Modest Ways Research Articles

The Diviner and the Scientist: Revisiting the Question of Alternative Standards of Rationality

Are the standards of reasoning and rationality in divination, religious practice, and textual exegesis different from those in the sciences? Can there be different standards of reasoning and rationality at all? The intense “rationality debate” of the 1960s, 70s, and 80s focused on these questions and the related problems of relativism across cultures and systems of practice. Although philosophers were at the center of these debates at the time, they may appear to have abandoned the question in recent years. On the contrary, I discuss recent developments in philosophy that approach the issue from a number of new directions, changing our understanding of reasoning and rationality. I argue that, in comparing the diviner to the scientist, focusing on reasoning is likely to be a red herring. Instead, I argue that a careful treatment of rationality, paying particular attention to its context-dependence, untangles longstanding confusions. Moreover, it points the way forward to investigating modest but interesting ways for there to be alternative standards of rationality. When a Zande boy in his household was bitten on the foot by a snake, the anthropologist E.E. Evans-Pritchard reports, a healer was rushed over who “knew exactly what was required.” The healer took out a knife, a piece of bark, and some grass. He chewed some of the bark and had the boy chew the rest, swallowing the juice and spitting out the wood. Then they did the same with the grass. Finally, the healer made incisions on the boy’s foot, and

Geography and ethics: Justice unbound

Debates in geography often centre on whether it is possible or preferable to develop robust normative foundations for critique. But the relationship of academic analysis to normative concepts does not need to be thought of in foundational terms, one way or the other. It is better understood in terms of elaboration, elucidation and amplification. Theorizing justice from the bottom up in this way is consistent with certain strands in recent moral and political philosophy, exemplified by Amartya Sen’s recent account of comparative justice. Recent work by feminist philosophers including Seyla Benhabib, Nancy Fraser, and Iris Marion Young explicitly engages with the question of how to theorize the geographies of democratic justice in non-foundational, modest ways. The proliferation of geographical concerns in moral and political philosophy is indicative of the various ways in which concepts of justice are ‘unbound’ from forms of containment to which they have often been subjected. Philosophizing about justice is no longer automatically restricted to a national frame; and neither are questions of justice contained within prescriptive styles of reasoning, opening up instead to insights from empirical social sciences. Freeing concepts of justice from imaginary geographical constraints and from restrictive rationalistic conventions presents a challenge to spatial disciplines to suspend their chauvinism about the use of spatial vocabularies in other fields.

Spin Explained: On Fallen Angels, Free Will, and Fixing the World

Spin is a short film (7 minutes) that portrays a supernatural DJ who "falls" to earth and attempts to bring harmony to a complex city scene. He does so by modifying nature in modest but mystical ways through manipulations of his turntables and mixer. The identity of the DJ is only hinted at through various symbols which can be interpreted to indicate that he is none other than one of the fallen angels mentioned in various mystical texts. However, though the film revolves around the DJ and is seen through his eyes, the film is not about the DJ but rather it is about the human condition. It is about the nature of creation and man's interactions therein. It is about the interplay between free will and providence.

Tropism and Innate Host Responses of the 2009 Pandemic H1N1 Influenza Virus in ex Vivo and in Vitro Cultures of Human Conjunctiva and Respiratory Tract

