bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
Empathy and Human Experience
Authors: Thompson Evan 
Published: February 2006

AbstractThis essay considers empathy as a central feature of the human experience in which to ground science and religion. Thompson draws upon cognitive science, contemplative psychology, and phenomenological philosophy in considering empathy as the dynamic coupling of self and other, as a basic intersubjective dimension, one which precludes distinction of “inner” and “outer” realities. Phenomenological inquiry suggests four aspects to empathy: involuntary coupling of self and other, imaginary transposition of oneself to the place of the other, interpretation of oneself as Other to the other and vice versa, and moral perception of other as person. These capacities exist wholly or in part in specific instances; all of these elements are found in human developmental psychology, and come together in the lived bodily experience and via language. Thompson turns to Buddhist contemplative psychology as a means of discussing implications for nonduality of self and other. He analyzes the 8th century Way of the Bodhisattva, which argues that notions of “self” and “other” have no independent existence, but are conceptually based. Thus, Buddhism as a “middle way” negotiates between the conventional truth that we have bounded selves, and the ultimate truth that self has no bounds. Thompson finally turns to consider implications for cognitive science, arguing that it tends to rely on third-person theories and models. For Thompson, the very fact of experience suggests the importance of adding first-person models to develop scientific accounts of consciousness. These first-person methods not only provide authentic experience, but afford the kind of reflective distancing necessary to process the complex set of interactions that intersubjective experience affords.
Kant and British Empiricism
Authors: Waxman Wayne 
Published: February 2006

Abstract
This chapter begins with a discussion of the concept of sensibilism, the theory that all ideas originate in being perceived, and are non-existent prior to or independently of their immediate presence to consciousness in perception. It dispels one of the most common misconceptions about sensibilism: its limitation to a thesis about the senses as merely sources of sensations. It argues that sensibilism, as the principle of unity, and psychologism, as the principle of continuity, connect the philosophies of John Locke, George Berkeley, David Hume, and Immanuel Kant. An understanding of the fundamental principles uniting Kant with his British Empiricist predecessors, particularly Hume, will show that the only thing that separates Kant’s positions from theirs is a source of representations unconsidered by Locke, Berkeley, and Hume — pure sensible intuition.
A Kantian Way Out of Hume's Quandary
Authors: Waxman Wayne 
Published: February 2006

Abstract
This chapter considers a way to make the case that Hume’s own premises, if strictly adhered to, inexorably points beyond empirical psychologism to transcendentalism. This concerns a difficulty Hume detected but failed to resolve: the quandary of personal identity described in an appendix to the second volume of A Treatise of Human Nature. Hume was unable to explain the principles that united successive perceptions in thought or consciousness. Since the same Humean principles that made mathematics vulnerable to the skeptical argument on the necessity of a cause for every beginning of existence prevented Hume from finding a way out of the quandary, it is natural to wonder if Kant’s doctrine of pure sensibility may have been the explanatory principle Hume sought. It is shown that Kant’s psychologism provides a solution to the quandary not open to Hume’s empirical psychologism.
Hostages to Stereotypes
Authors: Waxman Wayne 
Published: February 2006

AbstractThe finest early modern philosophers were adept at budgeting for subsequent change and progress so that readers would be able to devise Cartesian, Humean, Kantian, etc., solutions to almost any philosophical problems that may arise in later epochs. This chapter puts this rule to the test by examining current stereotypes predicated on the belief that subsequent progress in the abstract or empirical sciences has either refuted the doctrines of early modern philosophers or rendered them obsolete. It argues that the early modern philosophers devised their doctrines with the subtlety, flexibility, and range needed to prevent their efforts from being subsumed within any other.
Locke's Theory of Ideas
Authors: Waxman Wayne 
Published: February 2006

