bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Recognizing a Public Health Crisis
Authors: Braxton Gordon
Published: December 2021

There is an epidemic of violence in America, but boys are trained to sit on the sidelines. This chapter introduces the reader to key definitions, such as sexual violence, as well as key concepts, such as consent and rape culture. It provides the scope of the identified violence and situates sexual violence as a public health concern. The chapter further explains why boys and men should care about this violence even though they are trained to ignore it. Boys, after all, know survivors and are survivors themselves in many cases. Boys are also positioned to reach other boys who possess problematic attitudes and behaviors. All violent men were once boys learning the ways of the world. Taken altogether, this chapter inspires readers to hold overdue conversations with boys about how they can help.
Becoming an Active Bystander
Authors: Braxton Gordon
Published: December 2021

If most men are nonviolent, why do they not stop violence around them from occurring? Chapter 8 introduces readers to the vibrant field of bystander intervention. Readers will learn the key tenets of bystander intervention strategies as well as their strengths and weaknesses. Most importantly, readers will gain an appreciation for the barriers that prevent boys from interrupting violence that they observe and strategize about how to overcome those barriers. The chapter also discusses whether jokes and “locker room talk” are worthy of interruption. Chapter 8 closes by identifying how boys can help survivors of sexual violence who disclose to them.
The Populist Moment
Authors: Carrión Julio F.
Published: December 2021

This chapter unpacks the populist moment by paying close attention to two main mechanisms that explain the reproduction of populism in power: electoral validation and the aggrandizement of executive power by eliminating institutional checks and balances and reducing societal accountability. The chapter shows how populist presidents found electoral validation for their radical institutional change by winning key referendums and immediate reelection. All these legitimizing elections have one important commonality: despite valid complaints about the lack of a level playing field, contenders did not dispute their outcome. The chapter also examines the different mechanisms populist presidents use to transfer political power in their favor: the gaining of new presidential powers; the subordination of state institutions, in particular the judiciary and the legislature; and the reduction of societal accountability by curtailing freedom of expression and association. These processes are examined in four cases of unconstrained populism in power.
In Mao’s Beijing
Authors: Chen Yuan-tsung
Published: December 2021

In 1950, Yuan-tsung embarked on her literary career in the Scenario Department of the Central Film Bureau, where the man who supervised the department was a Party heavyweight, Zhou Yang, the executive deputy minister of culture, Mao’s culture czar. She attracted his attention by discussing the books of Tolstoy and Lunacharsky. She sought to understand his complexity—the public man, who spoke out firmly for Mao’s demand that literature and art serve the Party, and the private man, who told his friends and cronies that Mao’s ideas were out of date. Her naive conviction was that her literary ambitions would bloom under Zhou Yang’s guidance.
A VIP (Very Important Pig)
Authors: Chen Yuan-tsung
Published: December 2021

In addition to working in the fields, Yuan-tsung helped in the office of Red Flag Village’s Party secretary, Old Xu, who eventually took her into his confidence. He let her in on an almost comical attempt to smuggle a fat pig past starving peasants, so that the Party bigwigs could feast on it. It opened her eyes to the corruption and shenanigans of village politics, which mirrored the state of affairs nationwide. Meanwhile it brought her close to the victims and she became their friend. One of them, Lotus Boy, talented and gentle, would soon die of starvation and political persecution.
Blame It on Sex
Authors: Wisman Jon D.
Published: December 2021

This chapter addresses the ultimate driver of competition—sexual selection, the root biological force generating inequality. Like other animals, humans must solve the ecological problems necessary for survival and reproduction. Everyone exists only because their ancestors were successful in doing just that. They were the most successfully competitive in using the resources available in their environments to survive and reproduce. As humans have culturally evolved, what has enabled humans to stand out in their competition for mates has varied according to the prevailing politically determined social institutions. These institutions set the incentive structure, providing guidance as to what kinds of behavior gain high status. High status is sexually attractive. Over history, the sources of status have varied. Individuals have achieved high status by being the best hunters and gatherers, the best warriors, the most cooperative, the most generous, and, since the rise of the state, the wealthiest and most politically powerful.
The State, Civilization, and Extreme Inequality
Authors: Wisman Jon D.
Published: December 2021

Agriculture set the preconditions for metallurgy and sophisticated military organization, facilitating the rise of the state and civilization about 5,500 years ago. Whereas earlier stone weapons, available to all, served to preclude the formation of elites and inequality, expensive metal weapons, superior organizational skills, and ideology enabled elites to subjugate all others and extract their surplus, leaving the latter with bare subsistence. This elite formed the state, that social agency with a comparative advantage in violence. Social hierarchy became hereditary and increasingly rigid, and inequality became extreme. Elites gained highly disproportionate sexual access to women, often enclosed in harems. Understandably, rulers would strive to appease potential internal usurpers by protecting their property rights and ability to extract surplus from their subordinates. Until the rise of capitalism and a bourgeoisie in Western Europe, this appeasement of potential usurpers and elites generally precluded robust and sustainable economic dynamism.
Introduction
Authors: Shaver Stephen R.
Published: December 2021

