In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:At St. Isidore’s Franciscan College in Rome, the following maxim attributed to St. Patrick is inscribed above the door-way of the church: Si quae difficiles quaestiones in hac insula oriantur ad Sedem Apostolicam referantur; ut Christiani ita et Romani sitis.1 The college was founded in 1625 by Luke Wadding, O.F.M. and, under his direction, became a major seat of theological learning and political influence for the Irish in Rome.2 (...) In the nineteenth century, the Friars Minor of the Province of Ireland assigned many documents from St. Isidore’s for use in their Irish friaries. In 1872, amid the unrest caused by the Risorgimento, medieval and early-modern Irish Franciscan manuscripts were transferred to Dublin.3 At the Merchants’ Quay Convent, the librarians T.A. O’Reilly, O.F.M. and E.B. Fitzmaurice, O.F.M. divided the manuscripts into sections with alphabetically ordered shelf-marks.4 This practical approach followed the long-established system used at Italian libraries and archives in Franciscan custody.5 From 1947 until 2000, the manuscripts of the Irish Friars Minor were kept at the Franciscans’ Dún Mhuire House of Studies in Killiney, County Dublin, before their transfer to the Archives, University College Dublin.The ‘D’ collection is preserved in twenty-six sets of volumes, folders and boxed papers. The greater part consists of Luke Wadding’s correspondence, relating to his activities as theologian, historian, Irish agent in Rome and consultor to several congregations and commissions at the papal secretariat.6 In the 1920s, Paul Grosjean, S.J. included four manuscripts then housed at Merchants’ Quay in a catalogue of hagiographical works.7 Clement Schmitt, O.F.M. treated of a collection of the Franciscan documents kept in Dublin in 1964.8Letters to and from Luke Wadding are also preserved at the Vatican Library; the Archivo Generale at the General Curia of Friars Minor, Rome; the Biblioteca Landiana, Piacenza; the Biblioteca Nazionale, Naples; the Biblioteca Ambrosiana, Milan; the Archives of the Bollandists, Brussels; the Archives Générales de Royaume, Brussels; the Von Harrach Archive, Vienna; and the Franciscan friary of St. Jerome in Vienna.9Compared to some six hundred that Luke Wadding received, “the text of approximately one hundred of his letters, in whole or in part, has survived.”10 Nearly all Wadding’s extant correspondence dates from the three decades after the publication of his Acta legationis on the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception in 1624. Most of his letters were sent from St. Isidore, some from the friaries of Aracoeli and San Pietro in Montorio, Rome, and a few from Naples.11Luke Wadding was born in Waterford on October 16, 1588, the eleventh of fourteen children.12 He was baptized two days later on the Feast of St. Luke. His father Walter was a well-established Waterford merchant and his mother Anastasia a kinswoman of the prominent Lombard family of Waterford. After the death of his parents, Luke left Ireland with his elder brother, Matthew, who enrolled him at the Irish Jesuits’ College in Lisbon. At seventeen years of age, Wadding made his way to Matozinhos in northern Portugal, near Oporto, where he entered the Franciscan Order. On completion of his novitiate, Wadding’s superiors sent him to the University of Coimbra and from there, to Salamanca. At Easter 1613, Luke Wadding was ordained to the priesthood after his studies. He was then appointed as a professor of theology at the Franciscan College of León and later at his own alma mater, Salamanca.13Called to the Spanish capital, Luke Wadding stayed at the Convent of Jesus and Mary in the south-east of Madrid where “lived not only the heads of the Franciscan Order in Spain but also the principal preachers.”14 Such was the distinction Wadding achieved that he was chosen by Philip III for the office of theologian in the embassy sent to defend the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception in Rome.15 He lived there for almost forty years, in which time he founded St. Isidore Franciscan College, the.. (shrink)