The novel pandemic influenza H1N1 (H1N1pdm) virus of swine origin causes mild disease but occasionally leads to acute respiratory distress syndrome and death. It is important to understand the pathogenesis of this new disease in humans. We compared the virus tropism and host-responses elicited by pandemic H1N1pdm and seasonal H1N1 influenza viruses in ex vivo cultures of human conjunctiva, nasopharynx, bronchus, and lung, as well as in vitro cultures of human nasopharyngeal, bronchial, and alveolar epithelial cells. We found comparable replication and host-responses in seasonal and pandemic H1N1 viruses. However, pandemic H1N1pdm virus differs from seasonal H1N1 influenza virus in its ability to replicate in human conjunctiva, suggesting subtle differences in its receptor-binding profile and highlighting the potential role of the conjunctiva as an additional route of infection with H1N1pdm. A greater viral replication competence in bronchial epithelium at 33 degrees C may also contribute to the slight increase in virulence of the pandemic influenza virus. In contrast with highly pathogenic influenza H5N1 virus, pandemic H1N1pdm does not differ from seasonal influenza virus in its intrinsic capacity for cytokine dysregulation. Collectively, these results suggest that pandemic H1N1pdm virus differs in modest but subtle ways from seasonal H1N1 virus in its intrinsic virulence for humans, which is in accord with the epidemiology of the pandemic to date. These findings are therefore relevant for understanding transmission and therapy.

Analysis of the classical cyclotomic approach to Fermat’s last Theorem

We give again the proof of several classical results concerning the cyclotomic approach to Fermat's last theorem using exclusively class field theory (essentially the reflection theorems), without any calculations. The fact that this is possible suggests a part of the logical inefficiency of the historical investigations. We analyze the significance of the numerous computations of the literature, to show how they are probably too local to get any proof of the theorem. However we use the derivation method of Eichler as a prerequisite for our purpose, a method which is also local but more effective. Then we propose some modest ways of study in a more diophantine context using radicals; this point of view would require further nonalgebraic investigations.

Online and print newspapers in Europe in 2003. Evolving towards complementarity

Abstract This article assesses online newspapers in Europe from a media evolutionary perspective, ten years after the introduction of the World Wide Web. Comparing print and online front pages of 51 newspapers in 14 countries in 2003, we argue that online newspapers complement print newspapers in modest ways. Online, publishers put more emphasis on service information, offer additional news items, that nonetheless report on similar topics in similar ways, and add personal interactivity, content selectivity and real-time news to the print news offering. One subset of online newspapers charges for services, and offers more content and personal interactivity. Another, partly overlapping subset offers more original news; in a short and anonymous format. Overall, however, online newspapers in Europe make up a heterogeneous group, suggesting that online newspapers still have to find their definite form and role in the European news market.

Risk, public engagement and reflexivity: Alternative framings of the public dimensions of nanotechnology

Nanotechnology research receives large sums of public funds because of the technological innovations it promises, not least in the area of medical technologies. Exploration of social aspects of nanotechnology is now encouraged by science policy in attempts to foreclose possible future public controversy. This article explores how the social aspects of nanotechnology have emerged as a public issue; how public engagement projects are framed in terms of nanotechnology; and the rationale for social science research on nanotechnology. The article argues that pubic policy processes are increasingly focusing narrowly on the environmental and health risks of nanoparticles and that public engagement projects are limited by adopting nanotechnology as a focus of deliberation. The article concludes by rejecting grand claims for social science as a means of making science and technology more reflexive, but suggests more modest ways that research can support a widening of discussion of the public dimensions of nanotechnology.

Conservation Biology and Law: Only a Start

Conservation BiologyVolume 20, Issue 3 p. 679-680 Conservation Biology and Law: Only a Start ERIC T. FREYFOGLE, ERIC T. FREYFOGLE College of Law, University of Illinois, 504 E. Pennsylvania Avenue, Champaign, IL 61820, U.S.A., email efreyfog@law.uiuc.eduSearch for more papers by this author ERIC T. FREYFOGLE, ERIC T. FREYFOGLE College of Law, University of Illinois, 504 E. Pennsylvania Avenue, Champaign, IL 61820, U.S.A., email efreyfog@law.uiuc.eduSearch for more papers by this author First published: 01 June 2006 https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1523-1739.2006.00433.xCitations: 6Read the full textAboutPDF ToolsRequest permissionExport citationAdd to favoritesTrack citation ShareShare Give accessShare full text accessShare full-text accessPlease review our Terms and Conditions of Use and check box below to share full-text version of article.I have read and accept the Wiley Online Library Terms and Conditions of UseShareable LinkUse the link below to share a full-text version of this article with your friends and colleagues. Learn more.Copy URL Share a linkShare onFacebookTwitterLinked InRedditWechat No abstract is available for this article.Citing Literature Volume20, Issue3June 2006Pages 679-680 RelatedInformation

