Recent scientific and technological developments enable the generation of increasingly sophisticated organoids: three-dimensional, lab-grown stem cell-based entities that model human organs anatomi...

The development of new effective but expensive medical treatments leads to discussions about whether and how such treatments should be funded in solidarity-based healthcare systems. Solidarity is often seen as an elusive concept; it appears to be used to refer to different sets of concerns, and its interrelations with the concept of justice are not well understood. This paper provides a conceptual analysis of the concept of solidarity as it is used in discussions on the allocation of healthcare resources and (...) the funding of expensive treatments. It contributes to the clarification of the concept of solidarity by identifying in the literature and discussing four uses of the concept: (1) assisting patients in need, (2) upholding the solidarity-based healthcare system, (3) willingness to contribute and (4) promoting equality. It distinguishes normative and descriptive uses of the concept and outlines the overlap and differences between solidarity and justice. Our analysis shows that the various uses of the concept of solidarity point to different, even conflicting, ethical stances on whether and how access to effective, expensive treatments should be provided. We conclude that the concept of solidarity has a role to play in discussions on the accessibility and funding of newly approved medical treatments. It requires, for instance, that healthcare policies promote and maintain both societal willingness to contribute to the care of others and the value of providing care to vulnerable patients through public funding. (shrink)

The development of new effective but expensive medical treatments leads to discussions about whether and how such treatments should be funded in solidarity-based healthcare systems. Solidarity is often seen as an elusive concept; it appears to be used to refer to different sets of concerns, and its interrelations with the concept of justice are not well understood. This paper provides a conceptual analysis of the concept of solidarity as it is used in discussions on the allocation of healthcare resources and (...) the funding of expensive treatments. It contributes to the clarification of the concept of solidarity by identifying in the literature and discussing four uses of the concept: (1) assisting patients in need, (2) upholding the solidarity-based healthcare system, (3) willingness to contribute and (4) promoting equality. It distinguishes normative and descriptive uses of the concept and outlines the overlap and differences between solidarity and justice. Our analysis shows that the various uses of the concept of solidarity point to different, even conflicting, ethical stances on whether and how access to effective, expensive treatments should be provided. We conclude that the concept of solidarity has a role to play in discussions on the accessibility and funding of newly approved medical treatments. It requires, for instance, that healthcare policies promote and maintain both societal willingness to contribute to the care of others and the value of providing care to vulnerable patients through public funding. (shrink)

In the last two decades, stem cell-based brain organoids have been developed to study disease mechanisms in various neurological, psychiatric, and developmental disorders. Simultaneously, there hav...

For nearly two decades, the process of reviewing the ethical merit of research involving human subjects has been based on the application of principles initially described in the U.S. National Commission's Belmont Report, and later articulated more fully by Beauchamp and Childress in their Principles of Biomedical Ethics. Recently, the use of ethical principles for deliberating about moral problems in medicine and research, referred to in the pejorative sense as “principlism”, has come under scrutiny. In this paper we argue that (...) these principles can provide a foundation for the source of ethical appraisal of human research, but are not themselves wholly adequate for this purpose. Therefore, we further propose that (1) principles should be understood as heuristics that can be “specified” as described by DeGrazia (1992), and (2) that the principle‐based approach should be supplemented by formally incorporating “sensitivity to context” into the evaluation of clinical trials. (shrink)

Richard Rorty is rightly considered one of the most interesting authors in the field of intellectual pursuits. This vague formulation also indicates that Rorty’s thinking and writing cannot simply be classified as philosophy, although by and large they seem to be part and parcel of the pragmatist tradition. For Rorty clearly confronts a number of traditional problems of philosophy, even when he suggest getting rid of the problem by redescribing the issue or changing the perspective. There is...

Whilst previous observational studies have linked negative thought processes such as an external locus of control and holding negative cognitive styles with depression, the directionality of these associations and the potential role that these factors play in the transition to adulthood and parenthood has not yet been investigated. This study examined the association between locus of control and negative cognitive styles in adolescence and probable depression in young adulthood and whether parenthood moderated these associations. Using a UK prospective population-based birth (...) cohort study: the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children, we examined the association between external locus of control and negative cognitive styles in adolescence with odds of depression in 4,301 young adults using logistic regression models unadjusted and adjusted for potential confounding factors. Interaction terms were employed to examine whether parenthood moderated these associations. Over 20% of young adults in our sample were at or above the clinical threshold indicating probable depression. For each standard deviation increase in external locus of control in adolescence, there was a 19% higher odds of having probable depression in young adulthood, after adjusting for various confounding factors including baseline mood and different demographic and life events variables. Similarly, for each SD increase in negative cognitive styles in adolescence, there was a 29% higher odds of having probable depression in the adjusted model. We found little evidence that parenthood status moderated the relationship between external locus of control or negative cognitive styles in adolescence and probable depression following adjustment for confounding factors. Effect estimates were comparable when performed in the complete case dataset. These findings suggest that having an external locus of control and holding negative cognitive styles in mid- to late adolescence is associated with an increased likelihood of probable depression in young adulthood. (shrink)

