In interpreting measurements of brain processes it is necessary to make the model used explicit. A concept such as attention cannot be used in the description of brain activities without a model of the relation of mental and neural processes.

Motor processes cannot be modeled by a single (unified) model. Instead, a number of models at different levels of description are needed. The concepts of control and control variable only make sense at the functional level. A clear distinction must be made between external models and internal models. General Systems Theory provides the framework for a proper treatment of these issues.

The cell assembly as a simple attractor cannot explain many cognitive phenomena. It must be a highly structured network that can sustain highly structured excitation patterns. Moreover, a cell assembly must be more widely distributed in space than on a square millimeter.

In our daily lives we conceive of our surroundings as an objectively given reality. The world is perceived through our senses, and ~hese provide us, so we believe, with a faithful image of the world. But occ~ipnally we are forced to realize that our senses deceive us, e. g., by illusions. For a while it was believed that the sensation of color is directly r~lated to the frequency of light waves, until E. Land (the inventor of the polaroid camera) showed (...) in detailed experiments that our perception of, say, a colored spot depends on the colors of its surrounding. On the other hand, we may experience hallucinations or dreams as real. Quite evidently, the relationship between the "world" and our "brain" is intricate. Another strange problem is the way in which we perceive time or the "Now". Psychophysical experiments tell us that the psychological "Now" is an extended period of time in the sense of physics. The situation was made still more puzzling when, in the nineteen-twenties, Heisenberg and others realized that, by observing processes in the microscopic world of electrons and other elementary particles, we strongly interfere with that world. The outcome of experiments - at least in general - can only be predicted statistically. What is the nature ofthis strange relationship between "object" and "observer"? This is another crucial problem of the inside-outside or endo-exo dichotomy. (shrink)

This biography provides a stimulating and coherent blend of scientific and personal narratives describing the many achievements of the theoretical physicist Herbert Fröhlich. For more than half a century, Fröhlich was an internationally renowned and much respected figure who exerted a decisive influence, often as a 'man ahead of his time', in fields as diverse as meson theory and biology. Although best known for his contributions to the theory of dielectrics and superconductivity, he worked in many other fields, his most (...) important legacy being the pioneering introduction quantum field-theoretical methods into condensed matter physics in 1952, which revolutionised the subsequent development of the subject. Gerard Hyland has written an absorbing and informative account, in which Herbert Fröhlich's magnetic personality shines through. (shrink)

There is great skepticism about the admittance of expert normative ethics testimony into evidence. However, a practical analysis of the way ethics testimony has been used in courts of law reveals that the skeptical position is itself based on assumptions that are controversial. We argue for an alternative way to understand such expert testimony. This alternative understanding is based on the practice of clinical ethics.

This book is available either individually, or as part of the specially-priced Arguments of the Philosphers Collection.

Dr Agich takes up a previous difficult case related by Dr Kottow in an earlier issue of the Journal. He analyses the three ethical problems as presented in the case and offers his own opinion of it as well as his own conclusions with regard to the medical ethical aspects of it. Unlike Dr Kottow, Dr Agich's reading of the case indicates that the application of the principle of informed consent does not rule out ethical decisions for the physician, but (...) emphasizes the relevance of ethical analysis beyond the issue of informed consent. (shrink)

