The history of Physical Science appears to exhibit, periodically, a race between the acmulation of data and the ability of its codification to find a natural place for much of the empirical findings. If the codifying scheme is a mathematical theory, capable of interpolation and extrapolation, according to the rules of the particular branch of mathematics employed, the ablest handlers of the theory are frequently confronted with a situation in which mathematical computation alone does not suffice. In such a situation (...) the introduction of symbols, whose interpretation is not direct and simple is resorted to. This symbol is usually involved in a mathematical relation by a species of reasoning, which may be somewhat unfamiliar and remote from customary habits of thought. It is generally accepted as physically valid, if the mathematical formulation which involves it can produce results which account for the mass of data uncovered by experimenters. As an example of such a procedure we may mention the case of the Schrödinger Ψ-symbol, a symbol which was involved in Schrödinger's famous matter wave equation. The successes which such a theory enjoyed, particularly, in its initial stages, in formally relating the relative positions and intensities of spectral lines, with the atomistic concepts of gross matter which were inferred from the data of macroscopic measurement, such as the atomic mass, the electronic charge, Planck quantum of action, etc.,—these successes, gave a certain physical dignity to the Ψ-function itself. This dignity was further enhanced by the disclosure, by Schrödinger, of four functions of the Ψ-symbol which held the same place in the “continuity equation” as the classical charge density and the three components of current density. The successes accompanying this discovery for spectroscopic problems, in particular, are well known to Physicists. (shrink)

My purpose in this short response to Clinton's interesting article On Bender's orientation to models: Towards a philosophical debate on covering laws, theory, emergence and mechanisms in nursing science, which is published in this issue, is not to provide any counterargument to Clinton's interpretation of my own argument; readers are welcome to interrogate both articles at their leisure and make their own conclusions. What I will do instead is provide a brief critical assessment of my own (il)logic re bringing (...) in the notion of mechanism as conceived by Machamer, Darden and Craver into an argument for models versus theories as a carrier of nursing knowledge. (shrink)

This paper reviews the uneven history of the relationship between Anthropology and Cognitive Science over the past 30 years, from its promising beginnings, followed by a period of disaffection, on up to the current context, which may lay the groundwork for reconsidering what Anthropology and (the rest of) Cognitive Science have to offer each other. We think that this history has important lessons to teach and has implications for contemporary efforts to restore Anthropology to its proper place within Cognitive Science. (...) The recent upsurge of interest in the ways that thought may shape and be shaped by action, gesture, cultural experience, and language sets the stage for, but so far has not fully accomplished, the inclusion of Anthropology as an equal partner. (shrink)

Introduction: Christian moral action -- Stanley Hauerwas -- Reinhard Hütter -- Common threads -- Thomas Aquinas -- Toward an ecumenical ethic of grace -- Conclusion: A community-centered ecumenical ethic of grace.

We examine how UK listed companies set executive pay, considering the implications of following best practice in corporate governance and how this canconflict with what stakeholders might perceive as good behaviour. We do this by presenting the results of 40 interviews with protagonists in the debate, setting out the dilemmas faced by remuneration-setters, and how the processes they follow can lead to ethical conflicts. Overall, we conclude that although best practice might drive good behaviour, it often does not.

Bender, Robert Review of: In the public interest: 150 years of the Victorian Auditor-General's office, by Peter Yule, 2002, VAGO, 304 pages.

In American philosophy at the end of the nineteenth century there was small interest in Empiricism and almost no interest in Realism.

Theories and models are not equivalent. I argue that an orientation towards models as a primary carrier of nursing knowledge overcomes many ongoing challenges in philosophy of nursing science, including the theory–practice divide and the paradoxical pursuit of predictive theories in a discipline that is defined by process and a commitment to the non‐reducibility of the health/care experience. Scientific models describe and explain the dynamics of specific phenomenon. This is distinct from theory, which is traditionally defined as propositions that explain (...) and/or predict the world. The philosophical case has been made against theoretical universalism, showing that a theory can be true in its domain, but that no domain is universal. Subsequently, philosophers focused on scientific models argued that they do the work of defining the boundary conditions—the domain(s)—of a theory. Further analysis has shown the ways models can be constructed and function independent of theory, meaning models can comprise distinct, autonomous “carriers of scientific knowledge.” Models are viewed as representations of the active dynamics, or mechanisms, of a phenomenon. Mechanisms are entities and activities organized such that they are productive of regular changes. Importantly, mechanisms are by definition not static: change may alter the mechanism and thereby alter or create entirely new phenomena. Orienting away from theory, and towards models, focuses scholarly activity on dynamics and change. This makes models arguably critical to nursing science, enabling the production of actionable knowledge about the dynamics of process and change in health/care. I briefly explore the implications for nursing—and health/care—knowledge and practice. (shrink)

