Reason has regularly been portrayed and understood in terms of images and metaphors that involve the exclusion or denigration of some element-body, passion, nature, instinct-that is cast as "feminine." Drawing upon philosophical insight into metaphor, I examine the impact of this gendering of reason. I argue that our conceptions of mind, reason, unreason, female, and male have been distorted. The politics of "rational" discourse has been set up in ways that still subtly but powerfully inhibit the voice and agency of (...) women. (shrink)

The responses of 178 Latin dioceses in the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) to the Preparatory Document for the Synod on Synodality were synthesized in fourteen regional reports. From these reports, and a report of lay groups, the USCCB produced the US report, which was synthesized with 111 other national reports into the Working Document for the Continental Stage (DCS). The latter was provided to seven continental assemblies. North American participants discussed the DCS in virtual meetings, and a (...) writing team produced the North American report. The synthesized result of the continental assemblies’ reports was the synod’s 2023 Instrumentum laboris. This article discusses US diocesan participation and the North American response to the DCS as they contributed to the Instrumentum laboris’ statement relative to “the question of women’s inclusion in the diaconate.” It includes a table documenting US diocesan responses to questions of women’s participation in the Church. (shrink)

After a decade of intense debate about mechanisms, there is still no consensus characterization. In this paper we argue for a characterization that applies widely to mechanisms across the sciences. We examine and defend our disagreements with the major current contenders for characterizations of mechanisms. Ultimately, we indicate that the major contenders can all sign up to our characterization.

Many translations have been made from the original Sanskrit of the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali. They have become well loved, well used, and well applied by many in all parts of the world and of all religious beliefs. The Sutras have a power and a timelessness about them which demonstrate the accuracy with which they pinpoint the basic truths of human evolution from subservience to personality clamours to the serene freedom of the soul. Most human problems today originate in selfish (...) desire; the prostitution of the feeling nature to self-centred physical appetites. This is also brought out clearly in the teaching of the Lord Buddha, the treading of the Noble Eight-Fold path providing the only way out of the maze: Right Values; Right Speech; Right Mode of Living; Right Thinking; Right Expression; Right Conduct; Right Effort; Right Rapture or True Happiness. These are attributes of the soul. Patanjali explores exhaustively the means, the techniques and the mental posture which create the connecting thread between the form-centred personality and these stages towards spiritual achievement and soul fusion. The four parts of the book develop: 1. The Problem of Union (51 sutras). 2. sutras). 4. Illumination (34 sutras). Many different training techniques have been available over the centuries, depending on the condition of human consciousness and the phase of spiritual growth to be accomplished. Each Yoga has had its place, fulfilled its function, and become an absorbed part of human experience. In this book the factor of mind in meeting present-day needs is again given prominence as the agent of the soul, and the key to personality release. These Yoga Sutras of Patanjali are based on Raja Yoga, the kingly science of the soul: Through the science of Raja Yoga the mind will be known as the instrument of the soul and the means whereby the brain of the aspirant becomes illuminated and knowledge gained of those matters which concern the realm of the soul. The soul is concerned with the working out of planetary purpose and plan; so again we find that mental training, and the self-achievement of the individual, lead to cooperation and service on a scale far more comprehensive and of far greater evolutionary significance than merely the individual effects on the life of the disciple. venture on the path of union with the soul. When through the removal of hindrances and the purification of the sheaths, the totality of knowledge becomes available, naught further remains for the man to do. (shrink)

Scientific and philosophical literature on causality has become highly specialised. It is hard to find suitable access points for students, young researchers, or professionals outside this domain. This book provides a guide to the complex literature, explains the scientific problems of causality and the philosophical tools needed to address them.

Mechanisms have become much-discussed, yet there is still no consensus on how to characterise them. In this paper, we start with something everyone is agreed on – that mechanisms explain – and investigate what constraints this imposes on our metaphysics of mechanisms. We examine two widely shared premises about how to understand mechanistic explanation: (1) that mechanistic explanation offers a welcome alternative to traditional laws-based explanation and (2) that there are two senses of mechanistic explanation that we call ‘epistemic explanation’ (...) and ‘physical explanation’. We argue that mechanistic explanation requires that mechanisms are both real and local. We then go on to argue that real, local mechanisms require a broadly active metaphysics for mechanisms, such as a capacities metaphysics. (shrink)

