The result of a seven-and-a-half-year undertaking to document Iowa's barns and all they represent, Harker's Barns: Visions of an American Icon featured seventy-five stunning black-and-white photographs by Michael Harker. An impressive and well-received collection, the book helped preserve the glory of one of rural America's most elemental icons. Still Standing, a postcard book of thirty of Harker's barn photographs---some from Harker's Barns, some previously unseen---continues that mission of preservation. Printed on heavy card stock and perforated for easy removal, the (...) cards showcase midwestern barns-from square to round, wood to brick, Dutch to Swedish, occupied or abandoned, all symbolizing a passing way of life that was once the lifeblood of Iowa and the Midwest. As barns continue to disappear, these images will endure. “Barns Again! Celebrating an American Icon,” an exhibit of Harker's barn photos sponsored by Humanities Iowa and organized by the Smithsonian Institution's Traveling Exhibition Service and the National Building Museum, with assistance from the National Trust for Historic Preservation, is currently touring Iowa. (shrink)

Recent studies lead to the paradoxical conclusion that the act of affirming one's egalitarian or prosocial values and virtues might subsequently facilitate prejudiced or self-serving behavior, an effect previously referred to as ?moral credentialing.? The present study extends this paradox to the domain of academic misconduct and investigates the hypothesis that such an effect might be limited by the extent to which misbehavior is rationalizable. Using a paradigm designed to investigate deliberative and rationalized forms of cheating (von Hippel, Lakin, & (...) Shakarchi, 2005), we found that when participants had credentialed themselves (vs. a nonclose acquaintance) via a set of hypothetical moral dilemmas, they were more likely to cheat on a subsequent math task, but only if cheating was highly rationalizable. When cheating was difficult to rationalize, moral credentialing had almost no impact on cheating. (shrink)

This co-edited volume compares Chinese and Western experiences of engineering, technology, and development. In doing so, it builds a bridge between the East and West and advances a dialogue in the philosophy of engineering. Divided into three parts, the book starts with studies on epistemological and ontological issues, with a special focus on engineering design, creativity, management, feasibility, and sustainability. Part II considers relationships between the history and philosophy of engineering, and includes a general argument for the necessity of dialogue (...) between history and philosophy. It continues with a general introduction to traditional Chinese attitudes toward engineering and technology, and philosophical case studies of the Chinese steel industry, railroads, and cybernetics in the Soviet Union. Part III focuses on engineering, ethics, and society, with chapters on engineering education and practice in China and the West. The book’s analyses of the interactions of science, engineering, ethics, politics, and policy in different societal contexts are of special interest. The volume as a whole marks a new stage in the emergence of the philosophy of engineering as a new regionalization of philosophy. This carefully edited interdisciplinary volume grew out of an international conference on the philosophy of engineering hosted by the University of the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing. It includes 30 contributions by leading philosophers, social scientists, and engineers from Australia, China, Europe, and the United States. (shrink)

Gordon P. Barnes has recently argued that presence by power is inadequate as an explanation of the way elements are present in complex bodies, and that it would be better to explain the elements’ presence by claiming that simpler substances—carbon atoms, for example—are actually and substantially present in living things. In order to address his arguments, this paper begins by briefly presenting St. Thomas’s understanding of presence by power, and then argues that Barnes’s proposal—that there is a multiplicity (...) of substantial forms in one matter—is unsatisfactory. First, the paper explains why the scientific facts do not require a plurality of substantial forms. Second, it shows how Barnes’s theory does not adequately explain living things. Third, it argues against Barnes’s claim that St. Thomas’s explanation is insufficient because it denies "the universal causality of nature.". (shrink)

Epistemological Disjunctivism (ED) is the view that rational support for paradigm cases of perceptual knowledge that P comes from seeing that P – a state that is both factive and reflectively accessible. ED has the consequence that if I see that there is a barn before me, I can thereby be in a position to know that I am not in fake barn country. It is argued that this is a problem. The problem is distinct from familiar complaints about Neo-Mooreanism (...) and easy knowledge. Potential ways of avoiding this problem are proposed. It is argued that they do not succeed. There is a way out of ED's fake barn problem but many will likely find it inhospitable. (shrink)

An investigation into the way in which information technology has shaped how and what we know, from "Google-knowing" to privacy and social media.

