In Five Classics of Fengshui Michael Paton traces the theoretical development of this form of spiritual geography through full translations of major texts: the Burial Classic of Qing Wu , Book of Burial , Yellow Emperor’s Classic of House Siting , Twenty Four Difficult Problems , and Water Dragon Classic.

The 2011 tsunami had a devastating effect on the east coast of Japan. Particularly poignant were the century-old markers on hillsides warning against building anywhere below. Nevertheless, such wisdom from traditional knowledge was disregarded because of the perceived invulnerability of the modern. This paper attempts to garner such traditional empirical knowledge regarding the siting of towns and cities by considering the Chinese art/science of fengshui or dili, the original purpose of which was to site human habitation in the most favourable (...) places for long term survival. This knowledge is then used to consider the placement of cities created by modernity, those founded on and flourishing through the advent of globalisation, such as Hong Kong, Shanghai, St Petersburg, and Sydney. (shrink)

The theme of the third annual Spring workshop of the HUPO-PSI was proteomics and beyond and its underlying goal was to reach beyond the boundaries of the proteomics community to interact with groups working on the similar issues of developing interchange standards and minimal reporting requirements. Significant developments in many of the HUPO-PSI XML interchange formats, minimal reporting requirements and accompanying controlled vocabularies were reported, with many of these now feeding into the broader efforts of the Functional Genomics Experiment data (...) model and Functional Genomics Ontology ontologies. (shrink)

Although Paton depends for his materials on virtually all of Kant's writings on moral philosophy, he makes the Grundlegung zur Metaphysik der Sitten central to his analysis. This is a wise choice and one that is defensible since Paton has set for himself the task of elucidating the categorical imperative and it is in the Grundlegung that Kant sought to grasp the supreme principle of morality and its appearance to us as a categorical imperative. Despite the fact that, (...) as the author points out on many occasions, the Grundlegung neither stresses morality from the standpoint of action, nor does it deal in detail with many significant problems, it must nevertheless always be looked upon as central to Kant's ethics just because it does deal with the supreme principle as a categorical imperative. The seemingly more authoritative Critique of Practical Reason is more definitely concerned with the larger subject of reason in its practical employment and does not deal as directly with Paton's special concern as the Grundlegung does. (shrink)

The esteemed psychologist and thinker John Dewey headed for previously unexplored philosophical territory with this influential work. Written shortly after World War I, it embodies Dewey's system of pragmatic humanism and maintains that individuals can attain "a more ordered and intelligent happiness" by reconsidering the ultimate effects of their deepest beliefs and feelings. With its promise of achieving an understanding of the past and attaining a brighter future, Reconstruction in Philosophy remains ever relevant. "A modern classic." — Philosophy and (...) Phenomenological Research. (shrink)

With precision and profundity born of 30 years of devoted study, John Boyle offers an essential introduction to St. Thomas Aquinas on Scripture, shedding helpful light on the goals, methods, and commitments that animate the Angelic Doctor's engagement with the sacred page. Because the genius of St. Thomas's approach to the Bible lies not so much in its novelty but rather in the fidelity and clarity with which he recapitulates the riches of the preceding interpretive Tradition, this initiation into (...) St. Thomas's vision of Scripture is itself an orientation to the Church's vision of Scripture, from the Fathers through and beyond the Middle Ages. St. Thomas's embeddedness within the Church's Tradition and his own historical context is integral to his approach to Scripture, yet it sets him at some distance from modern readers, for whom his interpretive vision may seem perplexing or even impenetrable. In this Primer, Boyle first provides an acclimation to this medieval context through a survey and explanation of pertinent technical terminology used by St. Thomas and characteristic of the scholastic theology of the time. With an eye to the medieval practice of considering Scripture according to the fourfold division of causes, Boyle builds on this initial foundation by exploring in turn St. Thomas's accounts of the end or use of Scripture (final cause), its divine and human authorship (efficient cause), its order and division (material cause), and its literary styles or genres (formal cause). Drawing on writings from across St. Thomas's corpus, but especially his work On the Commendation and Division of Sacred Scripture and the prologues to his biblical commentaries, Boyle masterfully elucidates both the hermeneutical principles and deep wisdom of the Angelic Doctor's approach to Scripture, imparting invaluable guidance not only for reading and understanding St. Thomas and other great masters of the Tradition, but also-and ultimately-for understanding Scripture in light of this Tradition and reading it with greater benefit and joy. (shrink)

