G. P. Meredith; XIII—Words as Instruments, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Volume 62, Issue 1, 1 June 1962, Pages 241–260, https://doi.org/10.1093/aris.

Despite great advances in understanding genetic mechanisms, there still exists a bias toward equating genes with innate modules that determine important developmental events. But genes are equally relevant to understanding developmental plasticity shaped by ecological events. In other words, the term 'genetic inheritance' does not specify ontogenetic mechanisms. Here we present a case history of a species assumed to be under the control of prespecified genetic wiring to direct critical behavioral events such as communication and mating. We show, however, that (...) exogenetic processes stemming from the species's ontogenetic niche provide an alternative view of the flexibility of development especially with respect to behavioral performance. (shrink)

While the 2022 Supreme Court of the United States decision in Dobbs v Jackson Women’s Health Organization may bring the contingent rights of pregnant people to refuse interventions into sharper foc...

Book review in this Article The Ethos of the Bible. By Birger Gerhardsson. The Prophets, Vol. 1: The Assyrian Period. By Klaus Koch. The Gospel according to Saint John, Vol. 3. By Rudolf Schnackenburg. The Social Setting of Pauline Christianity. By Gerd Theissen. Jewish and Christian Self‐Definition, Vol. 3: Self‐Definition in the Craeco‐Roman World. Edited by Ben F. Meyer and E.P. Sanders. The Church and Healing. Edited by W.J. Sheils. Miracles and the Medieval Mind: Theory, Record and Event, 1000 to (...) 1215. By Benedicta Ward. The Luminous Vision; Six Medieval Mystics and their Teaching. By Anne Bancroft. Astrology in the Renaissance: The Zodiac of Life. By Eugenio Garin. Lay Culture, Learned Culture: Books and Social Change in Strasbourg 1480–1599. By M.U. Umgang mil Luther. By Gerhard Ebeling. The Reformation and the English People. By J.J. Scarisbrick. Between Orthodoxy and Enlightenment: Jean‐Robert Chouet and the Introduction of Cartesian Science in the Academy of Geneva. By Michael Heyd. Richard Crashaw and the Spanish Golden Age. By R.V. Young. The Problem of Unbelief in the Sixteenth Century: The Religion of Rabelais. By Lucien Febvre, translated by Beatrice Gottlieb. History of Christianity in India, Vol. II: From the Middle of the 16th to the End of the 17th Century. By Joseph Thekkedath. The Vatican and the American Hierarchy from 1870 to 1965. By Gerald P. Fogarty. Nationalism, Positivism and Catholicism: The Politics of Charles Maurras and French Catholics 1890–1914. By Michael Sutton. George Tyrrell and the Catholic Tradition. By Ellen Leonard. The Testing of the Churches 1932–1982: A Symposium. Edited by Rupert Davies. The Old Protestantism and the New: Essays on the Reformation Heritage. By B.A. Gerrish. An Introduction to Protestant Theology. By Helmut Gollwitzer. Dialogues on Morality and Religion. By Jakob Friedrich Fries. American Catholic Social Ethics: Twentieth‐Century Approaches. By Charles E. Curran. Ethical Issues in Reproductive Medicine. Edited by Maurice Reidy. Michel Foucault: Social Theory as Transgression. By Charles C. Lemert and Garth Gillan. Last Writingson the Philosophy of Psychology. Vol. I. By Ludwig Wittgenstein. Liberalism and the Limits of Justice. By Michael J. Sandel. Free Speech: A Philosophical Enquiry. By Frederick Schauer. Orality and Literacy: The Technologizing of the Word. By Walter J. Ong. Bwiti: An Ethnography of the Religious Imagination in Africa. By James W. Fernandez. Selfless Persons. By Steven Collins. Understanding Jewish Mysticism: A Source Reader Edited by David R. Blumenthal. The Epistle on the Possibility of Conjunction with the Active Intellect, by Ibn Rushd, with the Commentary of Moses Narboni. Edited and translated by Kalman P. Bland. (shrink)

Exploring an aesthetics of complexity relevant to contemporary art, the artist/author discusses the 56th Venice Biennale, curated by Okwui Enwezor, in light of Philip Galanter’s essay ‘Complexism and the role of evolutionary art’. Artworks by Steve McQueen, Isaac Julien, Mika Rottenberg, Hito Steyerl, Im Heung-Soon, Katrīna Neiburga and Andris Eglītis are related to concepts of emergence, chaos, feedback, generative process, and networks, and writings by philosopher Manuel Delanda, sociologist Saskia Sassen and physicist James P. Crutchfield. As one of the most (...) influential international exhibitions of contemporary art, the Venice Biennale is considered a bellwether of future trends; this edition called ‘All the World’s Futures’ presents artwork in context with a dissolving binary paradigm of communism/capitalism that fails to adequately address labour, environmental and immigration issues. The author concludes that an approach informed by complexity theory holds more promise, aesthetically and politically. (shrink)

