Miller (1956) identified his famous limit of 7 ± 2 items based in part on absolute identification—the ability to identify stimuli that differ on a single physical dimension, such as lines of different length. An important aspect of this limit is its independence from perceptual effects and its application across all stimulus types. Recent research, however, has identified several exceptions. We investigate an explanation for these results that reconciles them with Miller’s work. We find support for the hypothesis that the (...) exceptional stimulus types have more complex psychological representations, which can therefore support better identification. Our investigation uses data sets with thousands of observations for each participant, which allows the application of a new technique for identifying psychological representations: the structural forms algorithm of Kemp and Tenenbaum (2008). This algorithm supports inferences not possible with previous techniques, such as multidimensional scaling. (shrink)

Rae Langton here draws together her ground-breaking and contentious work on pornography and objectification. She shows how women come to be objectified -- made subordinate and treated as things -- and she argues for the controversial feminist conclusions that pornography subordinates and silences women, and women have rights against pornography.

Many countries have implemented infection control measures directed at carriers of multidrug-resistant organisms. To explore the ethical implications of these measures, we analyzed 227 consultations about multidrug resistance and compared them with the literature on communicable disease in general. We found that control measures aimed at carriers have a range of negative implications. Although moral dilemmas seem similar to those encountered while implementing control measures for other infectious diseases, 4 distinct features stand out for carriage of multidrug-resistant organisms: carriage presents (...) itself as a state of being; carriage has limited relevance for the health of the carrier; carriage has little relevance outside healthcare settings; and antimicrobial resistance is a slowly evolving threat on which individual carriers have limited effect. These features are of ethical relevance because they influence the way we traditionally think about infectious disease control and urge us to pay more attention to the personal experience of the individual carrier. (shrink)

What is the point of language? If we begin with that abstract question, we may be tempted towards a high-minded answer: “People say things to get other people to come to know things that they didn't know before” (Stalnaker, 2002, 703). The point is truth, knowledge, communication. If we begin with a concrete question, “What has language to do with race?” we find a different point: to attack, spread hatred, create racial hierarchy. The mere practice of racial categorization is controversial: (...) are race terms natural or social kind terms? What does categorization do to the categorized? (Outlaw, 1990; Omi and Winant, 1994; Appiah, 1996; Andreason, 1998; Kitcher, 1999; Zack, 2002; Haslanger, 2008; Glasgow, 2009). But there is worse than mere categorization to contend with. (shrink)

Name der Zeitschrift: Frühmittelalterliche Studien Jahrgang: 49 Heft: 1 Seiten: 91-104.

Kant argued that we have no knowledge of things in themselves, no knowledge of the intrinsic properties of things, a thesis that is not idealism but epistemic humility. David Lewis agrees (in 'Ramseyan Humility'), but for Ramseyan reasons rather than Kantian. I compare the doctrines of Ramseyan and Kantian humility, and argue that Lewis's contextualist strategy for rescuing knowledge from the sceptic (proposed elsewhere) should also rescue knowledge of things in themselves. The rescue would not be complete: for knowledge of (...) things in themselves would remain elusive. (shrink)

It is well-known that as a term, Nietzsche’s Übermensch derives from Lucian of Samosata’s hyperanthropos. I argue that Zarathustra’s teaching of the overman acquires new resonances by reflecting on the context of that origination from Lucian’s Kataplous – literally, “sailing into port” – referring to the soul’s journey, ferried by Charon, guided by Hermes, into the afterlife. The Kataplous he tyrannos, usually translated Downward Journey or The Tyrant, is a Menippean satire telling the tale of the “overman” who is imagined (...) to be superior to others of “lesser” station in this-worldly life and the same tyrant after his (comically unwilling) transport into the underworld. As a reflection on the life and the death of Zarathustra, this essay also explores the politics of kingship for Empedocles as reformer in terms of Hölderlin’s Death of Empedocles and Nietzsche’s unpublished drafts on the same topic. In Thus Spoke Zarathustra, Nietzsche points to a perspective beyond the here and now, beyond the “values” of our all-too-worldly and all-too-human concerns, no matter whether in terms of perceived political/economic advantage, or indeed in the pursuit of more quotidian satisfactions. (shrink)