Should refugees govern refugee camps? This paper argues that they should. It draws on normative political thought in consulting the all-subjected principle and an instrumental defense of democratic rule. The former holds that all those subjected to rule in a political unit should have a say in such rule. Through analyzing the conditions that pertain in refugee camps, the paper demonstrates that the all-subjected principle applies there, too. Refugee camps have developed as near distinct entities from their host states. They (...) have formed their own economic, legal and even political systems within which refugees are subjected to political rule. The paper then demonstrates that democratic rule should be preferred over any other decision-making procedure. No amount of experts can replace the institutions that would lead to the accountability of decision-makers and to the incorporation of refugees as situated and epistemically diverse knowers of the problems they face and the solutions that would work best. (shrink)

The French public has a distinct taste for realist representations of public crisis. Citing figures from the Centre National de la Cinématographie et de l’Image Animée (CNC), Sarah Cooper has shown that interest in documentary film is steadily on the rise in France (9), as attested to by the growing number of documentary festivals and documentary films recently released in theaters. Within this context, Martin O’Shaughnessy links the popularity of the social documentary genre to a series of political developments in (...) France, such as the 1995 protests against the infamous “Plan Juppé,” which aimed to slash public spending, and the French electorate’s spurning in 2005 of the Constitution proposed by the European .. (shrink)

Bender, Robert Review of: The other side of Israel: My journey across the Jewish-Arab divide, by Susan Nathan, 2005 Harper Collins, 300 pages.

Bender, Robert Review of: Women in Cambridge: A Men's university - though of a mixed type, by Rita McWilliams-Tullberg, Gollancz 1975, 255 pp.

Since the emergence of our species at least, natural selection based on genetic variation has been replaced by culture as the major driving force in human evolution. It has made us what we are today, by ratcheting up cultural innovations, promoting new cognitive skills, rewiring brain networks, and even shifting gene distributions. Adopting an evolutionary perspective can therefore be highly informative for cognitive science in several ways: It encourages us to ask grand questions about the origins and ramifications of our (...) cognitive abilities; it equips us with the means to investigate, explain, and understand key dimensions of cognition; and it allows us to recognize the continued and ubiquitous workings of culture and evolution in everyday instances of cognitive behavior. Taking advantage of this reorientation presupposes a shift in focus, though, from human cognition as a general, homogenous phenomenon to the appreciation of cultural diversity in cognition as an invaluable source of data. (shrink)

For four decades _Sources of Chinese Tradition_ has served to introduce Western readers to Chinese civilization as it has been seen through basic writings and historical documents of the Chinese themselves. Now in its second edition, revised and extended through Deng Xiaoping and Jiang Zemin-era China, this classic volume remains unrivaled for its wide selection of source readings on history, society, and thought in the world's largest nation. Award-winning China scholar Wm. Theodore de Bary--who edited the first edition in 1960--and (...) his coeditor Richard Lufrano have revised and updated the second volume of Sources to reflect the interactions of ideas, institutions, and historical events from the seventeenth century up to the present day. Beginning with Qing civilization and continuing to contemporary times, volume II brings together key source texts from more than three centuries of Chinese history, with opening essays by noted China authorities providing context for readers not familiar with the period in question. Here are just a few of the topics covered in this second volume of _Sources of Chinese Tradition:_ • Early Sino-Western contacts in the seventeenth century; • Four centuries of Chinese reflections on differences between Eastern and Western civilizations; • Nineteenth- and twentieth-century reform movements, with treatises on women's rights, modern science, and literary reform; • Controversies over the place of Confucianism in modern Chinese society; • The nationalist revolution--including readings from Sun Yat-sen and Chiang Kai-shek; • The communist revolution--with central writings by Mao Zedong; • Works from contemporary China--featuring political essays from Deng Xiaoping and dissidents including Wei Jingsheng. With more than two hundred selections in lucid, readable translation by today's most renowned experts on Chinese language and civilization, _Sources of Chinese Tradition_ will continue to be recognized as the standard for source readings on Chinese civilization, an indispensable learning tool for scholars and students of Asian civilizations. (shrink)

