At the intersection of religion and sexuality, this article explores how lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, intersex and queer (LGBTIQ) people navigate dynamics of inclusion and exclusion within faith-based settings. Situated in a postcolonial setting, and with a specific focus on South Africa, the article delineates the oppressive dynamics at work at this intersection, along with how these are resisted through contemporary forms of activism. Grounded in a feminist analysis of relevant literature and of the field of activism in question, and (...) supplemented by interviews with key informants, the research offers a conceptual framework to advance transformative inclusion for LGBTIQ people within, and against, the dominant institutions, discourses and practices of faith.Contribution: This article contributes to the field of scholarship that concerns activism on sexual and gender rights in faith-based settings. It straddles theory and practice, offering an epistemological grounding for political action that advances the rights of LGBTIQ people. In bringing practitioner insights into academic discourse, the article adds to the burgeoning academic enquiry in this area, and offers a conceptual approach for supporting existing and new initiatives against marginalisation, exclusion and violence at the hands of faith. (shrink)

Utilising literature as a serious source of challenges to questions in philosophy and law, this book provides a fresh perspective not only upon the inculcation of the legal subject, but also upon the relationship between modernism, postmodernism and how such concepts might evolve in the construction of community ethics. The creation and role of the legal subject is just one aspect of jurisprudential enquiry now attracting much attention. How do moral values act upon the subject? How do moral 'systems' impinge (...) upon the subject - jurist and judged - throughout the 20th century, when religious values are called into question, when 'existential' doubt prevails? To what extent do issues of gender and identity inform these questions? Many sources can provide insights into these issues: this book intends to concentrate upon fiction as just such a resource. However it is not just another law and literature compilation. Spanning the last century, each chapter will attempt to fulfil four objectives: to identify key texts in relation to a given period; to look for linked legal and philosophical developments from that period; to establish fresh links from these sources regarding concrete doctrinal, or practical legal questions, and finally draw a more general inference about the legal subject and the frequently less evident feminine citizen-subject. Central to this approach will be the consideration of contemporary case law and legal materials as social documents of the relationship between law and the wider community. (shrink)

This experimental study examines individuals’ legitimacy judgments. We develop a model that demonstrates the role of attributed motives and corporate credibility for the evaluation of organizational legitimacy and test this model with an experimental vignette study. Our results show that when a corporate activity creates benefits for the firm—in addition to social benefits—individuals attribute more extrinsic motives. Extrinsic motives are ascribed when a corporation is perceived as being driven by external rewards as opposed to an altruistic commitment to a social (...) cause. Extrinsic motives negatively affect corporate credibility and organizational legitimacy judgments. This article contributes to a better understanding of the complex process of organizational legitimacy judgment by shedding light on the individual’s perspective and expounding the relationship between attributed motives, corporate credibility, and organizational legitimacy. (shrink)

This paper develops a framework for conceptualising social justice in education, drawing particularly on Martha Nussbaum's (2000) capabilities approach. The practical case for consideration is that of widening participation and pedagogical implications in higher (university) education in England. While the paper supports the value and usefulness of Nussbaum's list of ten capabilities for developing a more radical and challenging language and practice for higher education pedagogies, it also argues that her approach is limited. Other ways of conceptualising social justice are (...) also required in order to develop adjudicating theories which enable us to judge which practices take us closer to social justice. An argument is made for ‘bivalent’ theorising which integrates individual and institutional development and agents and social structures. (shrink)

