We endorse Davey's view that expectancy processes are intimately involved in fear reactions, but question his model on three grounds. First, the mechanism for generating expectancy bias to both ontogenetic and phylogenetic stimuli is not spelled out. Second, the selective association component is unnecessary. Third, the model fails to provide a clear explanation for the irrationality of phobic reactions.

The primary objective of this essay is to establish a basis for the development of a socio-biological approach to understanding the phenomenon of technological society and technical change, one that also serves to bridge the gap that has grown between natural science and social theory. The objective stems from the belief that an ecological crisis is looming that will require a new form of pragmatism from which new instruments for analysis, evaluation, and implementation can emerge and which, of necessity, will (...) be multidisciplinary in character. One possible intellectual framework is proposed, that of a biology of technology, a conceptualization of human organization woven from an unlikely mix of theoretical perspectives. The most consequential of these is structural determinism, a tenet of autopoietic theory (also known as the biology of cognition). Other elements, including actor network theory, a metatheory of technology, and cognitive anthropology are explored before proceeding to consider some implications should the thesis be adopted. (shrink)

Society as the ethical starting point for political inquiry -- The moral relevance of dependence -- Nature and the moral frame of society -- Morality in the order of the will.

A Lacanian approach to murder scene investigation. What if Jacques Lacan—the brilliant and eccentric Parisian psychoanalyst—had worked as a police detective, applying his theories to solve crimes? This may conjure up a mental film clip starring Peter Sellers in a trench coat, but in Lacan at the Scene, Henry Bond makes a serious and provocative claim: that apparently impenetrable events of violent death can be more effectively unraveled with Lacan's theory of psychoanalysis than with elaborate, technologically advanced forensic (...) tools. Bond's exposition on murder expands and develops a resolutely Žižekian approach. Seeking out radical and unexpected readings, Bond unpacks his material utilizing Lacan's neurosis-psychosis-perversion grid. Bond places Lacan at the crime scene and builds his argument through a series of archival crime scene photographs from the 1950s—the period when Lacan was developing his influential theories. It is not the horror of the ravished and mutilated corpses that draws his attention; instead, he interrogates seemingly minor details from the everyday, isolating and rephotographing what at first seems insignificant: a single high heeled shoe on a kitchen table, for example, or carefully folded clothes placed over a chair. From these mundane details he carefully builds a robust and comprehensive manual for Lacanian crime investigation that can stand beside the FBI's standard-issue Crime Classification Manual. (shrink)

This work describes the concept of bond order. It shows that covalent bond energy is correlated to bond order. Simple expressions which included bond order are introduced to calculate bond energies of homo-nuclear and hetero-nuclear bonds. Calculated values of bond energies are compared with literature values and show there is very good agreement between and calculated and experimental values in the vast majority of cases. Bond order reveals the strength of a bond (...) and shows the number of bonds in both homo-nuclear and hetero-nuclear covalent bonds. (shrink)

Previous research in North America has supported the view that male involvement in committed, romantic relationships is associated with lower testosterone (T) levels. Here, we test the prediction that undergraduate men involved in committed, romantic relationships (paired) will have lower T levels than men not involved in such relationships (unpaired). Further, we also test whether these differences are more apparent in samples collected later, rather than earlier, in the day. For this study, 107 undergraduate men filled out a questionnaire and (...) collected one saliva sample (from which a subject’s T level was measured) at various times across the day. As in previous studies, men involved in committed, romantic relationships had lower salivary T levels, though only during later times of the day. Furthermore, additional analysis of the variation among unpaired subjects indicated that men without prior relationship experience had lower T levels than experienced men. Finally, while paired men as a group had lower T levels than unpaired men, those men at the earliest stage (less than six months) of a current relationship had higher T levels than unpaired men as well as men in longer-term relationships. These results suggest that variation in male testosterone levels may reflect differential behavioral allocation to mating effort. (shrink)

The paper examines important discrepancies between major figures influencing the intellectual development of biosemiotics. It takes its perspective from the work of Gregory Bateson. Unlike C. S. Peirce and J. von Uexküll, Bateson begins with a strong notion of interaction. His early writings were about reciprocity and social exchange, a common topic among anthropologists of the time, but Bateson’s approach was unique. He developed the notion of meta-patterns of exchange, and of the “abduction” of these metapatterns to a variety of (...) other phenomena, in both biology and in game theory. Later, Bateson’s concept of ecology of mind, the product of interactive phenomena, was modified by a non-purposive cybernetics. Biosemiotics has yet to adopt Bateson’s interactive stance, which is absent from Peirce’s approach to communication, of Uexküll’s functional cycles, and of Hoffmeyer’s discussion of the relation between culture and environment. Rather than pursuing notions of appropriate “subjectivity” through changed ethical response to ecological conditions (Hoffmeyer’s discussion of empathy), the paper discusses the advantages of an approach that continues to focus on conditions of paradox and pathology. Specifically, Bateson’s resolution of the relation between culture and environment arises from situations of blocked communication where ecological bonds become binds. (shrink)

