This article is written from within the Catholic, and more particularly the Augustinian/Thomist tradition of moral theology. It analyses the response of the Catholic Magisterium to the prospect of germline-genetic engineering (GGE). This is a very new issue and the Church has little definitive teaching on it. The statements of Popes and Vatican congregations or commissions have not settled the key questions. An analysis of theological themes drawn from secular writers points beyond pragmatic safety considerations toward intrinsic ethical limits to (...) GGE. Given the impossibility of identifying would-have-been-created persons who would be “treated” by this intervention, altering the human genome for the sake of future generations cannot be regarded as “therapy.” Further theological considerations suggest that GGE may not be morally permissible, even in the case of identifiable genetic diseases. This is an area where more theological reflection is needed. (shrink)

It is characteristic of A. to use words that occur only once in Homer, and such a word is ρρητος. In Od. 14. 466 it describes the remark that is better left unspoken, πέρ τ' ρρητον μεινον. But it has the distinction of occurring once also in Hesiod, and this time it is used of men without fame, ητοί τ' ρρητοί τε Διòς μεγάλοιο κατι . It is clearly this line in Hesiod's proem that A. is echoing in his own, (...) and in the same kind of sense, though, as Martin points out, A. ‘renverse en quelque sorte une expression d'Hésiode’. In the Phaenomena it is Zeus who is always being celebrated by men. The idiom with ν and negative is used by Plato, Lg. 793 b, οτε νόμους δε προσαγορεύειν ατ οτε ρρητα ν, and it may have been a familiar expression. But here in A., with the emphatic οδέποτε, it does seem rather contrived, and this may account for the fanciful explanation in the scholia that Zeus here represents the air we use every time we speak. The phrasing is certainly designed to give the maximum emphasis to ρρητον, which comes in enjambement at the beginning of the second line and is then followed by a strong sense pause. It is tempting, therefore, to suggest that the poet is indulging in a kind of pun on the sound of his own name, which usually has a long α in its first syllable and sometines η in its second: e.g. Call. Epigr. 27. 4 ρήτου σύντονος γρυπνίη, and Leonidas, A.P. 9. 25. 1 γράμμα τόδ' ρήτοιο δαήμονος. Other Hellenistic poets have contrived puns on the derivation oftheir names: Philodemusin A.P. 5. 115, Meleager in A.P. 12. 165, and Crates in A.P. 11. 218. 4. Closer to A. is the story recorded in the ancient biographical tradition of Antigonus complimenting the poet with the pun εδοξóτερον ποιες τòν Eδοξον. (shrink)

The traditional interpretation of line 149 understands in praecipiti as a metaphor expressing the height that vice has reached in Juvenal's day. Vice is now ‘at its zenith’, ‘at its highest point’, ‘auf demGipfel’, ‘at its acme’, ‘a son comble’, ‘at a climax’, ‘at a dizzy height’. Lewis and Short have a special sub-heading, II. B. 3. b., for this example of praeceps and translate ‘at its point of culmination’.

THE clue to the meaning and interpretation of this poem, which has long been the despair of critics, is, I believe, to be found in a variant on line 9, faithfully preserved in the Codex Sangermanensis and yet unaccountably neglected hitherto. G's text I transcribe from M. Chatelain's photo-lithograph facsimile of the manuscript.

Contained in this rather short but quite excellent Clarke F. Ansley Award winning work is a skillful presentation of an intriguing thesis: Spinoza’s definition and criterion of truth follows neither the strictly correspondence nor the strictly coherence lines which many commentators have suspected. Rather, says Mark, Spinoza’s doctrine follows the "ontological" view of truth, prevalent in ancient and medieval times. To be true is to be a being, a thing which "is." It is the author’s contention that there are (...) texts which seem to be evidence in favor of interpreting Spinoza’s doctrine along the lines of a correspondence theory, and there are still other texts which seem to betray a kind of family resemblance to the coherence theory of truth. Most commentators, says Mark, have either focused their entire attention on one or the other of these sets of texts, or else pointed out the discrepancy and went on to something else. But what Mark here suggests to us is a rather bold and interesting approach, which, to Mark’s mind, accomplishes the task of facing squarely both sets of texts without compromising either, and without reducing Spinoza to contradiction. (shrink)

Contained in this rather short but quite excellent Clarke F. Ansley Award winning work is a skillful presentation of an intriguing thesis: Spinoza’s definition and criterion of truth follows neither the strictly correspondence nor the strictly coherence lines which many commentators have suspected. Rather, says Mark, Spinoza’s doctrine follows the "ontological" view of truth, prevalent in ancient and medieval times. To be true is to be a being, a thing which "is." It is the author’s contention that there are (...) texts which seem to be evidence in favor of interpreting Spinoza’s doctrine along the lines of a correspondence theory, and there are still other texts which seem to betray a kind of family resemblance to the coherence theory of truth. Most commentators, says Mark, have either focused their entire attention on one or the other of these sets of texts, or else pointed out the discrepancy and went on to something else. But what Mark here suggests to us is a rather bold and interesting approach, which, to Mark’s mind, accomplishes the task of facing squarely both sets of texts without compromising either, and without reducing Spinoza to contradiction. (shrink)

