Mucins are a family of high molecular weight, highly glycosylated glycoproteins found in the apical cell membrane of human epithelial cells from the mammary gland, salivary gland, digestive tract, respiratory tract, kidney, bladder, prostate, uterus and rete testis. Increased synthesis of the core protein and alterations in the carbohydrates attached to these glycoproteins are believed to play important roles in the function and proliferation of tumour cells. Aberrant glycosylation leads not only to the production of novel carbohydrate structures, but also (...) to the exposure of the core peptide. These novel epitopes may be candidates for diagnosis or therapy, by using either synthetic mucin fragments as vaccines, or monoclonal antibody‐based reagents which detect these structures. (shrink)

Towards the close of Book V of theRepublicPlato tells us that the true philosopher has knowledge and that the objects of knowledge are the Forms. By contrast, the ‘lovers of sights and sounds’, he tells us, have no more than belief, the objects of which are physical particulars. He then goes on to present us with some very radical-sounding assertions about the nature of these physical particulars. They are bearers of opposite properties, he says, in so thorough-going a manner that (...) we cannot say of them that they are nor that they are not: they lie somewhere between being and utter non-being.This passage of theRepublic still awaits an agreed interpretation and I want to suggest as a reason for this that it is usually interpreted in isolation. I will argue that it becomes easier to understand when seen against the background of Plato's developing thought. To be more precise, it makes sense when taken as a rejection by Plato of one of his earlier beliefs: namely, a doctrine of essentialism to be found in thePhaedo.The greater part of this paper then will be an attempt to show thatRepublicV is a rejection of thePhaedo'sdoctrine of essences. Its concluding part will try to explain why that doctrine was rejected. (shrink)

This is a book about the philosophy of Henri Bergson which shows how relevant Bergson is to much contemporary philosophy. The book takes as its point of departure Bergson's insistence on precision in philosophy. It then discusses a variety of topics including laughter, the nature of time as experienced, how intelligence and language should be construed as a pragmatic product of evolution, and the antinomies of reason represented by magic and religion. This is not just another exposition of Bergson's work. (...) It offers an account of why Bergson commanded such a massive reading public in his own day and why he deserves to be read now. Written in a terse and clear style, this book will prove appealing to teachers and students of philosophy, cognitive science, psychology, religious studies and literature. (shrink)

At first sight it may seem as if Imagination can easily be characterized as a continuous process of having images; but this is very soon found to be inadequate and misleading. On the one hand we have a great number of good witnesses who insist that in their best imaginative work they have made use of no images, or of very few; and on the other, everybody makes distinction between flights of fancy, for example, which certainly involve successions of images, (...) and true imagination. Perhaps a better method of approach is found when we examine how the material dealt with in the imaginative process is built together. In the flight of fancy image follows image, and the transition from one to the next seems to be determined by something in the nature of each individual step of the whole chain, or by each individual act of imaging. Thus the train as a whole is very apt, to the outsider, to appear jerky, ill-connected. (shrink)

In this paper there are two claims that I wish to defend. One is that in Socrates’ much discussed “causal” theory concrete particulars are more central than Forms. The other is that these concrete particulars are held by Plato to be not simply bundles of characteristics, not mere meeting-points of Forms, but independent individuals, existing in their own right.It will not, I believe, be questioned that from one point of view the prime concern of the Phaedo is with concrete particulars; (...) not with Forms, characteristics, or anything else. For, the overriding aim of the dialogue is, surely, to persuade us each to care for his own soul; it is for this reason that arguments are put forward to show that souls are indestructible. But there is no doubt that these souls are particulars. (shrink)

This book is a philosophical commentary on Schopenhauer's "Fourfold Root of the Principle of Sufficient Reason," dealing with each of Schopenhauer's principal ...