Peer review is a widely accepted instrument for raising the quality of science. Peer review limits the enormous unstructured influx of information and the sheer amount of dubious data, which in its absence would plunge science into chaos. In particular, peer review offers the benefit of eliminating papers that suffer from poor craftsmanship or methodological shortcomings, especially in the experimental sciences. However, we believe that peer review is not always appropriate for the evaluation of controversial hypothetical science. We argue that (...) the process of peer review can be prone to bias towards ideas that affirm the prior convictions of reviewers and against innovation and radical new ideas. Innovative hypotheses are thus highly vulnerable to being “filtered out” or made to accord with conventional wisdom by the peer review process. Consequently, having introduced peer review, the Elsevier journal Medical Hypotheses may be unable to continue its tradition as a radical journal allowing discussion of improbable or unconventional ideas. Hence we conclude by asking the publisher to consider re-introducing the system of editorial review to Medical Hypotheses. (shrink)

Irony, one of the most basic, pervasive, and variegated of rhetorical tropes, is as fundamental to musical thought as it is to poetry, prose, and spoken language. In this wide-ranging study of musical irony, Michael Cherlin draws upon the rich history of irony as developed by rhetoricians, philosophers, literary scholars, poets, and novelists. With occasional reflections on film music and other contemporary works, the principal focus of the book is classical music, both instrumental and vocal, ranging from Mozart to (...) Mahler. The result is a surprising array of approaches toward the making and interpretation of irony in music. Including nearly ninety musical examples, the book is clearly structured and engagingly written. This interdisciplinary volume will appeal to those interested in the relationship between music and literature as well as to scholars of musical composition, technique, and style. (shrink)

Derrida à Montréal n'est pas le titre d'une pièce de théâtre, mais celui d'un essai qui suit, en trois actes, trois événements singuliers qui ont eu lieu à Montréal et auxquels Jacques Derrida a participé en 1971, en 1979 et en 1997. Au "Premier Acte", Michael Naas relit de près la première communication du philosophe, "Signature événement contexte", un texte qui prend très au sérieux - et les critique tout à la fois - la théorie des speech acts de (...) John L. Austin et les questions du contexte, de la présence, de l'écriture, de l'événement et de la signature qui lui sont liées. Au "Deuxième Acte", on retrouve Derrida traitant de ces mêmes questions, mais d'un point de vue politique où il s'intéresse aux "Déclarations d'Indépendance". Enfin, au "Troisième Acte", Derrida poursuit cette discussion ininterrompue qui se concentre, une fois de plus, sur ces mêmes aspects, mais à la lumière de la notion d'événement. C'est comme si Montréal avait chaque fois été la scène rêvée où Derrida avait pu explorer ces questions pour lui cruciales."--Page 4 de la couverture. (shrink)

We clarify the arguments in Neural organization: Structure, function, and dynamics, acknowledge important contributions cited by our critics, and respond to their criticisms by charting directions for further development of our integrated approach to theoretical and empirical studies of neural organization. We first discuss functional organization in general (behavior versus cognitive functioning, the need to study body and brain together, function in ontogeny and phylogeny) and then focus on schema theory (noting that schema theory is not just a top-down theory (...) and discussing the transition from action-oriented perception to cognition). We then turn to dynamical organization, with a focus first on neural modeling and dynamics (clarifying the multiple functions of neurons and brain regions, and looking further at various forms of dynamics) and second on learning, development, and self-organization (looking at monoaminergic systems, reinforcement, self-organization, postnatal development, and disease). We close with a brief philosophical discussion of postmodernism and reductionism. (shrink)

Barnett argues that the United Nations, by operating on the principle of the consent of the parties, can encourage the development of a more stable and cooperative security architecture.