AbstractThis chapter examines Locke’s theory of ideas. He believes that the infallible “knowledge” of ideas is the same as the thinking of them, and has nothing to do with their use as grounds of cognition, much less their serving as a foundation for further cognition. The case of sensitive knowledge is no exception because it is not an instance of the knowledge we have of our ideas, but a special case of the kind of cognition we can have through them. For here we apply, and do not simply conceive, ideas such as body, the externality of one body with respect to another, the cognitive recognition of one body as mine, and the powers that body equips me with to sense and to imagine.
Perception and the Synthesis of Experience
Authors: Waxman Wayne 
Published: February 2006

AbstractThis chapter examines Locke’s theory on perception. Locke used Molyneux’s thought experiment — whether someone born blind and suddenly made to see could distinguish between a cube and sphere without touching them — to convince his readers of the extent to which visual depth perception is influenced by experience. Locke’s doctrine established the framework in which Berkeley, Hume, and Kant addressed the issues of realism and idealism. Berkeley’s theory of nature is simply the Molyneux problem writ large, while Kant’s theory of nature is a transformation of Berkeley’s, inspired by Hume instead of God.
Berkeleyan Idealism: The Inseparability of Existence, Sensation, and Perception
Authors: Waxman Wayne 
Published: February 2006

AbstractBerkeley’s most famous, original, and influential thesis is: the esse of sensible things is percipi. The argument of esse is percipi idealism is that: ideas can exist only in being perceived; sensible objects (stones, trees, mountains, etc.) are ideas; and therefore, sensible objects can exist only in being perceived. Berkeley’s response to possible objections to esse is percipi, his psychologistic explication of existence, and interpretations of Berkeleyan idealism are discussed.
From Origins of Ideas to Ideas of Origins: Causality Psychologized
Authors: Waxman Wayne 
Published: February 2006

Abstract
This chapter discusses how Hume’s revolutionary associationist theory of ideas overcame deficiencies and transformed the question of origins itself. Hume believes that association, imagination, and objective understanding are one and the same; as soon as we withdraw the lens of association in and through which the microcosmos of the mind and the macrocosmos of the universe exist, these worlds dissolve into (1) transitions of thought, (2) the fleetingly existent data to and from which these transitions are made, and (3) the affections felt either in the making of these transitions or in the way the data involved are regarded. Hume’s solution to the problem of origins, the copy principle, is based on these three elements.
The Nature of Relation
Authors: Waxman Wayne 
Published: February 2006

Abstract
Hume believes that all ideas must either be copied from antecedent impressions or assembled from ideas copied from them. Where impression originals are lacking, there can be no ideas at all. The need for originating impressions is met by what is experienced in the interstices, between perceptions, whenever a transition is made from an impression to an idea. The fictions of relation, the essence of relation, the vivacity transference principle, projective illusion, and associative affects in the science of human nature are discussed.
The Role of Custom in Associative Understanding
Authors: Waxman Wayne 
Published: February 2006

AbstractThis chapter discusses Hume’s three fundamental principles of association essential to human understanding: association by resemblance to general ideas and discourse, association by contiguity to space and time, and association by understanding in particular. While these principles are neither infallible nor the sole causes of the unions of ideas, they are principles “so permanent, irresistible, and universal that their removal would cause human nature to perish and go to ruin”. However, it becomes evident that this is true insofar as association is supported by custom (habits of mind).
The Supreme Principle of Hume's Theory of Understanding
Authors: Waxman Wayne 
Published: February 2006

Abstract
This chapter examines Hume’s skepticism with regard to reason and the supreme principle of human understanding that emerges from it. It is argued that skepticism with regard to reason is intimately bound up with the pre-eminence Hume assigned to the affective dimension of mentation in the determination of thoughts and actions. The neglect of that dimension appears responsible for much of the incomprehension and hostility met by Hume’s skepticism in all its forms.
The Archaeology of Memory
Authors: Hendel Ronald 
Published: February 2006