The goal of perception is to infer the most plausible source of sensory stimulation. Unisensory perception of temporal order, however, appears to require no inference, since the order of events can be uniquely determined from the order in which sensory signals arrive. Here we demonstrate a novel perceptual illusion that casts doubt on this intuition: in three studies (N=607) the experienced event timings are determined by causality in real-time. Adult observers viewed a simple three-item sequence ACB, which is typically remembered (...) as ABC (Bechlivanidis & Lagnado, 2016), in line with principles of causality. When asked to indicate the time at which events B and C occurred, points of subjective simultaneity shifted so that the assumed cause B appeared earlier and the assumed effect C later, despite full attention and repeated viewings. This first demonstration of causality reversing perceived temporal order cannot be explained by post-perceptual distortion, lapsed attention, or saccades. (shrink)

A line of research is emerging investigating the private sector impacts and dependencies on critical biodiversity and ecosystem services, and related business risks and opportunities. While the ecosystem services narrative is being forwarded globally as a key paradigm for promoting business sustainability, there is scarce knowledge of how these issues are considered at managerial level. This study thus investigates managerial views of corporate sustainability after the ecosystem services concept. We analyse interviews conducted with 20 managers from domestic and international forestry (...) companies operating with a plantation-based business model in China. Content analysis was employed to analyse the data, with a focus on four key areas: interviewee familiarity with the ecosystem services concept; their views of corporate dependencies and impacts on ecosystem services; related business risks and opportunities; and viability of existing instruments and practices that can be employed in detecting and addressing business impacts and dependencies on ecosystem services. Through an inductive approach to the empirical findings, we refined a framework that holds operational value for developing company response strategies to ecosystem services impact/dependence assessment, ensuring that all issues are addressed comprehensively, and that related risks and opportunities are properly acknowledged. (shrink)

This article investigates the claims made in the dedicatory epistle to Girolamo Manfredi’s De homine to have effected an Italian translation of various earlier works. First published in 1474, the De homine is strongly dependent on the pseudo-Aristotelian Problems, for which several translations into Latin were available by Manfredi’s time as well as the highly influential commentary by Pietro d’Abano. Focusing on one particular section of the De homine, on voice, this article offers an analysis of the various sources used (...) and of the extent to which Manfredi is indeed offering a translation or something different. This study concludes that Manfredi closely followed the translation by Bartolomeo da Messina and the commentary by Pietro d’Abano; it finds no clear evidence of his use of the translations by George of Trebizond or Theodore Gaza. Other sources used include especially Rhazes’ Ad Almansorem. (shrink)

This article investigates the claims made in the dedicatory epistle to Girolamo Manfredi’s De homine to have effected an Italian translation of various earlier works. First published in 1474, the De homine is strongly dependent on the pseudo-Aristotelian Problems, for which several translations into Latin were available by Manfredi’s time as well as the highly influential commentary by Pietro d’Abano. Focusing on one particular section of the De homine, on voice, this article offers an analysis of the various sources used (...) and of the extent to which Manfredi is indeed offering a translation or something different. This study concludes that Manfredi closely followed the translation by Bartolomeo da Messina and the commentary by Pietro d’Abano; it finds no clear evidence of his use of the translations by George of Trebizond or Theodore Gaza. Other sources used include especially Rhazes’ Ad Almansorem. (shrink)

Down to the present century the Niobe of Aeschylus was represented by eight significant manuscript fragments containing some twenty-three lines. Even in this condition it deservedly attracted the interest and attention of scholars; and in 1933 this interest was intensified by the publication in Florence by Vitelli and Norsa of a mutilated papyrus of twenty-one lines embodying two of the earlier fragments.

Down to the present century the Niobe of Aeschylus was represented by eight significant manuscript fragments containing some twenty-three lines. Even in this condition it deservedly attracted the interest and attention of scholars; and in 1933 this interest was intensified by the publication in Florence by Vitelli and Norsa of a mutilated papyrus of twenty-one lines embodying two of the earlier fragments.