In this study, I clarify and defend the critique of the ‘sages’ and ‘robbers’ that is found in the _Zhuangzi_. As detailed in Chapter 8 of the _Zhuangzi_, both the (non-Daoist) ‘sages’ and ‘robbers’ are equally responsible for society’s ills. This is because both the ‘sages’ and ‘robbers’ are perceptually alienated from nature. This perceptual alienation involves the inability to perceive nature as fundamentally indeterminate (_wu_, 無). The Daoist alternative to the ‘sages’ and ‘robbers’ is to cultivate awareness of our (...) interdependence with nature. This study calls this process an ‘attunement to nature’ or, as Chapter 8 describes it, to not depart from ‘the actuality of their endowed circumstances’ (其性命之情) and to ‘see oneself when you see others/things’ (自見而見彼). Attunement involves an awareness of how nature primordially forms an indeterminate continuum (_wu_). (shrink)

On Berkeley’s immaterialist ontology, there are only two kinds of created entities: finite spirits and ideas. Ideas are passive, and so there is no genuine idea-idea causation. Finite spirits, by contrast, are truly causally active on Berkeley’s view, in that they can produce ideas through their volitional activity. Some commentators have argued that this account of causation is inconsistent. On their view, the unequal treatment of spirits and ideas is unfounded, for all that can be observed in either case are (...) mere patterns of regularity; Berkeley should therefore adopt a full-blown occasionalism and follow Malebranche in holding that God is the only true cause. Other commentators have argued that Berkeley denies the tenet that causes necessitate their effects – that is, the idea that causation involves necessary connection – and that in this way he can avoid inconsistency. This paper argues that Berkeley can subscribe to the thesis that finite spirits are truly causally active without falling into inconsistency, even if it is granted that Berkeleyan causes necessitate their effects. His differing treatment of spirits and of ideas is well founded, since ideas are transparent in a way our notions of spirits are not. (shrink)

Bender, Robert Review of: Run, spot, run: The ethics of keeping pets, by Jessica Pierce, Uni of Chicago Press, 2016, 264 pages.

What is political about political refugeehood? Theorists have assumed that refugees are special because their specific predicament as those who are persecuted sets them aside from other “necessitous strangers.” Persecution is a special form of wrongful harm that marks the repudiation of a person's political membership and that cannot—contrary to certain other harms—be remedied where they are. It makes asylum necessary as a specific remedial institution. In this article, I argue that this is correct. Yet, the connection between political membership, (...) its repudiation, and persecution is far from clear. Drawing on normative political thought and research on autocracies, repression, and migration studies, I show that it is political oppression that marks the repudiation of political membership and leads to various forms of repression that can equally not be remedied at home. A truly political account moves away from persecution and endorses political oppression as the normative pillar of refugeehood and asylum. (shrink)

In this blog entry, which addresses a broader audience, I wonder what exactly historians of philosophy do and how their work relates to non-historical work in philosophy. In particular, I raise the question why systematic philosophers and historians of philosophy are relatively close to each other. After all, they often publish in the same journals and work at the same departments. This is surprising, given that asking what X is seems to be rather different from asking what some person a (...) few hundred (or thousand) years ago thought what X is. I argue that systematic philosophers and historians of philosophy are so close because their work proceeds in a similar way. To be sure, they have very different starting points. Historians of philosophy may start, for instance, with a number of texts from one and the same author which appear to be in conflict. Systematic philosophers, in contrast, may start with a set of intuitions which seem to contradict one other. The way historians of philosophy and systematic philosophers operate upon those different starting points, however, is very similar. This explains at least in part, I maintain, why they are a lot closer than is the case in many other disciplines. (shrink)