In this paper, we demonstrate how craft practice in contemporary jewellery opens up conceptions of ‘digital jewellery’ to possibilities beyond merely embedding pre-existing behaviours of digital systems in objects, which follow shallow interpretations of jewellery. We argue that a design approach that understands jewellery only in terms of location on the body is likely to lead to a world of ‘gadgets’, rather than anything that deserves the moniker ‘jewellery’. In contrast, by adopting a craft approach, we demonstrate that the space (...) of digital jewellery can include objects where the digital functionality is integrated as one facet of an object that can be personally meaningful for the holder or wearer. (shrink)

s for the Second Workshop on Implementing Machine Ethics.

ABSTRACT In this paper, I provide an interpretation of the American mockumentary-styled sitcom, The Office (2005–2013), as an instance of what Nietzsche calls an “aesthetic justification” of life. The Office offers an aesthetic justification of the life of lower-tiered North American white-collar workers under neoliberalism. The Office performs this function via an implicit endorsement of what Mark Fisher (2009) calls capitalist realism, or the idea that “it’s easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of capitalism.” (...) I focus on an illuminating scene in episode 16 of Season 3, “Business School” (2007), that exemplifies this especially well. The argument is that The Office orchestrates an aesthetic justification of those aspects of our existence that cannot be justified morally under capitalism, for example, precarity, ruthless competition, and so on. In Section I, I outline Nietzsche’s conception of aesthetic justification. In Section II, I discuss the major themes of The Office, highlighting their resonance with the concerns and experiences of the workforce. In Section III, I bring these together in a Nietzschean analysis of the “Business School” scene. Finally, in Section IV, I close by offering some open-ended but critical reflections on this analysis via Adorno and the Frankfurt School. (shrink)

How children seek knowledge and evaluate claims may depend on their understanding of the source of knowledge. What shifts in their understandings about why scientists might disagree and how claims about the state of the world are justified? Until about the age of 41/2, knowledge is seen as self-evident. Children believe that knowledge of reality comes directly through our senses and what others tell us. They appeal to these external sources in order to know. The attainment of Theory of Mind (...) (ToM) at this age is commonly seen as the significant shift in development in understanding disagreements in knowledge claims. Children attaining ToM understand that someone exposed to incorrect or incomplete information might have false beliefs. Disagreement, then, is still attributed to objective sources of knowledge. The current study examines the later developing Interpretive Theory of Mind (iToM) as the basis for children’s understanding of how people with access to the same information might disagree and what this means for how to provide justification for a knowledge claim. Fourteen 2nd graders with the most iToM responses to four tasks and 14 with the fewest iToM responses were selected from a larger sample of 91. In analyses of interviews about a story in which two experts make different claims about a scientific phenomenon, those in the high iToM group noted subjective perspective and processes as the source of disagreement and suggested the need for investigation as the means to knowing. In contrast, those in the low iToM group mostly could not explain the source of disagreement and held that knowledge is acquired from external sources. A comparison of the interviews regarding the science story 2 years later allows for a qualitative description of the development. Those in the low iToM group showed more general recognition of subjective and constructive processes in knowing whereas those in the high iToM group identified interpretive processes and the relativity of perspectives with implications for how observations were conducted and interpreted. Only those in the high iToM group referred to the importance of evidence as a basis for knowledge claims at either point in the study. (shrink)

This text develops students' ability to philosophise and learn about philosophy and education. It challenges readers to use philosophy as a tool within education and as a set of theories to understand education by developing solutions to problems as they occur within practice. Assuming no pre-existing philosophical background, this book explores topics such as: the limits of a religious-based education; the desire for 'alternative facts' or 'truths'; and the struggle in the teacher-student relationship. This book will support all those on (...) Education, Childhood or Youth Studies courses in developing a critical perspective and understanding the true value of philosophy within education. (shrink)