As pressure to publish increases in the academic nursing world, journal submission numbers and rejection rates are soaring. The review process is crucial to journals in publishing high quality, cutting‐edge knowledge development, and to authors in preparing their papers to a high quality to enable the nursing world to benefit from developments in knowledge that affect nursing practice and patient outcomes and the development of the discipline. This paper does not intend to contribute to the debate regarding the ethics of (...) reviewing, but rather seeks to explore notions of how the quality of the reviewing process can be enhanced to benefit authors, the reviewers, and the state of nursing knowledge. Furthermore, a call is made to editors to devise strategies for aiding reviewers to attain higher validity and reliability within the reviewing process by establishing clear standards and expectations and to ensure published work is judged against industry norms for quality. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Publics, Counterpublics, and the Promise of DemocracyMelanie Loehwing and Jeff MotterTheories of publics and counterpublics remain as contested as the issues, identities, and politics they serve. Across the disciplinary spectrum, scholars turn to publics and counterpublics to help elucidate problems of inclusion and exclusion, projects of social justice, and the waning promise of democratic politics. Such work often enters the scholarly conversation at the points of contestation famously introduced (...) by Jürgen Habermas and Nancy Fraser: publics or counterpublics? While Fraser's influence in rhetorical studies usefully prompts us to think about challenges to dominant discourse, the particular sense in which democracy undergirds projects about publics lingers as a question in need of exploration and clarification. Many take Fraser's intervention as a corrective to the politically insufficient Habermasian theory found in The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere (1991). We argue, however, for a return to the original point of theoretical contention in an effort to specify the different normative commitments of the two perspectives and reevaluate the role each envisions for rhetoric as a potentially democratic praxis.Many critics concur with Fraser in describing the normative commitments of the Habermasian theory of the public sphere as idealized or exclusionary, and as such, "the problem is not only that Habermas idealizes the bourgeois public sphere but also that he fails to examine other, nonliberal, [End Page 220] nonbourgeois, competing public spheres. Or rather, it is precisely because he fails to examine these other public spheres that he ends up idealizing the bourgeois public sphere" (Fraser 1997, 74). However, this position relies on a reading of Habermas that focuses on the particular historical examples he investigates, rather than the democratic potential he extends from such historical practices, however deficient critics may judge them to be. Nevertheless, the intervention initiated by Fraser and elaborated by rhetorical scholars compels us to consider in what ways advancing a normative justification of democracy grounded in specific historical practices asks markedly different questions than pursuing a realist project of scrutinizing "actually existing" political formations.Further, the role of rhetoric in rejuvenated democratic politics stands as an important component of public and counterpublic sphere scholarship, though little work beyond that of Robert Asen and Daniel Brouwer has been done to articulate the senses of rhetoric embraced by the two perspectives, or their compatibility with contemporary understandings of rhetoric as social praxis that constitutes the communities, ideologies, and citizenship of those it serves (Asen 2003; Asen and Brouwer 2003; Asen 2004; Brouwer 2006). It is our contention that while Fraser's vein of counterpublic scholarship asks how existing and future publics can be treated democratically, Habermasian public sphere theory inquires into the means by which publics create democracy, and this essay represents a first attempt at delineating the implications of adopting one perspective over the other.To do so, we begin by discussing Habermas's initial assessment of the shifts in political culture that lead to the reconstitution of publicity and authority in the bourgeois public sphere, as well as Fraser's critique of the Habermasian vision of the public sphere and the subsequent development of counterpublic scholarship. A comparison between the two allows us to consider what kind of function each imagines rhetoric to serve in the creation and maintenance of democratic culture. Moreover, the juxtaposition of these two theoretical perspectives prompts us to specify precisely what we refer to when we speak of rhetorical democracy and its relationship to public spheres, and we offer in the final section a preliminary discussion of how the specific problematic of publics and counterpublics sheds light on the broadly relevant theme of the intersections between democratic politics and rhetorical culture.Before proceeding, however, we want to note the long and troubled relationship scholars of rhetoric have had with Habermas's work. Given his sociological training and identifications with social scientific [End Page 221] disciplines, as well as his stated goal of extending the Enlightenment project (Habermas 1990), it should not come as much of a surprise that many rhetoricians find little reason to comb his vast writings for resources (though for notable exceptions to this tendency, see Goodnight 1992; Farrell 1993; Goodnight and Hingstman 1997; Hauser 1999... (shrink)

The purpose of this study was to examine the nature and extent to which cultural differences bear on perceptions of ethical Organizational Development consulting behaviors. U.S. (n=118) and Taiwanese (n=267) business students evaluated eleven vignettes depicting potential ethical dilemmas. Respondents judged the ethicality of each vignette, the likelihood of the event's occurrence and the party responsible for the event's occurrence. Multivariate Analyses of Variance revealed significant cultural differences in perceptions of ethicality, and group differences in perceptions of the events' likelihood (...) of occurrence. U.S. subjects provided higher ethicality ratings than the Taiwanese, and lower ratings on the likelihood of occurrence. Response distributions resulting from the identification of the responsible party were similar for six of the eleven vignettes. When differences did occur, it appeared that the Taiwanese were more inclined than the U.S. subjects to view responsibility as shared by the client and the consultant. The results suggest the need for the incorporation of cultural differences in a code of ethics for the profession and the need for cross-cultural ethics training for partitioners. (shrink)

