The elections of Harold Washington and Wilson Goode, along with the near election of Mel King, have generated new speculations about black urban adminstrations. The tacit assumptions here concern the significance of these administrations for racial democracy in the U.S. The fact that a black or Hispanic candidate is elected mayor is taken as evidence of “progress.” Presumably, if an electorate selects a candidate, that candidate must have been able to transcend previously insurmountable boundaries to galvanize a winning coalition. This (...) view, of course, does not account for the fact that blacks tend overwhelmingly — unless black candidates are woefully pock-marked politically — to vote black and whites are just as likely to vote white. (shrink)

Afro-American social thought lost its critical thrust in the 1970s, when the American state incorporated the organizing principles of civil rights/black power politics. Since that time the protest activism grounding black social thought has floundered in a contradiction. On the one hand, protest requires an alienated outsider evoking the specter of disruptive mobilization. On the other hand, racial politics has assumed the character of negotiated agreements among elites whose legitimacy derives from official positions within the corporate-state nexus, but neither what (...) is negotiated nor the negotiators themselves are amenable to mass mobilization. The former generally are not mass issues (e.g., magnitude of minority set-asides in contract letting), and the latter, structured in the environment of officialdom and rational administration, shrink from popular participation. (shrink)

What importance does “race” have as a meaningful category in the study of literature and the shaping of critical theory? If we attempt to answer this question by examining the history of Western literature and its criticism, our initial response would probably be “nothing” or, at the very least, “nothing explicitly.” Indeed, until the past decade or so, even the most subtle and sensitive literary critics would most likely have argued that, except for aberrant moments in the history of criticism, (...) race has not been brought to bear upon the study of literature in any apparent way. Since T. S. Eliot, after all, the canonical texts of the Western literary tradition have been defined as a more or less closed set of works that somehow speak to, or respond to, “the human condition” and to each other in formal patterns of repetition and revision. And while most critics acknowledge that judgment is not absolute and indeed reflects historically conditioned presuppositions, certain canonical works do seem to transcend value judgments of the moment, speaking irresistibly to the human condition. The question of the place of texts written by the Other in the proper study of “literature,” “Western literature,” or “comparative literature” has, until recently, remained an unasked question, suspended or silenced by a discourse in which the canonical and the noncanonical stand as the ultimate opposition. In much of the thinking about the proper study of literature in this century, race has been an invisible quantity, a persistent yet implicit presence.This was not always the case, we know. By mid-nineteenth century, “national spirit” and “historical period” had become widely accepted categories within theories of the nature and function of literature which argued that the principal value in a great work of literary art resided in the extent to which these categories were reflected in that work of art Montesquieu’s De l’esprit des lois considered a culture’s formal social institution as the repository of its “guiding spirit,” while Giambattista Vico’s principi di una scienza nuova read literature against a complex pattern of historical cycles. Friedrich and August von Schlegel managed rather deftly to bring “both national spirit and historical period” to bear upon the interpretation of literature, as W. Jackson Bate has shown. But it was Hippolyte-Adolphe Taine who made the implicit explicit by postulating “race, moment, and milieu” as positivistic criteria through which any work could be read and which, by definition, any work reflected. Taine’s History of English Literature was the great foundation upon which subsequent nineteenth-century notions of “national literatures” would be constructed. Henry Louis Gates, Jr. is professor of English, comparative literature, and African studies at Cornell University. He has edited several books and has written Figures in Blood and The Signifying Monkey. (shrink)

The aim of the paper is to propose a framework for the structure of persuasive communica-tion based on the Elaboration Likelihood Model by Petty and Cacioppo, the Inference Anchoring Theory by Budzynska and Reed and the Interpersonal Argumentation Model by Budzynska. The ELM suggests that there are two routes to persuasion: central and peripheral. IAT assumes that com-munication acts generate their contents and inferences by means of illocutionary connections. The model of IP-argumentation provides the general representation of arguments in (...) which the proponent refers to com-munication acts of some participant of communication. The paper discusses where exactly means of the central and peripheral routes operate in the structure of persuasive communication and argumentation. (shrink)

