Antisthenes (c. 445- c. 365 BC), was a prominent follower of Socrates and bitter rival of Plato. In this revisionary account of his philosophy in all its aspects, P. A. Meijer claims that Plato and Aristotle have corrupted our perspective on this witty and ingenious thinker. The first part of the book reexamines afresh Antisthenes' ideas about definition and predication and concludes from these that Antisthenes never held the (in)famous theory that contradiction is impossible. The second part of the (...) book argues that Antisthenes' logical theories bear directly on his activities as an exegete of Homer and hence as a theological thinker. Part three, finally, offers innovative readings of Antisthenes' ethical fragments. (shrink)

Critics generally have not warmed to Heroides 8. Jacobson opined that the poem is ‘not very successful’ and claimed that the lengthy argumentation is ‘rather boring, not to say sometimes silly and annoying’, while Palmer described it as ‘the feeblest and least poetical of all the Heroides’. However, scholars have largely neglected some typically Ovidian cleverness and complexity in kaleidoscopic play with character. Ovid's Hermione is Hermione, but she also takes on the guise of other mythological heroines, and she represents (...) a complete inversion of an earlier depiction of Hermione. All of this gives the poem a distinct intellectual appeal to supplement the emotional impact, with witty touches to ensure that the epistle is not mawkish. (shrink)

Critics comment on the simplicity of the jest here, not without reason.1 But the levity also has some sophistication, of a literary kind. For a start,andare aptly long and are carefully left to the end of their clauses and lines for maximum effect. In addition, these striking words, which appear for the first time in Sappho, may well have been deliberate adaptations of two adjectives which had previously occurred only in Homer,2 and they would in any case have called to (...) mind the Homeric ones, because of their close similarity and because there are no other variants of these compounds in surviving literature down to the time of the j poetess.3 At Odyssey11.312 the poet had said of Otus and Ephialtes and at Iliad 7.220, 222, 245, 266 and 11.545 he had described the shield of Ajax asSo, given the epic flavour of Sappho′s epithets, it was amusing of her to include them at all in such a light and frivolous context. There is also pawkiness in the poetess′s application of these terms I with their Homeric tinge to quite different and very mundane objects; and the humour is increased when one takes into account the associations that these words had .This strikes me as an early instance of witty adaptation of epic diction such as is found in Anacreon 358 and 417 PMG.4. (shrink)

The author states in his preface that he has not undertaken a history of aesthetic thought during the French Enlightenment, nor an intellectual history of French aesthetics, nor a synthesis of eighteenth-century French thought on aesthetics, nor a history of eighteenth-century French art. What he has attempted to do is to outline doctrines of French aesthetic thought during the eighteenth century. The term doctrine is perhaps not too strong here because some of these writers were rather doctrinaire in their approach. (...) Following an outline of their respective positions, the author then subjects their works to a logical analysis. More than two-thirds of the authors cited are relatively unknown: André, d'Argens, Batteux, Bonnet, Briseux, Chaussard, Crousaz, Mme. Dacier, Estère, de Jaucourt, de La Motte, di Marcenay de Ghuy, de Piles, Rollin, Taillason, Trublet. One should not be surprised to learn that few of these were professional philosophers. Others cited by Coleman are well-known eighteenth-century figures: d'Alembert, Condillac, Diderot, Dubos, Montesquieu and St. Evremond. The author explains that he undertook the book in order to fill a gap in the literature on the subject. It is an excellent beginning and the style in which it is written is often as witty and elegant as that of many of the authors he considers.—P. N. (shrink)

Two hundred essays ranging in length from one to nine sentences. The aphorisms and parables covering topics from mixed marriages to rose-tinted spectacles are sometimes witty. To give the flavor, here is one of the more philosophical: "75. The true cynic is the man who thinks of a woman of breath-taking beauty only when he needs a cure for hiccups."—P. S.

