Molecular vibrations and quantum tunneling may link ligand binding to the function of pharmacological receptors. The well‐established lock‐and‐key model explains a ligand's binding and recognition by a receptor; however, a general mechanism by which receptors translate binding into activation, inactivation, or modulation remains elusive. The Vibration Theory of Olfaction was proposed in the 1930s to explain this subset of receptor‐mediated phenomena by correlating odorant molecular vibrations to smell, but a mechanism was lacking. In the 1990s, inelastic electron tunneling was proposed (...) as a plausible mechanism for translating molecular vibration to odorant physiology. More recently, studies of ligands’ vibrational spectra and the use of deuterated ligand analogs have provided helpful information to study this admittedly controversial hypothesis in metabotropic receptors other than olfactory receptors. In the present work, based in part on published experiments from our laboratory using planarians as an experimental organism, I will present a rationale and possible experimental approach for extending this idea to ligand‐gated ion channels. (shrink)

There is a common pattern for researchers to study one particular new religion, write a monograph or article on that specific group, and then begin the cycle all over again with a different group. This approach causes one to remember such groups as relatively stable organizations, fixed in memory at a specific stage of development, rather than as dynamic, evolving groups. In the present article, we will examine new data on contemporary Pagans that takes a quasi-longitudinal approach to survey data. (...) Though our focus will be limited, the result will nevertheless be a partial statistical picture of Paganism as a changing, evolving movement, rather than a static statistical snapshot. (shrink)

In book 10 of City of God, Augustine appeals to the notion of true sacrifice in order to counteract the attraction of pagan worship. This appeal to the concept of sacrifice gives a distinct shape to the Christology and ecclesiology he develops in this book. Set against this polemical horizon, and within the context of his wider thought, it becomes clear that sacrifice is itself soteriological motif for Augustine. The work it does in this context is to serve as another (...) way of describing the return of humanity to God through the Incarnate Christ. The cross, the Eucharist, the moral life, and the church itself are all identified as instances of the one true sacrifice of Christ. In this way, sacrifice provides an integrative motif for discussing Augustinian Christology, ecclesiology, sacramental theology, and soteriology. (shrink)

The article deals with the mythological creativity of G.R.R. Tolkien as a socio-cultural phenomenon associated with the values of European culture. The author proceeds from the hypothesis that the myth is the embodiment of social identity, this function it retains after the loss of its ideological functions. The revival of literary mythology in the XIX-XX centuries there is an attempt to update this feature of the myth. The success of the literary myth is due to the fact that he was (...) able to absorb and Express the basic values of society. Tolkien’s work is one of the successful examples of the literary embodiment of socially significant values, combining both traditional values and value formations characteristic of the modern era. The article shows that Tolkien’s work has organically absorbed the pagan basis, the Christian attitude, and the values characteristic of the XX century. Pagan heroic principle, Christian mercy, the idea of freedom, democracy-all this is organically intertwined in the works of Tolkien, their success is due to the harmony of the whole range of social attitudes represented in the European consciousness of the mid XX century. Currently, the decline in interest in Tolkien is a reflection of the change of value preferences of European culture. (shrink)

In order for the so-called strengthened impairment argument to succeed, it must posit some reason R that causing fetal alcohol syndrome is immoral, one that also holds in cases of abortion. In formulating SIA, Blackshaw and Hendricks borrow from Don Marquis to claim that the reason R that causing FAS is immoral lies in the fact that it deprives an organism of a future like ours. I argue here that SIA fails to show that it is immoral to cause FAS (...) and abort fetuses that will not be born because it deprives them of an FLO. This is because fetuses that will not be born have no chance of having an FLO in the first place, so causing FAS for and aborting them cannot deprive them of one. I then consider three responses to my argument. I conclude that each fails. SIA does not accomplish its task of showing why it is immoral to impair fetuses that will not be born. Perhaps it can accomplish the task of showing why it is immoral to impair fetuses that will be born, but not without sacrificing at least some of its alleged significance. (shrink)

Philosophers have long debated whether, if determinism is true, we should hold people morally responsible for their actions since in a deterministic universe, people are arguably not the ultimate source of their actions nor could they have done otherwise if initial conditions and the laws of nature are held fixed. To reveal how non-philosophers ordinarily reason about the conditions for free will, we conducted a cross-cultural and cross-linguistic survey (N = 5,268) spanning twenty countries and sixteen languages. Overall, participants tended (...) to ascribe moral responsibility whether the perpetrator lacked sourcehood or alternate possibilities. However, for American, European, and Middle Eastern participants, being the ultimate source of one’s actions promoted perceptions of free will and control as well as ascriptions of blame and punishment. By contrast, being the source of one’s actions was not particularly salient to Asian participants. Finally, across cultures, participants exhibiting greater cognitive reflection were more likely to view free will as incompatible with causal determinism. We discuss these findings in light of documented cultural differences in the tendency toward dispositional versus situational attributions. (shrink)

Michael Wheeler, in his book Reconstructing the Cognitive World, analyses the development of embedded-embodied cognitive science in the light of underlying philosophical differences about the constitution of human agency. On one side he sees orthodox computational cognitive science as holding to Cartesian conceptions of an abstract, disembodied reason deliberating over de-contextualised representations of the world. On the other side, he sees modern-day embodied-embedded cognitive scientists going beyond such Cartesianism to embrace concepts of human agency more in keeping with Heidegger’s account (...) of Dasein in Being and Time. By bringing to light and criticising the Cartesian assumptions of the computationalists and by pointing out and clarifying the connections between embodied-embedded cognitive science and Heidegger’s philosophy, Wheeler aims to lay the “foundations of a genuinely non- Cartesian cognitive science.”. (shrink)

