Sophie Lewis's Full Surrogacy Now offers both a blistering polemic against work, the family, and capitalism and a grounded scholarly reflection on the current industry practices and future possibilities of surrogacy. Throughout, Lewis offers various formulations of the title's demand:"Full surrogacy now" … is an expression of solidarity with the evolving desires of gestational workers, from the point of view of a struggle against work. It names a struggle that, by redistributing the burdens of that labor, dissolves the (...) distinction between reproducers and nonreproducers, mothers and nonmothers, altogether.Lewis does not endorse the "marketization" of gestation, or "markets per se". Instead, she supports... (shrink)

This guide accompanies the following article(s): ‘Full Disclosure of the “Raw Data” of Research on Humans: Citizens’ Rights, Product Manufacturer’s Obligations and the Quality of the Scientific Database.’Philosophy Compass 6/2 (2011): 90–99. doi: 10.1111/j.1747‐9991.2010.00376.x Author’s Introduction Securing consent (and informed consent) from patients and research study participants is a key concern in patient care and research on humans. Yet, the legal doctrines of consent and informed consent differ in their applications. In patient care, the judicial doctrines of consent and (...) informed consent are disclosure doctrines based on the obligation of physicians to inform their patients of the following types of information: the nature of the procedure the physician is recommending in the patent’s care (P), the alternatives to the physician‐recommendation (A), and the risks of procedure and its alternatives (R). In addition, the physician must provide truthful answers to the patient’s questions (Q) to the best of the physician’s abilities. In research on humans, the onus of disclosure by study sponsors and principal investigators is much greater than in patient care precisely because the purpose of research is not patient care. The purpose of research is the identification and development of new generalizable knowledge. Thus, participation in a research study or trial may not benefit the study volunteer at all. In addition, the participant may carry a heavy risk burden in relationship to any testing of a newly designed drug or device as part of their experiences in the research study. Presently, despite the risks borne by the research study participant, the raw data collected from volunteers in research trials are treated by courts as if they were the private property of the study sponsor rather than generally owed to the public as would be expected by an effort like research participation aimed at contributing to the development of generalizable knowledge. This paper reviews the obligations that study sponsors owe to their study participants based on the very definition of research as a systematic activity whose purpose is to develop generalizable knowledge to help all humans. Author Recommends Court cases Canterbury v. Spence, United States Court of Appeals, District of Columbia Circuit 464 F.2d 772 (1972). (Federal appellate decision heard in the District of Columbia, USA) Reibl v. Hughes, 2 S.C.R. 880 (1980). (Supreme Court of Canada) Rogers v. Whitaker, 175 C.L. R. 479 (1992). (High Court of Australia) Sidaway v. Board of Governors of the Bethlem Royal Hospital and the Maudsley Hospital and Others. 1 A.C. 871 (1985) (House of Lords) Canterbury v. Spence is the landmark Federal informed consent case in the United States heard in the District of Columbia. In this case, Judge Spottswood Robinson articulated the reasonable person standard of informed consent. This standard was subsequently adopted by the Supreme Court of Canada (Reibl v. Hughes, 2 S.C.R. 880 (1980)) and the High Court of Australia (Rogers v. Whitaker, 175 C.L. R. 479 (1992)). The House of Lords rejected the reasonable person standard in England in Sidaway v. Board of Governors of the Bethlem Royal Hospital and the Maudsley Hospital and Others. 1 A.C. 871 (1985). Book Mazur, Dennis J. The Science and Ethics of Research on Humans. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2007. This book is a detailed guide for the review of scientific and ethical aspects of research on humans contained in the research study protocols and research informed consent forms which need to be submitted by study sponsors and principal investigators to institutional review boards (IRBs) for IRB review before a research study can receive approval to be conducted within a human study population in those institutions over which the IRB has authority. It also presents basic definitions in the area of research on humans and basic approaches to help conduct a deep review of the underlying scientific and ethical issues that are present within a research study protocol and its accompanying research informed consent form. Report National Commission for the Protection of Human Subjects of Biomedical and Behavioral Research. The Belmont Report: Ethical Guidelines for the Protection of Human Subjects of Research. Washington, DC: DHEW Publications, 1978 (78‐0012). This U.S. National Commission in the Belmont Report argued for the necessity of a reasonable volunteer standard in research on humans in the United States. Arguing that the professional standard and the reasonable person standard of consent and informed consent were insufficient to base a disclosure standard in research on humans, this National Commission developed the reasonable volunteer standard where a study participant is to be approached in research informed consent with that information that a reasonable volunteer would want to know. Online Materials Belmont Report: Syllabus Topics for Lecture and Discussion Week I: Introduction and Overview Readings: Rogers v. Whitaker, 175 C.L.R. 479 (1992). (High Court of Australia) Sidaway v. Board of Governors of the Bethlem Royal Hospital and the Maudsley Hospital and Others. 