The relation of the glossae breviores of Placidus, or rather Pseudo–Placidus, to Festus1 epitome of Verrius has been the subject of much discussion; but after Karl's detailed examination inDe Placidi Glossis , the view has generally prevailed that Ps.–Plac. is not dependent on Festus, and that any similarities between them are referable to the use of similar sources by Verrius and our compiler.

William Albert Crawford-Frost was a Canadian born philosopher who developed a unique form of idealism that he called the Philosophy of Integration. This he presented in 1906 in a book by that title which he described in the subtitle as An Explanation of the Universe and of the Christian Religion. What I have taken the liberty of calling his Fusion Philosophy is the metaphysical theory outlined in this work as explained and developed further in his two other books, Old Dogma (...) in a New Light, and A New Theory of Evolution, as well as in a number of shorter pamphlets. I am using the term “fusion” rather than “integration” partly to avoid the social and political emphasis which the latter word has since acquired. However, I am not at all unhappy that my term “fusion” calls to mind our developing nuclear technology since, as will be seen, it is an implication of Crawford-Frost’s idealism that the development and application of nuclear fission, as opposed to fusion, is quite literally nothing less than the work of the Devil. This makes Crawford-Frost’s philosophy of some interest to us today, though I think that his unique form of idealism is, in many ways, interesting in itself. (shrink)

This is the first full-length translation of a work by the influential medieval logician Walter Burley. As such, it is an important addition to our knowledge of medieval logic, and will undoubtedly spur further research.

This paper is the second part of an investigation into Babylonian non-mathematical astronomical texts and the relationships between Babylonian observational and predicted astronomical data. Part I (Gray and Steele 2008) showed that the predictions found in the Almanacs and Normal Star Almanacs were almost certainly made by applying Goal-Year periods to observations recorded in the Goal-Year Texts. The paper showed that the differences in dates of records between the Goal-Year Texts and the Almanacs or Normal Star Almanacs were consistent with (...) the date corrections of a few days which, according to theoretical calculations, should be added to allow for the inexactness of Goal-Year periods. The current paper follows on from our earlier study to consider the effect of the Babylonian calendar on Goal-Year methods of prediction. Due to the fact that the Babylonian calendar year can contain either 12 or 13 months, a Goal-Year period can occasionally be month longer or shorter than usual. This suggests that there should in theory be certain points in the Metonic intercalation cycle where a predicted event occurs one Babylonian month earlier or later than the corresponding event a Goal-Year period later. By comparing dates of lunar and planetary records in the Astronomical Diaries, Goal-Year Texts, Almanacs and Normal Star Almanacs, we show that these month differences between the observational records and the predictions occur in the expected years. This lends further support to the theory that the Almanacs’ and Normal Star Almanacs’ predictions originated from records in the Goal-Year Texts, and clarifies how the Goal-Year periods were used in practice. (shrink)

The struggles in the first half of 1471 in which Edward IV recovered the throne produced various pieces of historical writing. It is generally assumed that the basic work is the chronicle written in the official interest, called the Historie of the Arrivall of Edward IV, which was edited by John Bruce for the Camden Society in 1838 from the British Museum manuscript Harleian 543, a copy by John Stow from the book of Master Fleetwood, the Recorder of London. This (...) chronicle was used, though in a more complete version that that of Stow's transscript, by the Flemish chronicler Jean Wavrin, and there is also a shorter French narrative, which Bruce considered an abridgement of the fuller text, and which C. L. Kingsford in his major study of English fifteenth-century chronicles regarded as of no importance. A text of the shorter version seems to have been one source of the account of Edward's recovery of the crown in Thomas Basin's History of Louis XI, though he does not use all of it and must have had additional material. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Pragmatism as Anti-Authoritarianism by Richard RortyJ. A. ColenRORTY, Richard. Pragmatism as Anti-Authoritarianism. Edited by Eduardo Mendieta. Cambridge, Mass.: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2021. xxxv + 236 pp. Cloth, $27.95This book reproduces Richard Rorty's manuscript of the Ferrater Mora Lectures held in Spain in 1996, about ten years before his death. The preface is signed "Bellagio, July 22, 1997." Robert Brandom's foreword for the book states (...) that its publication is an "epoch-making event" since it was "long-lost" in the abysses of Catalan and Spanish languages.We could think that this should be taken with a grain of salt, considering that large sections of the book were previously published even in English. Chapter 1, "Pragmatism and Religion," was printed in the Revue Internationale de Philosophie in 1999; chapter 2, "Pragmatism as Romantic Polytheism," was collected in The Revival of Pragmatism (ed. Morris Dickstein) in 1998; and lectures 3 and 4 appear in a 2000 book edited by Robert Brandom. Chapter 7 was printed in Rorty's Philosophy and Social Hope, and 8, 9, and 10 were published in his Philosophical Papers.So truly, only chapters 5 and 6 were entirely ignored by the Anglophone reader. Rhetoric aside, it is nonetheless a very important book, and perhaps even an epoch-making one, although the Rortian scholar will never find himself in unchartered territory. It is indeed epoch-making for at least three different kinds of reasons.Firstly, the complete book with Rorty's own preface and all the lectures set together, carefully edited by Eduardo Mendieta, with notes and an insightful epilogue, presents Rorty's "mature version and vision of his path-breaking pragmatism." The oral nature of the delivery adds some charm to the text, and the recovery of the whole book-length text is epochal since, in spite of being a prolific writer of distinctive and provocative texts, Rorty's books are scarce: He wrote just four important books, in comparison with hundreds of shorter pieces. (It could even be argued that even his four main books are "fragments" that in some instances lack cogency.)Secondly, the political landscape has largely changed. People used to fight for the Truth. It may very well be that the combat of ideas by resorting to words with capital letters, interesting as it often is, doesn't make for the best arguments. When the flag of Truth (uppercase) is raised in politics, reason easily becomes the prey of the passions of the soul. Mendieta aptly titled his interviews with Rorty with the motto "take care of freedom and Truth will take care of itself." The notion that the highest [End Page 363] degree of freedom and tolerance and the lowest degree of dogmatism arise when no truth is believed was not Rorty's own invention, and in fact it has a long ancestry. But Rorty is surely among its most vocal advocates and a remarkable thinker. Right now, the situation looks entirely different. Rorty's indefatigable struggle against the idea of truth in politics was all too successful. Could it happen that the owl of Minerva rises again at dusk, and the book emerges when people are no longer fighting about truth but against fake news? In fact, a new post-truth era was just inaugurated. Thus, the book makes an amazing read for those who are interested in the genealogy of an old idea: the death of Truth—an irony that Rorty would have appreciated.Thirdly, Rorty is an unavoidable figure in contemporary political philosophy, but his pragmatism has always been somewhat mysterious. Despite his praise of the early pragmatists and his dismissive attitude towards "depth," very few doubt that his arguments are deeper and go further than, say, John Dewey's. Nor was he exactly one of the so-called new pragmatists such as Putnam, Huw Price, or Robert Brandom. Nevertheless, his bold and iconoclastic attacks on "representationalism," the naïve idea that language and thought merely mirror the world, really were influential, or even gave birth to a new pragmatism. But he was not one of them. (Etienne Gilson used to quote a saying according to which God... (shrink)