This chapter introduces the idea of an ecumenical repertoire of “metaphors of eucharistic presence” and situates the book within discussions of metaphor, language, and embodiment in liturgical theology. It proposes an “additive method” that allows metaphors with different entailments to stand alongside one another as complementary rather than contradictory. Five motifs—identity, representation, change, containment, and conduit—are introduced, each of which will be more fully explored in later chapters. Each includes one or more verbal affirmations churches could be invited to endorse. The chapter concludes with some notes on the scope of the project and how it is informed by the author’s Anglican perspective.
The Body of Light in Renaissance England
Authors: Cox Simon
Published: December 2021

This chapter engages with the first Anglophone attestations of the term “subtle body.” It appears first in the contentious correspondence between Thomas Hobbes and Rene Descartes between whom there was some disagreement over who plagiarized the idea from whom. Most of the chapter is taken up with the Cambridge Platonists who came in their wake, who formulated complex philosophical and mythological views of the Neoplatonic vehicles of the soul, now under the English name “subtle body.” It ends with Lady Anne Conway, who fuses the Platonism of the Cambridge group with Kabbalah to create a new form of spiritual monism. This chapter is significantly about how the subtle body concept was employed by Renaissance Platonists arguing against the reductive materialism of Cartesian mechanical philosophy.
The Dream of a Republic
Authors: Hawley Michael C.
Published: December 2021

Cicero is one of the most influential political philosophers in history. This chapter illustrates how little scholars have explored Cicero’s role in shaping intellectual developments after the Renaissance. It argues that the height of Cicero’s posthumous influence may be the early modern period, in which liberalism first emerges as a coherent doctrine. It sets up the central theoretical problem: how can one reconcile a commitment to universal moral laws with the belief that the people are the ultimate authority in their political community, and what is the place of liberty in a society grounded in those two commitments? It suggests that Cicero’s ideas played a central role in shaping the development of a tradition focused on these questions. Finally, this chapter outlines the rest of the book.
Cicero
Authors: Hawley Michael C.
Published: December 2021

This chapter explores Cicero’s republican political philosophy. It argues that Cicero’s political thought has two fundamental principles. First, Cicero argues that there are universally applicable moral duties—the natural law—that are binding on everyone always. These principles have their basis in humans’ nature as rational beings. Second, he argues that a legitimate regime will recognize the people as the ultimate source of authority. No political regime can be just without resting on this basis. But these two principles threaten to come into conflict whenever the people’s will contradicts natural law. The chapter examines Cicero’s attempt to mediate this conflict. It also explores Cicero’s conceptions of liberty, justice, property, and empire, all of which emerge out of the relationship between the claims of natural law and popular sovereignty.
Machiavelli’s Commonwealth without Justice
Authors: Hawley Michael C.
Published: December 2021

This chapter illustrates the fundamental divergence between the republican visions of Cicero and those of Niccolò Machiavelli. It demonstrates that Machiavelli does not share Cicero’s vision for a just commonwealth and should not be considered an heir to his strain of republican thought. The chapter also argues that Machiavelli moves further away from what would later become known as liberalism. He rejects the Ciceronian account of natural law, and his regime leaves no room for rights, consent, or the constitutional limitations on power that characterize Cicero’s thought. Machiavelli represents a failed challenge to the Ciceronian tradition. The chapter challenges long-standing accounts of Machiavelli’s place in the history of political thought.
State Department Controls on Exports of Defense Articles and Defense Services
Authors: Hirschhorn Eric L. , Egan Brian J. , Krauland Edward J.
Published: December 2021

Chapter 2 covers U.S. government controls on exports, reexports, and transfers of “U.S.-origin” goods, software, and technology, and the provision of services, that are military in nature. These are governed principally by the Arms Export Control Act of 1976 and the International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR), which are administered by the State Department’s Directorate of Defense Trade Controls (DDTC). The chapter explains: which items are subject to the ITAR; the basis and criteria for the ITAR’s restrictions; the requirement to register with DDTC if you export or manufacture items subject to the ITAR or if you are involved in other activities regulated by the ITAR; how to determine whether your product or technology is covered and, if so, whether you will need a license to export or reexport it; how to get a license if one is required; how to clear and document the actual export; the potential penalties for violating the rules; and reporting requirements related to political contributions, fees, and commissions paid in connection with certain sales, . The chapter also explains how the ITAR relate to the regulatory regimes covered in other parts of the book.
The Transformative Effects of Military Intervention on Grand Strategy
Authors: Lissner Rebecca
Published: December 2021

