The axiom of extensionality of set theory states that any two classes that have identical members are identical. Yet the class of persons age i at time t and the class of persons age i + 1 at t + l, both including same persons, possess different demographic attributes, and thus appear to be two different classes. The contradiction could be resolved by making a clear distinction between age groups and cohorts. Cohort is a multitude of individuals, which is constituted (...) within a time interval, and endures throughout part of the time continuum. Age group, on the other hand, is only a reference term to which empirical measurement relates, as in birth or death rates. Accordingly, the two concepts, age group i at t, and age group i + 1 at t + 1, are different. The standard population growth model of Leslie and Lotka, however, does not support such a distinction in age groups. An alternative model, proposed recently, implies precisely such a distinction. (shrink)

This book explores how the weather and city-form impact the mind, and how city-form and mind interact. It builds on Merleau-Ponty's contention that mind, the human body and the environment are intertwined in a singular composite, and on Walter Benjamin's suggestion that mind and city-form, in mutual interaction, through history, have set the course of civilization. Bringing together the fields of philosophy, urbanism, geography, history, and architecture, the book shows the association of existentialism with prevalence of mood disorder in Northern (...) Europe at the close of Little Ice Age. It explains the implications of city-form and traces the role of the myths and allegories of urban design as well as the history of gender projection onto city-form. It shows how urbanization in Northern Europe provided easier access to shelter, yet resulted in sunlight deprivation, and yielded increasing incidence of depression and other mental disorder among the European middle-class. The book uses the examples of Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, Dostoevsky and Kafka, to show how walking through the streets, squares and other urban voids became the informal remedy to mood disorder, a prominent trait among founders of modern Existentialism. It concludes by describing how the connection of anguish and violence is relevant to winter depression in cities, in North America in particular. (shrink)

This book is exceptional in the sense that it provides an introduction to law in general rather than the law of one specific jurisdiction, and it presents a unique way of looking at legal education. It is crucial for lawyers to be aware of the different ways in which societal problems can be solved and to be able to discuss the advantages and disadvantages of different legal solutions. In this respect, being a lawyer involves being able to reason like a (...) lawyer, even more than having detailed knowledge of particular sets of rules. Introduction to Law reflects this view by focusing on the functions of rules and on ways of arguing the relative qualities of alternative legal solutions. Where 'positive' law is discussed, the emphasis is on the legal questions that must be addressed by a field of law, and on the different solutions which have been adopted by, for instance, the common law and civil law tradition. The law of specific jurisdictions is discussed to illustrate possible answers to questions such as when the existence of a valid contract is assumed. (shrink)

Legal scholars attribute a great deal of importance to the linguistic dimension behind recodification. According to them, language contributes greatly to the improvement of both the accessibility and clarity of the law. Nevertheless, little research on the linguistic aspects of codification exists within both linguistics and legal theory. Consequently, it seems worthwhile to study this linguistic dimension more in depth. To this aim, the recent legislative proposals to recodify various economic, civil and criminal codes in Belgium serve as a useful (...) case study to improve our understanding of the linguistic challenges of recodification. In this article we will look at the linguistic comments made by the Belgian Council of State, a state organ which offers technical advice to the legislator, on the relevant proposals and consider the type of linguistic comments made, and, their implementation by the legislator. On the one hand, such an analysis allows us to single out the linguistic problems accompanying the Belgian recodification and, on the other, to elaborate on them with the help of the insights provided by legal theory. In doing so, we hope for our analysis to be a useful point of reference both for research on the Belgian recodification and other legal/linguistic approaches to recodification in general. (shrink)