AbstractThis chapter investigates the interplay of cultural memory, historical realities, and narrative technique in the portrayal of Solomon and his kingdom. Of particular concern are the narratives of Solomon’s rise to power in 1 Kings 2 and his building activity in 1 Kings 9. Royal ideology and political controversy are keys to uncovering the relation between the historical Solomon and his biblical representation.
Introduction
Authors: Berkowitz Beth A. 
Published: February 2006

AbstractThis chapter introduces the book’s thesis that death penalty discourse helped both Rabbis and Christians to invent themselves in the first centuries of the common era. It reviews recent historiography of the early rabbinic movement, presents the book’s approach to reading rabbinic literature, and surveys the culture-critical concerns at the heart of the book: the politics of punishment, the politics of ritual, and the politics of imperialism. It addresses questions readers may bring to the subject, such as the historical reality of Jewish execution in antiquity, and the question of whether the classical Rabbis were for or against the death penalty. It also gives the plan of the book and describes the texts that the book will analyze.
Ritualization and Redemption
Authors: Berkowitz Beth A. 
Published: February 2006

AbstractThis chapter looks at the laws of rabbinic criminal execution as a ritual narrative and interprets that ritual, paying close attention to the way it constructs space and speech. It shows that the geography of the ritual dramatizes the connection between the rabbinic judges and the power of execution, while ensuring that the two entities remain distinct. It argues that the Mishnah’s ritual of execution makes claims that go well beyond the condemned criminal — the ritual claims for the Rabbis the power to redeem all Jews from sin and to establish for every individual a place in the world to come. It draws upon parallel rituals of execution: medieval, modern, and contemporary.
Paradoxes of Power
Authors: Berkowitz Beth A. 
Published: February 2006

AbstractThis chapter explores the relationship between rabbinic execution and Roman execution, asking how the rabbinic experience of Roman execution may have shaped the Rabbis’ own laws of execution. It focuses on a text from the Mishnah and Tosefta that features a dispute about the proper method of decapitation according to rabbinic law. It suggests that the barely concealed subtext of this dispute is whether rabbinic power should model itself on Roman power, or reject it entirely. It then considers whether other rabbinic laws of execution may be driven by the same concern. The chapter concludes with some reflections on the quandaries the Rabbis faced as a minority group within the Roman Empire.
The Caring Person
Authors: Held Virginia 
Published: February 2006

Abstract
In traditional virtue ethics, attention has not been paid to caring as one of the virtues. This chapter argues that although it is virtuous to be caring, the caring person not only has the right motive or disposition, but also participates adeptly in activities of care and in cultivating caring relations. Caring relations require responsiveness to need, sensitivity, empathy, and trust. It is characteristic of the ethics of care to see persons as relational, yet capable of autonomy.
Liberalism and the Ethics of Care
Authors: Held Virginia 
Published: February 2006

Abstract
This chapter contrasts the assumptions and implications of the ethics of care with those of traditional liberal individualism, and defends the ethics of care against liberal critiques. It examines the deficiencies of liberalism as a comprehensive morality. It argues for caring relations between fellow human beings as the wider network within which we can agree to treat persons as if they were liberal individuals for the limited purposes of legal and political interactions.
Caring Relations and Principles of Justice
Authors: Held Virginia 
Published: February 2006

Abstract
This chapter continues the discussion on universalizability in moral theory. It defends the ethics of care against the presumed requirement of dominant moral theories that universal principles of impartiality and reason must always be accorded priority over partial attachments. It defends the ethics of care against feminist critiques that hold that it attends insufficiently to equality for women. It suggests that the model of morality based on impartial justice and liberal individualism is persuasive only for limited legal and political contexts.
Power, Care, and the Reach of Law
Authors: Held Virginia 
Published: February 2006

Abstract
Feminist critiques and reformulations of rights are examined. Arguments are made for limiting the reach of law and legalistic thinking, rather than imagining that law is the suitable model for all thinking about morality. The chapter explains how the ethics of care has the resources for dealing with power and violence, and should not be built on idealized images of family peace and harmony.
Promised Land
Authors: Peterson Anna L. 
Published: February 2006

