Deep neural networks (DNNs) provide a useful computational framework for constructing cognitive models of emotion understanding. This paper provides a focused discussion of the use of DNNs in this context. It begins by defining three key components of emotion understanding – perception, prediction, and regulation – and discussing how each can be modelling using different deep learning architectures. It continues by positioning what DNN models can contribute to affective science in relation to important existing theoretical perspectives, including both domain-general frameworks (...) like Bayesian cognitive modelling, and domain-specific frameworks, such as the theory of constructed emotion. The paper highlights both the strengths and limitations of DNNs as cognitive models and provides guidance for how to capitalise on the former while mitigating the latter. (shrink)

This collection provides a guide to the mystical element of Christianity as a theological phenomenon. Part I offers a historical overview. Part II considers sources and practices of mystical theology. Part III examines conceptualities of mystical thought. Part IV explores contributions of mystical teaching to theology and metaphysics.

Countries, governments, and organizations devise constitutions to reflect their visions of governance and rules for their leaders. They vary considerably in both formats and consequences. Disputes over constitutions can lead to fights, contests, debates, and more. Vincent Ostrom is one of America's leading scholars on constitutions and has spent a lifetime researching, analyzing, and writing about constitutions in America and overseas. He provides methods to judge and to implement constitutions as citizens struggle with their formulation. In this book, scholars from (...) around the world add to this intellectual quest of massive scholarly and practical importance. Using the research and methodology pioneered by Ostrom, they identify and analyze the criteria for successful constitutions in both theory and practice. (shrink)

Countries, governments, and organizations devise constitutions to reflect their visions of governance and rules for their leaders. They vary considerably in both formats and consequences. Disputes over constitutions can lead to fights, contests, debates, and more. Vincent Ostrom is one of America's leading scholars on constitutions and has spent a lifetime researching, analyzing, and writing about constitutions in America and overseas. He provides methods to judge and to implement constitutions as citizens struggle with their formulation. In this book, scholars from (...) around the world add to this intellectual quest of massive scholarly and practical importance. Using the research and methodology pioneered by Ostrom, they identify and analyze the criteria for successful constitutions in both theory and practice. (shrink)

The foundational texts of the classical period of Confucianism and Daoism contain virtually no discussion of post-death existence or the nature of the afterlife. At the same time, these traditions devote significant attention to the ways death and loss impact our lives. Confucian texts such as the Analects of Confucius and the Xunzi, as well as the distinctive, profoundly influential writings of the Daoist Zhuangzi, contain teachings and stories about people facing their own deaths and dealing with the deaths of (...) others. Both traditions offer guidance on living well in the face of mortality without recourse to notions of post-death existence. They do this by cultivating and sustaining connections and identification with larger realities beyond the individual. The Confucians emphasize human relationships, the realm of the familial, social, and political. Zhuangzi emphasizes the connection with the larger natural world, whereby we see the cycles of our own lives as part of the larger cycles of nature, and he points toward a path to losing one’s self through contemplative and skillful practices, ultimately leading to a sense of equanimity in the face of death. I argue that underlying the differences between Confucian and Daoist forms of connection and consolation is the contrast between the Confucian notion of a narratively constructed self, an achievement of memory and ritual, and Zhuangzi’s deconstruction of the narrative temporality that grounds Confucian notions of selfhood. (shrink)