In recent decades we witnessed ongoing debates about the objectives of history education, with different underlying epistemological perspectives. This qualitative study explored prospective history teachers' beliefs about these objectives of history education. Prospective history teachers of six universities starting a teacher educational programme were invited to answer an open-ended questionnaire about history education. Six objectives were found: (1) memorising; (2) critical/explanatory; (3) constructivist; (4) perspective-taking; (5) moral; and (6) collective-identity objectives. Almost all prospective teachers mentioned several of these objectives. A (...) distinction between two epistemological perspectives on historical knowledge representation (factual or interpretive), was used as a framework for categorising the different objectives. More than half of the respondents mentioned objectives of history education that represent history as factual and objectives that represent history as interpretive. We propose that in actual practice most history teachers are combining epistemologically opposing objectives for pedagogical, political and religious motives. (shrink)

ABSTRACTWith over 560 citations reported on Google Scholar by April 2018, a publication by Juslin and Gabrielsson presented evidence supporting performers’ abilities to communicate, with hig...

It is a matter of tacit consensus that rationalist adeptness in urban planning traces its foundations to the philosophy of the Renaissance thinker and mathematician Ren Descartes. This study suggests, in turn, that the planned urban environment of the Renaissance may have also led Descartes, and his intellectual peers, to tenets that became the foundations of modern philosophy and science. The geometric street pattern of the late middle ages and the Renaissance, the planned townscapes, street views and the formal garden (...) design, appeared as parables for the perfection of the universe and the supremacy of critical reason. It is within this urban metaphor that Descartes's philosophical narrative betrays perceptual and conceptual impact from the contrast between convoluted medieval townscapes and the emerging harmonious street patterns where defined vistas and predictable clarity of street views were paramount. The geometrically delineated street views of the Renaissance new town became the spark that lit the philosopher's sagacity in reflecting upon the concept of "clear and distinct ideas." Past suggestions that Descartes was led to his philosophical breakthroughs through his discovery of co-ordinate geometry reinforce further the stance that Renaissance planning predisposed rationalist thought. (shrink)

It is a matter of tacit consensus that rationalist adeptness in urban planning traces its foundations to the philosophy of the Renaissance thinker and mathematician René Descartes. This study suggests, in turn, that the planned urban environment of the Renaissance may have also led Descartes, and his intellectual peers, to tenets that became the foundations of modern philosophy and science. The geometric street pattern of the late middle ages and the Renaissance, the planned townscapes, street views and the formal garden (...) design, appeared as parables for the perfection of the universe and the supremacy of critical reason. It is within this urban metaphor that Descartes's philosophical narrative betrays perceptual and conceptual impact from the contrast between convoluted medieval townscapes and the emerging harmonious street patterns where defined vistas and predictable clarity of street views were paramount. The geometrically delineated street views of the Renaissance new town became the spark that lit the philosopher's sagacity in reflecting upon the concept of "clear and distinct ideas." Past suggestions that Descartes was led to his philosophical breakthroughs through his discovery of co-ordinate geometry reinforce further the stance that Renaissance planning predisposed rationalist thought. (shrink)

Marine chronometers, often considered precision instruments, proliferated in navigational practices during the nineteenth century. This paper examines their use in the hands of naval officers in the early-nineteenth century. It argues that both the instruments and their operators required careful management and regulation. In addition, officers learnt and adapted observatory practices relating to the process of data collection and management. Through these means, chronometric data was collected, organized, and reduced to negotiate accurate results.

In the early twentieth century Walter Benjamin introduced the idea of epochal and ongoing progression in interaction between mind and the built environment. Since early antiquity, the present study suggests, Benjamin’s notion has been manifest in metaphors of gender in city-form, whereby edifices and urban voids have represented masculinity and femininity, respectively. At the onset of interaction between mind and the built environment are prehistoric myths related to the human body and to the sky. During antiquity gender projection can be (...) detected in western perceptions linking natural and built environments, commencing with Plato’s Atlantis and his Myth of Er, and later as a likely import of the Chinese yin-yang mythology. Culminating with the Age of Discovery, alongside advances in experiential awareness of the Earth’s sphericity, respective feminine and masculine earmarks can be detected in early modern perspicacity of the Earth’s southern and northern hemispheres. Our conceptions of natural and built environments inherently continue to contain gender traits. Yet urban voids, as the feminine face of city-form, have been severely understated in the built environment. Through design and configuration of urban voids, allegories of femininity in city-form ought to be celebrated, not discarded. (shrink)

