The employment of mythological language and imagery by an Epicurean poet - an adherent of a system not only materialist, but overtly hostile to myth and poetry - is highly paradoxical. This apparent contradiction has often been ascribed to a conflict in the poet between reason and intellect, or to a desire to enliven his philosophical material with mythological digressions. This book attempts to provide a more positive assessment of Lucretius' aims and methodology by considering the poet's attitude to myth, (...) and the role which it plays in the De Rerum Natura, against the background of earlier and contemporary views. The author suggests that Lucretius was not only aware of the tension between his two roles as philosopher and poet, but attempted to resolve it by developing his own, Epicurean poetic, together with a bold and innovative theory of the origins and meaning of myth. (shrink)

"This book gathers together eighteen of the most important and influential scholarly articles of the last 60-70 years (three of which are translated into..

The overwhelming importance of Lucretius' De Rerum Natura for the interpretation of the Georgics is recognized by almost all critics. As W. Y. Sellar expressed it over a hundred years ago, ‘the influence, direct and indirect, exercised by Lucretius on the thought, composition and even the diction of the Georgics was perhaps stronger than that ever exercised, before or since, by one poet on the work of another’. Richard Thomas' recent commentary attempts to play down the extent of this influence, (...) contending that ‘the debt of Virgil to Lucretius in the Georgics is predominantly formal’, and manifests itself chiefly on a verbal level, whereby the poet seeks ‘to create a didactic appearance for his poem’. The aim of this paper is to reassert the pervasive importance of Lucretian ideas, as well as Lucretian language, throughout the poem, and particularly in Virgil's presentation of the physical and metaphysical relationships between man and beast. (shrink)

John Conington was a towering figure in Victorian scholarship, not least because of his remarkably sensitive and literate commentaries on Virgil’s _Aeneid. _The three-volume cloth edition of _The Works of Virgil_, begun by Conington in 1852, has been unavailable for over a century, except in rare second-hand sets. Now, for the first time, the whole of Conington’s work is being reissued in a set of six paperback volumes. Each volume includes a new introduction by an established scholar, setting Conington's commentary (...) in context, as well as a general introduction to Conington’s work by Philip Hardie, who offers a fresh appreciation of the work. (shrink)

Understanding what it means toconsent is of considerable importance sincesignificant moral issues depend on how this actis defined. For instance, determining whetherconsent has occurred is the deciding factor insexual assault cases; its proper occurrence isa necessary condition for federally fundedhuman subject research. Even though mosttheorists recognize the legal and moralimportance of consent, there is still littleagreement concerning how consent should bedefined, or whether different domains involvingconsent demand context-specific definitions.Understanding what it means to consent isfurther complicated by the fact that currentlegal (...) conceptions are not necessarily groundedin argument; they typically depend on appealsto authority and precedent. The purpose ofthis paper is to use speech act theory toprovide a theoretically grounded conception ofconsent; such a conception can aid in the justresolution of legal and moral disputes thathinge on whether an act of consent occurred. (shrink)

The cosmological and teleological argument both start with some contingent feature of the actual world and argue that the best or only explanation of that feature is that it was produced by an intelligent and powerful supernatural being. The cosmological argument starts with a general feature, such as the existence of contingent being or the presence of motion and uses some version of the Principle of Sufficient Reason to conclude that this feature must have an explanation. The debate then focuses (...) on two points: first, whether the PSR in question is true, and second, whether the explanation must involve God or at least some God-like being. The teleological argument begins with a general feature of the cosmos judged to have value, such as the existence of intelligent life or the presence of order in the universe, and argues, usually inductively but sometimes deductively, that this feature is to be explained by the agency of a powerful supernatural being. Here, the debate tends to focus on whether there are alternate naturalistic explanations, such as Darwinian evolution. (shrink)

Method as Identity considers how social identity shapes methodological standpoints. With a refreshing hip hop sensibility, Miller and Driscoll reorient the contemporary academic study of religion toward recognition of the costs and benefits of manufacturing “critical” distance from our objects of study.

This study examined the influence of sex and racial discrimination on academic alienation among Iranian university students. Two groups of 60 girls and 60 boys were sampled through multi-stage cluster sampling from among first-year Tabriz University students in Tabriz, Iran. All participants, between18 and 22, were asked to respond on an academic alienation questionnaire. The findings of a two-way ANOVA revealed that girls and Turkish speakers had higher levels of academic alienation compared to boys and Persian speakers. An investigation of (...) interactional effects indicated that Turkish girls demonstrated the highest levels of academic alienation, with no significant effects in the powerlessness dimension. Finally, the effects of the factors relevant to academic alienation were discussed. (shrink)

An embodied movement-planning field cannot account for behavior and cognition more abstract than that of reaching. Instead, we propose an affordance field, and we sketch how it could enhance the analysis of the A-not-B error, underlie cognition, and serve as a base for language. Admittedly, a dynamic systems account of an affordance field awaits significant further development.

