This article advances recent scholarship on energy security by arguing that the concept is best understood as a sociotechnical imaginary, a collective vision for a “good society” realized through technoscientific-oriented policies. Focusing on the 1952 Resources for Freedom report, the authors trace the genealogy of energy security, elucidating how it establishes a morality of efficiency that orients policy action under the guise of security toward the liberalizing of markets in resource states and a robust program of energy research and development (...) in the United States. This evidence challenges the pervasive historical anchoring of the concept in the 1970s and illustrates the importance of the genealogical approach for the emerging literature on energy and sociotechnical imaginaries. Exploring the genealogy of energy security also unpacks key social, political, and economic undercurrents that disrupt the seeming universality of the language of energy, leading the authors to question whether energy security discourse is appropriate for guiding policy action during ongoing global energy transitions. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Raimon Panikkar (1918-2010):Life and LegacyJ. Abraham Vélez de CeaThe interreligious theologian, intercultural philosopher, and pluralist mystic Raimon Panikkar died in Tavertet, Barcelona, on 26 August 2010. He was ninety-one. A pioneer of interreligious dialogue and comparative theology, Panikkar claimed to be at the same time yet without contradiction a Christian, a Buddhist, a Hindu, and a secular man.Panikkar's multiple religious belonging was not a matter of choice and (...) shallow eclecticism but rather a matter of personal experience and profound spiritual growth. His distinction between eclecticism and syncretism might be helpful to understand the complex nature of his religious identity. Eclecticism "is an uncritical mixture of religious traditions and an agreement among them obtained by chopping off all possible discrepancies in favor of an amorphous common denominator." On the contrary, syncretism "is allowing for a possible assimilation of elements by virtue of which these elements cease to be foreign bodies so that organic growth within each tradition is possible, and the mutual fecundation of religious traditions becomes a genuine option."1Another point I would like to clarify is that Panikkar's multiple religious belonging was not a question of being primarily Christian and secondarily something else, as if truth could be quantified. Panikkar objected to this "modern" way of thinking. I remember a conversation with him about this issue in which he compared these attempts to quantify religious identity to those who try to understand the Trinity as being either one or three. He said that if you begin counting you miss the point, and then he added in a defiant tone: "I am 100 percent Christian, 100 percent Hindu, 100 percent Buddhist, and 100 percent secular." When I insisted and told him that for many people multiple religious belonging is just not possible, Panikkar replied: "Well, it is my experience; I cannot help it."Panikkar's multiple religious belonging was often misunderstood and cost him the distrust of both Christians and Hindus. For instance, in 1966, Panikkar applied for a chair in Hindu philosophy at the prestigious Banaras Hindu University. Though [End Page 215] everybody agreed he was by far the most competent candidate, he was not offered the position because for many conservative Hindus Panikkar was not Hindu enough.Similarly, many conservative Catholics today would say that Panikkar went too far with his distinction between Christ and the historical Jesus; for them Panikkar was not Christian enough. However, this would be unfair. As I understand Panikkar, he was not trying to undermine any Christian claim. Quite the contrary, he was challenging what he perceived as a tribal Christology and a reduction of Christianity to a two-thousand-year-old sect. Time will tell, like it did with great thinkers such as Nāgārjuna (ca. 150-250), Śaṅ-kara (788-820), Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274), and Meister Eckhart (ca. 1260-1327), who were also criticized at first by their respective traditions. Perhaps Panikkar was simply ahead of his time, and what today seems controversial to some will become the norm in the future; it would not be the first time.Panikkar was an embodiment of interreligious dialogue, and his theology was the result of such dialogue. He was born in Barcelona on 3 November 1918. His mother was a Catholic from Catalonia, and his father was a Hindu from Kerala, India. After studying philosophy and natural sciences in Barcelona, Madrid, and Bonn, he joined the recently created Opus Dei in 1940. It should be clarified that in the aftermath of the Spanish civil war and compared to the pre-Vatican II National Catholicism of Franco's regime, Opus Dei was a progressive Catholic organization for laypeople interested in sanctifying their professional work.Panikkar was ordained a Catholic priest in 1946 and became the chaplain of a student dormitory in Madrid (Colegio Mayor la Moncloa). That very year he earned his first doctorate, in philosophy, with a dissertation titled El concepto de naturaleza: Análisis histórico y metafísico de un concepto (Complutense University of Madrid, 1946, published in 1951). He was offered a position at the Complutense University but decided to continue with his pastoral work in Madrid, Barcelona... (shrink)