Guido de Ruggiero (1888-1948) was perhaps the greatest Italian intellectual historian in the twentieth century. He was a fierce champion of liberalism, an ardent opponent of Fascism, an insightful critic and interpreter of his contemporaries, and a formidable philosopher in his own right. Idealism & Experience: The Philosophy of Guido de Ruggiero comprises eight new critical essays, as well as English translations of five of de Ruggiero's most important shorter writings, which chart the development of his thought between 1914 and (...) 1946. Taken together, these essays reveal the range, richness and philosophical sophistication of de Ruggiero's ideas, enabling Anglophone readers to appreciate their enduring relevance in our own troubled times. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Journal of the History of Philosophy 41.2 (2003) 265-266 [Access article in PDF] Plato. Alcibiades. Edited by Nicholas Denyer. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2001. Pp. xi + 254. Cloth, $64.95. Paper, $22.95. This volume is a new addition to the Cambridge Greek and Latin Classics series. It offers an introduction (twenty-nine pages), a revised Greek text with apparatus criticus (fifty pages), a commentary (167 pages), and indices (general, (...) proper names, and Greek words together taking just over four pages).The editor acknowledges his dependence on the manuscripts and indirect evidence as reported by Carlini. The apparatus is second order: rather than identifying a reading to a manuscript or other source by name, the author indicates that the reading is the only one found in the manuscripts, that it is one among two or more found in the manuscripts, that it is found in the indirect evidence, or that it is conjectural. Thus the textual support is given, as he says, in a "ruthlessly summary form."The apparatus includes sixty-eight line references underneath the text. Of the passages corresponding to these references, thirty-six differ from Burnet's Oxford Classical Text, especially by deletion, rearrangement, and addition. Deletions make up a third: two of Burnet's additions to the text in acute brackets are dropped, including all of 133C8-17, and material that Burnet had printed in the text in square brackets disappears entirely in three cases; five pairs of acute brackets are dropped where Burnet's text is retained, with four of these items marked as conjectures; and finally, Burnet's unbracketed text simply is dropped in two places. The rearrangements vary in character: at one place, three lines of text are moved down "to ease the flow of the argument," and at another place a line that Burnet assigns to Alcibiades is given to Socrates. The editor's additions sometimes are presented as matters of linguistic or other intuition: at 115D2 (in his lineation), for example, an addition adopted by Burnet is dropped in favor of the author's own conjectural addition as "the easiest way to break up the very awkward double question that the manuscript tradition ascribes to Socrates"; at 128E10 the editor replaces the reading of "all the manuscripts" with a word which "was often abbreviated" and whose abbreviation "was easily misread as some shorter word beginning with alpha"; and at 131A2 the editor conjectures the addition of a word supported by neither the direct nor the indirect tradition in order to make it "possible to derive the conclusion of 131A5-6 that the professional knowledge of doctors and trainers is not knowledge of themselves." These arguments, though less than airtight, are thought provoking, even if they leave one's view of the text largely intact.The commentary offers historians of philosophy food for thought in other ways, too, since it goes beyond arguing for changes to the text. It makes extensive use of observations on grammar, style, usage, and other literary materials to shed light on the argument of the dialogue and on the dramatic elements which overlay the argumentative material and make the dialogue a coherent whole.The introduction offers something else again, especially in its twelve pages on authenticity. The editor does not prove that the dialogue is authentic, but he does show that the modern arguments against its authenticity are weak. Because of Schleiermacher's influence, he suggests, subsequent writers have not bothered to argue the case seriously against authenticity; he labels their arguments "frivolous." He notes that some argue for inauthenticity on the grounds that the Alcibiades lacks parallels with the other dialogues, [End Page 265] some on grounds that it is too similar to the other dialogues, and some ("weakest of all") on both grounds at once. He then goes on to argue that "stylometric studies cannot tell us whether or not Plato wrote the Alcibiades" and to challenge the standard chronology of the dialogues so far as it bears against authenticity. "If," he concludes, "the Alcibiades is authentically Platonic, then we need of course to abandon the conceptions, or misconceptions... (shrink)

This 1997 book was the first English translation of all of Kant's writings on moral and political philosophy collected in a single volume. No other collection competes with the comprehensiveness of this one. As well as Kant's most famous moral and political writings, the Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals, the Critique of Practical Reason, the Metaphysics of Morals, and Toward Perpetual Peace, the volume includes shorter essays and reviews, some of which have never been translated before. The volume has (...) been furnished with a substantial editorial apparatus including translator's introductions and explanatory notes to each text by Mary Gregor, and a general introduction to Kant's moral and political philosophy by Allen Wood. There is also an English-German and German-English glossary of key terms. (shrink)