This paper contributes to the (re-)conceptualisation of responsible innovation by proposing an evolutionary economic approach that focuses on the role of consumers in the innovation process. After a discussion of the philosophical foundations and ethical implications of this approach, which bears an explanatory potential that has not been adequately considered in previous discussions of responsible innovation, we present a first step towards capturing the important but often neglected role of consumers in innovation processes (including responsible innovation): We propose an agent-based (...) model that incorporates a multidimensional space of characteristics in which new products or services are represented by more than the mere aspect of price and quality. Instead, innovations are denoted by a large set of characteristics, including also negative or harmful ones. The model is used to illustrate that consumers’ heterogeneity and bounded rationality – even if considered in a simple manner – indeed play a crucial role in the creation and diffusion of responsible innovation which can and should be used for further work in this field and for possible extensions of the model. (shrink)

Beginning in earnest in the late 1990s, educational researchers devoted increasing attention to the study of “active learning,” leading to a robust literature on the topic in the scholarship of teaching and learning. Meanwhile, during largely the same period, political theorists discovered the radical philosophy of Giorgio Agamben, which soon after began to ripple through more radical forms of philosophy of education. While both the SoTL works on active learning and writings of “Agambenian” philosophers of education have offered new insights (...) into their respective fields, active learning has not yet received a systematic philosophical reflection and the community of Agambenian philosophy of education has not yet been systematized. This article addresses both gaps, first through an outline of existing Agambenian approaches to the philosophy of education and second by theorizing active learning as a form of “destituent potential.” The systematic reflection on the three threads of Agambenian philosophy of education—whatever, potentiality, and study—offers an introduction to less familiar readers, and the second section offers a model for how philosophical concepts can become theoretical tools for SoTL analysis. (shrink)

The Rediscovery of the mind By John Searle MIT Press, 1992. Pp. xv + 270. ISBN 0–262–19321–3 £19.95 hbk.The Ethics of Authenticity By Charles Taylor Harvard University Press, 1991. Pp. 152. ISBN 0–674–26863–6. $17.95Multiculturalism and ‘The Politics of Recognition’ By Charles Taylor Princeton University Press, 1992. p. 112. ISBN 0–691–0878–65. $14.95New books on feminismAbjection, Melancholia and Love: The Work of Julia Kristeva By John Fletcher and Andrew Benjamin Routledge, 1990. Pp. 224. ISBN 0–415–04155–4. £35 hbk.Feminist Literary Studies: An Introduction By (...) K. K. Ruthven Canto, 1991 (first published 1984). Pp. 152 ISBN 0–521–398525. £4.95 pbk.Socialism, Feminism and Philosophy: A Radical Philosophy Reader Edited by Sean Sayers and Peter Sayers Routledge, 1990. Pp. 256. ISBN 0–415–05627–6. £35 hbk.Luce Irigaray: Philosophy in the Feminine By Margaret Whitford Routledge, 1991. Pp. 304. ISBN 0–415–05968–2. £35 hbk.New books on wittgensteinWittgenstein's Philosophical Investigations. Text and Context Edited by Robert C. Arrington and Hans‐Johann Glock Routledge, 1992. Pp. 256. ISBN 0415–07035‐X. £35.00 hbk.Wittgenstein on Words as Instruments. Lessons in Philosophical Psychology By J. M. F. Hunter Savage, Barnes and Noble Books, 1990. Pp. 192. ISBN 0–389–20920–1. $42.00Wittgenstein on Ethics and Religious Belief By Cyrill Barrett Blackwell, 1991. Pp. 304. ISBN 0–631–16815‐X. £45.00. (shrink)

The semantics of natural kind terms has recently been seen as a problem of reference. Kripke and Putnam have suggested that their meaning begins with rigid designation, with any further implications emerging after empirical study. I part ways with this approach and instead offer an account that focuses on the contribution that these terms make to the inferential roles of different sorts of sentences. I note that natural kind terms play an odd array of grammatical roles, both as subject and (...) as parts of predicates, and explain why this dual role contributes something pragmatically significant to explanations of natural phenomena. (shrink)

In this engaging and spirited text, Michael Lynch argues that truth does matter, in both our personal and political lives. He explains that the growing cynicism over truth stems in large part from our confusion over what truth is.

