Myths, misunderstanding and neglect have combined to obscure our understanding of the relationship between left-wing politics and Darwinian science. This article seeks to redress the balance by studying how radical and socialist thinkers of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, desperate to legitimate their work with scientific authority, wrestled with the paradoxical challenges Darwinism posed for their politics. By studying eight leading radical and socialist thinkers — ranging from the co-founder of the theory of evolution by natural selection, Alfred (...) Russel Wallace, through to Britain's first Labour Prime Minister, J. Ramsay MacDonald — this article analyses the often tortuous relationship between Darwinism and the left, as well as providing fresh insights into the historiographical debate over ‘continuity’ in radicalism and socialism. A strict definition of ‘Darwinian’ is adopted throughout, in order to help us delineate what was specifically ‘Darwinian’ from what merely reflected the general evolutionary ethos of the age, in left-wing thought, and to move us beyond the sensational and distorting focus on eugenics which has characterized previous studies. (shrink)

Peter Abelard (1079–1142 ce) was the most wide‐ranging philosopher of the twelfth century. He quickly established himself as a leading teacher of logic in and near Paris shortly after 1100. After his affair with Heloise, and his subsequent castration, Abelard became a monk, but he returned to teaching in the Paris schools until 1140, when his work was condemned by a Church Council at Sens. His logical writings were based around discussion of the “Old Logic”: Porphyry's Isagoge, aristotle'S Categories and (...) On Interpretation and boethius'S textbook on topical inference. They comprise a freestanding Dialectica (“Logic”; probably c.1116), a set of commentaries (known as the Logica [Ingredientibus], c. 1119) and a later (c. 1125) commentary on the Isagoge (Logica Nostrorum Petititoni Sociorum or Glossulae). In a work Abelard called his Theologia, issued in three main versions (between 1120 and c.1134), he attempted a logical analysis of trinitarian relations and explored the philosophical problems surrounding God's claims to omnipotence and omniscience. The Collationes (“Debates,” also known as “Dialogue between a Christian, a Philosopher and a Jew”; probably c.1130) present a rational investigation into the nature of the highest good, in which the Christian and the Philosopher (who seems to be modeled on a philosopher of pagan antiquity) are remarkably in agreement. The unfinished Scito teipsum (“Know thyself,” also known as the “Ethics”; c.1138) analyses moral action. (shrink)

This is an informative, well-written, spritely, and sympathetic survey of the development of Marxism in France from the late nineteenth century to Sève's An Introduction to Marxist Philosophy. Although Kelly does not characterize it this way, his work may be seen as a history of the dialectical evolution of French Marxism. By tracing the historical background of the variety of theoretical works on Marx's writings and on Marxism in general and sketching the systolic and diastolic movements of the French communist (...) party as well, Kelly has produced an indispensable propaedeutic to a deeper study of the fertile writings of the leading French Marxist thinkers. He is careful and patient as he traces the twists and turns of theoretical perspectives. The relation between Hegel and Marx is a thread which runs through his exposition. Guterman and Henri Lefebvre's attempt to analyze the nature of the dialectic and the central idea of contradiction in the 1930's is discussed clearly, with emphasis upon Lefebvre's aim of attributing a non-materialistic dialectic to Marx, of characterizing historical materialism as "the unity of idealism and materialism." Stalin's exposition of dialectical and historical materialism is shown to have inaugurated an era of dogmatic Marxism. Kelly shows us how things picked up during the post-war years and how the theoretical richness of French Marxism gained momentum up to 1980. The influence of Lefebvre's Dialectical Materialism is traced up to the early anti-Hegelian standpoint of Althusser. In a later chapter, we are offered a fairly detailed exposition and commentary on Althusser's criticism of the view that Marx inverted Hegel, his analysis of the structure of the dialectic, and his belief that the issue of the exteriority of the dialectic to its possible objects is a "question of the application of a method" which "poses a pre-dialectical question... which... has no meaning for Marx." Among other things, Kelly traces the writings of, and career of, Garaudy, discusses the innovative notion of Godelier's cybernetic dialectic, briefly sketches the contributions of Tran Duc Thao, the responses to Sartre's Critique, examines Sève's original studies of contradiction and "negation of the negation," and probably introduces most non-French readers to Jaeglé's renovation of dialectics in relation to contemporary natural science. Finally, Labica's attempt to show that philosophy is jettisoned by Marx in favor of a "science of history," D'Hondt's analyses of difference and contradiction, and Mercier-Josa's circling back through Hegel for a fresh understanding of Marx are briefly discussed. It should be said that Kelly's running commentary is always informed, judicious and independent. His work serves as an excellent introduction to modern French Marxism.--George J. Stack, The State University of New York, College at Brockport. (shrink)