Rae Langton offers a new interpretation and defense of Kant's doctrine of things in themselves. Kant distinguishes things in themselves from phenomena, and in so doing he makes a metaphysical distinction between intrinsic and relational properties of substances. Langton argues that his claim that we have no knowledge of things in themselves is not idealism, but epistemic humility: we have no knowledge of the intrinsic properties of substances. This interpretation vindicates Kant's scientific realism, and shows his primary/secondary quality distinction to (...) be superior even to modern-day competitors. And it answers the famous charge that Kant's tale of things in themselves is one that makes itself untellable. (shrink)

Something could be round even if it were the only thing in the universe, unaccompanied by anything distinct from itself. Jaegwon Kim once suggested that we define an intrinsic property as one that can belong to something unaccompanied. Wrong: unaccompaniment itself is not intrinsic, yet it can belong to something unaccompanied. But there is a better Kim-style definition. Say that P is independent of accompaniment iff four different cases are possible: something accompanied may have P or lack P, something unaccompanied (...) may have P or lack P. P is basic intrinsic iff (1) P and not-P are nondisjunctive and contingent, and (2) P is independent of accompaniment. Two things (actual or possible) are duplicates iff they have exactly the same basic intrinsic properties. P is intrinsic iff no two duplicates differ with respect to P. (shrink)

What, if anything, has faith to do with intention? By ‘faith’ I have in mind the attitude described by William James: Suppose … that I am climbing in the Alps, and have had the illluck to work myself into a position from which the only escape is by a terrible leap. Being without similar experience, I have no evidence of my ability to perform it successfully; but hope and confidence in myself make me sure I shall not miss my aim, (...) and nerve my feet to execute what without those subjective emotions would perhaps have been impossible. But suppose that, on the contrary, the emotions of fear and mistrust preponderate; or suppose that…I feel it would be sinful to act upon an assumption unverified by previous experience,—why, then I shall hesitate so long that at last, exhausted and trembling, and launching myself in a moment of despair, I miss my foothold and roll into the abyss.… There are then cases where faith creates its own verification. Believe, and you shall be right, for you shall save yourself; doubt, and you shall again be right, for you shall perish. (shrink)

The distinction at the heart of Kant's philosophy is a metaphysical distinction: things in themselves are substances, bearers of intrinsic properties; phenomena are relational properties of substances. Kant says that things as we know them are composed "entirely of relations", by which he means forces. Kant's claim that we have no knowledge of things in themselves is not idealism, but humility: we have no knowledge of the intrinsic properties of substances. Kant has an empiricist starting-point. Human beings are receptive creatures. (...) We must be affected by the things of which we come to have knowledge. Kant believes that humility follows from this fact of receptivity. Humility does follow from receptivity, once a further premise is supplied. Kant believes that relational properties, causal powers in particular, are not reducible to intrinsic properties, and that intrinsic properties are therefore causally inert. Receptivity implies that we can have knowledge only of what can affect us. Irreducibility implies, in Kant's view, that intrinsic properties cannot affect us. Humility follows from these. This interpretation finds support in a range of critical and pre-critical writings, but there is a special focus on an early anti-Leibnizian argument for irreducibility that has considerable philosophical merit. One advantage of this interpretation is that the following famous contradiction is dissolved: things in themselves exist, and are the causes of phenomena, and we have no knowledge of them as they are in themselves. Moreover Kant's scientific realism, surprising on an idealist interpretation, makes sense. It does not conflict with Kant's claim that he makes all the qualities secondary--he means that he makes them powers, or in Locke's terms, tertiary qualities. Kant's "primary"/secondary quality distinction is superior to widely accepted alternatives, and his application of the irreducibility argument to the primary qualities challenges some current orthodoxies. Kant's commitment to the unobservables of science is permitted by his understanding of receptivity: we can have knowledge of anything that can affect us. Kant's scientific realism, and his humility, thus have a common source. (shrink)

This chapter sets forth a general theory of gender stratification. While both biological and ideological variables are taken into account, the emphasis is structural: It is proposed that the major independent variable affecting sexual inequality is each sex's economic power, understood as relative control over the means of production and allocation of surplus. For women, relative economic power is seen as varying-and not always in the same direction-at a variety of micro- and macrolevels, ranging from the household to the state. (...) A series of propositions links the antecedents of women's relative economic power, the interrelationship between economic and other forms of power, and the forms of privilege and opportunity into which each gender can translate its relative power. (shrink)

We defend the view of some feminist writers that the notion of silencing has to be taken seriously in discussions of free speech. We assume that what ought to be meant by ‘speech’, in the context ‘free speech’, is whatever it is that a correct justification of the right to free speech justifies one in protecting. And we argue that what one ought to mean includes illocution, in the sense of J.L. Austin.