This chapter develops the first systematic theory—the informational theory of strategic adjustment—to explain why military interventions can be crucibles of grand strategy. It argues that, by prosecuting a military intervention, states glean rich and rare information about adversaries’ capabilities and intentions, as well as their own military power and cost tolerance. The uniquely costly nature of warfighting renders this data particularly credible. Amidst background conditions of intense interstate competition and pervasive uncertainty, states face strong incentives to reassess their grand strategies in light of this new information. This process of grand strategic updating begins with a reassessment of the strategic assumptions directly tested on the battlefield, but it doesn’t end there. Indeed, the grand strategic effects of military interventions are far-reaching because information conveyed via warfighting is widely extrapolated to related strategic assessments.
“I Am ________”
Authors: Lane Joel A , Cor Deanna N.
Published: December 2021

Many developmental tasks of emerging adulthood involve identify formation. Trying to develop a sense of self can be challenging, given the many aspects of identity. For certain students, having membership in multiple identity groups means competing values, traditions, and practices. This chapter first provides an overview of social identity theory, including attention to the development of identity through an interpersonal lens and through an intergroup lens. Then, it identifies how emerging adults learn about themselves and develop confidence and the ways and means through which they find their motivation. Guiding questions help readers apply this information to their work with emerging adults in higher education.
“We Got In!”
Authors: Reed-Fitzke Kayla , Watters Elizabeth R
Published: December 2021

Emerging adults rely on family, friends, and others in their personal networks to aid in making decisions. Parents are heavily involved in the lives of their children, ensuring that they have all of the supports or advantages in place to become successful. This chapter focuses on the continued importance and impact of the family, particularly parental figures, for emerging adults in higher education. An overview of seminal interdisciplinary theories is provided, along with a discussion of contrasting parental behaviors and their consequences. Special attention is given to first-generation students and those who lack parental support. A case study and reflection questions help readers apply the chapter’s content so that emerging adults can foster developmentally appropriate supportive relationships.
“I Took a Screenshot”
Authors: Swanson Joan A. , Buskirk-Cohen Allison A.
Published: December 2021

There is a common assumption that today’s college students do not know a world without phones, screens, and online platforms specifically designed for connecting and sharing every facet of daily living. While college students use technologies on a daily basis, its use is contextualized between academic and nonacademic use. This chapter focuses on the technology experiences of today’s emerging adults, both in and out of the higher education classroom. It discusses how technology impacts sense of self, relationships, mental health, and learning. A case study and guiding questions facilitate application of the material and help readers understand the impact of technological experiences (or lack thereof) on emerging adults.
“^^ KWIM? BRB”
Authors: Rowan-Kenyon Heather T. , McCready Adam M , Alemán Ana M. Martínez , Yarri Allison
Published: December 2021

Whereas reading and writing mechanics were foci of former generations, finding ways to incorporate digital literacy and comprehension is equally important today. Exploring when and how to use abbreviated forms of communication in academic and professional settings is also a valuable skill for today’s learners. This chapter examines how emerging adults communicate differently than previous generations and the influences on their communication capabilities. The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic is discussed as well. The authors present information about adapting to student communication styles and platforms. The case study and guiding questions offer concrete guidance on how to apply the chapter content to better support student success.
“You’re My Person”
Authors: Hoang Thuha (Ha) , Caillouet Lindsey (Ellen)
Published: December 2021

Belonging can involve social acceptance, feelings of professor pedagogical caring, and a sense of university belonging. This chapter seeks to help readers understand the complex and dynamic relationship process, drawing from a variety of contemporary sources and contextual factors. The transition to new relationships is discussed, with particular consideration of the difficulties students from underrepresented populations face. The authors provide information on how to promote relationships across the institution through an analysis of the critical roles played by parents, peers, faculty members, and others in higher education. The case study and guiding questions help readers understand how to foster a sense of belonging at multiple levels.
“I’ve Never Had to Do This on My Own”
Authors: Correa Kevin , Symonds Sylvia
Published: December 2021

Receiving an acceptance letter to college can be both exciting and daunting for many students. For some, attending college has been an expectation since birth, but for others they will be the first in their family to attend. This chapter identifies ways to support emerging adults, including advising, mentoring, and coaching as they transition to the college campus and remain to complete their studies. Additional information on the challenges faced by first-generation college students is provided as well. The case study describes the First-Year Success (FYS) Center at Arizona State University. Guiding questions help readers consider how they might increase student retention and success at their own institutions.
“Guiding My Success”
Authors: Nelson Larry J.
Published: December 2021

This chapter seeks to bridge the disconnect between those who study the development of emerging adults and those who work with them in the context of higher education. It provides an overview of the developmental research on emerging adults and focuses on how to leverage their development for success. It examines closely how the traits of emerging adults (self-focus, instability, identity explorations, feeling in-between, and a sense of possibilities) can be viewed as strengths and provide an opportunity to successfully transition into adult roles. The chapter emphasizes taking a long view when educating students and explains the importance of doing so. Finally, next steps and recommendations are articulated in hopes of fostering a holistic view of supporting students.
Exploring Communities of Faith
Authors: Krause Neal M.
Published: December 2021