DNA double‐strand breaks (DSBs) are extremely hazardous lesions for all DNA‐bearing organisms and the mechanisms of DSB repair are highly conserved. In the eukaryotic mitotic cell cycle, DSBs are often present following DNA replication while, in meiosis, hundreds of DSBs are generated as a prelude to the reshuffling of the maternally and paternally derived genomes. In both cases, the DSBs are repaired by a process called homologous recombinational repair (HRR), which utilises an intact DNA molecule as the repair template. Mitotic (...) and meiotic HRR are managed by ‘checkpoints’ that inhibit cell division until DSB repair is complete. Here we attempt to summarise the substantial recent progress in understanding the checkpoint management of HRR in mitosis (focussing mainly on mammals) and then go on to use this information as a framework for understanding the presumed checkpoint management of HRR in mammalian meiosis. BioEssays 29:974–986, 2007. © 2007 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:History of Philosophy and History of Ideas PAUL OSKAR KRISTELLER THE TF.~MS "history of philosophy" and "history of ideas" are frequently associated in current public and professional discussions, and many statements seem to suggest that the two terms are more or less synonymous, or that the former term, being old-fashioned, might well be replaced with the latter which for many ears appears to have a more fashionable and (...) glamorous ring. Hence there arises the question what each of these terms really means, or what it should mean, and whether and to what extent it is justifiable to identify them with each other, to reduce the history of philosophy to the history of ideas, or to treat the former as a part or subdivision of the latter. I am not convinced that these questions can be answered through an appeal to ordinary usage since this usage is fluid and reflects at best the intellectual formulations and decisions of a remote or recent past. We may have reason to question the very validity of these decisions, and perhaps to suggest or make different decisions, and in case we are successful and obtain a reasonable amount of approval, these different decisions will be reflected in the ordinary usage of tomorrow, though not yet in that of today. The attempt to discuss the meaning and relationship of the history of philosophy and the history of ideas is obviously difficult and hazardous. It involves not only the discussion of such complicated notions as history and philosophy (and idea), but also the shifting balance of the intellectual globe that includes the continents or territories denoted by those terms, and even of the academic globe that purports to be, with varying success, its faithful image. In a short paper, I cannot hope to present an original or adequate discussion of these difficult problems, but merely try to raise a few questions which to my knowledge have not received sufficient attention and may be of interest to philosophers and historians. The history of philosophy has been of recurrent interest to philosophers and other scholars, especially in classical antiquity and again in the Renaissance period. It came to occupy a central place in European thought during the last century, especially in the wake of German idealism. Hegel recognized "history" as a major area of reality and of philosophical concern, as Vico and Herder had done before him, and thus left a living heritage not only to his followers down to Croce and Gentile, but also to Marx and his [1] 2 HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY disciples, and to many other thinkers who cannot be called Hegelians. Hegel also did not conceive political history in isolation, but in his phenomenology and philosophy of the spirit came close to a concept of culture or civilization in which political and social institutions, religion and the arts, the sciences and philosophy are interrelated as manifestations of the same spirit and subject to the same "dialectical" laws of historical development. The vast progress which the historical disciplines made during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, not only in the field of political and economic history but in the history of languages and literatures, of the arts and religions, and of civilization in general was not influenced by Hegel's theories, but rather opposed to them. Yet this vast body of knowledge and of learning imposed itself as an epistemological problem to such thinkers as Dilthey, Rickert, and Cassirer. Finally, Hegel considered philosophical thought itself as dialectical, that is, in a certain sense as historical, and thus foreshadowed not only Mannheim's sociology of knowledge, or Croce's claim that philosophy and history are identical, but also Heidegger's conception of historicity as a basic aspect or dimension of human thought and being. Within such a framework, the history of philosophy occupies a significant and even a central position for the philosopher since it elucidates the basic stages through which philosophical thinking passed before it reached its present situation. Any attempt to grasp or answer our present philosophical prob- ]ems thus presupposes at least a general understanding of the historical developments which have prepared or produced these problems. In the English-speaking world, both... (shrink)

When people encounter potential hazards, their expectations and behaviours can be shaped by a variety of factors including other people's expressions of verbal likelihood. What is the impact of such expressions when a person also has numeric likelihood estimates from the same source? Two studies used a new task involving an abstract virtual environment in which people learned about and reacted to novel hazards. Verbal expressions attributed to peers influenced participants’ behaviour toward hazards even when numeric estimates were also available. (...) Namely, verbal expressions suggesting that the likelihood of harm from a hazard is low yielded more risk taking with respect to said hazard. There were also inverse collateral effects, whereby participants’ behaviour and estimates regarding another hazard in the same context were affected in the opposite direction. These effects may be based on directionality and relativity cues inferred from verbal likelihood expressions. (shrink)