School psychologists often break confidentiality if confronted with risky adolescent behavior. Members of the National Association of School Psychologists ( N = 78) responded to a survey containing a vignette describing an adolescent engaging in risky behaviors and rated the degree to which it is ethical to break confidentiality for behaviors of varying frequency, intensity, and duration. Respondents generally found it ethical to break confidentiality when risky adolescent behaviors became more dangerous or potentially harmful, although there was considerable variability between (...) respondents. Significant gender effects were found between male and female respondents for alcohol use, and a significant Form Type (i.e., male or female vignette) Frequency/Duration interaction was observed for antisocial behaviors. School psychologists could benefit from further training in ethical decision making because these ethical dilemmas are not always clear-cut. (shrink)

For both continental and analytic styles of philosophy, the thought of Martin Heidegger must be counted as one of the most important influences in contemporary philosophy. In this book, essays by internationally noted scholars, ranging from David B. Allison to Slavoj Zizek, honour the interpretive contributions of William J. Richardson's pathbreaking Heidegger: Through Phenomenology to Thought. The essays move from traditional phenomenology to the idea of essential (another) thinking, the questions of translation and existential expressions of the turn of Heidegger's (...) thought, the intersection of politics and language, the philosophic significance of Jacques Lacan, and several essays on science and technology. All show the influence of Richardson's first study. A valuable emphasis appears in Richardson's interpretation of Heidegger's conception of die Irre, interpreted as Errancy, set in its current locus in a discussion of Heidegger's debacle with the political in his involvement with National Socialism. (shrink)

If, as many suppose, pornography changes people, a question arises as to how.1 One answer to this question offers a grand and noble vision. Inspired by the idea that pornography is speech, and inspired by a certain liberal ideal about the point of speech in political life, some theorists say that pornography contributes to that liberal ideal: pornography, even at its most violent and misogynistic, and even at its most harmful, is political speech that aims to express certain views about (...) the good life, 2aims to persuade its consumers of a certain political point of view—and to some extent succeeds in persuading them. Ronald Dworkin suggests that the pornographer contributes to the ‘moral environment, by expressing his political or social convictions or tastes or prejudices informally’, that pornography ‘seeks to deliver’ a ‘message’ , that it reflects the ‘opinion’ that ‘women are submissive, or enjoy being dominated, or should be treated as if they did’, that it is comparable to speech ‘advocating that women occupy inferior roles’.3 Pornography on this view is political speech that aims to persuade its listeners of the truth of certain ideas about women, and of course ‘the government must leave to the people the evaluation of ideas’.4 Another answer offers a vision that is not grand and noble, but thoroughly reductive. Pornography is not politically persuasive speech, but speech that works by a process of psychological conditioning. This view seems common enough in the social science literature. Consider, for example, this description of an early experiment, from a time that pre-dates contemporary political debate. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Women in TibetRae Erin DachilleWomen in Tibet. Edited by Janet Gyatso and Hanna Havnevik. New York: Columbia University Press, 2005. 436 pp.Empowerment, transcendence, and the performance of identity are common themes in the study of gender and religion across cultures. As these themes are elucidated across cultures and in different historical moments, they are troubled by a persistent refusal of gender as a category of enduring symbolic and (...) real meaning by both historical and contemporary cultural actors. In the cases of Tibetan and Buddhist studies, the approach to womanhood as a category is repeatedly subsumed by concerns with religious or ethnic and political identity. This trend has forced many scholars to appeal to the symbolic realm of the iconic female or the construction of womanhood from sparse individual accounts as representative of an artificial subcultural entity. In response to the impasse created by these methods, the editors of Women in Tibet have chosen an approach that seeks to level the field. In doing so, they have produced a work that combines textual and anthropological projects aimed at recovering the specificities of lived womanhood across a range of historical moments. Allying themselves with a historical versus a feminist agenda, they succeed in laying the groundwork for a new approach to the study of womanhood.This approach surveys the vast artillery of historically embedded social dynamics available for Tibetan women to emulate, embody, or resist. In the diversity of their selections, Gyatso and Havnevik intentionally leave room for the possibility that women continue to perform as historical actors in spite of as well as because of their association with womanhood and the disempowering social and religious stereotypes attached to it. In leaving this issue open-ended, the editors sustain the tension between approaches that locate "specifically female" elements within traditions and those that posit the category of womanhood to be subservient to other cultural categories and phenomena. Exploring the participation of women in lineages as diverse as the oracular described by Hildegard Diemberger, the medical addressed by Tashi Tsering, and the imperial aristocratic presented by Helga Uebach, the essays in this volume represent an oscillation in the perceived relevance of femaleness. Inconsistency in the priority of the category of womanhood in historical interpretation reflects fluctuating attitudes on the part of Tibetans themselves as well as of European and American scholars as interpreters of the region's religious, social, and political realities.Asceticism in particular has been a highly charged site for the exploration of these themes in both Buddhist and Christian studies, along with determining the specific nature of female monasticism. As an instance of the deliberate embrace of a social category thriving upon the confluence of the ideal and the marginal, asceticism provides a lens for considering the ways in which women exploited opportunities to survive and excel spiritually and socially, often in spite [End Page 172] of female embodiment. Several of the authors in this volume address the tension between the socially sanctioned spaces for female asceticism within the nunnery or hermitage and the identities that individuals and communities of female ascetics strive to inhabit. Kurtis Schaeffer, for example, presents the tensions operating within acts of ascetic self-clarification in the autobiography of the medieval Tibetan hermitess Orgyan Chokyi. This account provides a rare glimpse of a historical woman defining her marginality and femaleness in relationship to Buddhist notions of suffering. Schaeffer reminds the reader that even from the hermetically sealed space of the cave, social, geographic, and historical elements play a fundamental role in constructing an individual's narrative identity and conditioning the terms of her self-realization.Charlene Makley's astute observations on the identity of nuns in contemporary Amdo taps into the various power dynamics at play in the social construction of nuns as parasitic, marginal, and dispensable members of the Labrang community. These acts of identification occur in the enduring and influential discursive field of gossip centered upon the "inappropriate otherness" of female monastics and their rumored failure to perfectly embody what Makley, following Charles Keyes, terms the "third gender" of celibate monasticism. Makley uncovers the powerful signifiers of the body of the nun in this geographical and historical context as... (shrink)