The purpose of the work was to produce a framework to guide the development of meritorious clinical trial proposals. The framework consists of essential features of rigourous methodology, ethical acceptability, and a component referred to as "community context". These three domains were woven together in a checklist format under the headings of general, scientific and ethical considerations. Since texts concerning clinical trial methodology do not integrate ethics criteria and ethics guidelines do not provide detailed scientific criteria in obvious and practical (...) ways, we outline a more contemporary and comprehensive set of guidelines. (shrink)

We enrich intuitionistic logic with a lax modal operator and define a corresponding intensional enrichment of Kripke models M = (W, , V) by a function T giving an effort measure T(w, u) {} for each -related pair (w, u). We show that embodies the abstraction involved in passing from true up to bounded effort to true outright. We then introduce a refined notion of intensional validity M |= p : and present a corresponding intensional calculus iLC-h which gives a (...) natural extension by lax modality of the well-known G: odel/Dummett logic LC of (finite) linear Kripke models. Our main results are that for finite linear intensional models L the intensional theory iTh(L) = {p : | L |= p : } characterises L and that iLC-h generates complete information about iTh(L).Our paper thus shows that the quantitative intensional information contained in the effort measure T can be abstracted away by the use of and completely recovered by a suitable semantic interpretation of proofs. (shrink)

The essay is a response to an invitation to offer reflections on Richard Lennan’s recent book Tilling the Church for a panel at the annual gathering of the Karl Rahner Society. It situates the work within the distinctive spiritual and intellectual heritage shared by Karl Rahner, Pope Francis, and Lennan’s scholarly community and vocational home at Boston College, namely by reading it through an intentionally Ignatian lens. The review overlays the volume’s ecclesiological explorations with reference to the Spiritual Exercises and (...) to the contours of the current emphasis or re-emergence of the Ignatian tradition on a global stage given the last eleven years and the unique pulpit they provide via the Petrine Office. The piece argues that the adaptability and flexibility of the Ignatian heritage finds profound and lasting resonance with Lennan’s recent project and hopeful agenda. (shrink)

Background There is a need for interdisciplinary research to better understand how pedagogical approaches in primary physical education (PE) can support the linked development of physical, cognitive and affective aspects of physical literacy and physical activity behaviors in young children living in deprived areas. The Skill Acquisition Methods fostering Physical Literacy in Early-Physical Education (SAMPLE-PE) study aims to examine the efficacy of two different pedagogies for PE, underpinned by theories of motor learning, to foster physical literacy. Methods SAMPLE-PE will be (...) evaluated through a cluster-randomized controlled trial targeting 5–6 year old children from schools located in areas of high deprivation in Merseyside, North-West England. Schools will be randomly allocated to one of three conditions: Linear Pedagogy, Non-linear Pedagogy, or Control. Non-linear and Linear Pedagogy intervention primary schools will receive a PE curriculum delivered by trained coaches over 15 weeks, while control schools will follow their usual practice. Data will be collected at baseline (T0), immediately post-intervention (T1), and 6 months after the intervention has finished (T2). Children’s movement competence is the primary outcome in this trial. Secondary outcomes include physical activity, perceived competence, motivation, executive functions, and self-regulation. An extensive process evaluation will also examine implementation factors such as intervention context, reach, dose, fidelity and acceptability. Discussion The SAMPLE-PE project will enable better understanding surrounding how to operationalise physical literacy through enrichment of PE practices in early PE. The study will provide robust scientific evidence regarding the efficacy of underpinning PE pedagogy with theories of motor learning to promote the development of physical literacy. Trial Registration Retrospectively registered on 5th September 2018 at ClinicalTrials.gov, a resource provided by the U.S. National Library of Medicine (Identifier: NCT03551366). (shrink)

Respublica literaria, eller de lärdes republik, är ett begrepp som framför allt förknippas med de nya former för vetenskaplig kommunikation och lärda nätverk som introducerades vid slutet av 1600-talet och som sedan kom att spela en betydelsefull roll i 1700-talets intellektuella värld. Denna tänkta gemenskap av lärda är central för vår förståelse av den tidigmoderna epokens idé-, kultur- och vetenskapshistoria. Lärdomsrepubliken var ett ideal för de lärdas verksamhet, ett slags kunskapsproducerandets utopi, där den ideala kommunikationen präglades av jämlikhet, rationalitet och (...) filosofisk frihet, ofta i tydlig och uttalad kontrast mot en mer krass verklighet där de lärdas gemenskap tvärtom byggdes på en grundval av politiska, ideologiska, ekonomiska och religiösa intressen. I Lärda samtal behandlas vitt skilda aspekter av begreppet respublica literaria, dess kommunikation och dess materialitet: det handlar om den lärda republikens statsskick, de lärdas institutioner och praktiker, seder och bruk, uppfostran genom samtal, kvinnors och barns plats i republiken, och mycket mer. Boken är en festskrift till Erland Sellberg, professor i idéhistoria vid Stockholms universitet. (shrink)