This book examines reason and unreason in the legal and political responses to terrorism. Terrorism is often perceived as sheer madness, unreasonable use of extreme violence and senseless, futile political action. These assertions are challenged by this book. Combining ‘traditional’ thought on reason and unreason in terrorism with empirical explorations of post-modern terrorism and its use of communication platforms the work uses interdisciplinary and cross disciplinary dimensions to provide a multidimensional picture of critical issues in current politics and a deeper (...) examination of their implications than previously available. The book looks at various aspects of modern politics, from terrorism to protest, from decision-making to political discourse, applying the perspective of philosophical thought. To do so, political issues and actions are examined by using concepts such as reason, emotions, madness, magic, morality, absolutism, extremism, psychopathology, rationality and others. The analysis is rooted in theories and concepts derived from history, philosophy, religion, art, sociology, psychology, and political science. This book, which was mostly written by the late Abraham Kaplan, an American philosopher, and edited and updated by Gabriel Weimann, will be of much interest to students of political violence/terrorism, philosophy, war and conflict studies and political science in general. (shrink)

Contemporary pain literature increasingly acknowledges the need of a multidimensional approach to pain, which accounts for its complex biological, psychological and social components. This is reflected in the recently revised definition of the International Association for the Study of Pain (IASP) and some contemporary philosophical positions. This paper addresses the need to offer a theoretical approach that integrates the biopsychosocial and qualitative multidimensionality of pain by developing the “social grounding view of pain”. My focus is on seeking a multidimensional philosophical (...) approach that accounts not only for its complex biological and psychological aspects but also and specifically does justice to its social dimension. I draw from some of the most recent multidimensional theoretical and methodological approaches that attempt to account for the social component of pain, including enactivism and interpretative phenomenological analysis (IPA), to propose the advancement of the social grounding view, which has a particular focus on socially shared linguistic concepts in relation to the meaning and modulation of pain. More specifically, the social grounding view is based on the argument that the meaning of the experience of pain is determined in part by socially shareable linguistic concepts habitually associated with pain. I test this view against empirical cases drawn from pain neuroscience education (PNE) and try to demonstrate how the modification of the linguistic concepts of pain could be used effectively to modulate its experience. (shrink)

Background: End-of-life decision-making for terminally ill neonates raises important legal and ethical issues. In Greece, no recent data on nurses’ attitudes and involvement in end-of-life decisions are available. Research question/aim: To investigate neonatal nurses’ attitudes and involvement in end-of-life decisions and the relation to their socio-demographic and work-related background data. Research design: A survey was carried out in 28 neonatal intensive care units between September 2018 and January 2019. A structured questionnaire was distributed by post. Participants and research context: The (...) questionnaire was answered anonymously by 312 nurses (response rate, 71.1%) and returned to the investigators. Ethical considerations: The study was approved by the Bioethics and Research Committee of Aretaieio Hospital in accordance with the Helsinki Declaration. Findings: Nurses more often reported involvement in various end-of-life decisions, such as continuation of treatment without adding further therapeutic interventions for terminally ill neonates, while less reported were mechanical ventilation withdrawal and drug administration to end life. Nurses with a high attitude score, reflecting a more quality-of-life approach, were more likely to be involved in setting limits to intensive care. α low score was consistent with life preservation. Nurses’ religiousness ( p = 0.097), parenthood ( p = 0.093), involvement in daily practice ( p = 0.03), and position on the existing legal framework ( p < 0.002) influenced their attitude score. Discussion: The likelihood of nurses to support interventions in neonates with poor prognosis in neonatal intensive care units was related to their attitudes. After adjusting for potential confounders, the most important predictors for nurses’ attitudes were parenthood, involvement in daily practice, and position supporting current legislation reform. Conclusion: Variability in involvement in end-of-life decisions among nurses exists on a national level. (shrink)