The structure of the traditional paradigm -- Narrative fiction as philosophically interpreted in the ancient western world -- Narrative fiction as philosophically interpreted in the modern and contemporary western world -- The structure of the new paradigm -- What makes an artifact philosophy? -- Literature as philosophy -- The special logic of fictive narrative philosophy -- Constructional devices -- How do we judge fictive narrative philosophy? -- When should we use direct discourse philosophy and when fictive narrative philosophy? -- How (...) might fictive narrative philosophy change the academy? -- First order metaethical principles: my own philosophical work on ethics and personhood theory as a first step for ethics & fictive narrative philosophy -- My own work in fictive narrative philosophy. (shrink)

This paper interprets the relation between justice and legitimacy found in John Rawls's Political Liberalism and then applies it to the field of transitional justice. The author argues that transitional mechanisms can be better defended in terms of “legitimacy” than in “justice,” because the circumstances of transitional justice admit of reasonable disagreement over “just” public policy. In such circumstances, policy recommendations can always be construed as falling short of justice, thus raising plausible concerns over their normative justification. This paper attempts (...) to answer such concerns by justifying transitional mechanisms as morally appropriate yet less than fully just. The author explains how the concept of legitimacy facilitates such a justification and how such a justification can secure the normative grounds that are ironically threatened by investigations relying on a concept of justice. (shrink)

Starting with a description of what clay is and how it originates, the author goes on to provide a guide to the hand building of clay, throwing pots, decoration techniques and glazes. The book is completed by a history of pottery through the ages.

The African debate on HIV/AIDS has been approached in terms that either foreground its biomedical implications, on the one hand, or its economic challenges, on the other. From the biomedical perspective, HIV/AIDS is a health problem, calling for appropriate behaviour modification strategies; from the economic perspective, however, HIV/AIDS in Africa is viewed as a structural effect of capitalist-induced poverty. This article aims at providing a philosophical basis for understanding the African debate on HIV/AIDS. Its primary contention is that, in order (...) to understand the African experience of HIV/AIDS, we need to overcome the crippling legacy of the modernist-colonialist discourse on Africa, in which “reason” is invariably regarded as the exclusive privilege of the (“white”) Western philosophical “mind”. South African Journal of Philosophy Vol. 26 (4) 2007: pp. 388-402. (shrink)

Selectionism addresses the process of transition or change. In its evolution, Homo Sapiens has demonstrated such transitions to more hierarchically complex stages of performance at the individual, organizational, cultural, and biological levels. Traditionally, changes in biological, cultural, organizational, and individual behavior have been studied separately, with very little overlap. The current theory integrates selectionism across these realms, while noting that in each, selectionism operates through somewhat different mechanisms. Selectionism is comprised of complex processes in which tasks of greater hierarchical complexity (...) may be selected. Increased stages of performance underlie evolution's dynamics of increased complexity. (shrink)