From the beginning to the end of his career, the critical theorist and Frankfurt School philosopher Theodor W. Adorno sustained an uneasy but enduring bond with existentialism. His attitude overall was that of unsparing criticism, often verging on polemic. In Kierkegaard he saw an early paragon for the late flowering of bourgeois solipsism; in Heidegger an impresario for a "jargon of authenticity" that cloaked its idealism in an aura of pseudo-concreteness and neo-romantic kitsch; even in the more rationalist tradition (...) of Husserl's phenomenology he detected a vain attempt of the bourgeois spirit to break free from the prison-house of immanent consciousness. Yet his enduring fascination with the philosophical canons of existentialism and phenomenology suggests a connection far more complicated and productive than mere antipathy. From his first published book on Kierkegaard's aesthetic to the mature studies in negative dialectics, Adorno was forever returning to the philosophies of bourgeois interiority, seeking the paradoxical relation between their manifest failure and their hidden promise. Scholars of critical theory often regard these philosophical adventures as unfortunate lapses into reductive sociology or as marginal to Adorno's path of intellectual development. In Adorno and Existence, Peter E. Gordon challenges this assumption, showing how the confrontation with existentialism helps us toward a deeper understanding of Adorno's own intellectual commitments. In lucid prose and with a dialectical sensitivity for the links between philosophy and life, Adorno and Existence casts new and unfamiliar light on this neglected chapter in the history of Continental philosophy.--. (shrink)

Both of the companion target articles place considerable performance on music performance ability, with specific attention paid to singing in harmony for the music and social bonding hypothesis proposed by Savage and colleagues. In this commentary, I evaluate results from recent research on singing accuracy in light of their implications for the MSB hypothesis.

Music and the Idea of a World explores the bond between music and world by reflecting on great musical compositions and works by great thinkers from antiquity to the present. World, here, has several meanings. It is the natural world or cosmos, the inner world of feeling and thought, world history, and the world of tones (the musical universe). The book is intended for philosophic-minded readers who are fascinated by music and music lovers who enjoy thinking about the philosophic (...) questions that music raises. The seven-chapter journey begins with a contrast between the cosmologies of Plato and Schopenhauer (followed by a discussion of Palestrina's music and the world of the Bible). It then proceeds to chapters on music and nature in Victor Zuckerkandl's Sound and Symbol, a love song from Bach's St. Matthew Passion, a love song from Mozart's Magic Flute, Wagner's Tristan and Isolde in relation to Schopenhauer's cosmology of the will, twelve-tone music as the image of totalitarianism in Thomas Mann's Doctor Faustus, and the world of the inner life in Francis Poulenc's Dialogues of the Carmelites. (shrink)

Despite acknowledging that musicality evolved to serve multiple adaptive functions in human evolution, Savage et al. promote social bonding to an overarching super-function. Yet, no unifying neurobiological framework is offered. We propose that oxytocin constitutes a socio-allostatic agent whose modulation of sensing, learning, prediction, and behavioral responses with reference to the physical and social environment facilitates music's social bonding effects.

Unter den knappen Gütern, um deren Ersetzbarkeit die Menschheit des 21. Jahrhunderts ringt, gehört der Trost zu den unersetzlichen. Darin gründet die Schwäche unserer Kultur, deren Technik, Humanität und Moral doch unübertroffen zu sein scheinen. Strassers Essay spannt den Problembogen vom klassischen "Trost der Philosophie" des Boethius bis zu Ian Flemings James Bond-Erzählung "Quantum of Solace". Von der Metaphysik bis zur Psychologie reichen die rationalen Versuche, Tröstung zu "organisieren" im finsteren Tal, das wir alle durchwandern. Strasser zeigt, warum das (...) psychologische Modell zu schwach ist. Es verharrt im Subjektiven. Und das Modell der Metaphysik? Dieses verblasst vor den Wissenschaften, die es selbst inthronisierte. Daher sucht der Essay nach Spuren einer "Geborgenheit im Schlechten" - einer objektiven Quelle des Trostes und der ihm eigenen Glückseligkeit. (shrink)

A modern version of Lewis’s theory of valency is presented. This takes account of the results of quantum–mechanical calculations on molecules. Topics covered are polar covalent bonds, hypervalency, coordinate bonds, nonintegral bonds, oxo-anions, variable valency among transition elements, and nonclassical compounds. A distinction is drawn between the valence shell of an atom and the Lewis shell. The concept of a fractional bond pair is presented.

Franz Rosenzweig is widely regarded today as one of the most original and intellectually challenging figures within the so-called renaissance of German-Jewish thought in the Weimar period. The architect of a unique kind of existential theology, and an important influence upon such philosophers as Walter Benjamin, Martin Buber, Leo Strauss, and Emmanuel Levinas, Rosenzweig is remembered chiefly as a "Jewish thinker," often to the neglect of his broader philosophical concerns. Cutting across the artificial divide that the traumatic memory of National (...) Socialism has drawn between German and Jewish philosophy, this book seeks to restore Rosenzweig's thought to the German philosophical horizon in which it first took shape. It is the first English-language study to explore Rosenzweig's enduring debt to Hegel's political theory, neo-Kantianism, and life-philosophy; the book also provides a new, systematic reading of Rosenzweig's major work, _The Star of Redemption._ Most of all, the book sets out to explore a surprising but deep affinity between Rosenzweig’s thought and that of his contemporary, the German philosopher Martin Heidegger. Resisting both apologetics and condemnation, Gordon suggests that Heidegger’s engagement with Nazism should not obscure the profound and intellectually compelling bond in the once-shared tradition of modern German and Jewish thought. A remarkably lucid discussion of two notably difficult thinkers, this book represents an eloquent attempt to bridge the forced distinction between modern Jewish thought and the history of modern German philosophy—and to show that such a distinction cannot be sustained without doing violence to both. (shrink)