Over the past several decades, philosophers have grown to recognize the role played by frameworks and models in the construction of human knowledge. Further, they have paid increasing attention to the origins of knowing processes in social and historical contexts of human practical activities, and to social transformation of the frameworks over time. In a series of original essays by prominent philosophers, Constructivism and Practice advances the understanding of the role of construction and model creation, reflects on the relationship of (...) these models to social practices, and considers whether our modes of knowing themselves have a history. These questions are thoughtfully considered in the light of the 'historical epistemology' first developed by Marx Wartofsky. Contributions by Joseph Margolis; Tom Rockmore; Lisa Dolling; Jaakko Hintikka; Anton Alterman; Stephen Toulmin; Michel Paty; John Stachel; Gregg Horowitz; Michael Kelly; Tom Huhn; Barbara Savedoff; Saul Fisher; Sybil Schwarzenbach; John Pittman; Raphael Sassower; and MaryAnn Cutter. (shrink)

Wnt proteins form a family of secreted signaling proteins that play a key role in various developmental events such as cell differentiation, cell migration, cell polarity and cell proliferation. It is currently thought that Wnt proteins activate at least three different signaling pathways by binding to seven transmembrane receptors of the Frizzled family and the co-receptor LRP6. Despite our growing knowledge of intracellular components that mediate a Wnt signal, the molecular events at the membrane have remained rather unclear. Now several (...) publications1-4 indicate that Frizzled receptors are G-protein coupled and kinases were identified that phosphorylate the co-receptor LRP6. These data deepen our understanding of Wnt-mediated signal transduction and provide more insight into how specificity may be achieved. BioEssays 28: 339–343, 2006. © 2006 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. (shrink)

Philosophy for Children has enabled schools to engage with what is typically thought of as an ‘academic’ discipline and has provided the opportunity to unlock a rich educational experience for children from a diverse range of backgrounds. A wide range of qualitative and quantitative studies have emerged looking at P4C in terms of the development of students at the social, academic and emotional level. However, while there have been many P4C papers that have ‘teacher’ in the title, these are often (...) about teacher training – including ‘hints and tips’ and curriculum development. Relatively few studies have looked at the effect of teaching P4C on teachers themselves. This paper considers how P4C affects teachers, in particular whether teaching P4C has led teachers to develop new pedagogical approaches, different ways of thinking critically and whether it has changed how they engage with their students, colleagues and their school. (shrink)

This work on index-number construction focuses on production indexes, including output and input deflators that can be used for constructing real output and real input. Fisher and Shell treat separately the different production units: the firm, the industry, and the economy, as well as the different forms of industrial organization: monopoly, monopsony, and competition. Only in the simplest cases is the appropriate theory isomorphic to that of the cost-of-living index because of the interlinkages among the various production units. A (...) firm cannot always assume that the behavior of its competitors, suppliers, and customers will be unaffected by price changes and only in special cases can an industry take supply and demand conditions as given. (shrink)

From Comrades to Bodhisattvas is the first book-length study of Han Chinese Buddhism in post-Mao China. Using an ethnographic approach supported by over a decade of field research, it provides an intimate portrait of lay Buddhist practitioners in Beijing who have recently embraced a religion that they were once socialized to see as harmful superstition. The book focuses on the lively discourses and debates that take place among these new practitioners in an unused courtyard of a Beijing temple. In this (...) non-monastic space, which shrinks each year as the temple authorities expand their commercial activities, laypersons gather to distribute and exchange Buddhist-themed media, listen to the fiery sermons of charismatic preachers, and seek solutions to personal moral crises. Applying recent theories in the anthropology of morality and ethics, Gareth Fisher argues that the practitioners are attracted to the courtyard as a place where they can find ethical resources to re-make both themselves and others in a rapidly changing nation that they believe lacks a coherent moral direction. Spurred on by the lessons of the preachers and the stories in the media they share, these courtyard practitioners inventively combine moral elements from China’s recent Maoist past with Buddhist teachings on the workings of karma and the importance of universal compassion. Their aim is to articulate a moral antidote to what they see as blind obsession with consumption and wealth accumulation among twenty-first century Chinese. Often socially marginalized and sidelined from meaningful roles in China’s new economy, these former communist comrades look to their new moral roles along a bodhisattva path to rebuild their self-worth. Each chapter focuses on a central trope in the courtyard practitioners’ projects to form new moral identities. The Chinese government’s restrictions on the spread of religious teachings in urban areas curtail these practitioners' ability to insert their moral visions into an emerging public sphere. Nevertheless, they succeed, at least partially, Fisher argues, in creating their own discursive space characterized by a morality of concern for fellow humans and animals and a recognition of the organizational abilities and pedagogical talents of its members that are unacknowledged in society at large. Moreover, as the later chapters of the book discuss, by writing, copying, and distributing Buddhist-themed materials, the practitioners participate in creating a religious network of fellow-Buddhists across the country, thereby forming a counter-cultural community within contemporary urban China. Highly readable and full of engaging descriptions of the real lives of practicing lay Buddhists in contemporary China, From Comrades to Bodhisattvas will interest specialists in Chinese Buddhism, anthropologists of contemporary Asia, and all scholars interested in the relationship between religion and cultural change. (shrink)