This carefully crafted volume concludes the series of works that began with Cultural Thematics. Seung's primary aim is to go beyond the malaise of post-New Critical studies and to reinstate the centrality of contextual understanding in the interpretation of the structure and meaning of a text. In his introductory discussion of "Text and Context" the author undermines the claims of the objectivity of a text, textual solipsism and textual agnosticism in a manner that recalls the previous arguments in philosophy concerning (...) our knowledge of the external world. Starting with an analysis of textual indeterminacy, Seung ranges over a variety of relevant conceptions of the interpretation of a text, touching upon the works of E. D. Hirsch, Schleiermacher, Cleanth Brooks, Dilthey, Gadamer, and others. In a fairly technical chapter, "Semantics and Pragmatics," the distinctions between formal semantics and informal pragmatics are clearly discussed. An analysis of the pragmatic use of language leads to detailed and informative discussions of pragmatic norms, pragmatic functions, and the relevance of authorial intention for an understanding of a given text. Simplifying Seung's lucid and disciplined arguments, it is shown that a proper understanding of a text requires a grasp of the holistic culture in which it is presented, as well as an understanding of regnant cultural themes. Enriched by interpretations of the Odyssey, Oedipus Rex, the Aeneid, Dante's Commedia, and other literary works, Seung displays the art of contextual interpretation in accordance with his own principles. Of special interest is the presentation of the importance of textual coherence for significant textual interpretations. The various analyses of the role of thematics in the understanding of literature in historical context lead to sympathetic appraisals of Gadamer's hermeneutic program and a brief defence of Gadamer against the charge of falling into an historicist relativity. Finally, Seung concludes his illuminating study with a sketch of a cultural morphology that resembles, in embryo, Hegel's phenomenology of culture. This is no accident, insofar as Seung presents, in his concluding outline of the interaction of cultural themes, an admitted variation on Hegel's dialectical theme. By even finding a place for the "existential dimension of thematic dialectic," the author manages to negate and preserve the solipsism of the reader and give recognition virtually to every relevant aspect of a complex hermeneutic process.--G. J. Stack, SUNY College at Brockport. (shrink)

Killing is a topic that divides superhero fans like no other. Wonder Woman is a curious case, though. Traditionally associated with compassion and love, Diana is also a fierce warrior. While seeing Wonder Woman's choice through the lens of moral philosophy, it would seem that the deck is stacked against Lord in terms of one school of ethics, consequentialism. Consequentialism requires that we make a moral decision by choosing the option with the best (or least bad) outcomes. The simple math (...) dictates that Wonder Woman can guarantee the least loss of life by killing Max Lord. The decision Wonder Woman faced with respect to Max Lord closely resembles the one Superman faced when three renegade Kryptonians, each more powerful than Superman, wiped out the entire population of an Earth in an alternate dimension and threatened to do the same in his. (shrink)

The proteasome family of proteases comprises oligomeric assemblies of very different symmetry. In different sizes, it features ring‐like oligomers with dihedral symmetry that allow the stacking of further rings of regulatory subunits as observed in the modular proteasome system, but also less symmetric helical assemblies. Comprehensive sequence and structural analyses of proteasome homologs reveal a parsimonious scenario of how symmetry may have emerged from a monomeric ancestral precursor and how it may have evolved throughout the proteasome family. The four characterized (...) representatives—ancestral β subunit (Anbu), HslV, betaproteobacterial proteasome homolog (BPH), and the 20S proteasome—are outlasting cornerstones in the family's evolutionary history, each marking a transition in symmetry. This article contextualizes the evolutionary and functional key aspects of these symmetry transitions, explaining how they facilitated the diversification and concurrent evolution of independent proteolytic systems side by side, each with its customized network of auxiliary interactors. -/- . (shrink)

