The Unknowable, arguably the greatest Russian philosophical work of the 20th century, was the culmination of S. L. Frank's intellectual and spiritual development, the boldest and most imaginative of all his writings, containing a synthesis of epistemology, ontology, social philosophy, religious philosophy, and personal spiritual experience.

We consider language models for the Lambek calculus that allow empty antecedents and enrich them with constants for the empty language and for the language containing only the empty word. No complete calculi are known with respect to these semantics, and in this paper we consider several trivalent systems that arise as fragments of these models? logics.

© 2015 NATCO, The Organization for Transplant Professionals.Despite the known benefits of kidney transplant, less than 30% of the 615 000 patients living with end-stage renal disease in the United States have received a transplant. More than 100 000 people are presently on the transplant waiting list. Although the shortage of kidneys for transplant remains a critical factor in explaining lower transplant rates, another important and modifiable factor is patients' lack of comprehensive education about transplant. The purpose of this article (...) is to provide an overview of known best practices from the broader literature that can be used as an evidence base to design improved education for ESRD patients pursuing a kidney transplant. Best practices in chronic disease education generally reveal that education that is individually tailored, understandable for patients with low health literacy, and culturally competent is most beneficial. Effective education helps patients navigate the complex health care process successfully. Recommendations for how to incorporate these best practices into transplant education design are described. Providing more ESRD patients with transplant education that encompasses these best practices may improve their ability to make informed health care decisions and increase the numbers of patients interested in pursuing transplant. (shrink)

Authority qua empowerment is the weak reading of authority in Hans Kelsen's writings. On the one hand, this reading appears to be unresponsive to the problem of authority as we know it from the tradition. On the other hand, it squares with legal positivism. Is Kelsen a legal positivist?Not without qualification. For he defends a normativity thesis along with the separation thesis, and it is at any rate arguable that the normativity thesis mandates a stronger reading of authority than that (...) modelled on empowerment. I offer, in the paper, a prima facie case on behalf of a stronger reading of authority in Kelsen. I go on to argue, however, that the textual evidence weighs heavily in favour of the weak reading. Both nomostatics and nomodynamics are pervasive points of view in the Pure Theory of Law, and both reflect species of empowerment as the endpoint of Kelsen's reconstructions. (shrink)

"Seymon Lyudvigovich Frank, the author of the volume here made available for the first time in English translation, was one of the leading Russian philosophers of this century; some authorities consider him the most outstanding Russian philosopher of any age...._ " _Man's Soul__ is a book which perfectly exemplifies the generous conception of the mission and competence of philosophy characteristic of Frank and the other members of the Russian metaphysical movement. Frank's stated aim in the treatise is to reclaim for (...) philosophy a field of investigation which, from the time of Plato and Aristotle to that of the Russian Idealists, philosophers had viewed as properly theirs, but which, since the mid-nineteenth century, they had allowed to fall into almost complete neglect: the study of the nature of the human soul...._ "The moral message of _Man's Soul__ is well summed up by its epigraph, quoted from St. Augustine: 'Let man first of all return to his own self, so that once he has, as it were, stepped therein, he may rise from thence and be elevated to God.'" -- from the foreword by Philip J. Swoboda. (shrink)

The following article by Semen Liudvigovich Frank was published in the German monthly literary periodical Gral, which came out between 1906 and 1937 in Ravensberg. The editor of the periodical was Franz Eichert. For the most part, it presents the contents of one of the lectures Frank gave to a West European audience, familiarizing them with the philosophical legacy of "enigmatic" Russia, which had been through an unprecedented historical cataclysm. Interest in Russian philosophy was no accident either for the audience (...) or for the lecturer, an eyewitness and even participant—as essayist and ideologist of the liberal bourgeoisie—of the violent political events in Russia. More and more new historical, cultural, and philosophical materials were being drawn, as into a whirlpool, into the process of interpreting the Russian Revolution. (shrink)

Recent policy developments in the area of livestock husbandry have suggested that, from the perspective of optimizing animal welfare, new animal husbandry systems should be developed that provide opportunities for livestock animals to be raised in environments where they are permitted to engage in “natural behavior.” It is not known whether consumers regard animal husbandry issues as important, and whether they differentiate between animal husbandry and other animal welfare issues. The responsibility for the development of such systems is allocated jointly (...) between farmers, regulators, different actors in the food chain, and consumers. This research focuses on understanding consumer attitudes and preferences regarding the development and introduction of such systems, to ensure that they are acceptable to consumers as well as producers, regulators, and scientists. Consumer perceptions of animal welfare and animal husbandry practices were evaluated using quantitative consumer survey, which focused on two animal husbandry issues – farmed pigs and farmed fish. Following pilot work, 1000 representative Dutch consumers were sampled about their attitudes to either pig or fish husbandry. The results indicated that consumers think about animal welfare in terms of two broad categories related to their health and living environment, but do not think about welfare issues at a more detailed level. Greater concern was expressed about the welfare of pigs compared to fish. Consumer trust in labeling also emerged as an important issue, since consumers need to trust different food chain actors with responsibility for promoting animal welfare, and are reluctant to consider the details of animal husbandry systems. As a consequence, a transparent, enforceable, and traceable monitoring system for animal welfare friendly products is likely to be important for consumers. (shrink)