Russo and Williamson claim that establishing causal claims requires mechanistic and difference-making evidence. In this article, I will argue that Russo and Williamson's formulation of their thesis is multiply ambiguous. I will make three distinctions: mechanistic evidence as type vs object of evidence; what mechanism or mechanisms we want evidence of; and how much evidence of a mechanism we require. I will feed these more precise meanings back into the Russo–Williamson thesis and argue that it is both true and false: (...) two weaker versions of the thesis are worth supporting, while the stronger versions are not. Further, my distinctions are of wider concern because they allow us to make more precise claims about what kinds of evidence are required in particular cases. (shrink)

Craver claims that mechanistic explanation is ontic, while Bechtel claims that it is epistemic. While this distinction between ontic and epistemic explanation originates with Salmon, the ideas have changed in the modern debate on mechanistic explanation, where the frame of the debate is changing. I will explore what Bechtel and Craver’s claims mean, and argue that good mechanistic explanations must satisfy both ontic and epistemic normative constraints on what is a good explanation. I will argue for ontic constraints by drawing (...) on Craver’s work in Sect. 2.1, and argue for epistemic constraints by drawing on Bechtel’s work in Sect. 2.2. Along the way, I will argue that Bechtel and Craver actually agree with this claim. I argue that we should not take either kind of constraints to be fundamental, in Sect. 3, and close in Sect. 4 by considering what remains at stake in making a distinction between ontic and epistemic constraints on mechanistic explanation. I suggest that we should not concentrate on either kind of constraint, to the neglect of the other, arguing for the importance of seeing the relationship as one of integration. (shrink)

Why do ideas of how mechanisms relate to causality and probability differ so much across the sciences? Can progress in understanding the tools of causal inference in some sciences lead to progress in others? This book tackles these questions and others concerning the use of causality in the sciences.

In this paper, we compare the mechanisms of protein synthesis and natural selection. We identify three core elements of mechanistic explanation: functional individuation, hierarchical nestedness or decomposition, and organization. These are now well understood elements of mechanistic explanation in fields such as protein synthesis, and widely accepted in the mechanisms literature. But Skipper and Millstein have argued that natural selection is neither decomposable nor organized. This would mean that much of the current mechanisms literature does not apply to the mechanism (...) of natural selection.We take each element of mechanistic explanation in turn. Having appreciated the importance of functional individuation, we show how decomposition and organization should be better understood in these terms. We thereby show that mechanistic explanation by protein synthesis and natural selection are more closely analogous than they appear—both possess all three of these core elements of a mechanism widely recognized in the mechanisms literature. (shrink)

Philosophy’s adversarial argumentation style is often noted as a factor contributing to the low numbers of women in philosophy. I argue that there is a level of adversariality peculiar to philosophy that merits specific feminist examination, yet doesn’t assume controversial gender differences claims. The dominance of the argument-as-war metaphor is not warranted, since this metaphor misconstrues the epistemic role of good argument as a tool of rational persuasion. This metaphor is entangled with the persisting narrative of embattled reason, which, in (...) turn, is linked to the sexism-informed narrative of the “man of reason” continually warding off or battling “feminine” unreason. (shrink)

Qualitative research poses ethical issues and challenges unique to the study of human beings. In developing the interpersonal relationship that is critical to qualitative research, investigator and participant engage in a dialogic process that often evokes stories and memories that are remembered and reconstituted in ways that otherwise would not occur. Ethical issues are raised when this relationship not only provides qualitative research data, but also leads to some degree of therapeutic interaction for the participant. The purpose of this article (...) is to examine some of the controversies inherent in the researcher's dilemma when this occurs, set within the context of a nursing caring theory (Swanson), and the International Council of Nurses Code of ethics for nurses, which provides guidance on global nursing practice. (shrink)

Women are underrepresented in managerial positions and company international assignments, in part due to gender discrimination. There is a lack of fair and just treatment of women in selection, assignment and promotion processes, as well as a lack of virtue shown by business leaders in not upholding the principle of assigning comparable women and men equally to positions in management and postings abroad. Female professionals, however, initiate their own expatriation more often than they are assigned abroad by their company, and (...) usually as often as men self-expatriate. What causes women to self-initiate expatriation? Women's proactivity, in part an attempt to redress the disadvantage they face in managerial career advancement, appears influential, as are career and family motivations. Indeed, during expatriation, women fare well in their career and they repatriate only at the same rate as men. Compared with men, however, women repatriate less often for career than for family reasons. On their return, despite their international experience, women do not gain as much of a financial return on their investment in self-expatriation as do men, suggesting that women may suffer unfair, non-meritorious treatment at home. Overall, self-initiated expatriation provides a new, gendered, social context for researching women's career advancement. The ethical issues associated with women's self-expatriation — a lack of fairness and justice in selection, assignment and promotion decisions, and a lack of virtue shown by business leaders in upholding fair and just human resource decisions by gender -suggest practical avenues to resolve these issues. (shrink)