What enables individually simple insects like ants to act with such precision and purpose as a group? How do trillions of individual neurons produce something as extraordinarily complex as consciousness? What is it that guides self-organizing structures like the immune system, the World Wide Web, the global economy, and the human genome? These are just a few of the fascinating and elusive questions that the science of complexity seeks to answer. In this remarkably accessible and companionable book, leading complex systems (...) scientist Melanie Mitchell provides an intimate, detailed tour of the sciences of complexity, a broad set of efforts that seek to explain how large-scale complex, organized, and adaptive behavior can emerge from simple interactions among myriad individuals. Comprehending such systems requires a wholly new approach, one that goes beyond traditional scientific reductionism and that re-maps long-standing disciplinary boundaries. Based on her work at the Santa Fe Institute and drawing on its interdisciplinary strategies, Mitchell brings clarity to the workings of complexity across a broad range of biological, technological, and social phenomena, seeking out the general principles or laws that apply to all of them. She explores as well the relationship between complexity and evolution, artificial intelligence, computation, genetics, information processing, and many other fields. Richly illustrated and vividly written, Complexity : A Guided Tour offers a comprehensive and eminently comprehensible overview of the ideas underlying complex systems science, the current research at the forefront of this field, and the prospects for the field's contribution to solving some of the most important scientific questions of our time. (shrink)

Given the profound influence of social media and emerging evidence of its effects on human behavior and health, bioethicists have an important role to play in the development of professional standards of conduct for health professionals using social media and in the design of online systems themselves. In short, social media is a bioethics issue that has serious implications for medical practice, research, and public health. Here, we inventory several ethical issues across four areas at the intersection of social media (...) and health: the impact of social networking sites on the doctor‐patient relationship, the development of e‐health platforms to deliver care, the use of online data and algorithms to inform health research, and the broader public health consequences of widespread social media use. In doing so, we review discussions of these topics and emphasize the need for bioethics to focus more deeply on the ways online technology platforms are designed and implemented. We argue that bioethicists should turn their attention to the ways in which consumer engagement, bias, and profit maximization shape online content and, consequently, human behavior and health. We also offer a set of recommendations and suggest future directions for addressing ethical challenges in these domains. (shrink)

How does the body influence the way we see the world? _Imagination, Illness and Injury_ examines the psychological factors behind perceptual limitations and distortions and links a broad range of somatic manifestations with their resolution. Melanie Starr Costello applies Jungian theory to a variety of cases, attributing psychosomatic phenomena to cognitive processes that are common to us all. She analyses the role of illness in several life narratives, and interprets the appearance of somatic phenomena during important phases of analytic (...) treatment. Together these case narratives present a significant challenge to established views of psychosomatics. Subjects covered include: archetypal constrictions of identity somatic elements of perception the psyche-soma split. _Imagination, Illness and Injury _brings a fresh perspective to the understanding and treatment of the psychotherapy client as a psycho-somatic unity. Jungian analysts, psychoanalysts, and psychotherapists will greatly benefit from the clinical applications of archetypal theory presented here. (shrink)

From Lucretius throwing a spear beyond the boundary of the universe to Einstein racing against a beam of light, thought experiments stand as a fascinating challenge to the necessity of data in the empirical sciences. Are these experiments, conducted uniquely in our imagination, simply rhetorical devices or communication tools or are they an essential part of scientific practice? This volume surveys the current state of the debate and explores new avenues of research into the epistemology of thought experiments.

In _Jain Approaches to Plurality_ Melanie Barbato offers a new perspective on the Jain teaching of plurality and how it allowed Jains to engage with other discourses from Indian inter-school philosophy to global interreligious dialogue.

