The covariant Klein-Gordon equation requires twice the boundary conditions of the Schrödinger equation and does not have an accepted single-particle interpretation. Instead of interpreting its solution as a probability wave determined by an initial boundary condition, this paper considers the possibility that the solutions are determined by both an initial and a final boundary condition. By constructing an invariant joint probability distribution from the size of the solution space, it is shown that the usual measurement probabilities can nearly be recovered (...) in the non-relativistic limit, provided that neither boundary constrains the energy to a precision near ℏ/t 0 (where t 0 is the time duration between the boundary conditions). Otherwise, deviations from standard quantum mechanics are predicted. (shrink)

There is a great deal of interest in the relation between the status of women and fertility—by humanists, academics and policy-makers concerned with bringing about fertility declines. The three aspects of women's status most frequently linked to fertility are their education, employment and type of husband-wife interaction. Research to date has not given us a clear and consistent explanation of these relationships and has not confirmed causality. The effects of these three factors on fertility vary considerably across national boundaries and (...) even within different sectors of the same society. Some of the assumptions held by both researchers and policymakers must be re-thought in the interests of more useful future research and of sounder policy. (shrink)

A time-symmetric formulation of nonrelativistic quantum mechanics is developed by applying two consecutive boundary conditions onto solutions of a time- symmetrized wave equation. From known probabilities in ordinary quantum mechanics, a time-symmetric parameter P0 is then derived that properly weights the likelihood of any complete sequence of measurement outcomes on a quantum system. The results appear to match standard quantum mechanics, but do so without requiring a time-asymmetric collapse of the wavefunction upon measurement, thereby realigning quantum mechanics with an important (...) fundamental symmetry. (shrink)

Provider claims to conscientious objection have generated a great deal of heated debate in recent years. However, the conflicts that arise when providers make claims to the "conscience" are only a subset of the more fundamental challenges that arise in health care practice when patients and providers come into conflict. In this piece, the author provides an account of patient-provider conflict from within the moral tradition of St. Thomas Aquinas. He argues that the practice of health care providers should be (...) understood as a form of practical reasoning and that this practical reasoning must necessarily incorporate both "moral" and "professional" commitments. In order to understand how the practical reasoning of provider should account for the needs and commitments of the patient and vice versa, he explores the account of dependence provided by Alasdair MacIntyre in his book Dependent Rational Animals. MacIntyre argues that St. Thomas’ account of practical reasoning should be extended and adapted to account for the embodied vulnerability of all humans. In light of this insight, providers must view patients not only as the subjects of their moral reflection but also as fellow humans upon whom the provider depends for feedback on the effectiveness and relevance of her practical reasoning. The author argues that this account precludes responsive providers from adopting either moral or professional conclusions on the appropriateness of interventions outside the individual circumstances that arise in particular situations. The adoption of this orientation toward patients will neither eradicate provider-patient conflict nor compel providers to perform interventions to which they object. But this account does require that providers attend meaningfully to the suffering of patients and seek feedback on whether their intervention has effectively addressed that suffering. (shrink)

Mind uploading speculation and debate often concludes that a procedure described as gradual in-place replacement preserves personal identity while a procedure described as destructive scan-and-copy produces some other identity in the target substrate such that personal identity is lost along with the biological brain. This paper demonstrates a chain of reasoning that establishes metaphysical equivalence between these two methods in terms of preserving personal identity.

This volume brings together flux essays by an eminent scholar on the origins, development, and import of Kant's philosophy, chiefly in its metaphysical aspects. Four of these were separately published between 1924 and 1926, but until now have been difficult to obtain, despite great demand. Their appearance here will be welcomed. The thesis emerging from these studies is that the critical philosophy originates in metaphysical probings concerning the nature and presuppositions of being, and issues in doctrines which, despite psychological, epistemological, (...) and ethical presentation, are intended to have definite ontological import. --L. K. B. (shrink)

Another beginners' text, emphasizing the problem of the relation between ordinary language and formal logic. From an exceedingly simplified introduction to semiotics, it moves through an analysis of conventions of ordinary English discourse to a presentation of an elementary non-standard symbolic propositional, class and modal logic. A matrix method is used throughout, facilitating the use of the same symbols for class and propositional relations. Chapters are included on probability, Mill's inductive methods, and logic and scientific method. Abundant, typically dull exercises (...) are provided.--L. K. B. (shrink)

A critique of modern empiricism, pressed ploddingly but capably from a renovated pragmatist standpoint. In Part I the author argues that a rigid distinction between the analytic and synthetic is presupposed by empiricism and yet leads to a conventionalism out of touch with experience. Part II attacks various attempts to base knowledge on of perceptual experience. The constructive position developed in Part III stresses the concept of experience as a plurality of contextual happenings, always involving formal and nonformal elements; the (...) formal structure is held to rest on conventions which should remain flexible, varying according to purposes. Though often clumsy, cluttered, and over-abstract, the discussion is informed and perceptive.--L. K. B. (shrink)

A characterization of the categories and theoretical orientation of Argentine "positivism" --in a broad but classical sense, amounting roughly to the identification of knowledge with the conclusions of experimental science--carried out through an historical study of the origins, development, and doctrines of indigenous philosophical and sociological theories. --L. K. B.