An attempt to vindicate Retributivism as a moral theory has been made by Professor Winch in the context of a discussion of punishment and reward as non-institutional concepts. His method is to divorce the concepts from the institutions of punishment and reward by considering them as they feature in the recipient's consciousness. It is in the area of the agent's awareness of his relation to his past actions that Retributivism can be made to flourish again and its moral content revealed. (...) I am in sympathy with Winch's attempt to reinstate the theory but, whatever the strengths of his position, there seem to be insuperable difficulties for the approach that takes the recipient's state of mind as having priority over the institutions. I shall examine Winch's argument in order to show that the Utilitarian theory cannot be so easily jettisoned and that the truth would seem to lie in a compatibilism between the two. (shrink)

Despite recurring efforts, a gap exists across a variety of contexts between the protection of patients' safety in theory and in practice. This timely Research Handbook highlights these critical issues and suggests both legal and policy changes are necessary to better protect patients' safety. Multidisciplinary in nature, this Research Handbook features contributions from eminent academics, policy makers and medical practitioners from the Global North and South, discussing the essential facets concerning patient safety and the law. It highlights how the role (...) of legislation and case law has the potential to influence, both positively and negatively, medical practice and the quality of care. Chapters explore patient safety and the global health agenda; physiotherapy; 'non-therapeutic' clinical research with children; patient safety awareness in healthcare education; and the increasing use of robotics and artificial intelligence in healthcare. Outlining a wide range of international perspectives on patient safety and the law, this Research Handbook will appeal to academics and researchers specialising in health and medical law, human rights and healthcare regulation. It will also serve as a valuable resource for legal and medical practitioners alike, as well as clinicians and professionals working in healthcare governance. (shrink)

The notion of proof is central to mathematics yet it is one of the most difficult aspects of the subject to teach and master. In particular, undergraduate mathematics students often experience difficulties in understanding and constructing proofs. Understanding Mathematical Proof describes the nature of mathematical proof, explores the various techniques that mathematicians adopt to prove their results, and offers advice and strategies for constructing proofs. It will improve students’ ability to understand proofs and construct correct proofs of their own. The (...) first chapter of the text introduces the kind of reasoning that mathematicians use when writing their proofs and gives some example proofs to set the scene. The book then describes basic logic to enable an understanding of the structure of both individual mathematical statements and whole mathematical proofs. It also explains the notions of sets and functions and dissects several proofs with a view to exposing some of the underlying features common to most mathematical proofs. The remainder of the book delves further into different types of proof, including direct proof, proof using contrapositive, proof by contradiction, and mathematical induction. The authors also discuss existence and uniqueness proofs and the role of counter examples. (shrink)

Theories of discourse bring to realism new ideas about how knowledge develops and how representations of reality are influenced. We gain an understanding of the conceptual aspect of social life and the processes by which meaning is produced. This collection reflects the growing interest realist critics have shown towards forms of discourse theory and deconstruction. The diverse range of contributions address such issues as the work of Derrida and deconstruction, discourse theory, Eurocentrism and poststructuralism. What unites all of the contributions (...) is a sense that it is essential to provide a realist alternative to the hitherto dominance of social constructionism, hermeneutics and postmodernism, over many of the issues discussed. By developing a realist perspective the different authors attempt to embed discourse within the structured nature of the reality of the world. Realism can situate language, discourse and ideology within context specific, or 'causally efficacious' circumstances. Realism can help to uncover issues of power, representation, and subjectivity and how discursive and other social practices produce real effects. This can help us understand the manner in which social structures are reproduced through various forms of ideology and discourse. And by knowing this, we can start to address questions concerning human emancipation and how the world is to be transformed. (shrink)