This research examines the practice of cryonics and provides empirical evidence for an improved understanding of the motivations and attitudes of participants. Cryonics is the freezing of a person who has died of a disease in hopes of restoring life at some future time when a cure may be available. So far, about 300 people have been cryopreserved, and an additional 1200 have enrolled in such programs. The current work has three vectors. First, the results of a worldwide cryonics survey (...) carried out as part of this research are discussed. Second, a theoretical model is developed from the survey results to propose a Theory of Cryonic Life Extension which explains an individual’s decision to select cryopreservation. Third, the most distinctive survey result, a conceptualization of personal identity malleability, is extended with a philosophical formulation. Personal identity is found to be emergent, not fundamental, and thus may continue to evolve in concept and application, particularly in the longer time frames implicated by cryonics. The potential consequences of this work are that the conceptual norms materializing in the cryonics community could be forerunners of wider societal trends of how humans understand themselves as subjects in an era increasingly configured by science and technology. (shrink)

Henri Bergson is primarily known for his work on time, memory, and creativity. His equally innovative interventions into politics and religion have, however, been neglected or dismissed until now. In the first book in English dedicated to Bergson as a political thinker, leading Bergson scholars illuminate his positions on core concerns within political philosophy: the significance of emotion in moral judgment, the relationship between biology and society, and the entanglement of politics and religion. Ranging across Bergson's writings but drawing mainly (...) on his last book, _The Two Sources of Morality and Religion_, the contributors consider Bergson's relevance to contemporary discussions of human rights, democratic pluralism, and environmental ethics. _Contributors._ Keith Ansell-Pearson, G. William Barnard, Claire Colebrook, Hisashi Fujita, Suzanne Guerlac, Vladimir Jankélévitch, Frédéric Keck, Leonard Lawlor, Alexandre Lefebvre, Paola Marrati, John Mullarkey, Paulina Ochoa Espejo, Carl Power, Philippe Soulez, Jim Urpeth, Melanie White, Frédéric Worms. (shrink)

The conscious experiences we have during sleep have the potential to improve our empathetic response to those who experience delusions and psychosis by supplying a virtual reality simulation of mental illness. Empathy for those with mental illness is lacking and there has been little improvement in the last decades despite efforts made to increase awareness. Our lack of empathy, in this case, may be due to an inability to accurately mentally simulate what it’s like to have a particular cognitive disorder. (...) Dreaming can help mitigate these deficits by placing the dreamer directly into a realistic virtual simulation and thus increase their capacity for empathy. Increasing empathy would go some way towards reducing the stigma and discrimination faced by people in this group. Recent work suggests that virtual reality can increase empathy towards a variety of marginalised groups, however, this technology is limited in its ability to simulate mental illnesses such as delusions. Dreams, however, are at times virtual reality delusion simulators. They can replicate, to a reasonable degree, delusions and psychosis, and through these experiences, we can learn ‘what it’s like’ to have these conditions. It is essential that we recognise these experiences for what they are, attempt to remember and reflect on them. Instead of disregarding dreams due to their unusualness and bizarreness, we can learn from these experiences and expand our understanding of the human condition and its many forms. (shrink)

Considering the mutual benefits of blockchain and transhumanism, this essay proposes crypto cloudminds as a safe mechanism by which the human mind might transcend its unitary limitations by permissioning partial resources to join a multi-party mind in a cloud-based environment. Cloudminds could have diverse purposes including problem solving, learning, experience, exploration, innovation, artistic expression, and other personal development activities. Crypto cloudminds could be multicurrency, operating with payment remuneration, security, and ideas as the denominations of measure. For thriving in the future, (...) mind node peers could enter “Yes-and” Payment Channels with one another for collaborative idea development. For surviving in the future, good-player behavior could be game-theoretically enforced with the simultaneous privacy-transparency property of blockchains, together with the immutable peer-confirmed consensus algorithm and audit-log checks and balances system. Overall, blockchains might serve as an institutional technology that is the basis for treaties and progress in a multi-species society of human, algorithm, and machine, guiding the way to positive transhuman futures. (shrink)

The stories from the Clergy Health Initiative and Word Made Flesh missionary organization exhibit transformations that ushered Christian leaders into deeper love of God, neighbor, and themselves.

Diese Studie analysiert die Konzepte «Wissenskulturen» und «Experimentalkulturen», um sich dem Problem der Repräsentation mittels einer Mehrfaktoren-Analyse zu nähern.