Though philosophical antipodes, Hegel and Russell were profound philosophical revolutionaries. They both subjected contemporaneous philosophy to searching critique, and they addressed many important issues about the character of philosophy itself. Examining their disagreements is enormously fruitful. Here I focus on one central issue raised in Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit: the tenability of the foundationalist model of rational justification. I consider both the general question of the tenability of the foundationalist model itself, and the specific question of the tenability of Russell’s (...) preferred foundations of empirical knowledge, namely sense data. The stage is set by briefly considering Russell’s philosophical revolt (§2). I examine Russell’s neglect of the Pyrrhonian Dilemma of the Criterion (§3), and then consider Russell’s appeal to “knowledge by acquaintance”—the very view Hegel criticized under the banner of “Sense Certainty” (§4). I argue that Hegel’s internal critique of “Sense Certainty” refutes Russell’s “knowledge by acquaintance” and undermines Russell’s ahistorical approach to philosophy. (This article supercedes ‘“Sense Certainty”, or Why Russell had no “Knowledge by Acquaintance”’. The Bulletin of the Hegel Society of Great Britain 45/46 (2002):110–23.). (shrink)

One of the widespread confusions concerning the history of the 1887 Michelson-Morley experiment has to do with the initial explanation of this celebrated null result due independently to FitzGerald and Lorentz. In neither case was a strict, longitudinal length contraction hypothesis invoked, as is commonly supposed. Lorentz postulated, particularly in 1895, any one of a certain family of possible deformation effects for rigid bodies in motion, including purely transverse alteration, and expansion as well as contraction; FitzGerald may well have had (...) the same family in mind. A careful analysis of the Michelson-Morley experiment (which reveals a number of serious inadequacies in many text-book treatments) indeed shows that strict contraction is not required. (shrink)

Hegel’s Philosophy of Right responds to two dichotomies. One is between the freedom of rational thought in its practical application and the givenness of natural impulses and desires. Against Kant Hegel argues that pure reason alone cannot determine the content of any maxim or principle of action. Thus Hegel must find a way in which the content of natural needs and impulses – the only source of content for maxims of action – can be transfigured into contents of rationally self-given (...) principles and maxims. Hegel also responds to the dichotomy between the individual agent and the social whole within which agents act. Hegel argues that this dichotomy is specious because human beings are fundamentally social practitioners and because neither social practices nor individual agents have priority over the other. There are no social practices without social practitioners and there are no social practitioners without social practices. Hegel’s response to this second dichotomy allows him to respond to the first one as well. The elaboration and specialization of natural needs and desires through exchange relations and the social division of labor transfigures the contents of those needs and desires into collectively self-given ends. The social practices producing this transfiguration and meeting these ends form the contents of implicit principles of right. These implicit principles are collectively self-given because they result from the social practices collectively developed to meet these needs. Only acts that are executed and accepted by an agent are free acts. This strong condition requires that an agent’s intentions correspond to the actual nature and consequences of his or her act. Since the aims, the principles, and the means of action are fundamentally social, these strong constraints entail that free action is possible only within a community which makes known its structure and the role of its members within it and their contribution to it, so that its members can act on the basis of that knowledge. Hegel’s theory of the state is a theory of a communal structure that makes such explicit, free action possible. In briefest compass, Hegel holds that laws are legitimate only insofar as they codify those practices that have been developed in order to achieve human freedom, and laws are obligatory only insofar as they are necessary for achieving human freedom. Hegel’s government is designed to codify and promulgate such laws. Hegel’s legislature is designed to make known to the citizens at large, through their corporate representatives, that laws have such a basis and how individual roles and actions fit within the community as a whole. (shrink)

The present discussion aims to help corroborate recent claims that the link between nourishing life 養生 and the Butcher Ding 庖丁 vignette from chapter 3 of the Zhuangzi 莊子 (c. fourth to third century bce) might be taken seriously, while at the same time falsifying recent claims that it is nonetheless uncommon for the connection to be taken seriously. This is achieved by supplying several pieces of textual evidence from leading figures from throughout the history of Zhuangzi studies who all (...) explicitly make the connection and take it seriously. Beyond corroborating one claim and falsifying the other, the present discussion provides renderings of much hitherto untranslated work so as to prevent future scholars from underestimating just how common it is to take the link between the Butcher Ding story and nourishing life seriously. (shrink)

Sermon Nuggets is a collection of ninety-one topics treated in hundreds of Fred R. Zimmerman’s sermons delivered over the span of six decades to a wide-ranging number of Protestant congregations, mostly in Ohio.

Equality is one of the great issues of our age, but few people stop to wonder at its being an issue in politics at all. Yet it is surprising that a concept which has its natural habitat in the mathematical sciences should have taken root in our thinking about how we should be governed. We do not naturally think of society in terms of group theory, or rings or fields, and have long been aware of the difficulties in establishing any (...) over-arching social or political order. But we unthinkingly assume that we can meaningfully ask, and reliably tell, whether people are, or ought to be, equal to one another even while admitting how difficult it would be to say whether they were more or less than one another. Formal logic can help. Equality is an equivalence relation, that is to say one that is transitive, symmetric and reflexive. Equivalence classes pick out classes of people or things that are the same, or similar , in some respect or other. There are many such, and we need to specify in respect of what two things are or are not equivalent before we are saying, or asking, anything definite. I can be equivalent to you in respect of age, or height, or weight, and many equivalence classes— contemporaries, co-religionists, comrades—may be of great importance socially or politically. But equality is, in its original context, more than just an expression of sameness. It suggests also a possibility of being either more than or less than. I can be the same age as you, but if I were not, I should be either older than you, or younger. This is always the case in mathematics. The law of trichotomy holds, that if two things are not equal, then one is greater, in the relevant respect, than the other, and the difference can itself be measured. With human beings, however, there are rather few respects in which we can be properly measured. Age, height and weight apart, the ascription of most numerical measures is a dubious affair. At one time psychologists were confident that they could measure intelligence, and economists still purport to measure wealth, but the ascriptions they actually make do not seem to deserve the confidence called for.. (shrink)