This 1997 book was the first English translation of all of Kant's writings on moral and political philosophy collected in a single volume. No other collection competes with the comprehensiveness of this one. As well as Kant's most famous moral and political writings, the Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals, the Critique of Practical Reason, the Metaphysics of Morals, and Toward Perpetual Peace, the volume includes shorter essays and reviews, some of which have never been translated before. The volume has (...) been furnished with a substantial editorial apparatus including translator's introductions and explanatory notes to each text by Mary Gregor, and a general introduction to Kant's moral and political philosophy by Allen Wood. There is also an English-German and German-English glossary of key terms. (shrink)

This book is one of the series entitled "Rare Masterpieces of Philosophy and Science" and it is entitled to both distinctions. The papers collected here are virtually unobtainable except in the most complete libraries; and de Morgan's work is clearly that of a master-between Boole and Frege, he is the leading figure in formal logic. The papers found herein include the series of six on the syllogism published between 1846 and 1868, together with three shorter notes concerning logical phraseology, a (...) syllabus for a system of logic, and an encyclopaedia article whose topic is logic. The editor has added a useful introduction which, among other important services, allows us to see de Morgan, not, as we today see him, as a founder of symbolic logic, but as a rival of William Hamilton, engaged in controversy much of his life.—P. J. M. (shrink)

— We prescnt here a comparative study on the decay of chlorophyll a fluorescence yield in thylakoid membranes and photosystem 11 ‐enriched samples, measured with multifrequency cross‐correlation phase fluorometry. These measurements confirm the general conclusions of Van Mieghem ef al., obtained with a flash method, on the effects of reduction of the primary quinone acceptor on ChI a fluorescence yield of PSI. Different states of the reaction centers of PSII were produced by: pretreatment with sodium dithionite and mcthyl viologen followed (...) by laser illumination: the doubly reduced QA centers: with laser illumination or pretreatment with diuron: QA‐ centers; and the addition of micromolar concentration of dichlorobenzoquinonc : oxidized QA centers. The data were analyzed with Lorentzian distribution as well as with multiexponential fluorescence decay functions. The analysis with Lorcntzian distribution function showed that upon formation of QA. the major lifetime distribution peak shifted to longer lifetimes: from 0.25 ns to 1.66 ns and from 0.24 ns to 1.31 ns. However, when QAHZ was formed, the lifetime distribution peaks shifted back to shorter lifetimes both in thylakoids and PSIl membranes. Multiexponential analysis showed three lifetime components: fast, middle and slow. When QA was formed in PS11 centers, the amplitude of the fast Component decreased, but both thc amplitude and the lifetime of the middle component increased severalfold. However, when QA was doubly reduccd, the amplitude of the fast component increased and the amplitude of the middle component decreased: in addition, the lifetime of the slow component increased. All of the above results are consistent with the conclusions that PS11 charge separation is decreased when QA is formed and increased when doubly reduced QA is formed. Copyright © 1993, Wiley Blackwell. All rights reserved. (shrink)

Local food has become the rising star of the sustainable agriculture movement, in part because of the energy efficiencies thought to be gained when food travels shorter distances. In this essay I critique four key assumptions that underlie this connection between local foods and energy. I then describe two competing conclusions implied by the critique. On the one hand, local food systems may need a more extensive and integrated transportation infrastructure to achieve sustainability. On the other hand, the production, transportation, (...) and consumption of local foods are fundamentally as reliant on fossil fuels as are long distance foods. A more holistic approach to energy use in the food system is needed to determine which particular sociotechnical factors optimize energetic sustainability. (shrink)

Two variables are usually recognised as determinants of human causal learning: the contingency between a candidate cause and effect, and the temporal and/or spatial contiguity between them. A common finding is that reductions in temporal contiguity produce concomitant decrements in causal judgement. This finding had previously (Shanks & Dickinson, 1987) been interpreted as evidence that causal induction is based on associative learning processes. Buehner and May (2002, 2003, 2004) have challenged this notion by demonstrating that the impact of temporal delay (...) depends on expectations about the timeframe between cause and effect. A corollary of this knowledge-mediation account is that in certain situations longer delays could facilitate, while shorter delays should impair, causal learning. Here we present two experiments involving a physical apparatus that demonstrate a detrimental effect of contiguity under certain conditions. In contrast to all previous studies, delays universally promoted causal learning. This evidence is clearly at variance with the notion of a bottom-up contiguity bias in causal induction. A new, more general timeframe bias is discussed. (shrink)

The first of a series of volumes containing Albright's shorter writings, some never before published, and the rest revised. In this volume Albright develops his philosophy of history more explicitly than elsewhere, elaborating his distinction between proto-logical, empirico-logical and logical levels of thought. He is very critical of philosophical system-building, especially of the idealistic type, and he sharply contrasts post-Kantian developments in epistemology with what he regards to be the correct epistemology of history. In addition to these broad considerations, there (...) are more technical discussions of Near Eastern religions, review articles of philosophical historians, and an autobiographical sketch. This volume reflects the great range and quality of scholarship which have made its author one of America's most famous scholars.—R. J. W. (shrink)

Empirical tests described in this article support hypotheses derived from evolutionary theory on the perceptions of literary characters. The proper and dark heroes in British Romantic literature of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries respectively represent long-term and short-term mating strategies. Recent studies indicate that for long-term relationships, women seek partners with the ability and willingness to sustain paternal investment in extended relationships. For short-term relationships, women choose partners whose features indicate high genetic quality. In hypothetical scenarios, females preferred (...) proper heroes for long-term relationships. The shorter the relationship under consideration, the more likely women were to choose dark heroes as partners. (shrink)

One of the most important and most interesting questions of the history of Christian thought is that of the influence of Platonism on Patristic and Scholastic speculation. Today, perhaps more than ever before, this question of the influence of Plato--and that of his later, more faithful disciples, the Neo-Platonists--presents itself as a fascinating issue. Ivánka is a historian, and the shorter essays and studies of a thirty-year research career are here recast and integrated into a unified book, focussing on some (...) major figures and problems of Christian Platonism. After a lengthy and highly interesting general reflection on Platonism and its historical fortunes, we have chapters on Origen, Gregory of Nyssa, and Augustine, representing the culmination of Platonism in the Greek East and the Latin West respectively. The second part of the book is devoted to speculative mystical theology: Pseudo-Dionysius, Maximus Confessor, the pre-Thomistic West, and at the end a fascinating chapter on the Platonic core of the spiritual doctrine of the late Byzantine centuries.--M. J. V. (shrink)