Paul uses the word ἑνότης twice in Ephesians, and quite strangely, those are the only two places where the feminine noun features in the whole of the New Testament. In the two passages where they appear, they both relate to invisible unity, the unity of the Spirit that produces a common faith and knowledge of the Son of God – εἰς τὴν ἑνότητα τῆς πίστεως καὶ τῆς ἐπιγνώσεως τοῦ υἱοῦ τοῦ Θεοῦ. Such unity suggests that ecumenism amongst Christian denominations is (...) not only a possibility, it is also a necessity as far as we all profess one Christ. This unity is however far from ecclesiological unionism. Considering that the church appears weak from the outside when its diverse lines of doctrine, sacraments and ministerial ethics are emphasised. This suggests that a reasonable antidote would be the emphasis on the philosophy of unity amidst our diversity especially to the hearing of non-Christians.Contribution: This study makes firm the belief that Christianity is formed on divergent traditions that produced various strands of practices, which in turn produce different Christian sects and denominations, and a reverse is not possible. It then suggests a bonding in faith through the invisibility of henotic unity, which the pericope suggests. This will help the church to amass a stronger defence politically and structurally against rival religions and social organisations even in the midst of doctrinal differences. (shrink)

According to a familiar line of thinking, hallucination reveals that what we take to be direct experiences of the world are in fact mere appearances: appearances which give only mediate and unreliable testimony to reality. If we wish to secure knowledge of the world, we must transition to a different register, that of reason and judgment. In this classical analysis, non-normal perception functions to show the deficit of normal perception. Merleau-Ponty offers a strikingly different account of hallucination. Far from inciting (...) skeptical concerns, Merleau-Ponty’s analysis of hallucination in the Phenomenology of Perception in fact leads him to his first sustained account of perceptual faith. Perceptual faith, as our primary bond with the world, is at the heart of Merleau-Ponty’s response to skepticism, and it underlies both perception and hallucination. In this article, I show how this surprising analysis of hallucination is possible. (shrink)

ABSTRACTThe starting point is that there is a structural, although not necessary link between religion and two important expressions of religious evil, religious intolerance and violence. The origin of this link lies in the radicalism that is inherent in all religions. Although this radicalism often has very positive effects, it also can lead to evil. Because religious evil is fueled by eschatological antagonism and the enormous utopian energies that are characteristic of religion, it is often qualified as symbolic. ‘Symbolic’ refers (...) to the fundamental disproportion between the excess of the divine as a groundless ground and the finite capacity of every religion to receive it. Symbolic violence arises when a religious community yields to the temptation of becoming possessive, forcing the inexhaustible divine mystery to adapt to the limited capacities of this community to grasp this mystery. This leads to the exclusion of internal or external dissenters. The final section examines how the ill-fated bond between religion and evil can be broken. It will be examined if and how a redefinition of tolerance, in particular a disconnection between religious truth and the claim to exclusivism and a commitment to interconfessional hospitality, can contribute to avoiding that religion becomes evil. (shrink)

The article starts from the question of where the theses that we are ruled by sadists today come from, both in conspiracy theories and in explanations of the prevalence of violence and cruelty in modern society. The article first highlights some important recent changes in politics, economics, and society (the fall of the Berlin Wall; victimisation; the crisis of politics and the rise of neoliberalism; the changing dynamics of capitalism, which appropriates and valorises affect and favours the bizarre; the new (...) social media; the shift of obscenity from the margins to the centre; the paradoxes of the “end of history” and historical stagnation; the pandemic; the change in the general mood from anxiety to nightmare, in which the main problem is the enjoyment of the Other). The article then looks at the historical changes in the term “sadism”, which in the 19 th and 20 th centuries reduced Sade’s work to a clinical category, defined the meaning of “sadism” as the pleasure of torturing others, and constructed the term “sadomasochism” in Freud, the Freudians, and the Frankfurt School. The latter was used to analyse Nazism, and was later rightly criticised by Deleuze as something that had nothing to do with Sade and Masoch. War propaganda, clichés, and other processes play a special role in this process of forming the general conception of sadism; they are also responsible for the fact that “sadomasochism” as a sexual practice and as a fashion has recently become something socially acceptable, although, on the other hand, it has played a part in the “pornification” of society and in the recent enforcement of extremely violent forms of pornography. Notwithstanding all these distortions of sadism and notwithstanding the uselessness of sadomasochism in a concrete analysis of the functioning of modern social bonds, a certain form of sadism in general, especially in the face of all the social and political changes mentioned above (trolls, haters), retains its power over society. To analyse this in more detail, one must include the ubiquitous but little analysed phenomenon of _schadenfreude_, especially on the part of the public, and cruelty as a phenomenon to which society is both distanced and fascinated. The third step is to explain what _schadenfreude_ and cruelty are and how they relate to Lacan’s concept of _objet petit a_. (shrink)