Kant was among the first philosophers to recognize that modalities come in many varieties, and that there are systematic connections among them--an insight which has since been confirmed by the multitude of applications of the basic techniques of formalized modal logic. In particular, He recognized an affinity among what are now called doxastic and epistemic logics, As well as with a logic of judging which has not exact counterpart in contemporary thought. This paper will be concerned with the explication of (...) the theory of judgment in its relation to the logics of belief and knowledge. It will seek to show that there is a clear and consistent way to translate Kant's notions of modality into modern symbolic terminology, And that the relations he took to hold among them are well-grounded in his philosophy of logic. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Disputing the Unity of the World: The Importance of Res and the Influence of Averroes in Giles of Rome’s Critique of Thomas Aquinas concerning the Unity of the WorldG. J. Mcaleer1. introductiongiles of rome (1243–1316) earned, after a decidedly difficult start, the most complete honors open to an academic religious in the Middle Ages. Joining the Hermits of St. Augustine at age 14, he became the first regent master (...) of his order at the University of Paris (1285–1291); his works were made compulsory in the education of students entering the Hermits in 1287; finally, in 1292 he became the general of the order itself.1 Giles is significant, as Mandonnet puts it, because he “est incontestablement au premier rang des théologiens de la fin du XIIIe siècle.”2 But this is not all. Giles is also important to the period because his writings were censured by the same commission that composed the famous Parisian condemnation of 1277. As a result of this [End Page 29] censure, Giles had to leave Paris, returning only in 1285.3 Perhaps of even greater significance is the fact that his teacher was Thomas Aquinas: Giles studied with Thomas at Paris during the years 1269–1272.4 It has been acknowledged for a long time now that Giles did not slavishly follow his teacher but wrought his own subtle and wide-ranging philosophical synthesis out of the various grand traditions of medieval thought.5 As the critical editions of Giles’s works appear (an enormous task currently moving forward under the guidance of F. Del Punta and G. Fioravanti) it will become clearer on how many issues Giles saw fit to criticize the positions of Thomas. It is one of these issues, Giles’s dispute with Thomas over the unity of the matter of the universe, that I wish to elaborate and analyze in this essay.6The thirteenth century is surely one of the greatest for philosophical innovation. Thinkers of the stature of Albert the Great, Bonaventure, Thomas Aquinas, Henry of Ghent, and Giles of Rome engaged great metaphysical themes ranging from the unity of being and creation to the composition of material substances. These speculations were prompted by their efforts to systematize the vast theological heritage of Christian thought and their encounter with the rich and varied traditions of Greek, Islamic, and Jewish thought newly entering the Latin West in translation. Questions involving matter were especially common amongst these speculations, carrying special significance in that they redounded upon conceptions of human nature and thus upon the Incarnation and Resurrection. Moreover, disputes about matter demanded arduous thought on the interrelations of the fundamental metaphysical notions of the period: act and potency; substance and accident; generation and corruption; essence and existence; principle and thing; and so on. The productivity of these thinkers, and the range and complexity of the [End Page 30] questions they treated, was stunning, and ultimately led to a massive condemnation of 219 philosophical and theological propositions at the University of Paris in 1277. The Bishop of Paris, Stephen Tempier, with the aid of a theological commission that included Henry of Ghent, hoped to efface certain errors contained in these speculations. A large number of the condemned propositions were associated with Siger of Brabant and other so-called “Radical Aristotelians.” However, theses found in the works of Aquinas were included, and, as already mentioned, Tempier soon turned his attention to Giles of Rome.7A dominant issue throughout the condemnations and the works of the period, especially in questions concerning matter, is that of unicity and plurality. This is true of perhaps the two most famous debates: whether human nature is a composition of one or many forms and whether the intellect is one for all human persons. The latter is probably the most studied of all the disputes of that time and the controversy most often associated with Averroes. The question of whether there is one matter in the universe or two is very much connected with the plurality of forms debate. Regarding this debate, thinkers wanted to know not only the number of forms in material composites but also what material... (shrink)

In this paper an assessment will be made of the state of Business Ethics as an academic discipline as well as on the extent to which theory on Business Ethics has been translated into practice within the South African society. First the way in which Business Ethics is defined will be examined. Then the issues within the field of Business Ethics that is considered to be most important will be addressed, as well as the reasons why it is believed to (...) be important to address them. From there the attention will be shifted to the way in which Business Ethics has been institutionalised at tertiary education level. An overview of important initiatives taken by the business sector themselves will also be reviewed. Then co-operation between business and academia on Business Ethics will be discussed. Finally an assessment will be made of what can be learned from Business Ethics elsewhere in the world and what can be offered in this regard. Also some future prospects of Business Ethics in South Africa will be explored. (shrink)

This article is an attempt to clarify a confusion in the brain death literature between logical sufficiency/necessity and natural sufficiency/necessity. We focus on arguments that draw conclusions regarding empirical matters of fact from conceptual or ontological definitions. Specifically, we critically analyze arguments by Tom Tomlinson and Michael B. Green and Daniel Wikler. which, respectively, confuse logical and natural sufficiency and logical and natural necessity. Our own conclusion is that it is especially important in discussing the brain death issue to observe (...) the distinction between logical and natural sufficiency/necessity in a strict fashion. (shrink)

All intellectual histories of the Middle Ages note that Greek and Arabic science, medicine, commentary and philosophy had an enormous influence upon the great intellectual achievements of the later Middle Ages in the Latin West. Yet, these same histories also tend to cast the condemnations of 1277 as a watershed moment when the Christian West rejected the science and philosophy of pagans and infidels, and especially the synthesis of the two, the commentaries on Aristotle’s works by Averroes. Recognizing the oddness (...) of this narrative, one of simultaneous absorption and rejection, historians have been happy to divide the philosophers and theologians into progressives and conservatives. However, such a division seems only to compound the oddness of their original narrative, superimposing a political language popular in the 1960’s and 70’s onto the late thirteenth century. The division leaves in one corner the progressives like Siger, Thomas and Albert, who were open to the new sciences and in another corner, the conservatives, like Henry of Ghent and Robert Kilwardby, who sought to protect the old, traditional ways of thinking in 1277 by a codification of an orthodoxy. Unfortunately, this attempt to salvage the master narrative of simultaneous absorption and rejection fails to capture the intellectual positions and alliances at the time of the condemnations and their significance for later developments in the thinking of the Latin West. (shrink)

A gas in a box is perhaps the most important model system studied in thermodynamics and statistical mechanics. Usually, studies focus on the gas, whereas the box merely serves as an idealized confinement. The present article focuses on the box as the central object and develops a thermodynamic theory by treating the geometric degrees of freedom of the box as the degrees of freedom of a thermodynamic system. Applying standard mathematical methods to the thermody- namics of an empty box allows (...) equations with the same structure as those of cosmology and classical and quantum mechanics to be derived. The simple model system of an empty box is shown to have interesting connections to classical mechanics, special relativity, and quantum field theory. (shrink)