In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Things Merely Are: Philosophy in the Poetry of Wallace StevensTom McBrideThings Merely Are: Philosophy in the Poetry of Wallace Stevens, by Simon Critchley. 137 pp. New York: Routledge, 2005; $22.50.This book—a brief meditation on the poetry of Wallace Stevens and an even shorter one on the cinema of Terrence Malick—might have been a disaster. The author, a philosopher, is sometimes in worried denial that Stevens is an "anti-realist" (...) or a "transcendental realist," and one occasionally senses that in the ancient tension between philosophy and poetry, herding the poets into the philosopher's pen is a bullying way to resolve the conflict. But the book isn't a catastrophe at all; it's a lucid, ruminative, and personable reading of Stevens (and Malick) that even offers a good general guide to the reading of poetry in what Critchley calls "the wake of romanticism" (motto: "God is dead; therefore I am").Critchley's major idea is twofold: that poetry is a therapeutic art form because it slows us down and encourages, about countless subjects, "the whole voluptuousness of looking"; and that Stevens's poetry is informed by a contest between a poetry of "supreme fictions" (in which phenomena come under the [End Page 503] dominion of a potent imagination) and a poetry of "antipodes" (in which phenomena resist the imagination—they "merely are"—and thus reduce the imagination to impotence). Here Critchley affirms a usual view of Stevens as a poet of the weather—another way of saying that he is a modernist with strong roots in the Romantic movement—and he notes that the supreme fiction poems often tend to be set in summer, when the imagination seems especially yeasty, while the antipodean poems tend to be set in winter, when the miserly realness of things seems to rule the earth. In his sensitive and astute reading, however, Critchley remarks upon something else: that in his late poems Stevens seems more overtly metaphysical (Critchely says Stevens is the most philosophically interesting poet of the twentieth century) and that his later poems are set more and more in the seasons of transition (late autumn/early spring). Late in Stevens's career the battle between supreme fictions and antipodes is therefore played out in the same, often overtly philosophical poems. Here Critchley's commentary is at its most astute. Occasional lovers of Wallace Stevens's poetry will remember why they adore his work, and have a better idea why.However, lest readers get the wrong idea, some careful qualifications about the dialectic between Stevens's summer and winter poems are in order. For one thing, the poems of supreme fictions always leave phenomena with their particularity, their ordinariness, their concreteness. To cite one such poem, "Anecdote of the Jar," although the poet imaginatively places "a jar in Tennessee" that makes "the lovely wilderness / Surround that hill," the wilderness' birds and bushes, even the jar itself, remain birds and bushes and jars ("gray and bare"). Here Critchley reinterprets Samuel Taylor Coleridge's distinction between "fancy" and "imagination." Fancy dreams of what does not exist, while imagination transfigures what does. Stevens's poems of supreme fiction are always imaginative, never fanciful.A second qualification: Critchley argues that for Stevens (as well as for a number of philosophers) human ways of knowing are always informed, sooner or later, by the conceptual imagination. In that sense a rose is never just a rose, although we need not become overly fanciful about what a cigar might be. And this leads us to a third one: When readers get to the wintry, antipodean poems—the poems of "anti-poetry"—they will find Stevens suggesting that the only way to view objects without imagination is to imagine what that would be like. Even earlier in his career Stevens became interested in this paradox, as in "The Snow Man" where he muses:One must have a mind of winter To regard the frost and boughs Of the pine-trees crusted with snow; And have been cold a long time To behold the junipers shagged with ice, The spruces rough in the distant glitter [End Page 504] Of the January sun; and not... (shrink)

Featuring a new code of ethics for journalists and essays by 14 journalism thought leaders and practitioners, The New Ethics of Journalism: Principles for the 21st Century, by Kelly McBride and Tom Rosenstiel, examines the new pressures brought to bear on journalism by technology and changing audience habits. It offers a new framework for making critical moral choices, as well as case studies that reinforce the concepts and principles rising to prominence in 21st century communication. The book addresses the (...) unique problems facing journalism today, including how we arrive at truth in an era of abundant and unverified information; the evolution of new business models and partnerships; the presence of journalists on independent social media platforms; the role of diversity; the meaning of stories; the value of images; and the role of community in the production of journalism. (shrink)

What conditions on a person’s knowledge must be satisfied in order for them to be morally responsible for something they have done? The first two decades of the twenty-first century saw a surge of interest in this question. Must an agent, for example, be aware that their conduct is all-things-considered … Continue reading Epistemic Conditions of Moral Responsibility →.