Women are underrepresented in managerial positions and company international assignments, in part due to gender discrimination. There is a lack of fair and just treatment of women in selection, assignment and promotion processes, as well as a lack of virtue shown by business leaders in not upholding the principle of assigning comparable women and men equally to positions in management and postings abroad. Female professionals, however, initiate their own expatriation more often than they are assigned abroad by their company, and (...) usually as often as men self-expatriate. What causes women to self-initiate expatriation? Women’s proactivity, in part an attempt to redress the disadvantage they face in managerial career advancement, appears influential, as are career and family motivations. Indeed, during expatriation, women fare well in their career and they repatriate only at the same rate as men. Compared with men, however, women repatriate less often for career than for family reasons. On their return, despite their international experience, women do not gain as much of a financial return on their investment in self-expatriation as do men, suggesting that women may suffer unfair, non-meritorious treatment at home. Overall, self-initiated expatriation provides a new, gendered, social context for researching women’s career advancement. The ethical issues associated with women’s self-expatriation – a lack of fairness and justice in selection, assignment and promotion decisions, and a lack of virtue shown by business leaders in upholding fair and just human resource decisions by gender – suggest practical avenues to resolve these issues. (shrink)

In this paper, we examine what is to be said in defence of Machamer, Darden and Craver’s (MDC) controversial dualism about activities and entities (Machamer, Darden and Craver’s in Philos Sci 67:1–25, 2000). We explain why we believe the notion of an activity to be a novel, valuable one, and set about clearing away some initial objections that can lead to its being brushed aside unexamined. We argue that substantive debate about ontology can only be effective when desiderata for an (...) ontology are explicitly articulated. We distinguish three such desiderata. The first is a more permissive descriptive ontology of science, the second a more reductive ontology prioritising understanding, and the third a more reductive ontology prioritising minimalism. We compare MDC’s entities-activities ontology to its closest rival, the entities-capacities ontology, and argue that the entities-activities ontology does better on all three desiderata. (shrink)

Ethics and professionalism -- Ethical theory and philosophy -- Ethical principles and values -- Social responsibility -- Codes of ethics -- Ethical decision making in dental hygiene and dentistry -- Society and the State Dental Practice Act -- Dental hygienist/patient relationship -- Dental hygienist/dentist-employer relationship -- Risk management -- Case studies, activities, and testlets -- Appendix A : American Dental Association Principles of Ethics and Code of Professional Conduct.

The debate about the rational and the social in science has sometimes been developed in the context of a distinction between epistemic and non-epistemic values. Paying particular attention to two important discussion in the last decade, by Longino and by McMullin, I argue that a fuller understanding of values in science ultimately requires abandoning the distinction itself. This is argued directly in terms of an analysis of the lack of clarity concerning what epistemic values are. I also argue that the (...) philosophical import of much of the feminist work in philosophy of science is restricted by any kind of strict adherence to the distinction. (shrink)