We show that the algebra of the group SL(2, C) naturally leads to the notion of gyrogroups and gyrovector spaces for dealing with the Lorentz group and its underlying hyperbolic geometry. The superiority of the use of the gyrogroup formalism over the use of the SL(2, C) formalism for dealing with the Lorentz group in some cases is indicated by (i) the validity of gyrogroups and gyrovector spaces in higher dimensions, by (ii) the analogies that they share with groups and (...) vector spaces, and by (iii) the demonstration that gyrovector spaces form the setting for hyperbolic geometry in the same way that vector spaces form the setting for Euclidean geometry. As such, gyrogroups and gyrovector spaces provide powerful tools for the study of relativity physics. (shrink)

... A. Zvie BAR-ON The Hebrew University of Jerusalem Shmuel Hugo Bergman, one of the most prominent Jewish philosophers of the 20th century, ...

Johnson conceptualizes the social responsibilities of digital media platforms by describing two ethical approaches: one emphasizing the discursive freedom of platform-users, the other emphasizing protecting users from harmful posts. These competing concerns are on full display in the current debate over platforms’ obligations during the COVID-19 pandemic. While Johnson argues both approaches are grounded in democracy, we argue that democratic commitments transcend the freedom/harm dichotomy. Instead, a commitment to democracy points toward social media companies’ responsibilities to structure their platforms in (...) ways that facilitate perspectival diversity and collective deliberation. (shrink)

One of the questions that philosophers discuss is: How can we avoid, or at least reduce, errors when explaining the world? The skeptical answer to this question is: We cannot avoid errors since no statement is certain or even definitely plausible, but we can eliminate some past errors. This book advocates the skeptical position and discusses its practical applications in science, ethics, aesthetics, and politics. It brings philosophy down to earth and comprises an outline of a skeptical guide to the (...) real world. (shrink)

El budismo. Peter Harvey. Cambridge University Press, Madrid 1998. 468 pp. Ptas 2,995. ISBN 84-8323-014-3.

This volume includes all Dewey's writings for 1938 except for Logic: The Theory of Inquiry, as well as his 1939 Freedom and Culture, Theory of Valuation, and two items from Intelligence in the Modern World. Freedom and Culture presents, as Steven M. Cahn points out, the essence of his philosophical position: a commitment to a free society, critical intelligence, and the education required for their advance.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:A New Direction for Comparative Studies of Buddhists and Christians:Evidence from Nāgārjuna and John of the CrossAbraham Vélez de CeaIs Nāgārjuna's emptiness a means to point out the inadequacy of logic and concepts to express the nature of the Ultimate Reality? Similarly, are John of the Cross's concepts of nothingness and emptiness examples of the apophatic path to God? In sum, is emptiness in Nāgārjuna and John of the (...) Cross comparable to the Christian via negativa and the apophatic path to God?If you answered yes to any of these questions, I believe you might be interested in reading this article carefully. You are not alone; in fact most if not all previous discussions of Nāgārjuna and John of the Cross in the field of Buddhist-Christian studies have assumed an affirmative answer to the former questions. The comparisons of D.T. Suzuki, Thomas Merton, and the Kyoto school between the Christian God and Buddhist emptiness, as well as the comparisons of members of the Masao Abe–John Cobb group, have greatly contributed to this apophatic interpretation of emptiness. The enormous contributions of D. T. Suzuki, Thomas Merton, the Kyoto school, and the Abe-Cobb group to the field of Buddhist-Christian studies cannot be sufficiently praised and appreciated. However, the future of Buddhist-Christian studies and Buddhist-Christian dialogue requires a new comparative direction, a shift from comparative theory to comparative praxis, from doctrinal comparisons to more ethical and spiritually relevant comparisons.This new direction provides Buddhist-Christian studies with a more practical orientation necessary for the urgent needs of our planet as well as for the needs of a growing number of members of different religions with pluralist attitudes. By pluralist attitudes, I do not mean a relativistic standpoint, but rather an attitude of intellectual humbleness and dialogical openness toward other religions. That humble and dialogical openness seeks neither to proselytize nor to create a new religion. Rather, the objective is to build bridges of understanding and solidarity among religious communities and to be personally enriched by the contributions of all religions.In order to justify the need for this new and more practically oriented comparative [End Page 139] direction, it is imperative to review previous scholarship in the field of Buddhist-Christian studies. A comprehensive analysis of all past scholarship would be too ambitious a goal for the purpose of this article. Thus, in the first part of this article I limit myself to reviewing those questionable hermeneutical tendencies that I have identified in former Buddhist-Christian discussions of John of the Cross and Nāgārjuna. In the second part, I continue the justification of this new direction for Buddhist-Christian studies by providing a specific example, namely, a comparison of the instrumental ethical function of emptiness in Nāgārjuna and John of the Cross.Hermeneutical Tendencies in Previous Buddhist-Christian Studies of John of the Cross and NāgārjunaHermeneutical Tendencies in Comparisons of John of the Cross and BuddhismIn the case of John of the Cross, I have identified three questionable hermeneutical tendencies. The first one is to exaggerate the similarity between John of the Cross and Buddhism. Take, for example, what Thomas Merton—whose pioneering work on Buddhist-Christian dialogue deserves careful study—said in 1968: "Frankly, I would say that Zen is nothing but John of the Cross without the Christian vocabulary" (quoted in Nugent 1996: 53). This comparison suggests that the teachings of Zen and John of the Cross are virtually identical, neglecting important differences between them.Similarly, Christopher Nugent compares John's experience of one's own true self to the experience of Buddha-nature, and describes satori as a fusion of all and nothing, and the coincidence of opposites. For Nugent, John of the Cross is not only a Zen master, but also "more Taoist than dualist" (1996: 62–64). These comparisons of John of the Cross to Zen and Taoism concepts fail to bring justice to his ideas. John of the Cross cannot be categorized a nondualist because he maintains a clear distinction between God and creatures. Similarly, from an ethical... (shrink)