Many theories and models of machine consciousness emphasize the role of embodiment. However, there are different interpretations of exactly what kind of embodiment would be required for an artifact to be at least potentially conscious. This paper contrasts the sensorimotor approach, which holds that consciousness emerges from the mastery of sensorimotor knowledge resulting from the interaction between agent and environment, with the view that the living body's homeostatic regulation is crucial to self and consciousness.

From the first co-operative trust school at Reddish Vale in Manchester in 2006, the following decade would witness a remarkable growth of ‘co-operative schools’ in England, which at one point numbered over 850. This paper outlines the key development of democratic education by the co-operative schools network. It explains the approach to democracy and explores the way values were put into practice. At the heart of co-operativism lay a tension between engaging with technical everyday reforms and utopian transformative visions of (...) an educational future. A new arena of debate and practice was established with considerable importance for our understanding of democratic education within the mainstream. (shrink)

Pourquoi avons-nous mis l’accent sur la pratique réflexive de façon si abusive dans la formation initiale des enseignants? Sur quoi nous appuyons-nous pour avoir la certitude que de développer la réflexivité permet l’amélioration de la qualité des enseignants que nous préparons? Quelle qu’en soit sa forme, la pratique réflexive, ne doit pas être une fin en soi: elle est un moyen qui permet d’atteindre une finalité qu’est l’enseignement, voire, une finalité de développement des apprentissages des élèves. Dans cet article, nous (...) explorons la réflexivité à partir de plusieurs angles d’entrée, y compris nos expériences personnelles en tant que formateur d’enseignants travaillant avec des personnes qui se préparent à devenir des enseignants de physique. La question posée dans le titre exprime notre crainte quant à la finalité de la formation des enseignants que les formateurs d’enseignants attribuent parfois à la pratique réflexive; ce qui, à notre avis, peut faire plus de mal que de bien dans la formation des enseignants, avant l’emploi. Nous nous attarderons d’abord sur la différence entre les pratiques de formation des enseignants avant et après l’arrivée du terme pratique réflexive. Nous examinerons ensuite les travaux de Schön (1983) à travers cinq articles sur la réflexivité en formation des enseignants. Il ne s’agit pas d’une revue de la littérature systématique, mais cet effort démontre comment presque tous les articles sur la pratique réflexive semble être dictés par les intérêts personnels de ses auteurs respectifs. Nous poursuivront avec des interprétations et des illustrations et terminerons par cinq généralisations au sujet des pratiques de formation des enseignants qui indiquent qu’un travail colossal reste à faire afin que les références à la réflexivité fassent in fine plus de bien que de mal dans les programmes de formation des enseignants. (shrink)

Prologue. It is evident from the title that this is a philosophical discussion. I shall not apologize for the philosophy, though I am well aware that most scientists, engineers, and mathematicians have little regard for it; instead, I shall give this short prologue to justify the approach.

Lee A. McBride III articulates an ethical position that takes critical pragmatism and Harrisian insurrectionist philosophy seriously. It suggests that there are values and norms that create boundaries that confine, reduce and circumscribe the actions we allow ourselves to consider. This book argues that an insurrectionist ethos is integral in the disavowing of norms and traditions that justify or perpetuate oppression and that we must throw our faith behind something, some set of values, if we want a chance at (...) shaping a future. (shrink)

Background: Ethical leadership is important for developing ethical healthcare practice. However, there is little research-based knowledge on how to stimulate and educate for ethical leadership. Objectives: The aim was to develop and investigate the feasibility of a 6-week web-based, ethical leadership educational programme and learn from participants’ experience. Training programme and research design: A training programme was developed consisting of (1) a practice part, where the participating middle managers developed and ran an ethics project in their own departments aiming at (...) enhancing the ethical mindfulness of the organizational culture, and (2) a web-based reflection part, including online reflections and coaching while executing the ethics project. Focus group interviews were used to explore the participants’ experiences with and the feasibility of the training. Participants and research context: Nine middle managers were recruited from a part-time master’s programme in leadership in Oslo, Norway. The research context was the participating leaders’ work situation during the 6 weeks of training. Ethical considerations: Participation was voluntary, data anonymized and the confidentiality of the participating leaders/students and their institutions maintained. No patient or medical information was involved. Findings: Eight of the nine recruited leaders completed the programme. They evaluated the training programme as efficient and supportive, with the written, situational feedback/coaching as the most important element, enhancing reflection and motivation, counteracting a feeling of loneliness and promoting the execution of change. Discussion: The findings seem consistent with the basic assumptions behind the educational design, based partly on e-health research, feedback studies and organizational ethics methodology, partly on theories on workplace learning, reflection, recognition and motivation. Conclusion: The training programme seems feasible. It should be adjusted according to participants’ proposals and tested further in a large-scale 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)