Cosmopolis A Review of Cosmopolitics -/- 2015/3-4 -/- Editorial Dominique de Courcelles & Paul Ghils -/- This issue addresses the general concept of “spirituality” as it appears in various cultural contexts and timeframes, through contrasting ideological views. Without necessarily going back to artistic and religious remains of primitive men, which unquestionably show pursuits beyond the biophysical dimension and illustrate practices seeking to unveil the hidden significance of life and death, the following papers deal with a number of interpretations covering (...) a wide field extending from belief to theory, from emotions to concepts, from the wisdom of personal experience to the most sophisticated doctrines. Spirit and spirituality are indeed many-faceted notions. They may refer to the intricate world of the interacting spirits which inhabit living beings in animistic traditions, without excluding a “grand force” linking human beings within a dynamic whole on which their very existence rely . They also bear upon more atomistic and either/or approaches of Western philosophy, which have become embodied in Cartesian dualism against a monotheist background, to the point of freezing the essence of individuals and culminating in the extreme individualism that characterizes our contemporaries. However, this equally refers to the opposite conception of materialism, across times and cultures, from ancient India and Greece (Cārvāka, originally known as Lokāyata, or some Buddhist doctrines for the former, Democritus or Lucretius for the latter) to more contemporary materialistic schools, whether modern or postmodern. -/- The following papers look at the contrasting forms of the philosophy and spirit of the human factor set into a whole, with no artificial disjoint between the psychical and the physical levels, as Wittgenstein put it: “And how can a body have a soul?”. This approach is not unrelated to the notion of anthropocene examined in a recent issue of Cosmopolis, with provides another comprehensive framework open to a spiritual life emerging from the very environment that generated it. -/- *** The first section of this issue was edited by Dominique de Courcelles, director at the National French Research Centre (CNRS), whom we wish to thank for collecting relevant studies relating to the religious and political questions, with a view to focusing on the war of ideas inevitably waged behind images, concepts and perceptions, taking an asymmetrical approach. To the extent that they are mindful of global/local interactions and include representations, opinions and beliefs, such disciplines as philosophy, philology, history and social sciences can provide useful studies accounting for new practices in geopolitics and a fair diplomacy. -/- In her introduction, Dominique de Courcelles first poses the question of how the religious and political spheres interrelate, with their corresponding religious demands and humanistic values. She then suggests that the right question today may be breaking with the philosophy of human rights concerned with the defense of human beings against the hazards of arbitrary politics or the instrumental use of religion, in favour of a fair philosophy of humankind, a new humanism. This would consist in recognizing a common loyalty of all towards one interhuman, not only interstate community, to protect it from both the autonomy demanded by individuals and the instrumental use of minorities. -/- Considering the fact of diversity, so important today in terms of both politics and religion, Abdelhai Azarkan looks at the conditions under which tolerance could obtain the double status of right and duty. He revisits to two philosophers, John Locke and Voltaire, who thought about it from the historical reality of religious wars. The former made tolerance into a right, basing his analysis on the political-legal level, while the latter saw tolerance as a duty, from an analysis based on ethical-political criteria. -/- Mathieu Guidère examines what he calls semantic denominationalism, a term which implies religious attributes and identities, whichever national loyalties or personal belonging they may have at the same time. Since the early 2000s, thie phenomenon has expanded tremendously, compounded by the “war on terror” and the over media-oriented terrorist actions. Denominational expressions act as formal names for ordinary and high-profile players in domestic and foreign policies of democratic states. These systems reveal a receding secularization, while the powerful comeback of religious identities signals the failure of nation-states and the weakening of the humanist spirit. -/- Barbara De Poli retraces the history of a contemporary jihadism claiming its Islamic essence and asserting the truth of genuine coranic principles via the war on infidels, with a view to restoring the Caliphate. After defining the term jihad, she shows that even if this contemporary jiadism is spreading in the Muslim world, it radically departs from Islamic law and the received use of the term jihad, in so far as it is rooted in the early radical thinking of Islamic ideologues in the 20th century, starting with with Hassan al-Banna, the founder of the Muslim Brotherhood. This current has been fueled by by international conflicts since the outbreak of the war in Afghanistan, in which the so-called Western countries bear a major responsibility. -/- Abderrazak Sayadi starts from the Tunisian experience to ask the question of humanist values and democracy within the relationships between the religious and political spheres. As a historian of religion, he is brought to demystify certain islamic principles and to paying attention to the reform of law, seeing the separation of religion and politics as a precondition to a successful democratic gamble and the establishment of a renewed humanism. -/- Dominique de Courcelles reminds us that getting a better knowledge of narrations and words makes it possible to better understand how logical and rhetorical thinking works for those who wage an asymetriccal war, re-enchanting and mystifying the world to better take control. As soon as 1932, an exchange of letters between Einstein and Freud made it clear that, in order to free man from fatality and war, education understood as culture was fundamental. Such illustrations as the exécution of Oussama ben Laden and the Caliph’s speech in Mossoul show that a premiminary analysis of images and words is essential to a fair diplomacy conducted by people from civil society, whose culture and wisdom allow justice and force to speak together and better resist war. -/- Marcel Boisard thinks that on the day the guns fall silent, exhausted by war, we will not return to the state borders that have prevailed for a century as an outcome of the Sykes-Picot agreement of 1916. It is time to prepare the “day after”, which will be a huge challenge. To this end, a summit of Middle-East nations is urgently needed to globally decide the fate of those peoples. On the condition that we know who the enemy is and accept to name it, to understand the history of the countries, groups and alliances, and to question any false or self-interested sense of certainty. -/- *** In the second section, Paul Schafer provides the author’s experiences to explain how culture, from the artistic to the biological, has the power to to open the doors to spirituality, from the inner self to the global environment. He asks himself whether a relative permanence of spirituality can arise from the specific moments that characterize it. Laurent Ledoux synthesizes the conclusion of a symposium held on 22 January 2015 on the links between philosophy and management, on the basis of the spiritual dimension conceived as “natural” and the answers it may suggest to the issues that face the organizations in a “contemporaniversal” world. Jacques Rifflet makes that question in a secular perspective, based on the wellsprings of personal commitment before it can be caught by any religious creed or scientific theory. In this sense spirituality, in alliance with reason, both inspires human consciousness and illuminates its destiny. Sami Aldeeb asks himself whether Islam can be reconciled with human rights. Caught between the belief in an absolute and final Word descended from the sky, and evidence showing that any religion is the creation of a given culture and a society situated in time and space, the Makkan and … contexts et médinois call for differentiated, if not opposite answers and exegeses. Bernard Carmona provides the outline of a dialogical framework, which is known to be a feature of debates between the various philosophical schools of classical India, exemplified here by the transdisciplinary perspective of debates within a Buddhist context. *** The articles not focused on the previous topic include a study by Landry Signé on China’s strategy, competing with the United States to control African resources. The author deals with the specific case of China’s rapprochement with Southern Sudan since Sudan was broken up. In the last paper, Goran Fejić and Rada Iveković, return to the essential role that women should play, and comments upon the role of some international legal instruments related in particular to the elimination of all forms of discrimination. The perspective is transnational and transethnic and is based on secular criteria, as regards nation-building and more generally society-building. Considering the persistence of widespread violence, whether in times of armed conflict or in times of peace, the question remains whether it is possible to fully implement rights and justice instruments. (shrink)