Many researchers focus primarily on the frequency of church attendance when they study the religion-and-health relationship. The many shortcomings of this strategy are discussed in this chapter. A plea is made for focusing on communities of faith instead. Four issues involving communities of faith are examined: (1) a preliminary working definition of communities of faith is provided; (2) because communities of faith constitute a vast conceptual domain, a good deal of this chapter is spent on identifying the key characteristics of communities of faith and explaining how they arise and are maintained; (3) in an effort to move the literature forward, a detailed research plan for devising measures of communities of faith is presented; and (4) a submodel is provided that further illuminates the relationship between religious identities and communities of faith.
Conclusions
Authors: Krause Neal M.
Published: December 2021

Five issues are examined in this summary chapter: (1) the major challenges that were encountered in writing his volume are reviewed and the solutions to them are identified, (2) further advice and encouragement are given to emerging scholars who wish to study religion and health, (3) the implications of the insights in this volume for the development of interventions are discussed next, (4) the author’s research agenda in the coming years is summarized, and (5) deeper and more philosophical issues that were encountered in writing this volume are identified with the goal of specifying the major insights about a scholarly life that were learned in the process.
Introduction
Authors: Drijvers Jan Willem
Published: December 2021

The Introduction offers a survey of the primary non-Christian and Christian sources available for a reconstruction of the short reign of Jovian. The most important source obviously is Book 25 of Res Gestae of the pagan Ammianus Marcellinus. He presents a gloomy picture of the person and reign of Jovian in order to save the image of his hero and Jovian’s predecessor, Julian (the Apostate). From Edward Gibbon onward, modern scholarship has adopted this unfavorable image that presents Jovian’s reign as a meaningless period between the emperorship of Julian (361–363) and the rule of the Valentinians (364–378). However, Jovian’s rule was vital for the sustenance of imperial leadership after Julian’s disastrous Persian military campaign and religious policies, both of which caused considerable upheaval. Jovian’s reign was a return to the norms of the pre-Julianic period and brought back stability to the Roman empire. For an emperor who ruled such a short time, the Christian Jovian had an unexpected and surprising afterlife. The second part of the book discusses Jovian’s “Nachleben” in the so-called Syriac Julian Romance, a text of historical fiction that has rarely been studied and is largely unknown to historians of the late Roman period.
Ruling the Empire
Authors: Drijvers Jan Willem
Published: December 2021

Jovian, who had been elevated to imperial status in Persia, soon after his treaty with Shapur II started to secure his position as emperor. Like any ruler, Jovian was aware of the fact that his authority depended not only on his authoritative position as emperor, but also on how his imperial power was presented and perceived. A variety of visual, literary, and other media, such as coins, inscriptions, legislation, panegyrics, and official ceremonies, were available to help in publicizing an emperor’s supremacy and legitimacy as ruler. This chapter focuses on how Jovian established his rule by using the media of coinage, legislation, and inscriptions, as well as Themistius’s oration in honor of his first consulship. Ideologically he clearly distinguished himself from the regime of Julian by connecting himself to Constantius II and especially by anchoring himself in the imperial tradition of Constantine the Great. The chapter also discusses practical matters of imperial administration and the nomination of officials, and very importantly, how Jovian secured the western provinces of the empire, in particular Gaul, by sending various envoys, among them his father-in-law Lucillianus and the later emperor Valentinian. Jovian’s imperial administration relied for the most part on military and civil officials that had already been nominated under Constantius II and Julian.
Religious Policy
Authors: Drijvers Jan Willem
Published: December 2021

A Roman emperor in late antiquity had to deal not only with military, administrative, and communicative matters, but also with the complex religious affairs of the time. Jovian was a Christian, and he made a clean break with Julian’s pro-pagan measures and returned to the religious policy of Constantine and Constantius II. He did not, however, issue anti-pagan measures. Jovian may have been in favor of Nicene Christianity if we can believe Athanasius’s letter addressed to him, as well as the Petitiones Arianorum. This set of four petitions to Jovian have been preserved among the apologetical writings of Athanasius and should therefore be treated with caution. In general, Jovian seems to have taken no sides in the various christological conflicts and debates of his time. He propagated religious tolerance as is evident from Themistius’s consular oration. Whether he issued a law of religious tolerance, as Themistius seems to suggest, remains in doubt. Regulating religion, dealing with dogmatic issues, or taking a position himself in religious conflicts seem not to have been among Jovian’s primary concerns.
Death
Authors: Drijvers Jan Willem
Published: December 2021

