A significant proportion of conservationists' work is directed towards efforts to save disappearing species. This relies upon the belief that species extinction is undesirable. When justifications are offered for this belief, they very often rest upon the assumption that extinction brought about by humans is different in kind from other forms of extinction. This paper examines this assumption and reveals that there is indeed good reason to suppose current anthropogenic extinctions to be different in kind from extinctions brought about at (...) other times or by other factors. Having considered – and rejected – quantity and rate of extinction as useful distinguishing factors, four alternative arguments are offered, each identifying a way in which anthropogenic extinction is significantly different from other forms of extinction, even mass extinction: (1) Humans are a different kind of natural cause from other causes of extinction; (2) Extinctions brought about by humans are uniquely persistent; (3) Anthropogenic extinctions are effectively random whereas past mass extinctions are rule-bound; (4) The impact of the current anthropogenic extinction event differs from the impact of other extinction events of the past, such that future recovery may not follow past patterns. Together, these four arguments suggest that the present-day extinction event brought about by humans may be unprecedented and that we cannot clearly extrapolate from past to present recovery from extinctions. Although insufficient as justification for the claim that present-day extinctions are undesirable, the arguments provide some ammunition for conservationists' conviction that species extinction – in which humans play an accelerating role – ought to be prevented. (shrink)

The Gnostic World is an outstanding guide to Gnosticism, designed as a collection of critical studies by experts to both widen and deepen study in Gnostic movements and strands of speculation as a discrete "World" of human socio-spiritual life from the distant past until today. An international team of contributors examines these manifestations in a variety of contexts, from the ancient pre-Christian to the contemporary. The volume considers the intersection of Gnosticism with Jewish, Christian, Islamic and Indic practices and beliefs, (...) and also with such new religious movements as Theosophy, Scientology, Western Sufism, and the Nation of Islam. This illustrated handbook will be an invaluable resource for students, scholars, and researchers of Gnostic doctrine and history. (shrink)

The aim of this article is to offer what I consider to be necessary substantiati for the view that the description of the walk which acts as a frame for the singing contest in Id. 7 is based on a precise knowledge of the geography of t island of Cos and that the poem thus displays a topographical realism unique Greek pastoral.

Hastings Center Report, Volume 52, Issue 3, Page 31-33, May–June 2022.

¡Cuán lejos estamos del clasicismo, y cuánto necesitamos de él! La necesidad de incorporar más estudios humanísticos es una necesidad que no puede sino sonar hoy terriblemente arcaica, inadaptada a los tiempos que –literalmente– corren, inútil a una democracia que ha perdido el rumbo y que trepida a la consolidación de lo técnico, donde la deliberación ha sido reemplazada por lo instintivo, por la irreflexión, por el espectáculo; en fin, si hay una consigna que hoy suena como una bella sinfonía (...) opacada por el ruido circundante, no es sino aquella que clama por la reivindicación del humanismo en nuestra educación como una condición ineludible de una democracia realmente deliberativa. Esto ya lo había atisbado nuestra poetisa, cuando señaló que las briznas apenas asomadas del humanismo fueron quemadas en varios países “y que lo científico entró con una presencia borrosa de fantasma, es decir, sin capacidad para suceder a la patrona arrojada de las aulas” (98). (shrink)

In the history of Russian philosophy, V. S. Solovyov is known as one of the prominent spokesmen of theological idealism. Lenin more than once pointed to the need to combat the ideas of this philosopher . He quite properly regarded them as the theoretical foundation of the ideology of "liberal renegacy.".

This volume presents new texts of Cicero's dialogues on political philosophy, De Re Publica and De Legibus, together with corrected versions of the editor's previously published editions of Cato Maior de Senectute and Laelius de Amicitia. The texts are based on a full reconsideration of the manuscript evidence and are presented in a clear and readable form.

La imagen de cualquier país tiene dos vertientes, la formada por los nativos y la creada y cultivada por los extranjeros. En este ensayo se estudian las diferentes visiones que han existido de España desde la Edad Media a la actualidad.

This biography provides a stimulating and coherent blend of scientific and personal narratives describing the many achievements of the theoretical physicist Herbert Fröhlich. For more than half a century, Fröhlich was an internationally renowned and much respected figure who exerted a decisive influence, often as a 'man ahead of his time', in fields as diverse as meson theory and biology. Although best known for his contributions to the theory of dielectrics and superconductivity, he worked in many other fields, his most (...) important legacy being the pioneering introduction quantum field-theoretical methods into condensed matter physics in 1952, which revolutionised the subsequent development of the subject. Gerard Hyland has written an absorbing and informative account, in which Herbert Fröhlich's magnetic personality shines through. (shrink)