_The purpose_ of this article is to explain in religious, secular, and post-secular contexts the functional potential of conceptualizing the miracle as a text or message with a motivational effect. _Theoretical basis._ Max Weber, Ernst Tugendhat, Alexander Geppert and Till Kössler analysed the processes of enchantment and disenchantment of the world on a philosophical basis. The representatives of the Frankfurt school (Theodor Adorno, Max Horkheimer, Walter Benjamin) and their followers describe the cultural processes of post-secularism (Jürgen Habermas, Peter Sloterdijk) (...) in detail. The logic of cultural and social representation of amazing events and their descriptions can be realized by combining hermeneutic analysis with a functionalist approach based on the model of Niklas Luhmann and the discursive ethics of Karl-Otto Apel. _Originality._ Desired cultural, social and political situations in society often arise unexpectedly and suddenly, which provokes to characterize them as a miracle. However, at the basis of the emergence of such situations are the rules of social communication, in particular those that provide for asymmetric communication with questions that await answers. A miracle appears at the moment of transformation of asymmetric communication into a symmetrical one: each specific miracle-phenomenon needs its own metaphorical understanding and interpretation as a message. _Conclusions._ The article proposes an analysis of miracle phenomenon in its cosmological, anthropological and educational implications. Some tendencies fixed by communicative turn of the contemporary philosophy are also contributed to considering the miracle in its objective and subjective representations. The semantics of the miracle is analysed according to the relevant problem fields. The functionality of miracle is examined on its ability to show orientation for the contemporary societies with their tendency to post-secularity. The fusion of Pre-modernity and Late Modernity is taking into account when the semantics of miracle is described accordingly to their communication functionality. The enchanting and disenchanting dialectic is explained on semantics of miracle as a world and cosmic events. (shrink)

History begins in a struggle producing two figures, Master and Slave. It ends in a “universal and homogeneous state”, an Empire. Revolution with its inevitable terror is the central point in this history. Kojève himself had experienced the Russian revolution and Civil War; in 1920 he left Russia for Germany, where till the end of 1923 he had witnessed the same strife between the “left” and the “right”. This experience is the basis of his view of history, his interpretation (...) of the path from Mastery and Slavery to the figure of the Citizen, to universal recognition. The French revolution with the Jacobins’ terror and Napoleon’s Empire represent for him the model by which to understand not only the revolutions of the twentieth century, but of the entire course of history. (shrink)

It is now some years since Professor D. Daiches Raphael published his interesting book, The Paradox of Tragedy , which represented one of the first serious attempts made by a British philosopher to assess the significance of tragic drama for ethical, and indeed metaphysical theory. Since then we have had a variety of books touching on related topics: for instance, Dr George Steiner's Death of Tragedy and Mr Raymond Williams’ most recent, elusive and interesting essay, Modern Tragedy. To entitle an (...) essay Theology and Tragedy might be thought to invite needless trouble for oneself; to indulge to a dangerous degree the human intellectual obsession of supposing that ‘the meaning of a word is an object’. After all, if one confines one's regard to the Greeks, one has to recognise that between the treatments of their common theme of Electra , Sophocles and Euripides are in fact doing very different things. There is no gainsaying the significance for Euripides of the postponement of the murder of Clytemnestra till after that of Aegisthus, still less of his introduction into the play of the morally upright peasant, who has had the banished Electra in his keeping, and whose simple integrity contrasts both with the corruption of the court and the obsessive preoccupation with a dreadful, supposed duty of brother and sister. The element of propaganda is unmistakable; while in Sophocles’ Electra it is altogether absent, although Dr Victor Ehrenberg in his very interesting monograph on Sophocles and Pericles has argued strongly for an element of subtle political commentary in the treatment of Oedipus in the Oedipus Tyrannus , and of Pocreon in the Antigone. These remarks may serve to show that the title does not express a blind indifference to the multiple complexity of those works which we class together as tragedies. They are inherently complex, and various in emphasis; at best we can discern a family resemblance between them, and, in an essay like this, the author runs the risk not only of selecting examples tailor-made to his thesis, but also of imposing an appearance of similarity of conception where it is at least equally important to stress differences. (shrink)

Henry Mehlberg, an eminent philosopher educated in the best traditions of Polish logic, till his death professor at the University of Chicago, was for a long time interested in an interdisciplinary study of time, especially in its physical and philosophical aspects. "Mehlberg's command of the most recent relevant developments in theoretical physics was outstanding even within the relatively small circle of philosophers working in the foundations of physics, most of whom are better known than he". These are some of (...) the reasons that compel us to go through two volumes of Mehlberg's studies with a special interest. (shrink)