Speakers differ from one another in philosophically problematic ways. Two speakers can vary not simply with respect to what they believe, but also in the ways they speak, the concepts they employ, and the standards they bring to bear. The fact of imperfect convergence gives rise to a wide range of philosophical puzzles, largely via a single generalization: If two speakers disagree with each other, then at least one of them says something false. The generalization is plausible, but mistaken. Counterexamples (...) are common, diverse, and thoroughly entrenched in ordinary talk, scientific discourse, and philosophical inquiry. I focus on a particular family of counterexamples, disagreements about the proper application of linguistic items, or what I call metalinguistic disagreements. Coming to grips with the widespread existence of metalinguistic disagreement requires a nuanced account of the ways in which information can be transmitted via an utterance, and it suggests a substantial rethinking of conventional philosophical wisdom about the nature of meaning. I begin with a philosophical case study in metalinguistic disagreement—disagreements about aesthetics. I go on to explore the more general linguistic properties of metalinguistic disagreements, focusing on their striking failure to license so-called metalinguistic negation. I conclude with a consideration of semantic methodology, arguing that, despite widely held assumptions to the contrary, metalinguistic disagreements can be adjudicated with reference to objective, non-linguistic features of the world. It is possible therefore to roundly reject a pernicious relativism about scientific discourse while simultaneously allowing for widespread, interpersonal variation in meaning. (shrink)

First published in 1976, the _Dictionary of Philosophy_ has established itself as the best available text of its kind, explaining often unfamiliar, complicated and diverse terminology. Thoroughly revised and expanded, this fourth edition provides authoritative and rigorous definitions of a broad range of philosophical concepts. Concentrating on the Western philosophical tradition,_ The Routledge Dictionary of Philosophy_ offers an illuminating and informed introduction to the central issues, ideas and perspectives in core fields such as metaphysics, epistemology, and logic. It includes concise (...) biographical entries for more than one hundred major philosophers, from Plato and Aristotle through to contemporary figures such as Dummett, McDowell, Parfit and Singer. All major entries are followed by helpful suggestions for further reading, including web links, and contain extensive cross-referencing to aid access and comprehension. This edition also features a brand new guide to the most useful philosophy sites on the internet. _The Routledge Dictionary of Philosophy_ is an invaluable and up-to-date resource for all students of philosophy. (shrink)

Johann Friedrich Ludwig Schröder (1774-1845 ) was born in Germany but moved to Holland at the age of 13. After studying at Halle he joined the Kantian movement in Amsterdam as an active member, cooperating with Paulus van Hemert and contributing articles to his Kantian magazine. During his professional career as a marine instructor (1803-11 ), however, he became increasingly critical of Kantianism. As professor of mathematics, physics and philosophy at the University of Utrecht (1816-44) he traded in his former (...) Kantianism for a variant of the common sense philosophy then in favour in the Netherlands. He now regarded Kantianism as a form of scepticism. Accordingly, in his major work, the Contnbution to a Critique of the Truth of Human Knowledge, he propounds an anti-sceptical doctrine of such ‘basic truths’ as are founded on the immediate relevation of our consciousness. Schröder also attempts to reduce the Kantian doctrine of the noumenon to an inconsistent set of propositions, by showing them to be antinomies in the Kantian sense of the term, even using Kant's own dialectical method in proving their contradictoriness ; these contradictory propositions he calls the 'antinomies of the Kantian philosophy'. In a minor work, The Sign Relation as the Basis of Human Knowledge (translated freely), we find reminiscences of Thomas Reid's Inquiry into the Human Mind: of the doctrine of sensations suggesting our conceptions of things, of causes being the signs of their effects, of 'the natural language of mankind'. Schröder, in developing these ideas in his own way, presents the sign relation as being fundamental to the construction of our knowledge of both nature and the human soul. Only by taking one thing as the ‘sign’ (signal, symbol, symptom, index, expression, picture, representation etc.) of another can we attain a conception of the world as a coherent whole. Our perception of this relation is partly a matter of innate capacities, partly the result of acquired skill. (shrink)

Deals with one of the most critical business issues of the century, the question of corporate responsibility. The author reconstructs and critically evaluates the arguments for the maximisation of profits, versus those to be found in the broader context of increased social responsibility.

Forbidden areas, i.e. areas (sites, cities, countries) that are inaccessible for topographical reasons or especially because of decisions based on political, religious, or other motivations are usually surrounded by an aura of mystery and almost necessarily arouse curiosity. The dream of generations of explorers was to reach Lhasa. An area can be closed not only to outsiders but also to “insiders:” nobody is allowed to leave for the “outside.” The isolation imposed on Japan by the Tokugawa regime was such a (...) two-way seclusion aided, of course, by geographical conditions and hence easily enforceable. It has been suggested, perhaps not quite seriously, that the famous Chinese wall was meant not only to keep out barbarian invaders, but also to prevent Chinese from leaving. That there was some kind of border control is also suggested by the leger, according to which Lao-tse, before disappearing into the west, committed his teaching, the Tao-te-kinq, to writing at the request of the “gatekeeper.” One may well wonder whether there exists another equally influential text written at the behest of a border policeman! (shrink)