1 A.C. 871 (1985) (House of Lords) Week II: The Different Standards of Consent and Informed Consent Readings: Canterbury v. Spence, 464 F.2d 772 (1972). (Federal appellate opinion heard in the District of Columbia) Sidaway v. Board of Governors of the Bethlem Royal Hospital and the Maudsley Hospital and Others. 1 A.C. 871 (1985) (House of Lords) Week III: Definition of Research Reading: Mazur, Dennis J. The Science and Ethics of Research on Humans. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2007. (Especially Chapters 2 and 3) Week IV: How to Review a Research Study Protocol and Research Informed Consent Form Reading: Mazur, Dennis J. The Science and Ethics of Research on Humans. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2007. (Especially Chapters 4–6, 10, and 12–14) Week V: Obligations in Research of Humans Versus Patient Care Reading: National Commission for the Protection of Human Subjects of Biomedical and Behavioral Research. The Belmont Report: Ethical Guidelines for the Protection of Human Subjects of Research. Washington, DC: DHEW Publications, 1978 (78‐0012). Focus Questions • How do the judicial doctrines of consent in England and Australia compare to the judicial doctrines of informed consent in the United States and Canada? • How does a professional standard of disclosure differ from a reasonable person standard of disclosure? • What is the definition of research? • How is a research study (study proposal and research informed consent form) reviewed from scientific and ethical bases for considerations of approval by an IRB? • How do the obligations of a study sponsor, a principal investigator, and a research team conducting a research trial on human study participants differ from the obligations of a physician caring for a patient? • Should all raw data of research derived from humans be made available to the public for use in developing generalizable knowledge to help others, or should raw data be considered the private property of the study sponsors (for example, prescription drug manufacturers), who fund the research trials? Seminar/project Idea Draw a timeline of the development of the basic concepts of consent and informed consent in patient care and in patient research. On this timeline, first place the dates of the key court cases in England, the United States, Canada, and Australia on consent and informed consent. Then place the date of the development of the Belmont Report. Why do differences exist between these four countries in terms of the legal requirements of informedness of a patient (in medical care) and a study participant (in medical research)? What roles if any do the concepts of self‐determination and self‐decision have in consent and informed consent in patient care and in informed consent in research on humans among the four countries of interest? What are the realities of research on human participants that require a new standard of informed consent, the reasonable volunteer standard, to be developed beyond the two standards in patient care, the professional standard, and the reasonable person standard? Counterpoint Arguments The following are counterpoint arguments that need to be appreciated to more fully understand the concepts that impact the thesis that ‘raw data’ should be open to the public to allow the opportunity of checking of the results of its associated scientific paper and for further analysis. De‐Identified (Anonymized) Raw Data A current approach to identifying (anonymizinig) raw data is based on the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) of 1996 (P.L.104‐191). HIPAA was enacted by the U.S. Congress in 1996 to keep a person’s medical information private. In a research study, a person’s private medical information can become research data. HIPAA’s Privacy Rule allows a covered entity to de‐identify data by removing all 18 elements that could be used to identify the individual or the individual’s relatives, employers, or household members; these elements are enumerated in the Privacy Rule. The covered entity must also have no actual knowledge that the remaining information could be used alone or in combination with other information to identify the individual who is the subject of the information. Under this method, the identifiers that must be removed are the following: 1 Names. 2 All geographic subdivisions smaller than a state, including street address, city, county, precinct, ZIP Code, and their equivalent geographical codes, except for the initial three digits of a ZIP Code if, according to the current publicly available data from the Bureau of the Census: 2a. The geographic unit formed by combining all ZIP Codes with the same three initial digits contains more than 20,000 people. 