After having reigned for almost eight months Jovian passed away in his sleep in Dadastana. Although murder has been suggested, he most likely died of toxic fumes coming from the recently plastered walls of his bedroom, from the burning of a great amount of charcoal which most likely resulted in carbon monoxide poisoning, or from a combination of the two. He left behind his wife Charito and baby son Varronianus. His remains were deposited in the imperial mausoleum of the Church of the Holy Apostles in Constantinople.
The Julian Romance
Authors: Drijvers Jan Willem
Published: December 2021

The Julian Romance is a work of historical fiction in Syriac. It offers a Christian perspective on the reigns of both Julian and Jovian, who in the text are presented as opposites. As regards Julian, the Romance is essentially a hatchet job, while conversely it glorifies Jovian. The Romance divides into three distinct narratives. The first narrative is short in its surviving form, but must originally have been longer because it concludes with the following words: “The celebration of the faith of Constantine and of his three sons who reigned after him is completed.” The second one I have called the Eusebius Narrative and describes at great length the many unsuccessful attempts of Julian to have Rome’s bishop Eusebius renounce his Christian conviction and become a venerator of the old gods. To that end, but also to be acknowledged as ruler of the entire empire by the city of Rome, Julian visits Rome. The third account, which I have entitled the Jovian Narrative, can be characterized as a narrative of war: war between Julian and the Christians, war between Rome and Persia, and in a sense Jovian’s war against Julian in order to protect Christianity and the Church. It is by far the longest of the three parts of the Romance and celebrates Jovian as the ideal Christian emperor. In this chapter the various narratives are introduced and a comprehensive summary is given of the Jovian Narrative.
History of Scholarship
Authors: Drijvers Jan Willem
Published: December 2021

The manuscript of the Syriac Julian Romance was part of the Nitrian manuscripts which came into the possession of the British Museum in the 1830s. The Julian Romance received broader attention in 1874 in an important publication by the German orientalist Theodor Nöldeke. Six years later, J. G. E. Hoffmann published the complete Syriac work under the title Syrische Erzählungen; it is the only (non-critical) edition available of the Romance. In 1928 Hermann Gollancz published an English rendering. In 2016 a much better and reliable English translation of the Romance was published by Michael Sokoloff; besides a translation, it also includes the Syriac text of Hoffmann’s edition from 1880. This chapter offers a discussion of the scholarship of the Romance and deals with issues such as the place and date of origin of the text, the original language, the possible authorship, function, and genre of the text, as well as its place within Syriac literature. The Romance as we have it is generally accepted as having been composed in Edessa. The northern Mesopotamian city has a special place and a prominent role in the Julian Romance, in particular in the Jovian Narrative. One of the purposes of the text seems to have been to emphasize Edessa as the city of Christ par excellence, for which reason it deserves a special place in the world of Christendom, as well as to present Edessa as the model of Christian government for the whole empire.
The Queer Biopic in the AIDS Era
Authors: Stamm Laura
Published: December 2021

The Queer Biopic in the AIDS Era returns to the historical moment of the AIDS crisis and the emergence of New Queer Cinema to investigate the phenomena of queer biopic films produced during the late 1980s–early 1990s. More specifically, the book asks why queer filmmakers repeatedly produced biographical films of queer individuals living and dead throughout the years surrounding the AIDS crisis. While film critics and historian typically treat the biopic as a conservative, if not cliché, genre, queer filmmakers have frequently used the biopic to tell stories of queer lives. This project pays particular attention to the genre’s queer resonances, opening up the biopic’s historical connections to projects of education, public health, and social hygiene, along with the production of a shared history and national identity. Queer filmmakers’ engagement with the biopic evokes the genre’s history of building life through the portrayal of lives worthy of admiration and emulation, but it also points to another biopic history, that of representing lives damaged. By portraying lives damaged by inconceivable loss, queer filmmakers challenge the illusion of a coherent self presumably reinforced by the biopic genre and in doing so, their films open up the potential for new means of connection and relationality. The book features fresh readings of the cinema of Derek Jarman, John Greyson, Todd Haynes, Barbara Hammer, and Tom Kalin. By calling for a reappraisal of the queer biopic, the book also calls for a reappraisal of New Queer Cinema’s legacy and its influence of contemporary queer film.
Living Cells, Lifeless Molecules
Authors: Harold Franklin M.
Published: December 2021

Cells are composed of molecules that are lifeless but special, because most of them occur in nature only in the context of life. They are essential to all the workings of life, and no one single class holds life’s secret: life is an emergent property of the collective of molecules, assembled into the elaborate structures called cells. Cells come in great profusion, but all are variations on just two patterns of organization: prokaryotes, small and relatively simple microbes, both Bacteria and Archaea; and eukaryotes (Eukarya), the larger and more complex cells that make up all animals, plants, and fungi. The molecules of life, for all their diversity, again fall mainly into just a handful of categories. The bulk of living matter consists of proteins, nucleic acids, carbohydrates and lipids. Biomolecules belong to chemistry, but their functions in the process of living place them in the realm of biology.
Life Makes Itself
Authors: Harold Franklin M.
Published: December 2021