Over the past decade or so, several commentators have called for mission-driven research programs on solar geoengineering, also known as solar radiation management (SRM) or climate engineering. Building on the largely epistemic reasons offered by earlier commentators, this paper argues that a well-designed mission-driven research program that aims to evaluate solar geoengineering could promote justice and legitimacy, among other valuable ends. Specifically, an international, mission-driven research program that aims to produce knowledge to enable well-informed decision-making about solar geoengineering could (1) (...) provide a more effective way to identify and answer the questions that policymakers would need to answer; and (2) provide a venue for more efficient, effective, just, and legitimate governance of solar geoengineering research; while (3) reducing the tendency for solar geoengineering research to exacerbate international domination. Thus, despite some risks and limitations, a well-designed mission-driven research program offers one way to improve the governance of solar geoengineering research relative to the ‘investigator-driven’ status quo. (shrink)

1. Introduction: The problems of time and consciousness What is time? St. Augustine remarked that when no one asked him, he knew what time was; however when someone asked him, he did not. Is time a process which flows? Is time a dimension in which processes occur? Does time actually exist? The notion that time is a process which "flows" directionally may be illusory (the "myth of passage") for if time did flow it would do so in some medium or (...) vessel (e.g. minutes per what?) [1]. But if time is a dimension in which processes occurred, e.g. as one component of a 4 dimensional spacetime, then why would processes occur unidirectionally in time? Yet we perceive time as an orderly, unidirectional process. An alternative explanation is that time does not exist as either a process or dimension, but that reality is a collage of discrete, disconnected and haphazardly arranged configurations of the universe, e.g. as described in Julian Barbour's "The end of time" [2]. In this view our perception of a unidirectional flow of time occurs because each moment, or "Now" as Barbour terms them, involves memory of other conceptually relevant moments, and the orderly flow of time is an illusion. Barbour's deconstruction of time contrasts the Newtonian reality of objects moving deterministically through 4 dimensional spacetime. Newton's contemporary (and rival) Leibniz [3] viewed the world in a manner consistent with Barbour (and with Mach's principle that the spatiotemporal structure of the universe is dependent on the distribution of mass, a foundation of Einstein's general relativity). According to Leibniz the world is to be understood not as matter/mass moving in a framework of space and time, but of more fundamental snapshot-like entities that momentarily fuse space and matter into single possible arrangements or configurations of the entire universe. Such configurations, which can be fabulously rich and complex considering the vastness of the universe, are the ultimate "things" of reality, which Leibniz termed "monads".. (shrink)

The fundamental unit of assessment in the sociobiology debate is neither a field nor a theory, but a framework of group commitments. Recourse to the framework concept is motivated, in general, by post-Kuhnian philosophy of scientific change and, in particular, by the dispute between E. O. Wilson and R. C. Lewontin. The framework concept is explicated in terms of commitments about problems, domain, disciplinary relations, exemplars, and performance evaluations. One upshot is that debate over such charges as genetic determinism, reductionism, (...) adaptationism, and the biologization of human nature has been vexed. It has lost sight of human sociobiology's central problem, namely to help show that the modern synthesis is complete. (shrink)

This case study explores the use of collaborative book clubs and word sorts to influence teacher positionality in an undergraduate social studies methods course for pre-service teachers. Drawing upon existing literature that suggests the effectiveness of dialogue as a means of navigating prior beliefs and the benefits of collaborative spaces for teachers to engage in collegial discussions, the study utilized books surrounding socio-political themes and educational inequalities to prompt conversation among participants. Results of the study suggest that dialogic and collaborative (...) activities like word sorts and book clubs provide productive opportunities for pre-service teachers to (re)negotiate their positionalities and grapple with their existing assumptions as they learn and co-construct meaning from and with one another. At the same time, the pre-service teachers’ perceptions of privilege and identity seem to remain somewhat unexamined and the teachers remain hesitant about the practical reality of working to dismantle inequalities in their own classrooms. (shrink)

Prominent author and cultural critic Wendell Berry is well known for his contributions to agrarianism and environmentalism, but his commentary on education has received comparatively little attention. Berry has been eloquently unmasking America's cultural obsession with restless mobility for decades, arguing that it causes damage to both the land and the character of our communities. Education, he maintains, plays a central role in this obsession, inculcating in students' minds the American dream of moving up and moving on. Drawing on Berry's (...) essays, fiction, and poetry, Jack R. Baker and Jeffrey Bilbro illuminate the influential thinker's vision for higher education in this pathbreaking study. Each chapter begins with an examination of one of Berry's fictional narratives and then goes on to consider how the passage inspires new ways of thinking about the university's mission. Throughout, Baker and Bilbro argue that instead of training students to live in their careers, universities should educate students to inhabit and serve their places. The authors also offer practical suggestions for how students, teachers, and administrators might begin implementing these ideas. Baker and Bilbro conclude that institutions guided by Berry's vision might cultivate citizens who can begin the work of healing their communities -- graduates who have been educated for responsible membership in a family, a community, or a polity. (shrink)

The present article addresses two lingering questions in the interpretation of the Zhuangzi 莊子—(a) How can one reconcile the scepticism of the Zhuangzi with its positive project(s)? and (b) Who can become a sagely person? The questions are addressed with reference to aspects of William James’ accounts of the ethics and psychology of belief.

Not long before he died, Henry David Thoreau was asked by a friend where religion was to be found in his writings. Thoreau responded by saying that his religiosity pervaded his works but that no one noticed it. This result was enabled by the cultural belief that religiosity entailed formal religion, creeds, fixed rituals, and overt discussions of God or gods. Thoreau’s point—a development of Emerson’s “Divinity School Address”—was to show the mistakenness of this compartmentalization of one’s religious life. For (...) Thoreau, genuine religiosity pervades and marks every aspect of one’s being—body and soul. “Our life,” Thoreau wrote in his journal in 1840, “is but the Soul made known by its fruits, the .. (shrink)