(2005). Reflections on the Appointment of Dr. Edmund Pellegrino to the President's Council on Bioethics. The American Journal of Bioethics: Vol. 5, No. 6, pp. W8-W9. doi: 10.1080/15265160500388640.

Meat is ubiquitous in videogames and, when consumed by avatars or their agents, will frequently confer some aid or benefit. In many games it serves as the most nourishing form of sustenance for those who are hungry, but it can also operate as the most effective restorative for those who are injured, as a potent source of temporary power-ups and enhancements, or as a valuable resource to be spent on permanent improvements and upgrades. In short, in so far as it (...) functions as an indispensable, life-giving food stuff, meat comes to represent vitality. As a common condition of humans and animals, however, meat can also take on a rather different significance, as is illustrated by the game Super Meat Boy, and the ambiguous claim that its protagonist is a “boy made of meat”. (shrink)

In the videogame Trojan Horse, players are given the task of defending the ancient city of Troy from invading Achaeans, who attack the city both at ground level and by scaling the walls by means of their massive wooden horse. The frontal assault depicted in the game thus bears only passing resemblance to the traditional tale, in which wily Odysseus and a select band of warriors enter and ultimately capture the city by secreting themselves inside the horse. Much work has (...) been done in the genre of what might be called vegan apologetics, the explicit defence of veganism against the attacks of its opponents. This essay, however, considers an alternative, complementary tactic, which eschews confrontation in favour of a less direct stratagem. (shrink)

A comparative study of the literature on party changes shows that there are many different views on why and how parties change. The existing literature is rather theoretical. Most authors have based their model on a survey of a limited number of parties. The only general conclusion one can draw is that both external and internal factors can provoke party changes. In this contribution, we concentrate on the role of the internal factors. We find that change is less likely to (...) happen when the party is divided in several factions. Furthermore the party organisation influences the changes. In highly institutionalised parties changes wil be more difficult than in less organised parties. Finally the role of the party president cannot be neglected. He has to analyse and interpret the external challenges. Only if he thinks that a change is necessary, the party is likely to change. In brief, party change is a dynamic process that is led by the party elite. (shrink)

A central controversy in cognitive science concerns the roles of rules versus similarity. To gain some leverage on this problem, we propose that rule‐ versus similarity‐based processes can be characterized as extremes in a multidimensional space that is composed of at least two dimensions: the number of features (Pothos, 2005) and the physical presence of features. The transition of similarity‐ to rule‐based processing is conceptualized as a transition in this space. To illustrate this, we show how a neural network model (...) uses input features (and in this sense produces similarity‐based responses) when it has a low learning rate or in the early phases of training, but it switches to using self‐generated, more abstract features (and in this sense produces rule‐based responses) when it has a higher learning rate or is in the later phases of training. Relations with categorization and the psychology of learning are pointed out. (shrink)

Anderson and Rosenberg’s guidance theory of representation offers an analysis of mental content that strongly emphasises the influence that intentional states have upon the production and modulation of bodily behavior. On this view, a mental state gains both its status as a representation, and its content, in virtue of occupying a particular role in the guidance of action. I present three related challenges for the guidance theory, before defending an alternative model that is grounded not in action-guidance, but in action-selection. (...) Firstly, I argue that the guidance theory fails to explain an important category of perceptual misrepresentation. Secondly, I propose that the content ascriptions predicted by the theory are not sufficiently determinate. Thirdly, I propose that the contents implicated by the guidance view do not match those that are naturally ascribed in the explanation of intentionally-directed behavior. The modified account that I develop responds to these concerns, and suggests that representational states depict affordance properties: the opportunities and obstacles that the subject’s environment offers for the pursuit of goals and plans. (shrink)

The prelims comprise: On the Analytic Revolt Against Idealism Analysis, Analyticity, and Analytic Philosophy Moore, Russell, and Early Analytic Philosophy On Wittgenstein Wittgenstein, the Vienna Circle, and Ordinary Language Philosophy Analytic Philosophy in the US.

