in questions 31–39 of the Prima secundae, and subsequently delaying any examination of joy until question 28 of the Secunda secundae, Aquinas points to the subordination, though not the denigration, of the bodily passions and acquired virtues to the supernatural end of man. (shrink)

David Kinnebrook is remembered as the assistant to the Astronomer Royal dismissed in 1796 for marking stellar transits too slowly. Kinnebrook’s firing is commonly listed as the origin point for the personal equation and empirical psychology. Historians have viewed Kinnebrook as a slightly misused, though mute, party in the affair, drawing their accounts from Nevil Maskelyne’s published account of the dismissal. Kinnebrook’s letters, which resurfaced in 1985, detail a months-long dispute with Maskelyne concerning observational disagreements. The letters provide an (...) account of observational practice and individual differences in marking transits; they also detail Maskelyne’s failure to recognize an epistemic problem. Kinnebrook’s letters show that the problem of individual differences was known to Maskelyne as well as several of his contemporaries. Evidence from the letters shows that Maskelyne passed off six weeks of observations collected by his disgraced assistant as his own. The letters also state that Maskelyne had substantial personal observational differences with previous assistants. While Bessel later conjectured that Kinnebrook was under pressure to speed up his observations, Kinnebrook’s letters confirm that conjecture and reveal that Kinnebrook had a deeper comprehension of the epistemological problems of observation than has been recognized. Kinnebrook’s recognition of personal differences in marking stellar transits is a significant moment in the prehistory of the personal equation. (shrink)

If the end of metaphysics is not upon us, then phenomenology must be at an end instead. Or so we are told, at least, by the “new realists,” or at least by some of the thinkers I’ll refer to using this term. And why shouldn’t we agree with them? If there’s anything at all to be said for the line of thinking that they advance, then today, we are at long last licensed to speak about beings once again; but (...) apparently, phenomenology deals only with consciousness, which we must admit—assuming we have a realist bone in our bodies—does not determine beings themselves at all. To persist with the phenomenological method, rather, would be to block all progress in philosophy—or so, again, some of these “new realists” will... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Does Meditation Solve the Situationist Crisis in Modern Ethics? A Contemplative Response to John M. DorisMatthew Spencer (bio)There is a good chance you believe in character, in the notions of good character and bad character.1 You may believe in the virtues, too. The virtues are classically said to lead us toward the good, toward the noble, the fine, the honorable (to kalón, to kalon).2 But John M. Doris wants (...) you [End Page 555] to forget about, or move on from, all this talk of virtue and character. There are two suggestions, then: (1) forgetting, (2) thinking about moving on. The two stories are different, and Doris has supported both, sometimes pushing back against his own earlier statements.3 Both stories are powerful, and if we do not assess how they overlap, we will not be in good ethical shape for the future.Why does Doris criticize virtues and character? Virtues, according to the ancient sources, encourage and facilitate our having good ethical dispositions (Anscombe 1958; Keown 1992). If this is right, we ought to have the right kind of (what psychologists today call) traits and, moreover, we can have them.4 Notice, however, that while the virtues may contain or include the having of dispositions, they also extend beyond mere dispositions.According to Aristotle, cultivating courage is to be seen primarily, even exhaustively, as a matter of developing and maintaining the disposition (trait) of courage (Nic. Eth. 1115a6 ff.). However, as others have recognized,5 isolated acts of bravery still count when it comes to calling someone courageous. If you haul a stricken victim from train tracks, you merit the appellation “courageous” even if (especially if) you usually show opposite traits like non-courageousness or cowardice.Furthermore, according to modern virtue ethicists (Russell 2013, pp. 1–28), we must not only have good dispositions but also relate the virtues to the long tradition of what moral philosophy has noticed about the interplay of virtues and character with the moral life in general. Reducing this “moral life” to dispositional virtues is, as the train example indicates, not as attractive as recent writing on virtue ethics suggests.6Because virtues include even if they are not limited to the right kind of traits, they keep us stably disposed to do the right thing whatever the situation. At least, that is the classical picture. The virtues under classical description impact a range of ethically relevant traits, although do note that what “ethical relevance” amounts to is a deep if underexamined question in philosophical ethics; the meanings of “ethical” and “moral” have evolved over time and have not operated in all cultures.Not all cultures, then, have the notions of “moral” and “ethical” that we have, more or less intelligibly, in our own day.7 Arguably, these notions were foreign to Aristotle, as several philosophers from Elizabeth Anscombe to Alasdair MacIntyre have claimed. It may, moreover, be the case that they remained foreign through the early stages of the Western philosophical tradition, much as they also appear foreign to traditions such as Buddhism (MacIntyre 2013, p. 46). The notion that there is some distinguishable realm of “moral matters” as opposed to “nonmoral” matters or to some equally distinguishable realm of “the ethical” is, then, hard to find in the Nicomachean Ethics—despite the name that posterity has given it, with some irony.8 I do not believe the notion can be found, nor that it is named, in the earliest Buddhist texts.9 [End Page 556]The virtues, in any case, are classically designed (arguably in both Aristotle’s works and Buddhism) to give us good ethical dispositions. It is not much use just having a disposition; we need to put it into practice. Defeasible dispositions, in the jargon, do not count for very much—or they do not always count when it matters. The notion, then, that we can have a disposition but not always act upon it because it gets defeated, is controversial.10 How we avoid this fate is a central theme in Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics. Then it matters that, for some years now, Doris has criticized the virtues in ancient and modern authors, deprecating... (shrink)