The paper begins by raising once again the question of the possible unity of Schelling’s work, despite the undeniable transformations the work undergoes. It isproposed that such unity is best considered by taking seriously the primacy of the philosophical task that Schelling confronts, rather than by emphasizing whatever doctrinal or doxographical positions he espouses. Such a view of Schelling’s work is confirmed if one considers his continual critique of predicative discourse. Philosophical thought remains irreducible to propositional content because the matter (...) of philosophy must already be presupposed if such propositions are to arise. This matter or “unprethinkable” source, given to thinking, can only be addressed in an explicit affirmation of freedom and life. Thus, Schelling’s work as it raises the question of freedom has to be encountered as itself a manifestation of freedom, and such an interpretation of Schelling for its part also must presuppose the freedom of the interpreter. The paper argues that this approach to Schelling makes it necessary to be attentive to the “performative dimension” of his work, to the way in which what is at issue in it becomes manifest indirectly. Schelling’s demand for a positive philosophy thus also calls for and makes possible a different relation to language and the word. The word can no longer be taken as the sensible marker for an intelligible content, but becomes the living bond of what is. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Emotion, Restraint, and Community in Ancient RomePeter TooheyRobert A. Kaster. Emotion, Restraint, and Community in Ancient Rome. Classical Culture and Society. New York: Oxford University Press, 2005. xii + 245 pp. Cloth, $45.Emotion, Restraint, and Community has much in common with William Miller's well-known The Anatomy of Disgust (1997). There is their interest in disgust, their focus on the social and literary life of the emotions, and, best (...) of all, their tone. The ironic, fresh, often funny, and personal tone of Kaster's book is very like that of Miller's. The tone is utterly unlike anything one normally expects from a learned classical volume from a learned press. Similarities end there. While [End Page 137] Miller focuses on the modern world, Kaster's book on the social life of the emotions takes as its research object Roman literature up until Christianity becomes the religion of the Roman Empire. In five chapters, Kaster looks at five emotions (verecundia, pudor, paenitentia, invidia, and fastidium) and offers, as a conclusion, a vision of what it must have been like for a Roman male to have control over the workings of these five emotions. That person, he suggests, is what would have been termed integer—upright, honest, and undamaged.Based on word searches and contextual analyses for each of the terms, Kaster's discussion provides an engaging way of describing the life of these emotions. Rather than relying on dictionary definitions, he briefly analyzes and illustrates his terms in their literary contexts. Then he produces scripts, which consist not just of the things you think, feel, and do as they relate to these five emotions, but which also show how they are played out in a social context. What does it feel like to be the object of fastidium, for example, or to direct it at another? Kaster's analysis, therefore, concerns itself more with the cognitive dimension of these emotions rather than the affective. Or, to adapt his own terminology, the analysis is on the occurrent (situational) rather than dispositional (psychological).How does Kaster understand the basis of each of these terms and how it is that they are defined socially? Verecundia ("respect" or "shame"—the subject of chapter 1) "animates the art of knowing your proper place in every social transaction and basing your behavior on that knowledge; by guiding behavior in this way, verecundia establishes or affirms the social bond between you and others, all of whom (ideally) play complementary roles" (15). Kaster makes his understanding even more clear when he states that "verecundia is what might be called 'ignorability': not being invisible, quite, but being seen to claim the minimum amount of social space needed to carry out a given line of action" (17). Pudor ("decency," "shame," "embarrassment"), the subject of the second and longest chapter, can be paraphrased as "being aware of others being aware of you" (28–29). He expands on this to add that "while it was understandably your goal to receive the largest possible share of creditable attention ('honor') and experience the least possible discomfort from discrediting attention ('shame'), honor and shame were experienced as complementary, rather than opposed" (29).Kaster is not, therefore, interested in the modes by which verecundia and pudor can become internalized. He does not believe that a Roman's valuation of what action could or could not be judged as invoking verecundia or pudor can be made without immediate recourse to others (cf. 59). He is not interested, for example, in the way that Seneca, with his recommendation for daily (Epistles 83) self-scrutiny (so, for example, Epistles 16.2: excute te et varie scrutare et observa) might have evaluated an action. Seneca, as we know, suggested that you judge an action, hence its capacity to evoke an emotion such as verecundia, by checking it against a judge internal to your mind, such as an imagined Scipio, Cato, or Laelius (Epistles 25.5–6; see Edwards, G&R 54, 1997). The point is an important one. Kaster sees little shift in the way verecundia and pudor, or indeed his five emotions generally, are understood throughout the period he covers (roughly [End Page 138] 200... (shrink)

By applying a bribery model, this paper will deal with those constellations of conditions and activities by actors that are capable of explaining corrupt behavior in economic and sociological theory. Some of these explanations reveal the properties of ‘social mechanisms’ in the sense of analytical sociology (AS). Both disciplines suggest and test the mechanisms of corruption. By taking into consideration the link between monitoring and the frequency of corruption, for example, this paper shows that the proposed way of explaining corrupt (...) behavior using AS offers the opportunity to test counteracting mechanisms. A monitoring mechanism which refers to deterrence may lead to less corruption but may also strengthen an already existing bond of trust between corruption partners. Thus, the trust mechanism may counteract the impact of deterrence and pave the way for new corrupt activities. (shrink)

Savage et al. and Mehr et al. provide well-substantiated arguments that the evolution of musicality was shaped by adaptive functions of social bonding and credible signalling. However, they are too quick to dismiss byproduct explanations of music evolution, and to present their theories as complete unitary accounts of the phenomenon.