My title is taken from the frontispiece to Ogilby's translation of Aesop ; since every Renaissance poet believed the statement to be true, let me start with my own example. John Denham's only play, The Sophy, published in August 1642, is a tale about the perils of jealousy. The good prince Mirza, after a miraculous victory over the Turks, returns in glory to his father's court, but leaves it shortly thereafter. In his absense, Haly, the evil courtier, follows a friend's (...) advice to " work on [the king's] fears, till fear hath made him cruel"1 and poisons the king's mind with jealousy against his son. Mirza returns only to be brutally blinded and killed, and the emperor soon dies stricken with remorse. Now it happens that Parliament justified all its actions in the months preceding the civil war on the grounds of the "fears and jealousies" that the king had inspired. Charles was incensed by the slogan and claimed angrily that he, if anyone, had the most cause for fears and jealousies.2 Denham obviously decided that here was the all-consuming topic around which a predominantly royalist drama could be written. He followed what I believe was the standard practice - the method that Fulke Greville said Sidney used and that Congreve repeated at the end of the century when he declared of The Double Dealer that "I design'd the Moral first, and to that Moral I invented the Fable."3 He found a plot in Thomas Herbert's Travels into Diverse Parts of Asia that recorded some terrible cruelties and catastrophes caused by jealousy, and he added the point that the emperor's mind had been wrought upon by his counselor. There is no evidence that the play was ever acted, but the most casual reader would have said to himself, "Yes, history reminds us that states destroy themselves through fears and jealousies, and we should abate our own before it is too late." · 1. Sir John Denham, The Poetical Works, ed. Theodore Howard Banks, 2d ed. , p.245. The references to fear and jealousy are so ubiquitous in the play that they need not be listed here.· 2. On March 1, 1642, in the angriest of his replies to Parliament so far, Charles exclaimed, "You speake of Jealousies and Feares: Lay your hands to your hearts, and aske your selves whether I may not likewise be disturbed with Feares and Jealousies: And if so, I assure you this Message hath nothing lessened them" . Although phrases like "distempers and jealousies" had been used earlier, Clarendon on two occasions is quite specific that "fears and jealousies" were "the new words which served to justify all indispositions and to excuse all disorders" in January 1642 . Taken with other evidence, Clarendon's remarks strongly suggest that The Sophy was written after Coopers Hill, and during seven months preceding its publication in August 1642.· 3. William Congreve, The Complete Plays, ed. Herbert Davis , p. 119. And compare John Donne in Sermons, ed. Evelyn M. Simpson are George R. Potter , 9:274: "All wayes of teaching are Rule and Example: and though ordinarily the Rule be first placed, yet the Rule it selfe is made of Examples...for, Example in matter of Doctrine, is as Assimiliation in matter of Nourishment; The Example makes that that is proposed for our learning and farther instruction, like something which we knew before, as Assimilation makes that meat, which we have received and digested, like those parts which are in our bodies before."John M. Wallace, author of Destiny His Choice: The Loyalism of Andrew Marvell and articles on Milton, Dryden Denham, Traherne, and Arnold, is professor of English at the University of Chicago. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Journal of the History of Philosophy 39.3 (2001) 385-406 [Access article in PDF] Some Thoughts on What Spinoza Learned from Maimonides on the Prophetic Imagination Part Two:Spinoza's Maimonideanism Heidi M. Ravven 1. Spinoza's Maimonideanism Now it is precisely with the belief that the prophets were philosophers and the Bible offers veiled insights into the central doctrines of philosophy, so powerfully argued and deeply held by Maimonides that he included (...) it as one of his Thirteen Principles of Jewish Faith the acceptance of which is a necessary condition of a share in the World to Come, 1 that Spinoza took strong issue. 2 At the same time, however, Spinoza agreed with Maimonides' doctrine [End Page 385] of the a. imaginative (literary) character 3 and b. the political function 4 of the Bible and of its authors and of the major prophetic figures. The quite obvious influence of Maimonides' account of prophecy upon Spinoza's account in the Tractatus Theologico-Politicus (TTP) has been widely recognized and commented upon. That is to say (although no commentator up till now, as far as I know, has made this point explicit), Spinoza adopted Maimonides' conception of prophecy as mimetic or productive and not only—or chiefly—as receptive. 5 The Maimonidean account of the (prophetic) imagination clarifies why the atomic fact model of the receptive function of the imagination is inapplicable to the TTP. The imaginative character of prophecy is not about picking up information (in a dream or otherwise) delivered from God; rather, it concerns how one understands (and presents) certain truths (in the case of Spinoza's notion of prophecy, namely, those of ethics and in Maimonides' those of science as well as of ethics) imaginatively rather than rationally, i.e., within a web of (narrative and symbolic) associations instead of within the deductive order of rational causal explanation. "Now we see," Spinoza, in the first chapter [End Page 386] of the Tractatus, 6 writes, echoing Maimonides (esp. Guide II, 47), "why the teachings of the prophets were nearly all in the form of parables and allegories, and why all spiritual matters were expressed in corporeal form, for this is more appropriate to the imaginative faculty." Prophecy does not consist in the simple reception of pieces of information transmitted directly from God. This is not what it is for Maimonides nor for Spinoza.Thus we find that Spinoza formally defines the prophet in the beginning of TTP, chapter i, as "one who interprets (interpretatur) God's revelations to those who cannot attain to certain knowledge of the matters revealed... For the Hebrew word for prophet is nabi, that is, speaker and interpreter (orator et interpres)." 7 The prophet is interpreter in imaginative terms, whether he reformulates belief imaginatively or instead merely understands it in that way himself to begin with. Prophecy is an imaginative (narrative, symbolic) rather than a philosophical (logical and demonstrable) type of understanding and presentation. If one looks at Spinoza's account of prophecy in TTP i, one finds that immediately after Spinoza defines prophecy, he then goes on to tell us what revelation is scientifically: "the nature of [the human] mind... is the primary cause of divine revelation." That is to say, the mind itself, whether rationally in intellectual thought or in its imaginative capacity and in both cases as itself a product of divine (i.e., natural) causes, supplies the content of revelation. 8 Spinoza then goes on to say that now that we have understood the true explanation of prophecy, we must return from this scientific understanding to the biblical account of prophecy. At that point he tells us that "the Jews never make mention of intermediate or particular causes nor pay any heed to them, but to serve religion and piety... they refer everything to God." Now this is a crucial passage and must be used as an interpretive principle for all that follows. (Spinoza illustrates the point in some detail at the end of the chapter where he lists the various... (shrink)

