Dominance, leadership, and aggression: animal behavior studies during the Second World War

During the decade surrounding the Second World War, an extensive literature on the biological and psychological basis of aggression surfaced in America, a literature that in general emphasized the significance of learning and environment in the origins of aggressive behavior. Focusing on the animal behavior research of Warder Clyde Allee and John Paul Scott, this paper examines the complex interplay among conceptual, institutional, and societal forces that created and shaped a discourse on the subjects of aggression, dominance, and leadership within the context of World War II. The distinctions made between sexual and social dominance during this period, distinctions accentuated by the threat of totalitarianism abroad, and the varying ways that interpretations of behavior could be negotiated attests to the multiplicity of interactions that influence the development of scientific research.     

Post-Second World War praise poetry,lament and a Utopian treatise in Morocco: historical literature on the theme of the Second World War

This paper reviews ten historical-literary Judeo-Arabic and Hebrew works written late in the Second World War in Morocco: eight works I refer to as praise poems, by Moroccan Jews; one work I refer to as lament, written by a Jewish European refugee who found a safe wartime haven in Morocco, and another work, which I refer to as a utopian treatise, by a local Jewish man. All ten works were inspired by the war and recount its course in Europe, Asia and North Africa, while some also engage with the Holocaust. The comparison drawn here between the works – praise poetry, lament and utopian treatise – allows us to examine the authors’ various outlooks on the war, informed by their personal, familial or communal experience. These outlooks assume an actual form in the literary patterns of the authors’ works, as well as in the narratives, contents and ideas selected to feature in them. The reception varied among the Judeo-Arabic and Hebrew speaking community, in which a Jewish religious and modern national presence was predominant. Therefore, contents that had a universal concern were pushed to the margins of the local discourse.     

Governing the grapevine: the study of rumor during World War II

Throughout the early 1940s, a host of rumors relating to the Second World War began to circulate, leading the government to establish various committees and undertake multiple projects intended to counteract rumors that were believed to threaten civilian morale and compromise national security. Simultaneously, social scientists also began taking measures to study and combat rumor. Such efforts included the institution of several community groups, deemed "rumor clinics," that aimed to decrease the prevalence of wartime rumor by educating the general public. This article outlines the rise and fall of rumor clinics, focusing specifically on the shifting boundaries and the mounting tensions between the United States government and social scientists in the study of rumor during World War II.     

The Second Step of the B‐Deduction

This paper offers a new interpretation of Kant's puzzling claim that the B‐Deduction in the Critique of Pure Reason should be considered as having two main steps. Previous commentators have tended to agree in general on the first step as arguing for the necessity of the categories for possible experience, but disagree on what the second step is and whether Kant even needs a second step. I argue that the two parts of the B‐Deduction correspond to the two aspects of a priori cognition: necessity and universality. The bulk of the paper consists of support for the second step, the universality of the categories. I show that Kant's arguments in the second half of the B‐Deduction aim to define the scope of that universality for possible experience by considering the possibilities of divine intellectual intuition, of non‐human kinds of sensible intuition, and of apperception of the self. In these ways Kant delimits the boundaries of the applicability of the categories and excludes any other possible experience for human beings.     

Teaching and Self‐Formation: Why the Ignoble “Intro to World Religions” Really Matters

This paper explores the idea that the educational process plays a vital role in the formation and transformation of selves. Peter Hodgson's theological interpretation of education as paideia and Lucinda Huffaker's work on the achievement of “clarity of self” are brought together to demonstrate that empathy is central not only to evolution of self, but the educational process as well. The argument insists that introductory courses are places of immense potential for helping students in the lifelong task of achieving self‐clarity. The “Introduction to World Religions“ course is used as a practical illustration of the thesis.     

The Moral Insignificance of Self‐consciousness

In this paper, I examine the claim that self‐consciousness is highly morally significant, such that the fact that an entity is self‐conscious generates strong moral reasons against harming or killing that entity. This claim is apparently very intuitive, but I argue it is false. I consider two ways to defend this claim: one indirect, the other direct. The best‐known arguments relevant to self‐consciousness's significance take the indirect route. I examine them and argue that (a) in various ways they depend on unwarranted assumptions about self‐consciousness's functional significance, and (b) once these assumptions are undermined, motivation for these arguments dissipates. I then consider the direct route to self‐consciousness's significance, which depends on claims that self‐consciousness has intrinsic value or final value. I argue what intrinsic or final value self‐consciousness possesses is not enough to generate strong moral reasons against harming or killing.     

The Ethics of Economic Sanctions: Why Just War Theory is Not the Answer

Res Publica - On 24 December 2017, the UN Security Council imposed its toughest sanctions yet on North Korea. The measures, intended to thwart nuclear ambitions, are some of the most extensive...     

“Voices of the People”: Linguistic Research Among Germany's Prisoners of War During World War I

This paper investigates the history of the Royal Prussian Phonographic Commission, a body that collected and archived linguistic, ethnographic, and anthropological data from prisoners‐of‐war (POWs) in Germany during World War I. Recent literature has analyzed the significance of this research for the rise of conservative physical anthropology. Taking a complementary approach, the essay charts new territory in seeking to understand how the prison‐camp studies informed philology and linguistics specifically. I argue that recognizing philological commitments of the Phonographic Commission is essential to comprehending the project contextually. My approach reveals that linguists accommodated material and contemporary evidence to older text‐based research models, sustaining dynamic theories of language. Through a case study based on the Iranian philologist F. C. Andreas (1846–1930), the paper ultimately argues that linguistics merits greater recognition in the historiography of the behavioral sciences.