This essay examines the ways that the terms "self and "no-self can illuminate the views of classical Chinese thinkers, particularly Confucians such as Confucius, Mencius, and Xunzi, and the Daoist thinker Zhuangzi. In particular, the use of the term "no-self" to describe Zhuangzi's position is defended. The concepts of self and no-self are analyzed in relation to other terms within the thinkers' "concept clusters" - specifically temporality, nature, and social roles - and suggestions are given for constructing typologies that sort (...) out the range of meanings of self and no-self based on the characteristics of the relations among terms within the concept clus- ters. The essay focuses on the way that the Confucians and Zhuangzi use concepts of self and no-self, respectively, as soteriological strategies that aim at making connections with larger systems or wholes, and it concludes that different connections are emphasized by the Confucians and Zhuangzi precisely because the various connections are made possible and sustained by different conceptions of self, temporality, nature, and social roles. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Buddhist-Christian Dialogue: Promises and PitfallsMark BerksonThe Center for the Pacific Rim and the University of San Francisco hosted a conference on Buddhist-Christian Dialogue on May 8, 1998. The conference brought together scholars and practitioners of both traditions in an encounter that was not only academically stimulating, but also personally and spiritually enriching for those involved. The participants included both those who have had extensive experience in the dialogue, as (...) well as a number of new voices. The conference both critiqued previous and ongoing efforts at dialogue and also took the dialogue itself in new directions. While Buddhist-Christian dialogue of the past has often focused on comparative doctrine, involving theological issues and comparative beliefs, this conference focused instead on comparative practice, an approach that was quite productive. The practices explored included monasticism, pilgrimage, bowing, meditation, renunciation, social action and—of particular relevance to the overall project of interfaith encounter—the practice of dialogue itself and the methods and virtues necessary to carry it out successfully.Comparative PracticeIn the first of three panels, the following questions were central: Despite the differences that exist in metaphysics, doctrine, and worldview between the traditions, are there certain practices which, because they are shared, point to some deep commonalities between the traditions? What is the relation of belief to both the interpretation of practice and to the experience itself? Can a tradition authentically incorporate the practices of another tradition? What obstacles are involved in the process?The first speaker, Sister Mary Margaret Funk, executive director of the Monastic Interreligious Dialogue and a Benedictine prioress, gave a paper entitled “Monastic Practice: Views of the Mind.” She focused on the theme of renunciation in monastic life and discussed three types of renunciation Benedictine monastics undergo that seem to resonate with the experience of Buddhist monastics. The first is the renunciation of the former way of life, moving away from “the designs of self-willed projects and works that serve to shore up the ego and make one’s own personality the main concern in life.” Following that comes the renunciation of thoughts about the [End Page 181] former way of life. Sister Funk pointed out that while monastics might physically renounce their former life (e.g., move into a monastery), their thoughts, desires, and passions follow them. The final renunciation is to give up even thoughts, images, and mental constructs of God. She observed: “The monastic practices that deal with the mind seem to be parallel tracks in both spiritualities. The observation of our thoughts, desires, and passions [is] a universal experience.”David Komito, a fellow at the Center for the Pacific Rim and scholar of Tibetan Buddhism, in his talk “Teacher, Reliquary, Circumambulation,” discussed the practice of pilgrimage in the Vajrayana Buddhist tradition of Tibet. The questions that framed his talk included, “What would be the virtue of visiting a stupa (reliquary) and what would be the goal of travel?” He pointed out that the answer to such questions would depend on one’s philosophical or theological position, explaining that the different schools of Buddhism would often provide different answers. This raised an important point for the conference: We might look at Buddhists undertaking a particular practice, such as pilgrimage, and assume that they’re doing the same thing; for example, traveling to a place in a group, walking around that place, and returning home. Yet their experiences might be very different; in fact, pilgrims on the same journey who arrive at a sacred site may even be seeing different things while looking at one and the same object. This is because they might be framing, interpreting, and understanding the experience differently. If this is true among Buddhists, how much more so between Buddhists and Christians?The panel continued with Father Paul Bernadicou’s “Catholic Guides to Buddhist Practice.” Father Bernadicou, the chair of the Department of Theology and Religious Studies at USF, discussed a number of Catholics who have had deep encounters with Buddhism and incorporated Buddhist practice and insights into their own spiritual path. Through this historical survey, he both provided a context in which to understand our conference and showed us the possibilities that lie in our own... (shrink)