The Blackwell Encyclopedic Dictionary of Business Ethics provides clear, concise and highly informative definitions and explanations of the key concepts in one of the most important fields in contemporary business.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content: Choice and Virtue in the Nicomachean Ethics ALFRED R. MELE COM~rNTATORS ON THr Nicomachean Ethics (NE) have long been laboring under the influence of a serious misunderstanding of one of the key terms in Aristotle's moral philosophy and theory of action. This term is prohairesis (choice), the importance of which is indicated by Aristotle's assertions that choice is the proximate efficient cause of action (NE 6. 1139a31--32) and (...) that in which "the essential elements of virtue and character" lie (NE 8. x163a2'~-23). The accepted view is that Aristotle employs two importantly different notions of choice in the NE, one on which the term refers exclusively to means or things which are pros (toward, related to)' ends and another on which it does not have this reference? This "two notion" interpretation is motivated by the following three considerations: i. Aristotle's good or virtuous agent is said (NE 2. 11o5a28-33, cf. NE 6. 1144ax8-2o ) to choose actions for their own sakes; but, according to the This paper is derived in part from a chapter of my doctoral dissertation, which was submitted to the University of Michigan in January of 1979. 1 would like to express my gratitttde to the chairman of my dissertation committee, Nicholas P. White, for his comments and criticisms on the relevant sections during the preparation of my dissertation and to theJHP's anonymous reviewers for their helpful criticisms and queries. ' It has often been pointed out that things which are pros an end are not necessarily "means," in the ordinary sense of the word. E.g., constituents of an end are pros the end, but they are not means to it. See, e.g., Nicomachean Ethics, Book 6, trans. Leonard H. G. Greenwood (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 19o9), pp. 46-47, 53ff.: and John M. Cooper, Reason and Human Good in Aristotle (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1975), pp. 1o-22. ' Among the many proponents of this "two notion" interpretation are William D. Ross and Donald J. Allan. See Ross, Aristotle, 5th ed. (London: Methuen, t953), p. 2oo. See Allan, The Philosophy of Aristotle, 2nd ed. (London: Oxford University Press, 197o), p. 132; idem, "Aristotle 's Account of the Origin of Moral Principles," Xlth International Congress of Philosophy 12 (1953):124; idem, "The Practical Syllogism," in Autour d'Aristote, Studies for A. Mansion (Louvain : Publications Universitaires, 1955). Richard Sorabji, in "Aristotle on the Role of Intellect in Virtue" (Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society 74 l t973-74]:t t6), says that he has noticed sixteen commentators who take this view. [4o5] 406 HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY so-called formal account of prohairesis (NE 3. 2-3, 6. 2), the object of choice is what has been decided upon by deliberation (bouleuais), and what is decided upon by deliberation is a "means" to an end. 2. Aristotle says that choice is "closely bound up with virtue" and "discriminates characters better than actions do" (1 1t lb5; cf. t i lob3t, 1117a 5, 1163a22, 1t64bi); but commentators argue that these claims about choice are false unless choice is "of ends." 3. Though Aristotle holds that the impetuous akrat~s (incontinent agent) does not deliberate (e.g., t 152a 18-19), he says that the akrat~s' choice is good (1152ax5--17; cf. l l51a5-- 7, 29--32); and this appears to contradict his position in Book 3 that the object of choice is what is decided upon by deliberation, s In this paper I shall show that only one (philosophically significant) notion ofprohairesis is employed in the NE, namely, the notion developed in the "formal account" of deliberation and choice (3- 2-3, 6. 2), according to which choice is specifically of things which are pros ends. This point has several interesting applications. For example, it makes it easier to find in Aristotle (as I shall briefly explain) a comprehensive theory of practical reasoning or inference rather than several unconnected accounts of what practical inference is like in different types of cases; and it is helpful in clarifying what is involved in the evaluation of character on Aristotle's view (see Sec. ~). However, though I do think that the main point to be made... (shrink)

Plato's Republic covers a very wide range of philosophical topics, many of them also addressed in other Platonic dialogues. The papers in this volume, arising from the Institute of Classical Studies research seminar in ancient philosophy in 2007-2008, illustrate the range and diversity of responses to the Republic in antiquity. These responses show, for example, how in criticizing the doctrine of the tripartite soul Aristotle is as much concerned with the Timaeus as with the Republic, how Cicero regarded the Republic (...) and the Laws as complementing one another, and how Proclus treated the discussion of music in the Republic alongside the account of cosmic music in the Timaeus. Other papers examine the interpretations of the myth of Er offered by the Middle Platonist Alcinous and by Porphyry, and Proclus' place in the ancient reception of the Republic. (shrink)

Why has comedy become one of our most abiding ethical preoccupations as well as a dominant mode of political critique? It is suggested that comedy appeals to contemporary persons because it provides an apt social-aesthetic form through which to face up to living with others at a time when it is hard to bear others or otherness. The article outlines an ethics of modern individuality by developing a theory of comedy as more about building social bonds and finding out what (...) could be shared knowledge and experience than the toppling of dominant modes of thought or repudiating our mutuality with others. Drawing on Georg Simmel’s ‘The Law of the Individual’, the article develops a Simmelian reading of Freud’s Jokes to argue that comedy is one solution to resolving our mutual un-alikeness by way of forging knotted paths toward recognising how we could be alike. (shrink)

Andreas Battlogg, S.J., one of the supervising editors, discusses the conclusion of the publication of Karl Rahner's Sämtliche Werke in over thirty volumes along with its impact on the study of theology now and in the future.