A clear and well-written defense of the Christian theistic world-view, marked by a constructive and well-balanced philosophical orientation, with only slight hints, through most of the book, of the underlying religious fundamentalism. The stress on the fundamental importance of commitment is balanced by a recognition of its constitutive role in reasoning, and by an insistence on the need for the integration of the intellectual, the practical, and the religious. The author takes as his main field of evidence man's "power of (...) moral and rational self-transcendence," and builds upon an epistemological scheme involving a triad of methods of knowing--by acquaintance, by inference, and by moral self-acceptance. The book concludes with a frankly dogmatic summary of the author's evangelical convictions. --L. K. B. (shrink)

The wounds inflicted by Homer's warriors fascinate readers, since they are vividly described and often curious or even grotesque. Commentators have struggled to explain some of them since commentaries began: some of the explanations are more curious than the wounds. Not surprisingly, the commentaries have not usually been graced by a high standard of anatomical or, especially, physiological background knowledge, and are often misleading in these respects. When such knowledge is applied, some wounds which have appeared problematic become realistic, but (...) some which have been accepted as straightforward become problematic. (shrink)

Background: Emergency exception to informed consent regulation was introduced to provide a venue to perform research on subjects in emergency situations before obtaining informed consent. For a study to proceed, institutional review boards need to determine if the regulations have been met.Aim: To determine IRB members’ experience reviewing research protocols using emergency exception to informed consent.Methods: This qualitative research used semistructured telephone interviews of 10 selected IRB members from around the US in the fall of 2003. IRB members were chosen (...) as little is known about their views of exception to consent, and part of their mandate is the protection of human subjects in research. Interview questions focused on the length of review process, ethical and legal considerations, training provided to IRB members on the regulations, and experience using community consultation and notification. Content analysis was performed on the transcripts of interviews. To ensure validity, data analysis was performed by individuals with varying backgrounds: three emergency physicians, an IRB member and a layperson.Results: Respondents noted that: emergency exception to informed consent studies require lengthy review; community consultation and notification regulations are vague and hard to implement; current regulations, if applied correctly, protect human subjects; legal counsel is an important aspect of reviewing exception to informed-consent protocols; and IRB members have had little or no formal training in these regulations, but are able to access materials needed to review such protocols.Conclusions: This preliminary study suggests that IRB members find emergency exception to informed consent studies take longer to review than other protocols, and that community consultation and community notification are the most difficult aspect of the regulations with which to comply but that they adequately protect human subjects. (shrink)

An attempt to clarify and establish systematically foundations for a "formal" science of axiology, relating it to the social sciences and humanities as mathematics is related to the natural sciences.--L. K. B.

A comparative methodological examination of neo-positivism and analytic philosophy, phenomenology, and existentialism. These are interpreted as springing from the cultural and existential crisis of our time, each responding to a genuine element of this crisis, and thus tending toward integration into a unified method by which modern thought can extricate itself from the crisis--a recognition of the logical analysis of language, tempered by phenomenology and an historical orientation, as the methodological basis of modern philosophy. Speculative metaphysics and cosmology are much (...) too lightly dismissed.--L. K. B. (shrink)

A literary re-appraisal of the style of the Argentine writer, Sarmiento. --L. K. B.

The report of a special commission engaged by the National Book Committee, Inc. to make an inquiry into the theory of censorship and the freedom to read. It presents 1. a philosophical, sociological, and legal analysis of the grounds and implications of censorship, 2. recommendations concerning the needed systematic empirical investigation into the effects of books, the formation of reading taste, etc., and 3. suggestions as to immediate action.--L. K. B.

An etymological proof of the title; presented in a "spirit of fun" and to be taken in the same spirit.--L. K. B.

