Catatonia is a psychomotor disorder that has gone through numerous descriptions since 1874, reflecting the many changes in psychiatric disease conceptualization that have occurred within that time frame. Catatonia has been variously described as a distinct disease entity, as a part of schizophrenia, and as a nonspecific manifestation of many disorders. Because of its association with schizophrenia, the description of catatonia was particularly affected by the psychopharmacological era, beginning in the 1950s, and by the development of the Diagnostic and Statistical (...) Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM). Changing trends in psychiatric research—especially the brain-based disease model, research methods favoured by the evidence-based medicine movement, and the codes and categories of the DSM—also profoundly influenced the evolving concept of catatonia. This paper discusses these important factors that affected recognition, treatment, and study of catatonia in order to reveal the biases and assumptions made when constructing a disease concept. (shrink)

The hematologist-historian author became interested in the nature 'medical miracles', following a request to write a report on a set of bone marrows that was sent to the Vatican as a possible miracle cure in a cause for canonization. She questioned the prevalence of medical miracles, their structure, and relationship to other 'official' miracles that are recognized by the Church. Evidence was drawn from a variety of sources: oral testimony of pilgrims at feast day celebrations, ex voto paintings, and 160 (...) miracle files in 67 canonization records of the Vatican Archives. Some changes can be detected through time, but the results also testify to remarkable longue durée in the healing experience: the patterns of suffering and despair, the gestures of pleading, the presence of beds and dreams, the astonishment of the caregivers, and above all the simultaneous recourse to medicine and religion both. (shrink)

Four years ago, as colleagues in our university's law and medical schools, we designed and began offering a course for law, medical, and nursing students, studying professionalism and professional ethics by reading and discussing current and earlier images of nurses, doctors, and lawyers in literature. We wanted to make professional ethics, professional culture, and professional education the objects of study rather than simply the unreflective consequences of exposure to professional language, culture, and training. We wanted to do it in an (...) interdisciplinary course where aspiring professionals could share their self-conceptions and their conceptions of each other, and we wanted to do it by using stories, our primary means for organizing experience and claiming meaning for it. This article tells the story of that experience: why we did it; how we did it; what we learned from doing it. (shrink)

I believe that the purpose of history in a medical school can be related to two simple goals: first, to make students a bit skeptical about everything else they are to be taught in the other lectures—skepticism fosters humility and life-long learning; second, to make them aware that medical history is a research discipline as compelling as any of the basic and clinical sciences they are traditionally taught. In the fall of 1988, I was given an opportunity to build a (...) “course” in history for medical students—a course with no fixed time slot, no fixed syllabus, and no fixed content. I wanted to teach history of anatomy during anatomy sessions, history of pathology during pathology, history of obstetrics during obstetrics, and so on. I hoped to end each session with a disciplinary controversy that extended into present pratice. The ultimate manifestation of infiltration would be to have one question on every exam that the students would write during their medical school experience. This is the story of how my medical history teaching moved from nothing to a program integrated throughout four years of medical studies, complete with goals and objectives and two questions of every exam. The content, advantages, and problems of the approach in the Queen's University experience will be presented. (shrink)

We present a general derivation of the Duffin-Kemmer-Petiau (D.K.P) equation on the relativistic phase space proposed by Bohm and Hiley. We consider geometric algebras and the idea of algebraic spinors due to Riesz and Cartan. The generators βμ (p) of the D.K.P algebras are constructed in the standard fashion used to construct Clifford algebras out of bilinear forms. Free D.K.P particles and D.K.P particles in a prescribed external electromagnetic field are analized and general Liouville type equations for these cases (...) are obtained. Choosing particular values for the label p we classify the different types of the D.K.P Liouville operators. (shrink)

We present an exact solution of the one-dimensional modified Klein Gordon and Duffin Kemmer Petiau equations with a step potential in the presence of minimal length in the uncertainty relation, where the expressions of the new transmission and reflection coefficients are determined for all cases. As an application, the Klein paradox in the presence of minimal length is discussed for all equations.