The different aspects of floral evolution—Angiosperm descent, floral morphology and pollination ecology—are discussed on the basis of the anthocorm theory of the angiospermous flower. Opposed ideas are critically compared and rejected mainly on account of several inconsistencies and flaws in old floral concepts. Floral evolution passed from a very early phase of dicliny, anemophily and aphananthy of the anthocorm to a phase of incipient entomophily soon associated with a partial sex reversal within the anthocorm. This second phase culminated in the (...) monoclinous and primarily zoophilous flower types, whereas other floral types, more particularly the primarily anemophilous, diclinous flowers, are the direct descendants of the anthocorms of the initial phase. The second phase gave rise to at least two morphologically different flower types and two separate semophyletic lines of floral evolution , in each of which the primary zoophily is almost always associated with the development of intrafloral semaphylls usually of androecial derivation. Early flower types were aphananthous and clearly anthocormoid and assumed the morphology and other characteristics of a true flower by contractions, condensations, readjustments, oligomerisations, reductions and modifications leading to the great variety of adaptive floral patterns.Divers aspects de l'évolution de la fleur — à savoir la descendance des Angiospermes, la morphologie de la fleur, et l'écologie de la pollination — sont discutés à partir de l'hypothèse florale de l'anthocorme. Les opinions opposées, après d'être comparées et critisées, sont rejetées principalement à cause des inconséquences et inconsistances des anciens théorèmes morphologiques concernant l'origine de la fleur. L'évolution de la fleur commençait avec une phase d'antan de diclinie, anémophilie et aphananthie, et s'avançait graduellement dans la direction d'une phase entomophilique initiale, bientôt accompagnée d'un renversement de sexe partiel à l'intérieur de l'anthocorm. La deuxième phase culminait vers les types florals monoclines avec zoophilie primaire pendant que des autres types florals, particulièrement les fleurs diclines avec anémophilie primaire, sont les descendants directs du stade initiale de l'anthocorme. A partir de la phase II , au moins deux types florals différents et aussi deux sémophylèses florals séparés se développaient. Dans chacun de ses phases III et III A la zoophilie primaire est presque toujours accouplée avec l'origine des sémaphylles intrafloraux le plus souvent dérivés des étamines. Les anciens types des fleurs ayant été aphanantique et au début encore nettement anthocormoïdes , graduellement prenaient la forme d'une des plusieurs types floraux adaptifs par une contraction de l'axe florale et par l'entassement, l'oligomérisation et la modification des pièces de la fleur.Die drei Aspekte der Evolution der Blüte — die Abstammungsgeschichte der Angiospermen, Blütenmorphologie und Bestäubungsökologie — werden, ausgehend von der Anthokormtheorie der Angiospermenblüte, eingehend besprochen. Entgegengesetzte Meinungen werden kritisch verglichen und hauptsächlich auf Grund mehrerer Strittigkeiten und Fehler der älteren blütenmorphologischen Axiomen abgelehnt. Die Evolution der Blüte fing an mit einer frühen Phase mit Diklinie, Anemophilie und Aphananthie des Anthokorms und schritt allmählich weiter in die Richtung von beginnender Entomophilie, bald mit einer partiellen Geschlechtsinversion innerhalb des Anthokorms zusammengehend. Diese zweite Phase kulminierte in den monoklinen und primär zoophilen Blütentypen, während andere Blütengestalten, besonders die primär anemophilen und diklinen Angiospermenblüten, die unmittelbaren Abkömmlinge der Initialphase des Anthokorms sind. Aus der zweiten Phase entwickelten sich wenigstens zwei morphologisch differenzierte Blütenformen und auch zwei geschiedene Blütensemophylesen , in jeder die primäre Zoophilie fast immer verbunden ist mit der Entwicklung von intrafloralen und meistens von Staubblättern angeleiteten Semaphyllen . Die frühen Blütentypen waren aphanantisch und anfänglich noch deutlich anthokormoid und nahmen allmählich die entgültige Gestalt von einer der vielen adaptiven Blütentypen an durch eine Verkürzung der Blütenachse, und durch ein Zusammendrängen, Oligomerisation und Abänderung der Blütenteile. (shrink)

Recent research has focused on business as a mediating institution that can influence society while engaging in the traditional profit-making and value generation functions. This work includes Professors Fort's and Schipani's arguments about how business may be able to play a role in promoting more peaceful societies, and other research addressing how businesses might serve a role in reducing violence in society and the workplace. Although there is a significant body of scholarship on the role of business in reducing violence (...) in society, there is little research on concrete steps for businesses to take to achieve this goal. This article attempts to begin to fill that void. As identified by Fort and Schipani, business may promote more peaceful societies by encouraging a sense of community. We argue that one way to reach that goal is for business to provide what we denote as complementary alternative benefits (CABs), to its workforce. In this article, we advocate for businesses to offer CABs which focus on sustaining the health, reducing the stress, and improving the camaraderie of its workforce. We argue that business can use these benefits to promote a healthy, less-stressed, and collegial workforce that is less prone to resolve conflicts by violence. Further, we examine the role business plays in promoting more peaceful societies and how employer-initiated stress reduction programs are consistent with both business ethics and peace-building principles. Finally, using case studies we demonstrate how CABs may also reduce costs related to absenteeism and turnover, and thus improve the bottom line. (shrink)

Multilevel research strategies characterize contemporary molecular inquiry into biological systems. We outline conceptual, methodological, and explanatory dimensions of these multilevel strategies in microbial ecology, systems biology, protein research, and developmental biology. This review of emerging lines of inquiry in these fields suggests that multilevel research in molecular life sciences has significant implications for philosophical understandings of explanation, modeling, and representation.