In his Farewell to Reason, Paul Feyerabend advocates radical pluralism in all intellectual endeavors and disputes the widely held belief that all issues can and should be resolved rationally. For Feyerabend, it is desirable that mutually incompatible approaches to scientific and scholarly research proliferate. Even an approach that one's favored school of thought dismisses as loony is likely to yield ideas and factual observations that its derogators will find of value and would otherwise have missed. To derive intellectual benefit from (...) an alternative tradition, one need not accept its premises and values; likewise, to ignore uncongenial ideas, one is not obliged to construct a refutation of than, which is just as well, since such a refutation usually can be constructed only by stacking the cards against adversaries about whom one is grossly ignorant. (shrink)

Background: The traditional approach to resolving ethics concerns may not address underlying organisational issues involved in the evolution of these concerns. This represents a missed opportunity to improve quality of care “upstream”. The purpose of this study was to understand better which organisational issues may contribute to ethics concerns. Methods: Directed content analysis was used to review ethics consultation notes from an academic children’s hospital from 1996 to 2006 (N = 71). The analysis utilised 18 categories of organisational issues derived (...) and modified from published quality improvement protocols. Results: Organisational issues were identified in 68 of the 71 (96%) ethics consult notes across a range of patient settings and reasons for consultation. Thirteen of the 18 categories of organisational issues were identified and there was a median of two organisational issues per consult note. The most frequently identified organisational issues were informal organisational culture (eg, collective practices and approaches to situations with ethical dimensions that are not guided by policy), policies and procedures (eg, staff knows policy and/or procedural guidelines for an ethical concern but do not follow it) and communication (eg, communication about critical information, orders, or hand-offs repeatedly does not occur among services). Conclusions: Organisational issues contribute to ethical concerns that result in clinical ethics consults. Identifying and addressing organisational issues such as informal culture and communication may help decrease the recurrence of future similar ethics concerns. (shrink)

This study aimed to determine if people would use social usefulness as a criterion when allocating a kidney to potential recipients. Participants ranked hypothetical patients in order of priority to receive the kidney, using only information on the patients’ volunteering record, intelligence, emotional intelligence, and attractiveness. The results showed that volunteers were prioritized over nonvolunteers, highly intelligent patients over those with average intelligence, patients with high emotional intelligence over those with average emotional intelligence, and good-looking patients over average-looking patients. There (...) was little evidence of personal favoritism. Implications and limitations are discussed. (shrink)

In Bester’s article (2018) challenging the use of the harm principle and advocating sole reliance on the use of a best interest standard (BIS) in pediatric decision-making, we believe that the auth...

Li Zehou is perhaps best known among Western audiences for his work on aesthetics. This is mainly due to the fact that translations of his writings available in English are mostly limited to his aesthetics.1 The content of A Response to Michael Sandel and Other Matters differs greatly from these previous translations. Published in Chinese in 2014, it is one of Li’s most recent books, and in it he discusses several main points of the systematic philosophical outlook he has developed (...) over recent decades, and places them in relation to Western liberalism. A Response thus aims far beyond responding to Michael Sandel’s views on justice and morality as presented in the... (shrink)

The monograph shows that in the last 50 years theoretical linguistics remains a compendium of mutually contradicting doctrines on multiple levels: the level of general theories of language, the level of its main constituents (the lexicon, syntax, and the lexical-syntactic interface that connects them), and the lower levels of specific linguistic problems (such as lexical polysemy, grammatical meanings, etc.). The contradictions of contemporary linguistic theories are indicative of a deep crisis. Evolutionary-synthetic theory of language is aimed at overcoming this crisis. (...) It implements a multidisciplinary approach that describes the language a) in evolutionary and ontogenetic development and b) in close interaction with other human subsystems: the mental representation of the world, human activity and social interaction. Language is defined as a dual system developing in ontogeny: 'universal sensory sublanguage + ethnically specific functional sublanguage' where the sensory sublanguage is used to describe the 'visible' world (accessible to the senses), and the functional sublanguage is employed to describe the conceivable world ('comprehended by human mind'). Within the framework of the approach presented, many problems are solved: 1) the cognitive (non-verbal) language for representing language meanings; 2) diversity and unity of languages (using the structure alternative to Chomsky's Universal Grammar); 3) the main (original) function of the language; 4) the cognitive language of thought (its basis is the lexical and grammatical meanings of the sensory sublanguage); 5) dual (functionally prototypical) structure of human categories; 6) mechanisms in the early acquisition of lexical and grammatical meanings; 7) the meaning (assignment) of the syntactic structure of a sentence, etc. The book deals with a wide range of issues related to human cognition, glottogenesis and anthropogenesis, universal cognitive structures for the representation of objects, actions and situations, so it will be of interest not only to linguists, but also to psychologists, anthropologists, sociologists, philosophers. (shrink)