Recent scholarship has gone a long way toward placing Locke in his intellectual and historical context, and thus in coming to see the respect in which his work has a previously unacknowledged conceptual unity. There remains, however, some difficulty in reconciling the style, purpose and content of his two major works. The Essay Concerning Human Understanding is usually read as primarily concerned with issues in epistemology and philosophy of science, while the Two Treatises of Government is regarded as less (...) systematically rigorous, or at worst ad hoc political analysis. These two sides of Locke thus remain virtually unrelated fields of specialization among interpreters. ;My dissertation is a contribution to the project of understanding Locke's work as a connected whole; without attributing to him an attitude of scientific reductionism, I argue that the account which Locke gives of personal property in the Second Treatise bears an important relation to his account of qualities and personal identity in the Essay. Specifically, I try to make plausible the claim that there is in Locke a direct analogy between the property of a human person, on one hand, and the properties of a natural substance on the other. I suggest that Locke's methodological atomism in science and epistemology parallels his qualifiedly individualistic political theory, and thus that his claims about private property can be understood in terms of a broader philosophical context than is usually supposed. ;As part of a larger project concerning the genealogy of the concept of property and the relation between metaphysics and morality, I expect this work to have useful implications regarding much of contemporary moral and political theory. Given the historical influence of Locke's political work, a careful analysis of it in terms of its epistemological and scientific grounding should contribute to a rethinking of much twentieth century work on property and justice. (shrink)

If you assume the progression of humanity points to a pattern, then nearly everything you encounter in life is a piece of data in the puzzle of mankind's fate. Does it paint a doom and gloom prospect or is it going somewhere amazing? Matthew Sexton's debut novel is a glimpse into the evolution of humanity and its inherent potential going forward. The goal to marginalize pessimism and negativity is critical to our efforts of progression. But it is not just (...) optimism or wishful thinking that Sexton professes; it's realism based on the wonders of the modern world. Knowledge and its results, such as technology and standardized practices which have proven their worth, are not the products of a single individual's efforts but a 'collective consciousness,' a concerted, connected effort that portends an extraordinary future of boundless possibility. There is no reason to assume this progress is reaching its boundaries or even that they are in sight. Thought provoking and sound in principle, Utopia rising probes without cynicism and with a desire for deeper understanding of the overall complexity, interrelatedness, and nature of our beings. It then goes on to offer suggestions on how to maximize the efforts toward the long range goals and thoughts on what will eventually prove to be the ideals of a future built by mankind's incredible ability to achieve"--Back cover. (shrink)