Increasing behavioural evidence suggests that expert video game players (VGPs) show enhanced visual attention and visuospatial abilities, but what underlies these enhancements remains unclear. We administered the Poffenberger paradigm with concurrent electroencephalogram (EEG) recording to assess occipital N1 latencies and interhemispheric transfer time (IHTT) in expert VGPs. Participants comprised 15 right-handed male expert VGPs and 16 non-VGP controls matched for age, handedness, IQ and years of education. Expert VGPs began playing before age 10, had a minimum 8 years experience, and (...) maintained playtime of at least 20 hours per week over the last 6 months. Non-VGPs had little-to-no game play experience (maximum 1.5 years). Participants responded to checkerboard stimuli presented to the left and right visual fields while 128-channel EEG was recorded. Expert VGPs responded significantly more quickly than non-VGPs. Expert VGPs also had significantly earlier occipital N1s in direct visual pathways (the hemisphere contralateral to the visual field in which the stimulus was presented). IHTT was calculated by comparing the latencies of occipital N1 components between hemispheres. No significant between-group differences in electrophysiological estimates of IHTT were found. Shorter N1 latencies may enable expert VGPs to discriminate attended visual stimuli significantly earlier than non-VGPs and contribute to faster responding in visual tasks. As successful video-game play requires precise, time pressured, bimanual motor movements in response to complex visual stimuli, which in this sample began during early childhood, these differences may reflect the experience and training involved during the development of video-game expertise, but training studies are needed to test this prediction. (shrink)

In the midst of a recrudescence of interest in the philosophy of Hegel in the United States and England, this polished translation of Hegel’s introduction to his Lectures on the Philosophy of World History is a timely and welcome addition to the English translations of the massive Hegelian corpus. At long last, Johannes Hoffmeister’s superlative edition of this accessible work is available in English twenty years after its publication in Germany. H. B. Nisbet presents Hegel’s lectures in italics and intersperses (...) the reconstructions of students’ notes in Roman type. Including Hegel’s first and second drafts of the first part of the "Introduction," the well-integrated lecture notes, an appendix on "The natural context or the geographical basis of world history," additions from 1826-7, Lasson’s "Notes on the Composition of the Text," and a chronological bibliography of writings dealing with the Lectures, this volume supersedes the previous English translations which were derived from Karl Hegel’s shorter edition. Duncan Forbes’ spritely introduction is a rapid fire counter-attack on a number of Hegel’s critics which charges that Hegel is misunderstood because of an inadequate grasp of the principle of identity in difference and the assumption that, for Hegel, the Absolute "absorbs" the contingencies, contradictions, and tensions in existence. Forbes appropriately stresses the "concrete universal" as the unity of the universal and the particular in history, a unity which preserves the particular as particular, the contingent as contingent. Even though Forbes overreaches himself at times, his defenses of Hegel’s interpretation of meaning in history are provocative and lively. This fine translation of Hoffmeister’s edition of the introduction to the lectures presents Hegel’s vision of history in a lucid, accessible form and captures the nuances of the thought of a philosopher who has been as often misunderstood as maligned.—G.J.S. (shrink)

ABSTRACTSocial attentional biases are a core component of social anxiety disorder, but research has not yet determined their direction due to methodological limitations. Here we present preliminary findings from a novel, dynamic eye-tracking paradigm allowing spatial–temporal measurement of attention and gaze-following, a mechanism previously unexplored in social anxiety. 105 participants took part, with those high and low in social anxiety traits entered into the analyses. Participants watched a video of an emotionally-neutral social scene, where two actors periodically shifted their gaze (...) towards the periphery. HSA participants looked more at the actors’ faces during the initial 2s than the LSA group but there were no group differences in proportion of first fixations to the face or latency to first fixate the face, although HSA individuals’ first fixations to the face were shorter. No further differences in eye movements were found, nor in gaze-following beha... (shrink)

A collection of Bainton's shorter papers on the Reformation period, some extensively revised. Most of the essays deal with either Luther or the "Left Wing" of the Reformation. Whether the topic is "The Struggle for Religious Liberty," or "Luther on Birds, Dogs, and Babies," Bainton maintains a high level of scholarship and style.—R. J. W.

The Rhodes‐Livingstone Institute , founded in Northern Rhodesia in 1937, was the first social science research institute in Africa. This book is a history of the RLI from its earliest beginnings with emphasis on the years up to 1960. The author, who identifies herself as a historian, supplemented her archival research with periods of fieldwork mainly devoted to oral history but including shorter spells of anthropological participant observation in association with African assistants employed by the institute. She is therefore well (...) equipped to comment on the activities of the RLI, which consisted principally of field research in social anthropology and sociology.She organizes her data in terms of “field generations,” cohorts of researchers who, although they worked alone or with one assistant at their field sites, nevertheless developed a collective identity through visits to each others' sites and through participation in seminars and conferences arranged by the successive RLI directors. Many published histories of research institutions focus on theoretical assumptions, but Lyn Schumaker instead looks more at the methods and practices of field research. Indeed, she tends to treat the divisions between theory and practice, and between theoretical and applied research, as unproblematic, while successfully avoiding any naïve positivism. She demonstrates her expertise as a historian by providing abundant details of the diversity of conflicting interests that influenced the choice of topics for investigation and of the modes of collecting data in the field. With over seven hundred footnotes, fifty interviews, and more than three hundred bibliographic items, the book serves anthropologists well.The book's title indicates its main theme. The institute started in a colonial environment in which white anthropologists who had trained in Britain, the United States, and South Africa carried out anthropological research, mainly in rural areas, using African assistants as interpreters and language teachers. Over the years more of the inquiries were made in towns than in villages, with teams of African assistants working more and more autonomously. During the same time, the colonial regime was replaced after bitter struggle by indigenous political independence. The first Zambian director was appointed in 1973, by which time the institute's research had shifted from anthropology and sociology to psychology.Schumaker uses the concept of “work culture” to explore the significance of the pattern of daily activity of researchers and assistants, thus exposing data usually neglected in anthropological monographs. She draws attention to the vigorous collective interaction that distinguished the RLI from many other research organizations: the RLI, for example, depended significantly for its success on its symbiotic link with Manchester University, where Max Gluckman, its director from 1941 to 1947, became Foundation Professor of Anthropology. Schumaker is, however, careful to point out that her book is not a history of the Manchester department, whose activities extended far beyond the RLI.The author sometimes ranges widely to relate aspects of the RLI story to topics in the literature on the history of science. For instance, she links the problems faced by Elizabeth Colson, the only female RLI director, to wider discussions of the impact of gender on professional careers. Likewise, she discusses the frequently made claim that anthropology was the “handmaid of colonialism.” Her book supplies more than ample ammunition to refute this claim and gives us an impressive and well‐documented account of how a social science research institute operated in a colonial society undergoing radical transformation. (shrink)