2b. The initial three digits of a ZIP Code for all such geographic units containing 20,000 or fewer people are changed to 000. 3 All elements of dates (except year) for dates directly related to an individual, including birth date, admission date, discharge date, and date of death, and all ages over 89 and all elements of dates (including year) indicative of such age, except that such ages and elements may be aggregated into a single category of age 90 or older. 4 Telephone numbers. 5 Facsimile numbers. 6 Electronic mail addresses. 7 Social security numbers. 8 Medical record numbers. 9 Health plan beneficiary numbers. 10 Account numbers. 11 Certificate/license numbers. 12 Vehicle identifiers and serial numbers, including license plate numbers. 13 Device identifiers and serial numbers. 14 Web universal resource locators (URLs). 15 Internet protocol (IP) address numbers. 16 Biometric identifiers, including fingerprints and voiceprints. 17 Full‐face photographic images and any comparable images. 18 Any other unique identifying number, characteristic, or code, unless otherwise permitted by the Privacy Rule for re‐identification. Even though ‘raw data’ can be de‐identified (anonymized) so that there is no way to trace back the data to the study participant from which it was drawn, there are still questions whether the ‘de‐identified raw data’ can be given to other researchers or made public without the original study participant’s approval. It may be the case that this approval could be done at the start of any research study where the individual considering study participation would be counseled on what the process of de‐identification consists of and would be asked whether the participant would allow use of the data by other researchers or made available to the public in a de‐identified state. However, there may be questions of the study participants as to whether the data are truly de‐identified and untraceable back to the study participant since the participant would not be able to see the process actually being carried out in detail in all relevant circumstances. Using Raw Data in Context Simply being in possession of raw data is never enough to build on that data from a research perspective. Researchers need to understand the context of the scientific research study in which the data were collected. This research context includes (but is not limited to): (i) the scientific hypothesis of the research study, (ii) the inclusion and exclusion criteria selected by the research designers of the study to determine which study participants were included and which were excluded from the study, (iii) the methods used to collect the data and possibilities of errors in the data collection processes, and (iv) answers to questions regarding whether any data were excluded from the study data and why these data were excluded. Ownership Rights Over Data There are ownership rights over data. Ownership rights include court decision making related to the question which parties are to be considered as the owners of the data. Possible owners here include (but are not limited to) (i) the study sponsor whose only role was to fund that study, (ii) the principal investigator(s) who developed the scientific hypothesis, and (iii) individual study participants through special contracts made by individual participants who negotiate such contracts with study sponsors and principal investigators to share in the ownership of data. Examples of such data are participant sources of unique gene lines or unique cell lines to be used in future research. Objections to Data Sharing Finally, individual researchers may simply object to sharing data. A researcher’s arguments here may be simply stating that he or she has a right to fully analyze the data since the collection of the data was the researchers’ idea in the first place. These researchers may argue that they have the right to mine the data as fully as they can before deciding to make the data open to the public for others to analyze. Works Cited 1 Kaiser, J. ‘Making Clinical Data Widely Available.’Science 322.5899 (10 Oct. 2008): 217–8. 2 de Lusignan, S., J.F. Metsemakers, P. Houwink, V. Gunnarsdottir, and J. van der Lei. ‘Routinely Collected General Practice Data: Goldmines for Research? A Report of the European Federation for Medical Informatics Primary Care Informatics Working Group (EFMI PCIWG) from MIE2006, Maastricht, The Netherlands.’Informatics in Primary Care 14.3 (2006): 203–9. 3 Sim, I. ‘Human Studies Database Project’, CTSA Data Repositories Symposium (17 Oct. 2008). 23 Nov. 2010. 4 Sim, I., C.G. Chute, H. Lehmann, R. Nagarajan, M. Nahm, and R.H. Scheuermann. ‘Keeping Raw Data in Context.’Science 323.5915 (6 Feb. 2009): 713. 5 U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, National Institutes of Health, HIPAA Privacy Rule, Information for Researchers. 13 Nov. 2010. 6 Wilczynski, N.L., R.B. Haynes, and Hedges Team. ‘EMBASE Search Strategies for Identifying Methodologically Sound Diagnostic Studies for Use by Clinicians and Researchers.’BMC Medicine 29.3 (March 2005): 7. (shrink)