According to recent commentators like Paul Guyer, Kant agrees with Hume's Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion that physico-theology can never provide knowledge of God and that the concept of God, nevertheless, provides a useful heuristic principle for scientific enquiry. This paper argues that Kant, far from agreeing with Hume, criticizes Hume's Dialogues for failing to prove that physico-theology can never yield knowledge of God and that Kant correctly views Hume's Dialogues as a threat to, rather than an anticipation of, his own (...) view that the concept of God provides a useful heuristic principle for science. The paper concludes that Kant's critique of physico-theology reflects Kant's deep dissatisfaction with Hume's manner of argumentation and suggests that Kant's attempt to provide a more successful critique of physico-theology merits continued philosophical attention. (shrink)

Abstractabstract:Kant's treatment of infinity seems to be plagued by two contradictions. First, the Transcendental Aesthetic claims that space is an infinite given magnitude, whereas the First Antinomy argues that the spatial world cannot be infinite. Second, the Transcendental Aesthetic claims that the representation of infinite space belongs to sensibility, but the third Critique seems to argue, instead, that infinity is an Idea of reason. This paper resolves these apparent contradictions by noting that Kant groups his various conceptions of space into (...) three kinds: (1) merely subjectively given space, (2) objectively given space, and (3) objective space as a mere Idea. Attending to these three conceptions of space illustrates that the Transcendental Aesthetic, First Antinomy, and third Critique refer to different conceptions of infinite space and thus do not contradict one another, illuminating the importance of Kant's various conceptions of space for his critical project. (shrink)

We defend a functionalist approach to emotion that begins by focusing on emotions as central states with causal connections to behavior and to other cognitive states. The approach brackets the conscious experience of emotion, lists plausible features that emotions exhibit, and argues that alternative schemes are unpromising candidates. We conclude with the benefits of our approach: one can study emotions in animals; one can look in the brain for the implementation of specific features; and one ends up with an architecture (...) of the mind in which emotions are fully accommodated through their relations to the rest of cognition. Our article focuses on arguing for this general approach; as such, it is an essay in the philosophy of emotion rather than in the psychology or neuroscience of emotion. (shrink)

This book provides a systematic analysis of many common argumentation schemes and a compendium of 96 schemes. The study of these schemes, or forms of argument that capture stereotypical patterns of human reasoning, is at the core of argumentation research. Surveying all aspects of argumentation schemes from the ground up, the book takes the reader from the elementary exposition in the first chapter to the latest state of the art in the research efforts to formalize and classify the schemes, outlined (...) in the last chapter. It provides a systematic and comprehensive account, with notation suitable for computational applications that increasingly make use of argumentation schemes. (shrink)

This book provides a systematic analysis of many common argumentation schemes and a compendium of 96 schemes. The study of these schemes, or forms of argument that capture stereotypical patterns of human reasoning, is at the core of argumentation research. Surveying all aspects of argumentation schemes from the ground up, the book takes the reader from the elementary exposition in the first chapter to the latest state of the art in the research efforts to formalize and classify the schemes, outlined (...) in the last chapter. It provides a systematic and comprehensive account, with notation suitable for computational applications that increasingly make use of argumentation schemes. (shrink)

In this paper, we present a survey of the development of the technique of argument diagramming covering not only the fields in which it originated - informal logic, argumentation theory, evidence law and legal reasoning – but also more recent work in applying and developing it in computer science and artificial intelligence. Beginning with a simple example of an everyday argument, we present an analysis of it visualised as an argument diagram constructed using a software tool. In the context of (...) a brief history of the development of diagramming, it is then shown how argument diagrams have been used to analyze and work with argumentation in law, philosophy and artificial intelligence. (shrink)

Background:Stress can frequently occur in the driving context. Its cognitive effects can be deleterious and lead to uncomfortable or risky situations. While stress detection in this context is well developed, regulation using dedicated advanced driver-assistance systems (ADAS) is still emergent.Objectives:This systematic review focuses on stress regulation strategies that can be qualified as “subtle” or “mindless”: the technology employed to perform regulation does not interfere with an ongoing task. The review goal is 2-fold: establishing the state of the art on such (...) technological implementation in the driving context and identifying complementary technologies relying on subtle regulation that could be applied in driving.Methods:A systematic review was conducted using search operators previously identified through a concept analysis. The patents and scientific studies selected provide an overview of actual and potential mindless technology implementations. These are then analyzed from a scientific perspective. A classification of results was performed according to the different stages of emotion regulation proposed by the Gross model.Results:A total of 47 publications were retrieved, including 21 patents and 26 studies. Six of the studies investigated mindless stress regulation in the driving context. Patents implemented strategies mostly linked to attentional deployment, while studies tended to investigate response modulation strategies.Conclusions:This review allowed us to identify several ADAS relying on mindless computing technologies to reduce stress and better understand the underlying mechanisms allowing stress reduction. Further studies are necessary to better grasp the effect of mindless technologies on driving safety. However, we have established the feasibility of their implementation as ADAS and proposed directions for future research in this field. (shrink)