Psychoanalytic literary criticism has always been something of an embarrassment. One resists labeling as a “psychoanalytic critic” because the kind of criticism evoked by the term mostly deserves the bad name it largely has made for itself. Thus I have been worrying about the status of some of my own uses of psychoanalysis in the study of narrative, in my attempt to find dynamic models that might move us beyond the static formalism of structuralist and semiotic narratology. And in general, (...) I think we need to worry about the legitimacy and force that psychoanalysis may claim when imported into the study of literary texts. If versions of psychoanalytic criticism have been with us at least since 1908, when Freud published his essay on “Creative Writers and Day-dreaming,” and if the enterprise has recently been renewed in subtle ways by post-structuralist versions of reading, a malaise persists, a sense that whatever the promises of their union, literature and psychoanalysis remain mismatched bedfellows—or perhaps I should say playmates.The first problem, and the most basic, may be that psychoanalysis in literary study has over and over again mistaken the object of analysis, with the result that whatever insights it has produced tell us precious little about the structure and rhetoric of literary texts. Traditional psychoanalytic criticism tends to fall into three general categories, depending on the object of analysis: the author, the reader, or the fictive persons of the text. The first of these constituted the classical locus of psychoanalytic interest. It is now apparently the most discredited, though also perhaps the most difficult to extirpate, since if the disappearance of the author has been repeatedly announced, authorial mutants ceaselessly reappear, as, for instance, in Harold Bloom’s psychomachia of literary history. Like the author, the fictive character has been deconstructed into an effect of textual codes, a kind of thematic mirage, and the psychoanalytic study of the putative unconscious of characters in fiction has also fallen into disrepute. Here again, however, the impulse resurfaces, for instance in some of the moves of a feminist criticism that needs to show how the represented female psyche refuses and problematizes the dominant concepts of male psychological doctrine. Feminist criticism has in fact largely contributed to a new variant of the psychoanalytic study of fictive characters, a variant one might label the “situational-thematic”: studies of Oedipal triangles in fiction, their permutations and evolution, of the roles of mothers and daughters, of situations of nurture and bonding, and so forth. It is work often full of interest, but nonetheless methodologically disquieting in its use of Freudian analytic tools in a wholly thematic way, as if the identification and labeling of human relations in a psychoanalytic vocabulary were the task of criticism. The third traditional field of psychoanalytic literary study, the reader, continues to flourish in ever-renewed versions, since the role of the reader in the creation of textual meaning is very much on our minds at present, and since the psychoanalytic study of readers’ responses willingly brackets the impossible notion of author in favor of the acceptable and also verifiable notion of reader. The psychoanalytic study of the reader may concern real readers or the reader as psychological everyman . But like the other traditional psychoanalytic approaches, it displaces the object of analysis from the text to some person, some other psychodynamic structure—a displacement I wish to avoid since, as I hope to make clear as I go along, I think psychoanalytic criticism can and should be textual and rhetorical. Peter Brooks is the Tripp Professor of the Humanities at Yale University, where he is also director of the Whitney Humanities Center and chairman of the French department. His most recent book is Reading for the Plot: Design and Intention in Narrative, which has recently been reissued in paperback. His work in progress concerns psychoanalysis and story-telling. (shrink)

The contribution focuses on the question of the proper relationship between law and morality or secular law and natural law as its pre-positive foundation. The reflection on this fundamental question of legal ethics will be accompanied by an attempt to determine the possible relationship between theological ethics and secular law. The starting point for the pursuit of these questions are the reflections of St. Augustine (354 – 430) on the relationship between faith in God and the obligation of law, which (...) he develops in the context of his great work De civitate Dei and a theology of history in its wake. More precisely, it is the juxtaposition of two kingdoms or citizenships through which the Latin church father lays the foundation for many further conceptualizations between law and ethics: He distinguishes between the ideal state of God (civitas Dei) on the one hand, whose citizens strive to restore the original state of love in the bond with God, and the factually existing earthly state (civitas terrena) on the other hand, whose goal is to guarantee minimal conditions of human life in a state of justice (status iustitiae). The preceding considerations on the relationship between law and morality in the horizon of theological ethics can then be summarized in a concise way by the example of Christian marriage theology. Christian marriage, as a legal institution and sacrament in equal measure, reflects precisely this tension between law and morality. (shrink)

In HEBREW SCRIPTURES, in rabbinic literature and for most Jewish thinkers, "truth" (emet) is a character of personal relationships. Truth is fidelity to one's word, keeping promises, saying with the lips what one says in one's heart, bearing witness to what one has seen. Truth is the bond of trust between persons and between God and Humanity. In Western philosophic tradition, however, truth is a character of the claims people make about the world they experience: the correspondence between a (...) statement and the object it describes, or the coherence of a statement with what we already know about the world. As if divided by their dual allegiance to the traditions of Jerusalem and of Athens, Jewish philosophers often believe themselves forced to choose between the two meanings of truth, producing what we may call objectivist and personalist trends in Jewish thought. I suggest that, for a type of scripturally grounded Jewish philosophy, truth names the end of a process of inquiry that passes through several stages of trusting, reexamining, yearning, witnessing, critically testing, and re-sourcing. I suggest that this process bears analogy to Charles Peirce's pragmatic account of the stages of problem solving. -/- . (shrink)

Non-domestic companies are increasingly present on the London Stock Exchange. Such companies have specific governance requirements. They may seek to access capital in a more liquid market and to diversify ownership. The reputational ‘bonding’ to a prestigious exchange should be a statement to the market of a propensity to disclosure and a willingness to protect minority shareholders. Yet, many non-domestic companies retain tightly controlled shareholding structures and are based in emerging regions where national culture norms differ to the UK. We (...) hypothesise that non-domestic companies are likely to be less compliant with the principles of the UK Corporate Governance Code and suggest a correlation between lower levels of compliance and non-domestic companies from countries that demonstrate high power distance in the Hofstede cultural value framework. We find some encouraging signs of compliance with the reigning governance code principles in Board structures. However, we find only partial compliance in leadership and Board effectiveness measures in those companies from cultures high on the power-distance scale. Further, we include analysis into ownership characteristics and find companies from emerging markets are dominated by a single or controlling group of shareholders, which is likely to impact on attitudes to compliance and is particularly evidenced in terms of Board structures with no executive directors or led by an executive Chairman. Much of the prior research effort into the levels of compliance with the UK’s ‘comply-or-explain’ approach to governance has produced mixed results and focused on all companies. In our exploratory approach to analysing only the non-domestic subsample, we report some evidence linking cultural distance to lower levels of compliance with the UK standards. We develop a framework to guide future research into the context and cultural underpinnings of this sub-sample of companies, hypothesising that frequent market capitalisation-induced index changes may divert attention away from any potential compliance issues. On the one hand, our evidence is encouraging for governance regimes based on voluntary compliance disclosures such as the UK and similar European and international markets, as we report partial compliance with the principles of the current governance code. Our research may, however, be helpful in guiding future versions of the UK governance framework and other international governance regimes adopting the ‘comply-or-explain’ approach and in setting policy to improve disclosure. It contributes to the understanding of the specific context of non-domestic companies and any cultural tendencies to non-compliance. By demonstrating evidence of lower levels of compliance with key principles of the Code by non-domestic companies, we present a framework enabling lawmakers to further improve corporate governance codes. (shrink)