The editors of the JRE collected short essays from scholars of religion in response to a recent incident at Hamline University that made national headlines. Last fall, Hamline University administrators refused to extend a contract to an adjunct professor of art history after a Muslim student accused her of Islamophobia for showing a 14th‐century image of Mohammad in an online class. The event provoked intense conversations about issues of academic freedom, religious diversity, the status of contingent faculty, and race. These (...) essays bring together scholarly and personal reflections about the incident at Hamline and what it means for the pedagogy of religious studies. (shrink)

This paper seeks to contribute to the debate around sustainability by proposing the need for an ecocentric stance to sustainability that reflexively embeds humans in—rather than detached from—nature. We argue that this requires a different way of thinking about our relationship with our world, necessitating a engagement with the sociomaterial world in which we live. We develop the notion of ecocentrism by drawing on insights from sociomateriality studies, and show how radical-reflexivity enables us to appreciate our embeddedness and responsibility for (...) sustainability by bringing attention to the interrelationship between values, actions and our social and material world. We examine the implications of an ecocentric radically reflexive approach to sustainability for management education. (shrink)

In response to recent calls to extend the underlying theories used in the literature :375–413, 2005; Craft in J Bus Ethics 117:221–259, 2013), we review the usefulness of social norm theory in empirical business ethics research. We begin by identifying the seeds of social norm theory in Adam Smith’s The Theory of Moral Sentiments, the Glasgow Edition, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1759/1790) seminal work, The Theory of Moral Sentiments. Next, we introduce recent theory in social norm activation by Bicchieri and (...) compare the new theory to two theoretical frameworks found in the literature: Kohlberg’s Handbook of socialization theory and research, Rand McNally, Chicago, IL, 1969; in: Lickona Moral development and behavior, Holt, Rinehart & Winston, New York, 1976) theory of moral development and Cialdini and Trost’s The handbook of social psychology, Oxford University Press, Boston, 1998) taxonomy of social norms. We argue that the new theory provides useful insights by emphasizing the ability of situational cues and information to generate common expectations for social/moral norms. The theory is particularly useful for empirical research in business ethics because it gives both organizational and individual factors a role in motivating norm-based behavior. To demonstrate this usefulness, we present examples where the theory has been effectively applied in experimental accounting research to generate new insights. We conclude by citing specific examples where the theory may prove useful in empirical business ethics research. (shrink)

Epistemic reflection involves the creation of qualitatively new knowledge. Dierent models have been proposed to account for new knowing through reflection that have typically been grounded in an informationprocessing framework. However, there are in-principle arguments that information-processing approaches preclude the emergence of new representation altogether. Accordingly, any information-processing account of knowing through reflection is plagued by emergence issues. After discussing some of these emergence issues for four prominent models in the cognitive science literature, an alternative action-based model of representation and (...) reflection is presented called interactivism. Interactivism’s model of representation, as grounded in action anticipations, serves as the foundational emergence needed to account for subsequent knowing through reflection. After introducing the interactivist models of representation and reflection through knowing levels, some of the implications for consciousness, enculturation, language, and developmental methodology are discussed. (shrink)

Building on influential work in virtue ethics, this collection of essays examines the categories of self, person, and anthropology as foci for comparative analysis. The papers unite reflections on theory and method with descriptive work that addresses thinkers from the modern West, Christian and Jewish Late Antiquity, early China, and other settings. The introduction sets out central methodological issues that are subsequently taken up in each essay, including the origin of the categories through which comparison proceeds, the status of these (...) categories in the process of comparison, and the goals of comparison. In considering the question of goals, the introduction draws connections between comparative study and historical study within one tradition. Both types of analysis can bridge the gap between historical and normative work by attending to the ways in which the questions a scholar asks - not just the answers found - vary from one context to another. (shrink)

The thesis of our commentary is that the framework used to address what are taken by Carey to be the open issues is highly problematic. The presumed necessity of an innate stock of representational primitives fails to account for the emergence of representation out of a nonrepresentational base. This failure manifests itself in problematic ways throughout Carey's book.

Book reviewed in this article: Theological Voices in Medical Ethics. Edited by Allen Verhey and Stephen E. Lammers.