ARCHAEOLOGYTHE Classical Spartans were noted for their austerity, which seemed already ancient to writers of the fifth century B.C. The early poetry and art of their country show a considerable aesthetic sense. This apparent contradiction has caused some students to conclude that the strict Lycurgan regimen was not introduced till the middle or even the end of the sixth century and that before that date Sparta had culturally been developing in much the same way as other important Greek states. (...) The argument is unsound. (shrink)

I väntan på den engelska Festschriften, den definitiva biografin eller de självförhärligande memoarerna kommer här för första gången en samling porträtt av den internationellt mest uppmärksammade svenska statsvetaren, den kontroversielle samhällsdebattören Bo Rothstein. Få samhällsforskare har med sådan intensitet tagit universitetens tredje uppgift till intäkt för att ifrågasätta gängse uppfattningar om sakernas tillstånd i riket. Många är de läsare, tittare eller åhörare som knappast kunnat undgå att beröras av hans synpunkter på allt från metoo till tiggeri, något färre (...) är nog de som på allvar tagit del av hans forskningsresultat om korruption och statsförvaltning. I denna bok tecknar ett tjugotal svenska forskare, författare och vänner sin bild av forskaren, debattören och livsnjutaren Bo Rothstein."--Back cover. (shrink)

The scene in Aristophanes' Frogs where Dionysus rows Charon's boat across the Styx to the accompaniment of the chorus of frogs is, of course, one of the most famous passages of Greek Comedy, and an essential element of the humour of the passage is the ineptitude of Dionysus as a rower. As a large part of the Athenian audience would have served in triremes as rowers, Dionysus' inability to perform this familiar task adequately will have been immediately ridiculous. Aristophanes was (...) thus exploiting an easy source of humour in depicting Dionysus as an unaccomplished rower battling against the difficulties and discomforts of the task. Had so obvious a source of humour been neglected by the playwrights of Athenian Old Comedy till the time of Frogs? We should have been obliged to answer that we had no positive indications to the contrary till the publication in 1968 of Pap. Ox. 2740, but this now furnishes us with grounds to infer that some other Old Comedy, very probably the Taxiarchs of Eupolis, contained a scene where some person was represented as rowing ineptly. (shrink)

In the past, human violence was associated with food shortage, but recently it has increased even in relatively well-fed societies. The reason appears from studies of monkeys under relaxed, spacious conditions and under crowding stress. Uncrowded monkeys have unaggressive leaders, rarely quarrel, and protect females and young. Crowded monkeys (even well-fed) have brutal bosses, often quarrel, and wound and kill each other, including females and young. Crowding has similar behaviour effects on other mammals, with physiological disturbances including greater susceptibility to (...) infections. All this appears to be a regular response to overpopulation, reducing the population before it has depleted its natural resources. Human beings, like monkeys and other mammals, need ample space, and become more violent when crowded. Human history is marked by population cycles: population outgrows resources, the resulting violence, stress and disease mortality cuts down the population, leading to a relief period of social and cultural progress, till renewed population growth produces the next crisis. The modern population crisis is world-wide, and explains the increase of violence even in well-fed societies. The solution to the problem of violence is to substitute voluntary birth control for involuntary death control, and bring about relaxed conditions for a reduced world population. (shrink)

This study examines the significance of gender-inclusive corporate boards for improving business performance in Pakistan and addresses the social paradox of gender quotas for reducing gender disparities in boardrooms. The conceptual review of all-inclusive literature focuses on assembling descriptive outlines of the evidence explored; analyzing and evaluating it; sieving out inapt studies; and furnishing an aperçu of the authentic evidence. Pakistan’s case for boardroom’s gender diversity merits consideration in the context of kinship, competence, business ethics, and meritocracy. With the legal (...) and regulatory push in the form of the Companies Act, 2017 and SECP’s regulation, companies in Pakistan are liable to induct at least one woman director on corporate boards. The literature portrays the legislative measures as controversial and presented polarized opinions on gender quotas, either in favor or in against the legislations. The research evinces that the overall women representation in the listed companies at KSE-100 index was 7.55% in August 2019 which rose to 11% till March 2020. The paper contributes towards exposing the social paradox of gender-inclusive boardrooms in Pakistan. The findings indicate an urgent need for the implementation of gender parity social reforms to empower competent women with their legal rights to enjoy the stature they deserve. (shrink)