The “erasing race” effect is the reduction of the salience of “race” as an alliance cue when recalling coalition membership, once more accurate information about coalition structure is presented. We conducted a random-effects model meta-analysis of this effect using five United States studies (containing nine independent effect sizes). The effect was found (ρ = 0.137, K = 9, 95% CI = 0.085 to 0.188). However, no decline effect or moderation effects were found (a “decline effect” in this context would be (...) a decrease in the effect size over time). Furthermore, we found little evidence of publication bias. Synthetically correcting the effect size for bias stemming from the use of an older method for calculating error base rates reduced the magnitude of the effect, but the it remained significant. Taken together, these findings indicate that the “erasing race” effect generalizes quite well across experimental contexts and would, therefore, appear to be quite robust. We reinterpret the theoretical basis for these effects in line with Brunswikian evolutionary-developmental theory and present a series of predictions to guide future research in this area. (shrink)

This paper presents two proposals to improve the text of an important passage in Manilius’ Astronomica, 1.456–68, in which the poet explains natura's rationale for arranging the stars in such a way as to create only a partial, rather than a full, representation of the constellation figures. The text of line 464 is repunctuated in order to give proper emphasis to natura's parsimonious disposition of the stars. Scholars have noted that the sentence atque ignibus ignes | respondent in 466–7 is (...) not consistent with the poet's account of how the constellation figures were delineated nor with what an observer sees in the heavens. The conjecture insignibus (neuter plural), for the transmitted atque ignibus in line 466, is offered to indicate that it is the distinctive features (insignia) of the figures to which specific stars correspond and by means of which the figures are described. Attention is also drawn to a striking paronomasia in 466–7, designat … insignibus ignes, which creates a meaningful phonetic constellation of celestial fire (ignis), sign (signum) and insigne (distinctive feature) and thus provides evidence, on the linguistic level, of natura's providentia. (shrink)

A total of 1918 loci, detected by the hybridization of 938 expressed sequence tag unigenes from 26 Triticeae cDNA libraries, were mapped to wheat homoeologous group 4 chromosomes using a set of deletion, ditelosomic, and nulli-tetrasomic lines. The 1918 EST loci were not distributed uniformly among the three group 4 chromosomes; 41, 28, and 31% mapped to chromosomes 4A, 4B, and 4D, respectively. This pattern is in contrast to the cumulative results of EST mapping in all homoeologous groups, as (...) reported elsewhere, that found the highest proportion of loci mapped to the B genome. Sixty-five percent of these 1918 loci mapped to the long arms of homoeologous group 4 chromosomes, while 35% mapped to the short arms. The distal regions of chromosome arms showed higher numbers of loci than the proximal regions, with the exception of 4DL. This study confirmed the complex structure of chromosome 4A that contains two reciprocal translocations and two inversions, previously identified. An additional inversion in the centromeric region of 4A was revealed. A consensus map for homoeologous group 4 was developed from 119 ESTs unique to group 4. Forty-nine percent of these ESTs were found to be homoologous to sequences on rice chromosome 3, 12% had matches with sequences on other rice chromosomes, and 39% had no matches with rice sequences at all. Limited homology was found between wheat ESTs on homoeologous group 4 and the Arabidopsis genome. Forty-two percent of the homoeologous group 4 ESTs could be classified into functional categories on the basis of blastX searches against all protein databases. (shrink)

The workplace is characterised by numerous contracts of agreement that an employee and employer must sign to formalise their employment relationship. The informal agreement, known as the psychological contract, is often overlooked, although it is pivotal in determining the engagement of employees in an organisation. This study aimed to probe the perceptions line managers have of the influence of the psychological contract on employee engagement in a South African bank with a particular focus on how the integration of technologies from (...) the Fourth Industrial Revolution may have impacted the workplace in the banking sector. The study was carried out using a qualitative research approach. A purposive random sampling strategy was used to select participants who were interviewed using semi-structured, one-on-one interviews. The data collected were analysed using thematic analysis, and verbatim quotes were used to support emergent themes. The findings of the study revealed that continuous change in the world, exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic, influences employee expectations. Thus, organisations must be able to quickly adapt and adjust their talent attraction and retention mechanisms. Talent management, the nature of the business, structure and operations, the nature of the work environment, and emotional needs are the themes that emerged from the study. With the constant change in the world of work, including industry disruptions continually imposed by the 4IR and other factors, employees’ expectations are ever-changing. Thus, organisations must keep adapting to attract and retain talent. This study adds value by addressing various aspects aligned with competitively adjusting to the current and future world of work. (shrink)

