THE EXPLORATION OF ECOSPACE: EXTENDING OR SUPPLEMENTING THE NEO‐DARWINIAN PARADIGM?

The neo‐Darwinian paradigm, focusing on natural selection of genes responsible for differential adaption, provides the foundation for explaining evolutionary processes. The modern synthesis is broader, however, focusing on organisms rather than on gene transmissions per se. Yet, strands of current biology argue for further supplementation of Darwinian theory, pointing to nonbiotic drivers of evolutionary development, for example, self‐organization of physical structures, and the interaction between individual organisms, groups of organisms, and their nonbiotic environments. According to niche construction theory, when organisms and groups develop, they not only adapt to their environments but modify their environments, creating new habitats for later generations. Insofar as ecological niches persist beyond the lifecycle of individual organisms, an ecological inheritance system exists alongside genetic inheritance. Such ecological structures may even facilitate the development of a cultural inheritance system, as we see in humans. The article discusses theological perspectives of such new developments within holistic biology.     

VISUAL LITERACY AND PRINT LITERACY‐THEORETICAL CONSIDERATIONS AND POINTS OF CONTACT

The theoretical stance of visual literacy advocates is described as a multi‐sign approach that goes beyond the usual focus on print literacy but does not deal adequately with nonlinguistic signs other than the visual. Semiotics, the general theory of signs, is seen as a more cohesive basis for theory‐building in education. Five areas of overlap between visual literacy and print literacy are discussed: (1) use of graphic organizers as learning aids; (2) study of propaganda; (3) video technologies; (4) use of computers; and (5) children's drawing and writing. The authors state that the points of contact further suggest the need for a semiotic frame of reference. They describe an expansive semiotics‐based model of human experience developed by Deely, but modified by Cunningham and Luk to be a comprehensively multi‐sign model. Suhor's general model for a semiotic theory is presented as a way of depicting relationships among not only linguistic signs and visual signs, but other signs and sign systems in educational contexts     

ADORNO AND HORKHEIMER'S CONCEPT OF ‘ENLIGHTENMENT’

Descartes and Augustine. Stephen Menn. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1998, pp. xvi + 415. £40.00. ISBN 0 521 41702 3

The Enthusiastical Concerns of Dr Henry More: Religious Meaning and the Psychology of Delusion. Daniel Fouke. E. J. Brill: Leiden, 1997. $93.50 hb. ISBN 90 04 106006

The Cambridge Companion to Kierkegaard. Edited by Alastair Hannay and Gordon D. Marino. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998. pp. xi + 428 with bibliography and index £40.00. ISBN 0–521–47151–6

Carnap's Construction of the World: The Aufbau and the Emergence of Logical Empiricism. Alan W. Richardson. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1998. pp. χ + 242. £35.00 ($49.94) hb. ISBN 0 521 43008 9

An Essay on Metaphysics. R. G. Collingwood. Revised edition, edited with an introduction by Rex Martin. Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1998. cv + 439 pp. £48. ISBN 0–19–823–561–5

Civil Society and Fanaticism: Conjoined Histories. Dominique Colas. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1997. pp. xxx + 480 [orig. Le Glaive et le fléau: Généalogie du fanatisme et de la société civile. Paris, Editions Grasset &; Fasquelle, 1992]. £40.50 (US$65.00) and £14.95 (US$21.95). ISBN 0–8047–2734–1 cloth; ISBN 0–8047–2736–8 pb.     

IN PRAISE OF FOLLY? THEOLOGY AND THE UNIVERSITY

To suppose the possibility of dialogue between theology and science is to suppose that theology is an intellectually worthy partner to engage in dialogue with science. The status of theology as a discipline, however, remains contested, one sign of which is the absence of theology from the university. I argue that a healthy theology‐science dialogue would benefit from the presence of theology as an academic discipline in the university. Theology and theologians would benefit from the much closer contact with university disciplines, including the sciences. The university and the sciences would benefit from the presence of theology, providing a department of ultimate concern, where big questions may be asked and ideologies critiqued. A university theology would need to meet standards of academic integrity.     

THE COLLAPSE OF OLIGARCHIC CAPITALISM AND THE RISE OF REGENERATIVE LEARNING: HOW THE SCIENCE OF ENERGY SYSTEMS CLARIFIES WHAT’S HAPPENING TODAY AND WHAT COMES NEXT

We live in a head-spinning, gut-wrenching time of multiplying crises. At home we face outsourced jobs, crumbling cities, underpaid teachers, unaffordable healthcare, endless wars, political corruption, a co-opted corporate media, skyrocketing inequality, and public “austerity” measures whose main purpose is to make tax-breaks for the rich more affordable. Working-class stagnation is producing widespread anxiety, mounting debt, and “despair deaths” from opioid abuse. Fear is fueling populist outrage, along with extremism, authoritarianism, and the conditions for a fascist takeover. Meanwhile, climate change poses an existential threat to humanity itself. All of these calamities spring from the same root cause: an oligarchic capitalism that puts short-term profit for owners over people and planet. While this system seems immutable, upheavals from Occupy Wall Street to the rise of right-wing populism signal a backlash to a political–economic establishment that treats people and planet as resources to be pillaged and expenses to be minimized. Its failures have also been driving the development of new possibilities in the form of more systemic approaches. Still, while systems thinking has improved approaches in fields from agriculture to medicine, so far none of these reforms have been able to channel public frustration into true transformation because none addresses the root problem: oligarchy. The science of systemic vitality we need is also being born, but so far, its findings are diffuse. This article shows how the science of energy systems can galvanize today’s economic reformation by articulating the common sense rules and rigorous measures of systemic vitality, while anchoring them in an evidence-based vision of humanity as a collaborative learning species. The result is a practical path to building systemic socioeconomic vitality by revitalizing human networks, energizing collective learning, and clarifying why oligarchic capitalism is a distortion of our original democratic free-enterprise dream, which is now careening toward collapse.     