A principle that many have found attractive is one that goes by the name “'Ought' Implies 'Can'.” According to this principle, one morally ought to do something only if one can do it. This essay has two goals: to show that the principle is false and to undermine the motivations that have been offered for it. Toward the end, a proposal about moral obligation according to which something like a restricted version of 'Ought' Implies 'Can' is true is floated. Though (...) no full-fledged argument for this proposal is offered, that it fits with a rather natural and intuitive picture of the structure of morality and seems to explain certain salient features of the debate over whether the principle is true, goes some way toward recommending it. (shrink)

This collection of reprinted social philosophy broadly surveys and introduces problems and positions vis-à-vis the concept of right. Using the tools of ordinary language analysis, M. MacDonald evaluates the attempts of other writers to resolve the tensions between civil and moral responsibility. H. L. A. Hart argues that "... if there are any moral rights at all, it follows that there is at least one natural right." His laudatory deductive exercise and categorization of rights suggests no leads for answering the (...) hypothetical he poses. While MacDonald and Hart raise no gut issues, G. Vlastos gives a common sense analysis of the main stream of classical debate, couching his inquiry in terms of conflicts between collective and distributive justice. His article both includes the scope and surpasses the stopping points of the earlier selections. Through leading to a philosophical discussion of the workings of the denial of human rights within the segregationist position, R. Wasserstrom unmasks the practical stakes involved in what the others leave as an academic problem. H. Morris's witty analysis of a hypothetical "right to be punished" lays bare the fact that social institutions embody some concept of right, duty, and obligation. He leaves the reader with the unanswered but clearly indicated question of which concept of right does one want society to sanction. Also included are: J. Locke's The Second Treatise of Civil Government, Chapters two and five; J. Bentham's Anarchical Fallacies; The Virginia Declaration of Rights ; Declaration of the Rights of Man and of Citizens ; Universal Declaration of Human Rights ; and a portion of the Declaration of Independence of the U.S.A.--M. D. P. (shrink)

This study concerns the ideas of one particular philosopher, Henri Bergson, whose views of time, intuition, and creativity have had a significant impact on art, literature, and the humanities, both in his time and in our own. Although it is generally recognized that Bergson's ideas have significantly impacted the arts and the humanities, it has not been recognized how they have also had a creative influence on the sciences as well. Nor has it been realized that this was one of (...) his most basic contentions. Bergson's conception of intuition--his fundamental insight into reality--was not limited to fugitive insights into human existence. By realizing previously unsuspected possibilities for research and discovery, his endeavors were also meant to make possible new advances in the sciences. If it enabled his cousin by marriage, Marcel Proust, to explore human memory in depth, it also inspired psychologists like Daniel Schachter to use Bergson's ideas to make real contributions to contemporary memory science. If his notion of creative evolution brought many thinkers to a belief in human creative freedom, it brought others (notably Alexis Carrel and Pierre Lecomte de Noüy) to a scientific study of biological time. Among his successful speculations was the theory of the Big Bang cosmology. 'Getting Bergson Straight' shows many points at which Bergson's ideas anticipated future developments in the sciences. This was seen clearly by the Nobel Prize-winning physicist Luis de Broglie who viewed Bergson's physics as presaging quantum physics. Thus, the text is well situated for arts, humanities, social science, and natural science classrooms studying creative thinking and/or intellectual history. (shrink)

The purpose of this study is to examine the relationship between the corporate social performance of an organization and three variables: the size of the organization, the financial performance of the organization, and the environmental performance of the organization. By empirically testing data from 1987 to 1992, the results of the study show that a firm's corporate social performance is indeed impacted by the size of the firm, the level of profitability of the firm, and the amount of pollution emissions (...) released by the firm. (shrink)