This paper theorizes two dialectic moments in which art is situated. The hypothetical dialectic is based on Hal Foster’s explication of the relationship between the neo-avant-garde and the historical avant-garde which forms the thesis of his text The Return of the Real. This dialect is comprised of an initial moment that delineates the terms of our enunciative and perceptive condition followed by a second that “comprehends,” not completes, the first. I forward Slavoj Žižek’s notion of the stain to characterize this (...) first moment. By looking at the stain, we see the make-up of the whole field of symbolic relations attempting—but ultimately failing—seamlessly to incorporate it. I give Diane Arbus’s use of the stain as a subject as an illustration of this first moment. Further, I posit Žižek’s notion of the act as a method to redialecticize art stuck in this initial moment and made stagnant through cynicism. Acts are moments of absolute freedom, that “[temporarily suspend] the field of ideological meaning” (Enjoy Your Symptom 35). However, I qualify the act in art as a “spectre” of the real: “The Real which returns [as]… an image, a semblance, an ‘effect,’ which, at the same time, [delivers] ‘the thing itself’” (Welcome to the Desert of the Real 18). I use recent collage paintings by Albert Oehlen as illustrations to stage the latter part of my argument. (shrink)

This collection of essays and reviews represents the most significant and comprehensive writing on Shakespeare's A Comedy of Errors. Miola's edited work also features a comprehensive critical history, coupled with a full bibliography and photographs of major productions of the play from around the world. In the collection, there are five previously unpublished essays. The topics covered in these new essays are women in the play, the play's debt to contemporary theater, its critical and performance histories in Germany and Japan, (...) the metrical variety of the play, and the distinctly modern perspective on the play as containing dark and disturbing elements. To compliment these new essays, the collection features significant scholarship and commentary on The Comedy of Errors that is published in obscure and difficulty accessible journals, newspapers, and other sources. This collection brings together these essays for the first time. (shrink)

This text examines social and political philosophy in historical and contemporary terms from a global perspective. It provides a grounding in classical, British and continental traditions and offers a contemporary review of concepts such as freedom and rights, justice and community.

In this commentary we would like to question (a) Clark and Fischer's characterization of the “social artifact puzzle” – which we consider less puzzling than the authors, and (b) their account of social robots as depictions involving three physical scenes – which to us seems unnecessarily complex. We contrast the authors' model with a more parsimonious account based on attributions.

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)

“Moral Character: An Empirical Theory” and “Character and Moral Psychology” represent part of the research output of the Templeton-funded Character Project, which was headed by Christian Miller. In ‘Moral Character’, Miller develops his “mixed trait” account of character. The first two parts consist in conceptual background and the empirical grounding for his account . In part three Miller develops and describes his account, before showing the extent of its application in part four . In ‘Character and Moral Psychology”, he gives (...) the reader more details about the metaphysics of his view , places it in relation to other accounts of character and personality , shows the normative and meta-ethical implications of his account , and opens a discussion of what could follow from his account in terms of improving character .The first thing to note about these books is the impressive rang .. (shrink)

In this essay, I describe Bob Veatch’s career from the perspective of a colleague and friend. Bob and I started our professional careers at the same time and quickly came into professional contact. With Bob’s move from the Hastings Center to the Kennedy Institute, we became colleagues and worked for almost a decade on our book on death and dying. He was an outstanding co-editor and author. I believe he knew more about the philosophically connected issues in this area of (...) bioethics than anyone publishing in the area, and it was an area of intellectual interest that he pursued throughout his career. Beyond bioethics, Bob and I shared our shared love of contemporary bluegrass music, especially the songs of The Seldom Scene. Bob studied them much as he studied bioethics—with deep knowledge and seriousness. He was just a scholar by nature and with excellent training and experience. If we were to create a Hall of Fame for bioethics, Bob might be the first person elected. (shrink)