When I was asked to propose a topic for my presidential address, the subject I chose, moral imperatives and conundrums of conscience, seemed to me particularly appropriate and timely. This was in part because of the problems of conscience caused for many members of the Academy by the decision to hold the annual meeting in Arizona, whose restrictive laws on immigration seemed to many to violate basic principles of right and justice and hence to warrant a boycott. Long, thoughtful, and (...) impassioned discussion of the issues revealed their complexity. Although the final decision disappointed many members, all recognized its virtue in supporting the Arizonans who were struggling to accomplish revocation of legislation they believed wrong. There was more. The crises in the leadership of the Academy during two of my years as a presidential officer raised issues of conscience and morality for all who worked to achieve equitable, just, and rational solutions to our problems and conflicts. On both issues, the site of the meeting and the governance of the Academy, colleagues adopted and defended positions that demonstrated the variety and strength of their convictions and the diversity of their reasons for holding them. (shrink)

On the Athenian disaster at Aegospotami the reaction, suppressed half a dozen years before, against the régime responsible for the war and its calamitous results sprang up again with double force. The capture of the fleet, the loss of the empire, which had been a useful buffer between the selfish interests of the wealthier citizens and the predatory appetites of the proletariate, the bankruptcy of the treasury, the discredit of the whole democratic system, the grim privations of the blockade, and (...) the imminent return of the exiles eager for power and vengeance, all portended the speedy downfall of the constitution, should the victorious enemy leave it standing. Yet the progress of the revolution was slower than might have been expected. In fact the oligarchs were at first crippled by the absence of their banished chiefs, andthroughout they had to reckon not only with a people which had long enjoyed liberty and empireand with a democratic administration already in office, but also with the middle party, disgusted indeed with the existing form of government but unwilling to substitute for it the rule ofa narrow privileged class, and led by a statesman of great ability and experience. (shrink)

In the early twentieth century, many philosophers in America thought that time should be taken seriously in one way or another. George P. Adams (1882-1961) argued that the past, present and future are all real but only the present is actual. I call this theory ‘actualist eternalism’. In this paper, I articulate his novel brand of eternalism as one piece of his metaphysical system and I explain how he argued for the view in light of the best explanations of temporal (...) experience and the present. I argue that his exploitation of analogies between time and modality offer some lessons for current debates about time such as the importance of providing a temporal epistemology. I also extract what I call the temporal boundary problem and argue that it gives rise to an unaddressed challenge for presentists and growing block theorists. (shrink)

Resumo Palavras-chave Keywords : Children’s literature. Music. Pedagogical practice : This article’s main purpose is to present a few possibilities of work with activities that involve pieces of children’s literature and music in the perspective of Children’s Education and first years of Primary School. As theoretical support, the paper presents several studies from authors such as Brito (2003), Ponso (2008), Souza (2006), Torres and Gallicchio (2004), among others who suggest developing activities of sound exploration through audition/appreciation and improvise/ sound editing (...) from some texts and books of children’s literature. A conclusion has been reached that the proposal of activities transforming words in music enables readers to experiment different sounds to compose the soundtrack of stories. Besides, when selecting a diversified repertoire with several texts, possibilities are created to the students to tell, recount and sing varied stories, allowing, thus, the entrance of different social voices. : Literatura Infantil. Música. Prática pedagógica. : O objetivo maior deste artigo é o de apresentar algumas possibilidades de trabalho com atividades que envolvam obras de literatura infantil e músicas, na perspectiva da Educação Infantil e Séries Iniciais do Ensino Fundamental. Como suporte teórico, o trabalho apresenta diversos estudos de autores, tais como Brito (2003), Ponso (2008), Souza (2006),Torres e Gallicchio (2004) entre outros, que sugerem desenvolver atividades de exploração sonora através da audição/ apreciação e improvisação/sonorização a partir de alguns textos e de livros de literatura infantil. Constatou-se que a proposta de atividades, transformando palavras em músicas, possibilita interpelar os leitores a experimentarem diferentes sons para compor a trilha sonora de histórias. Além disso, ao selecionar um repertório diversificado com vários textos, criam-se possibilidades aos alunos para contarem, recontarem e cantarem variadas histórias, permitindo, dessa maneira, a entrada de diferentes vozes sociais. (shrink)

If the exclusive promotion of values inimical to our basic humanity extends to the health care policy arena, we face a defensive, restricted, impersonal and ultimately impoverished health care system. Americans know it already as ‘managed-care’. This is why it is crucial for health policy analysts to make explicit the role of values in policy-making, especially that involving the input of ‘value-neutral’ economics. The nature of any clinical effectiveness policy will be determined by the understanding of cost-effectiveness employed in its (...) design and implementation. Given that cost-effectiveness is nowadays usually defined according to health economists’ criteria, the battle over the meaning of clinical effectiveness is a significant development in health economics’ move to assume control of the NHS. (shrink)

Quasi-probability distribution functions fj WW, fj MM for quantum spin-j systems are derived based on the Wigner-Weyl, Margenau-Hill approaches. A probability distribution fj sph which is nonzero only on the surface of the sphere of radius √j(j+1) is obtained by expressing the characteristic function in terms of the spherical moments. It is shown that the Wigner-Weyl distribution function turns out to be a distribution over the sphere in the classical limit.