Cohen states in the last sentence of his book that his analysis in no way presupposes the controversial labor theory of value. For him, the contradictions of capitalist production result from the fact that its function is to create exchange value. The statements themselves and the fact that they come very late in the book illustrate two distinctive characteristics of the work. First, Cohen espouses what he calls a technological interpretation of Marx. For him, the driving force of history is (...) the steady increase in the capacity of productive forces. Capitalism supersedes feudalism because of its ability to produce more. This technological interpretation of Marx is a theory of history because only certain production relations allow for the development and expansion of productive forces. For example, the levels of production attained by capitalism would be unthinkable within the context of lord and serf. Secondly, it is not really clear that Cohen is defending a theory of history until he formulates the primacy thesis in chapter 6 and elaborates upon it and the rise of capitalism in chapter 7. The primacy thesis states that the production relations of society are explained by the level of development of its productive forces. Cohen seems to dispense with what is often thought of as the philosophy of history in his discussion of the Hegelian roots of Marxism in the first chapter. He proceeds to analyze the distinction between productive forces and production relations and its consequences for the phenomenon of fetishism in chapters 2-5. These first chapters, and some later ones as well, seem to have the property of belaboring at great length elementary problems raised by the preface to the Critique of Political Economy, and Capital as well. For example, in his distinction between productive forces and production relations, Cohen says that the two must not be confused because relations hold between objects while forces are properties of objects. He says that a soldier who guards peasants tilling the soil is not part of the labor power because he fulfills a social rather than an economic need. Then he presents and elaborates upon a list of production relations. Cohen might have avoided the need for such involved analysis if he had clearly delineated the methodological import of his work in the introduction or the first chapter. I refer to his theory of functional explanation. It is, however, only after he has discussed the problem of base and superstructure in chapter 8 that he comes to examine functional analysis in chapters 9 and 10. Since functional explanation is the crux of his defence of Marxism as a theory of history, the reader deserves a more thorough preparation for it in an introduction. (shrink)

Om ett värdeobjektivistiskt inslag i Hägerströms moralfilosofiska teorier.--Till försvar för Zenon från Elea.--Den speciella relativitetsteoriens förhållande til de newtonianska föreställningarna om rum och tid.

Interdisciplinary perspectives on the feature of conscious life that scaffolds every act of cognition: subjective time. Our awareness of time and temporal properties is a constant feature of conscious life. Subjective temporality structures and guides every aspect of behavior and cognition, distinguishing memory, perception, and anticipation. This milestone volume brings together research on temporality from leading scholars in philosophy, psychology, and neuroscience, defining a new field of interdisciplinary research. The book's thirty chapters include selections from classic texts by William James (...) and Edmund Husserl and new essays setting them in historical context; contemporary philosophical accounts of lived time; and current empirical studies of psychological time. These last chapters, the larger part of the book, cover such topics as the basic psychophysics of psychological time, its neural foundations, its interaction with the body, and its distortion in illness and altered states of consciousness. Contributors Melissa J. Allman, Holly Andersen, Valtteri Arstila, Yan Bao, Dean V. Buonomano, Niko A. Busch, Barry Dainton, Sylvie Droit-Volet, Christine M. Falter, Thomas Fraps, Shaun Gallagher, Alex O. Holcombe, Edmund Husserl, William James, Piotr Jaśkowski, Jeremie Jozefowiez, Ryota Kanai, Allison N. Kurti, Dan Lloyd, Armando Machado, Matthew S. Matell, Warren H. Meck, James Mensch, Bruno Mölder, Catharine Montgomery, Konstantinos Moutoussis, Peter Naish, Valdas Noreika, Sukhvinder S. Obhi, Ruth Ogden, Alan o'Donoghue, Georgios Papadelis, Ian B. Phillips, Ernst Pöppel, John E. R. Staddon, Dale N. Swanton, Rufin VanRullen, Argiro Vatakis, Till M. Wagner, John Wearden, Marc Wittmann, Agnieszka Wykowska, Kielan Yarrow, Bin Yin, Dan Zahavi. (shrink)

Sietske A.L. van Till and Eline M. Bunnik (2024) have recently expressed a concern about science miscommunication regarding human brain organoids. They worry that the mereological fallacy is often being committed when the possibility of brain organoid psychological capacities such as consciousness and intelligence are considered, especially by bioethicists discussing the moral status of human brain organoids. Focusing specifically on one psychological capacity, namely consciousness, this article begins with a brief introduction to van Till and Bunnik’s concern about (...) the mereological fallacy as it relates to brain organoids. It is then shown that whether the mereological fallacy is being committed depends on commitments in philosophy of mind about how consciousness relates to the brain and its neural mechanisms. This is demonstrated by appealing to two different example views about the ontology of consciousness embraced by J.J.C. Smart’s type identity theory and a version of hylomorphism. The article ends with a discussion of how neurobiological theories of consciousness can be intertwined with ontological commitments about consciousness that have significant implications for HBOs. An awareness of this can yield a philosophically informed application of neurobiological theories to the topic of whether HBOs could be conscious. (shrink)

Gutenbergs tryckteknik ledde till en medierevolution som förändrades Europa. I 1500-talets början spreds litteratur, grafik och vetenskap, men också nyhetsblad om katastrofer, pamfletter om invaderande turkar och religiösa stridsskrifter. Medan mycket ännu vägde blommade renässanshumanismen genom Erasmus av Rotterdam. Han stod bakom en femtedel av Europas böcker, och skulle ge framtiden ett viktigt arv. Nina Burton skriver om Erasmus och hans tid så att man känner sig vara med när han träffar konstnärerna och de intellektuella? Albrecht Dürer, Holbein d.y., (...) Paracelsus, Thomas More och Luther? lika väl som påvar, kejsare, pedagoger och rebeller. Genom honom möter man en hel epok. Vilken var Erasmus hemlighet? I sina brev klottrade han självporträtt med dubbla ansikten, och hans förmåga att se två sidor födde ett samtal bortom all fanatism? en dröm om ett gränslöst Europa, där kultur och vetenskap knöt nya samband. Men då religiösa strider började skaka världen fick han mäktiga fiender. Erasmus visade vilken roll litteraturen kan spela i en dramatisk tid som har många likheter med vår egen. (shrink)