Problems of logical theory choice are current being widely dis- cussed in the context of anti-exceptionalist views on logic. According to those views, logic is not a special science among others, so, in particular, the methodology for theory choice should be the same in logic as for other scientific disciplines. Richard Routley advanced one such methodology which meshes well with anti-exceptionalism, and argued that it leads one to choosing one single logic, which is a kind of ultralogic. We argue that (...) the choice for only one correct system of logic may be rejected on the basis of the methodology proposed by Routley and, furthermore, that taking anti-exceptionalism about logic seriously recommends that a pluralist view of logic should be accepted. We call this view “full-blooded anti-exceptionalism”, and the resulting view on logic, lacking a proper name, “local pluralism”. (shrink)

Millianism is the view that the semantic content of a proper name is its semantic referent. Empty names, names with no semantic referents, raise various problems for Millianism. To solve these problems, many have appealed to pragmatics, thus ‘Pragmatic Millianism’. Pragmatic Millianism employs the relation of association between names and descriptions as well as some pragmatic processes to substitute empty names with descriptions associated with. The resultant content should account for the intuitions raised by utterances of sentences containing empty (...) names. Here, I will try to argue against this picture: Names are associated with descriptions of different kinds in a number of ways. The complex nature of this relation is overlooked by Pragmatic Millianism. Neither the relation of association nor the pragmatic processes responsible for substituting a description or a cluster of descriptions for an empty name guarantee the fullness of what is pragmatically imparted. The moral is this: Regarding empty names, Pragmatic Millianism should be avoided. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:All was this land full fill'd of faerie," or Magic and the Past in Early Modern EnglandLauren KassellI.In 1625 Gabriel Naudé (1600–53), student of medicine and up-and-coming librarian, wrote a history of magic.1 Paracelsianism had been debated in France for decades, and in 1623 Naudé had lent his pen to the controversy following the hoax appearance of bills posted in Paris announcing the arrival of the Fraternity of (...) the Rosy Cross and the wonders they could provide. The impetus for Naudé's history of magic was a pamphlet that described Homer and Virgil, abusively, as magicians. As Didier Kahn has shown, Naudé's 1623 intervention against the Rosicrucians wrested a brewing dispute about Paracelsianism from the hands of theologians and settled it in the name of reason, not religion; his medical training no doubt informed his intervention.2 In his history of magic Naudé complained that everyone who ever did anything clever was now reputed to be a magician, which meant in league with the devil. His project was to clear the ground of the [End Page 107] false histories that had been written for the previous two hundred years. Adopting a mode of historia litteraria, he redeemed the reputations of several dozen learned men—including Zoroaster, Socrates, Roger Bacon, Agrippa, and ultimately Virgil—whose names had been sullied by the term magician.3The branding of natural philosophers and especially mathematical practitioners as magicians had been an enduring problem.4 As John Aubrey would later reflect in notes on the life of the Oxford scholar Thomas Allen, "In those darke times Astrologer, Mathematician, and Conjurer, were accounted the same thing."5 But Naudé provides an elaborate account of why these accusations initially might have been fabricated—jealousy, incredulity, malice, fear of technology—and demonstrates a method for unmasking these errors. Follow the simple rules of good scholarship, he insists: read the best authors, think logically, and acquire "a certain familiarity with the most profitable Sciences, and the most universal and general account of the affairs of this World that may be had, which is to be gained partly by our own industry, partly by the endeavors of those who have gone before us, such as may be those of Historians."6 That is, through hard work and the help of other historians, understand the context in which these texts were written. Perfect historians are indispensable; false historians should be read with caution.7 If one encounters a fabulous tale, locate its textual sources, read critically, and remember that (many) historians vend rubbish.8 Naudé surveys a vast literature dating from antiquity through the sixteenth century, demonstrating that misreadings of tropes and irony, for instance, have led to the labeling of poets and natural philosophers as magicians.9 Likewise, where people have professed their magical powers, Naudé is careful to show that writing books about magic and boasting about one's expertise are not the same thing as practicing magic.10 These fables persist because authors repeat what others have written without applying the above principles of good research; they write for their own glory instead of doing proper research; and they show off their polymathic skills by assembling great [End Page 108] heaps of examples instead of making sense of them. Thus the noble name of history is built upon a monstrous edifice of fables.11In short, prompted by festering occultism and religious controversies in Paris, Naudé wrote a history of magic in order to release the great men of learning from the label of magician. This is a history of the "first appearance of learning, the first rising of the great wits, the time they flourished, the ages which have brought forth most, and take notice by the way, how that ignorance hath always persecuted them with this calumny"; he defines magic historically.12 Great learning and suspicion of its demonic sources are inseparable. Through pragmatic reading, Naudé redeems scholars who have been called magicians, and shifts the onus of explanation away from these learned men and onto historians and their incredulous readers.13 Poor histories are written by men guilty of pride and malice. These fables persist because... (shrink)