This 2004 book reconfigures the basic problem of Christian thinking - 'How can human discourse refer meaningfully to a transcendent God?' - as a twofold demand for integrity: integrity of reason and integrity of transcendence. Centring around a provocative yet penetratingly faithful re-reading of Kant's empirical realism, and drawing on an impelling confluence of contemporary thinkers Paul D. Janz argues that theology's 'referent' must be located within present empirical reality. Rigorously reasoned yet refreshingly accessible throughout, this book provides an (...) important, attentively informed alternative to the growing trends toward obscurantism, radicalization and anti-reason in many recent assessments of theological cognition, while remaining equally alert to the hazards of traditional metaphysics. In the book's culmination, epistemology and Christology converge around problems of noetic authority and orthodoxy with a kind of innovation, depth and straightforwardness that readers of theology at all levels of philosophical acquaintance will find illuminating. (shrink)

Relatives play an important role in human reproduction according to evolutionary theories of reproductive behavior, but previous empirical studies show large differences in the effects of kin on fertility outcomes. In our paper we examine the effect of co-resident kin and non-kin on the length of birth intervals over the reproductive life course of Dutch women born between 1842 and 1920. We estimate Cox proportional hazard models for parity progression based on the presence of kin and non-kin in the (...) household while controlling for a large number of individual and community-level characteristics. We find that couples living with their brothers experienced shorter birth intervals whereas couples residing with a widowed father had relatively longer birth intervals. The effects of these types of kin on reproduction were most pronounced up to the birth of the fifth child, but not thereafter. We found no effect for mothers or other types of kin. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:BOOK REVIEWS 125 to such a future contingent event, not only does such an event not exist now, it does not even exist in its causes now, and this for the reason that no sufficient causes of the event exist now. Accordingly, if someone were merely to make a guess to the effect that the sea-fight will occur tomorrow, and the fight actually does occur, it still could not (...) be maintained that the original guess at the time it was made was therefore true. It simply could not have been true, because at the time of its assertion there literally was no evidence of any kind that could have rendered it true. Nevertheless, modern logicians have generally been so dead set against the notion that the truth or falsity of a proposition could ever be relative to the time when the proposition was uttered that they seem scarcely to have taken account of a consideration such as the foregoing. Nor is it likely that with the publication of this excellent translation of St. Thomas's commentary, such critics will begin to take account of this Thomistic argument even now. Somehow, one is reminded of Dr. Johnson's purported remark, "Sir, I can only give a man a reason, not an intelligence!" HENRY VEATCtt Northwestern University Pascal e Nietzsche. Scritti di E. Castelli, H. Gouhier, A. del Noce, H. Birault, K. Takeno, K. LSwith, J. D~lhomme, G. Vattimo, R. Boehm, G. Morra. (Padova: Cedam; Casa Editrice Dott. Antonio Milani, 1962. Pp. 218. = Archivio di Filosofia. Organo dell'Istituto di Studi Filosofici. Anno 1962. No 3. L. 2000.) This issue of the Archivio di Filosofia offers essays by the various authors indicated in the title above. Pascal and Nietzsche are here brought together because of what they have in common, that is, suffering, restlessness, dissatisfaction with the human condition, the historical sorrow of post-Copernican man, a paradoxical and chaotic thought. Both Pascal and Nietzsche urge man to measure the real by the possible and not the possible by the real and to risk the present certainties for the uncertainty of the future. They dislodge man from his ordinary seat and launch him on the risky adventure and great experiment of real existence. PA~L T. FUHRMANN Columbia Theological Seminary Pierre Bayle and Voltaire. By H. T. Mason. (Cambridge: Oxford University Press, 1963. Pp. xv -k 163.) Pierre Bayle and Voltaire confronts the ideas of the two philosophers and formulates some prudent conclusions about their relationship. Since Bayle's works run to nine long folio volumes and Voltaire's come to fifty quartos in the Moland edition, one cannot help but be impressed by the magnitude of Professor Mason's undertaking and by his ability to reduce his findings to a book of just over one hundred and fifty pages. In the case of Bayle and Voltaire, the basic facts concerning influence are readily available. We know what works of Bayle's were in the library at Ferney; we can see the pages the Enlightenment philosopher marked as he read; we have almost two hundred references to Bayle in Voltaire's works and letters (listed chronologically by Mason in an appendix); and critical editions, such as Morize's Candide and Lanson's Lettres philosophiques, have disclosed how consistently Voltaire turned to the Dictionnaire historique et critique or other works from Bayle's pen for information. Yet, when dealing with passages that seem to rely on Bayle for factual content, a scholar runs into many hazards. Voltaire may draw his data from Bayle, from Bayle's source, from an intermediary, or from an outside source. We know that he consulted Richard Simon, Spinoza, Dora Calmet, and Dr. Astruc as well as Bayle for his Biblical criticism. Therefore, it is very frequently impossible to be sure just how much Bayle's thinking... (shrink)