The conflict in Gaza and Israel that ignited on October 7, 2023 signals a catastrophic breakdown in the possibility of ethical dialogue in the region. The actions on both sides have revealed a dissolution of ethical restraints, with unimaginably cruel attacks on civilians, murder of children, destruction of health facilities, and denial of basic needs such as water, food, and shelter. There is a need both to understand the nature of the ethical singularity represented by this conflict and what, if (...) any, options are available to allow the reconstruction of communication between the warring parties. This article seeks to address these tasks by analysing the conflict as inherently an ethical one, in the sense that it exposes a rupture in the fabric of communicative relationships that has evolved systematically out of the deep cultural structures from which all protagonists have emerged. Drawing on the work of Levinas, Habermas, Arendt, and others, and referring to the specific circumstances in the region, it examines the ethical sources of the crisis and tries to identify conditions for its resolution. The possibility of reconciliation—that is, of refiguring relationships to open up a space for dialogue to create pathways to heal the ruptures—is examined. The dark legacy of the Holocaust is identified as an abiding cultural vulnerability for both societies. It is concluded, however, that the rich history of partnerships and collaborations between Jews and Palestinians provides a robust infrastructure on the basis of which a sustainable peace might be built, providing a much-needed source of hope. (shrink)

A relative value of life dependent on age has been produced from a survey of 721 randomly selected individuals together with other observations of professional practice. The results are presented in diagrammatic form. If two identical people, except for age, present for medical treatment for a life-threatening condition and only one can be treated then the diagram indicates what the choice should be.

Current focus in the health care ethics literature on the character of the practitioner has a reputable pedigree. Rather than offer a staple diet of Aristotelian ethics in the undergraduate curricula, perhaps instead one should follow Murdoch's suggestion and help the practitioner to develop vision and moral imagination, because this has a practical rather than a theoretical aim. The imaginative capacity of the practitioner plays an important part in both the quality of the nurse's role enactment and the moral strategies (...) which the nurse uses. It also plays a central part in the practitioner's ability to communicate with a patient and in the type of person which the practitioner becomes. Can the moral imagination be stimulated and nurtured? Some philosophers and literary critics argue that not only is this possible, but that literature is the means of doing so. If this is the case then a place should be made for literature in already crowded health care curricula. (shrink)

Social evolution theory conventionally takes an externalist explanatory stance, treating observed cooperation as explanandum and the positive assortment of cooperative behaviour as explanans. We ask how the circumstances bringing about this positive assortment arose in the first place. Rather than merely push the explanatory problem back a step, we move from an externalist to an interactionist explanatory stance, in the spirit of Lewontin and the Niche Construction theorists. We develop a theory of ‘social niche construction’ in which we consider biological (...) entities to be both the subject and object of their own social evolution. Some important cases of the evolution of cooperation have the side-effect of causing changes in the hierarchical level at which the evolutionary process acts. This is because the traits that act to align the fitness interests of particles in a collective can also act to diminish the extent to which those particles are bearers of heritable fitness variance, while augmenting the extent to which collectives of such particles are bearers of heritable fitness variance. In this way, we can explain upward transitions in the hierarchical level at which the Darwinian machine operates in terms of particle-level selection, even though the outcome of the process is a collective-level selection regime. Our theory avoids the logical and metaphysical paradoxes faced by other attempts to explain evolutionary transitions. (shrink)

There are complex unresolved ethical, legal and social issues related to the use of human tissues obtained in the course of research or diagnostic procedures and retained for further use in research. The question of intellectual property rights over commercially viable products or procedures that are derived from these samples and the suitability or otherwise of participants relinquishing their rights to the samples needs urgent attention. The complexity of these matters lies in the fact that the relationship between intellectual property (...) rights and ownership or rights pertaining to the samples on which the intellectual property right is based may either be overlooked or taken for granted. What equally makes the matter complex is that samples may be obtained from participants in developing countries and exported to developed countries for analysis and research. It is important for research ethics committees to tread carefully when reviewing research protocols that raise such issues for purposes of ensuring that appropriate benefit sharing agreements, particularly with developing countries, are in place.This paper attempts to analyse the key questions related to ownership and intellectual property rights in commercially viable products derived from human tissue samples. Patent law is used as a point of reference as opposed to other forms of intellectual property rights such as industrial designs because it is the right that most inventors apply for in respect of human tissue-related inventions. The key questions are formulated following a systematic analysis of peer reviewed journal articles that have reported original investigations into relevant issues in this field. Most of the cases and reported studies that are referred to in this paper do not directly deal with HIV/AIDS research but the underlying principles are helpful in HIV/AIDS research as well. Pertinent questions, which members of ethics review committees should focus on in this regard are discussed and suggestions on appropriate approaches to the issues are proposed in the form of specific questions that an ethics review committee should consider. Specific recommendations regarding areas for further research and action are equally proposed. (shrink)

