In recent years evidence has emerged of the considerable influence of Scotist metaphysics on the Reformed scholasticism of the seventeenth century. One of the figures often named in connection with this Scotist revival is Samuel Rutherford (1600–61), who was one of the most important Scottish theologians of the seventeenth century. Focussing on Rutherford’s maximalist doctrine of providence, this article demonstrates his profound debt to key Scotist philosophical devices. In structuring these concepts, however, it is demonstrated that Rutherford is influenced not (...) so much by Scotus directly but rather much more by the modified Scotism of Thomas Bradwardine, the fourteenth-century Augustinian theologian. In particular, Bradwardine is revealed as the key influence on Rutherford’s modal theory and his sophisticated account of divine concourse. The paper concludes by arguing that Bradwardine’s influence on Rutherford suggests the need to take a broader view of the late medieval influence on Reformed scholasticism than is currently the case. (shrink)

James Bryson’s The Christian Platonism of Thomas Jackson offers the first comprehensive study of the Oxford Platonist Thomas Jackson. While Jackson is by no means unknown to early modern historians...

This paper opens with first‐hand accounts of critical care medical interventions in which detainees, in the custody of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), are brought to the emergency department for treatment. This case dramatizes the extent to which the provision of ethical and acceptable nursing care is jeopardized by federal law enforcement paradigms. Drawing on the scholarship of Michel Foucault and Giorgio Agamben, this paper offers a theoretical account of the power dynamics that inform the health care of patients (...) who find themselves caught in the custodial scaffolding of a vast immigration and detention apparatus. It offers an analysis of the display of sovereign and biopolitical power over the lives (and deaths) of detainees (Foucault), as well as the ways these individuals are reduced to “bare life” under the political pretext of an emergency or “state of exception” (Agamben). Our purpose here is both theoretical and practical: to better understand the often hidden agency or impersonal “will” exercised by the immigrant detention system, but also to equip clinicians in these and cognate facilities (e.g., prisons) with the critical tools by which they might better navigate incommensurable paradigms (i.e., care vs. custody) in order to deliver the best care while upholding their ethical duties as a care provider. This is all the more pressing because hospitals are not sanctuaries and given the incursion of federal law enforcement agents, nurses may find themselves conscripted as de facto agents of the state. (shrink)

The Prologue offers an overview of the Reformation of method from Augustine of Hippo through to the Ramist movement, providing an orientation to the rest of the book. It highlights and explains an important nexus of Realism, exemplarism and illumination fundamental to Ramism. Beginning with Augustine it shows how these themes coalesced into a distinctive Christian philosophy taken up and refined by Franciscans such as Bonaventure of Bagnoregio and John Duns Scotus, as well as by Ramon Lull, the Franciscan-inspired encyclopaedist. (...) It traces the continuation of this methodological impulse into the Platonism and Christian humanism of the Renaissance, highlighting especially the topical and Realist (Scotistic) reform of logic pioneered by Lorenzo Valla and Rudolph Agricola. It concludes by showing the reception of this topical and biblical reform in Philipp Melanchthon and the movement of Reformed scholasticism, revealing Reformed Scotism and Christian philosophy as important preconditions for Ramism. (shrink)

The authors focus on four major thematic areas – the reform of church, the reform of theology, the reform of perspective, and the reform of method – which together encompasses the breadth and depth of Cusanus’ own reform initiatives.

The first English translation of Fichte’s second set of 1804 lectures on the Wissenschaftslehre.

The texts collected in this volume, which was originally published in 1969, contain Herder's most original and stimulating ideas on politics, history and language. They had for the most part not been previously available in English. In his introduction, Professor Barnard analyses the basic premises of Herder's political thought against the background of the Enlightenment. He examines Herder's concepts of language, community and culture, his theory of historical interaction, and his approach to the problem of change and progress. Finally, he (...) provides a brief comparative analysis of traditionalist thought following the French Revolution, showing how substantive writers like Burke differed from Herder despite the close similarity of political vocabulary. (shrink)