The word dona is an embarrassment here. If Agricola was appointed to ‘check the gifts of the temples’, that is, gifts which temples had received, it seems an odd restriction in a phrase which one would expect to refer to temple possessions in general. What the context, especially in the word sacrilegium, makes clear, as commentators have duly noted, is that the temples suffered losses through the plunder of their works of art by Nero and also by others, although the (...) result tended to obliterate the guilt of others. This was after the fire at Rome in A.D. 64. See H. Furneaux rev. J. G. C. Anderson , pp.55 f.; R. Till , p.62; I. Forni , p.108; R. M. Ogilvie and Ian Richmond , p.152. (shrink)

Hegel, Snellman och språket -- Snellman och Lagus -- Ur Israel Hwassers politiska idévärld -- En finländsk motsvarighet till striden mellan Thibaut och Savigny -- Hans Järta och J.J. Nordström -- "Thomas Frisk," ett inlägg i 1860-talets svenska reformdebatt -- Axel Liljenstrand -- C.G. Estlander, "kultursvensk" och gammalliberal -- Robert Hermanson och nationalitetsbegreppet -- K.J. Ståhlberg och Finlands statsskick.

Preferenslogik, av S. Kanger.--Några synpunkter på olika innehållsrelationer, av T. Pauli.--The number of modalities in the Brouwer system supplemented by the axiom schema CL[superscript n]aL[superscript n+1]a, by K. Segerberg.--Konjunktion av ting, av A. H. D. MacLeod.--Über den "Kettensatz der Verpflichtung;" ein Kommentar zu einem Satz der deontischen Logik, von M. Moritz.--Was the ether hypothesis refuted by the Michelson-Morley experiment? By H. Törnebohm.--Die ewige Wiederkunft; ett filosofihistoriskt tidsfördriv, av A. Wedberg.--Some observations on modal logic and philosophical systems, by G. H. von (...) Wright.--Några kommentarer till två varseblivningsteorier, av L. Åquist. (shrink)

Moral dissensus is a distinct feature of our time. This is not only true of our post-modern culture in general, but also of business culture specifically. In this paper I start by explaining how modernist rationality has produced moral dissensus without offering any hope of bringing an end to it in the foreseeable future. Opting for a form of post-modernist rationality as the only viable way of dealing with moral dissensus, I then make an analysis of a number of ways (...) proposed by both specialists in the field of business ethics, as well as philosophers to deal with moral decision-making in this situation of moral dissensus. The conclusion reached is that none of these attempts succeeds in coming to terms with moral dissensus. I then formulate an alternative approach to moral decision-making which I call: Rational interaction for moral sensitivity. After explaining this approach, I defend it against some of the most obvious objections that might be raised against it in a business environment. When you''re talking birth control, what blocks it and freezes it out is that it''s not a matter of more or fewer babies being argued. That''s just on the surface. What''s underneath is a conflict of faith, of faith in empirical social planning versus faith in the authority of God as revealed by the teachings of the Catholic Church. You can prove the practicality of planned parenthood till you get tired of listening to yourself and it''s going to get nowhere because your antagonist isn''t buying the assumption that anything socially practical is good per se. Goodness for him has other sources which he values as much as or more than social practicality. (Robert M. Pirsig, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance.). (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:BreakClarice DouilleBreakWe have low expectations for M3s this early in their clerkships. I'm disappointed in you; I had higher expectations for you.""Be yourself. But …""I can see where ____ was coming from. You lack emotional intelligence.""I expected you to have constant questions because of what's going on with your mom.""Don't insert yourself into conversations.""You are a med student; you don't have a reputation yet … you can't change medicine. (...) Nobody will listen to you.""Everyone is going through something. If you knew half the stuff I'm dealing with, you'd cry. So I know what you're going through with your mom right now is tough, but you need to compartmentalize and be fully present with patients.""We know each other …"I can't get this "feedback" out of my head.________I can't quite escape my mom's breast cancer diagnosis since it is shoved in my face every day. This is exposure therapy like no other. Immediately after seeing my mom for the first time since her diagnosis—seeing her distressed and supporting her after losing 75% of her hair during the four days I was home for a visit—I was thrust into assisting with three mastectomies on my first day of the breast cancer surgery service.My third year of medical school has been more than a struggle. I've accepted going through the motions as the best I can do, for I barely have enough energy to make it through each day. Every time I start feeling relief—like I can come up for air—I'm pushed back down and feel myself drowning. I'm constantly waiting for the next shoe to drop. While I can forget about my grief momentarily, as soon as I slow down, the pain returns in unrelenting multiples, pushing me into a dark hole of self-isolation.All I've been doing is grieving. Grieving my mom's diagnosis and fearing the unknown. Grieving the idea that I'm a subpar daughter. Grieving that I'm a subpar friend. Grieving the idea of medicine I had believed in. I grieve for the medical student I was in the past, who wanted to excel in this setting. I grieve that I cannot be this student because I am frozen in fear. I'm grieving the life I thought I'd have, and the life my mom thought she'd have. I'm grieving the life we lost. Time is standing still and simultaneously going by in a blur. I want to be able to control something in my life. My heart and head are heavy with thoughts of disappointment, overwhelm, anger, guilt, and confusion. This is grief.I need a break, but I fear a break might make things worse. In medical school, we are given no time to be human, to live a life full of joy, pain, achievement, and disappointment. I feel myself cracking. I'm being pulled in a thousand different directions. I might break. I tell myself I should be able to get past this. Everyone has something going on. Why can't I be like everyone else—able to tough it out and do medicine? [End Page E1]During clerkships, we are constantly thrown into vulnerable situations where we show up every day and put our best foot forward to impress our team and attendings. We can't miss a beat. It feels like we must be Superman. Every day, we feel inadequate and have to "fake it till we make it." It's soul-crushing. It's exhausting. Every day is terrifying. We worry about getting "pimped"—if we'll be able to answer any question correctly—if we'll present the patient adequately—hopefully not too long, or not too short—so our attending doesn't become annoyed. We don't know when we're allowed to go home, and it feels like we can't even go to the bathroom or eat without asking permission. It feels like we're back in Kindergarten, except with so much more at stake.I think attendings forget that we're more than... (shrink)