A cutting-edge introduction to environmental ethics in a time of dramatic global environmental change, this collection contains forty-five newly commissioned articles, with contributions from well-established experts and emerging voices in the field.

We assert that audit quality can be improved to the extent that social norms for honesty and responsibility are activated in the auditor. To test this assertion, we use an experimental audit market setting found in the literature and manipulate factors expected to activate honesty and responsibility norms in the auditor. We find that auditor misreporting is reduced when the investor is another participant in the experiment rather than computer simulated, and thus, the interests of third-party investors are salient to (...) the auditor. We also find that auditor misreporting is reduced when the auditor is required to sign-off on the audit report, but only when the investor is another participant in the experiment. Consistent with our underlying theory, we find that pre-experimental measures of sensitivity to honesty and responsibility norms help explain the effects of our manipulated variables. Finally, we find that these measures of social norm sensitivity are associated with the moral judgment that auditor misreporting is unethical. Our study helps explain previous anomalous findings in the literature and answers the call in Blay et al. (J Bus Ethics 2017. doi:10.1007/s10551-016-3286-4) for empirical researchers to use social norm theory to develop stronger tests of moral reasoning in the market for auditing services. (shrink)

Research has shown that adults can engage in cognitive offloading, whereby internal processes are offloaded onto the environment to help task performance. Here, we investigate an application of this approach with children, in particular children with poor working memory. Participants were required to remember and recall sequences of colors by placing colored blocks in the correct serial order. In one condition the blocks were arranged to facilitate cognitive offloading (i.e., grouped by color), whereas in the other condition they were arranged (...) randomly. Across two experiments (total N = 166) the ordered condition improved task performance for children with low working memory ability. In addition, participants in Experiment 2 rated the difficulty of the two arrangements and performed a further condition in which they were given an opportunity to freely arrange the blocks before completing the task. Despite performing better in the ordered condition, children with low working memory ability did not rate the ordered arrangement as easier, nor did they choose an ordered arrangement when given the opportunity to do so. This research shows that cognitive offloading can also be a useful process in populations other than typical adults, and the implications of this work for supporting children with poor working memory are discussed. (shrink)

In this brief commentary, we present a critical reflection on trait emotional intelligence (EI) theory and research as covered in a recent narrative review (Petrides et al., 2016). We consider (a) whether synthesising research findings that use different conceptualisations of EI is desirable, (b) if the measurement of trait EI might become more diverse, (c) whether trait EI research in interpersonal settings requires additional analytical thought, and (d) how researchers might go about objectively conceptualising trait EI. Our collective focus is (...) on EI measurement as it relates to the development of trait EI theory and research in the future. (shrink)

The Reflexive Imagery Task (RIT) reveals that the activation of sets can result in involuntary cognitions that are triggered by external stimuli. In the basic RIT, subjects are presented with an image of an object (e.g., CAT) and instructed to not think of the name of the object. Involuntary subvocalizations of the name (the RIT effect) arise on roughly 80% of the trials. We conducted an electroencephalography (EEG) study to explore the neural correlates of the RIT effect. Subjects were presented (...) with one object at a time in one condition and two objects simultaneously in another condition. Five regions were defined by electrode sites: frontal (F3–F4), parietal (P3–P4), temporal (T3–T4), right hemisphere (F4–P4), and left hemisphere (F3–P3). We focused on the alpha (8–13 Hz), beta (13–30 Hz), delta (0.01–4 Hz), and theta (4–8 Hz) frequencies. (shrink)

As John Henry Newman reflected on 'The Idea of a University' more than a century and a half ago, Bradley C. S. Watson brings together some of the nation's most eminent thinkers on higher education to reflect on the nature and purposes of the American university today. Their mordant reflections paint a picture of the American university in crisis. This book is essential reading for thoughtful citizens, scholars, and educational policymakers.