Research on Confucianism in Honam is in full swing in connection with raising interest in regional studies. However, the independent area of Honam Confucianism is still not very prominent in the overall study of Korean Confucianism. It can be said that the lack of specific research interest in the independent domain of Honam Confucianism is due to the existing arguments related to the setting of the category of Korean Confucian studies mediated by the region. The regional categories related to the (...) study of Korean Confucianism explicitly presented after the mid-1990s were generally structured as Kiho Confucianism and Yeongnam Confucianism, at which time "Honam Confucianism" was defined as a part of Kiho Confucianism. Honam Confucianism was specified as a part of Kiho Confucianism as the school structure related to regional categories, which had been understood by dividing into Kiho and Yeongnam schools until the previous period led to the establishment of a category combining local and Confucian studies in earnest. To some extent it can be said to be appropriate to divide the development of Confucianism in Joseon into the Toegye School and the Yulgok School by paying attention to the academic veins of the development of Confucianism in Joseon according to the scholastic unity that began in earnest from the 17th century. However, the division of the Toegye School and the Yulgok School into the Yeongnam School and the Kiho School in relation to the region has some problems, considering that there lacked a group of scholars with different academic backgrounds in the area. Moreover, organizing the topography of Joseon Confucianism by dividing it into Yeongnam Confucianism and Kiho Confucianism beyond the distinction between the Yeongnam School and the Kiho School is an over-simplification in that it not only overlooks the various academic flows within each region but also simplifies the flow of Joseon Confucianism. In this study, I try to review the problems of the discussions on regional classification presented in the existing research on Confucianism in Korea, and to confirm that an independent area of Honam Confucian research is possible by paying close attention to this classification. In this process, I reveal that the understanding of the uniqueness of Honam Confucianism is not only consistently passed down by various Confucian scholars in the Joseon Dynasty, but also recognized by the Confucian scholars who were active in Honam as a regional background. Even now, the general direction of understanding is to understand and grasp the various Confucian trends and characteristics of Honam as Honam Confucianism, centering on the region called Honam. And based on this point, I review the general contents of the existing research results related to Honam Confucianism. Based on this, I have suggested a pilot plan to derive advanced results of future Honam Confucian research. (shrink)