Now in a thoroughly revised and expanded third edition, this authoritative Handbook reviews current knowledge about all aspects of emotion and its role in human ...

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Five Poems AMIT MAJMUDAR Observing Orpheus I hear the meaning turn back in his throat like Eurydice on the way up from the darkness. Music’s meaning is its making. As for me, I am one more animal in his entourage, learning a new thirst, finding a new south. None of us knew we had this instinct in us. If deserts hide wildflowers until first rain, bright ears are blossoming (...) out of our skulls. He doesn’t have much longer. I know this myth. A God douses the fire with a beehive. The Maenads smear their faces with a warpaint made of stoneground fireflies and pine sap. Hands—hands like his, that drew music through lyre strings into our forest like pieces of bread through a prison fence— are reaching for his body now, his lyre. Their weapons are hands, nothing but hands. They are infinite. They are enough. arion 27.1 spring/summer 2019 Her Metamorphoses First a beetle, body armor forged of chitin, exoskeleton he’ll never bruise, Undiscovered, unapologetically hermetic on her own Galapagos. Next a fruit bat, echolocating tangerines like a blind woman singing up at stars. Then a patio lizard, sunning herself for as long as she needs, A better place for keeping warm than bed with him. Next a sleek water moccasin, quick to make out another woman’s heat signature on his neck, Even quicker to strike. A caterpillar to poke holes in his lying roses And from that destruction to fashion two beautiful wings for herself. A buzzard, to clean up the roadside pile he left of her. A woman in full with no more soft blind pupa stages of her life cycle left, No more forms to force herself to fit for the sake of his pleasure, No more shapeshifts, no more slimming stripes, no more abdominal crunches: Just this body, just this last name, just this apartment, just this bowl of midnight cereal. Just her. 106 five poems Sisyphus Shove hard, shove, shove hard, eyes bloodshot, knees bent Till your boulder goes weightless and races ahead in descent. Force its dark door open inch by grim inch, Shove hard, shove, shove hard, eyes bloodshot, knees bent, Heels dug deep in hell’s steep hillside, teeth clenched. What gravity strips from you, gravity grants you again. Shove hard, shove, shove hard, eyes bloodshot, knees bent Till your body goes weightless and races ahead in ascent. Amit Majmudar 107 A Trinket for Persephone A deathwatch beetle burrows in the pale hall of your marrow, your underground, your tube of bone on which you’re riding home alone. This blackwinged locket with your soul emerges rattling from a hole, a rattle in your emptied throat, the diva’s final, graceless notes, a clicking echoed in the rafters, this bugbear insect coming after to scuttle across the marshy chest, sinkhole navel, and pubic nest out to the yard, below the porch untrackable by any torch until this bug with you inside has burrowed to the other side. It drops into the underworld, as if from some cocoon unfurled, to scale a queenly wrist and rest your brooch of black upon her breast. 108 five poems Four Ways of Looking at Argus 1. His Vigil These hundred eyes, these hundred balloons Tied to the boy-small wrist of my mind Are down to ninety-nine. I lost one to a bee sting late last June— I never thought of them as fragile Until that pinprick broke my vigil. I’m slowing down. I didn’t blink in time. I have no inkling why I keep This vigil—surely not to watch, Panoptic from this mountaintop, A heifer drifting off to sleep? I’m here, I must be here, to see A signal fire from the east That warns of Olympus under siege And Ares gory from a rout, Athena’s owl’s eyes gouged out, The naiads naked in a pen, The whole world given up to men. The Gods will need a monster then. 2. After Martial Hermes was in a fix: He needed lullabies To shutter Argus’s one hundred eyes And get the tethered heifer—coal-eyed Io—free Of Hera’s... (shrink)