The modern historian of Greece and Rome often depends for his information on writings whose reliability is no greater, though often much less, than that of the histories, now lost in whole or part, which their authors followed. The quality of these histories can sometimes be detected from the internal evidence of the extant derivative accounts, even when we cannot name the historians with any certainty.

Objectives To investigate empirically the motivations for not consenting to DNA biobanking in a Swedish population-based study and to discuss the implications. Design Structured questionnaires and semistructured interviews. Setting A longitudinal epidemiological project (PART) ongoing since 1998 in Stockholm, Sweden. The DNA-collection wave took place during 2006–7. Participants 903 individuals completed the questionnaire (participation rate 36%) and 23 were interviewed. All individuals had participated in both non-genetic waves of the project, but refused to contribute saliva samples during the DNA-collection wave. (...) Main outcome measures Motivations behind refusing to consent to DNA biobanking, with subsequent focus on participants' explanations regarding this unwillingness. Results Public refusal to consent to DNA biobanking, as revealed by the questionnaire, was mainly explained by a lack of personal relevance of DNA contribution and feelings of discomfort related to the DNA being used for purposes other than the respective study. Interviews of individuals representing the second motivation, revealed a significant mistrust of DNA biobank studies. The underlying beliefs and attitudes were associated with concerns about integrity, privacy, suspiciousness and insecurity. However, most interviewees were supportive of genetic research per se and interpreted their mistrust in the light of distressing environmental influences. Conclusion The results suggest a need for guidelines on benefit sharing, as well as trustworthy and stable measures to maintain privacy, as a means for increasing personal relevance and trust among potential participants in genetic research. Measures taken from biobanks seem insufficient in maintaining and increasing trust, suggesting that broader societal measures should be taken. (shrink)

Following promulgation of the Nuremberg code in 1947, the ethics of research on human subjects has been a challenging and often contentious topic of debate. Escalation in the use of research participants in low-income countries over recent decades , has intensified the debate on the ethics of international research and led to increasing attention both to exploitation of vulnerable subjects and to considerations of how the 10:90 gap in health and medical research could be narrowed. In 2000, prompted by the (...) discussions over several years that led to the US NIH launching a capacity building programme on research ethics for members of research ethics committees in developing countries, we advanced a ‘new look’ for the ethics of international research.1 Since then progress has been made on several fronts.First, our ideas—considered somewhat radical and impractical at the time—have been provocatively addressed by scholars who have either contested them or advanced similar conceptions of what obligations international researchers have to research participants and communities in low income countries before, during and after clinical trials. Second, those researchers who have been sympathetic to our ideas have either endeavoured to put these into practice or have investigated the feasibility of doing so. Third, the intractability of the 10/90 gap and the escalation of interest in global health have sensitised many to the need to amplify the uptake of these ideas in practice.Here, we briefly review the conceptual and practical developments in international research ethics. While much conceptual progress has been made (and the concepts are now appearing …. (shrink)

Open peer commentary on the article “Perception-Action Mutuality Obviates Mental Construction” by Martin Flament Fultot, Lin Nie & Claudia Carello. Upshot: In my view, the clash between ecological psychology, enactivism, and constructivism in general has more to do with irreconcilable metaphysical and theoretical incommensurabilities than disagreements about specific mechanisms or processes of perception. Even with mutual enabling of action and perception, some internal process of self-modification is still needed if novel behavior is to be adequately explained.