The field of AI safety aims to prevent increasingly capable artificially intelligent systems from causing humans harm. Research on moral alignment is widely thought to offer a promising safety strategy: if we can equip AI systems with appropriate ethical rules, according to this line of thought, they'll be unlikely to disempower, destroy or otherwise seriously harm us. Deontological morality looks like a particularly attractive candidate for an alignment target, given its popularity, relative technical tractability and commitment to harm-avoidance principles. I (...) argue that the connection between moral alignment and safe behavior is more tenuous than many have hoped. In general, AI systems can possess either of these properties in the absence of the other, and we should favor safety when the two conflict. In particular, advanced AI systems governed by standard versions of deontology need not be especially safe. (shrink)

This study investigates the ability of individuals with psychopathy to perform passive avoidance learning and whether this ability is modulated by level of reinforcement/punishment. Nineteen psychopathic and 21 comparison individuals, as defined by the Hare Psychopathy Checklist Revised (Hare, 1991), were given a passive avoidance task with a graded reinforcement schedule. Response to each rewarding number gained a point reward specific to that number (i.e., 1, 700, 1400 or 2000 points). Response to each punishing number lost a point punishment specific (...) to that number (i.e., the loss of 1, 700, 1400 or 2000 points). In line with predictions, individuals with psychopathy made more passive avoidance errors than the comparison individuals. In addition, while the performance of both groups was modulated by level of reward, only the performance of the comparison population was modulated by level of punishment. The results are interpreted with reference to a computational account of the emotional learning impairment in individuals with psychopathy. (shrink)

Since the discovery of incommensurability in ancient Greece, arithmeticism and geometricism constantly switched roles. After ninetieth century arithmeticism Frege eventually returned to the view that mathematics is really entirely geometry. Yet Poincaré, Brouwer, Weyl and Bernays are mathematicians opposed to the explication of the continuum purely in terms of the discrete. At the beginning of the twenty-first century ‘continuum theorists’ in France (Longo, Thom and others) believe that the continuum precedes the discrete. In addition the last 50 years witnessed the (...) revival of infinitesimals (Laugwitz and Robinson—non-standard analysis) and—based upon category theory—the rise of smooth infinitesimal analysis and differential geometry. The spatial whole-parts relation is irreducible (Russell) and correlated with the spatial order of simultaneity. The human imaginative capacities are connected to the characterization of points and lines (Euclid) and to the views of Aristotle (the irreducibility of the continuity of a line to its points), which remained in force until the ninetieth century. Although Bolzano once more launched an attempt to arithmetize continuity, it appears as if Weierstrass, Cantor and Dedekind finally succeeded in bringing this ideal to its completion. Their views are assessed by analyzing the contradiction present in Grünbaum’s attempt to explain the continuum as an aggregate of unextended elements (degenerate intervals). Alternatively a line-stretch is characterized as a one-dimensional spatial subject, given at once in its totality (as a whole) and delimited by two points—but it is neither a breadthless length nor the (shortest) distance between two points. The overall aim of this analysis is to account for the uniqueness of discreteness and continuity by highlighting their mutual interconnections exemplified in the nature of a line as a one-dimensional spatial subject, while acknowledging that points are merely spatial objects which are always dependent upon an extended spatial subject. Instead of attempting to reduce continuity to discreteness or discreteness to continuity, a third alternative is explored: accept the irreducibility of number and space and then proceed by analyzing their unbreakable coherence. The argument may be seen as exploring some implications of the view of John Bell, namely that the “continuous is an autonomous notion, not explicable in terms of the discrete.” Bell points out that initially Brouwer, in his dissertation of 1907, “regards continuity and discreteness as complementary notions, neither of which is reducible to each other.”. (shrink)

This article argues that an intentional acrostic spanning the first five lines of Propertius’ elegy for Cynthia's birthday (3.10), MANE[T], contributes significantly to the poignancy and purpose of the poem. MANE can be read as māne, ‘in the morning’, or manē, ‘stay!’, both of which emphasize the fleeting nature of dawn—and of Cynthia's youthful beauty. MANET can suggest both ‘[art] remains’ and ‘[death] awaits’. All four of these meanings work together to capture the tension between human transience and artistic (...) immortality. The theme is further enhanced by a balancing reverse telestich at the poem's end, ROSA RVES (‘[a] rose, you will fall to ruin’). (shrink)