This speedy and elegant paperback edition of a monograph, first published in 1960, will be welcomed by Kantian student and scholar alike. Kant’s moral philosophy is usually expounded from his shorter and pedagogically independent Foundations of the Metaphysics of Morals. The second Critique has been commented on rarely, although it both develops morality from the immediate principles of the Critique of Pure Reason and in the context of the eighteenth century theories which Kant evaluated, and completes his negative metaphysic with (...) an acknowledged constructive complement, which deserves to be viewed in the complex detail of his deliberately architectonic thought. Professor Beck’s thorough exposition of both historical and philosophical detail provides an indispensable companion to such an overall view. (shrink)

This interesting commentary on the Book of Job, following upon the author's earlier and shorter English-language studies in different U.S. periodicals, renews the now almost forgotten tradition of philosophical commentaries on Biblical books. Biblical scholarship is missing from this study. Instead we have the German text of Job printed along with a profusion of notes. Sometimes these are only a few words to explain a sentence, sometimes they amount to a longer philosophical digression. Most contemporary scholars consider such commentaries amateurish (...) and outmoded; yet a non-theological reflection on a text of universal, almost supra-Biblical, content such as the book of Job is certainly justified.—M. J. V. (shrink)

This first volume of Heidegger’s Gesamtausgabe reprints his 1972 collection of the same title, but with some additions. The 1972 edition contained three works: his doctoral dissertation on "The Theory of Judgment in Psychologism", the habilitation work on "Duns Scotus’s Theory of Categories and Meaning", and the lecture on "The Concept of Time in Historical Science". The present volume adds the article "The Problem of Reality in Modern Philosophy" and the long review "New Research on Logic," both from 1912, as (...) well as shorter book reviews from 1913-14. The new volume also prints eleven notes—none of them of great importance—which the young Heidegger jotted down in the margins of the original publications. Perhaps the note on "das Gelten" on p. 166 is the most useful. The title pages reproduce Heidegger’s handwritten dedication of the Gesamtausgabe to his wife, as well as the subtitle he gave to the entire endeavor a few days before he died: "Wege—nicht Werke," "Pathways—not Works.". (shrink)

Full Professor of Law at the University of Padua and guest lecturer at the Ecole Normale Supérieure, Antonio Negri, born in 1933 and raised in Catholic Action, had to his credit an impressive series of works on law, historicism, and philosophy before launching himself upon the career of chief philosopher and theoretician of Leninist revolution in Italy. Domination and Sabotage is the fifth in a series of shorter works that have issued from his seminars at the University of Padua, all (...) published by Feltrinelli in the well-known series Opuscoli marxisti and all treating of the relation between advanced industrial society and proletarian revolution. The tract has enjoyed an extraordinarily wide circulation and has been hailed as a new Communist Manifesto. Its particular focus is on the question of Marxist method, and within that question its chief interest for the present reviewer is the secularized religious motif that runs through Negri’s thought. (shrink)

This is the only complete English translation of one of the most significant and fascinating works of the great philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer. The Parerga are six long essays; the Paralipomena are shorter writings arranged under thirty-one different subject-headings. These works won widespread attention on their publication in 1851, and helped secure lasting international fame for Schopenhauer. Their intellectual vigour, literary power, and rich diversity are still striking today. They are essential to a full understanding of Schopenhauer's thought.

Behavioral and physiological synchronization have important implications for work teams with regard to workload management, coordinated behavior and overall functioning. This study extended previous work on the nonlinear statistical structure of GSR series in dyads to larger teams and included subjective ratings of workload and contributions to problem solving. Eleven teams of 3 or 4 people played a series of six emergency response (ER) games against a single opponent. Seven of the groups worked under a time pressure instruction at the (...) beginning of the first game. The other four groups were not given that instruction until the beginning of the fourth game. The optimal lag length for the teams, which appeared to be phase-locked, was substantially shorter than that obtained previously for loosely-coupled dyads. There was a complex nonlinear effect from the time pressure manipulation on the autocorrelation over time that reflected workload and fatigue dynamics that were operating. The R2 values for linear and nonlinear statistical models differed by less than.01. The average amount of influence from one ER team member to another was 4.5-4.7% of the variance in GSR readings. ER team members were classified as drivers and empaths, based on the autocorrelations and transfer influences to and from other players in the GSR time series. Empaths were rated by their peers as making more types of positive contributions to the problem solving discussions than others, and drivers received the lowest ratings. Larger Lyapunov exponents that were calculated from the GSR time series were positively correlated with individuals’ ratings of subjective workload and were negatively correlated with leadership indicators. Several directions for further research are outlined. (shrink)