Science requires postformal capabilities to compare competing explanations and conceptualize how to coordinate or integrate them. With conflicts thus reconciled, science advances. The Model of Hierarchical Complexity facilitates the coordination of current arguments about intelligence. A cross-species measurement theory of comparative cognition is proposed. It has potential to overcome the lack of a general measurement theory for the science of comparative cognition, and the lack of domain-general mechanisms for evolutionary psychologists. The hierarchical complexity of concepts and debates as well as (...) the new theory are scored, and demonstrate the postformal hierarchical complexity of the proposed theory. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Two Poems MICHAEL TROCCHIA SEE FOR YOURSELF The gods, in effect, have given Euenius the gift of inner vision…because he has lost his outer vision. —Michael Attyah Flower, The Seer in Ancient Greece Come to a field of stones baking in the late sun. Drop your knee to the groundup earth and feel the warmth climb your thigh. Run your finger across a palm-sized stone, as if (...) inspecting the liver of the shegoat, the white one who follows you everywhere, always. Follow that old vision of yourself, its light dying in your eye as you look and look for one last rock one last time, its edge weathered into a fine and deadly thing. Hold the stone high—a red sun sinking behind you— and count down to the day’s complete darkness and in that completion between you and what will be arion 28.1 spring/summer 2020 64 two poems a darker endlessness, carve out the gift of sight, hearing only shivers of your own body, hooves running off. YOUNG CALCHAS SLEEPS And down he sat again as Calchas rose among them, Thestor’s son, the clearest by far of all the seers. —Homer, The Iliad Calchas, you dream of children dreaming of the sparrow’s head, of the bird’s eye deadened into view, of flutter and firelight, of the nest shredded at your feet and then spring again, berry, and leaf-meal and petalwind and whole glossaries of bone and egg bloodied in the hollow of your hand. But never a sure sign, no second sight clear and bright within the first order of things. No opening widening out of wing or song. Just the nearness of living, a feather suspended by a string, the halfmeaning of seeing the whole world suffer and sway— youth divined and past and forecast into the fray and saying this ruin and sacrifice again, this blueness sailing back in with the breeze. The world circles outside our window and light gives way to more light and you sleep soundly in a bed of down. Rise, Calchas, rise and walk out of the god’s mouth and see image after image fall away. See this life lifting out of one dream and into no other. Michael Trocchia 65... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:MONADOLOGY OF 7HE BROTHERS KARAMAZOV by Michael Wreen THE WORLD AND THOUGHT of Dostoyevsky's The Brothers Karamazov are not easily entered into. There is something, some barrier, which seems to hinder, if not prevent, a feeling of belonging, a feeling of ease, citizenship, and camaraderie. What is it diat holds die reader back, what makes him feel particularly Ul-at-ease in the world of The Brothers Karamazov, and especially (...) in die presence of the Karamazovs? The answer is that the world of the novel resembles the world of Leibniz's Monadology, a world so different from the world of our everyday conceptions, and so different from the world of most novels, that the reader is left "freefloating," so to speak, until he, as a spirit, has been accommodated and then assimilated by it. To begin with, there is the matter of setting. There are practically no landscapes in The Brothers Karamazov and no extended descriptions of nature. Secondly, buildings, both their interiors and exteriors, are barely sketched, and when described at all, it is usually the psychological state that the human design excites ("It was an odd arrangement ofrooms") that is important, and not the design or structure itself. Objects existing in their own right and "pure surfaces" are not to be found. The one building (with grounds) that is described at length is the monastery, but even here description is used symbolically, as a reflection ofthe spiritual states ofthe monks and The Elder. Similarly, clothing exists only as a clue to the psychological or spiritual state of its wearer. Dmitri's rag with the 1,500 roubles is the analogue of his condition, just as Smerdyakov's hoped-for foppish apparel is of his. 318 Michael Wreen319 Still more unusual is the infrequent mention of two of the biological necessities of life, food and sleep. Food seems to be something that the characters can take or leave, but more often than not, simply forget about; the stomach does not seem to exist for any except one of them. Once or twice the characters do eat, but eating seems to be an accidental side-effect of spending time with, a spiritual infection caught from, the thoroughly carnal Fyodor. The monks, it must be admitted, are concerned with food — though it would be more accurate to say diat they are concerned with die lack of it, or even more strongly, widi maintaining the lack of it. As for sleep, collapse from complete exhaustion (from sustained physical exertion and/or emotional excitement, or from orgiastic debauchery), sickness, and brain fever seem to be preferred to normal sleep. Days are long— so long, in fact, that night is more like an extension of day dian night. Another descriptive element which warrants notice is the physical appearances and personal histories of die dramatic personae. The truth, as far as physical appearances are concerned, is clear and simple: everyone, with the exception ofIvan, is described once and briefly. In the first thirtyfive pages or so, most of the major personages are introduced, "outfitted" with noses, eyes, ears, bearings, statures, mannerisms, traits, etc., and — here we come to the second aspect noted above — then given summary histories. After that, diey are set in dramatic motion. The opening chapters are descriptive and expository, a report of what was and is the case as far as mise en scene and physical equipage are concerned; and except for brief moments when the never-named narrator indulges in short "sermons" about man or God, the mode of narration never returns to descriptive exposition, but remains dramatic and focused on the interplay and clash of personality. Characters do act and think for themselves, and we see diem directly in the acting out of dieir lives. A bit of background information having been provided, we don't have to be told anydiing more; we can observe for ourselves, from the inside. The catalogue offacts is discarded, and in its place is put the experience of events and feelings. The objective, external perspective yields to the internal, subjective perspective, and the reader crosses over from the familiar and cozy world of Dickensian externality to the strange and disconcerting world ofDostoyevskian intemality... (shrink)