Objective Although patients exercise greater autonomy than in the past, and shared decision making is promoted as the preferred model for doctor-patient engagement, tensions still exist in clinical practice about the primary locus of decision-making authority for complex, scarce, and resource-intensive medical therapies: patients and their surrogates, or physicians. We assessed physicians’ attitudes toward decisional authority for adult venoarterial extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (VA-ECMO), hypothesizing they would favor a medical locus. Design, Setting, Participants A survey of resident/fellow physicians and internal medicine (...) attendings at an academic medical center, May to August 2013. Measurements We used a 24-item, internet-based survey assessing physician-respondents’ demographic characteristics, knowledge, and attitudes regarding decisional authority for adult VA-ECMO. Qualitative narratives were also collected. Main Results A total of 179 physicians completed the survey (15 percent response rate); 48 percent attendings and 52 percent residents/ fellows. Only 32 percent of the respondents indicated that a surrogate’s consent should be required to discontinue VA-ECMO; 56 percent felt that physicians should have the right to discontinue VA-ECMO over a surrogate’s objection. Those who self-reported as “knowledgeable” about VA-ECMO, compared to those who did not, more frequently replied that there should not be presumed consent for VA-ECMO (47.6 percent versus 33.3 percent, p = 0.007), that physicians should have the right to discontinue VAECMO over a surrogate’s objection (76.2 percent versus 50 percent, p = 0.02) and that, given its cost, the use of VA-ECMO should be restricted (81.0 percent versus 54.4 percent, p = 0.005). Conclusions Surveyed physicians, especially those who self-reported as knowledgeable about VA-ECMO and/or were specialists in pulmonary/ critical care, favored a medical locus of decisional authority for VA-ECMO. VA-ECMO is complex, and the data may (1) reflect physicians’ hesitance to cede authority to presumably less knowledgeable patients and surrogates, (2) stem from a stewardship of resources perspective, and/or (3) point to practical efforts to avoid futility and utility disputes. Whether these results indicate a more widespread reversion to paternalism or a more circumscribed usurping of decisional authority occasioned by VA-ECMO necessitates further study. (shrink)

Material acquisition—buying, inheriting, being given—and nonmaterial—learning a word, assimilating a form—have been likened, and in both, meaningful acquisition cannot take place without a taxonomy, a scheme of categories into which the acquired element can be fitted. Then with these elements—both material and nonmaterial—we create a world or build and project a self, the painter and the interior decorator equally manipulating the elements in a vocabulary. The coarseness of such an outlook seems to bludgeon away long-established fine distinctions. We need not (...) deny, however, that there may be a kind of "indifference" in regard to "the real existence of the thing" which allows us "to play the part of judge in matters of taste," as Kant would have it,1 we need not deny the existence of an "aesthetic attitude: it is just that such indifference and such an attitude probably don't have much to do with our day-to-day experience of artifacts and perhaps needn't. The "aesthetic attitude" was not long ago defined by Jerome Stolnitz as "disinterested and sympathetic attention to and contemplation of any object of awareness whatever, for its own sake alone."2 Stolnitz is at pains to distinguish the aesthetic attitude from "interests" with which it may be preferable to confuse it. "One of them," he writes, "is the interest in owning a work of art for the sake of pride or prestige". And again, "Another nonaesthetic interest is the 'cognitive,' i.e., the interest in gaining knowledge about an object". Both these interests sound rather acquisitive, and let us consider the "aesthetic attitude" as somehow tied in everyday practice to the bundle of "acquiring" activities. · 1. Immanuel Kant, The Critique of Judgment, trans. James Creed Meredith, p. 43.· 2. Jerome Stolnitz, Aesthetics and the Philosophy of Art Criticism, excerpted in Introductory Readings in Aesthetics, ed. John Hospers, p. 19; all further citations in text. Hiram W. Woodward, Jr. is a lecturer in the department of the history of art at the University of Michigan. He is editor of Eighty Works in the University of Michigan Museum of Art: A Handbook and coeditor of Barabudur: History and Significance of a Buddhist Monument. (shrink)

Natural scientists have proposed that humankind has entered a new geologic epoch. Termed the “Anthropocene,” this new reality revolves around the central role of human activity in multiple Earth ecosystems. That challenge requires a rethinking of social science explanations of organization and environment relationships. In this article, we discuss the need to politicize institutional theory as a means understanding “Anthropocene Society,” and in turn what that resultant society means for the Anthropocene in the natural environment. We modify the constitutive elements (...) of institutional orders and a set of main change mechanisms to explore three scenarios around which future Anthropocene Societies might be built—Collapsing Systems, Market Rules, and Cultural Re-Enlightenment. Simultaneously, we use observations from the Anthropocene to expose limitations in present institutional theory and propose extensions to remedy them. Overall, this article challenges organizational scholars to consider a new paradigm under which research in environmental sustainability and social sustainability takes place. (shrink)