AbstractThis chapter examines rural social movements in El Salvador from the first rural social movements and peasant federations of the 1960s, through the civil war of the 1980s, and into post-war social and political life in rural areas today. It focuses on the movement to repopulate war-torn rural areas and the effort to transform economic and political institutions, reform agricultural practices and land tenure, practice environmental restoration, and create models of a “new society” based on progressive Catholic values.
The Goddess Lives in Upstate New York
Authors: Dempsey Corinne G. 
Published: February 2006

Abstract
This book is a portrayal of a flourishing Hindu temple in the town of Rush, New York, dedicated to the great south Indian goddess Rājarājeśwarī. Guided by an exuberant Sri Lankan guru known as Aiya, temple practitioners embrace yet definitively break with tradition. Known for its ritual precision and extravagance, the temple and its guru defy convention by training and encouraging non-brahmans and women to publicly perform priestly roles, and by teaching the secrets of Śrīvidyā, a highly exclusive Tantric tradition. Weaving together traditional South Asian tales, temple miracle accounts, and devotional testimonials, the book is organized into three parts reflecting various intersecting worldviews, traditions, and landscapes with which temple practices and participants contend. The book’s first part explores the temple’s emphasis on ritual performance and potency, and the resulting collisions between miraculous and mundane worldviews as experienced and understood by Aiya, temple participants, and the ethnographer-author. Part two explores how Aiya and his students deftly balance convention with non-convention, breaking rules of orthodoxy that make room for leadership and learning, and providing possibilities otherwise unavailable in traditional temple settings. Part three explores the diaspora condition as experienced within the Rush temple context. It chronicles the joys and challenges of negotiating domestic and foreign traditions, and the effects this has on human and divine participants, temple rituals, and the temple terrain itself. In sum, the book argues that in a setting where science illuminates the sacred, where traditional religious practices allow for breaking with the same, and where foreign terrain becomes home turf, the Goddess not only lives, she thrives.
Temple Entryways
Authors: Dempsey Corinne G. 
Published: February 2006

Abstract
This chapter introduces the reader to the rich ritual life at the Rush temple featuring, in particular, the practice of honoring the goddess and other deities by invoking their presence and making offerings into a homam fire. Also featured are the purported effects of ritual and internal discipline on the body involving such concepts as kundalini power and cakra points. In the process of describing the features and anticipated effects of external and internal rituals, this chapter also chronicles the author’s shifting engagement with temple participants, practices, and theologies, something she describes as being both within and outside her cognitive control. Implicit in this chapter is thus an evaluation of the challenges presented by ethnography performed within religious contexts.
Perspectives on Ritual Power
Authors: Dempsey Corinne G. 
Published: February 2006

Abstract
This chapter recounts some of the Rush temple’s conceptions of and rationales behind its dedication to ritual performance. In contrast to most North American Hindu temples that typically downplay the role of ritual power, the Rush temple, informed by its Śrīvidyā tantric tradition, enthusiastically embraces, analyzes, and celebrates it. How Śrīvidyā’s understandings of ritual performances and bodily practices assume an interrelationship between humanity and divinity, body and ritual, and, somewhat related to this, between science and the sacred are explored. Aiya, the temple guru whose own guru was a nuclear physicist, uses scientific terminology to explain the mechanics of ritual efficacy based on the sacred diagram (yantra) that lies beneath each main temple statue (mūrti). He also describes temple teachings in which human faith, focus, and discipline are essential to ritual effectiveness.
Maverick Guru with a Cause
Authors: Dempsey Corinne G. 
Published: February 2006