No international agreement has been completely effective in reducing slavery. This stems in part from the evolution of slavery agreements and the inclination on the part of the authors of conventions to include other practices as part of the slavery defintion, resulting in a confusion of the practices and definitions of slavery. What has been missing is a classification that is dynamic and yet sufficiently universal to identify slavery no matter how it evolves. We have attempted to build on theories (...) and examples to clarify the identification of slavery by focusing on an irreducible core of three elements. Assessing the presence of all three can then be applied to a variety of social relationships: first, the complete control of one personal by another; second, appropriation of labor power; and third, the enforcement of these conditoins by threats or acts of violence. Many practices identified in international agreements have some but not all of these three aspects; all three are present in traditional forms of slavery, bonded labor, forced prostitution, and sexual slavery. Effective research and legislation against slavery is important, as it affects an estimated 27 million people worldwide, and as slavery is on the increase now that many developing countries are forced to compete for income in a global economy. Finally it is important to remember that slavery, like all social and economic relationships, evolves over time. Any definition that is based on a historical form of slavery will soon lose its power to capture new forms of slavery within its aegis. Our understanding and our definition of slavery must become as dynamic as the phenomenon itself. (shrink)

Animal and human studies suggest that parenting style is transmitted from one generation to the next. The hypotheses of this study were that a mother’s rearing experiences would predict her own parenting resources and current maternal mood, motivation to care for her offspring, and relationship with her parents would underlie this association. In a subsample of 201 first-time mothers participating in the longitudinal Maternal Adversity, Vulnerability and Neurodevelopment project, we assessed a mother’s own childhood maltreatment and rearing experiences using the (...) Childhood Trauma Questionnaire and the Parental Bonding Instrument. At 6 months postpartum, mothers completed questionnaires on parenting stress, symptoms of depression, maternal motivation, and current relationship with their own parents. The sample consisted of mostly high socioeconomic status mothers recruited from Montréal or Hamilton, Canada, with an age range from 18 to 43 years. More severe maltreatment and less supportive rearing by the mother’s parents predicted increased parenting stress at 6 months. These associations were mediated through distinct psychosocial pathways: maltreatment on parenting stress through symptoms of depression ; maternal rearing on parenting stress through maternal motivation and symptoms of depression ; and paternal rearing on parenting stress through current relationship with the father. Maternal rearing experiences predict a mother’s own parenting resources though distinct psychosocial pathways, including depressed mood, maternal motivation, and social support. (shrink)

The spread of new information and communications technologies during the past two decades has helped reshape civic associations, political communities, and global relations. In the midst of the information revolution, we find that the speed of this technology-driven change has outpaced our understanding of its social and ethical effects. The moral dimensions of this new technology and its effects on social bonds need to be questioned and scrutinized: Should the Internet be understood as a new form of public space and (...) a source of public good? What are we to make of hackers? Does the Internet strengthen or weaken community? In The Internet in Public Life, essayists confront these and other important questions. This timely and necessary volume makes clear the need for a broader conversation about the effects of the Internet, and the questions raised by these seven essays highlight some of the most pressing issues at hand. (shrink)

By considering the nature of the relationship between patient and healer, The Healing Bond explores the responsibilities of both, with a special emphasis on the therapeutic responsibility. The editors and contributors examine both orthodox and unorthodox forms of healing practice and apply a variety of professional and analytic perspectives to the medical profession as a whole. They look at specific areas of health such as midwifery, psychoanalysis, naturopathy, the relations between medicine and state, and the appeal of "quacks." Particular (...) issues of current concern are also discussed, including medical litigation, codes of ethics among complementary practitioners and cooperation between orthodox and complementary medicine practitioners. Contributors: Mary Douglas, Calliope Farsides, David Peters, Roy Porter, Richenda Power, Margaret Stacey, Robert Sumerling, and Gillian Vanhegan. (shrink)