Humans are an exceptionally cooperative species, but there is substantial variation in the extent of cooperation across societies. Understanding the sources of this variability may provide insights about the forces that sustain cooperation. We examined the ontogeny of prosocial behavior by studying 326 children 3–14 y of age and 120 adults from six societies (age distributions varied across societies). These six societies span a wide range of extant human variation in culture, geography, and subsistence strategies, including foragers, herders, horticulturalists, and (...) urban dwellers across the Americas, Oceania, and Africa. When delivering benefits to others was personally costly, rates of prosocial behavior dropped across all six societies as children approached middle childhood and then rates of prosociality diverged as children tracked toward the behavior of adults in their own societies. When prosocial acts did not require personal sacrifice, prosocial responses increased steadily as children matured with little variation in behavior across societies. Our results are consistent with theories emphasizing the importance of acquired cultural norms in shaping costly forms of cooperation and creating cross-cultural diversity. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:POETRY AS THE NAMING OF THE GODS by Phyllis Zagano There have been many attempts to define poetry, and there is copious advice to would-be poets. Horace writes somewhere "Sit quod vis, simplex dumtaxat et unum" which can be comfortably rendered as "make anything at all, so long as it hangs together." The hanging together is the quality most writers point to as evidence of success: simply, it (...) works. What poetry does is the more complex question, since it is the understanding of its internal kinesis which allows for its definition. Essentially, it takes an object from objective reality (insofar as we can agree such exists) and creates an oxymoronic entity: a static consciousness. This is always seen in phenomenological terms, that is, it must be consciousness of something. The poet recognizes this in deference to the common consciousness and the common understanding of the everyday, by the use of metaphor, simile, and the other accouterments of the trade. Things must be as they appear, and they must be as they appear to some majority of the people, in order for the poet to argue his private vision with clarity. The analogy must have some common ground before it has meaning, before the "naming" takes place. For Martin Heidegger the activity of creating poetry, dichten, is not only an indispensable part of human life, it signals the humanness of the person. He has two principal essays on poetry which show how this activity ofdichten combines his concepts Dasein and Vorhandenheit (despite his later abandonment of Dasein for Lichtung). Heidegger's essay, "Hölderlin and the Essence of Poetry," seeks to determine what is common to poetry, that is, what constitutes its essence. 340 Phyllis Zagano341 Another ofhis essays, "What are Poets For?" begins where the first ends (with considerations of Friedrich Hölderlin's "Bread and Wine"). Each essay comments on specific poems and somewhat imperfectly attempts a poetic theory in consonance with the rest of Heidegger's work. Since "Hölderlin and the Essence of Poetry" concentrates more on poetic theory than "What are Poets For?," investigation of it will prove more helpful in understanding and appropriating Heidegger's contention that "The writing of poetry is the fundamental naming of the Gods____"· In his "Letter on Humanism," Heidegger calls language the "House of Being," while man is the "Shepherd of Being." This understanding ofthe function oflanguage and the methodweuse tocreateand recreate ourselves and our world recurs often in Heidegger's work. The essay, "Hölderlin and the Essence of Poetry," stands as a seeking after what is common to poetry and, while Heidegger recognizes that Hölderlin's work is "only one among many others" (p. 294) and therefore cannot be used as the sole criterion to determine what constitutes poetry, he says that if what we recognize as the "essence of poetry" is present in a universal concept, then it ought to be able to be extrapolated from Hölderlin's poetry as well as from that of any other poet. What constitutes the "essence" of poetry, Heidegger argues, ought to be equally valid in every poem, but it is perhaps well to remind him that what ought to be equally valid in every poem is only equally valid in every poem which "hangs together," that is, every poem which performs its function as poem. Such insistence is ofcourse mere definition of terms, but in this case, without prior argument on the metaphysics of art, it is necessary. In any event, Heidegger concludes that the essence of Hölderlin's poetry is the "essence ofpoetry" itself (p. 294), and that what is common to poetry is found in it. While some critics might argue that Heidegger makes too much of Hölderlin here, the more dangerous weakness in this method of argumentation is the possibility that an idiosyncrasy might be mistaken for an essential element or, more probably, that too much will be generalized from this particular example or set of examples. The trained literary critic can cast a cold eye on such magnification of a single poet as the presenter of both form and content for the meaning of the "essence of poetry." In fact, it... (shrink)

A revision of the author's thesis, University of Michigan, 1969. Bibliography: p. [154]-161. Includes index.

The Chinese traditionally have valued sons over daughters, depending on their sons to support them in old age. Recent changes, however, suggest a shift toward greater gender equality, with daughters also keeping elderly parents. The present study, undertaken in 1979 in the People's Republic of China, assessed attitudes of 48 university staff members toward financial support for aged parents and living arrangements in old age, with an emphasis on gender differences. We found that most sons and daughters gave financial support (...) to their parents regularly and most men and women still believed adult children should share housing with their aged parents. In this sample, the sons assumed this responsibility far more than the daughters, and few of the respondents believed their parents should live with a daughter. However, when asked to project their own preferences in old age, sons thought they would prefer to live with a son, but daughters feel they would like to live with a daughter. These results are discussed in terms of two important cultural changes, the new marriage laws and the one-child policy, that were implemented at the time of the study. (shrink)

A discussion of synodality in the Catholic Church, addressing the competing claims of prophecy and law, and examining the ways lay people are excluded from governance and from having their voices heard. The paper addresses the question of whom to obey, the law or the prophets, and reviews the ongoing confusion between the two apparent opposing forces. The paper describes the creation and recent functioning of the Synod of Bishops and lay-clerical tension in the Church, and the ways each contributes (...) to either positive or negative discernment. Finally, in light of the ongoing Synod on Synodality, the paper examines and explains the discernment process in Ignatian terms, concluding that only Spirit-driven discussion is fruitful. (shrink)

Pope Francis’s decision to establish a Commission for the Study of the Diaconate of Women in August 2016 reemphasizes the question : what do we know about women deacons? We know they existed. There is ample literary, epigraphical, and historical evidence that women deacons ministered in the West at least to the 12th century, and longer in the East. That they existed presents three questions : What do we know about the liturgical ceremonies bishops used to create women deacons? What (...) do we know about their tasks and duties? What do we know about the theology of the diaconate that would admit or restrict women from diaconal ordination? (shrink)