Cet ouvrage est une réédition numérique d’un livre paru au XXe siècle, désormais indisponible dans son format d’origine.

IntroductionIn this study we compared the effects of a mindfulness-based intervention with a story reading intervention on the executive functions and psychological profile of children in two different public schools in São Paulo, Brazil.MethodsIn this controlled clinical trial, 207 children aged 8 to 9 years old responded to the Five-Digit Test, stress levels, depression, anxiety, positive and negative affect, at baseline and 8 weeks later. From T0 to T1, school 1 participated in MBI classes and school 2 in IS classes.ResultsIn (...) school 1, children improved their scores on all tests except reading and counting compared with school 2. No differences were observed between groups in terms of emotional health.ConclusionIt is feasible to implement MBI or SI in Brazilian public schools. Students in the MBI group presented broader effects in executive functions, while students in the SI group showed a trend toward reduced negative affect and depression symptoms. (shrink)

In The Idea of a Social Science Winch, argues that, sociology is more properly conceived as a branch of philosophy than of empirical science. Winch falls victim here to the Humean assimilation of the empirical to the generalizable. He notes that much of our talk about social practice is in terms of conventions, so that explanations of social action can be given without recourse to statistical or experimental findings. But such talk depends nonetheless on the accuracy and detail with which (...) the situations in which actions occur are? recorded, and this is surely an empirical enterprise. It is the misleading conception of sociology as a discipline, characterized by common procedures, that leads Winch to espouse the assimilation of sociology to conceptual inquiry. We need to see instead that sociology embraces a group of questions and subjects so loosely connected that it would be mistaken to speak of, and idle to project, a procedure common to all of them. (shrink)

Bourbaki suggest that their definition of the number 1 runs to some tens of thousands of symbols. We show that that is a considerable under-estimate, the true number of symbols being that in the title, not counting 1 179 618 517 981 links between symbols that are needed to disambiguate the whole expression.

No recent scholar has ever seriously maintained the genuineness of [Andokides] Oration IV, Against Alkibiades. Against it, one need cite no more than Blass, Attische Beredsamkeit , pp. 325–31; Jebb, Attic Orators , vol. i, pp. 133–9; an, pp. 191–210. The speech is quite ‘out of character’ for Andokides, who was certainly far too young ever to have been in danger of ostrakism as an alternative victim to Nikias or Alkibiades; and there is no reasonable doubt that its ‘dramatic date’ (...) is early in 415, and its ostensible speaker Phaiax, the clever young orator of Aristophanes' Knights , ambassador to Sicily in 422 and butt of Eupolis on divers occasions . These conclusions, however, leave open certain other material questions, especially that of the real date of the composition, on which in turn depends the question how far it can be legitimately used as an historical or biographical source. (shrink)

Please note that this article belongs to the Special Issue on the Legacy of David Lewis but was included in issue 195:5 by mistake. It should be regarded as part of this selection of articles.

I suppose the most obvious difference in fact between dreams and waking life is the chaotic nature of the former. But this somehow seems to be a mere contingency. Some of our dreams are more contingent than others, and it seems hard to impose any upper limit of coherence on them. Also it is usually after we wake up that they seem incoherent. Similarly many dreams are largely matters of sensation and emotion, mood and atmosphere, with little or no reasoning (...) in them; but this again is contingent, and dreams vary; Professor Broad, 56-57) relates a quite detailed scientific experiment which he carried out in a dream. (shrink)

Butte Montana, located in the south-west quarter of the state, is and always has been a company town. Butte is situated on what has been called the "richest hill on earth." The mining rights to this fabulous hill belong to the Anaconda Copper Company. By 1892 the Anaconda Company had become the world's largest producer of copper achieving an output of 100 million pounds. By 1978 "the company" proudly claimed that over 20 billion pounds of copper had been mined from (...) the "richest hill on earth." In the past Anaconda has employed approximately one-third of Buttes work force, paid 58% of the county property tax and annually pumped millions of dollars into the local business community. While it is clear that Anaconda and Butte are inextricably wed, since the early 1970's the residents of Butte have come to resent their nearly 100 year marriage of convenience to the copper giant. At present the major area of contention between "the company" and the citizens of Butte found themselves confronting the following predicament: What personal property and fiduciary rights can an ordinary citizen expect to maintain in the face of the needs and requirements of advancing industrial progress? (shrink)

There appears to be a wide measure of agreement, both amongst biologists and others, that Darwin's theory of evolution marks a major breakthrough in the science of biology; Darwin has even been called ‘Biology's Newton’, the highest term of praise that could be bestowed on a scientist. A. G. N. Flew, considering the matter from a philosophical point of view, says: ‘Yet one of the most important of all scientific theories is that developed by Darwin in his Origin of Species (...) . Covering the entire range of biological phenomena its scope is enormous. While if any scientific theory is interesting philosophically this one is.’ In spite of the testimony of both biologists and philosophers of science to the importance of the theory, it does not appear to play anything like the same role in biology as does Newton's theory in physics. For modern physics would be. (shrink)