The linguistic theory of the Kabbala, as it is explained in the writings of the Kabbalists of the 13th century—or at least basically implied in them—comes to rest upon a combination of the above-mentioned interpretations of the Book of Yetsira with the doctrine of the Name of God as a basis of that language. What is essentially new in this is the way in which the scope and range of a divine language—as understood by the Kabbalists—is brought into unique (...) prominence over and beyond the realm of created man. In the Book of Yetsira there could still be some doubt as to whether the ten Sefiroth and the 22 letters were themselves thought of as created; and as we have seen, there is even considerable evidence in favor of this conception. In the doctrines and teachings of the Kabbalists, however, this is no longer the case. The ten original numbers have become ten emanations of the divine fullness of being. Where these are concerned one can only now talk in terms of creation in a meta-phorical sense. In the Sefiroth of the Kabbalists, God manifests himself in ten spheres or aspects of his activity. The 22 letters are themselves part and parcel of this area; they are configurations of the divine energies, which are themselves grounded in the world of the Sefiroth, and whose appearance in the world either beyond, outside or beneath this realm of the divine emanations is simply a gradual process of de-refinement and an intensified crystallization of those innermost signs of all things, as they correspond to the progressively evolving and increasingly condensed media of the creation. All creation, from the world of the highest angel to the lower realms of physical nature, refers symbolically to the law which operates within it—the law which governs in the world of the Sefiroth. In everything something is reflected—one might just as well say—from the realms which lie in the center of it. Everything is transparent, and in this state of transparency everything takes on a symbolic character. This means that every thing, beyond its own meaning, has something more, something which is part of that which shines into it or, as if in some devious way, that which has left its mark behind in it, forever. The Book of Yetsira was still far removed from this type of interpretation. For the Kabbalists, however, the Sefiroth and the letters, in which the word of God is explained, or which constitute the word of God, were simply two different methods in which the same reality might be represented in a symbolic manner. In other words: whether the process of the manifestation of God, his stepping outside under the symbol of the light, and his diffusion of knowledge and reflection is what is represented, or whether it is to be understood to be the activeness of the divine language, of the self-differentiating word of the creation or even of the self-explanatory name of God. In the last analysis, this, for the Kabbalists, is no more than a question of the choice between symbolic structures which are in themselves equally arranged—the symbolism of light and the symbolism of language. (shrink)

ExtractBrian Skyrms's Signals has the virtues familiar from his Evolution of the Social Contract and The Stag Hunt. He begins with a very simple model of agents in interaction, and in a series of brief and beautifully clear chapters, this model and its successors are explored, elaborated, connected and illustrated through biological theory and the social sciences. Signals borrows its core model from David Lewis: it is Lewis's signalling game. In this game, two agents interact. One agent can observe which (...) of two equi-probable states the world is in, but that agent cannot act directly and profitably on that information. However, the informed agent can act in a way that will be perceptually salient to a second agent: say, by raising a red or a green flag. The second agent does have the capacity to respond appropriately to each state of the world. If that second agent chooses the right option, given the state of the world, both are rewarded. If the second agent fails to choose the right action, neither are. Obviously, the two agents are best off if they have a practice in which the informed agent regularly chooses a distinct, salient cue in response to each of the two world states, and in which the powerful agent uses that cue to select the rewarding act. Less obviously, agents with simple trial and error learning capacities can learn to signal and respond: neither explicit negotiation nor cognitive sophistication are required. Likewise, if individual agents do not have the capacity to learn, but if they breed true but with some variation, the evolutionary version of trial and error learning can take a population to one of the signalling system equilibria. View HTML Send article to KindleTo send this article to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about sending to your Kindle. Find out more about sending to your Kindle. Note you can select to send to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be sent to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply. Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.A GLASS HALF-FULL: BRIAN SKYRMS'S SIGNALSVolume 28, Issue 1Kim Sterelny DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/S0266267112000120Your Kindle email address Please provide your Kindle [email protected]@kindle.com Available formats PDF Please select a format to send. By using this service, you agree that you will only keep articles for personal use, and will not openly distribute them via Dropbox, Google Drive or other file sharing services. Please confirm that you accept the terms of use. Cancel Send ×Send article to Dropbox To send this article to your Dropbox account, please select one or more formats and confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about sending content to Dropbox. A GLASS HALF-FULL: BRIAN SKYRMS'S SIGNALSVolume 28, Issue 1Kim Sterelny DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/S0266267112000120Available formats PDF Please select a format to send. By using this service, you agree that you will only keep articles for personal use, and will not openly distribute them via Dropbox, Google Drive or other file sharing services. Please confirm that you accept the terms of use. Cancel Send ×Send article to Google Drive To send this article to your Google Drive account, please select one or more formats and confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about sending content to Google Drive. A GLASS HALF-FULL: BRIAN SKYRMS'S SIGNALSVolume 28, Issue 1Kim Sterelny DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/S0266267112000120Available formats PDF Please select a format to send. By using this service, you agree that you will only keep articles for personal use, and will not openly distribute them via Dropbox, Google Drive or other file sharing services. Please confirm that you accept the terms of use. Cancel Send ×Export citation Request permission. (shrink)

Naming, according to Sebeok, constihttes the first stage of zoosemiotics. This special but common use of language acrually inaugurates more complicated procedures of human discourse on non-human kingdom, including classification of its members. Because of language's double articulation in sound and sense, as well as the grapheme's pleremic (meaning-full) rather than cenemic (meaning-empty) characteristic (according to Hjelmslev). Chinese script is capable of naming and grouping animals randomly but effectively. This paper attempts to describe the said scriptorial "necessity of naming" (...) (Kripke) in classical Chinese by citing all the creatures, real or fabulous, with a /ma/ (horse) radical. (shrink)

The sources of the attractiveness of descriptivism and of direct reference theories are identified and shown to be wanting. The intermediate position, RWR, is one in which a proper name may or may not have a bearer, though if it has one it will have it essentially, and if it lacks one this will also be essential. A full development of the view makes use of the notion of the practice of using a name, and a preliminary (...) attempt is made to identify the main components of the concept of a name-using practice and to say something constructive about their character. (shrink)

Name der Zeitschrift: SATS Jahrgang: 18 Heft: 1 Seiten: 19-35.

Recently, Michael Wheeler has argued that despite its sometimes revolutionary rhetoric, the so called 4E cognitive movement, even in the guise of ‘radical’ enactivism, cannot achieve a full revolution in cognitive science. A full revolution would require the rejection of two essential tenets of traditional cognitive science, namely internalism and representationalism. Whilst REC might secure antirepresentationalism, it cannot do the same, so Wheeler argues, with externalism. In this paper, expanding on Wheeler’s analysis, we argue that what compromises REC’s (...) externalism is the persistence of cognitively relevant asymmetries between its purported cognitive systems and the environment. Complementarily, we argue that an antirepresentationalist ancestor of enactivism, the autopoietic theory of cognition, is able to deliver and secure externalism, thus offering the explosive combination that Wheeler claims us needed for a revolution in cognitive science. (shrink)