Cognitive control has long been one of the most active areas of computational modeling work in cognitive science. The focus on computational models as a medium for specifying and developing theory predates the PDP books, and cognitive control was not one of the areas on which they focused. However, the framework they provided has injected work on cognitive control with new energy and new ideas. On the occasion of the books' anniversary, we review computational modeling in the study of (...) cognitive control, with a focus on the influence that the PDP approach has brought to bear in this area. Rather than providing a comprehensive review, we offer a framework for thinking about past and future modeling efforts in this domain. We define control in terms of the optimal parameterization of task processing. From this vantage point, the development of control systems in the brain can be seen as responding to the structure of naturalistic tasks, through the filter of the brain systems with which control directly interfaces. This perspective lays open a set of fascinating but difficult research questions, which together define an important frontier for future computational research. (shrink)

Obtaining a patient’s informed consent to treatment is an ethical, legal, and professional requirement based on the defense of human dignity. In some cases, however, a government may mandate treatment for patients without their consent if their failure to obtain treatment could endanger the common good. Such a need may arise, for example, in public emergencies, with cases of tuberculosis, and with patients who have mental health issues. May a Catholic health care professional or institution ethically provide treatment to patients (...) who resist or refuse it? The author replies with a qualified yes. Legally mandated treatment may be given without a patient’s consent so long as the treatment is necessary to protect the lives of others, it is limited strictly to what is necessary to protect others, and the principle of subsidiarity applies. National Catholic Bioethics Quarterly 13.3 (Autumn 2013): 483–498. (shrink)

For several decades Rafael Capurro has been at the forefront of defining the relationship between information and modernity through both phenomenological and ethical formulations. In exploring both of these themes Capurro has re-vivified the transcultural and intercultural expressions of how we bring an understanding of information to bear on scientific knowledge production and intermediation. Capurro has long stressed the need to look deeply into how we contextualize the information problems that scientific society creates for us and to re-incorporate a (...) pragmatic dimension into our response that provides a balance to the cognitive turn in information science. -/- With contributions from 35 scholars from 15 countries, Information Cultures in the Digital Age focuses on the culture and philosophy of information, information ethics, the relationship of information to message, the historic and semiotic understanding of information, the relationship of information to power and the future of information education. This Festschrift seeks to celebrate Rafael Capurro’s important contribution to a global dialogue on how information conceptualisation, use and technology impact human culture and the ethical questions that arise from this dynamic relationship. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:An American Scholar Recalls Karl Barth’s Golden Years as a Teacher (1958–1964) by Raymond Kemp Anderson, and: The Westminster Handbook to Karl Barth ed. by Richard E. BurnettMatthew R. JantzenAn American Scholar Recalls Karl Barth’s Golden Years as a Teacher (1958–1964) Raymond Kemp Anderson lewiston, ny: edwin mellen press, 2013. 438 pp. $159.95The Westminster Handbook to Karl Barth Edited by Richard E. Burnett louisville, ky: westminster john knox (...) press, 2013. 242 pp. $35.00On April 2, 1966, Karl Barth received a letter from Peter Vogelsanger, informing him that Emil Brunner—the recipient of Barth’s thunderous “Nein!” on the subject of natural theology in 1934—was on his deathbed. Two days later, Barth responded and asked Vogelsanger to tell Brunner that “the time when I thought I should say No to him is long since past, and we all live only by the fact that a great and merciful God speaks his gracious Yes to all of us.” The irenic, compassionate, and affirming tone of this letter is typical of the “mature” Barth, whom Raymond Anderson studied under from 1958 to 1964 as a ThD student at the University of Basel. This period of doctoral study is the subject of Anderson’s interesting and eminently readable new book. Anderson enjoyably weaves together several different genres in his reflections on his experience with Barth, smoothly transitioning back and forth between personal memoir, constructive theological argument, and thoughtful interpretation of Barth’s life and writings.Structurally, the book offers a series of recollections and reflections gathered loosely around common themes rather than a tightly knit argument pursued rigorously from beginning to end. In other words, the work is a series of sketches from the artist’s notebook, as opposed to one intricate and detailed portrait focusing on a single subject. [End Page 207]In the first five chapters of the book, Anderson sketches a picture of the elderly Karl Barth who served as his “doktorvater,” drawing material from his student notes and personal memories of the years he spent with Barth in Basel. While Anderson finds continuity between the earlier and later writings of Barth, he suggests that the older Barth began to increasingly unfold the “fuller, grace-centered and human-shaped positive implications” of the earlier writings (viii). In Anderson’s experience, Barth’s early appeal to “Let God be God!” had in those later years “mellowed to an even deeper appeal to let God be himself, human as well, in the most unexpected ways” (11). This mellowing extended beyond Barth’s writing to his personality and demeanor as a teacher and theologian. The Barth whom Anderson knew was humble, understated, and compassionate, a sympathetic listener and a generous interpreter—in short, an “un-dogmatic” dogmatician (139).In the sixth chapter, Anderson shifts gears and reproduces extensive transcriptions of his own notes from several of Barth’s biweekly English-language colloquia on the topics of natural theology, the Old Testament promise, Paul Tillich, and existentialism. Anderson suggests that these notes are particularly valuable because in them one witnesses Barth explaining the bare essentials of his thinking in clear and simple English terms. This is true for large portions of the transcriptions. However, it must be said that there are also portions of these transcriptions that suffer from the lack of clarity that one might expect to find in student notes of discussions conducted in a language with which Barth was not completely comfortable. Nevertheless, these transcriptions provide previously unpublished primary source material from Barth that is worth examining.From chapter 7 until the end of the book, Anderson takes up the task of “sketching key insights and special teachings from the mature Barth that in the years since Barth’s death have shown themselves to carry special significance for our American college classroom, church school, and pulpit” (205). These include, but are not limited to, Barth’s attitude toward America, his emphasis on the priority of grace, his theology of nature (not his natural theology), and his positions on theories of religion, satisfaction theories of the atonement, election, universalism, and even the possibility of extraterrestrial life. This section also includes... (shrink)