Abstract
This chapter begins with a religious autobiography as recounted by Aiya, the temple guru, beginning with his dramatic conversion from teenage atheist to religious enthusiast. It chronicles his insistent attempts to gain religious knowledge in spite of impediments due to his caste status as non-brahman. It explores the rationale behind the Śrīvidyā tradition’s close guarding of its secrets, keeping them off-limits to all but a select few. It describes how Aiya, once firmly entrenched within the Śrīvidyā path — thanks to his own maverick guru — becomes a different kind of nuisance to the status quo when he, at the request of his guru, enthusiastically propagates an otherwise exclusive tradition. Aiya’s unconventional approach succeeds not only because of his guru’s endorsement but, ironically, because of the respect he earns by running a temple dedicated to orthodoxy in ritual performance. This chapter also describes the ambivalent responses Aiya has received from upholders of religious orthodoxy in both North America and India.
Expanding Turf for Racial and Religious Others
Authors: Dempsey Corinne G. 
Published: February 2006

AbstractThis chapter highlights some of the ups and downs of converging ethnicities and religions as experienced by temple participants and Rush community members, and contextualizes this discussion by offering background information on the history of South Asian immigration to North America. It begins by describing childhood encounters with racism and intolerance as related by second-generation South Asian temple members, and includes European American accounts of religious exclusion while in India. Also recounted are temple neighbors’ perceptions of and reactions to a Hindu temple moving next door. The chapter ends with theologies built upon the realities of religious pluralism espoused by Aiya and temple devotees. Aiya’s favorite pluralism story involving a miraculous cure attributed to Padre Pio, a recently canonized Catholic saint, is presented.
Are Moral Beliefs Truth‐Apt?
Authors: Sinnott-Armstrong Walter 
Published: February 2006

AbstractThis chapter discusses expressivism as a form of moral skepticism that denies the truth-aptness of moral beliefs and judgments. It focuses on whether expressivists can solve the problem of embedding (also known as the Frege problem) by allowing that some moral beliefs have a minimal kind of truth, and whether expressivists can account for the apparent objectivity of moral beliefs. It concludes that if expressivists succeed in mimicking all apparently realistic moral language, then expressivism does not really matter to moral epistemology.
Are Any Moral Beliefs True?
Authors: Sinnott-Armstrong Walter 
Published: February 2006

AbstractThis chapter explores moral nihilism and error theories, which hold that moral beliefs are truth-apt but never true. Arguments for such views from relativity, evolution, and epistemological, psychological, and metaphysical queerness are all explained and critically assessed. The logical and semantic coherence of moral nihilism is then defended. The result is that moral nihilism is far from proven, but remains a serious contender in moral epistemology.
In Contrast with What?
Authors: Sinnott-Armstrong Walter 
Published: February 2006

AbstractThis chapter develops a contrastivist account of justified belief in general, not only within morality. It argues that contrary to contextualism, no contrast class is ever really the relevant one, even in a given context. The result is a general theory of epistemology called “classy Pyrrhonian skepticism,” that is compatible with the moderate skeptical claim that some beliefs are justified out of a modest contrast class, but none is justified out of an unlimited or extreme contrast class.
Naturalism
Authors: Sinnott-Armstrong Walter 
Published: February 2006

AbstractThis chapter surveys traditional responses to the skeptical regress problem for justified moral belief. It looks at naturalism, which attempts to derive “ought” from “is” or, more precisely, to formulate a deductively valid argument from non-normative premises to a moral conclusion. An example from Nelson is discussed, and it is shown that this argument, though logically valid, cannot be used to solve the skeptical regress problem.
Intuitionism
Authors: Sinnott-Armstrong Walter 
Published: February 2006

AbstractThis chapter criticizes moral intuitionism, which claims that some moral beliefs are justified independently of any ability to infer them from other beliefs. It defines moral intuitionism, and argues that beliefs need confirmation when they are partial, controversial, emotional, or formed in circumstances that are conducive to illusion or unreliability. Empirical research is cited to show that moral beliefs are subject to these problems and, hence, need confirmation by some inference, so moral intuitionism cannot solve the skeptical regress problem.