Voor een goede beoordeling van het verschijnsel van de Gnostiek is het nodig rekening te houden met de invloed van Philo van Alexandrië, het geschrift Over de kosmos en de filosofie van Aristoteles. In de moderne discussie zijn die drie factoren vaak verkeerd ingeschat.

En este trabajo pretendemos comparar y poner en conexión la crítica de Hamann a la Ilustración y la crítica a la tecnología de Anders. La bomba atómica, entendida como paradigma tecnológico, se presenta como un punto de no retorno. Los orígenes de la lógica destructiva que la hace posible pueden ser rastreados hasta la Ilustración. En el periodo de las luces, Hamann aparece como un foco de resistencia frente a las sombras de un sistema que idealizó la racionalidad. A través (...) de estos dos autores trazamos el recorrido del debate sobre el nihilismo desde su origen en la modernidad hasta el momento presente. (shrink)

Book reviewed in this article: Mama Might Be Better Off Dead: The Failure of Health Care in Urban America. By Laurie Kaye Abraham. Not All of Us Are Saints: A Doctor's Journey with the Poor. By David Hilfiker.

Abraham Isaac Hakohen Kook (1865-1935) served as the Ashkenazic Chief Rabbi of Erets Israel during the period of the British mandate. Rav Kook was a polymath, equally talented as a Talmudic legalist and rationalist philosopher, on the one hand, and as a mystic and poet, on the other. Today, we would say that he was both "left and right hemisphere." The present collection brings together in English translation Rav Kook's contributions to the field of Jewish history, though perhaps "historiosophy" (...) would be the better word. Rav Kook joins the ranks of those great Jewish thinkers who preceded him in interpretation of history: Maharal of Prague, Moses Hayyim Luzzatto and Zadok Hakohen of Lublin. If Rav Kook's philosophy were to be summed up in a single word, it would be: Kelaliyut or universality. Whereas most of us are held captive by individual events, Rav Kook has a great gift for the overview of history. He brings this gift to bear in his ability to provide perspective on the modern rebirth of Israel against the backdrop of mankind's ongoing spiritual evolution. In the latter regard, his vision has sometimes been compared to that of Teilhard de Chardin and Sri Aurobido, or more recently Ken Wilber. Contained in this collection are Rav Kook's eulogy for Herzl and Rav Kook's remarks at the opening of Hebrew University in Jerusalem. The essays are placed in historic context and provided with copious scholarly endnotes. (shrink)