In medical ethics, a large body of work exists on the virtues that enable good medical practice. Medical virtue ethics singles out a number of virtues of the good doctor for attention; among others, these include empathy, care, truthfulness, and justice. According to medical ethicists like Pellegrino and Thomasma, however, phronesis, or “practical wisdom,” occupies a special place among these virtues. For Pellegrino and Thomasma, phronesis is “indispensable” to good medical practice, because it coordinates all the different moral virtues that (...) the doctor must bring to ethical decisions as part of wise moral action.... (shrink)

The most surprising development of philosophy in recent years has been the sudden interest, friendly or hostile, in theology—or at least in the philosophy of religion. Hence the present volume, Faith and Logic , appears at a propitious time. As a series of essays composed by teachers of theology or philosophy in the University of Oxford it follows in the succession of Essays and Reviews , Lux Mundi , and Foundations . Like all of these works it endeavours to adjust (...) Christian, and more specifically Anglican, doctrines to the changing intellectual problems of the contemporary world. Yet perhaps it is the differences that are most striking. (shrink)

In the world as we know it to-day it may seem foolish even to speak of such a thing as justice among nations. Whatever we may say about justice within the nation—and even within nations justice seems to have disappeared over a large portion of the globe—it appears obvious that the relation of one nation to another is determined, not by justice, but by force. The state of nature so gloomily described by Hobbes as the condition out of which men (...) have emerged, a state in which there is “continual fear and danger of violent death,” seems to be embodied in the international situation as it actually exists. In such a state of war, as Hobbes remarks, “this also is consequent, that nothing can be unjust. The notions of right and wrong, justice and injustice, have there no place. Where there is no common power, there is no law; where no law, no injustice.”. (shrink)

We use the hierarchical nature of Bayesian perceptual inference to explain a fundamental aspect of the temporality of experience, namely the phenomenology of temporal flow. The explanation says that the sense of temporal flow in conscious perception stems from probabilistic inference that the present cannot be trusted. The account begins by describing hierarchical inference under the notion of prediction error minimization, and exemplifies distrust of the present within bistable visual perception and action initiation. Distrust of the present is then discussed (...) in relation to previous research on temporal phenomenology. Finally, we discuss how there may be individual differences in the experience of temporal flow, in particular along the autism spectrum. The resulting view is that the sense of temporal flow in conscious perception results from an internal, inferential process. (shrink)

I. Quaestiones in librum Porphyrii Isagoge ; et , Quaestiones super Praedicamenta Aristotelis -- II. Quaestiones in libros Perihermenias Aristotelis ; Quaestiones super librum Elenchorum Aristotelis ; Theoremata -- III. Quaestiones super libros Metaphysicorum Aristotelis, libri I-V -- IV. Quaestiones super libros Metaphysicorum Aristotelis, libri VI-IX -- V. Quaestiones super secundum et tertium De anima.

In rubber hand illusions and full body illusions, touch sensations are projected to non-body objects such as rubber hands, dolls or virtual bodies. The robustness, limits and further perceptual consequences of such illusions are not yet fully explored or understood. A number of experiments are reported that test the limits of a variant of the rubber hand illusion. Methodology/Principal Findings -/- A variant of the rubber hand illusion is explored, in which the real and foreign hands are aligned in personal (...) space. The presence of the illusion is ascertained with participants' scores and temperature changes of the real arm. This generates a basic illusion of touch projected to a foreign arm. Participants are presented with further, unusual visuotactile stimuli subsequent to onset of the basic illusion. Such further visuotactile stimulation is found to generate very unusual experiences of supernatural touch and touch on a non-hand object. The finding of touch on a non-hand object conflicts with prior findings, and to resolve this conflict a further hypothesis is successfully tested: that without prior onset of the basic illusion this unusual experience does not occur. Conclusions/Significance -/- A rubber hand illusion is found that can arise when the real and the foreign arm are aligned in personal space. This illusion persists through periods of no tactile stimulation and is strong enough to allow very unusual experiences of touch felt on a cardboard box and experiences of touch produced at a distance, as if by supernatural causation. These findings suggest that one's visual body image is explained away during experience of the illusion and they may be of further importance to understanding the role of experience in delusion formation. The findings of touch on non-hand objects may help reconcile conflicting results in this area of research. In addition, new evidence is provided that relates to the recently discovered psychologically induced temperature changes that occur during the illusion. (shrink)