In reference to historical developments, this article introduces the topic of this special issue of Theoretical Medicine and Bioethics, that is, the relationship(s) between theory and practice. The authors emphasize the need for scientific research in this neglected area for the sake of both clinical practice and medical education.

Rev. ed. of v. 1 of the author's Schicksalsanalyse, first published in 1944.

The paper concerns mutual relations between two metaphysical positions: “superessentialism,” claiming that all properties of every object are essential, i.e.necessary, and “necessitarianism,” claiming that everything is necessary, i.e. there is only one possible world. The theories of Spinoza and Lewis serve as examples. In section I the two positions are characterized. In section II and III interpretations of Spinoza’s and Lewis’s metaphysics are presented, and it is explained to what extent they can both be considered superessentialists and necessitarians. In section (...) IV the two theories are compared. In section V three possible ways of arguing for superessentialism are presented. It is then shown that the premises of these arguments appear, at least implicitly, in both of the theories. In section VI additional premises are numbered which have to be further assumed to prove necessitarianism. In the final section it is shown how Lewis can claim that there are contingent facts, while being a superessentialist and a necessitarian. It is argued that his claim of contingency is a matter of semantics, not of metaphysics. (shrink)

Recent experiments have shown that the amplitudes of cortical gamma band oscillatory activities that occur during anesthesia are often greater than amplitudes of similar activities that occur without anesthesia. This result is apparently at odds with the hypothesis that synchronized oscillatory activities constitute the neural correlate of consciousness. We argue that while synchronization and oscillatory patterning are necessary conditions for consciousness, they are not sufficient. Based on the results of a binocular rivalry study of Fries et al. (1997), we propose (...) that the degrees of oscillatory strength and synchronization of neuronal activities determine the degree of awareness those activities produce. On the other hand, the overal firing rates of neurons in cortical sensory areas are not correlated with the degree of awareness the activities of those neurons produce. The results of the experiment of Fries et al. (1997) appear to conflict with the results of another binocular rivalry experiment, in which monkeys were trained to pull a lever in order to report which stimulus object was being perceived (Leopold & Logothetis, 1996). In the latter experiment, it was demonstrated that the firing rates of neurons in striate cortex did not change during perceptual alterations, while 90% of neurons in inferior and superior temporal cortices changed their firing rate when the perceived image changed. This result led to the conclusion that activities in temporal cortex are correlated with visual awareness, but those in striate cortex are not. We argue that activities in temporal cortex contribute little, if anything, to perceptual awareness, and that their primary function is computational. Thus the correlation between the firing rates of neurons in these areas and the responses of the monkeys is due to the recognition of a particular stimulus object, which in turn is due to the computations made there. (shrink)

In the early twentieth century, the life philosophy of Henri Bergson summoned the _élan vital_, or vital force, as the source of creative evolution. Bergson also appealed to intuition, which focused on experience rather than discursive thought and scientific cognition. Particularly influential for the literary and political Négritude movement of the 1930s, which opposed French colonialism, Bergson's life philosophy formed an appealing alternative to Western modernity, decried as "mechanical," and set the stage for later developments in postcolonial theory and vitalist (...) discourse. Revisiting narratives on life that were produced in this age of machinery and war, Donna V. Jones shows how Bergson, Nietzsche, and the poets Leopold Senghor and Aimé Césaire fashioned the concept of life into a central aesthetic and metaphysical category while also implicating it in discourses on race and nation. Jones argues that twentieth-century vitalism cannot be understood separately from these racial and anti-Semitic discussions. She also shows that some dominant models of emancipation within black thought become intelligible only when in dialogue with the vitalist tradition. Jones's study strikes at the core of contemporary critical theory, which integrates these older discourses into larger critical frameworks, and she traces the ways in which vitalism continues to draw from and contribute to its making. (shrink)