Si indagano le elaborazioni prodotte da Savonarola e da Valenza sulla filosofia morale, cercando di porre in evidenza elementi comuni e punti di distanza tra i due, soffermandosi in particolare sul modo in cui essi studiarono il rapporto tra etica dei pagani ed etica cristiana, prendendo le distanze dalla posizione assunta precedentemente da Tommaso d'Aquino. Le opere studiate sono il Compendium philosophiae moralis di Savonarola e il Compendium Ethicorum Aristotelis scritto da Valenza. Si giunge così a comprendere che, sebbene l'insegnamento (...) impartito negli studia dell'ordine domenicano non lo prevedesse strettamente, l'Etica e la Politica di Aristotele erano ben conosciute dai domenicani del 1400, compendiate e studiate spesso a partire proprio dai commenti dell'Aquinate. (shrink)

Plato recognizes faction as a serious threat to any political community. The Republic’s proposed solution to faction relies on bringing citizens into a relation of ὁμόνοια. On the dominant line of interpretation, ὁμόνοια is understood along the lines of “explicit agreement” or “consensus.” Commentators have consequently thought that the καλλίπολις becomes resistant to faction when all or most of its members explicitly agree with one another about certain fundamentals of their political association—for example, they agree regarding who should govern (...) in the καλλίπολις.We argue that ὁμόνοια in Plato’s political philosophy has been under-analyzed and misunderstood. We show that, in Alcibiades I, rendering ὁμόνοια simply as agreement results in confusion about how expertise, political friendship, and civic unity are compossible in a well-ordered political community. In our view, Plato refines and adds philosophical depth to the concept of ὁμόνοια in the Republic. We claim that ὁμόνοια is a relation of psychological “like-mindedness” that obtains among members of different occupational classes in a political community. A community is rendered resistant to faction, then, when its members are, in some significant way, psychologically alike. Additionally, while Platonic ὁμόνοια can naturally be expected to result in substantive agreement among citizens, we argue that Platonic ὁμόνοια does not consist solely in agreement. (shrink)

The first look at the philosophy behind the Iron Man comics and movies, timed for the release of Iron Man 2 in March 2010 On the surface, Iron Man appears to be a straightforward superhero, another rich guy fighting crime with fancy gadgets. But beneath the shiny armor and flashy technology lies Tony Stark, brilliant inventor and eccentric playboy, struggling to balance his desires, addictions, and relationships with his duties as the Armored Avenger. Iron Man and Philosophy explores the many (...) philosophical issues that emerge from the essential conflicts found in the decades of Iron Man stories in comics and movies. What kind of moral compass does Tony Stark have? Is Iron Man responsible for the death of Captain America after the Marvel Universe “Civil War”? Should people like Stark run the world? How does Tony’s alcoholism impact his performance as Iron Man, and what does it say about moral character? Ultimately, what can Iron Man teach us about the role of technology in society? As absorbing as Iron Man comic books and movies, Iron Man and Philosophy: Gives you a new perspective on Iron Man characters, story lines, and themes Shows what philosophical heavy hitters such as Aristotle, Locke, and Heidegger can teach us about Tony Stark/Iron Man Considers issues such as addiction, personal responsibility, the use of technology, and the role of government Whether you've been reading the comic books for years or have gotten into Iron Man through the movies, Iron Man and Philosophy is a must-have companion for every fan. (shrink)

Formal models of argumentation have been investigated in several areas, from multi-agent systems and artificial intelligence (AI) to decision making, philosophy and law. In artificial intelligence, logic-based models have been the standard for the representation of argumentative reasoning. More recently, the standard logic-based models have been shown equivalent to standard connectionist models. This has created a new line of research where (i) neural networks can be used as a parallel computational model for argumentation and (ii) neural networks can be used (...) to combine argumentation, quantitative reasoning and statistical learning. At the same time, non-standard logic models of argumentation started to emerge. In this paper, we propose a connectionist cognitive model of argumentation that accounts for both standard and non-standard forms of argumentation. The model is shown to be an adequate framework for dealing with standard and non-standard argumentation, including joint-attacks, argument support, ordered attacks, disjunctive attacks, meta-level attacks, self-defeating attacks, argument accrual and uncertainty. We show that the neural cognitive approach offers an adequate way of modelling all of these different aspects of argumentation. We have applied the framework to the modelling of a public prosecution charging decision as part of a real legal decision making case study containing many of the above aspects of argumentation. The results show that the model can be a useful tool in the analysis of legal decision making, including the analysis of what-if questions and the analysis of alternative conclusions. The approach opens up two new perspectives in the short-term: the use of neural networks for computing prevailing arguments efficiently through the propagation in parallel of neuronal activations, and the use of the same networks to evolve the structure of the argumentation network through learning (e.g. to learn the strength of arguments from data). (shrink)