Environmental virtue ethics (EVE) can be applied to environmental justice. Environmental justice refers to the concern that many poor and nonwhite communities bear a disproportionate burden of risk of exposure to environmental hazards compared to white and/or economically higher-class communities. The most common applied ethical response to this concern—that is, to environmental injustice—is the call for an expanded application of human rights, such as requirements for clean air and water. The virtue-oriented approach can be made consistent with such calls, but (...) there are broader applications as well that generate unique strategies for moral responsiveness and for expanding the role of moral philosophers in civic affairs. (shrink)

Heng Xian is a previously unknown text reconstructed by Chinese scholars out of a group of more than 1,200 inscribed bamboo strips purchased by the Shanghai Museum on the Hong Kong antiquities market in 1994. The strips have all been assigned an approximate date of 300 B.C.E., and Heng Xian allegedly consists of thirteen of them, but each proposed arrangement of the strips is marred by unlikely textual transitions. The most plausible hypothesis is one that Chinese scholars do not appear (...) to take seriously: that we are missing one or more strips. The paper concludes with a discussion of the hazards of studying unprovenanced artifacts that have appeared during China’s recent looting spree. I believe the time has come for scholars to ask themselves whether their work indirectly abets this destruction of knowledge. (shrink)

Unrealistic optimism is a bias that leads people to believe, with respect to a specific event or hazard, that they are more likely to experience positive outcomes and/or less likely to experience negative outcomes than similar others. The phenomenon has been seen in a range of health-related contexts—including when prospective participants are presented with the risks and benefits of participating in a clinical trial. In order to test for the prevalence of unrealistic optimism among participants of early-phase oncology trials, (...) we conducted a survey with patients over 18 years of age who were enrolled in a phase I, phase I/II, or phase II clinical cancer trial in the New York City area between August 2008 and October 2009. Participants in our study were asked to compare their own chances of experiencing a range of risks and benefits related to the trial they were enrolled in with the chances of the other trial participants. We found a significant optimistic bias in their responses. Respondents tended to overestimate the benefits of the trial they were enrolled in and underestimate its risks. In addition, we found no significant relationship between respondents’ understanding of the trial’s purpose and how susceptible they were to unrealistic optimism. Our findings suggest that improving the consent process for oncology studies requires more than addressing deficits in understanding. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:BOOK REVIEWS 125 to such a future contingent event, not only does such an event not exist now, it does not even exist in its causes now, and this for the reason that no sufficient causes of the event exist now. Accordingly, if someone were merely to make a guess to the effect that the sea-fight will occur tomorrow, and the fight actually does occur, it still could not (...) be maintained that the original guess at the time it was made was therefore true. It simply could not have been true, because at the time of its assertion there literally was no evidence of any kind that could have rendered it true. Nevertheless, modern logicians have generally been so dead set against the notion that the truth or falsity of a proposition could ever be relative to the time when the proposition was uttered that they seem scarcely to have taken account of a consideration such as the foregoing. Nor is it likely that with the publication of this excellent translation of St. Thomas's commentary, such critics will begin to take account of this Thomistic argument even now. Somehow, one is reminded of Dr. Johnson's purported remark, "Sir, I can only give a man a reason, not an intelligence!" HENRY VEATCtt Northwestern University Pascal e Nietzsche. Scritti di E. Castelli, H. Gouhier, A. del Noce, H. Birault, K. Takeno, K. LSwith, J. D~lhomme, G. Vattimo, R. Boehm, G. Morra. (Padova: Cedam; Casa Editrice Dott. Antonio Milani, 1962. Pp. 218. = Archivio di Filosofia. Organo dell'Istituto di Studi Filosofici. Anno 1962. No 3. L. 2000.) This issue of the Archivio di Filosofia offers essays by the various authors indicated in the title above. Pascal and Nietzsche are here brought together because of what they have in common, that is, suffering, restlessness, dissatisfaction with the human condition, the historical sorrow of post-Copernican man, a paradoxical and chaotic thought. Both Pascal and Nietzsche urge man to measure the real by the possible and not the possible by the real and to risk the present certainties for the uncertainty of the future. They dislodge man from his