As in the transmigration of souls after death in the Pythagorean myth that Socrates recounts in the Phaedo, for G.W.F. Hegel, in the Philosophy of Right, individuals are also 'reborn' out of their original nature into a 'second nature'. This article asks whether the Hegelian transmigration aims at their becoming nothing higher than that 'race of tame and social creatures . . . bees perhaps, wasps, or ants' which the Pythagorean myth relates is the fate of those who 'practiced popular (...) and social goodness . . . but devoid of philosophy and intelligence'. Through an analysis of duty, virtue, rectitude, custom and habit, this article argues that Hegel's account of the nature of fully ethical self-consciousness contains within it a robust, practical knowledge that resists the 'bees problem', shifts the focus of criticism from the truncation of human possibilities to the vitality of life, and ultimately furnishes resources that can secure the latter -- all without abandoning conventionality as the ethical horizon. (shrink)

J. Phys. A, to appear, quant-ph/0506173.

BACKGROUND: Hallucinations and delusions that complicate Parkinson’s disease could lead to nursing home placement and are linked to increased mortality. Cognitive impairments are typically associated with the presence of hallucinations but there are no data regarding whether such a relationship exists with delusions. OBJECTIVE: We hypothesized that hallucinations would be associated with executive and visuospatial disturbance. An exploratory examination of cognitive correlates of delusions was also completed to address the question of whether they differ from hallucinations. METHODS: 144 PD subjects (...) completed a neuropsychological battery to assess cognition and the SAPS to examine psychosis. Correlational analyses assessed associations between hallucinations and delusions with cognitive domains. RESULTS: 48 subjects reported psychotic symptoms: 25 experienced hallucinations without delusions, 23 had symptoms dominated by delusions. Severity and/or number of hallucination subtypes were significantly correlated with lower scores in language, memory, attention, executive functioning, and visuospatial ability. Correlations with delusions were non-significant. Tests of differences in the size of the correlations between groups revealed a significant relationship between language and visuospatial performance with hallucinations. CONCLUSIONS: Cognitive correlates of hallucinations and delusions appear to be different in PD, suggesting distinct pathogenic mechanisms and possibly anatomical substrates. Hence, delusions may not share the same associations with dementia as hallucinations. Since this is a new finding, further studies will be needed to confirm our results. (shrink)

Drawing on a landscape analysis of existing data-sharing initiatives, in-depth interviews with expert stakeholders, and public deliberations with community advisory panels across the U.S., we describe features of the evolving medical information commons. We identify participant-centricity and trustworthiness as the most important features of an MIC and discuss the implications for those seeking to create a sustainable, useful, and widely available collection of linked resources for research and other purposes.

As a specialised complement to a history text-book Dr. Hawkins offers a collection of short essays, which coalesce around the main theme of the fortunes of British empiricism in its eighteenth century precursors, its twentieth century rebirth and in a possible reconstruction which in the author’s opinion may lead it to rejoin and deepen the traditional stream of realism. For good parallel measure he adds two essays on existentialism and marxism. Dr. Hawkins unites a trenchant independence of thought with the (...) national method of cautious analysis and lucid, simple style, which make him a competent accountant of the present balancesheet of British philosophy. His papers offer the personal results of some twenty years of probing analysis and critical evaluation of problems and trends of thought, which are mainly epistemological in character. One sole regret is that he omits from his account the urgent moral problems which are forcing a re-examination of empiricist method and objectivity and re-opening it to the possibility of a metaphysical basis for values. (shrink)

G. E. Moore, unlike most prophets, is honoured only in his own country—the small world of the Aristotelian Society and the Cambridge Moral Science Club. To outsiders he is known, if at all, mainly because of his connection with his more flamboyant colleagues, Russell and Wittgenstein. Yet Moore’s influence on the intellectual life of this century is hardly calculable. Philosophy as it is now taught in the universities of the English–speaking world derives its character, largely, from his personal habits of (...) thought. He bequeathed it its most obvious and, to the layman, most irritating characteristics—the emphasis on linguistic analysis and the tendency to avoid the really important problems, the problems which determine our way of life. Contemporary English philosophy is, like Moore’s, a philosophy of common–sense. It is concerned, not so much with truth but with meaning, the meaning of those statements whose truth is guaranteed by common–sense; hence arise the method of linguistic analysis and the failure to tackle those problems which common–sense cannot answer. (shrink)

Idealism, which gradually dominated nineteenth century philosophy through its insistence upon the superiority of spiritual values above material forces and its sophisticated objections against the immediate instinct of common-sense realism in knowledge, is moribund to-day and difficult to render intelligible to to-day’s down-to-earth student. Yet its problems still constitute a capital part of epistemology, in whose courses it is often presented in a summary and harsh light. Histories of philosophy are not large enough normally to follow systematically one line of (...) development of thought without distraction and tend naturally, like textbooks of epistemology, to aim at topical discussion. Hence a systematic presentation of texts illustrating the movement of Idealist thought from Bishop Berkeley to the contemporary Professor Brand Blanshard is a very practical aid to the epistemological novice, ordering the confusion of his scattered ideas and clarifying a set of influential principles, which have still an important, if indirect influence upon professional philosophizing. Dr. Ewing states its relation to the current English scene thus. (shrink)