Ambient Power: Berlin's Potsdamer Platz and the Seductive Logic of Public Spaces

In privatised public spaces where people mill around and cross over one another's paths in largely unforeseen ways, one could be forgiven for thinking that power is largely about guards and gates or that it is present through surveillance techniques. This paper puts forward a rather different view of power in public spaces that highlights its unmarked presence. It argues that closure in some of the more recent privatised public spaces is achieved in decidedly modest ways through a logic of seduction. Using the example of a privatised public space at the heart of Berlin's Potsdamer Platz redevelopment, it is suggested that the layout and design of the complex represent a seductive presence that effectively closes down options, enticing visitors to circulate and interact in ways that they might not otherwise have chosen. The suggestive practices, experiences and spaces are laid out for temptation in such a way that closure is achieved by degree, through inclusion rather than exclusion. Power in this instance works through the ambient qualities of the space, where the experience of it is itself the expression of power.

The gill and homeostasis: transport under stress.

in his recent cannon lecture, Cowley ([3][1]) pointed out the parallels between Cannon's time early in the last century and our own, i.e., the challenge facing us now, as then, is that of “systems integration” and understanding how organisms actually achieve homeostasis. We have begun to

Cabotage at Aperlae in Ancient Lycia

Aperlae was a small remote maritime city in ancient Lycia with a millennial floruit (late 4th century BC through the late 7th century AD). The harsh terrain of its hinterland forced a reliance on the Mediterranean from its founding to its demise. The Aperlites stabilized and enhanced their urban waterfronts in modest ways over the centuries, but basically they maintained and sustained their intimate relationship with the sea without elaborate docking or harbour installations. Fishing, probably a primary industry, centred on the harvest of murex trunculus, the marine mollusk from which purple dye was made. This valuable commodity appears to have been produced in Aperlae for export to Andriake, the international emporium of nearby Myra, for transshipment to textile centres throughout the Mediterranean. There, coastal traders also acquired the necessities and luxuries the city needed but did not produce. Proxy evidence, impressive archaeological features on land and under the sea, speaks to moments of prosperity for Aperlae well beyond mere subsistence. Cabotage was this secondary port's enduring lifeline.

Cabotage at aperlae in ancient lycia

Aperlae was a small remote maritime city in ancient Lycia with a millennial floruit (late 4th century BC through the late 7th century AD). The harsh terrain of its hinterland forced a reliance on the Mediterranean from its founding to its demise. The Aperlites stabilized and enhanced their urban waterfronts in modest ways over the centuries, but basically they maintained and sustained their intimate relationship with the sea without elaborate docking or harbour installations. Fishing, probably a primary industry, centred on the harvest of murex trunculus, the marine mollusk from which purple dye was made. This valuable commodity appears to have been produced in Aperlae for export to Andriake, the international emporium of nearby Myra, for transshipment to textile centres throughout the Mediterranean. There, coastal traders also acquired the necessities and luxuries the city needed but did not produce. Proxy evidence, impressive archaeological features on land and under the sea, speaks to moments of prosperity for Aperlae well beyond mere subsistence. Cabotage was this secondary port's enduring lifeline.

An Upgraded Viscous Coupling Measurement Methodology

In this Note, suggestions are presented about simple but usually ignored ways to enhance the reliability and utility of the otherwise interesting procedures recently studied (e.g. by Zarcone and Lenormand), and independently by Dullien and Dong for obtaining needed information about the relative importance of the role played by viscous coupling phenomena during multiphase flow processes that occur in and the interstices of natural porous media systems. This is done now because of the persistence of so many perplexing questions and contradicting opinions about what has been a controversial subject ever since the appearance of Yuster's watershed paper in 1951. Here, the belief held by at least a few of the currently publishing authorities is embraced, namely that viscous coupling issues will never be fully settled until the indications of the underlying theoretical interpretations can be fully confirmed by laboratory observations, hence a disclosure of even modest ways to achieve data acquisition enhancements is the motivation for what is written in what follows.