CHRIST AND EVOLUTION: A DRAMA OF WISDOM?1

Abstract This paper argues that a genuine engagement of Christianity with evolution needs to include a discussion of Christology. Further, it develops a particular approach to Christology through a theo‐dramatic account of incarnation. The somewhat static post‐Chalcedon theological categories of divine and human natures are hard to square with contemporary evolutionary accounts of human origins. Once the divine Logos is portrayed in the active categories of Wisdom it becomes easier to envisage divine and creaturely wisdom coexisting in the person of Christ. I argue, in particular, that a focus on God's agency through a modified version of Hans Urs von Balthasar's account of theo‐drama invites participation and affirms human agency in a way that grand narratives do not. More particularly, drawing on examples from hominid evolution, contemporary discussion of paleontology and cooperative evolutionary theories, I suggest that the most convincing accounts of evolutionary biology fit into this theo‐dramatic account more readily than alternatives. As such, in the spirit of Robert Boyle, this paper deliberately blurs the categories of revealed and natural theology by arguing that we can make sense of the former through concentration on the latter.     

NOHL, DURKHEIM, AND MEAD: THREE DIFFERENT TYPES OF “HISTORY OF EDUCATION”

Historiography of education is not only a question of construction but also of selection. In 19th century “history of education” was typically a genre of “great educators”, mostly male and only marginally female. This construct is influential up to now, at least in popular contexts of educational reasoning. The article discusses in the introductory section problems of selection of names and meanings within history of education, and then three types of historiographical writing that are not only concerned with “great educators” but have larger Philosophical impact. The first type is Herman Nohl’s history of German progressive education, the second one is Emile Durkheim’s history of Higher Education in France, and the third one is George Herbert Mead’s Movements of Thought in 19th Century. The article compares them and discusses their implications for further development of historical writing in education.     

CAN AN UNDERSTANDING OF BASIC RESEARCH FACILITATE THE EFFECTIVENESS OF PRACTITIONERS? REFLECTIONS AND PERSONAL PERSPECTIVES

I have written before about the importance of applied behavior analysis to basic researchers. That relationship is, however, reciprocal; it is also critical for practitioners to understand and even to participate in basic research. Although applied problems are rarely the same as those investigated in the laboratory, practitioners who understand their basic research background are often able to place their particular problem in a more general context and thereby deal with it successfully. Also the procedures of applied behavior analysis are often the same as those that characterize basic research; the scientist-practitioner will appreciate the relation between what he or she is doing and what basic experimenters do, and as a consequence, will be able to apply therapeutic techniques more creatively and effectively.     

A DEFENSE OF SCIENCE AND RELIGION: REFLECTIONS ON PETER HARRISON'S “AFTER SCIENCE AND RELIGION” PROJECT

Recent scholars have called into question the categories “science” and “religion” because they bring metaphysical and theological assumptions that theologians should find problematic. The critique of the categories “science” and “religion” has above all been associated with Peter Harrison and his influential argument in The Territories of Science and Religion (2015). This article evaluates the philosophical conclusions that Harrison draws from his antiessentialist philosophy in the two volumes associated with his “After Science and Religion Project.” I argue that Harrison's project is too skeptical toward the categories “science” and “religion” and places too much emphasis on naturalism being incompatible with Christian theology. One can accept the lessons of antiessentialism—above all, how meanings of terms shift over time—and still use the terms “science” and “religion” in responsible ways. This article defends the basic impulse of most scholars in science and religion who promote dialogue and argues for a more moderate reading of the lesson of Territories.     

“FROM THE UTTER DEPTH OF DEGRADATION TO THE APOGEE OF BLISS”: THE GENDERINGS OF DIASPORIC ZIONISM AND JEWISH HOLOCAUST EDUCATION

This article examines some of the memories of the Holocaust produced in Holocaust education in a selection of Jewish high schools in Melbourne and New York at the beginning of the twenty-first century. It is being suggested here that the narratives about the Holocaust being taught in these schools are in part shaped by a gendered Zionist outlook. This article takes up the question of why this is, and in doing so provides an explanation of these types of narratives. In particular, this article explores the ways that this pedagogy places the story of the creation of the sovereign Jewish State of Israel at the end of a unit of study on the Holocaust, thus linking these two “events” in an important way. This article also explores what it is that makes these narratives gendered, and what work such narratives, and collective memories, do in the formulation of particular notions of diasporic Zionist thinking.     

MİLLİ İNKILAP AND THE THRACE INCIDENTS OF 1934

While anti-Semitism had been manifested in Europe since the Middle Ages, the emergence of the Nazi regime raised that phenomenon to a new level. Some publications supported by Nazi Germany tried to effect public opinion in Turkey regarding “scientific” anti-Semitism. The authors of this study support the view that this ideology has not been able to achieve broad support from the Turkish nation or its government. Nevertheless, anti-Semitism did reach Turkey through foreign publications. The specific anti-Semitic events that occurred in the Thrace Region of Turkey in 1934 and the anti-Semitic Milli ?nk?lap (National Revolution), which had a pivotal role in those events, were inspired by Nazi Germany. Nevertheless, Germany does not seem to have played an active role during the events. This article will examine the issues of the openly anti-Semitic Milli ?nk?lap, published from 1 May 1934 to 1 July 1934 and try to compare the influence of Julius Streicher's infamous Der Stürmer on the ideology and content of Milli ?nk?lap.