Hope is an attitude with a distinctive epistemological dimension: it is incompatible with knowledge. This chapter examines hope as it relates to knowledge but also to probability and inductive considerations. Such epistemic constraints can make hope either impossible, or, when hope remains possible, they affect how one’s epistemic situation can make hope rational rather than irrational. Such issues are especially relevant to when hopefulness may permissibly figure in practical deliberation over a course of action. So I consider cases of second-order (...) inductive reflection on when one should, or should not, be hopeful for an outcome with which one has a long record of experience: in other words, what is the epistemology behind when one should, if ever, stop hoping for outcomes which have failed one many times in the past? (shrink)

Amid the many figures who number among the Thomists writing during the early 20th century period of revival in scholastic thought in the Roman Catholic Church in the wake of the encyclical letter Aeterni Patris (1879) of Leo XIII, there is numbered the French convert, Jacques Maritain (1882–1973). Over the course of his long lifetime, Maritain authored works covering a host of philosophical and theological topics: epistemology, the philosophy of the sciences and natural philosophy, aesthetics, moral philosophy, political philosophy, (...) metaphysics, the philosophy of history, etc. The details concerning Maritain’s youth and conversion have been ably told by others and can be consulted by the interested reader. Detailed bibliographies of his works are available for those interested in engaging the full breadth of his writing. In this article, I will focus on the particular shape of Maritain’s Thomism and his place in the overall hermeneutics of the Thomistic tradition, in particular the debt that he owes to John Poinsot (1589–1644), to whom he refers as “John of St. Thomas,” in accord with the standard appellations within the Thomistic tradition in which he wrote. Following a general account of Maritain’s “style” of Thomism, I will provide a specific catalogue of some central themes in his thought that bear the clear impress of his engagement with the thought of John of St. Thomas. Without claiming to be exhaustive, this article intends to provide the reader with a sufficient appraisal of the main lines of influence exercised upon Maritain’s thought by the Baroque Commentator, without whose philosophical and theological works Maritain’s own labors would be unthinkable. (shrink)