Corporate Compliance and the Antitrust Agencies' Bi-Modal Penalties

Mine is a singularly daunting assignment: to discuss individual compared with entity penalties as tools for encouraging corporate law compliance, to comment on the relationship between monetary payments as compensation and deterrence, and to reflect on the role of the private attorney general in the year 2000. In Part II, I briefly discuss some of the principal issues debated by corporate compliance authorities, including some of the issues relevant to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and the Justice Department's Antitrust Division. In Parts III and IV, respectively, I reflect on the deterrence provided by those agencies, and on their approach to corporate compliance issues. In Part V, I consider the role of private litigation as a supplement or complement to federal enforcement of competition and consumer-protection laws. Finally, in Part VI, and again focusing on competition and consumer protection, I discuss some modest ways in which our system for deterring corporate wrongdoing could be improved. The antitrust agencies employ penalties that are at once of increasing severity and strikingly bi-modal. Defendants in some actions by either agency may face extremely unpleasant consequences for their wrongdoing, while defendants in other actions may pay little, if any, price. One of the special roles of private litigation is to supplement agency enforcement, especially where otherwise there would be no significantly adverse consequences. Other roles are to identify cases of wrongdoing, to compensate victims, to help legal doctrine evolve, to provide an institutional safety-valve, and to preserve the integrity of an increasingly regulatory system of enforcement. That system could be improved, I suggest in Part VI, were the agencies to recognize the externality benefits of litigation, to develop middle ground civil deterrence, to continue

One Soul at a Time: Political Science and Political Reform

Political scientists want to do good. They want to expand knowledge about political life, but also they wish to use knowledge for political reform. Usually this means desiring to promote “democratization.” Historically democracy and political science have tended to develop together. In modest ways political science can contribute to the emergence of democracy. Political reform succeeds best if it occurs incrementally, in the spirit of “one soul at a time.”

GENETIC ANALYSIS OF SEVEN NEWLY DISCOVERED MUTANT ALLELES AT LOCUS T IN THE HOUSE MOUSE

NE of the eventual goals of genetical research is to elucidate the relation0 ship between four unknown but discoverable characteristics of the genetic material. These might be listed as : 1) the type of change to which one genetic locus or area is subject (mutation) ; 2) the structural character of that locus or area; 3) the kids of developmental processes that are affected by changes in that localized material ; and 4) the role which a locus with such properties may play in adaptive responses to the environment and thereby its probability of incorporation in some future species or varietal genotype. If we were suddenly to gain an understanding of these relationships the genetical millenium would have arrived, and we should, as investigators, temporarily join the unemployed. But we know that such an event is not at hand, for precise knowledge of the relationship between these primary attributes is not likely to develop from the study of any one species or any single line of attack. The goal is too distant a one to give us the practical directions we need in charting our way among the detailed technical studies which form the indbpensable raw material for synthesis. Yet if we bear in mind what the end is, we shall at least be influenced in our choice of means, and choose to follow up, in the more modest ways in which experimental studies must be circumscribed, those problems and materials which offer some hope of making progress in these four problems, which show signs even now of having a single direction. It is probably some such thoughts which have encouraged us to persist over a period of yearsin the study of material which many people consider refractory and, slow but which to us presents fascinating immedliate problems and almost daily surprises on the way toward a more ambitious and distant goal. The house mouse, as bred in captivity for hundreds of years, is as everyone knows, good for breeding experiments. Four or five generations a year, if not equal to the daily or bimonthly generation period of other useful animals and