The cell is a microcosm of life. Cells draw matter and energy from their environment, construct their own fabric, maintain their identity over time, and reproduce their own kind. Each is a hive of functional activity involving myriads of molecules crammed into a tiny space, and intricately structured so as to accomplish the cell’s primary objective: to make two cells where there was one before. This chapter intends to give readers a sense of what living entails: the chemical factory, how cells harvest energy, heredity, and how information integrates the cacophony of molecules into an orchestra.
Putting the Cell in Order
Authors: Harold Franklin M.
Published: December 2021

Organization is one of the most conspicuous features of cells. Not only are cells highly ordered (in the sense of regularity and predictability), but also they are organized: their order has purpose, or function. How does biological organization arise, and how is it transmitted from one generation to the next? A key element is genetic information encoded in DNA. Many scientists hold that DNA is the master molecule of life that prescribes all that cells are and do, and the general public has swallowed that doctrine whole. There is truth in this view of biological organization, inasmuch as genes do specify the chemical structure (and thereby the function) of proteins, nucleic acids, and (indirectly) many other biomolecules. But that is only part of an increasingly complex story. The higher levels of cell organization are not spelled out in the genes; they arise by self-organization, and are commonly transmitted to the next generation because the mother cell is architecturally continuous with its daughter. DNA provides an indispensable database, but does not direct the show. Organisms are better understood as complex interactive systems composed of genetically specified elements.
The Darwinian Outlook
Authors: Harold Franklin M.
Published: December 2021

The contemporary view of evolution crystallized in the mid-20th century in a hard-edged form that puts genes central: It sees organisms as vehicles for their genes, the material basis of the instructions encoded therein. Heredity, variation, natural selection, and adaptation all result from events that take place at the gene level. Organisms evolve by small mutational steps, never by sudden jumps. Mutations occur at random, not in response to need. Acquired characteristics are never inherited. Ongoing research challenges all these premises, and reinforces the criticism that the received doctrine is too narrow. Two important sources of novelty are lateral gene transfer across all boundaries, and the creation of new patterns of order by symbiosis. (The origin and history of the eukaryotic cell is a prime example.) In the renovated synthesis now emerging, genes retain their hold on organismal identity that is passed from parents to offspring and not easily altered. But this genetic framework is supplemented by a variety of more cellular mechanisms to acquire new traits, making cells more flexible and cohesive than imagined in classical theory.
Evolution of the Cell
Authors: Harold Franklin M.
Published: December 2021

Cells are life’s basic building blocks, and there is no more profound question than how they came to be. What made this murky subject accessible is the invention of methods to sequence nucleic acids and proteins, and to infer evolutionary relationships from those sequences. It seems that all living things share a common ancestry in LUCA (the Last Universal Common Ancestor), a shadowy entity thought to have lived nearly 4 billion years ago. LUCA’s nature has been much debated, but she appears to have been a cell of sorts endowed with membranes, metabolic networks, a usable energy source and the machinery to express and reproduce genetic information. The earliest known event in cell history was the divergence of Archaea from Bacteria, about 3.5 billion years ago. Eukaryotic cells, more closely allied with Archaea than with Bacteria, appear much later, some 2 billion years ago. Their origin remains one of life’s mysteries, but the evidence currently favors a fusion or merger of an early archaeon with a bacterium; the latter became the ancestor of mitochondria, and played a major role in cell evolution. Eukaryotic cells of the contemporary kind emerged over hundreds of million years. Prominent events included a second instance of intracellular symbiosis, this time with a cyanobacterium, that introduced photosynthesis into the eukaryotic universe and initiated the plant lineage. Eukaryotic cells are the building blocks of all higher organisms. Just what has given the eukaryotic order an edge is yet another of life’s stubborn mysteries.
The Perennial Riddle of Life’s Origin
Authors: Harold Franklin M.
Published: December 2021

The origin of life is the most consequential problem in biology, possibly in all of science, and it remains unsolved. This chapter summarizes what has been learned and highlights questions that remain open, including How, Where, When, and especially Why. LUCA, some four billion years ago, already featured the basic capacities of contemporary cells. These must have evolved still earlier, at a nebulous proto-cellular stage. There is good reason to believe that enzymes, DNA, ribosomes, electron-transport chains, and the rotary ATP synthase all predate LUCA and were shaped by the standard process of variation and natural selection, but we know next to nothing about how cells ever got started. I favor the proposal that it began with a purely chemical dynamic network capable of reproducing itself, that may have originated by chance. Natural selection would have favored the incorporation of any ancillary factors that promoted its kinetic stability, especially ones that improved reproduction or gave access to energy. All the specifics are in dispute, including the role of a prebiotic broth of organic chemicals, the nature and origin of enclosure, the RNA world, and a venue in submarine hydrothermal vents. My sense is that critical pieces of the puzzle remain to be discovered.
The Tangled Bank
Authors: Harold Franklin M.
Published: December 2021

