Review of Slavoj Žižek and John Milbank’s, <Emphasis Type="BoldItalic">The Monstrosity of Christ: Paradox or Dialectic?</Emphasis> Edited by Creston Davis

The Monstrosity of Christ provides an exchange between the Slovenian theorist Slavoj Žižek and the British theologian John Milbank. Both authors argue that Christianity is the religion of ‘absolute truth,’ but provide very different accounts of this. Milbank argues that Christianity is true insofar as only the incarnation of Christ mediates the paradoxical metaphysical participation of the finite within the infinite. Žižek argues that the crucifixion of Christ constitutes the death of God, demonstrating that there is no providential or transcendent reality supervening on human history. This realization constitutes the universal truth of Christianity.     

Between Same-Sex Marriages and the Large Hadron Collider : Making Sense of the Precautionary Principle

The Precautionary Principle is a guide to coping with scientific uncertainties in the assessment and management of risks. In recent years, it has moved to the forefront of debates in policy and applied ethics, becoming a key normative tool in policy discussions in such diverse areas as medical and scientific research, health and safety regulation, environmental regulation, product development, international trade, and even judicial review. The principle has attracted critics who claim that it is fundamentally incoherent, too vague to guide policy, and makes demands that are logically and scientifically impossible. In this paper we will answer these criticisms by formulating guidelines for its application that ensure its coherence as a useful normative guide in applied and policy ethics debates. We will also provide analyses of cases that demonstrate how our version of the principle functions in practice.     

Beyond Assimilation and Multiculturalism: A Critical Review of the Debate on Managing Diversity

In the past few years, both assimilationist and multiculturalist approaches to the management of immigration and diversity have been called into question. This article is an attempt to critically review and examine the key points of the debate regarding assimilationism and multiculturalism, while arguing for an interculturalist model of socio-cultural incorporation that reconciles cultural diversity with social cohesion. This paper looks at both European and North American cases and contends that when support for diversity occurs within a framework of social justice and political equality, and when all members of society are permitted to fully participate in the public space, the result is a more cohesive, albeit plural, civic community.     

Psychological individual differences as predictors of refugees’ local language proficiency

Learning the local language is important for the successful integration of immigrants. Previous research has identified a number of sociodemographic factors that are associated with the effectiveness of local language acquisition among immigrants, but little is known about the influence of psychological differences on immigrants’ local language acquisition. In the present research, individual differences in general mental ability (GMA), work search intention, and personality traits Conscientiousness and Openness were studied among recently arrived Syrian (n = 1054) and Eritrean (n = 500) refugees in the Netherlands. The results revealed that in addition to the effects of age of arrival, local length of stay, premigration educational attainment, and psychological distress, GMA and work search intention were positively associated with refugees’ local language proficiency. Additionally, work search intention was found to strengthen the effect of GMA on local language proficiency. No positive linear effects were observed for Conscientiousness and Openness. Some evidence was found for curvilinear relationships between psychological predictors and local language proficiency. Implications are discussed.     

Why Do Certain States of Affairs Call Out for Explanation? A Critique of Two Horwichian Accounts

Philosophia - Motivated by examples, many philosophers believe that there is a significant distinction between states of affairs that are striking and therefore call for explanation and states of...     

Learning by Collaborative and Individual‐Based Recommendation Agents

Intelligent recommendation systems can be based on 2 basic principles: collaborative filters and individual‐based agents. In this work we examine the learning function that results from these 2 general types of learning‐smart agents. There has been significant work on the predictive properties of each type, but no work has examined the patterns in their learning from feedback over repeated trials. Using simulations, we create clusters of “consumers” with heterogeneous utility functions and errorful reservation utility thresholds. The consumers go shopping with one of the designated smart agents, receive recommendations from the agents, and purchase products they like and reject ones they do not. Based on the purchase–no purchase behavior of the consumers, agents learn about the consumers and potentially improve the quality of their recommendations. We characterize learning curves by modified exponential functions with an intercept for percentage of recommendations accepted at Trial 0, an asymptotic rate of recommendation acceptance, and a rate at which learning moves from intercept to asymptote. We compare the learning of a baseline random recommendation agent, an individual‐based logistic‐regression agent, and two types of collaborative filters that rely on K‐mean clustering (popular in most commercial applications) and nearest‐neighbor algorithms. Compared to the collaborative filtering agents, the individual agent (a) learns more slowly, initially, but performs better in the long run when the environment is stable; (b) is less negatively affected by permanent changes in the consumer's utility function; and (c) is less adversely affected by error in the reservation threshold to which consumers compare a recommended product's utility. The K‐mean agent reaches a lower asymptote but approaches it faster, reflecting a surprising stickiness of target classifications after feedback from recommendations made under initial (incorrect) hypotheses.     

Differential partitioning of extended experiences

This article focuses on the effect of the perceived cohesiveness of experiences, whether composed of single or multiple parts, on their overall hedonic evaluations. Four experiments demonstrate the effects of partitioning on decision makers’ evaluation of extended experiences. First, patterns (i.e., improving vs. deteriorating trends) strongly influence how experiences are evaluated. Second, increased partitioning of an experience reduces the effect of the overall trend and results in more equal weighting of its parts. Third, breaking experiences at strategic points (i.e., local maxima and minima) influences the overall evaluation of experiences as well as the prediction of their future levels. These results suggest that components of sequences are evaluated similarly to the way whole sequences are evaluated and that experiences composed of multiple components are evaluated relatively more on the basis of their individual intensity and less based on their overall pattern.     

Pornography,preference for porn‐like sex,masturbation, and men's sexual and relationship satisfaction

Pornography use, preference for “porn‐like” sex, masturbation, and sexual and relationship satisfaction were assessed among two samples of men (N_{Study 1} = 326, N_{Study 2} = 335). Frequent pornography use was associated with sexual dissatisfaction, greater preference for porn‐like sex, and more frequent masturbation in both studies. Pornography use was associated with relationship dissatisfaction in Study 2 only. The data did not support the notion that pornography negatively impacts sexual or relationship satisfaction via preference for porn‐like sex. In fact, it may bolster sexual satisfaction by promoting sexual variety. The data were consistent with a model in which pornography negatively, indirectly affects sexual and relationship satisfaction via masturbation frequency. Pornography use may have multiple opposing influences on sexual satisfaction.