In relative clause extraposition (RCE) in English, a noun is modified by a non-adjacent RC, resulting in a discontinuous dependency, as in: Three people arrived here yesterday who were from Chicago. Although discourse focus is known to influence the choice of RCE over truth-conditionally equivalent sentences with canonical structure (Rochemont and Culicover, English focus constructions and the theory of grammar, Cambridge University Press, 1990; Takami, A functional constraint on Extraposition from NP, John Benjamins, 1999), Hawkins (Efficiency and complexity in grammars, (...) Oxford University Press, 2004) and Wasow (Postverbal behavior, CSLI Publications, 2002) have proposed in addition that RCE should be preferred when the relative clause is long (or ‘heavy’) relative to the VP because such structures are processed more efficiently in comprehension and production. The current study tested this hypothesis based on Hawkins' (Efficiency and complexity in grammars, Oxford University Press, 2004) domain minimization principles. In an acceptability judgment task, canonical sentences were rated significantly higher than extraposition sentences when the RC was light, but this difference disappeared when the RC was heavy. In a self-paced reading task, extraposition sentences were read significantly faster than canonical sentences when the RC was heavy, but there was no difference when the RC was light. In an analysis of RCE in the ICE-GB corpus, extraposed RCs were significantly longer than the VP on average, whereas canonical RCs were significantly shorter, and the proportion of sentences with extraposition decreased as the ratio of VP-to-RC length increased. These findings support Hawkins' (Efficiency and complexity in grammars, Oxford University Press, 2004) domain minimization principles and help explain why a discontinuous dependency is allowed and sometimes preferred even in a language with relatively fixed word order. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Scrivere nell'anima: verità, dialettica e persuasione in Platone; and: Oralità e scrittura in PlatoneFrancisco J. GonzalezFranco Trabattoni. Scrivere nell'anima: verità, dialettica e persuasione in Platone. Firenze: La Nouva Italia Editrice, 1994. Pp. 396. Paper, 24000 Lire.Franco Trabattoni. Oralità e scrittura in Platone. Milano: Università Degli Studi di Milano, 1999. Pp. 125. Paper, 16000 Lire.Trabattoni's masterful 1994 book, which the shorter 1999 book supplements in important ways, offers nothing (...) less than a refreshingly new and provocative interpretation of Plato's philosophy as a whole that makes it neither "conclusive-dogmatic" nor "problematic-sceptical" (7, 41-47, 161, 361-3). For Plato, on Trabattoni's account, while objective truth exists, any logos is incapable of fully expressing it and therefore refutable (158). On the other hand, dialectic can arrive at a logos sufficient (hikanos) for persuading a particular interlocutor in the context of a particular discussion (119-120), and thus for ethical and political action (330). Truth is therefore to be found onlyin dialogue (75-6, 338): that is, only where one person persuades another (249, 252, 328-9; 1999, 75). Persuasion and homologia are thus a necessary, though not sufficient condition of truth: only when capable of responding repeatedly to a wide variety of questions and objections does a persuasion deserve to be called "true" (158-9, 252, 329). This view rejects both the sophistical identification of truth with persuasion as such and the dogmatic identification of truth with universal doctrines.Because persuasion and homologia are thus essential to it, philosophy cannot be an objective science but must always be at its core a form of rhetoric (239, and thus protreptic and ad hominem, 165-6, 355, 359), which is what Trabattoni takes the Phaedrus to show (48-99). In 1999 Trabattoni brilliantly demonstrated the unity of the Phaedrus by showing how both the discussion of eros and the critique of writing are closely linked to this conception of philosophy as rhetoric (54-93). Philosophy is not, however, the kind of rhetoric that, focused on words rather than truth, fails to persuade in a way that is stable and enduring (87; 1999, 75-6).In the course of defending his "dialectical-dialogical" interpretation, Trabattoni provides an extraordinarily thorough and insightful critique of another interpretation that claims to offer a new Plato and that has become very influential in Trabattoni's native Italy: the "esotericist" interpretation, according to which fundamental questions left open by the dialogues are answered by a doctrine of principles which Plato communicated only orally. Trabattoni's 1999 book provides a very helpful account of the history and motives of the debate surrounding Plato's unwritten teachings, with regard to both their content and their significance (1-42). I see the following points of Trabattoni's critique as seriously challenging and, if unanswered, even discrediting the esotericist position: [End Page 269]1) While the esotericists interpret the critique of writing in the Phaedrus as arguing for the superiority of oral discourse as such, Trabattoni interprets it as arguing instead for the superiority of the dialogical situation in which interlocutors can be chosen and their questions and objections addressed (19-26; 1999, 83). Fixed oral doctrines would be no more dialogical than written doctrines and thus no more capable of engendering knowledge "in the soul" (63), much less of constituting this knowledge (25). What would be superior to Plato's writings, according to the Phaedrus, is a dialogue with Plato, not what Plato said orally, lifted out of its dialogical context and reported in writing by Aristotle (115; 1999, 84-5, 124). Trabattoni interprets the Seventh Letter, in his complementary accounts of 1994 and 1999, as similarly contradicting, rather than confirming, the esotericist interpretation (210-11; 1999, 116-9).2) Thomas Szlezàk has interpreted those passages where the main interlocutor deliberately leaves something out of the discussion ("Aussparungstellen") as referring to unwritten doctrines. Trabattoni argues that they are instead meant to indicate to the unknown reader, whose possible objections and questions cannot be anticipated, the possibility of proceeding further in the discussion (112-3, 182; 1999, 124). "[W]hen the dialogues are silent, they are silent always where there no... (shrink)

Three essays inquiring into the morality of political violence compose this book. In the first essay Honderich considers and contrasts the facts of inequality and violence. The facts of inequality which Honderich breaks down into three areas are: 1) inequalities in terms of life expectancy—the worst-off tenth in developed countries live considerably shorter lives than individuals in the best-off tenth, 2) inequalities having to do with economic and social life, and 3) inequalities having to do with freedoms. Once the facts (...) of inequality and violence are fully realized, then he examines the reasons for our feelings about inequality and violence, our reasoning about moral prohibitions on certain kinds of action, our reasonings about the supposed irrationality of violence, and the possibility of having certain principles of equality. (shrink)