Die Lektüre der Évolution créatrice war für William James von entscheidender Bedeutung. Vor allem Bergsons Kritik des Intellekts eröffnete James einen Ausweg aus einer methodischen Krise, die im Zuge der Ausarbeitung seiner Metaphysik der Erfahrung entstanden war und die Möglichkeit einer solchen Metaphysik überhaupt fragwürdig werden ließ. Da James ' Lösung, auf Bergson verweisend, darin bestand, eine Logik der Identität aufzugeben, verband sich mit James ' Bergson Rezeption schnell der Vorwurf des Irrationalismus. Der vorliegende Text möchte anhand einer Analyse von (...) James Bergsonlektüre in A Pluralistic Universe eine andere Lesart vorschlagen. Die These lautet, dass dem erweiterten Erfahrungsbegriff wie James ihn im Zuge seiner Metaphysik der Erfahrung ausarbeitet, auch ein erweiterter Rationalitätsbegriff - und keinesfalls seine Aufgabe — entspricht. Eine solche erweiterte Konzeption von Rationalität findet ihren Ausdruck in James 'Kriterium der Intimität. Reading Bergsons Creative Evolution was an event of utmost importance for William James. Bergson's critique of the intellect opened a way out of a methodological crisis that had troubled James in his development of a metaphysics of experience, calling the entire project of such a metaphysics into question. Since James ' solution, after reading Bergson, was to give up a logic of identity, his Bergson reception soon became associated with the charge of irrationalism. I will challenge this accusation by closely looking at James ' reading of Bergson in A Pluralistic Universe. I suggest that the expansion of the concept of experience in James ' metaphysics, far from implying an abandonment of rationality, corresponds to an expansion of the concept of rationality. This expanded concept finds its expression in James ' notion of intimacy as a criterion. La lecture de Creative evolution fut pour William James un événement décisif. La critique bergsonienne de l'intellect lui permit en effet de sortir de la crise méthodologique qui, ouverte lors du développement de sa métaphysique de l'expérience, en menaçait le projet même. La solution proposée par James, prolongeant celle de Bergson, consistait à renoncer à la logique de l'identité ; associée à la réception de Bergson par James, elle encourut rapidement le reproche d'irrationalisme. On propose ici une autre interprétation en suivant James lisant Bergson dans A Pluralistic Universe : le concept de l'expérience, proposé par James dans sa métaphysique, loin de refuser la rationalité, correspond à un élargissement de la notion de rationalité qui trouve son expression dans le critère de l'intimité. (shrink)

Emile Durkheim and Henri Bergson, two of the most important thinkers of early 20th-century France, give us different accounts of the relationship between habits, society and life. The article focuses on their use of embodied metaphors to illustrate how each thinker conceives of habit as a force of life. It argues that Durkheim uses the metaphor of ‘lifting’ to describe how social life creates habits capable of transcending bodily instinct. Bergson also recognizes the force of habits; he uses the language (...) of leaping to describe the kind of action required to transcend them. The article makes three claims. First, it argues that these metaphors are central to each thinker’s understanding of the means by which habits attach us to life. Second, they offer a means of revisiting, and explicating, Bergson’s tacit critique of Durkheim in his Two Sources of Morality and Religion. Third, they both symbolize processes of conversion that inform each thinker’s diagnosis of the moral challenges faced in modern social life. (shrink)

I propose a narrative fabrication thesis of dream reports, according to which dream reports are often not accurate representations of experiences that occur during sleep. I begin with an overview of anti-experience theses of Norman Malcolm and Daniel Dennett who reject the received view of dreams, that dreams are experiences we have during sleep which are reported upon waking. Although rejection of the first claim of the received view, that dreams are experiences that occur during sleep, is implausible, I evaluate (...) in more detail the second assumption of the received view, that dream reports are generally accurate. I then propose a “narrative fabrication” view of dreams as an alternative to the received view. Dream reports are often confabulated or fabricated because of poor memory, bizarre dream content, and cognitive deficits. It is well documented that narratives can be altered between initial rapid eye movement sleep awakenings and subsequent reports. I argue that we have reason to suspect that initial reports are prone to inaccuracy. Experiments demonstrate that subjects rationalize strange elements in narratives, leaving out supernatural or bizarre components when reporting waking memories of stories. Inaccuracies in dream reports are exacerbated by rapid memory loss and bizarre dream content. Waking memory is a process of reconstruction and blending of elements, but unlike waking memory, we cannot reality-test for dream memories. Dream experiences involve imaginative elements, and dream content cannot be verified with external evidence. Some dreams may involve wake-like higher cognitive functions, such as lucid dreams. Such dreams are more likely to elicit accurate reports than cognitively deficient dreams. However, dream reports are generally less accurate than waking reports. I then propose methods which could verify the narrative fabrication view, and argue that although the theory cannot be tested with current methods, new techniques and technologies may be able to do so in the future. -/- . (shrink)