There is a growing body of writing, for instance from the nursing profession, espousing an approach to ethics based on care. I suggest that this approach is hopelessly vague and that the vagueness is due to an inadequate analysis of the concept of care. An analysis of 'care' and related terms suggests that care is morally neutral. Caring is not good in itself, but only when it is for the right things and expressed in the right way. 'Caring' ethics assumes (...) wrongly that caring is good, thus it can tell us neither what constitutes those right things, nor what constitutes the right way. (shrink)

Cicero's philosophical works are now exciting renewed interest, in part because he provides vital evidence of the views of the Greek philosophers of the Hellenistic age, and partly because of the light he casts on the intellectual life of first century Rome. This edition uses the 1997 Clarendon text by the acclaimed translator P.G. Walsh.

This volume collects P. M. S. Hacker's papers on Wittgenstein and related themes written over the last decade. Hacker provides comparative studies of a range of topics--including Wittgenstein's philosophy of psychology, conception of grammar, and treatment of intentionality--and defends his own Wittgensteinian conception of philosophy.

Power in meetings may be enacted in many ways, ranging from democratic and collaborative through to authoritative and didactic, with the exact positioning on this continuum typically under the control of the chair. By contrast with the focus of most previous research on the behaviour of institutionally ratified chairs of intact teams, this paper examines how volunteer chairs of small focus groups in public meetings use the power associated with that role to manage the discussion and to encourage or discourage (...) explicit expression of disagreement. Our analysis identifies ways in which these arbitrarily assigned chairs influence and facilitate the small group discussions through a range of discourse practices. By separating the chair role from its typical co-occurrence with institutional hierarchy we are able to demonstrate the inherent influence and power of the position in the decision making process. (shrink)

The figure of Peter the Tomb, various aspects of his life and activity, as well as the era called by his name, have long been the subject of study by numerous scholars, comprehensive and meticulous research. It is enough to mention the works of M.Grushevsky, A.Zhukovsky, V.Klimov, A.Kolodny, V.Nichik, O.Sarapin, L.Filipovich and V.Shevchenko, in which the phenomenon of the metropolitan, his spiritual and religious dominant, is thoroughly and thoroughly explained, the influence of P. Mogila's heritage on the past and present. (...) And yet it is impossible to talk about the exhaustiveness of this topic, because such inexhaustibility is dictated by the very universe of its multidimensional activity. This is what determines the relevance of the proposed article. And this, in turn, gives rise to reflections on the need for scientific innovative understanding of religious philosophy as a constant basis of thinking of Petro Mohyla, which, in particular, was reflected in his "Notebook", which is still a little-studied phenomenon of Ukrainian spiritual culture, for the first time it saw the world only in 1995, more than 60 years after its invention by M. Grushevsky. This work, like all narratives on the spiritual and religious themes that make up it, is an integral part of the metropolitan's religious and philosophical heritage. (shrink)

Evolutionary change occurs most often through the modification of pre-existing structures. What were the pre-existing circuits in our primate ancestors that paved the way for human language, and how did they change in the lineages leading to our present condition? Among the neural modifications that were critical for human language, there are two of special interest: The origin and evolution of the remarkably rich conceptual world that humans share to the exclusion of other primates, and the origin of neural circuitry (...) that underlies various sequential and hierarchical aspects of language, as utilized for example in syntax and word morphology. The fossil record of brain evolution and the archaeological record provide intriguing clues about these processes. (shrink)

Several cases which have been considered by the courts in recent years have highlighted the legal dilemmas facing doctors whose decisions result in the ending of a patient's life. This paper considers the case of Dr Cox, who was convicted of attempting to murder one of his patients, and explores the roles of motive, diminished responsibility and consent in cases of "mercy killing". The Cox decision is compared to that of Tony Bland and Janet Johnstone, in which the patients were (...) in a persistent vegetative state. In all three cases, the doctors believed that their patients' quality of life was so poor that their continued existence was of no benefit to them, and decided that their lives should not be unduly prolonged, yet the doctor who was prosecuted was the one whose dying patient had requested that her death be hastened. The paper examines the law's seemingly contradictory approaches to such cases. (shrink)

Many enhancement technologies are distributed by healthcare professionals—by physicians—who are held to the Hippocratic Oath and the goals of medicine. While the ethics of enhancement has been widely discussed with regard to the social justice, humanism, morals and normative values of these interventions, their place in medicine has not attracted a great deal of attention. This paper investigates the potential for enhancement technologies to fulfil the goals of medicine, arguing that they play a role in promoting the health of individuals, (...) and thus, an unavoidable place in medicine. It also warns of potential dangers, suggesting a set of guidelines to initiate conversations regarding the role and responsibilities of physicians practising in an era of enhancement. (shrink)