BackgroundClinical Ethics Support (CES) services are offered to support healthcare professionals in dealing with ethically difficult situations. Evaluation of CES is important to understand if it is indeed a supportive service in order to inform and improve future implementation of CES. Yet, methods to measure outcomes of CES are scarce. In 2014, the European Moral Case Deliberation Outcomes Instrument (Euro-MCD) was developed to measure outcomes of Moral Case Deliberation (MCD). To further validate the instrument, we tested it in field studies (...) and revised it. This paper presents the Euro-MCD 2.0 and describes the revision process.MethodsThe revision process comprised an iterative dialogue among the authors as Euro-MCD-project team, including empirical findings from six Euro-MCD field-studies and input from European experts in CES and theory. Empirical findings contained perceptions and experiences of MCD outcomes among healthcare professionals who participated in MCDs in various settings in Norway, Sweden and the Netherlands. Theoretical viewpoints on CES, literature on goals of CES and MCD and ethics theory guided the interpretation of the empirical findings and final selection of MCD outcomes.ResultsThe Euro-MCD 2.0 Instrument includes three domains: Moral Competence, Moral Teamwork and Moral Action. Moral Competence consists of items about moral sensitivity, analytical skills and virtuous attitude. Moral Teamwork includes open dialogue and supportive relationships and Moral Action refers to moral decision-making and responsible care. During the revision process, we made decisions about adding and reformulating items as well as decreasing the number from 26 to 15 items. We also altered the sentence structure of items to assess the current status of outcomes (e.g. ‘now’) instead of an assumed improvement over time (e.g. ‘better’) and we omitted the question about perceived importance.ConclusionsThe Euro-MCD 2.0 is shorter, less complex and more strongly substantiated by an integration of empirical findings, theoretical reflections and dialogues with participants and experts. Use of the Euro-MCD 2.0 will facilitate evaluation of MCD and can thereby monitor and foster implementation and quality of MCD. The Euro-MCD 2.0 will strengthen future research on evaluation of outcomes of MCD. (shrink)

Bulang He,1,2 Jeffrey M Hamdorf2 1Liver and Kidney Transplant Unit, Sir Charles Gairdner Hospital, Perth, WA, Australia; 2School of Surgery, The University of Western Australia, Perth, WA, Australia Aims: The aim of this paper was to review the current status of laparoscopic/robotic kidney transplant and evaluate its feasibility and safety in comparison with conventional standard "open" kidney transplant. Methods: An electronic search of PubMed, Embase, and the Cochrane library database was performed to identify the papers between January 1980 and June (...) 2013 that reported on laparoscopic/robotic kidney transplantation. The terms "laparoscopic kidney/renal transplant" and "robotic kidney/renal transplant " were used. Cross-referencing was also used to find the further publications. Only English language reports were selected and accepted for descriptive analysis. Results: A total of 17 papers and abstracts were retrieved. There were two case-control studies of small volume. High-level evidence comparing the safety and efficacy of laparoscopic/robotic kidney transplant with conventional open kidney transplant was not available at the time of this review. Conclusion: The limited published data have suggested that laparoscopic/robotic kidney transplant may offer the advantages of less pain, better cosmesis, possible shorter hospital stay, and fewer wound complications, without compromising graft function. Accordingly, some immunosuppressive agents, such as sirolimus, might be able to be commenced earlier, after laparoscopic/robotic kidney transplant. The techniques are various at this early stage. A uniformed operative technique may be established in the near future. With refinement of laparoscopic devices, this technique may be widely employed. Further studies will be needed to demonstrate the advantages of laparoscopic/robotic kidney transplant over the conventional open kidney transplant. Keywords: laparoscopic surgery, robotic surgery. (shrink)

Published here in paperback for the first time is much of a final and long-anticipated work by R. G. Collingwood on philosophy of history, of which subject he was the greatest exponent in the English language. The original text of this work was only recently discovered. It is accompanied by shorter unpublished writings by Collingwood on historical knowledge and inquiry. A lengthy editorial introduction sets these writings in their context, and discusses philosophical questions to which they give rise.

Language plays a central role in human life. However, the term 'language' as defined in the language sciences of the 20th century and the traditions these have drawn on, have arguably, limited our thinking about what language is and does. The two inter-linked volumes of Thibault's study articulate crucially important aspects of an emerging new perspective shift on language - the Distributed Language view - that is now receiving more and more attention internationally. Rejecting the classical view that the fundamental (...) architecture of language can be localized as a number of inter-related levels of formal linguistic organization that function as the coded inputs and outputs to each other, the distributed language view argues that languaging behaviour is a bio-cultural organisation of process that is embodied, multimodal, and integrated across multiple space-time scales. Thibault argues that we need to think of human languaging as the distinctively human mode of our becoming and being selves in the extended human ecology and the kinds of experiencing that this makes possible. Paradoxically, this also means thinking about language in non-linguistic ways that break the grip of the conventional meta-languages for thinking about human languaging. Thibault's book grounds languaging in process theory: languaging and the forms of experience it actualizes is always an event, not a thing that we 'use'. In taking a distinctively interdisciplinary approach, the book relates dialogical theories of human sense-making to the distributed view of human cognition, to recent thinking about distributed language, to ecological psychology, and to languaging as inter-individual affective dynamics grounded in the subjective lives of selves. In taking this approach, the book considers the coordination of selves in social encounters, the emergent forms of self-reflexivity that characterise these encounters, and the implications for how we think of and live our human sociality, not as something that is mediated by over-arching codes and systems, but as emerging from the endogenous subjectivities of selves when they seek to coordinate with other selves and with the situations, artefacts, social institutions, and technologies that populate the extended human ecology. The two volumes aim to bring our understanding of human languaging closer to human embodiment, experience, and feeling while also showing how languaging enables humans to transcend local circumstances and thus to dialogue with cultural tradition. Volume 1 focuses on the shorter timescales of bodily dynamics in languaging activity. Volume II integrates the shorter timescales of body dynamics to the longer cultural-historical timescales of the linguistic and cultural norms and patterns to which bodily dynamics are integrated. (shrink)