The public expects members of the medical profession to conduct themselves according to the terms of the Hippocratic oath, yet few physicians and virtually no laypersons know what is in that oath. For the oath to reach beyond its symbolic importance, ethical conduct must be learned and practised. There are many texts on the practice of medicine, surgery and all of the related disciplines, yet one is hard pressed to find anything on ethical practice in any of them. Scholarly texts (...) on ethics tend to deal with the landmark issues and dilemmas that have occurred within particular jurisdictions or religions. This book is intended as a student-friendly text that seeks not to turn students into ethics scholars but to provide them with a practical guide to ethical conduct in everyday medical practice. and discussion are provided for each of the following areas: Ethical Practices in Health Care Law and Ethics Rights of Patients and Responsibilities of Health-Care Providers The Rights of Health-Care Professionals The Duty of Care Confidentiality Consent to Treatment Life and Death Research Ethics Ethics in Public Health Practice Ethical Practice in Everyday Health Care is useful, practical and student friendly. The exercises and discussions will stimulate thought about ethical conduct and help students to develop and translate ethical principles into their daily practice as health-care workers. Dr Walrond offers a ready and concise source of information for medical students on ethical issues. The text is simple, comprehensive and factual, addressing issues encountered in everyday medical practices. Case studies provide practical illustrations of complex ethical issues. (shrink)

This study adds to a small but growing literature that situates sleep within gendered work— family responsibilities. We conducted interviews with 25 heterosexual dual-earner working-class couples with children, most of whom had one partner who worked at night. A few men suffered disrupted sleep because of their commitment to being a coparent to their children, but for most their provider status gave them rights to longer and more continuous sleep. By contrast, as they were the primary caregiver during sentient hours, (...) women’s sleep was curtailed and interrupted by responding to the needs of family members at night and at the beginning of each day, and this was true for women who worked nights as well as days. Furthermore, in struggling to meet their daily employment and familial obligations while tired and sleepy, women further stressed their bodies in ways that can cause cumulative sleep debt. This article demonstrates that sleep deficits are another manifestation of gender inequality, with important implications for long-term health and well-being. (shrink)

This article discusses popular and academic debates that turned on the merit of either science or the humanities. The author uses four cases to provide this history: the Huxley-Arnold debate of the 1880s, the science education reformation (and neglect-of-science) debates in Britain in the 1920s, the two-culture debate of the 1960s, and the science wars of recent years. Each of those debates (on one side, at least) sought to establish the supremacy of science for society’s welfare, and the first three (...) (on both sides) necessarily excised interdisciplinary approaches from their proposed solutions. More recently, the science wars have drawn comparison to the two-culture debate, even though this recent skirmish cannot be distinguished from a concern over the effects of interdisciplinary scholarship. The purpose of this article is to trace the relationship of the debates and comment on their role for the future of STS. (shrink)

Falun Gong was originally a qigong group that entered into conflict with the Chinese state around the turn of the century. It gradually transformed into both a religious group and a political movement. Exiled to the United States, the founder-leader, Li Hongzhi, acquired property near Cuddebackville, New York, which he subsequently designated Dragon Springs. Dragon Springs, in turn, became the headquarters of Shen Yun Performing Arts, an ambitious touring dance and music company that claims to embody the traditional culture of (...) China prior to its subversion by the Chinese Communist Party. Though Li’s earlier eschatology emphasized that individuals needed to become Falun Gong practitioners in order to survive the imminent apocalypse, the significant success of Shen Yun seems to have prompted Li Hongzhi to rewrite his eschatology, which now emphasizes that all one need do in order to be “saved” is to view live Shen Yun performances. (shrink)

Recent scholarship has demonstrated Molina’s rejection of transworld damnation, claiming instead that there is at least one feasible world where any individual is freely saved, lost, or does not exist. This article argues that one can subscribe to Molina’s doctrine of individual predestination while maintaining, with William Lane Craig, that no actual person who fails to hear the gospel and is lost would have been saved in some feasible world where s/he heard the gospel. As part of the divine deliberation, (...) God could narrow down the spectrum of feasible worlds to a lower-order spectrum by factoring out worlds which, among other conditions, contain anyone who does not fall into either of two types. The first type comprises persons saved in at least one world where they receive only general revelation at the moment of salvation, lost in at least one world where they receive only general revelation, and lost in every world where they receive special revelation without first appropriating salvation through general revelation. The second type comprises persons saved in at least one world where they receive special revelation without first appropriating salvation through general revelation and lost in at least one comparable world. (shrink)

THE CONCEPT OF LITURGICAL ASCETICISM SERVES TO RELATE LITURGY and ethics as seen in the case of energy conservation. Disciplined practices undertaken to limit energy consumption can deepen contemplative awareness of God's creative energy as work in the world and the moral significance of human cooperation with it as an expression of one's baptismal commitment rooted within a particular faith community. The liturgical location of the moral agent who engages in such askesis implies a sacramentally informed epistemology as a way (...) of knowing oneself in relation to God and all of created reality that imbues conservation practices with eschatological meaning. (shrink)

This article examines Kevin Scharp’s formal solution to the alethic paradoxes, ADT, which stands for ascending and descending truth. One of the main supposed benefits of ADT over its competitors is that it alone can validate the uses of truth concepts in theoretical contexts, such as truth-theoretic semantics. The appendixes contain a new consistency proof for ADT, and additionally show that it is conservative. As a result of its conservativity, the article argues that ADT faces a problem in accounting for (...) certain mathematical uses of truth. Thus, Scharp’s theory needs to be amended in order to fulfill its aim of replicating all substantive uses of truth. (shrink)

“We are always already thrown into concrete factual circumstances, facing possibilities that we need to come to grips with. By choosing some we exclude others, thus making them no longer possible. What we are thrown into is the past and present, and the possibilities loom ahead of us, though we may try to turn our back on them. The future is the home of the possibilities while the present and past define the circumstances in which we make our choices, circumstances (...) we can no longer affect.” Or so we might say, and there is something right about this way of talking. Our basic conception of ourselves as agents is radically temporally asymmetric. And so we adopt asymmetric metaphors for time: we talk of time having a direction, as flowing from the future, through the present, to the past, closing possibilities that once were open; or perhaps we think of time as a measure of our own movement from the past to the future. Such metaphors are of very limited value. To think of time as having a direction spatializes time; to think of time as flowing or of ourselves as moving in time is to invite the question of how fast it is flowing or how fast we are moving (at one second per second, perhaps, one might quip, thereby inviting the question of why it cannot flow at two seconds per second instead).             Although the metaphors are flawed, we need to come to grips with an inextricable asymmetry between past and future in them. As agents, we deliberate about the future, while the past we can only bewail or rejoice over. We know the future not only through theoretical knowledge, but also through the intentional knowledge that the agent has of the effects she intends to produce. We think a life that started in years of sorrow but ended in great joy is preferable to one that started with a great joy and ended in years of sorrow.. (shrink)