This original and provocative study tells the story of American literary history from the perspective of its environmental context. Weaving together close readings of early American texts with ecological histories of tobacco, potatoes, apples and honey bees, Michael Ziser presents a method for literary criticism that explodes the conceptual distinction between the civilized and natural world. Beginning with the English exploration of Virginia in the sixteenth century, Ziser argues that the settlement of the 'New World' - and the cultivation (...) and exploitation of its bounty - dramatically altered how writers used language to describe the phenomena they encountered on the frontier. Examining the work of Harriot, Grainger, Cooper, Thoreau and others, Ziser reveals how these authors, whether consciously or not, transcribed the vibrant ecology of North America, and the ways that the environment helped codify a uniquely American literary aesthetic of lasting importance. (shrink)

Public Health Policy and Ethics brings together philosophers and practitioners to address the foundations and principles upon which public health policy may be advanced – especially in the international arena. What is the basis that justifies public health in the first place? Why should individuals be disadvantaged for the sake of the group? How do policy concerns and clinical practice work together and work against each other? Can the boundaries of public health be extended to include social ills that are (...) amenable to group-dynamic solutions? What about political issues? How can international finance make an impact? These are some of the crucial questions that form the core of this volume of original essays sure to cause practitioners to engage in a critical re-evaluation of the role of ethics in public health policy. (shrink)

This essay is a critical investigation of Heidegger’s insistence on the absolute difference between philosophy, defined as fundamental ontology, and theology, understood as the “ontic” “science of faith.” Focusing primarily on two important works from 1927, “Phenomenology and Theology” and Being and Time, I argue that the distinction between the two disciplines begins to blur in light of the circular character of hermeneutical understanding as Heidegger himself describes it. Ontology, he concedes, has ontic roots in the authentic self-understanding of Dasein. (...) I maintain that this understanding involves an interpretive decision that, lacking the pure phenomenological rationality Heidegger attributes to it, looks much like the faith he would banish from philosophy. (shrink)

In this paper, I consider how we ought to read the aspect‐perception passages in the Tractatus Logico‐Philosophicus (TLP) in the light of its ethics. I engage with a recent proposal, of Genia Schönbaumsfeld's, that we should replace the TLP account of aspect‐perception with that which Wittgenstein puts forward in the Philosophical Investigations (PI). I show that, far from helping us to grasp the ethical vision contained in the TLP, this proposal obscures it. I go on to draw some conclusions from (...) this as to how to read the TLP in its relation to Wittgenstein's other work. (shrink)

This article appears in the Oxford Handbook of New Audiovisual Aesthetics edited by John Richardson, Claudia Gorbman, and Carol Vernallis. In rehearsing the history of video in Latin America, this chapter focuses on the social rather than the individual, on video as a collective medium where audio and visual are placed in a new relationship of equal simultaneity, and thus where video functions more as a form of collective speech than individual expression. In the Latin American experience, which built on (...) the radical film movement of the preceding decades, community activists became aficionados of video, often under the most inimical circumstances, but by exploiting video’s potential for alternative, small scale, low profile, subcultural uses. Using examples from Chile in the 1980s, indigenous video in countries like Brazil and Bolivia, and the movement of video activism in Argentina in the early 2000s known as cine piquetero, the chapter sketches a concept of video speech as a form of audiovisual utterance answering to the socialized conditions of its production, in a dialogical relationship with its audience. (shrink)