A variety of intracellular motile processes involve the directed movement of particles along microtubules, including organelle transport, endoplasmic reticulum extension, and movements in mitosis. Recently, a microtubule‐dependent motor protein, kinesin, was purified and was found to be present in a soluble form in a wide variety of organisms and tissues. Because microtubules provide polar pathways over long distances within cells, kinesin and the motors which move in the opposite direction to kinesin on microtubules provide a mechanism for directed communications within (...) cells. The possible roles of kinesin and other soluble microtubule‐dependent motors in intracellular motile functions are discussed in the light of recent studies of the reconstitution of organelle motility with isolated components. (shrink)

This book is the first to consider the presence of history and the question of historical practice in Walter Benjamin's work. Benjamin, the critic and philosopher of history, was also the practitioner, the authors contend, and it is in the practice of historical writing that the materialist aspect of his thought is most evident. Some of the essays analyze Benjamin's writings in cultural history and the philosophy of history. Others connect his historical and theoretical practices to issues in contemporary feminism (...) and post-colonial studies, and to cultural contexts including the United States, Japan, and Hong Kong. In different ways, the authors all find in Benjamin's specific notion of historical materialism a dialectic between textual and cultural analysis which can reinvigorate the relation between literary and historical studies. (shrink)

The hypothesized brain evolution and preconditions for language may have allowed for the emergence of musicality either simultaneously with or before the emergence of language. Music and language are parallel in their hierarchical, temporally organized structure, and the evolution of hierarchical representation in hominids may have provided the basis for musical representation. Because music could have been produced manually or vocally before the production of spoken language, it remains possible that language emerged from music and that music thus served as (...) a communicative precursor to language. (shrink)

Translating Religion advances thinking about translation as a critical category in religious studies, combining theoretical reflection about processes of translation in religion with focused case studies that are international, interdisciplinary, and interreligious. By operating with broad conceptions of both religion and translation, this volume makes clear that processes of translation, broadly construed, are everywhere in both religious life and the study of religion; at the same time, the theory and practice of translation and the advancement of translation studies as a (...) field has developed in the context of concerns about the possibility and propriety of translating religious texts. The nature of religions as living historical traditions depends on the translation of religion from the past into the present. Interreligious dialogue and the comparative study of religion require the translation of religion from one tradition to another. Understanding the historical diffusion of the world's religions requires coming to terms with the success and failure of translating a religion from one cultural context into another. Contributors ask what it means to translate religion, both textually and conceptually, and how the translation of religious content might differ from the translation of other aspects of human culture. This volume proposes that questions on the nature of translation find particularly acute expression in the domains of religion, and argues that theoretical approaches from translation studies can be fruitfully brought to bear on contemporary religious studies. (shrink)

In this late story, Truman Capote celebrates a peculiar form of object relations to expand definitions of sexuality beyond conventional identity categories and thus suggest a more expansive model of social inclusion and civil rights. Building on work in animal studies, queer theory, and the new materialities, I argue that the literalism of these object relations decenters the human and reimagines a wider ethics of belonging. The story describes an elderly widow who keeps all of her deceased cats in a (...) freezer because she cannot bear to be parted from them. Although the story prepares us to expect that the frozen cats could be symbols or surrogates for her dead husband, it becomes clear that she loves her cats literally as cats and nothing more. Capote pushes us to acknowledge and accept this love for her cats just as it is. And by doing so, he invites us to imagine a more hospitable world in which we accommodate other kinds of object-choice beyond the confines of heterosexual marriage, including but certainly not limited to his own homosexuality. (shrink)