ABSTRACTEmotions are predicted to influence judgement and decision-making across a range of performance contexts. This experiment tested whether motivational-general arousal imagery can improve the decision-making performance of elite endurance cyclists. In total, 54 cyclists were assigned to either a positive imagery condition or a negative imagery condition. The cyclists were read one of two scripts designed to elicit positive or negative images during a 20-min maximal sustainable interval on a cycle ergometer. A decision-making task was performed before and immediately after (...) the maximal sustainable power interval. Results showed that the manipulation was successful with cyclists in the positive imagery condition reporting more positive affective states (higher levels of happiness and lower level... (shrink)

This study explores the impact of environmental turbulence on relationships between personal and organizational characteristics, personal values, ethical perceptions, and behavioral intentions. A causal model is tested using data obtained from a national sample of marketing research professionals in South Africa. The findings suggest turbulent conditions lead professionals to report stronger values and ethical norms, but less ethical behavioral intentions. Implications are drawn for organizations confronting growing turbulence in their external environments. A number of suggestions are made for ongoing research.

Monetary intelligence theory asserts that individuals apply their money attitude to frame critical concerns in the context and strategically select certain options to achieve financial goals and ultimate happiness. This study explores the dark side of monetary Intelligence and behavioral economics—dishonesty. Dishonesty, a risky prospect, involves cost–benefit analysis of self-interest. We frame good or bad barrels in the environmental context as a proxy of high or low probability of getting caught for dishonesty, respectively. We theorize: The magnitude and intensity of (...) the relationship between love of money and dishonest prospect may reveal how individuals frame dishonesty in the context of two levels of subjective norm—perceived corporate ethical values at the micro-level and Corruption Perceptions Index at the macro-level, collected from multiple sources. Based on 6382 managers in 31 geopolitical entities across six continents, our cross-level three-way interaction effect illustrates: As expected, managers in good barrels, mixed barrels, and bad barrels display low, medium, and high magnitude of dishonesty, respectively. With high CEV, the intensity is the same across cultures. With low CEV, the intensity of dishonesty is the highest in high CPI entities —the Enron Effect, but the lowest in low CPI entities. CPI has a strong impact on the magnitude of dishonesty, whereas CEV has a strong impact on the intensity of dishonesty. We demonstrate dishonesty in light of monetary values and two frames of social norm, revealing critical implications to the field of behavioral economics and business ethics. (shrink)

In this comprehensive collection of essays, most of which appear for the first time, eminent scholars from many disciplines—philosophy, economics, sociology, political science, demography, theology, history, and social psychology—examine the causes, nature, and consequences of present-day consumption patterns in the United States and throughout the world.

Corruption involves greed, money, and risky decision-making. We explore the love of money, pay satisfaction, probability of risk, and dishonesty across cultures. Avaricious monetary aspiration breeds unethicality. Prospect theory frames decisions in the gains-losses domain and high-low probability. Pay dissatisfaction (in the losses domain) incites dishonesty in the name of justice at the individual level. The Corruption Perceptions Index, CPI, signals a high-low probability of getting caught for dishonesty at the country level. We theorize that decision-makers adopt avaricious love-of-money aspiration (...) as a lens and frame dishonesty in the gains-losses domain (pay satisfaction-dissatisfaction, Level 1) and high-low probability (CPI, Level 2) to maximize expected utility and ultimate serenity. We challenge the myth: Pay satisfaction mitigates dishonesty across nations consistently. Based on 6500 managers in 32 countries, our cross-level three-dimensional visualization offers the following discoveries. Under high aspiration conditions, pay dissatisfaction excites the highest- (third-highest) avaricious justice-seeking dishonesty in high (medium) CPI nations, supporting the certainty effect. However, pay satisfaction provokes the second-highest avaricious opportunity-seizing dishonesty in low CPI entities, sustaining the possibility effect—maximizing expected utility. Under low aspiration conditions, high pay satisfaction consistently leads to low dishonesty, demonstrating risk aversion—achieving ultimate serenity. We expand prospect theory from a micro and individual-level theory to a cross-level theory of monetary wisdom across 32 nations. We enhance the S-shaped Curve to three 3-D corruption surfaces across three levels of the global economic pyramid, providing novel insights into behavioral economics, business ethics, the environment, and responsibility. (shrink)