Health care decision making has changed profoundly during the past several decades. Advances in scientific knowledge, technology, and professional skill enable medical providers to extend and enhance life by increasing the ability to cure disease, manage disability, and palliate suffering. Ironically, the same interventions can prolong painful existence and protract the dying process. Recognizing that medical interventions, especially lifesustaining measures, are not always medically appropriate or even desired by a patient or family, health care professionals endeavor to determine who should (...) make health care decisions and according to what standards. The importance that Western culture places on individual rights and self-determination is reflected in the growing advocacy for patient autonomy and the discrediting of physician paternalism. However, the question of autonomy becomes more complex when patients lack the capacity to decide for themselves.Advance directives represent one response to the dilemma of decision making for incapacitated patients. The original advance directive, the living will, is a written list of instructions reflecting the individual's wishes about care, usually at the end of life. (shrink)

The practice of covertly administering medication is controversial. Although condemned by some as overly paternalistic, others have suggested that it may be acceptable if patients have permanent mental incapacity and refuse needed treatment. Ethical, legal, and clinical considerations become more complex when the mental incapacity is temporary and when the medication actually serves to restore autonomy. We discuss these issues in the context of a young man with schizophrenia. His mother had been giving him antipsychotic medication covertly in his soup. (...) Should the doctor continue to provide a prescription, thus allowing this to continue? We discuss this case based on the “four principles” ethical framework, addressing the conflict between autonomy and beneficence/non-maleficence, the role of antipsychotics as an autonomy restoring agent, truth telling and the balance between individual versus family autonomy. (shrink)

Understanding terrestrial carbon metabolism is critical because terrestrial ecosystems play a major role in the global carbon cycle. Furthermore, humans have severely disrupted the carbon cycle in ways that will alter the climate system and directly affect terrestrial metabolism. Changes in terrestrial metabolism may well be as important an indicator of global change as the changing temperature signal. Improving our understanding of the carbon cycle at various spatial and temporal scales will require the integration of multiple, complementary and independent methods (...) that are used by different research communities. Tools such as air sampling networks, inverse numerical methods, and satellite data allow us to study the strength and location of the global- and continental-scale carbon sources and sinks. Bottom-up studies provide estimates of carbon fluxes at finer spatial scales and examine the mechanisms that control fluxes at the ecosystem, landscape, and regional scales. Bottom-up approaches include comparative and process studies that provide the necessary mechanistic information to develop and validate terrestrial biospheric models. An iteration and reiteration of top-down and bottom-up approaches will be necessary to help constrain measurements at various scales. We propose a major international effort to coordinate and lead research programs of global scope of the carbon cycle. (shrink)

A survey of works on automatic theorem-proving in the ussr 1964-1970. the philosophical problems are not touched.

Critical scholarly edition of J. G. Fichte's Closed Commercial State.

Hereditary structural completeness is established for a range of substructural logics, mainly without the weakening rule, including fragments of various relevant or many-valued logics. Also, structural completeness is disproved for a range of systems, settling some previously open questions.

John Pocock's edition of Burke's _Reflections_ is two classics in one: Burke's Reflections and Pocock's reflections on Burke and the eighteenth century.

The study examined the influence of the Pond Report on the teaching of medical ethics in the London medical schools. A questionnaire was given to both medical students and college officers. All medical colleges reported that ethics was included in the curriculum. However, from students' replies, it seems that attendance of optional courses is low and that not all current final year medical students have had any formal teaching in medical ethics. Stronger guidelines are necessary to ensure appropriate ethical training (...) in London medical schools. (shrink)

The reception history of the French Revolution in France and England is well documented among Anglophone scholars; however, the debate over the Revolution in Germany is much less well known. Fichte's Contribution played an important role in this debate. Presented here for the first time in English, Fichte's work provides a distinctive synthesis of Locke's "possessive individualism," Rousseau's general will, and Kant's moral philosophy. This eclectic blend results in an unusual rights theory that at times veers close to a form (...) of anarchism. Written in 1792–93, just before Fichte moved to Jena to develop his philosophical system in a series of works—above all the Wissenschaftslehre of 1794—the Contribution provides invaluable insight into Fichte's early development. In addition, Fichte's work predates much of Kant's political philosophy, and can shed light on the rich dialogue in German political thought in the 1790s. (shrink)

This article focuses mainly on (1) the policy of Delft University of Technology since 1992 as regards the university-wide introduction of a compulsory course on ethics and engineering, and (2) the ideal structure of such a course, including the educational goals of the course.