During the latter half of the twentieth century, many philosophers in Europe and America turned towards social pragmatist and holistic accounts of concepts and theories. In this paper, I make the case that many forms of relativism—moral and otherwise—that emerge from this turn are misguided. While we must always operate from some framework of practices in which things may serve as reasons for us, most forms of relativism in recent decades have more boldly granted us immunity from external rational scrutiny. (...) I argue that this strong form of relativism is possible only with sharp divisions between communities of speakers that I call “strict boundaries” and that these are implausible. We are left with the possibility of social pragmatist theories that do not entail strong relativism. (shrink)

After presenting a paradigm of natural law taken from Cicero and Aquinas, I discuss aspects of Maimonides' ethical theory that appear to conflict with doctrines of natural law. My conclusion will be that Maimonides' adaptation of the Aristotelian metaphysic and doctrine of the "Golden Mean" produced a teleological ethic that is reconcilable with his view that certain moral and legal injunctions are revealed. A doctrine of natural law is compatible with the ethical doctrines that Maimonides held. The thesis I pursue (...) is antithetical to Marvin Fox's (1972:V) contention that "in Judaism there is no natural law doctrine, and in principle there cannot be.". (shrink)

This article explores the necessary and jointly sufficient conditions for the recognition of a ground of unlawful discrimination. It is important not only to have a coherent understanding of the currently enumerated grounds, but also to have a theoretical framework that can assist in enumerating new grounds through the open-ended “other status” aspect of many legal frameworks. To that end, this article argues that personal characteristics that are generally morally irrelevant, and that are socially salient in that they carry with (...) them a prevalence of inequality-laden attitudes, amount to necessary and jointly sufficient conditions for recognizing a ground of unlawful discrimination. Other conditions, such as immutability and the presence of relative group disadvantage, will be assessed and dismissed as contingent but not necessary conditions. (shrink)

In The Afterlife of Moses, Steinberg addresses the story of Moses and the Exodus as a foundational myth of politics, of the formation not of a nation but of a political community grounded in universal law. Motivated in part by this recent period of reactionary insurgency in the US, Europe, and Israel, this work of intellectual history articulates the way in which a critique of myths of origin as a principle of democratic government, affect, and citizenship has equal relevance in (...) these places and equal fragility. (shrink)

Emergent forms of political protest and constitution often provide limit cases for their contemporary theoretical models, and transnational protest movements from Occupy to Democracy in Europe 2025...

Thinking in the Ruins will enhance our understanding of the intellectual accomplishments of monumental thinkers Ludwig Wittgenstein and George Santayana, showing how each influenced subsequent American philosophers. The book also serves as a call to philosophers to look beyond traditional classifications to the substance of philosophical thought.

Previous reports have demonstrated that the comprehension of sentences describing motion in a particular direction (toward, away, up, or down) is affected by concurrently viewing a stimulus that depicts motion in the same or opposite direction. We report 3 experiments that extend our understanding of the relation between perception and language processing in 2 ways. First, whereas most previous studies of the relation between perception and language processing have focused on visual perception, our data show that sentence processing can be (...) affected by the concurrent processing of auditory stimuli. Second, it is shown that the relation between the processing of auditory stimuli and the processing of sentences depends on whether the sentences are presented in the auditory or visual modality. (shrink)

At the heart of this essay lies the problem of Christian universals.Sin-talk is arguably Christian theology’s primary contribution to any account of the human condition. Fashionable or unfashionabl...

An account of the relation between belief and practice is inseparable from a general theory of religion and religious discourse. Rejection of the one time popular, but now more or less defunct, nonrealist position of people such as D. Z. Phillips, Don Cupitt, and indeed Wittgenstein leaves contemporary theo rists in anthropology and the "history of religions" with basically the vastly different "literalist" and "symbolist" analyses of religion from which to choose. This article critically appraises John Skorupksi's influential defense of (...) intellectualism. I argue that his dismissal of symbolist approaches is more theoretically radical than he recog nizes. It rejects outright some of the very foundations and staples of contempo rary anthropology in, for example, Durkheim. His argument for the rejection of the symbolist approach is examined. Skorupski's defense of intellectualism is set in the context of a problematically naive understanding of the nature and function of religion. (shrink)