Van Inwagen proposes that besides simples only living organisms exist as composite objects. This paper suggests expanding van Inwagen’s ontology by also accepting composite objects in the case that physical bonding occurs (plus some extra conditions). Such objects are not living organ-isms but rather physical bodies. They include (approximately) the complete realm of inanimate ordinary objects, like rocks and tables, as well as inanimate scientific objects, like atoms and mol-ecules, the latter filling the ontological gap between simples and organisms in (...) van Inwagen’s origi-nal picture. We thus propose a compositional pluralism claiming that composition arises if and on-ly if bonding or life occurs. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Peter Singer and Christian Ethics: Beyond Polarization by Charles E. CamosyWerner WolbertPeter Singer and Christian Ethics: Beyond Polarization CHARLES E. CAMOSY Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012. 278 pp. $29.99Peter Singer’s “Copernican revolution” against a sanctity of life ethic may be regarded, from a Roman Catholic viewpoint, as an expression of the “culture of death” denounced by John Paul II. One must keep in mind, however, that “we (...) know that historically there have been times where those participating in discussions about ethics disagree deeply about theory, but nevertheless come to important and even broad agreement about applied or practical ethics” (179). The aim of Camosy’s book is to sketch the various areas of agreement and disagreement between Peter Singer and Catholic moral theology as well as the possibilities of working together.There are issues even about the subject of abortion on which Singer and the Church agree: that moral relativism is wrong; that it is seriously wrong to kill a person; that the right to privacy (see Roe vs. Wade) does not apply to acts harming others; and that the right to abortion is not a constitutional matter (chapter 1). Both positions see a connection between abortion and infanticide, but both draw different conclusions. The disagreements between them are about who is to count as a person, which Camosy comments on in the rest of chapter 1 (27–37). In the area of euthanasia, the Church and Singer share some skepticism about brain death (chapter 2). Camosy discusses the church’s position on one’s moral status at the end of life and the Roman Catholic understandings of ordinary and extraordinary means, acts, and omissions. Commenting on public policy in that field, Camosy gives some useful and convincing illustrations of the slippery slope effect in different countries that have legalized active euthanasia or assisted suicide (68–81).With regard to problems of killing, however, Helga Kuhse’s The Sanctity of Life Doctrine in Medicine (Oxford University Press, 1987) should perhaps have been considered. On the subject of acting and refraining, I would recommend Dieter Birnbacher’s Tun und unterlassen (Reclam 1995).Commenting on Singer’s championing of the moral status of nonhuman animals, Camosy points to elements in the Christian tradition that may support Singer’s issue of animal liberation (chapter 3). I wonder why the discussion concentrates on domestic animals and the problems of eating meat or [End Page 225] vegetarianism but omits problems of environmental ethics (e.g., ecological balance). Would the aim of avoiding animal harm include saving animals from predators? And if some animals are to be regarded as persons, we may get in trouble with our basic conviction of the equality (of the dignity) of human beings—as the debate on the margins of human life shows.Duties to the poor are not in dispute except for “partial preferences” (166) for members of our family, kinship, or country (chapter 4). Speaking of “partiality” in this context is, however, a bit misleading. Since no one can care for all people, preferences of an ordo caritatis (order of love) are a necessary part of a system of coordination from which—ideally—all humans can benefit. (Recall Augustine in De doctrina Christiana, 1.28–29: “The interests of society, however, and its common bonds will be best conserved if kindness be shown to each individual in proportion to the closeness of his relationship.”) Chapter 5, which compares Singer’s ethical theory with Catholic moral theology, would need more discussion (e.g., on double effect, object, and act), which I cannot cover within the limits of this review. Overall, Camosy’s book makes a valuable contribution to the dialogue between Christian and secular ethics.Werner WolbertUniversity of SalzburgCopyright © 2014 Society of Christian Ethics... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:BOOK REVIEWS 861 acter as to demand and thus warrant the sort of special explanation proposed by the theist. Along the way, we are treated to illuminating discussions of many fascinating and controversial issues, such as the need for a priori probability assignments in science and metaphysics. Chapter six offers a novel defense of Pascal's Wager arising out of the Anselmian concept of God endorsed at the beginning of (...) the hook. Thus a bond is forged between one of the most purely theoretical and one of the most pragmatic ideas in the history of philosophical reflection on religious belief. Schlesinger's defenses of the Wager against numer· ous criticisms are, characteristically, original, engaging, and philosoph· ically stimulating. The final chapter of this hook grapples with the issue of whether a world such as ours, in which individuals seem to he far from equal in religious insight and ability to respond to the divine, can he com· patible with God's being perfectly fair and just. Drawing on some elementary aspects of epistemic logic, Schlesinger first seeks to under· mine the position of the agnostic who claims to he well-informed, well· disposed to fair judgment, and to he in a state of rationally refraining to endorse either theism or atheism. In the course of the argument, he attempts to show how merely understanding theism can increase one's inclination to endorse it, and he traces out various entailments of the traditional idea of God for the issue of how clear evidence of God's existence must he in this world to one who is truly well-disposed toward seeing it. All in all, this is a highly original, provocative hook which should he read and grappled with by all who work in the field of its concern, the philosophy of religion. It should spark debate and enhance the level of reflection about its chosen topics for years to come. It will surely not command agreement at every point, hut it will inevitably stimulate further thought. The University of Notre Dame Notre Dame, Indiana THOMAS v. MORRIS God in History: Shapes of Freedom. By PETER C. HODGSON. Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1989. Pp. 287. $21.95 {cloth). Is it still possible in our postmodern age to speak intelligibly about God's presence and action in human history? Peter Hodgson's discus· sion of this " most difficult of modern theological questions " leads us over the " labyrinthine abyss " of Derrida's deconstructionism, through the " cognitive purgatory " of the postmodern crisis, to the affirmation 36~ BOOK REVIEWS that " God and history are conjoined at the point of... free, liberating, emancipatory, transfigurative praxis..." (147, 162-3, 191). After explaining the inadequacy of the classical model of salvation history (Chapter I), Hodgson develops his approach to the problem around the three central ideas of God (Chapter II), history (Chapter III), and freedom (Chapter IV). A concluding epilogue brings together Hodgson's understanding of the presence of God in history and of the eschatological presence of history in God. Throughout the hook there is a dialogue with and a critique of various postmodern thinkers who question the very notions of God, history, and freedom (162). In postmodern thought, history is a series of mere human constructions-figments of human imagination which need to he "deconstructed." Descriptions of God's action in history dissolve into a "self-referential interplay of signs-an endless milieu of significations that refers to nothing other than itself" {37). In response to postmodernism, Hodgson follows neither the way of " absolutism " by seeking to return to " orthodox doctrine and confessional tradition " nor the way of relativism by pretending that nothing can he " known, believed, or acted upon." He rather points the way to " revision," to "retrieving and rethinking the deconstructed tradition" (29). The thought of G. W. F. Hegel and Ernst Troeltsch are his consistent tools in this work of revision, and the many years he has spent in preparing a critical edition and translation of Hegel's Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion provide him with an admirable expertise in using these tools (8, 147). The revision involves a reconstruction or sublation (Aufhebung) of the traditional understanding of God's presence in salvation... (shrink)

This clear, riveting book will be of great interest not only to philosophers and to historians of philosophy but also to anyone interested in the great ...