My topic concerns the interrelation between religion, politics and ethics in a time of terror, or at least a historical moment when the general problem of terrorism has come to occupy center stage. The frequent view that 9/11 represents a wholly new situation, a break with the past makes it difficult, perhaps impossible to understand it. I believe that it is because 9/11 does not break with but continues tendencies already underway that it occurred and we can understand it. My (...) paper, which insists on continuity as opposed to rupture, consists of six parts. The first part evokes two well known approaches to 9/11: the clash of cultures, or civilizations, due to Samuel Huntington, and religious incompatibility defended, i.A. by Bernard Lewis. In the second and third parts argue that both approaches incorrectly presuppose the autonomy of culture and religion. In the fourth part I contend that in the modern world religion and politics are subordinated to economic factors. In the fifth and last part I suggest how ethics can be recovered from a constructivist perspective. (shrink)

It has sometimes erroneously been thought that theory of knowledge worthy of the name, or even epistemology as such comes to an end with Kant. This view is an error, since there are profound views of knowledge in the post-Kantian philosophical tradition, including that in Hegel’s thought. Now epistemology is a wide topic that includes a variety of themes. One of the main themes in the theory of knowledge in modern philosophy, especially in recent years, has been the issue of (...) foundationalism. The idea of foundationalism has been understood in different ways. But for purposes of this discussion, I will understand “foundationalism” to mean “some form of the Cartesian approach to philosophy through a self-justifying first principle.” In this paper, I will provide a brief, critical study of the theme of foundationalism in the Science of Logic. The aim of my discussion is to point to an unresolved tension between Hegel’s general commitment to epistemological circularity as the appropriate strategy for knowledge and the linear form of argument in this book. (shrink)

A systematic and historical study of the rela­tion of the positions of Fichte and Marx within the context of nineteenth-century German philosophy as well as the wider his­tory of philosophy. Rockmore’s thesis is that there is a little noticed, less often studied, but nevertheless profound structural parallel between the two positions that can be shown to be mediated through the development of the nineteenth-century German philosophical tradition. Both positions understand man in anti-Car­tesian fashion, not as a spectator, but as an (...) active being. Rockmore demonstrates that there is similarity of the two views of activity in terms of the Aristotelian concept __,_ _then indicates the further parallel be­tween the respective concepts of man that fol­low from Fichte’s and Marx’s views of activity. Turning to the history of philosophy, Rockmore directs the reader to solid textual evidence supporting the influence of Fichte, not only on Marx’s Young Hegelian contem­poraries but on Marx as well. He argues that the Hegelian impact on the interpretation of the nineteenth-century philosophical tradi­tion has served to obscure the parallel be­tween the positions of Fichte and Marx, but that the concept of man as an active being can be used to reinterpret this segment of the history of philosophy and to modify the fre­quently held view of the classical German tradition as a collection of rather disparate thinkers. Finally, he provides a discussion of the intrinsic value of the anti-Cartesian ap­proach to man as such. (shrink)

Despite the attacks on metaphysics in the 20th century, the field remains surprising alive, not less robust, less interesting, nor ready to be consigned to the dustbin of history. The essays assembled in this volume, which come from all areas of the metaphysical tradition, are all by authors who are committed to the kind of metaphysics which Hume and later Kant recommended, although naturally they regard what good metaphysics is in very different ways. Contributors include D. P. Chattoppadhyaya, Fred Dretske, (...) Ludger Honnefelder, Peter van Inwagen, Jay F. Rosenberg, David-Hillel Rubin, and Loretta Torrago. Author abstracts are provided for each paper and a complete name index is provided. (shrink)