Mutual feedback between human-made environments and facets of thought throughout history has yielded two myths: the Garden and the Citadel. Both myths correspond to Jung’s feminine and masculine collective subconscious, as well as to Nietzsche’s premise of Apollonian and Dionysian impulses in art. Nietzsche’s premise suggests, furthermore, that the feminine myth of the Garden is time-bound whereas the masculine myth of the Citadel, or the Ideal City, constitutes a spatial deportment. Throughout history the two myths have continually molded the built (...) environment and thought, but the myth of the Ideal City – from Plato to Descartes to modernity – came to dominate city-form and ensuing aspects of contemplation. This relationship seems to have shifted during the twentieth century. Intellectual dispositions have begun to be largely nurtured by an incongruous city-form emerging from the gap between the incessant promise for an automated, well-functioning city, on the one hand, and looming alienation, coupled with the factual, malfunctioning city, on the other hand. Urban decay, a persisting and time-bound urban event that is a byproduct of this configuration, suggests the ascent of the Garden myth in post-modern city-form. (shrink)

Some philosophers have thought that life could only be meaningful if there is no God. For Sartre and Nagel, for example, a God of the traditional classical theistic sort would constrain our powers of self-creative autonomy in ways that would severely detract from the meaning of our lives, possibly even evacuate our lives of all meaning. Some philosophers, by contrast, have thought that life could only be meaningful if there is a God. God and the Meanings of Life is interested (...) in exploring the truth in both these schools of thought, seeking to discover what God could and couldn't do to make life meaningful (as well as what he would and wouldn't do). Mawson espouses a version of the 'amalgam' or 'pluralism' thesis about the issue of life's meaning – in essence, that there are a number of different legitimate meanings of 'meaning' (and indeed 'life') in the question of life's meaning. According to Mawson, God, were he to exist, would help make life meaningful in some of these senses and hinder in some others. He argues that whilst there could be meaning in a Godless universe, there could be other sorts of meaning in a Godly one and that these would be deeper. (shrink)

Despite the wealth of research showing that psychological contract breach (PCB) has negative outcomes for individuals, knowledge about the influence of the social context in which breaches are experienced is still scarce. This is surprising, as scholars have argued that work climates, such as when unit members are generally highly committed, could buffer an individual’s negative experiences at work. Yet, to date, the unit climate and PCB literatures have largely remained separated and our main goal is to integrate these fields. (...) This is especially timely and relevant, because recent work in the unit climate literature indicates that merely looking at the average climate level might not be enough, because the climate’s strength (i.e., the agreement or homogeneity within the unit) could also provide important social cues. Building on these recent advances, we develop and test a theoretical framework which links both climate concepts to PCB. More specifically, we hypothesized that especially when all unit members are highly and homogeneously committed, an employee would reframe their PCB in such a way that it would less adversely affect work engagement and turnover intentions. Using data from 1,272 employees across 36 healthcare units, multilevel structural path analyses supported this three-way interaction. By answering recent calls for more ‘social PCB research’ and integrating the unit climate and PCB literatures, we aim to provide guidance to scholars and practitioners who want to understand in more depth the social context’s influence on PCB. (shrink)

Onderzoek naar de sociale, culturele en politieke veranderingen in het rooms-katholieke 's-Hertogenbosch, gedurende 25 jaar.