Chidambaram Ramalingam (1823 – 1874) was a nineteenth century Indian-Tamilian poet, mystic, and visionary moral thinker well-known for his seminal contributions to Tamil religious and moral literature. He initiated a new moral and spiritual community and movement, Suddha Sanmargam, or “The Pure Path to True Harmony”, in the nineteenth century in the province of Tamilnadu in Southern India. One of Ramalingam’s texts which laid the philosophical foundation for this community and movement is his great unfinished essay “The Ethic of Compassion (...) for Sentient Beings”. In this talk, I will attempt a systematic presentation of the moral vision and ethical system in his essay. Among Ramalingam’s central claims are the following: a) Compassion involves understanding or discernment of the ultimate metaphysical truth pertaining to sentient beings, b) Compassion is the foundation of all other moral virtues, c) Compassion provides the standard of the moral worth of actions, d) Compassion is the basis of morality itself, and e) Compassion is an essential condition of attaining spiritual liberation or enlightenment. In my talk, I will clarify, develop, and critically examine these five theses on compassion and consider relevant views and objections in the Western and Asian philosophical traditions. (shrink)

One of John Dewey’s goals as a philosopher was to rescue his discipline from the epistemological deadlocks centered about the concept of essence, or as he might have put it, to disengage philosophy from its excessive concern with the fixed and the sure. In order to do this he stressed the contextual aspect of philosophical construction, and, so some claim, undercut belief in the existence of an a priori realm of essence determining activity. The purpose of this paper is to (...) point out that this is not the case. My procedure will be: to present Dewey’s understanding of the causes for the epistemological deadlocks in philosophy’s past; to present the implications of this understanding and its effect upon philosophical method; to present the metaphysical implications of the first two points. I hope to make it clear that Dewey recognized the existence of something prior to an experienced context which limited its possibilities and that there is validity to an inquiry into this something prior to an experienced context. To such he gave the name of metaphysics. (shrink)

We investigate an approach for drawing logical inference from inconsistent premisses. The main idea in this approach is that the inconsistencies in the premisses should be interpreted as uncertainty of the information. We propose a mechanism, based on Kinght’s [14] study of inconsistency, for revising an inconsistent set of premisses to a minimally uncertain, probabilistically consistent one. We will then generalise the probabilistic entailment relation introduced in [15] for propositional languages to the first order case to draw logical inference from (...) a probabilistic set of premisses. We will show how this combination can allow us to limit the effect of uncertainty introduced by inconsistent premisses to only the reasoning on the part of the premise set that is relevant to the inconsistency. (shrink)

Phenomenology refers to the philosophical and scientific study of consciousness and the objects of direct experience. This book includes four chapters that explore phenomenology from several perspectives. Chapter One examines Augustine's paradox as the formula of a philosophical problem through the lens of the phenomenological concept of the horizon. Chapter Two employs the tenets of hermeneutic phenomenology and the method of path-dependent process tracing to interrogate the "longue durée" historical experience of Ghana from 1951 to 1992 to probe the evolutionary (...) dynamics of its democracy. Chapter Three presents ongoing research on a phenomenological ontology of forms of life. Lastly, Chapter Four advances the study of organizational cognition by exploring immergence in the context of the postal sector. (shrink)

One of the aspects of consciousness deserving of study is what might be called its subjective unity - the way in which, though conscious experience moves from object to object, and can be said to have distinct ‘states', it nevertheless in some sense apparently forms a singular flux divided only by periods of unconsciousness. The work of William James provides a valuable, and rather unique, source of analysis of this feature of consciousness; however, in my opinion, this component of James’ (...) theory of the mind has so far gone under-emphasized in the scholarly literature. This paper undertakes some philosophical geography, trying to draw out and elucidate some of the relevant ideas from James’ corpus, and also subjects those ideas to some analysis to try and assist in judgements of their current importance. (shrink)

The object of this paper is partly to plead a cause, partly to proclaim a grievance. The last domain of ancient Greek life to attract the serious attention and study of modern scholars has been that of Greek Religion; and the exposition of it has revealed its many vital points of contact with the moral and spiritual energy and the artistic and poetic monuments of the ancient Hellenic race. An enthusiastic votary of this study might venture to hope that some (...) general acquaintance with its facts and ideas would henceforth be recognized as belonging to the general curriculum of Hellenic culture. But any one merely interested in the good workmanship of the classical commentary ought at least to insist that something more than a general acquaintance with this subject should be regarded by those who set themselves to edit certain portions of the Greek classics as an essential preliminary and as a necessary part of their scholarly equipment. The authors to whom this rule specially applies are Hesiod, Pindar and the Attic Dramatists. A satisfying commentary on Hesiod is still a desideratum; and for such an achievement a long apprenticeship in anthropology and religious studies would be a necessity. (shrink)