This paper describes an interdisciplinary course on the philosophy of human nature that centers on the famous 1924 kidnapping-ransom-murder case involving Leopold and Loeb. After recounting the details of the “perfect crime” of Leopold and Loeb, the course is structured around five units: (i) free will/determinism, (ii) the debate between retributivists and therapeutic approaches to punishment, (iii) the morality of the death penalty, (iv) Nietzsche’s critique of Christianity and “slave moralities”, and (v) homosexuality. In addition to being truly (...) interdisciplinary, the course promotes the critical evaluation of a variety of non-philosophical (films, novels, plays, courtroom transcripts) works and shows how philosophy can play a role in making sense of the “real world”. (shrink)

This essay proposes to view networks as sociocultural structures. Following authors from Leopold von Wiese and Norbert Elias to Gary Alan Fine and Harrison White, networks are configurations of social relationships interwoven with meaning. Social relationships as the basic building blocks of networks are conceived of as dynamic structures of reciprocal (but not necessarily symmetric) expectations between alter and ego. Through their transactions, alter and ego construct an idiosyncratic "relationship culture" comprising symbols, narratives, and relational identities. The coupling (...) of social relationships to networks, too, is heavily laden with meaning. The symbolic construction of persons is one instance of this coupling. Another instance is the application of social categories (like race or gender), which both map and structure social networks. The conclusion offers an agenda for research on this "meaning structure of social networks.". (shrink)

Book Reviewed in this article Metaphysik. Eine methodisch‐systematische Grundlegung. By Emerich Coreth, S. J. Pp. 672, Innsbruck, Vienna and Munich, Tyrolia‐Verlag, 1961, 190 A. Schill., 33 DM.Frederick C. Copleston La preuve de l'Absolu chez Bradley. Analyse et Critique de la Méthode. By J. DE Marneffe. Pp. vii, 127, Paris, Beauchesne, 1961, no price given.Frederick C. Copleston Ancient Israel. Its Life and Institutions. By Roland DE Vaux, O. P. Translated by John McHugh. Pp. xxiii, 592, London, Darton, Longman & Todd, 1961, (...) 55s.Edmund F. Sutcliffe Exodus: a Commentary. By Martin Noth. Pp. 583, London, SCM Press, 1962, 40s.Edmund F. Sutcliffe Rédemption Sacrificielle: une enquête exégétique. By Léopold Sabourin, S. J. Pp. 492, Paris‐Bruges, Desclée de Brouwer, 1961, 280 Belg. Frs.Francis Clark The Jews and the Gospel. By Gregory Baum. Pp. viii, 288, London, Bloomsbury Publishing Co., 1961, 27s. 6d.John Bligh Message évangélique et Culture hellénistique aux IIe et IIIe siècles. By Jean Daniélou. Pp. 486, Tournai, Desclée, 1961, 200 Belg. Fr. Early Christianity and Greek Paideia. By Werner Jaeger. Pp. 156, Belknapp Press : Cambridge, Mass.; London: Oxford University Press, 1962, 21s.Maurice Bévenot Primauté Pontificale et Prérogatives Épiscopales;‘Potestas Ordinaria’au Concile du Vatican. By Gustave Thils. Pp. 104, Louvain, 1961, no price given.Maurice Bévenot L'Abbé Louis Bautain. By Paul Poupard. Pp. x, 404, Paris‐Tournai, Desclée 1961, no price given.Joseph Lebacqz The Christian Churches of the East. By Donald Attwater. Volume I: Pp. xiv, 232, London, Thomas More Books, 1961, 35s.; Volume II: Pp. xii, 260, London, Geoffrey Chapman, 1961, 30s.C. J. L. NapierLondon, N. 14 Beichte und Psychoanalyse. By Andreas Snoeck, S. J. Pp. 168, Frankfurt am Main, Verlag Josef Knecht, 1960, 6.80 DM.Philip Loretz Der Arzt in der Technischen Welt. Edited by Gottfried Roth and Wolfgang Müller Hartburg. Pp. 394, Salzburg, Otto Müller Verlag, 1961, 150 A. Schill.Philip Loretz The Novitiate. By Louis Colin, C. SS. R. Translated by Una Morrissey. Pp. xiii, 447, Tenbury Wells, Fowler Wright Books, 1962, 30s.V. Paul Brassell Deliverance to the Captives. By Karl Barth. Translated by Marguerite Wieser. Pp. 160, London, SCM Press, 1961, 12s. 6d. To Live Is Christ. By R. W. Gleason, S. J. Pp. xii, 180, New York, Sheed & Ward, 1961, $3.00. Le Mystère de la Charité. By Joseph‐Marie Perrin, O. P. Pp. 552,, Paris‐Bruges, Desclée de Brouwer, 1960, 210 Belg. Frs. Histoire de l'Homme, Mystère de Dieu. By Benoict Pruche, O. P. Pp. 452, Paris‐Bruges, Desclée de Brouwer, 1961, 240 Belg. Frs.B. R. Brinkman. (shrink)