Extended Cognition (EC) hypothesizes that there are parts of the world outside the head serving as cognitive vehicles. One criticism of this controversial view is the problem of “cognitive bloat” which says that EC is too permissive and fails to provide an adequate necessary criterion for cognition. It cannot, for instance, distinguish genuine cognitive vehicles from mere supports (e.g. the Yellow Pages). In response, Andy Clark and Mark Rowlands have independently suggested that genuine cognitive vehicles are distinguished from supports (...) in that the former have been “recruited,” i.e. they are either artifacts, or, products of evolution. I argue against this proposal. There are counter examples to the claim that “Teleological” EC is either necessary or sufficient for cognition. Teleological EC conflates different types of scientific projects, and inherits content externalism’s alienation from historically impartial cognitive science. (shrink)

Monetary Intelligence theory asserts that individuals apply their money attitude to frame critical concerns in the context and strategically select certain options to achieve financial goals and ultimate happiness. This study explores the bright side of Monetary Intelligence and behavioral economics, frames money attitude in the context of pay and life satisfaction, and controls money at the macro-level (GDP per capita) and micro-level (Z income). We theorize: Managers with low love of money motive but high stewardship behavior will have high (...) subjective well-being: pay satisfaction and quality of life. Data collected from 6586 managers in 32 cultures across six continents support our theory. Interestingly, GDP per capita is related to life satisfaction, but not to pay satisfaction. Individual income is related to both life and pay satisfaction. Neither GDP nor income is related to Happiness (money makes people happy). Our theoretical model across three GDP groups offers new discoveries: In high GDP (rich) entities, “high income” not only reduces aspirations—“Rich, Motivator, and Power,” but also promotes stewardship behavior—“Budget, Give/Donate, and Contribute” and appreciation of “Achievement.” After controlling income, we demonstrate the bright side of Monetary Intelligence: Low love of money motive but high stewardship behavior define Monetary Intelligence. “Good apples enjoy good quality of life in good barrels.” This notion adds another explanation to managers’ low magnitude of dishonesty in entities with high Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI) (risk aversion for gains of high probability) (Tang et al. 2015. doi:10.1007/s10551-015-2942-4). In low GDP (poor) entities, high income is related to poor Budgeting skills and escalated Happiness. These managers experience equal satisfaction with pay and life. We add a new vocabulary to the conversation of monetary intelligence, income, GDP, happiness, subjective well-being, good and bad apples and barrels, corruption, and behavioral ethics. (shrink)

Should cognitive scientists be any more embarrassed about their lack of a discipline-fixing definition of cognition than biologists are about their inability to define “life”? My answer is “no”. Philosophers seeking a unique “mark of the cognitive” or less onerous but nevertheless categorical characterizations of cognition are working at a level of analysis upon which hangs nothing that either cognitive scientists or philosophers of cognitive science should care about. In contrast, I advocate a pluralistic stance towards uses of the (...) term ‘cognition’ that eschews the urge to treat cognition as a metaphysically well-defined “natural” kind. (shrink)

Did Plato abandon, or sharply modify, the Theory of Forms in later life? In the Phaedo, Symposium, and Republic it is generally agreed that Plato held that universals exist. But in Parmenides, he subjected that theory to criticism. If the criticism were valid, and Plato knew so, then the Parmenides marks a turning point in his thought. If, however, Plato became aware that there are radical differences in the logical behaviour of concepts, and the later dialogues are a record of (...) his attempt to analyse those differences, then Plato’s thought can be said to have moved in a new and vitally important direction after the Parmenides. Studies in Plato’s Metaphysics brings together twenty essays by leading philosophers from the UK and the USA reflecting upon this important issue and upon the questions arising from it. (shrink)