In early March 2014, some of the members of Culture on the Edge—a scholarly research collaboration of seven scholars of religion, interested in more theoretically sophisticated studies of identity, and all of whom are at different career stages and at a variety of North American institutions—had a conversation online on the use of the terms “critique” and “critical,” terms widely used in the field today but employed in such a variety of ways that the members of the group thought it (...) worthwhile to focus some attention on them. What follows is the transcript of their conversation. (shrink)

This volume brings together a distinguished, international list of scholars to explore the role of the learner's intention in knowledge change. Traditional views of knowledge reconstruction placed the impetus for thought change outside the learner's control. The teacher, instructional methods, materials, and activities were identified as the seat of change. Recent perspectives on learning, however, suggest that the learner can play an active, indeed, intentional role in the process of knowledge restructuring. This volume explores this new, innovative view of conceptual (...) change learning using original contributions drawn from renowned scholars in a variety of disciplines. The volume is intended for scholars or advanced students studying knowledge acquisition and change, including educational psychology, developmental psychology, science education, cognitive science, learning science, instructional psychology, and instructional and curriculum studies. (shrink)

We will give a new cosmological argument for the existence of a being who, although not proved to be the absolutely perfect God of the great Medieval theists, also is capable of playing the role in the lives of working theists of a being that is a suitable object of worship, adoration, love, respect, and obedience. Unlike the absolutely perfect God, the God whose necessary existence is established by our argument will not be shown to essentially have the divine perfections (...) of omnipotence, omniscience, omnibenevolence, and sovereignty. Furthermore, it is not even shown that he is contingently omnipotent and omniscient, just powerful and intelligent enough to be the supernatural designer-creator of the exceedingly complex and wondrous cosmos that in fact.. (shrink)

Our paper ‘A new cosmological argument’ gave an argument for the existence of God making use of the weak Principle of Sufficient Reason (W-PSR) which states that for every proposition p, if p is true, then it is possible that there is an explanation for p. Recently, Graham Oppy, as well as Kevin Davey and Rob Clifton, have criticized the argument. We reply to these criticisms. The most interesting kind of criticism in both papers alleges that the W-PSR can be (...) justifiably denied by the atheist, and constitutes no improvement on the strong Principle of Sufficient Reason (S-PSR) which claims that every true proposition in fact has an explanation. The criticism is predicated on the fact that it can be shown that the W-PSR entails the S-PSR. We argue that the W-PSR's plausibility remains despite the criticisms. From this it can be seen to follow that the entailment relation between the W-PSR and the S-PSR gives one reason to believe the S-PSR. (shrink)

Movement of leukocytes from peripheral blood into tissues, also called leukocyte extravasation, is absolutely essential for immunity in higher organisms. Over the past decade, our understanding of the molecular mechanisms involved in white blood cell extravasation during both normal immune surveillance and the generation of protective immune responses has taken a great leap forward with the discovery of the chemokine gene superfamily. Chemokines are low-molecular-weight cytokines whose major collective biological activity appears to be that of chemotaxis of both specific and (...) overlapping subsets of leukocytes. They are therefore likely to play a critical role in the directed movement of leukocytes from the bloodstream into tissue. These molecules are almost exclusively secreted and act as extracellular messengers for the immune system. However, emerging data also show that various members of the chemokine gene superfamily exert other biological effects outside the immune system. All nucleated cells and all tissues examined to date are capable of expressing at least some chemokines, and it seems likely therefore that by the time all the chemokines are identified, and all their biological functions elucidated, we will find that, as a family, these molecules perform an extracellular messenger role in all tissues and systems of the body. BioEssays 1999;21:17–28. © 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. (shrink)

Pragmatic comparative effectiveness randomized controlled trials evaluate the effectiveness of one interventions under real-world clinical conditions. The results of ceRCTs are often directly generalizable to everyday clinical practice, providing information critical to decision-making by patients, clinicians, and healthcare policymakers. The PRECIS-2 framework identifies nine domains that serve to score a trial on a continuum between very explanatory to very pragmatic. According to the framework, pragmatic trials may have one or more of the following features: there are fewer eligibility criteria for (...) participants, in an... (shrink)

The progression of research and scholarly inquiry does not occur in isolation and is wholly dependent on accurate reporting of methods and results, and successful replication of prior work. Without mechanisms to correct the literature, much time and money is wasted on research based on a crumbling foundation. These guidelines serve to outline the respective responsibilities of researchers, institutions, agencies, and publishers or editors in maintaining the integrity of the research record. Delineating these complementary roles and proposing solutions for common (...) barriers provide a foundation for best practices. (shrink)