Why are there so many kinds of organisms, and why do they cluster into discrete groups associated with particular locales? These and other ecological questions find answers in the expansive version of evolution that is presently emerging. Heredity, variation, natural selection, and adaptation are rooted in the level of genes, but incorporate features that grow out of the many tiers of biological organization. The communitarian view of life complements the one focused on the individual organism, and requires us to reexamine the meaning of both organism and individual. It embraces broad-gauge phenomena such as nutrient cycles, and gave birth to Gaia: the vision of Earth as a self-regulating system that has kept our planet hospitable to life for nearly 4 billion years.
Being Guilty
Authors: Elgat Guy
Published: December 2021

What can guilt, the painful sting of the bad conscience, tell us about who we are as human beings? This book seeks to answer this question through an examination of the views of Immanuel Kant, Friedrich Wilhelm von Schelling, Arthur Schopenhauer, Paul Rée, Friedrich Nietzsche, and Martin Heidegger on guilt, freedom, responsibility, and conscience. The concept of guilt has not received sufficient attention from scholars of the history of German philosophy. The book addresses this lacuna and shows how the philosophers’ arguments can be more deeply grasped once read in their historical context. A main claim of the book is that this history could be read as proceeding dialectically. Thus, in Kant, Schelling, and Schopenhauer, there are variations on the idea that guilt is justified because the human agent is a free cause of his or her own being—a causa sui—and thus responsible for his or her “ontological guilt.” In contrast, in Rée and Nietzsche, these ideas are rejected, and the conclusion is reached that guilt is not justified but is explainable psychologically. Finally, in Heidegger, we find a synthesis of sorts, where the idea of causa sui is rejected, but ontological guilt is retained and guilt is seen as possible, because for Heidegger, a condition of possibility of guilt is that we are ontologically guilty yet not causa sui. In the process of unfolding this trajectory, the various philosophers’ views on these and many other issues are examined in detail.
Schopenhauer
Authors: Elgat Guy
Published: December 2021

This chapter examines Arthur Schopenhauer’s views on guilt as well as his version of the transcendental argument found in Kant and Schelling. The chapter first provides an outline of Schopenhauer’s metaphysical view and then turns, in the second part, to examine the manner in which he understands the intelligible/empirical character distinction. Schopenhauer’s thoughts about guilt are then examined in the chapter’s third part. Here three conceptions of guilt in Schopenhauer are distinguished, and it is then shown that the conception of personal culpability is grounded for Schopenhauer by an eternal and free deed of self-constitution where an individual chooses his or her own intelligible being or character as causa sui.
Nietzsche
Authors: Elgat Guy
Published: December 2021

In this chapter, a detailed reconstruction of Friedrich Nietzsche’s genealogy of guilt is provided. The following notions are examined: internalization of cruelty, the ethics of custom, the debtor-creditor relationship, the creation of the “sovereign individual,” free will, and the notion of Christian guilt. One of the main claims made is that Nietzsche’s genealogy can be seen to go deeper than Rée’s in that it provides us with a genealogy of social and mental structures that Rée’s genealogy presupposes. On the other hand, as the chapter argues, at various crucial junctions, Nietzsche can be read as helping himself to a Rée-ian form of explanation. Before turning to Nietzsche’s genealogy of guilt in his On the Genealogy of Morals and other writings, the chapter examines his earlier critique of Schopenhauer in Human, All Too Human and his critique of the idea of causa sui in Beyond Good and Evil.
Reconstructing Pragmatism
Authors: Voparil Chris
Published: December 2021

The figure of Richard Rorty stands in complex relation to the tradition of American pragmatism. On the one hand, his intellectual creativity, lively prose, and bridge-building fueled the contemporary resurgence of pragmatism. On the other, his polemical claims and selective interpretations function as a negative, fixed pole against which thinkers of all stripes define themselves. Virtually all pragmatists on the contemporary scene, whether classical or “new,” Deweyan, Jamesian, or Peircean, use Rorty as a foil to justify their positions. The resulting divisions and internecine quarrels threaten to thwart and fragment the tradition’s creative potential. More caricatured than understood, the specter of Rorty is blocking the road of inquiry and future development of pragmatism. Reconstructing Pragmatism moves beyond the Rortyan impasse by providing what has been missing for decades: a constructive, nonpolemical account of Rorty’s relation to classical pragmatism. The first book-length treatment of Rorty’s intellectual debt to the early pragmatists, it establishes his selective appropriations not as misunderstandings or distortions but as a sustained, intentional effort to reconstruct their thinking. Featuring chapters devoted to five key pragmatist thinkers—Charles Sanders Peirce, William James, John Dewey, Josiah Royce, and Jane Addams—the book draws on archival sources and the full scope of Rorty’s writings to challenge prevailing misconceptions and caricatures. By illuminating the critical resources, still largely untapped, that Rorty offers for articulating classical pragmatism’s ongoing relevance, the book reveals limitations in received images of the classical pragmatists and opens up new modes of understanding pragmatism and why it matters today.
Introduction
Authors: Voparil Chris
Published: December 2021