Living in Time is a book about the philosophical ideas of Henri Bergson (1859–1941), once the most famous philosopher in the world, though now seldom considered, especially not in Anglophone philosophy. This is regrettable, as Bergson is a great philosopher, and this book explains why. There is a chapter on each of Bergson’s four major works, explaining his theories of time, perception, memory, and panpsychic consciousness, his innovative concept of virtual existence, his objection to Darwin, his controversy with Einstein, his (...) philosophy of creative evolution, and his social philosophy of closed and open society. Bergson is without doubt the most profound thinker about time since antiquity. In referring to time we refer to duration, which is always an interval, never instantaneous, and therefore always marked by differences of past and present. This duration is real, that is, not imaginary or subjective, and it is effective, a power for change, as we see in geology and the evolution of life. Classical arguments for determinism fallaciously apply spatial concepts to consciousness. Once we take time seriously, which means acknowledging its reality as duration and its difference from space, the arguments for determinism become insupportable. Bergson’s ideas on time and evolution open a context for a comparison with Nietzsche, which the book develops in detail, exposing both philosophical concurrence and systematic difference. The conclusion discusses the question of Bergson and naturalism and summarizes the ontology of the virtual that emerges as the book’s argument unfolds. (shrink)

The multilevel model of meme diffusion conceptualizes how mediated messages diffuse over time and space. As a pilot application of implementing the meme diffusion, we developed the social media analytics and research testbed to monitor Twitter messages and track the diffusion of information in and across different cities and geographic regions. Social media analytics and research testbed is an online geo-targeted search and analytics tool, including an automatic data processing procedure at the backend and an interactive frontend user interface. Social (...) media analytics and research testbed is initially designed to facilitate searching and geo-locating tweet topics and terms in different cities and geographic regions; filtering noise from raw data ; analyzing social media data from a spatiotemporal perspective; and visualizing social media data in diagnostic ways. Social media analytics and research testbed provides researchers and domain experts with a tool that can efficiently facilitate the refinement, formalization, and testing of research hypotheses or questions. Three case studies are introduced to illustrate how the predictions of meme diffusion can be examined and to demonstrate the potentials and key functions of social media analytics and research testbed. (shrink)

Drawing on a wide variety of disciplines and presenting perspectives on both sides of the gun debate, Understanding America’s Gun Culture offers a fresh look at the issues surrounding guns in the U.S. today. The book moves past polarization to invite thoughtful, nuanced and innovative exploration of this important topic.

According to naïve realist (or primitivist) theories of colour, colours are sui generis mind-independent properties. The question that I consider in this paper is the relationship of naïve realism to what Mark Johnston calls Revelation, the thesis that the essential nature of colour is fully revealed in a standard visual experience. In the first part of the paper, I argue that if naïve realism is true, then Revelation is false. In the second part of the paper, I defend naïve (...) realism against a number of objections. (shrink)

"... some very serious critiques of French existential phenomenology and post-structuralism... the contributors offer some refreshingly new insights into some tried and 'true' philosophical texts and more recent works of literary theory." -- Philosophy and Literature "By bridging the gap between 'analytic' and 'continental' philosophy, the authors of The Thinking Muse: Feminism and the Modern French Philosophy largely overcome the cultural polarity between 'male thinker' and 'female muse'." -- Ethics "These engaging essays by American Feminists bring toether feminist philosophy, existential (...) phenomenology, and recent currents in French poststructuralist thought. The editors provide an excellent introductory overview, making this an ideal book for courses in feminist theory and philosophy and modern French thought." -- Philosopher's Index "The concerns raised in this volume are substantial.... a solid addition to the canon of American feminist philosophy." -- Philosophy and Literature "... a forum for feminist appropriations of existential and post-structuralist philosophy." -- Canadian Philosophical Reviews Marking a radical shift in the traditional philosophical separation between muse (female) and thinker (male), The Thinking Muse revises the scope and methods of philosophical reflection. These engaging essays by American feminists bring together feminist philosophy, existential phenomenology, and recent currents in French poststructuralist thought. (shrink)