TURNING STONES INTO BREAD: DEVELOPING SYNERGISTIC SCIENCE/RELIGION APPROACHES TO THE WORLD FOOD CRISIS

The Institute on Religion in an Age of Science (IRAS) has a long history of delivering conferences addressing topics of interest in the field of science and religion. The following papers from the 2013 summer conference on “The Scientific, Spiritual, and Moral Challenges in Solving the World Food Crisis” are, in keeping with the eclectic nature of these conferences, very different in content and approach. Such differences underline the challenges of synergistically combining scientific and religious insights to increase understanding of global problems and their possible solutions. This in turn reflects deeper questions about the purpose and nature of the science/religion dialogue. These papers suggest various ways in which the two perspectives can be combined in the pursuit of building better understandings of food‐related issues, as well as highlighting difficulties and limitations which need to be addressed if the fruits of such dialogue are to make a wider impact. As such they serve as useful pointers for how this type of science/religion interaction might be further developed and deployed.     

Postmetaphysical Thinking or Refusal of Thought? Max Horkheimer’s Materialism as Philosophical Stance

Abstract

Frankfurt School critical theory has long opposed metaphysical philosophy because it ignores suffering and injustice. In the face of such criticism, proponents of metaphysics (for example Dieter Henrich) have accused critical theory of not fully investigating the questions is raises for itself, and falling into partial metaphysical positions, despite itself. If one focuses on Max Horkheimer’s early essays, such an accusation seems quite fitting. There he vociferously attacks metaphysics, but he also develops a theory that pushes toward metaphysical questions. His work can thus seem laden with unpacked metaphysical baggage, and fraught with contradiction. The aim of this paper is to show that Horkheimer’s critique of metaphysics makes sense and is not contradicted by a surreptitious metaphysics. To show this, Horkheimer’s views will be compared with Bas van Fraassen’s in The Empirical Stance. Ultimately, the paper should show that Horkheimer’s early philosophy can be reconstructed in such a way that it employs a ‘materialist stance’.     

Clarifying phenomenologies in the study of religion: separating Kristensen and van der Leeuw from Otto and Eliade

One of the most difficult aspects of trying to understand ‘phenomenology' in the study of religion is that proponent and opponent alike cannot seem to agree on what the title actually entails. Yet despite an insistence that ‘phenomenology' does not refer to a monolithic tradition, many scholars still write as if it is, subsuming a range of contradictory figures under the rubric. It is the argument of this paper that Kristensen and van der Leeuw have been victims of this ‘Tyranny of the Same' which has occluded their methodological value. By questioning their relation to Rudolf Otto and Mircea Eliade – common representatives of ‘phenomenology of religion' – the author will argue that each pair represents a different tradition: typological phenomenology and phenomenological history-of-religion. Their erroneous connection, the author argues, has been the product of a third, synthetic tradition: phenomenology-of-religion.     

Stances and Epistemology: Values,Pragmatics, and Rationality

Bas van Fraassen has argued that many philosophical positions should be understood as stances rather than factual beliefs. This paper discusses the vexed question of whether and how such stances can be rationally justified. It argues that stances may be justified pragmatically, in terms of both their epistemic fruits and their coherence with our values, both epistemic and non‐epistemic. It also examines van Fraassen's version of epistemological voluntarism, which has received considerable attention of late, and shows that it provides a theoretical framework, and approach to epistemology, within which the pragmatic and value‐based forms of justification appropriate to stance choice find a natural home.     

Groping for the greats: the strange musical claims of Nathan Ausubel

Nathan Ausubel (1898–1986) achieved unprecedented popularity as a compiler and translator of Jewish folklore during the 1940s and 1950s. Beneath the inspiring stories and charming sayings was a leftist ideologue preoccupied with the demise of Jewish life in Europe and the loss of Jewish identity to capitalist forces in the United States. Ausubel's agenda is elucidated in his polemical essays, which advocate using folklore as a means of bolstering Jewish pride and solidarity. Part of his strategy involved exaggerating the influence of Jewish culture on famous non-Jews, including Bach, Beethoven, and Schubert. This article examines these dubious musical claims and how they furthered Ausubel's activist agenda.     

A case of acquired aphasia and convulsive disorder: some linguistic aspects of recovery and breakdown

Among the cases of acquired aphasia and convulsive disorder several children are reported to have experienced more than one aphasic period. We present such a case in more detail, with emphasis on some characteristics of spontaneous speech. The occurrence of paraphasias, and in particular of neologisms, appeared to be associated with language recovery and breakdown. At the beginning of the period of recovery, a rapid and total disappearance of neologisms was observed, while only literal paraphasias remained. A period of language breakdown was preceded by the return of neologisms. The process was not influenced by drug therapy.     

Finite and infinite state confusion models

A confusion model is defined as a model that decomposes response probabilities in stimulus identification experiments into perceptual parameters and response parameters. Historically, confusion models fall into two groups. Models in Group I, which includes Townsend's (Perception and Psychophysics, 1971, 9, 40–50) overlap model, were developed on the basis of the notion that stimulus identification is mediated by a finite number of internal states. We call the general class of models that have this processing interpretation finite state confusion models. Models in Group II, which includes Luce's (R. O. Luce et al., Eds., Handbook of Mathematical Psychology (Vol. I), New York: Wiley, 1963) biased choice model, were not developed on the basis of an explicit processing interpretation. It is shown here that models in Group II are not finite state confusion models. We prove in addition that except for Falmagne's (Journal of Mathematical Psychology, 1972, 9, 206–224) simply biased model models in Group II belong to a certain class of infinite state confusion models, namely, models asserting that stimulus identification is mediated by a continuous space of vectors representing detector activation levels.     

The Metaphorical Conception of Scientific Explanation: Rereading Mary Hesse

Summary  In 1997, five decades after the publication of the landmark Hempel-Oppenheim article “Studies in the Logic of Explanation”([1948], 1970) Wesley Salmon published Causality and Explanation, a book that re-addresses the issue of scientific explanation. He provided an overview of the basic approaches to scientific explanation, stressed their weaknesses, and offered novel insights. However, he failed to mention Mary Hesse’s approach to the topic and analyze her standpoint. This essay brings front and center Hesse’s approach to scientific explanation formulated in the 1960s and argues that rereading Hesse’s account one can overcome the criticisms addressed towards another influential theory of explanation that of Bas van Fraassen’s. Furthermore, it could bring the traditional philosophy of science into a fruitful conversation with science and technology studies and gender studies in science, technology and medicine.     

Wentzel–Kramers–Brillouin solution of cut-off frequency for horizontal shear (SH) waves in various inhomogeneous thin films

The Wentzel–Kramers–Brillouin method is employed to study the cut-off frequencies of the horizontal shear waves in a freestanding functionally graded piezoelectric–piezomagnetic material film with the electrically and magnetically open boundary conditions. An analytical solution, which could be used in analyzing the problems of various functionally graded materials, is proven to have high precision by analytical analysis and a numerical example. The results reveal that the set of cut-off frequencies is a series of approximate arithmetic progressions. A theoretical foundation based on the relationship between the cut-off frequencies and the materials’ gradient property is established for nondestructive evaluation.