ABSTRACTA distinction between hard-to-shake but rational convictions, on the one hand, and the rationality that calculates causal and logical consequences, on the other hand, can generate questions for the history of ethics. Most moral thinkers draw some such distinction but the contours of the line differ greatly, and, in drawing the line, past moral thinkers tend to be influenced by their own deeply held principles, which in turn tend to reflect their social world. Questions about where the line between values (...) and instrumental calculation are drawn and about the effect on this of the moral thinkers own social world are applied by way of illustration to Thomas Aquinas and Kant. The paper attempts to use Weberian social theory to elucidate a theme in the history of ethics, making every effort to keep the two kinds of theory distinct. (shrink)

Lexical Semantics is about the meaning of words. Although obviously a central concern of linguistics, the semantic behaviour of words has been unduly neglected in the current literature, which has tended to emphasize sentential semantics and its relation to formal systems of logic. In this textbook D. A. Cruse establishes in a principled and disciplined way the descriptive and generalizable facts about lexical relations that any formal theory of semantics will have to encompass. Among the topics covered in depth are (...) idiomaticity, lexical ambiguity, synonymy, hierarchical relations such as hyponymy and meronymy, and various types of oppositeness. Syntagmatic relations are also treated in some detail. The discussions are richly illustrated by examples drawn almost entirely from English. Although a familiarity with traditional grammar is assumed, readers with no technical linguistic background will find the exposition always accessible. All readers with an interest in semantics will find in this original text not only essential background but a stimulating new perspective on the field. (shrink)

Requests for support in professional changes are getting more and more numerous. Regarding jobs concerned with caring for others, therapeutic education needs to be spread into new approaches requiring social and human sciences (Tourette-Turgis, 2015 ; Chalmel, 2015). These requests lead to alterations in professional practices and changes in educational devices. This chapter deals with a direct observation of effective practices addressed to young patients and also implies the training of nurses through experiences. It also discusses ways of scientific collaboration (...) between female researchers in different scientific fields of the medical body leading the latter to alter their practices by creating pedagogic instruments or new tools for training. This inventive conception deriving from these exchanges leaning on experiences and skills previously built up and linked together to help devices development. Our contribution deals with and discusses the transformation of state nurses functions through these analyses and towards actions which do not only concern body care but a way of teaching healthy life style. The themes under study concerns the passing on and transferring experiences and responsibility when directing cessions from cardiology education to the therapeutic education nurse. (shrink)

In this article I describe the analytic approach adopted by Peters, his colleagues and followers of the ?London line? in the 1960s and 1970s and argue that, even in those times, other approaches to philosophy of education were being valued and practised. I show that Peters and his colleagues later became aware of the need for philosophy of education to become aware of and take in hand a new set of agendas and address the list of substantive issues inherent in (...) the contexts and political considerations beginning to impinge on education in the 1980s and beyond. I argue that there is much to be said for adopting a postempiricist problem-solving approach and point to the ways in which an evolutionary epistemology may be usefully applied to many of the problems of modern educational discourse. But I also seek to show how the abiding axiological concerns of Peters may still serve as the substantive background and definition of the value emphasis of the aims and directions in which philosophers of education are currently still working. (shrink)

10. 2. lugentem timentemque custodire solemus, ne solitudine male utatur. Reynolds does not mention Haupt's conjecture amentemque, which is certainly on the right lines. Bereaved persons may need watching because in the violence of their grief they may do themselves an injury , and the same applies to madmen or to anyone suspected of suicidal inclinations custodio). It does not apply to persons afraid; they may sometimes be glad of company, but do not require surveillance. My only doubt is (...) whether amentem, seldom used of actual insanity, is the right word. Perhaps dementem or furentem, which makes a better match with the participle lugentem. (shrink)

10. 2. lugentem timentemque custodire solemus, ne solitudine male utatur. Reynolds does not mention Haupt's conjecture amentemque, which is certainly on the right lines. Bereaved persons may need watching because in the violence of their grief they may do themselves an injury, and the same applies to madmen or to anyone suspected of suicidal inclinations custodio). It does not apply to persons afraid; they may sometimes be glad of company, but do not require surveillance. My only doubt is whether (...) amentem, seldom used of actual insanity, is the right word. Perhaps dementem or furentem, which makes a better match with the participle lugentem. (shrink)