Kurt Godel, the greatest logician of our time, startled the world of mathematics in 1931 with his Theorem of Undecidability, which showed that some statements in mathematics are inherently "undecidable." His work on the completeness of logic, the incompleteness of number theory, and the consistency of the axiom of choice and the continuum theory brought him further worldwide fame. In this introductory volume, Raymond Smullyan, himself a well-known logician, guides the reader through the fascinating world of Godel's incompleteness theorems. The (...) level of presentation is suitable for anyone with a basic acquaintance with mathematical logic. As a clear, concise introduction to a difficult but essential subject, the book will appeal to mathematicians, philosophers, and computer scientists. (shrink)

I propose to consider the question, "Can machines think?" This should begin with definitions of the meaning of the terms "machine" and "think." The definitions might be framed so as to reflect so far as possible the normal use of the words, but this attitude is dangerous, If the meaning of the words "machine" and "think" are to be found by examining how they are commonly used it is difficult to escape the conclusion that the meaning and the answer to (...) the question, "Can machines think?" is to be sought in a statistical survey such as a Gallup poll. But this is absurd. Instead of attempting such a definition I shall replace the question by another, which is closely related to it and is expressed in relatively unambiguous words. The new form of the problem can be described in terms of a game which we call the 'imitation game." It is played with three people, a man (A), a woman (B), and an interrogator (C) who may be of either sex. The interrogator stays in a room apart front the other two. The object of the game for the interrogator is to determine which of the other two is the man and which is the woman. He knows them by labels X and Y, and at the end of the game he says either "X is A and Y is B" or "X is B and Y is A." The interrogator is allowed to put questions to A and B. We now ask the question, "What will happen when a machine takes the part of A in this game?" Will the interrogator decide wrongly as often when the game is played like this as he does when the game is played between a man and a woman? These questions replace our original, "Can machines think?". (shrink)

The relationship of part to whole is one of the most fundamental there is; this is the first and only full-length study of this concept. This book shows that mereology, the formal theory of part and whole, is essential to ontology. Peter Simons surveys and criticizes previous theories, especially the standard extensional view, and proposes a more adequate account which encompasses both temporal and modal considerations in detail. 'Parts could easily be the standard book on mereology for the next twenty (...) or thirty years.' Timothy Williamson, Grazer Philosophische Studien. (shrink)

Introduction -- The self-interest based contractarian response to the skeptic -- A feminist ethics response to the skeptic -- Deformed desires -- Self-interest versus morality -- The amoralist -- The motive skeptic -- The interdependency thesis.

Much of the discussion since the Arthur case has centred round the rights of handicapped infants to medical treatment. Little has centred round the question of how far one person can rightly be required to sacrifice her life for another, when she has not been consulted beforehand. This may be due to the fact that most of the discussants are men, while nearly all the carers are women. This small study attempts to redress this balance by asking mothers who have (...) cared for 20 years, whether they felt it was worthwhile. (shrink)

For the theorists of crisis, the revolutionary state comes into existence through violence, and due to its inability to provide an authoritative katechon (restrainer) against internal and external violence, it perpetuates violence until it self-destructs. Writing during extreme economic depression and growing social and political violence, the crisis theorists––Joseph de Maistre, Juan Donoso Cortés, and Carl Schmitt––each sought to blame the chaos of their time upon the Janus-faced postrevolutionary ideals of liberalism and socialism by urging a return to pre-revolutionary moral (...) and religious values. They are united by three counterrevolutionary principles, all of which are purported to remedy revolutionary violence: traditional constitutional fidelity, the philosophy of the decision, and opposition to bourgeois liberalism. This essay is followed by the first complete English translation and publication of Donoso’s letter of October 24, 1851, which contains Donoso’s only reference to the “discussing class,” a political entity later popularized by Schmitt in his 1922 work Political Theology. (shrink)

This collection addresses a post-WWII shift in the hierarchy of scientific explanations, where the highest goal moves from reductionism towards some ...

Emily Carroll and Parker Crutchfield propose a new inconsistency argument against abortion restrictivism. In response, I raised several objections to their argument. Recently Carroll and Crutchfield have replied and seem to be under the impression that I’m a restrictivist. This is puzzling, since my criticism of their view included a very thinly veiled, but purposely more charitable, anti-restrictivist inconsistency argument. In this response, I explain how Carroll and Crutchfield mischaracterize my position and that of the restrictivist.

This book argues that Plato's Charmides presents a unitary but incomplete argument intended to lead its readers to substantive philosophical insights.

One of the most influential contemporary philosophers, Hilary Putnam's involvement in philosophy spans philosophy of mind, philosophy of language, ontology and epistemology and logic. This specially commissioned collection discusses his contribution to the realist and pragmatist debate. Hilary Putnam comments on the issues raised in each article, making it invaluable for any scholar of his work.