Current research in molecular epidemiology uses biomarkers to model the different disease phases from environmental exposure, to early clinical changes, to development of disease. The hope is to get a better understanding of the causal impact of a number of pollutants and chemicals on several diseases, including cancer and allergies. In a recent paper Russo and Williamson address the question of what evidential elements enter the conceptualisation and modelling stages of this type of biomarkers research. Recent research in causality has (...) examined Ned Hall’s distinction between two concepts of causality: production and dependence. In another recent paper, Illari examined the relatively under-explored production approach to causality, arguing that at least one job of an account of causal production is to illuminate our inferential practices concerning causal linking. Illari argued that an informational account solves existing problems with traditional accounts. This paper follows up this previous work by investigating the nature of the causal links established in biomarkers research. We argue that traditional accounts of productive causality are unable to provide a sensible account of the nature of the causal link in biomarkers research, while an informational account is very promising. (shrink)

Contract cheating is a challenging problem facing higher and further education providers (HE and FE) worldwide. In the UK, contract cheating has been identified as a growing problem by the HEA and, more recently, the Quality Assurance Agency for Higher Education and the Department for Education. The high rate of contact cheating among students suggests that 8–9% of degrees awarded in the UK are unsafe. To address this issue, the current study with a new approach seeks to investigate student’s motivations, (...) experiences, and rationale for using contract cheating from their point of view. Collected data has been subjected to content analysis and the findings show different phases and drivers in this process. This study will help increase awareness among UK academics and education providers about the processes involved in contract cheating and propose a set of recommendations for the future. (shrink)

This paper presents a novel account of what motivates internalism about justification in light of recent attempts to undermine the intuitions long thought to favour it (Srinivasan in Philos Rev 129:395–431, 2020). On the account I propose, internalist intuitions are sensitive to epistemic agency. Internalist intuitions track a desire to acknowledge the epistemic agency one has in virtue of being in a position to meet the standards one is accountable to.

This paper argues against evidential decision-theory, by showing that the newest responses to its biggest current problem – the medical Newcomb problems – don’t work. The latest approach is described, and the arguments of two main proponents of it – Huw Price and CR Hitchcock – clearly distinguished and examined. It is argued that since neither new defence is successful, causation remains essential to understanding means-end agency.

: Holistic health principles, practices, personnel, programs, and problems comprise the ingredients of the movement of holistic health as described in this book. Using medical anthropology as its main perspective, the text is written with health practitioners in mind, to provide a contract of an interrelated physical, mental, spiritual, and emotional view of healing with that of the established scientific view: that humans are composed of reducible parts and that medicine's job is to find causes of malfunctioning in these parts. (...) Public health issues such as quality care, cost, and the role of holistic health, are another focus of the book. Background information and history on holistic health, including philosophy and history, practices, functioning health centers, clientele characteristics, and trends favoring holistic health development are some of the topics discussed. A glossary and extensive bibliography are included as well as self-tests on wellness and social readjustments.. (shrink)

This book cuts through the complex writing style of the seminal philosopher, Charles Sanders Peirce. It disentangles his ideas, explains them one by one, and then puts the pieces back together for application to educational issues. Accessible to a general readership, this study provides useful insights into Peirce's pragmatism for educators and philosophers.

This article integrates research on gendered organizations and the work-family interface to investigate an innovative workplace initiative, the Results-Only Work Environment, implemented in the corporate headquarters of Best Buy, Inc. While flexible work policies common in other organizations “accommodate” individuals, this initiative attempts a broader and deeper critique of the organizational culture. We address two research questions: How does this initiative attempt to change the masculinized ideal worker norm? And what do women’s and men’s responses reveal about the persistent ways (...) that gender structures work and family life? Data demonstrate the ideal worker norm is pervasive and powerful, even as employees begin critically examining expectations regarding work time that have historically privileged men. Employees’ responses to ROWE are also gendered. Women are more enthusiastic, while men are more cautious. Ambivalence about and resistance to change is expressed in different ways depending on gender and occupational status. (shrink)

Through essays, Mount Mary College professors from various disciplines analyze several pieces of literature from a variety of genres and authors to show how ...

One needs to recognize that the perinatal period is a vulnerable time where negative attitudes, words and actions can have an emotionally damaging effect on birthing women, who are especially sensitive to how they are treated, because of their high oxytocin levels. This case report depicts a traumatic birth in which the mother was needlessly separated from her baby and also harshly treated by the personnel, which had an emotionally devastating impact on the mother/baby relationship. This case report will demonstrate (...) how psychotherapy was used to heal this distress. (shrink)