In a sense every practising philosopher is a revolutionary—the pressing problems and personal insights of his human condition urge him to correct traditional thought, while he feels both retrospectively wiser than his predecessors and naively exposed to the criticism of his successors. Thus some members of the dominant current of British philosophy present their interpretation of its antecedents, methods and achievements during the past, sharply formative forty years. Somnolent for a century under the biting scepticism of Hume and the disinterest (...) of clerical dons, university philosophy serenely developed after 1850 a psychological form of empiricism and a local form of German idealism. With the first World War came a sudden change. Philosophy became a lay subject for lay dons after 1920, with its faculty separated from psychology and classics, and with professional journals concentrating on the sheer technique of philosophy. It developed into a philosopher’s philosophy with occasional forays into admiring journalism, where smart criticism was valued more than sober prudence. In the giddy years before and after World War II the brash iconoclasm of an adolescent Logical Positivism won it un succés de scandale, which eventually drew upon British philosophy generally the charge of irresponsibility or futility as a way of life, since this in the last, serious analysis is the traditional role of a philosophy. (shrink)

This valuable collection of lectures, articles and interviews is a rare introduction to an octogenarian scholar and a decisive leader in the new development of ecumenical theology, who is revealed at work immediately preceding the opening of the Second Vatican Council. Cardinal Bea has shown a notable talent for lucid explanation in public as well as quiet insistence upon basic principle in the sympathetic appreciation of the endemic divisions among Christian believers, which inevitably blur the image of Christ for thinking (...) non-Christians. In correction the creative example of Pope John was ‘intended to read the lesson of a new approach’ which the Introduction of the late Apostolic Delegate to Britain succinctly notes. (shrink)

A combination of social forces has thrown marriage into question in westernised societies at the end of the millennium. This uncertainty creates space for new ways of thinking about marriage. In this context, we examine the idea of marriage as friendship. We trace its genealogy in the work of Mary Wollstonecraft, John Stuart Mill and Harriet Taylor and then subject it to critical scrutiny using some of Michel de Montaigne’s ideas. We ask how applicable the ideal of higher friendship is (...) to marriage and what might be gained and lost by a synthesis of marriage and friendship. Grounding the discussion in historical sources is valuable because the topic is so little explored in the contemporary philosophical literature. This approach also allows any enduring value in these historical texts to be elicited. (shrink)

In The Medical Right, Remaking Medicine in Their Image (2007) (Medical Right Report or Report), the Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice (RCRC) applies the term "Medical Right" to refer to religiously influenced medical, bioethics and health policy organizations of the Religious Right. This extremely important, well researched Report examines how the political agenda of the Religious Right, a political force comprised of fundamentalists primarily in the Protestant and Roman Catholic traditions, impacts reproductive health care. The growing influence of medical associations (...) that apply fundamentalist Christian "biblical values" to research and policy affecting reproductive health care is explored. The Report reveals that many consortiums, think tanks, institutes, and programs apply Religious Right ideology to medical concerns under the mantle of "bioethics" or "biomedical ethics." These groups work with conservative advocacy, outreach, and legal organizations, along with politicians, to advance the policy agendas of the Religious Right. The confluence of conservative politics, fundamentalist religion, and ideologically influenced medicine and science, poses a threat to reproductive health care services, as discussed in detail in the Report. While the Report is comprehensive in its discussion of the Religious Right's involvement in reproductive health issues, it addresses in only a cursory fashion how the Medical Right engages health law and policy governing end-of-life care. The purpose of this paper is to explore this area of concern more thoroughly. (shrink)

Readers should be glad that most of the seven essays in this volume have been published and not limited to the smaller audience of philosophers who heard them as papers at the joint meetings of the American Philosophical Association and the Society for the Study of the History of Philosophy in December 1982. The topic of the Society’s meetings was “The Philosophical Significance of The Principles of Psychology” by William James, both, I take it, for his own philosophy and that (...) of others. However, it seems confusing to have made these papers, when published, “address the question of the fundamental nature of the thought contained in” the Principles, as editor DeArmey writes in his Preface, and also to have collected them under the ambiguous title of the book. It is recommended by this reviewer that the readers should welcome and judge these essays as addressing their original topic and audience. (shrink)

David Bohm, Emeritus Professor of Theoretical Physics at Birkbeck College of the University of London and Fellow of the Royal Society, died of a heart attack on October 29, 1992 at the age of 74. Professor Bohm had been one of the world’s leading authorities on quantum theory and its interpretation for more than four decades. His contributions have been critical to all aspects of the field. He also made seminal contributions to plasma physics. His name appears prominently in the (...) modern physics literature, through the Aharonov- Bohm effect , the Bohm-EPR experiment , the Bohm-Pines collective description of particle interactions (random phase approximation), Bohm diffusion and the Bohm causal interpretation of quantum mechanics, also sometimes called the de Broglie-Bohm pilot wave theory. David Bohm was born in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania on December 20, 1917. A student of J. Robert Oppenheimer, Bohm received his Ph.D. from the University of California at Berkeley in 1943. In 1950 he completed the first of his six books, Quantum Theory, which became the definitive exposition of the orthodox (Copenhagen) interpretation of quantum mechanics. Here Bohm presented his reformulation of the paradox of Einstein, Podolsky, and Rosen. It is this Bohm version of EPR which has provided the basis for the enormous expansion of research on the foundations of quantum theory, focusing on nonlocality and the possible incompleteness of the quantum description (the question of “hidden variables”), which has occurred during the past several decades. (shrink)