This book professes to give a semantic analysis of the main concepts of classical and quantum physics. The author holds that the task of philosophy of science is to explicate the meanings of scientific theories, laws, and hypotheses by formal reconstruction; semantic rules are a necessary part of such a reconstruction. Beginning with an extremely, indeed fatally, simplified treatment of the required concepts of logical syntax and semantics, he proceeds to discuss in non-technical language the concepts of the chief physical (...) theories, and concludes with a description of the methodology of theory construction and confirmation. His only unusual thesis is that, contrary to what physicists tell us, models still essentially underlie all physical theories and constitute the link between theory and experiment on which must be based the semantic rules needed to supplement attempts at formal reconstruction. The strength of the book lies not in its semantic emphasis but in its stress on the hypothetico-deductive character of modern exact science, as opposed to the inductive accounts imputed to empiricists. --L. K. B. (shrink)

A reprint of Freud's lectures of 1910. In his philosophically critical preface, Allers briefly but effectively points up logical and scientific weaknesses in Freud's theories, attributes their peculiar success to the appealing ambiguity of approach as between the scientific and the historical, then finds their chief merit in furthering the recognition of man's "historicity."--L. K. B.

Not a philosophical analysis or explication, this compact, lyrical study remains deliberately within the "organic" categories of biblical speech--which it is part of its purpose to exemplify--and with considerable success communicates the Christian conception of ethical life as man's response to God's self-revealing activity in history, to be understood only in terms of "the living continuity between man-in-God and man-in-man."--L. K. B.

With the growing prominence of restorative justice interventions, criminal justice is being reconceptualized in terms of a new paradigm of justice. The central concept of this new paradigm is victim-offender empowerment. The paper articulates the meaning and application of this idea in restorative justice philosophy and practice.

A rewritten version, following the same plan and theme, of the author's earlier work of the same title. New chapters are added on Unamuno's ideas of fiction and of reality. The bibliographical appendix, with brief comments, is brought up-to-date. The unifying stress is on the "incessant fluctuation" between opposites, such as reason and the irrational, as the source of Unamuno's originality. Sympathetically expository rather than critical, this brief sketch deliberately sacrifices precision and analysis for the sake of "interiorizacion"--probably the most (...) profitable introductory approach to such a thinker.--L. K. B. (shrink)

Despite the unexciting title and the implied invitation to travel along the same old dusty road the book contains a great deal of fresh and interesting material, handled with commendable thoroughness and adroitness. Its author, an ethical naturalist is serious about his mission to justify nature to nature and honest in as much as he does not take the easy way out of an impasse by summarily evicting morality out of court. To him moral phenomena are a solid reality—moral expressions (...) and concepts, moral deliberations, decisions and judgments are genuine enough occurrences, not to be explained away as pragmatically convenient inventions or delusions. On the other hand, moral phenomena must not be taken to point to some supra-mundane sphere of values, axiological dimensions and special modes of recognizing them. With respect to these notions we must be ruthless in using Occam’s Razor and get rid of all those awkward and utterly superfluous entities devised by some misguided metaphysicians. Nature is all there is; and, if there is morality, it must be explained or justified solely in terms of nature. This is the task Professor Monro sets himself to perform. (shrink)

This book claims to state a "method of polarity" whereby philosophy can be advanced significantly. This method presupposes a conception of knowledge as rooted in value and of truth as encompassing contrary or "contrapletive" positions. Finding in experience irreducible oppositions demanding a definite method of treatment, it prescribes for this a "calculus," which is then applied to "typical philosophical problems." A vast amount of reading --somewhat over-documented by more than four hundred citations and references--are brought to bear rather externally on (...) the problems treated, which themselves are hardly more than posed in terms of the polarity concept.--L. K. B. (shrink)

"In Getting Even, Charles Barton contends that revenge can be a form of justice that is constructive and healing for our society. Our current judiciary system, he explains, denies both victims and the accused an active role in the legal proceedings and resolution of their cases, reducing them to bystanders in what is essentially their own conflict. Barton does not argue for an individual's right to take the law into his own hands, but does show that the courts should recognize (...) the revenge motive as legitimate and rational within the rules of justice."--pub. desc. (shrink)

Part of a series on Spanish philosophy, this work presents medieval Islamic philosophy from an unusual and consciously restricted perspective. This is most evident in the distribution of emphasis: Al-Kindi, Al-Zarabi, Algazel, even Avicenna are considered in the brief introductory discussion of "Oriental" Islamic philosophy, while the system of Averroes is treated in great detail as the culmination of a distinctly Spanish tradition. Not a definitive history of the subject, but a "scientific manual" of the present state of historical-philosophical knowledge, (...) based on available bibliographies and edited texts, this work will nevertheless serve many as a valuable and authoritative reference source on a neglected chapter in the history of ideas.--L. K. B. (shrink)

A collection of essays on various aspects of philosophy of science, written around the turn of the century by a perceptive historian of science and methodologist who, under the influence of Peirce, Mach and Peano, anticipated many basic doctrines of the later semantically oriented analytic philosophy. The short introduction discusses Vailati's viewpoint in connection with his chief contemporaries; a brief biography and bibliography are provided. --L. K. B.