ordinary seat and launch him on the risky adventure and great experiment of real existence. PA~L T. FUHRMANN Columbia Theological Seminary Pierre Bayle and Voltaire. By H. T. Mason. (Cambridge: Oxford University Press, 1963. Pp. xv -k 163.) Pierre Bayle and Voltaire confronts the ideas of the two philosophers and formulates some prudent conclusions about their relationship. Since Bayle's works run to nine long folio volumes and Voltaire's come to fifty quartos in the Moland edition, one cannot help but be impressed by the magnitude of Professor Mason's undertaking and by his ability to reduce his findings to a book of just over one hundred and fifty pages. In the case of Bayle and Voltaire, the basic facts concerning influence are readily available. We know what works of Bayle's were in the library at Ferney; we can see the pages the Enlightenment philosopher marked as he read; we have almost two hundred references to Bayle in Voltaire's works and letters (listed chronologically by Mason in an appendix); and critical editions, such as Morize's Candide and Lanson's Lettres philosophiques, have disclosed how consistently Voltaire turned to the Dictionnaire historique et critique or other works from Bayle's pen for information. Yet, when dealing with passages that seem to rely on Bayle for factual content, a scholar runs into many hazards. Voltaire may draw his data from Bayle, from Bayle's source, from an intermediary, or from an outside source. We know that he consulted Richard Simon, Spinoza, Dora Calmet, and Dr. Astruc as well as Bayle for his Biblical criticism. Therefore, it is very frequently impossible to be sure just how much Bayle's thinking... (shrink)

The Monographs produced by the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) apply rigorous procedures for the scientific review and evaluation of carcinogenic hazards by independent experts. The Preamble to the IARC Monographs, which outlines these procedures, was updated in 2019, following recommendations of a 2018 expert Advisory Group. This article presents the key features of the updated Preamble, a major milestone that will enable IARC to take advantage of recent scientific and procedural advances made during the 12 years since (...) the last Preamble amendments. The updated Preamble formalizes important developments already being pioneered in the Monographs Programme. These developments were taken forward in a clarified and strengthened process for identifying, reviewing, evaluating and integrating evidence to identify causes of human cancer. The advancements adopted include strengthening of systematic review methodologies; greater emphasis on mechanistic evidence, based on key characteristics of carcinogens; greater consideration of quality and informativeness in the critical evaluation of epidemiological studies, including their exposure assessment methods; improved harmonization of evaluation criteria for the different evidence streams; and a single-step process of integrating evidence on cancer in humans, cancer in experimental animals and mechanisms for reaching overall evaluations. In all, the updated Preamble underpins a stronger and more transparent method for the identification of carcinogenic hazards, the essential first step in cancer prevention. (shrink)

During the past decade, a new term has entered the medical/legal lexicon : maternal-fetal conflict. Implicit in the terminology is the assumption that a pregnant woman and her fetus have separate and competing rights. This concept has stimulated extensive legal and ethical debate, primarily in the context of medical interventions forced on unwilling pregnant women, and in corporate efforts to bar fertile women from hazardous jobs. On one side of the debate are the proponents of the future child's right to (...) be born of sound mind and body, and society's interest in the delivery of healthy newborns. On the other side, are advocates of a woman's right to reproductive autonomy, bodily integrity, due process, confidential medical treatment, and freedom from gender discrimination. Neither side has challenged the formulation of the problem, or has examined its permeation into public health policy. (shrink)

During the past decade, a new term has entered the medical/legal lexicon : maternal-fetal conflict. Implicit in the terminology is the assumption that a pregnant woman and her fetus have separate and competing rights. This concept has stimulated extensive legal and ethical debate, primarily in the context of medical interventions forced on unwilling pregnant women, and in corporate efforts to bar fertile women from hazardous jobs. On one side of the debate are the proponents of the future child's right to (...) be born of sound mind and body, and society's interest in the delivery of healthy newborns. On the other side, are advocates of a woman's right to reproductive autonomy, bodily integrity, due process, confidential medical treatment, and freedom from gender discrimination. Neither side has challenged the formulation of the problem, or has examined its permeation into public health policy. (shrink)