In debates about criteria for human death, several camps have emerged, the main two focusing on either loss of the "organism as a whole" (the mainstream view) or loss of consciousness or "personhood." Controversies also rage over the proper definition of "irreversible" in criteria for death. The situation is reminiscent of the proverbial blind men palpating an elephant; each describes the creature according to the part he can touch. Similarly, each camp grasps some aspect of the complex reality of death. (...) The personhood camp, in contrast to the mainstream "organism" camp, recognizes that a human organism can still be a biological living whole even without brain function. The mainstream camp, in contrast to the personhood camp, recognizes that a person can be permanently, even irreversibly unconscious, and still be a living person so long as his/her body is alive. The author proposes that hylomorphic dualism incorporates both these key insights. But to complete the picture of the entire "death elephant," a fundamental paradigm shift is needed to make sense of other seemingly conflicting insights. The author proposes a "semantic bisection" of the concept of death, analogous to the traditional distinction at the beginning of life between "conception" and "birth." To avoid the semantic baggage associated with the term "death," the two new death-related concepts are referred to as "passing away" (or "deceased") and "deanimation," corresponding, respectively, to sociolegal ceasing-to-be (mirror image of birth) and ontological/theological ceasing-to-be of the bodily organism (mirror image of conception). Regarding criteria, the distinguishing feature is whether the cessation of function is permanent (passing away) or irreversible (deanimation). If the "dead donor rule" were renamed the "deceased donor rule" (both acronyms felicitously being "DDR"), the ethics of organ transplantation from non–heart-beating donors could, in principle, be validly governed by the DDR, even though the donors are not yet ontologically "deanimated." Thus, the paradigm shift satisfies both those who insist on maintaining the DDR and those who claim that it has all along been receiving only lip service and should be explicitly loosened to include those who are "as good as dead." Even so, a number of practical caveats remain to be worked out for non–heart-beating protocols. (shrink)

Violations of ethical conductThis article is about torture, power and the breach of ethical conduct among military doctors, nurses and medics in the “War on Terror”. Violations of ethical conduct have been widely recounted in academic and non-academic journals and reports.1 This paper is also a call to international boards of doctors and nurses to intervene directly to stop abuses undertaken by US military healthcare providers under the guise of the War on Terror. With evidence growing that US military and (...) security services are actively engaged in the ill treatment, torture and deaths of suspects, details about the participation of healthcare professionals in such unlawful and unethical activities remain for the most part timidly accounted for. But according to current literature on this topic, there is increasing evidence that US doctors, nurses and medics have been complicit in torture and other unethical activities in Afghanistan, Iraq and Guantanamo Bay .2–4The US government has inadequately dealt with these facts. Senior officials in the Bush administration who have played a major part in conducting the War on Terror have been either promoted or asked to remain in their posts. More seriously, despite worldwide condemnation of the reality behind the photos, allegations of torture continue at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.5 The graphic and appalling nature of several photographs are by no means the only evidence of abuses conducted by the US on its own territory and abroad. But the complicity of healthcare professionals in many venues , such as in capital punishment procedures in the US, exacerbates the already disturbing extent of bio-political abuses by the US government.Doctors and nurses often top the polls as caring and trustworthy professionals.6 Indeed, so strong …. (shrink)

The author has recently shown that a mathematical question regarding the fundamental constituents of hardrons cannot be resolved unless the classical axioms of nonfinite mathematics are revised in such a way as to produce a new theory of particle motion in continuous space-time. Under this new theory, the instantaneous position of a moving object has a magnitude that is increasing as the object's velocity. The purpose of this paper is to show that, quite apart from the question of Cantorian axiomatics, (...) the new theory of motion is more consistent with what physicists really believe than the traditional theory of motion. (shrink)

An Arabic language summary of the history and principles of four key Hellenic schools of philosophy: Cynicism, Skepticism, Epicureanism, and Stoicism.