Spanning six centuries of political thought in European history, this book puts the ideas of thinkers from Christine de Pizan to Simone de Beauvoir in the broader contexts of their time. Conventional histories of political thought have sometimes relegated feminist thinking to the footnotes. This text considers how feminism is central to key notions of modern political discourse such as autonomy, liberty and equality, and feminist discussions of morality have been linked to major currents in political thought such as republicanism, (...) civic humanism and romanticism. This collection of essays aims to show that feminism is not a variant of modern radical discourse but is a mode of analyzing the issues of authority, power and virtue that have been at the heart of European political thought from the Middle Ages. (shrink)

This book expands on the thought of Walter Benjamin by exploring the notion of modern mind, pointing to the mutual and ongoing feedback between mind and city-form. Since the Neolithic Age, volumes and voids have been the founding constituents of built environments as projections of gender—as spatial allegories of the masculine and the feminine. While these allegories had been largely in balance throughout the early history of the city, increasingly during modernity, volume has overcome void in city-form. This volume investigates (...) the pattern of Benjamin's thinking and extends it to the larger psycho-cultural and urban contexts of various time periods, pointing to environ/mental progression in the unfolding of modernity. (shrink)

Almost simultaneous emergence of Existentialism and Marxism at end of the Little Ice Age had coincided with rapid urbanization and prevalence of mood disorder in northern Europe. This historic configuration is cast against Relph’s notion of place in his critique of urban planning. During the LIA street walking had mitigated mood disorder triggered by sunlight deprivation of indoor spaces while, at the same time, it had also buoyed a place. It was the unplanned place in the open air—a dilapidated street (...) corner in St. Petersburg or Romanesque streetscape of Old Copenhagen—that offered authenticity, cerebral restitution, and for ardent minds also discernment and acumen. Relph’s critique continues to be of pressing relevance to winter-cities designed for automotive access, and also for the interpretation it offers on the thought and events of the late LIA and following it. (shrink)

Urban void sometimes amplifies alienation within urban space, and thus leads the way to the human craving for authenticity. Juxtaposing urban void with the conventional notion of urban objects, furthermore, conforms to Nietzsche's distinction between Dionysian and Apollonian deportment. The Apollonian is at the founding of the Platonic myth of the Ideal City and its modern descendant, the myth of the Rational City. Modern urban planning has been object-directed and, consistent with the historical trend since the Renaissance, has become a (...) constituent of a Neo-Platonic mythology that insists on forging a city as an urban technological artifact. Most existing urban parks and squares, as well as suburban gardens, within this approach, only augment the subordinate standing of urban voids. Yet the significance of urban void, as the unplanned place that represents the pre-rational, the genuine and the unadulterated, ought to lead to its re-introduction into city-form as a conduit for self-reflection and authenticity. Recognizing urban void for its significance may reintroduce an important Dionysian feature into city-form, leading to deliberate carving of authentic urban spaces. (shrink)

These nineteen original studies deal with Wessel Gansfort (1419-1489), the Modern Devotion and its influence, subjects and personalities of early humanism and ...

T. A. Cavanaugh's Hippocrates' Oath and Asclepius' Snake: The Birth of the Medical Profession articulates the Oath as establishing the medical profession's unique internal medical ethic - in its most basic and least controvertible form, this ethic mandates that physicians help and not harm the sick. Relying on Greek myth, drama, and medical experience (e.g., homeopathy), the book shows how this medical ethic arose from reflection on the most vexing medical-ethical problem -- injury caused by a physician -- and argues (...) that deliberate iatrogenic harm, especially the harm of a doctor choosing to kill (physician assisted suicide, euthanasia, abortion, and involvement in capital punishment), amounts to an abandonment of medicine as an exclusively therapeutic profession. The book argues that medicine as a profession necessarily involves stating before others what one stands for: the good one seeks and the bad one seeks to avoid on behalf of the sick, and rejects the view that medicine is purely a technique lacking its own unique internal ethic. It concludes noting that medical promising (as found in the White Coat Ceremony through which U. S. medical students matriculate) implicates medical autonomy which in turn merits respect, including honoring professional conscientious objections. (shrink)

This text is designed to help students construct and evaluate arguments.