This chapter outlines the critical impasse that contemporary pragmatism faces between the critical and creative energies generated by its global ascendance and the divisions and internecine quarrels among “classico,” “paleo,” “neo,” and “new” pragmatisms, along with a tendency to self-isolate through factions and exclusionary identifications with single thinkers, that continually thwart and fragment these new energies. It provides an overview of how Rorty came to pragmatism and explains the nature and scope of Rorty’s project of reconstruction, including his role in prevailing narratives of continuity, eclipse, and revival in the pragmatist tradition’s odyssey; the persistent partition between experiential and linguistic pragmatisms; and pragmatism’s relation to humanism. The chapter also outlines promising avenues of productive dialogue between Rorty’s thought and an array of classical pragmatists. It argues that the path forward for pragmatism runs through, rather than around or against, Rorty.
Rorty and James
Authors: Voparil Chris
Published: December 2021

This chapter documents unexplored parallels between the pluralistic, “unfinished” universe heralded by James, and the contingent, linguistically mediated landscape open to endless redescription embraced by Rorty. Both are philosophers of agency who evoke a conception of knowledge in which humans are active participants in the construction of what is right and true. They reject an ethics that appeals to fixed principles, yet nonetheless combine their fallibilism and pluralism with an account of commitment and responsibility that manifests in an acute attentiveness to what James called the “cries of the wounded” and to the obligations that the claims of concrete others place on us. Read alongside James, Rortyan irony emerges as an ethical form of antiauthoritarian fallibilism. The combination of epistemic modesty and willingness to listen and learn from others with an account of ethical responsiveness is a signal contribution of their pragmatisms.
Rorty and Dewey
Authors: Voparil Chris
Published: December 2021

This chapter frames Rorty’s interpretation of Dewey as an attempt to reconstruct Dewey to better promote a particular vision of democracy and social change, rather than as a misreading. Rorty radicalizes Dewey’s own reconstruction of philosophy, using Deweyan critiques against him. When he objects to particular elements in Dewey’s work, like the project of constructive metaphysics in Experience and Nature, it is because he believes they get in the way of reconstructing philosophy as an instrument of social change. Rorty’s effort to transcend limitations in Dewey’s conception of philosophy as an instrument of social change deserves to be considered on its own merits. By reading Dewey as giving us an account of inquiry and warrant under conditions of normal discourse and Rorty as focused on abnormal contexts where belief correction proceeds via unwarranted assertions and nonlogical changes in belief, the chapter suggests how pragmatists can learn from them both.
Rorty and Royce
Authors: Voparil Chris
Published: December 2021

Despite the evident lack of pragmatist family resemblance between the “absolute pragmatism” of Josiah Royce and Rorty’s antifoundationalism, historicism, and contingentism, this chapter identifies a shared project of, in Rorty’s parlance, intervening in cultural politics. Three claims are advanced: first, that Royce’s later work can be productively viewed as a series of philosophical interventions in cultural politics; second, that while evidence of Rorty’s engagement with Royce’s thought is scant, drawing on archival material establishes that it exists and was more influential on Rorty than currently appreciated; and, third, that reading Rorty and Royce within the same frame generates insights about the transformative moral resources available to pragmatists—namely, the power of affective ties and ethical commitments exemplified in the notion of loyalty. What results is an approach to questions of justice through the lens of community particularly attuned to those who have been marginalized or excluded.
Rorty and Addams
Authors: Voparil Chris
Published: December 2021

Despite Rorty’s oeuvre containing limited commentary on Jane Addams, this chapter illuminates their distinctive shared contribution to pragmatist ethics: They merge epistemic and ethical priorities to unite sympathetic understanding with the cultivation of social ethical responsibility and orient their ethical projects explicitly toward responsiveness to marginalized or excluded others. Its chief claims are: first, that Rorty can be read as extending Addams’s project of creating a democratic moral community; and second, that a constructive dialogue between Rorty and Addams reveals key points of complementarity that, when taken together, generate a more robust conception of democratic social ethics than Addams’s alone. Reading Rorty alongside Addams elucidates the ethical commitments implicit in his more familiar epistemological critiques, including how Rorty’s understanding of the social practice of justification can be understood as a philosophical defense of Addams’s notion of a “social test.”