Our approach to emotion emphasized three key ingredients. We do not yet have a mature science of emotion, or even a consensus view—in this respect we are more hesitant than Sander, Grandjean, and Scherer or Luiz Pessoa. Relatedly, a science of emotion needs to be highly interdisciplinary, including ecology, psychology, neuroscience, and philosophy. We recommend a functionalist view that brackets conscious experiences and that essentially treats emotions as latent variables inferred from a number of measures. But our version of functionalism (...) is not definitional or ontological. It is resolutely methodological, in good part because it is too early to attempt definitions. (shrink)

People are unable to report how they decide whether to move backwards or forwards to catch a ball. When asked to imagine how their angle of elevation of gaze would change when they caught a ball, most people are unable to describe what happens although their interception strategy is based on controlling changes in this angle. Just after catching a ball, many people are unable to recognise a description of how their angle of gaze changed during the catch. Some people (...) confidently choose incorrect descriptions that would guarantee failure of interception demonstrating unconscious knowledge co-existing with systematically different conscious beliefs. Where simple solutions to important evolutionary problems exist, unconscious perception needs to be impervious to conscious beliefs. (shrink)

Martin Heidegger’s existential account of care in _Being and Time_ (2010) provides us with an opportunity to reimagine what the proper theoretical grounding of an ethic of care might be. Heidegger’s account of care serves to deconstruct the two primary foundations that an ethic of care is often based upon. Namely, that we are inevitably interdependent upon one another and/or possess an innate disposition to care for fellow humans in need. Heidegger’s account reveals that both positions are founded upon an (...) ontic (meaning factual existence), as opposed to an ontological (which refers to the nature of being), understanding of care. The distinctions between an ontic and ontological understanding of care are significant. Yet, I maintain that they are not completely incompatible. Both Heidegger and care ethicists contend that our existence with others is understood through a relational ontology. Furthermore, there are certain ontological structures from Heidegger which resonate with an ethic of care. Two key existential structures are leaping-ahead and being-guilty. These existential structures are latent in care ethics, and by explicitly revealing them I reinforce the connection between Heidegger’s account and care theory. Lastly, I develop the theoretical foundations of care ethics by proposing an existential ethic of care. (shrink)

The psychological and neurobiological processes underlying moral judgement have been the focus of many recent empirical studies1–11. Of central interest is whether emotions play a causal role in moral judgement, and, in parallel, how emotion-related areas of the brain contribute to moral judgement. Here we show that six patients with focal bilateral damage to the ventromedial prefrontal cortex (VMPC), a brain region necessary for the normal generation of emotions and, in particular, social emotions12–14, produce an abnor- mally ‘utilitarian’ pattern of (...) judgements on moral dilemmas that pit compelling considerations of aggregate welfare against highly emotionally aversive behaviours (for example, having to sacrifice one person’s life to save a number of other lives)7,8. In contrast, the VMPC patients’ judgements were normal in other classes of moral dilemmas. These findings indicate that, for a selective set of moral dilemmas, the VMPC is critical for normal judgements of right and wrong. The findings support a necessary role for emotion in the generation of those judgements. (shrink)

Consciousness and emotion feature prominently in our personal lives, yet remain enigmatic. Recent advances prompt further distinctions that should provide more experimental traction: we argue that emotion consists of an emotion state (functional aspects, including emo- tional response) as well as feelings (the conscious experience of the emotion), and that consciousness consists of level (e.g. coma, vegetative state and wake- fulness) and content (what it is we are conscious of). Not only is consciousness important to aspects of emotion but structures (...) that are important for emotion, such as brainstem nuclei and midline cortices, overlap with structures that regulate the level of consciousness. The intersection of consciousness and emotion is ripe for experimental investigation, and we outline possible examples for future studies. (shrink)

Redrawing the Lines,the first book to focus on that interaction, brings together ten essays by key figures who have worked to connect literary theory and philosophy and to reassess the relationship between analytic and Continental ...