Chaotic dynamics has been hailed as the third great scientific revolution in physics this century, comparable to relativity and quantum mechanics. In this book, Peter Smith takes a cool, critical look at such claims. He cuts through the hype and rhetoric by explaining some of the basic mathematical ideas in a clear and accessible way, and by carefully discussing the methodological issues which arise. In particular, he explores the new kinds of explanation of empirical phenomena which modern dynamics can (...) deliver. Explaining Chaos will be compulsory reading for philosophers of science and for anyone who has wondered about the conceptual foundations of chaos theory. (shrink)

In the Western world it is usually taken as given that we all want happiness, and our educational arrangements tacitly acknowledge this. Happiness, Hope, and Despair argues, however, that education has an important role to play in deepening our understanding of suffering and despair as well as happiness and joy. Education can be uncomfortable, unpredictable, and unsettling; it can lead to greater uncertainty and unhappiness. Drawing on the work of Søren Kierkegaard, Miguel de Unamuno, Fyodor Dostoevsky, Simone Weil, Paulo Freire, (...) and others, Peter Roberts shows why these features of educational life need not be feared; to the contrary, they can be seen as a source of hope and human fulfilment. After years of negotiating an education system dominated by the language of competition, performance, and economic advancement, students and teachers often long for something different; they seek not just measurable success but also opportunities to ask searching questions of themselves and the world they encounter. Happiness, Hope, and Despair makes an important contribution toward meeting this need. It fosters a rethinking of the nature, purpose, and value of education, and opens up possibilities for further scholarly and professional inquiry. (shrink)

Philosophers have not taken the evolution of human beings seriously enough. If they did, argues Peter Munz, many long standing philosophical problems would be resolved. One of philosophical concequences of biology is that all the knowledge produced in evolution is a priori, i.e., established hypothetically by chance mutation and selective retention, not by observation and intelligent induction. For organisms as embodied theories, selection is natural and for theories as disembodied organisms, it is artificial. Following Popper, the growth of knowledge (...) is seen to be continuous from the amoeba to Einstein'. Philosophical Darwinism throws a whole new light on many contemporary debates. It has damaging implications for cognitive science and artificial intelligence, and questions attempts from within biology to reduce mental events to neural processes. More importantly, it provides a rational postmodern alternative to what the author argues are the unreasonable postmodern fashions of Kuhn, Lyotard and Rorty. (shrink)

A central theme of this collection is that the philosophy of language, at least a core portion of it, has matured to the point where it is now being spun off ...

_The Nature of the Mind_ is a comprehensive and lucid introduction to major themes in the philosophy of mind. It carefully explores the conflicting positions that have arisen within the debate and locates the arguments within their context. It is designed for newcomers to the subject and assumes no previous knowledge of the philosophy of mind. Clearly written and rigorously presented, this book is ideal for use in undergraduate courses in the philosophy of mind. Main topics covered include: * the (...) problem of other minds * the dualist/physicalist debate * the nature of personal identity and survival * mental-state concepts The book closes with a number of pointers towards more advanced work in the subject. Study questions and suggestions for further reading are provided at the end of each chapter. _The Nature of the Mind_ is based on Peter Carruthers' book, _Introducing Persons_, also published by Routledge. (shrink)

In this paper I aim to show with the aid of philosophers Edith Stein and Peter Goldie, how empathy and other social feelings are instantiated and developed in real life versus on the Internet. The examples of on-line communication show both how important the embodied aspects of empathy are and how empathy may be possible also in the cases of encountering personal stories rather than personal bodies. Since video meetings, social media, online gaming and other forms of interaction via (...) digital technologies are taking up an increasing part of our time, it is important to understand how such forms of social intercourse are different from in real life meetings and why they can accordingly foster not only new communal bonds but also hatred and misunderstanding. (shrink)

This volume brings together eleven essays by the distinguished philosopher of science, Peter Achinstein. The unifying theme is the nature of the philosophical problems surrounding the postulation of unobservable entities such as light waves, molecules, and electrons. How, if at all, is it possible to confirm scientific hypotheses about "unobservables"? Achinstein examines this question as it arose in actual scientific practice in three nineteenth-century episodes: the debate between particle and wave theorists of light, Maxwell's kinetic theory of gases, and (...) J.J. Thomson's discovery of the electron. The book contains three parts, each devoted to one of these topics, beginning with an essay presenting the historical background of the episode and an introduction to the philosophical issues. There is an illuminating evaluation of various scientific methodologies, including hypothetico-deductivism, inductivism, and the method of independent warrant which combines features of the first two. Achinstein assesses the philosophical validity of both nineteenth-century and modern answers to questions about unobservables, and presents and defends his own solutions. (shrink)

While ancient civilizations worshipped strong, active emotions, modern societies have favored more peaceful attitudes, especially within the democratic process. We have largely forgotten the struggle to make use of _thymos_, the part of the soul that, following Plato, contains spirit, pride, and indignation. Rather, Christianity and psychoanalysis have promoted mutual understanding to overcome conflict. Through unique examples, Peter Sloterdijk, the preeminent posthumanist, argues exactly the opposite, showing how the history of Western civilization can be read as a suppression and (...) return of rage. By way of reinterpreting the _Iliad_, Alexandre Dumas's _Count of Monte Cristo_, and recent Islamic political riots in Paris, Sloterdijk proves the fallacy that rage is an emotion capable of control. Global terrorism and economic frustrations have rendered strong emotions visibly resurgent, and the consequences of violent outbursts will determine international relations for decades to come. To better respond to rage and its complexity, Sloterdijk daringly breaks with entrenched dogma and contructs a new theory for confronting conflict. His approach acknowledges and respects the proper place of rage and channels it into productive political struggle. (shrink)