Nicolas Malebranche (1638–1715) holds that the senses, imagination, and passions aim at survival and the satisfaction of the body’s needs, rather than truth or the good of the mind. Each of these faculties makes a distinctive and, indeed, an indispensable contribution to the preservation of life. Commentators have largely focused on how the senses keep us alive. By comparison, the imagination and passions have been neglected. In this paper, I reconstruct Malebranche’s account of how the imagination contributes to the preservation (...) of the body by compensating for the limitations of the senses. First, the imagination represents non-actual states of affairs, such as probable or possible future states. Second, the imagination forges new and often helpful associations based on past experiences. Third, the imagination (mis)represents that objects will cause pleasure and pain, thereby imbuing them with emotional significance they would otherwise lack. Together, these features flesh out Malebranche’s view that the imagination is necessary for the preservation of life. (shrink)

Sredi I︠A︡, MY i ONI -- Na kremnistom puti -- V dialektike gumanizma -- S kli︠u︡chami sovesti.

This paper reports two cases in Hong Kong involving two native Chinese adolescent cancer patients (APs) who were denied their rights to consent to necessary treatments refused by their parents, resulting in serious harm. We argue that the dynamics of the 'AP-physician-family-relationship' and the dominant role Chinese families play in medical decision-making (MDM) are best understood in terms of the tendency to hierarchy and parental authoritarianism in traditional Confucianism. This ethic has been confirmed and endorsed by various Chinese writers from (...) Mainland China and Hong Kong. Rather than giving an unqualified endorsement to this ethic, based more on cultural sentimentalism than rational moral reasoning, we warn that a strong familism in MDM, which deprives 'weak' family members of rights, represents the less desirable elements of this tradition, against which healthcare professionals working in this cultural milieu need to safeguard. Specifically for APs, we suggest that parental authority and family integrity should be re-interpreted in terms of parental responsibility and the enhancement of children's interests respectively, as done in the West. This implies that when parents refuse to consent to necessary treatment and deny their adolescent children's right to consent, doctors, as the only remaining advocates of the APs' interest, have the duty to inform the state, which can override parental refusal to enable the doctors to fulfill their professional and moral obligations. In so doing the state exercises its 'parens patriae' power to defend the defenseless in society and the integrity of the medical profession. (shrink)

It is exxtraordinary what difficulties have been found from ancient times in the extract from Empedocles containing his theory of respiration, and preserved by Aristotle, De Respiratione 7, p. 473 B1.

Mr. Agar in Homerica, Preface ix., has suggested that κακι γλνηι was the original reading, ‘Be off with the evil eye upon you.’ I have searched, but in vain, for any formula of imprecation corresponding to the formula of blessing, τύχγαθι, though I should like to see it in κακι τѵχι of the Treacherous Hound in Agamemnon 1230. Mr. T. C. Snow, objecting to Mr. Agar's alterations of the Homeric text, once suggested to me that we should rather retain the (...) vocative, and translate it, ‘Be off, evil eye.’ Others also may have thought of this, but it does not appear to have got into print. (shrink)

Chastʹ 2. Ideologicheskie kampanii 1948-1950 godov : Logicheskoe i psikhologicheskoe : Bogoborcheskai︠a︡ sovetskai︠a︡ filosofii︠a︡ : Problemy russkogo nat︠s︡ionalʹnogo soznanii︠a︡. --.

Les etudes reunies dans ce volume sont consacrees a l'interpretation des theses principales que defend Aristote en plaidant pour l'exercice d'une veritable politique par le citoyen juste. Ce sont des theses d'un enjeu redoutable. Elles impliquent le plus souvent les conceptions que se fait Aristote des vertus morales et intellectuelles composant le portrait de l'homme, non seulement heureux, mais susceptible d'apporter le bonheur a la Cite. Elles engagent aussi a considerer l'unite profonde que forment, chez Aristote, l'ethique et la politique. (...) A cote d'etudes recemment publiees par l'auteur, le receuil contient d'importants inedits qui font le point sur des questions disputees. L'ensemble peut introduire aux differents aspects de la pensee ethico-politique d'Aristote qui font, aujourd'hui encore, son actualite. (shrink)