Abraham Verghese proposes to renew medicine by training physicians to read the right texts—literary fiction and patients' bodies—with skilled attention. Analyzing Verghese's proposal with reference to Foucault's idea of the "clinical gaze," I find that Verghese conceives of patients as texts that only physicians can read, meaning that physicians become the storytellers of the bodies, lives, and deaths of the people they meet as patients. I conclude that Verghese's project is unsustainable and alternatively propose thinking analogically of physicians as (...) ship captains who maintain therapeutic distance to reopen interpretative spaces for communities outside of medicine. (shrink)

In this volume, a distinguished philosopher and moral rights theorist examines important changes that have occurred in our thinking about rights since first mention of them was made in early modern times. His inquiry is framed by an opening question and a concluding response. The question is whether the Greeks had any conception of a moral right. Some argue that they did not, on the ground that they had no word for a right. Others claim that they did, since they (...) employed certain locutions, the equivalents of which in our language are tied to some notion of a moral right. Professor Melden reviews in detail some of the most important historical conceptions of rights and examines serious questions raised by the fact that there have been striking changes in our thinking about rights. His discussion elucidates the place of moral rights in the broader network of moral concepts, along with the role they should play in our moral lives. Among the fundamental issues raised and discussed are those concerning the ways in which we are to understand various sorts of rights, the relation of special moral rights to our basic human rights, the now familiar claim that there are animal rights, the nature of moral progress, and the dream of a moral science. (shrink)

That a science of human conduct is possible, that what any man may do even in moments of the most sober and careful reflection can be understood and explained, has seemed to many a philosopher to cast doubt upon our common view that any human action can ever be said to be truly free. This book, first published in 1961, into crucially important issues that are often ignored in the familiar arguments for and against the possibility of free action. These (...) issues are brought to light and examined in some detail. (shrink)

Abraham Pais's Subtle Is the Lord was a publishing phenomenon: a mathematically sophisticated exposition of the science and the life of Albert Einstein that reached a huge audience and won an American Book Award. Reviewers hailed the book as "a monument to sound scholarship and graceful style", "an extraordinary biography of an extraordinary man", and "a fine book". In this groundbreaking new volume, Pais undertakes a history of the physics of matter and of physical forces since the discovery of (...) x-rays. The book attempts to relate not only what has happened over the last hundred years but why it happened the way it did, what it was like for those scientists involved, and how what at the time may have seemed a series of bizarre or unrelated events, now with hindsight emerges as a logical sequence of events. Pais, a noted physicist, was personally involved in many of the developments he describes, and thus Inward Bound, like his earlier book, is filled with unique insights into the world of big and small physics. Between 1895 and 1983, the period he covers, the smallest distances explored have shrunk a hundred millionfold, Pais notes. Along this incompletely traveled "road inward," scientists have established markers that later generations will rank among the principal monuments of the twentieth century. In alternating technical and nontechnical sections, this magisterial survey richly conveys what has been discovered about the constituents of matter, the laws to which they are subject, and the forces that act on them. But the advances have certainly not come smoothly. The book shows that these have been times of progress and stagnation, of order and chaos, of clarity and confusion, of belief and incredulity, of the conventional and the bizarre; also of revolutionaries and conservatives, of science by individuals and by consortia, of little gadgets and big machines, and of modest funds and big money. About the Author: Abraham Pais is Detlev W. Bronk Professor of Physics at the Rockefeller University. The author of the prizewinning biography of Einstein now undertakes a history of modern physics. (shrink)

Assuming the existence of a supercompact cardinal and a weakly compact cardinal above it, we provide a generic extension where there are no Aronszajn trees of height ω 2 or ω 3 . On the other hand we show that some large cardinal assumptions are necessary for such a consistency result.

In Israel, whistleblowing in the nursing profession has been largely ignored. This topic is neither part of the professional—ethical discourse nor a subject for research. Focusing on the divide between internal and external whistleblowing, this article presents a study that explores nurses’ willingness to disclose an act that could jeopardize the rights or safety of patients. Internal disclosure entails reporting wrongdoing to an authority within the organization. External disclosure involves reporting the offense to an outside agency, such as a professional (...) organization or the press. The study’s findings indicate that the nurse respondents viewed both the harmful misconduct of a colleague and that of a manager as being very serious. In such dilemmas the nurses reported a desire to correct the wrongdoing and a concomitant willingness to act. They were, however, much more likely to whistleblow internally rather than externally. This study revealed a pattern of nurses’ progressive retraction as the circle of disclosure widened. (shrink)