Life history theory predicts that exposure to high mortality in early childhood leads to faster and riskier reproductive strategies. Individuals who grew up in a high mortality regime will not overly wait until they find a suitable partner and form a stable union because premature death would prevent them from reproducing. Cox proportional hazard models were used to determine whether women who experienced sibling death during early childhood (0–5 years) reproduced earlier and were at an increased risk of giving (...) birth to an illegitimate child, with illegitimacy serving as a proxy for risky sexual behavior. Furthermore, we investigate whether giving birth out of wedlock is influenced by individual mortality experience or by more promiscuous sexual behavior that is clustered in certain families. Models are fitted on pedigree data from the eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Krummhörn population in Germany. The results show a relationship between sibling death in early childhood and the risk of reproducing out of wedlock, and reproductive timing. The risk of giving birth out of wedlock is linked to individual mortality experience rather than to family-level effects. In contrast, adjustments in connubial reproductive timing are influenced more by family-level effects than by individual mortality experience. (shrink)

Noam Chomsky and Frances Egan argue that David Marr’s computational theory of vision is not intentional, claiming that the formal scientific theory does not include description of visual content. They also argue that the theory is internalist in the sense of not describing things physically external to the perceiver. They argue that these claims hold for computational theories of vision in general. Beyond theories of vision, they argue that representational content does not figure as a topic within formal computational theories (...) in cognitive science. I demonstrate that Chomsky’s and Egan’s claims about Marr’s theory are false. Marr’s computational theory contains a mathematical theory of visual content, based on empirical psychophysical evidence. It also contains mathematical descriptions of distal physical surfaces and objects, and of their optic projection to the perceiver. Much computational research on vision contains these types of intentional and externalist components within the formal, mathematical, theories. Chomsky’s and Egan’s claims demonstrate inadequate study and understanding of Marr’s work and other research in this area. Computational theories of vision, by containing empirically based mathematical theories of visual content, to this extent present naturalizations of semantics. (shrink)

We are witnessing increasing use of the Internet, particular social media, to criticize (perceived or actual) moral failings and misdemeanors. This phenomenon of so-called ‘online public shaming’ could provide a powerful tool for reinforcing valuable social norms. But it also threatens unwarranted and severe punishments meted out by online mobs. This paper analyses the dangers associated with the informal enforcement of norms, drawing on Locke, but also highlights its promise, drawing on recent discussions of social norms. We then consider two (...) crucial conditions that online public shaming must meet in order to be justifiable: proportionality and accountability. We argue that these requirements are in fact frequently violated, rendering most cases of online public shaming unjustified. While the use of online public shaming against others’ vices has some apparent virtues, it is currently rarely justified, given its own vices. (shrink)

Reasons and reasoning were central to the work of Paul Grice, one of the most influential and admired philosophers of the late twentieth century. In the John Locke Lectures that Grice delivered in Oxford at the end of the 1970s, he set out his fundamental thoughts about these topics; Aspects of Reason is the long-awaited publication of those lectures. This immensely rich work, powerfully evocative of the mind of its author, will refresh and illuminate discussions in many areas of (...) contemporary philosophy. (shrink)

W. B. Yeats’ poem “Politics” has as its epigraph Thomas Mann’s remark, “In our time the destiny of man presents its meaning in political terms.”1 Yeats chose the epigraph in 1938, just before World War II, for a poem proclaiming that sexuality holds his interest more than politics. This still may be true for poets, but by the looks of things, not for many contemporary critics, who, if they do not choose one over the other, subsume one under the other. (...) For them everything is political , which is to hold that everything is reduced to questions of power. So it is, in their eyes, with canons.The first canonization of note for western culture seems to have been that of the Hebrew Scriptures; and although there is much dispute about the whole matter of how that occurred, it is interesting to observe that in a 1971 book entitled The Shaping of Jewish History: A Radical New Interpretation Ellis Rivkin presents the development of that canon in political terms, arguing that production of the Hebrew Scriptures “was not primarily the work of scribes, scholars, or editors who sought out neglected traditions about wilderness experience, but of a class struggling to gain power.”2 In a very interesting article on this subject, Gerald L. Bruns observes that the lesson of this is that the concept of canon is not literary but a “category of power” . Rivkin himself decides, as Bruns remarks, to treat “the promulgation of canonical texts of the Scriptures, not according to literary criteria but according to power criteria” . Presumably it is this program that warrants Rivkin’s subtitle Radical New Interpretation. But what would the literary criteria that are opposed to power criteria here be? Are there any longer believers in the more than trivial existence of such criteria? Does the destiny of literature now present its meaning political terms? If there are no longer thought to be such things as literary criteria, is there, can there be, literature? We have heard answers in the negative to the last question; and the notion of canon has recently been addressed almost always in terms of politics and power, most notably, of course, but certainly not exclusively, by feminist and minority critics. The destiny of women’s writing has certainly presented its meaning in political terms. Hazard Adams is professor of English and comparative literature at the University of Washington. He has recently completed The Book of Yeats’ Poems and a collection of critical essays. (shrink)