The Great War, as it was known until 1939, set in chain a series of catastrophes and crises that have largely defined the long twentieth century: economic, political, cultural, and metaphysical. Philosophy was not unaffected, either within academe, or more widely. Nearly each of the major philosophical movements, from analytic philosophy through to post-structuralism, was directly or indirectly formed in response to the civilizational crisis the Great War inaugurated, and different perceptions of its causes and significance. This chapter surveys (...) the territory, and looks forwards to the different contributions collected here. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Mensonge MélodramatiqueTriangular Desire in Sense and SensibilityMatthew Taylor (bio)The Passions are perfectly unknown to her; she rejects even a speaking acquaintance with that stormy Sisterhood; even to the Feelings she vouchsafes no more than an occasional graceful but distant recognition; too frequent converse with them would ruffle the smooth elegance of her progress. Her business is not half so much with the human heart as with the human eyes, (...) mouth, hands and feet; what sees keenly, speaks aptly, moves flexibly, it suits her to study, but what throbs fast and full, though hidden, what the blood rushes through, what is the unseen seat of Life and the sentient target of Death—this Miss Austen ignores.—Charlotte Brontë1"Oh! mama, how spiritless, how tame was Edward's manner in reading to us last night! I felt for my sister most severely. Yet she bore it with so much composure, she seemed scarcely to notice it. I could hardly keep my seat. To hear those beautiful lines which have frequently almost driven me wild, pronounced with such impenetrable calmness, such dreadful indifference!" [End Page 189]—Marianne in Sense and Sensibility2Charlotte Brontë had probably not read Sense and Sensibility (SS) before making her famous indictment of Jane Austen above, otherwise she would have found herself prophetically, and mercilessly, parodied through the character of Marianne Dashwood.3 Marianne's critique of Edward above matches Brontë's denunciation with uncanny precision. Marianne, the "stormy sister" of the novel, carries on in the same vein through most of it. What she proclaims as passionate sensibility comes off instead as, at varying times, snooty, self-indulgent, exhibitionist, and histrionic. Marianne even assumes the role of Brontë's "sentient target of Death" not long after she is cruelly jilted by Willoughby, when she wanders listlessly outdoors in the damp. It is not unlike Jane Eyre's numb wanderings when she flees Thornfield and Rochester. This "acting out" by Marianne comes close to killing her.Marianne's romantic "sensibility" contrasts with her sister Elinor's "sense." Yet, of course, readers of SS will come to know that Elinor can feel just as deeply and passionately as Marianne; she just has to conceal it. Elinor can suffer as much, too, only without the luxury of wearing it on dew-drenched sleeves. Thus, we have the thematic frame of the novel, suggested in the title. As Austen's first published novel, SS is brilliant, mature, and confident. One weakness seems to be a Brontëan one, the melodramatic coincidence in the plot that connects Colonel Brandon's secret life of compassion to Willoughby's secret sins. Otherwise, SS sits very well alongside Austen's other five masterpieces.4From the perspective of René Girard's mimetic theory, mimesis comes out with a bang in SS.5 Not only is Marianne a principal character in Austen's first canonical novel, but her romantic sensibility is thematized in the title.6 "Sensibility" for Marianne is feeling, unmediated desire expressed in unrestrained language and impulsive action. Yet Marianne's actions are anything but unmediated, and they are compulsive rather than impulsive. Even when she finally overcomes the worst symptoms under the influence of Elinor, and even though we do develop genuine sympathy for her, Marianne never comes to any deep self-knowledge. Marianne perfectly encapsulates Girard's mensonge romantique, or "romantic lie."Implying that Marianne is a liar is not a comfortable stance, and not just because we may be fond of her, but because she is open and sincere—to a fault. Yet just because Marianne is honest about her feelings, it does not follow that she is accurate about them. In fact, this is often a problem in interpreting Marianne: Her self-characterization is accepted uncritically.7 From that basis, she is framed, somewhat understandably, as representing one side of a moral debate about sensibility.8 Austen is seen as being for it, or against it, or working out some sort of accommodation. Austen is further assessed as having done [End Page 190] so well, or badly, or indifferently, as the case may be. Then Austen is seen as conforming to cultural standards, or challenging... (shrink)