This essay is about experience, and not only about ideas. I have been drawn to write about John Cameron Mitchell’s Shortbus for a number of reasons: First, I find his work to be part of a new turn in LGBT art and media that take queer lives as a point of departure, and not only as narrative focus, for their work. These areworks that are not just about being queer, but cross the line into being queer works. Of those who (...) can be said to be a part of this recent turn, I find Mitchell’s work to be both especially philosophical and formally interesting. Not only does his work take up philosophical questions over what it means to be human, and the nature of love and sex, but also his works are produced through an organic, cooperative process that re-frames what it could mean to queer representation, political or otherwise. (shrink)

We discuss Einstein's ideas on the need for a theory that is both objective and local and also his suggestion for realizing such a theory through nonlinear field equations. We go on to analyze the nonlocality implied by the quantum theory, especially in terms of the experiment of Einstein, Podolsky, and Rosen. We then suggest an objective local field model along Einstein's lines, which might explain quantum nonlocality as a coordination of the properties of pulse-like solutions of the nonlinear (...) equations that would represent particles. Finally, we discuss the implications of our model for Bell's inequality. (shrink)

Little is known about the consequences of moral distress. The purpose of this study was to identify clinical situations that caused nurses to experience moral distress, to understand the consequences of those situations, and to determine whether nurses would change their practice based on their experiences. The investigation used a descriptive approach. Open-ended surveys were distributed to a convenience sample of 204 critical care nurses employed at a university medical center. The analysis of participants’ responses used an inductive approach and (...) a thematic analysis. Each line of the data was reviewed and coded, and the codes were collapsed into themes. Methodological rigor was established. Forty-nine nurses responded to the survey. The majority of nurses had experienced moral distress, and the majority of situations that caused nurses to experience moral distress were related to end of life. The nurses described negative consequences for themselves, patients, and families. (shrink)

According to the ancient commentaries, Iliad 21.195 was omitted by some sources, thereby making Acheloios, instead of Ocean, the origin of all waters, including the sea: the reasons for and the date of such a version of the text have been debated. In this paper 1 argue that the version without line 195 actually represents the earlier textual stage. This role of Acheloios is paralleled in the poem interpreted in the Derveni papyrus, and some features of Acheloios' cosmological function, as (...) well as his iconography, find interesting parallels in the Near East. As a 'cosmic' figure, Acheloios was in competition with Ocean, and is only rarely so represented in later preserved texts. His function as the origin of all fresh water and the source of all springs was more persistent, probably due also to his cultic role in Dodona: this, too, is probably reflected in another ancient variant for the text of Il. 16.234. (shrink)

Authenticates approximately 500 lines of Aristotle's lost work the Protrepticus (Exhortation to Philosophy) contained in the circa third century AD work by Iamblichus of Chalcis entitled Protrepticus epi philosophian. Includes a complete English translation of the authenticated material.

We present a one per cent measurement of the cosmic distance scale from the detections of the baryon acoustic oscillations in the clustering of galaxies from the Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey, which is part of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey III. Our results come from the Data Release 11 sample, containing nearly one million galaxies and covering approximately 8500 square degrees and the redshift range 0.2 < z < 0.7. We also compare these results with those from the publicly released (...) DR9 and DR10 samples. Assuming a concordance Λ cold dark matter cosmological model, the DR11 sample covers a volume of 13 Gpc3 and is the largest region of the Universe ever surveyed at this density. We measure the correlation function and power spectrum, including density-field reconstruction of the BAO feature. The acoustic features are detected at a significance of over 7σ in both the correlation function and power spectrum. Fitting for the position of the acoustic features measures the distance relative to the sound horizon at the drag epoch, rd, which has a value of rd,fid = 149.28 Mpc in our fiducial cosmology. We find DV = at z = 0.32 and DV = at z = 0.57. At 1.0 per cent, this latter measure is the most precise distance constraint ever obtained from a galaxy survey. Separating the clustering along and transverse to the line of sight yields measurements at z = 0.57 of DA = and H =. Our measurements of the distance scale are in good agreement with previous BAO measurements and with the predictions from cosmic microwave background data for a spatially flat CDM model with a cosmological constant. © 2014 The Author Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Royal Astronomical Society. (shrink)

In his article Potentialism and the experience of the new, Jasinski argues for the use of a potentialist approach in education by relating it to a line of thought that starts with Dewey and is fulfilled by Agamben and Lewis. Although the reading that Jasinski offers on potentialism is interesting, his understanding of Dewey is problematic. In this paper, I argue that much of what Jasinski claims as worthy of pursuit in education is already contained in the Deweyan questions of (...) newness, openness, and radical possibility. Even the Agambenian notion of ‘coming community’ falls under a Deweyan understanding of society and democracy, which, in Deweyan thought, always exist in suspension and connectedness. Given such premises, the idea of education that emerges from Deweyan thought is that of a leap. The question regarding what education is and entails is left radically open by Dewey, for education belongs to the not-yet. (shrink)