SummaryAs part of a prospective controlled study of the psychosomatic effects of elective tubal sterilization, 138 women were questioned about their menstrual functioning before sterilization, and again 6 months and 12 months post-operatively, using standardized interviewing procedures. Adverse changes, including increased menstrual loss, shorter menstrual cycles and greater use of pads or tampons were reported by sterilized subjects at both of the post-operative interviews. Control subjects reported several comparable effects, although adverse changes overall were reported more commonly by sterilized women (...) than by control subjects. However, many of the reported changes appeared to be related to pre-operative contraceptive methods, although consistent increases in use of pads or tampons were found in women who had pre-operatively used neither the pill nor the IUD. (shrink)

This short essay was published by Shelterforce, the journal of affordable of housing and community development published by the National Housing Institute. It is largely taken from my law review article entitled "'We Shall Not Be Moved': Eminent Domain, Urban Redevelopment and the Socioeconomics of Just Compensation" published by St. John's Law Review. That article can be downloaded from SSRN at http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=904224 This shorter piece focuses on the two proposals outlined in the second part of the law review article that (...) are designed to curb abuses of eminent domain in the urban redevelopment context without destroying its effectiveness as a tool for community revitalization and, even, community empowerment. Specifically, homeowners should not be subject to eminent domain pursuant to a redevelopment plan until the majority of them have approved the plan. To further solidify resident ownership of redevelopment, the right to continued residency in the community should be protected by amending relocation laws to guarantee an alienable entitlement to be offered replacement housing in the redeveloped district area. Together, these two legislative reforms express a more nuanced balance of property and liability rules that will facilitate a more productive interface between community residents and redevelopment officials. (shrink)

Richard M Weaver, a thinker and writer celebrated for his unsparing diagnoses and realistic remedies for the ills of our age, is known largely through a few of his works that remain in print. This new collection of Weaver's shorter writings, assembled by Ted J Smith III, Weaver's leading biographer, presents many long-out-of-print and never-before-published works that give new range and depth to Weaver's sweeping thought. Included are eleven previously unpublished essays and speeches that were left in near-final form at (...) the time of Weaver's death in 1963. In all, there are some one hundred and twenty-six essays, speeches, book reviews, and editorials. (shrink)

Over the past 35 years, patients have suffered from a largely hidden epidemic of side effects from drugs that usually have few offsetting benefits. The pharmaceutical industry has corrupted the practice of medicine through its influence over what drugs are developed, how they are tested, and how medical knowledge is created. Since 1906, heavy commercial influence has compromised congressional legislation to protect the public from unsafe drugs. The authorization of user fees in 1992 has turned drug companies into the FDA's (...) prime clients, deepening the regulatory and cultural capture of the agency. Industry has demanded shorter average review times and, with less time to thoroughly review evidence, increased hospitalizations and deaths have resulted. Meeting the needs of the drug companies has taken priority over meeting the needs of patients. Unless this corruption of regulatory intent is reversed, the situation will continue to deteriorate. We offer practical suggestions including: separating the funding of clinical trials from their conduct, analysis, and publication; independent FDA leadership; full public funding for all FDA activities; measures to discourage R&D on drugs with few, if any, new clinical benefits; and the creation of a National Drug Safety Board. (shrink)

Temporal binding refers to a phenomenon whereby the time interval between a cause and its effect is perceived as shorter than the same interval separating two unrelated events. We examined the developmental profile of this phenomenon by comparing the performance of groups of children (aged 6-7-, 7-8-, and 9-10- years) and adults on a novel interval estimation task. In Experiment 1, participants made judgments about the time interval between i) their button press and a rocket launch, and ii) a non-causal (...) predictive signal and rocket launch. In Experiment 2, an additional causal condition was included in which participants made judgments about the interval between an experimenter’s button press and the launch of a rocket. Temporal binding was demonstrated consistently and did not change in magnitude with age: estimates of delay were shorter in causal contexts for both adults and children. Additionally, the magnitude of the binding effect was greater when participants themselves were the cause of an outcome compared to when they were mere spectators. This suggests that although causality underlies the binding effect, intentional action may modulate its magnitude. Again, this was true of both adults and children. Taken together, these results are the first to suggest that the binding effect is present and developmentally constant from childhood into adulthood. (shrink)

Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) is an urgent threat to global public health and development. Mitigating this threat requires substantial short-term action on key AMR priorities. While international legal agreements are the strongest mechanism for ensuring collaboration among countries, negotiating new international agreements can be a slow process. In the second article in this special issue, we consider whether harnessing existing international legal agreements offers an opportunity to increase collective action on AMR goals in the short-term. We highlight ten AMR priorities and (...) several strategies for achieving these goals using existing “legal hooks” that draw on elements of international environmental, trade and health laws governing related matters that could be used as they exist or revised to include AMR. We also consider the institutional mandates of international authorities to highlight areas where additional steps could be taken on AMR without constitutional changes. Overall, we identify 37 possible mechanisms to strengthen AMR governance using the International Health Regulations, the Agreement on the Application of Sanitary and Phytosanitary Measures, the Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights, the Agreement on Technical Barriers to Trade, the International Convention on the Harmonized Commodity Description and Coding System, and the Basel, Rotterdam, and Stockholm conventions. Although we identify many shorter-term opportunities for addressing AMR using existing legal hooks, none of these options are capable of comprehensively addressing all global governance challenges related to AMR, such that they should be pursued simultaneously with longer-term approaches including a dedicated international legal agreement on AMR. (shrink)

A key aim in biology and psychology is to identify fundamental principles underpinning the behavior of animals, including humans. Analyses of human language and the behavior of a range of non-human animal species have provided evidence for a common pattern underlying diverse behavioral phenomena: Words follow Zipf's law of brevity (the tendency of more frequently used words to be shorter), and conformity to this general pattern has been seen in the behavior of a number of other animals. It has been (...) argued that the presence of this law is a sign of efficient coding in the information theoretic sense. However, no strong direct connection has been demonstrated between the law and compression, the information theoretic principle of minimizing the expected length of a code. Here, we show that minimizing the expected code length implies that the length of a word cannot increase as its frequency increases. Furthermore, we show that the mean code length or duration is significantly small in human language, and also in the behavior of other species in all cases where agreement with the law of brevity has been found. We argue that compression is a general principle of animal behavior that reflects selection for efficiency of coding. (shrink)