IntroductionThere is a paucity of clinical guidelines for the routine assessment of maladaptive reproductive grief reactions in outpatient primary care and OB-GYN settings in the United States. Because of the disenfranchised nature of perinatal grief reactions, many clinicians may be apt to miss or dismiss a grief reaction that was not identified in the perinatal period. A significant number of those experiencing a reproductive loss exhibit signs of anxiety, depression, or post-traumatic stress disorder. Reproductive losses are typically screened for and (...) recorded numerically as part of a woman’s well-visit intake, yet this process often fails to identify patients emotionally troubled by a prior pregnancy loss.Materials and MethodsA summative content analysis of 164 recent website blogs from female participants who self-reported having experienced a miscarriage or abortion in their lifetime was conducted. The narratives were reviewed for details regarding the time span between the pregnancy loss and the composition of the blog post. The stories were analyzed for subsequent relationship problems and detrimental mental health conditions. Maladaptive reactions were contrasted for those that indicated a greater than 12 months’ time-lapse and those who had not.ResultsMore than a third of the women reported in the narrative that at least one year or more had passed since experiencing the miscarriage or abortion. For those women, the median time span between the loss and composing the blog was 4 years with a range of 47 years. Mental health conditions attributed to the reproductive loss by those who reported longer bereavement times included subsequent relationship problems, substance misuse, depression, suicidal ideation, and PTSD. The percent of reported maladaptive issues was more than double for those who reported that a year or more had passed since the loss of the pregnancy.DiscussionGrief reactions following the loss of a pregnancy may be prolonged or delayed for several months which can contribute to adverse biopsychosocial outcomes. Recognition and treatment of maladaptive grief reactions following a pregnancy loss are critical. Screening methods should be enhanced for clinicians in medical office settings to help identify and expedite the appropriate mental health assistance. (shrink)

Pindar, perhaps more than any other ancient poet, seems to demand from his interpreters declarations of their critical premises. In recent years scholars customarily have made initial acknowledgment to the work of E. R. Bundy, as psychoanalysts must to Freud, before they begin to offer their own modifications to and expansions of his fundamental work. Much contemporary scholarship has concentrated on the identification and classification in the odes of the elements whose function Bundy labelled and explained. But useful as this (...) type of analysis has been for exorcising the demon of biographical interpretation, it has, like all orthodoxies, prevented perception of other equally important truths. It constitutes no radical heterodoxy to try to account for the fact that each individual ode, for all its dependence on common conventions of structure and of content, makes a different impression. Nor is it unreasonable to try to explain what makes Pindar's style and approach distinctive.In my own work I have argued, though perhaps not always convincingly, that language as well as structure contributes to an ode's coherence. Scholars trained in America are more willing to assume that repetition of phrase or theme within a poem has significance, and that metaphors can simultaneously bear more than one connotation. The issues at stake have most recently been delineated by Michael Silk, in his discussion of the effect of metaphor in archaic poetry: ‘By “patent”, I mean effects whose existence is not in doubt, though their character may be disputed; by “latent”, those whose effective significance is so tenuous or marginal that one resents the impression of solidity that even mentioning them produces. Such insensitivity is more common than it should be among American classicists, many of whom have also been influenced by the “New Criticism”…’ As illustration of the erroneous American approach Silk cites Cedric Whitman's description of the thematic relation of fires in theIliad.Silk himself avoids the trap Whitman falls into by considering only ‘patent’ metaphors, and these consistentlyout of context, so that there is no necessity to comment on the existence or non-existence of thematic connections among them. But it is possible—at least logically—to frame the question differently, and to ask whether a metaphor cannot have patent and latent associations at the same time. (shrink)

In 1958, economist A. W. Phillips published an article describing what he observed to be the inverse relationship between inflation and unemployment; subsequently, the "Phillips curve" became a central concept in macroeconomic analysis and policymaking. But today's Phillips curve is not the same as the original one from fifty years ago; the economy, our understanding of price setting behavior, the determinants of inflation, and the role of monetary policy have evolved significantly since then. In this book, some of the top (...) economists working today reexamine the theoretical and empirical validity of the Phillips curve in its more recent specifications. The contributors consider such questions as what economists have learned about price and wage setting and inflation expectations that would improve the way we use and formulate the Phillips curve, what the Phillips curve approach can teach us about inflation dynamics, and how these lessons can be applied to improving the conduct of monetary policy. ContributorsLawrence Ball, Ben Bernanke, Oliver Blanchard, V. V. Chari, William T. Dickens, Stanley Fischer, Jeff Fuhrer, Jordi Gali, Michael T. Kiley, Robert G. King, Donald L. Kohn, Yolanda K. Kodrzycki, Jane Sneddon Little, Bartisz Mackowiak, N. Gregory Mankiw, Virgiliu Midrigan, Giovanni P. Olivei, Athanasios Orphanides, Adrian R. Pagan, Christopher A. Pissarides, Lucrezia Reichlin, Paul A. Samuelson, Christopher A. Sims, Frank R. Smets, Robert M. Solow, Jürgen Stark, James H. Stock, Lars E. O. Svensson, John B. Taylor, Mark W. Watson. (shrink)

There has been considerable recent discussion of the social effects of “liberalism,” which are said to include a growth in out-of-wedlock childbirth, repudiation of traditions, a rise in populism, increased reliance on technocracy, inequality, environmental degradation, sexual promiscuity, deterioration of civic associations, a diminution of civic virtue, political correctness on university campuses, and a general sense of alienation. There is good reason for skepticism about these claims. Liberalism is not a person, and it is not an agent in history. Claims (...) about the supposedly adverse social effects of liberalism are best taken not as causal claims at all, but as normative objections that should be defended on their merits. These propositions are elaborated with reference to three subordinate propositions: liberalism, as such, does not lack the resources to defend traditions; liberalism, as such, hardly rejects the idea of “constraint,” though the domains in which liberals accept constraints differ from those of antiliberals, and vary over time; liberalism, as such, does not dishonor the idea of “honor.” There is a general point here about the difficulty of demonstrating, and the potential recklessness of claiming, that one or another “ism” is causally associated with concrete social developments. (shrink)