This book examines matters of religious freedom in Europe, considers the work of the European Court of Human Rights in this area, explores issues of multiculturalism and secularism in France, of women in Islam, and of Muslims in the West. The work presents legal analysis and ethnographic fieldwork, focusing on concepts such as laïcité, submission, equality and the role of the state in public education, amongst others. Through this book, the reader can visit inside a French public school located in (...) a low-income neighborhood just south of Paris and learn about the complex dynamics that led up to the passing of the 2004 law banning Muslim headscarves. The chapters bring to light the actors and cultures within the school that set the stage for the passing of the law and the political philosophy that supports it. School culture and philosophy are compared and contrasted to the thoughts and opinions of the teachers, administrators and students to gage how religious freedom and identity are understood. The book goes on to explore the issue of religious freedom at the European Court of Human Rights. The author argues that the right to religious freedom has been too narrowly understood and is being fenced in by static visions of Islam. This jeopardizes the idea of religious freedom more broadly. By becoming entangled with regional and domestic politics, the Court is neglecting important nuances and is jeopardizing secularism, pluralism and democracy. This is a highly readable and accessible book that will appeal to students and scholars of law, anthropology, religious studies and philosophy of religion. (shrink)

Background: Few robust autism-specific outcome assessments have been developed specifically for use by teachers in special schools. The Assessment of Barriers to Learning in Education – Autism is a newly developed teacher assessment to identify and show progress in barriers to learning for pupils on the autism spectrum with coexisting intellectual disabilities. Aims: This study aimed to conduct a preliminary validity and reliability evaluation of the ABLE-Autism. Methods and procedures: Forty-eight autistic pupils attending special schools were assessed using the ABLE-Autism. (...) Multi-level modelling was used to evaluate test-retest reliability, internal consistency and convergent validity with the Teacher Autism Progress Scale. Outcomes and results: Results showed excellent test-retest reliability and internal consistency. A large effect size suggested that the ABLE-Autism is strongly correlated with the Teacher Autism Progress Scale. Teacher feedback was positive and suggested that the ABLE-Autism is easily understood by teachers, relevant to autistic pupils in special schools, and adequately covers the skills and behaviours that teachers believe are important to assess for these pupils. Conclusions and implications: Although further validation is recommended, the preliminary evaluation of the ABLE-Autism suggests that it is a useful and has the potential to be an effective outcome assessment for autistic pupils in special schools. (shrink)

If the conflicts and anxieties experienced during the first year of life have been adequately worked through, then the patient is ready for termination of analysis even though such termination evokes painful feelings and early anxieties. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2018 APA, all rights reserved).

New Translation of Henri Poincaré's Science and Hypothesis, including new material and editorial commentary. New Introduction by David J. Stump.

Twentieth century philosophers such as Simondon and Heidegger propose theories of subjectivation that inform our thinking about the definition of personhood and how it arises; including in the potentially wide-ranging context of personhood beyond the human. Simondon’s theory of transindividuation unfolds as a series of decenterings that provides a context for future persons that is a dynamic world of processes without fixity or attachment to any one kind of subject. Subjects participate in but do not cause individuation; and they exist (...) on a spectrum of capacity for action with other living beings including animals; human persons; and possibly a variety of future persons. The role of collectivity in the form of the other has been an important aspect of individuation; however I claim that the function of alterity need not be provided exclusively by a self-similar subject. Philosophical individuation theories serve as a foundation for an approach that opens up greater possibility for individuation in the context of future persons by identifying and alternatively fulfilling the underlying functionality required by individuation. (shrink)

Laura U. Marks _The Skin of the Film: Intercultural Cinema, Embodiment, and the Senses_ Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2000 ISBN 0-8223-2391-5 298 pp.