The growing discipline of feminist theology in Asia and in the world, which involves many Filipinas, entails an increasing attentiveness to gender diversity beyond heteronormative expectations and a broader sense of solidarity among women and others who have experienced exclusion due to gender. An analysis of writings by Philippine feminist theologians Mary John Mananzan, Judette Gallares, and Agnes Brazal, using a threefold schema of “inclusion/addition,” “deconstruct and transform,” and “critique, reject, and start again,” reveals heteronormative gender assumptions and a pattern (...) of moving beyond these. This shows that feminist theologizing is a very dynamic activity that adapts and responds to new ideas flexibly. One common theme that emerges out of feminist theologizing is the image of the babaylan, which provides an opportunity for greater solidarity with various gender identities as a vernacular resource and root metaphor. (shrink)

In this astonishingly rich volume, experts in ethics, epistemology, philosophy of mind, political theory, aesthetics, history, critical theory, and hermeneutics bring to light the best philosophical scholarship on what is arguably Nietzsche's most rewarding but most challenging text. Including essays that were commissioned specifically for the volume as well as essays revised and edited by their authors, this collection showcases definitive works that have shaped Nietzsche studies alongside new works of interest to students and experts alike. A lengthy introduction, annotated (...) bibliography, and index make this an extremely useful guide for the classroom and advanced research. (shrink)

The act of drawing a line or uttering a word is often seen as integral to the process of making art. This is especially obvious in music and the visual arts, but applies to literature, performance, and other arts as well. These collected essays, written by scholars from diverse fields, take a historical view of the richness of creation out of nothing (creatio ex nihilo) in order to draw out debates, sometimes implicit and sometimes formally stated, about the production and (...) reproduction of cultural meaning in a period of great change and novelty, between the beginnings of the medieval intellectual tradition and the imprint of the Enlightenment. The authors pose the following questions: Do tradition and creativity conflict with one another, or are they complementary? What are the tensions between composition and live performance? What is the role of the audience in perceiving the object of art? Are such objects fixed or flexible? What about the status of the event? Is the event part of creation, in the sense that it disturbs the still waters of historical continuity? These and other questions build on the foundation of Roland Barthes' concept of Degree Zero, offering new insights into what it means to create"--Back cover. (shrink)

Drawing on recent scholarship, with essays by a selection of international scholars, this volume throws new light on the literary persona of Peter Abelard, one of the most diversely gifted people of the Middle Ages.

_Varieties of the Self_ discusses human perspectives of the Paraclete (founded in 1129) on sacrifice, intentionality, and views on body and soul. The anthropological approach connects different works written by Peter Abelard to views on the individual within this community.

Kant’s distinction between phenomena and things in themselves is an expression of his idealism, according to Van Cleve: it is a distinction between the virtual and the real. Phenomena are virtual objects, logical constructions of conscious states; things in themselves are real objects. We thus have a metaphysics of two worlds, a distinction between ‘things having genuine existence and things existing merely as intentional objects’. And we have an epistemology which makes ignorance of things in themselves ignorance of the real, (...) ignorance of the things that have genuine existence. (shrink)

This study examines the three major Japanese multinational corporate governance cases of the past decade: Sumitomo Copper, Daiwa Bank, and Mitsubishi Motors. The analysis focuses on three particular matters: Does senior management and the board exhibit a form of “disaster myopia”? Were there clear signs of the impending problems that were ignored? Is there anything distinctive that makes these cases Japanese in character? The first two questions are answered in the affirmative for all three firms, but only the Mitsubishi case (...) exhibits a peculiarly Japanese characteristic. (shrink)

We concur that basic research on the use of CNS grafts is needed. Two important model systems for functional studies of grafts are ignored by Stein & Glasier. In the first, reproductive function is restored in hypogonadal mice by transplantation of GnRH-synthesizing neurons. In the second, circadian rhythmicity is restored by transplantation of the suprachiasmatic nucleus.

This is a paper about two philosophers who wrote to each other. One is famous; the other is not. It is about two practical standpoints, the strategic and the human, and what the famous philosopher said of them. And it is about friendship and deception, duty and despair. That is enough by way of preamble.