We commend the authors for their comprehensive discussion on consent and episiotomies.1 They correctly observe that informed consent for all proposed interventions in maternity care is always necessary. The claim that consent for maternity health services does not always have to be fully informed or explicit, however, is erroneous. We are especially concerned with, and surprised by, the endorsement of ‘opt-out consent’. ‘Opt-out consent’ (a.k.a. substitute decision making) is already standard practice in maternity healthcare, with obstetric violence a normalised response (...) to conclusive refusals or requests for explanations. Informed consent is based on the fundamental human rights to bodily autonomy and integrity, which healthcare providers are obliged to respect. Healthcare structured around human rights violations is not care. It is cruel and inhumane treatment—a violation of yet another fundamental human right—and a reflection of poor-quality care. To be valid, consent must always be informed, specific, timely, freely given and reversible. The provider must provide information specific to each and every proposed intervention in a timely manner. The consumer has the right to consider, freely accept or refuse before providers can act. They can also change their mind at any time. Provider attempts to substitute consumer decision-making rights constitute assault and battery. Whether the infraction was major or minor is of no consequence to human rights law. National courts create artificial …. (shrink)

This is a collection in translation of essays by Paul Ricoeur which presents a comprehensive view of his philosophical hermeneutics, its relation to the views of his predecessors in the tradition and its consequences for the social sciences. The volume has three parts. The studies in the first part examine the history of hermeneutics, its central themes and the outstanding issues it has to confront. In Part II, Ricoeur's own current, constructive position is developed. A concept of the text (...) is formulated as the implications of the theory are pursued into the domains of sociology, psychoanalysis and history. Many of the essays appear here in English for the first time; the editor's introduction brings out their background in Ricoeur's thought and the continuity of his concerns. The volume will be of great importance for those interested in hermeneutics and Ricoeur's contribution to it, and will demonstrate how much his approach offers to a number of disciplines. (shrink)

In this chapter a new problem about rule-following is outlined, one that is distinct both from Kripke’s and Wright’s versions of the problem. This new problem cannot be correctly responsed to, as Kripke’s can, by invoking Wright’s Intentional Account of rule-following. The upshot might be called, following Kant, an antinomy of pure reason: we both must — and cannot — make sense of someone’s following a rule. The chapter explores various ways out of this antinomy without here endorsing any of (...) them. (shrink)

The ethical issues raised by cybersecurity practices and technologies are of critical importance. However, there is disagreement about what is the best ethical framework for understanding those issues. In this paper we seek to address this shortcoming through the introduction of a principlist ethical framework for cybersecurity that builds on existing work in adjacent fields of applied ethics, bioethics, and AI ethics. By redeploying the AI4People framework, we develop a domain-relevant specification of five ethical principles in cybersecurity: beneficence, non-maleficence, autonomy, (...) justice, and explicability. We then illustrate the advantages of this principlist framework by examining the ethical issues raised by four common cybersecurity contexts: penetration testing, distributed denial of service attacks (DDoS), ransomware, and system administration. These case analyses demonstrate the utility of this principlist framework as a basis for understanding cybersecurity ethics and for cultivating the ethical expertise and ethical sensitivity of cybersecurity professionals and other stakeholders. (shrink)

Foreword William Schweiker Paul Tillich, one of the great Protestant theologians of the twentieth century, addresses in Morality and Beyond a basic problem ...

Feyerabrend argues that intellectual progress relies on the creativity of the scientist, against the authority of science.

In this study of space and power and knowledge in France from the 1830s through the 1930s, Rabinow uses the tools of anthropology, philosophy, and cultural criticism to examine how social environment was perceived and described. Ranging from epidemiology to the layout of colonial cities, he shows how modernity was revealed in urban planning, architecture, health and welfare administration, and social legislation.

Eliminative materialism is the thesis that our common-sense conception of psychological phenomena constitutes a radically false theory, a theory so fundamentally defective that both the principles and the ontology of that theory will eventually be displaced, rather than smoothly reduced, by completed neuroscience. Our mutual understanding and even our introspection may then be reconstituted within the conceptual framework of completed neuroscience, a theory we may expect to be more powerful by far than the common-sense psychology it displaces, and more substantially (...) integrated within physical science generally. My purpose in this paper is to explore these projections, especially as they bear on (1) the principal elements of common-sense psychology: the propositional attitudes (beliefs, desires, etc.), and (2) the conception of rationality in which these elements figure. (shrink)