Earth’s Insights is about more than indigenous North American environmental attitudes and values. The conclusions of Hester, McPherson, Booth, and Cheney about universal indigenous environmental attitudes and values, although pronounced with papal infallibility, are based on no evidence. The unstated authority of their pronouncements seems to be the indigenous identity of two of the authors. Two other self-identified indigenous authors, V. F. Cordova and Sandy Marie Anglás Grande, argue explicitly that indigenous identity is sufficient authority for declaring what pre-Columbian indigenous (...) environmental attitudes and values were. Exclusive knowledge claims based on essentialist racial-cultural identity, though politically motivated, are politically risky. They may inadvertently legitimate more noxious and dangerous racial-cultural identity politics and exclusion of those who identify themselves (or are identified by others) in oppositional racialcultural terms from full and equal participation in the political and economic arenas of the prevailing culture. Biologically, racial differences are entirely superficial; Homo sapiens is a single, homogeneous species. Contrary to Hester et al., ethnic conflict was common among pre-Columbian indigenous North American peoples. Other indigenous authors, among them McPherson, have found my comparison of pre-Columbian indigenous North American attitudes and values with the Aldo Leopold land ethic to be illuminating. I wish I had not said that pre-Columbian indigenous North American attitudes and values are “validated” by ecology, but rather that they and ecology are “mutually validating.”. (shrink)

Introduction -- Defining pluralism : Simon Pokagon, Ida B. Wells-Barnett, and Thomas fortune -- Evolution and American Indian philosophy -- Feminist resistance : Anna Julia Cooper, Jane Addams, and Charlotte Perkins Gilman -- Labor, empire and the social gospel : Washington Gladden, Walter Rauschenbusch, and Jane Addams -- A new name for an old way of thinking : William James -- Making ideas clear : Charles Sanders Peirce -- The beloved community and its discontents : Josiah Royce and the realists (...) -- War, anarchism, and sex : Emma Goldman and Margaret Sanger -- Democracy and social ethics : John Dewey -- Naturalism and idealism, fear, and conventionality : Mary Whiton Calkins and Elsie Clews Parsons -- Race riots and the color line : W. E. B. du Bois -- Philosophy reacts : Hartley Burr Alexander and Morris R. Cohen -- Creative experience : Mary Parker Follett -- Cultural pluralism : Horace Kallen and Alain Locke -- War and the rise of logical positivism : Otto Neurath and Rudolf Carnap -- Mccarthyism and American empiricism : Jacob Loewenberg, Henry Sheffer, C. I. Lewis, and Charles Morris -- The linguistic turn : Gustav Bergmann, May Brodbeck, and W. V. O. Quine -- Resisting the turn : Donald Davidson, Wilfrid Sellars, and the pluralist rebellion -- Philosophy outside : John Muir, Aldo Leopold, Joseph Wood Krutch, and Rachel Carson -- Economics and technology : Lewis Mumford, C. Wright Mills and John Kenneth Galbraith -- Politics : John Rawls, Robert Nozick, Michael Sandel, Martha Nussbaum, and Noam Chomsky -- Civil rights : Martin Luther King, Jr., Richard Wright and James Baldwin -- Black power : Malcolm X, James Cone, Audre Lorde, Bell Hooks, Angela Davis, and Cornel West -- Latin American American philosophy -- Red power, indigenous philosophy : Vine Deloria, Jr. and contemporary American Indian thought -- Feminism -- Engaged philosophy and the environment -- American philosophy today -- Recovering and sustaining the American tradition -- American philosophy revitalized -- The spirit of American philosophy in the new century. (shrink)