This book brings together essays on themes of human rights and legal history, reflecting the long and distinguished career as academic writer and human rights activist of Brian Simpson. Written by colleagues and friends in the United States and Britain, the essays are intended to reflect Simpson's own legal interests. The collection opens with biography of Simpson's academic life which notes his major contribution to legal thought, and closes with an account of his career in the United States and a (...) bibliography of his writings. As a tribute to Simpson's varied interests in the law, the collection is grouped around themes in human rights, legal philosophy, and legal history. The human rights papers are concerned with the history of the right of individual petition to the European Court of Human Rights, and recent successes in which Brian Simpson played a part; the evolution of a transnational common law of human rights; the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child and the interpretation of the provisions on identity in France and England; the suspension of human rights which would have occurred, had the emergency War Zone Courts scheme been brought into effect during wartime; historical resistance to colonial laws in Papua New Guinea; and the ratio decidendi of the story of the Prodigal Son. Historical themes are found in essays concerned with three nineteenth-century Lord Chancellors; in two essays relating to the fate of the civil jury on either side of the Atlantic which provide a fascinating comparison; in the 'battle of the books' which led to changes in eighteenth-century copyright law; and judicial rivalry between King's Bench and Common Pleas in the early modern period. (shrink)

I further argue that we can make sense of. This requires a critique of nonsense, since, for reasons that I give, what replaces ‘x’ in the schema must be nonsense. I endorse an austere view of nonsense whereby there is nothing more to nonsense than sheer lack of sense, as in ‘phlump jing ux’. The point is this: because our ineffable knowledge is a mark of our finitude, and because we have a shared aspiration to transcend our finitude, we also (...) have a shared temptation to put our ineffable knowledge into words, which in turn gives us a shared sense of when a piece of nonsense is ‘apt’ to replace ‘x’ in the schema, where ‘aptness’ is a quasi‐aesthetic attribute. This is enough for instances of the schema to count as true or false—and, arguably, for ‘We are shown that transcendental idealism is true’ to count as true. (shrink)

I argue that both Kant and, in his later work, Wittgenstein indicate the possibility of just such a transcendental‐idealist response to the Basic Argument. I also argue, however, that transcendental idealism, for all its appeal, is incoherent. This is because its attempt to invoke the ‘transcendent’ is an attempt to invoke that which, by definition, cannot be invoked. So, it does not provide an alternative to unregenerate endorsement of the Basic Argument after all.

There remains the problem of accounting for the appeal of transcendental idealism. Transcendental idealists themselves may say that there is nothing wrong with the doctrine, but only with the attempt to express it, the point being that it is inexpressibly true: but I argue that this does not extricate them from the trap of self‐stultification. An importantly different proposal, which I derive from the earlier work of Wittgenstein, is this: while we cannot coherently state that transcendental idealism is true we (...) are shown that transcendental idealism is true, where ‘A is shown that x’ is defined as ‘ A has ineffable knowledge, and when an attempt is made to put that knowledge into words, the result is: x.’ I try to indicate how, provided we can make sense of and, this proposal has the threefold merit of: avoiding self‐stultification; being compatible with the incoherence of transcendental idealism; and providing an account of transcendental idealism's appeal. (shrink)

I next consider the significance of my question. I give various reasons for thinking that a negative answer would be disquieting. Such an answer would signal limits to how objective we can be; it would discredit the ambitions of science, or at any rate of physics; it would exacerbate certain problems associated with disagreement and relativism; it would pose a threat to our idea of reality; and it would curb a basic aspiration that we have to transcend our own finitude.

Until about thirty years ago, the extent of disclosure about and consent-seeking for medical interventions was influenced by a beneficence model of professional behaviour. Informed consent shifted attention to a duty to respect the autonomy of patients. The new requirement arrived on the American scene in two separate contexts: for daily practice in 1957, and for clinical study in 1966. A confusing double standard has been established. 'Daily consent' is reviewed, if at all, only in retrospect. Doctors are merely exhorted (...) to obtain informed consent; they often minimise uncertainties about 'best' treatment and they feel duty-bound to provide patients with an unequivocal recommendation for action. 'Study consent' in a clinical trial is reviewed prospectively, and doctors are compelled by regulation to point out that there is insufficient evidence to make a rational choice between two compared treatments. It has been impossible to devise informed consent practices that satisfy, in full, the competing moral imperatives of respect for autonomy, concern for beneficence with emphasis on the value of health, and a vigil for justice. A way must be found to experiment with various discretionary approaches that would strike a realistic balance among competing interests. (shrink)

I identify and discuss three principles that underlie these ideas: first, that we are finite; secondly, that we are self‐conscious about our finitude; and thirdly, that we aspire to be infinite. I argue that the third of these explains the value of certain things to us, and that it leads to our being shown that these things are of unconditioned value. Finally, by addressing the question what value our aspiration to be infinite itself has, I make some suggestions about the (...) relationship between our ineffable knowledge and God. (shrink)

With these ideas in place, I proceed to give further examples of things that we are shown. These concern: the nature and identity of persons; the narrative unity of an individual life; scepticism; the subject matter of mathematics, and more specifically of set theory; and the doctrine that Dummett calls anti‐realism.

This long-awaited new edition contains eight of the dialogues of Plato, and is the first in a new five-volume complete edition of his works in the OCT series.

This article examines the implicit promises of fairness in evidence based medicine , namely to avoid discrimination through objective processes, and to distribute effective treatments fairly. The relationship between EBM and vulnerable groups is examined. Several aspects of EBM are explored: the way evidence is created , and the way evidence is applied in clinical care and health policy. This analysis suggests that EBM turns our attention away from social and cultural factors that influence health and focuses on a narrow (...) biomedical and individualistic model of health. Those with the greatest burden of ill health are left disenfranchised, as there is little research that is relevant to them, there is poor access to treatments, and attention is diverted away from activities that might have a much greater impact on their health. (shrink)

For over two thousand years thought about the infinite was dominated by Aristotelian hostility to the idea that the infinite could be a legitimate object of mathematical study. Then Cantor's work late in the nineteenth century seemed to overturn this orthodoxy. However, by highlighting ways in which infinitude still could not be brought under the control of mathematicians, Cantor's work may in fact have reinforced the orthodoxy.

An accurate analysis of the text shows that the small treatises have a logical structure and a style which is in all aspects unspinozistic. The main points of difference are : a formalistic interpretation of mathematics‚ the opposition between mathematics and physics‚ slavish cartesianism‚ the presence of numerous pleonasms‚ carelessness of expression‚ parade of learning‚ prolixity‚ attention for irrelevant qualities of authors quoted‚ educational purpose. Together with De Vet’s demonstration that the author of SRR and RK is still alive in (...) 1693 (see Tijdschr. v. Filosofie 45‚ 1983) these arguments force us‚ to consign Spinoza’s authorship‚ recently still defended by Petry a.o.‚ to the realm of fancy. (shrink)