This guide accompanies the following article(s): ‘Full Disclosure of the “Raw Data” of Research on Humans: Citizens’ Rights, Product Manufacturer’s Obligations and the Quality of the Scientific Database.’Philosophy Compass 6/2 (2011): 90–99. doi: 10.1111/j.1747‐9991.2010.00376.x Author’s Introduction Securing consent (and informed consent) from patients and research study participants is a key concern in patient care and research on humans. Yet, the legal doctrines of consent and informed consent differ in their applications. In patient care, the judicial doctrines of consent and (...) informed consent are disclosure doctrines based on the obligation of physicians to inform their patients of the following types of information: the nature of the procedure the physician is recommending in the patent’s care (P), the alternatives to the physician‐recommendation (A), and the risks of procedure and its alternatives (R). In addition, the physician must provide truthful answers to the patient’s questions (Q) to the best of the physician’s abilities. In research on humans, the onus of disclosure by study sponsors and principal investigators is much greater than in patient care precisely because the purpose of research is not patient care. The purpose of research is the identification and development of new generalizable knowledge. Thus, participation in a research study or trial may not benefit the study volunteer at all. In addition, the participant may carry a heavy risk burden in relationship to any testing of a newly designed drug or device as part of their experiences in the research study. Presently, despite the risks borne by the research study participant, the raw data collected from volunteers in research trials are treated by courts as if they were the private property of the study sponsor rather than generally owed to the public as would be expected by an effort like research participation aimed at contributing to the development of generalizable knowledge. This paper reviews the obligations that study sponsors owe to their study participants based on the very definition of research as a systematic activity whose purpose is to develop generalizable knowledge to help all humans. Author Recommends Court cases Canterbury v. Spence, United States Court of Appeals, District of Columbia Circuit 464 F.2d 772 (1972). (Federal appellate decision heard in the District of Columbia, USA) Reibl v. Hughes, 2 S.C.R. 880 (1980). (Supreme Court of Canada) Rogers v. Whitaker, 175 C.L. R. 479 (1992). (High Court of Australia) Sidaway v. Board of Governors of the Bethlem Royal Hospital and the Maudsley Hospital and Others. 1 A.C. 871 (1985) (House of Lords) Canterbury v. Spence is the landmark Federal informed consent case in the United States heard in the District of Columbia. In this case, Judge Spottswood Robinson articulated the reasonable person standard of informed consent. This standard was subsequently adopted by the Supreme Court of Canada (Reibl v. Hughes, 2 S.C.R. 880 (1980)) and the High Court of Australia (Rogers v. Whitaker, 175 C.L. R. 479 (1992)). The House of Lords rejected the reasonable person standard in England in Sidaway v. Board of Governors of the Bethlem Royal Hospital and the Maudsley Hospital and Others. 1 A.C. 871 (1985). Book Mazur, Dennis J. The Science and Ethics of Research on Humans. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2007. This book is a detailed guide for the review of scientific and ethical aspects of research on humans contained in the research study protocols and research informed consent forms which need to be submitted by study sponsors and principal investigators to institutional review boards (IRBs) for IRB review before a research study can receive approval to be conducted within a human study population in those institutions over which the IRB has authority. It also presents basic definitions in the area of research on humans and basic approaches to help conduct a deep review of the underlying scientific and ethical issues that are present within a research study protocol and its accompanying research informed consent form. Report National Commission for the Protection of Human Subjects of Biomedical and Behavioral Research. The Belmont Report: Ethical Guidelines for the Protection of Human Subjects of Research. Washington, DC: DHEW Publications, 1978 (78‐0012). This U.S. National Commission in the Belmont Report argued for the necessity of a reasonable volunteer standard in research on humans in the United States. Arguing that the professional standard and the reasonable person standard of consent and informed consent were insufficient to base a disclosure standard in research on humans, this National Commission developed the reasonable volunteer standard where a study participant is to be approached in research informed consent with that information that a reasonable volunteer would want to know. Online Materials Belmont Report: Syllabus Topics for Lecture and Discussion Week I: Introduction and Overview Readings: Rogers v. Whitaker, 175 C.L.R. 479 (1992). (High Court of Australia) Sidaway v. Board of Governors of the Bethlem Royal Hospital and the Maudsley Hospital and Others. 1 A.C. 871 (1985) (House of Lords) Week II: The Different Standards of Consent and Informed Consent Readings: Canterbury v. Spence, 464 F.2d 772 (1972). (Federal appellate opinion heard in the District of Columbia) Sidaway v. Board of Governors of the Bethlem Royal Hospital and the Maudsley Hospital and Others. 1 A.C. 871 (1985) (House of Lords) Week III: Definition of Research Reading: Mazur, Dennis J. The Science and Ethics of Research on Humans. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2007. (Especially Chapters 2 and 3) Week IV: How to Review a Research Study Protocol and Research Informed Consent Form Reading: Mazur, Dennis J. The Science and Ethics of Research on Humans. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2007. (Especially Chapters 4–6, 10, and 12–14) Week V: Obligations in Research of Humans Versus Patient Care Reading: National Commission for the Protection of Human Subjects of Biomedical and Behavioral Research. The Belmont Report: Ethical Guidelines for the Protection of Human Subjects of Research. Washington, DC: DHEW Publications, 1978 (78‐0012). Focus Questions • How do the judicial doctrines of consent in England and Australia compare to the judicial doctrines of informed consent in the United States and Canada? • How does a professional standard of disclosure differ from a reasonable person standard of disclosure? • What is the definition of research? • How is a research study (study proposal and research informed consent form) reviewed from scientific and ethical bases for considerations of approval by an IRB? • How do the obligations of a study sponsor, a principal investigator, and a research team conducting a research trial on human study participants differ from the obligations of a physician caring for a patient? • Should all raw data of research derived from humans be made available to the public for use in developing generalizable knowledge to help others, or should raw data be considered the private property of the study sponsors (for example, prescription drug manufacturers), who fund the research trials? Seminar/project Idea Draw a timeline of the development of the basic concepts of consent and informed consent in patient care and in patient research. On this timeline, first place the dates of the key court cases in England, the United States, Canada, and Australia on consent and informed consent. Then place the date of the development of the Belmont Report. Why do differences exist between these four countries in terms of the legal requirements of informedness of a patient (in medical care) and a study participant (in medical research)? What roles if any do the concepts of self‐determination and self‐decision have in consent and informed consent in patient care and in informed consent in research on humans among the four countries of interest? What are the realities of research on human participants that require a new standard of informed consent, the reasonable volunteer standard, to be developed beyond the two standards in patient care, the professional standard, and the reasonable person standard? Counterpoint Arguments The following are counterpoint arguments that need to be appreciated to more fully understand the concepts that impact the thesis that ‘raw data’ should be open to the public to allow the opportunity of checking of the results of its associated scientific paper and for further analysis. De‐Identified (Anonymized) Raw Data A current approach to identifying (anonymizinig) raw data is based on the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) of 1996 (P.L.104‐191). HIPAA was enacted by the U.S. Congress in 1996 to keep a person’s medical information private. In a research study, a person’s private medical information can become research data. HIPAA’s Privacy Rule allows a covered entity to de‐identify data by removing all 18 elements that could be used to identify the individual or the individual’s relatives, employers, or household members; these elements are enumerated in the Privacy Rule. The covered entity must also have no actual knowledge that the remaining information could be used alone or in combination with other information to identify the individual who is the subject of the information. Under this method, the identifiers that must be removed are the following: 1 Names. 2 All geographic subdivisions smaller than a state, including street address, city, county, precinct, ZIP Code, and their equivalent geographical codes, except for the initial three digits of a ZIP Code if, according to the current publicly available data from the Bureau of the Census: 2a. The geographic unit formed by combining all ZIP Codes with the same three initial digits contains more than 20,000 people. 2b. The initial three digits of a ZIP Code for all such geographic units containing 20,000 or fewer people are changed to 000. 3 All elements of dates (except year) for dates directly related to an individual, including birth date, admission date, discharge date, and date of death, and all ages over 89 and all elements of dates (including year) indicative of such age, except that such ages and elements may be aggregated into a single category of age 90 or older. 4 Telephone numbers. 5 Facsimile numbers. 6 Electronic mail addresses. 7 Social security numbers. 8 Medical record numbers. 9 Health plan beneficiary numbers. 10 Account numbers. 11 Certificate/license numbers. 12 Vehicle identifiers and serial numbers, including license plate numbers. 13 Device identifiers and serial numbers. 14 Web universal resource locators (URLs). 15 Internet protocol (IP) address numbers. 16 Biometric identifiers, including fingerprints and voiceprints. 17 Full‐face photographic images and any comparable images. 18 Any other unique identifying number, characteristic, or code, unless otherwise permitted by the Privacy Rule for re‐identification. Even though ‘raw data’ can be de‐identified (anonymized) so that there is no way to trace back the data to the study participant from which it was drawn, there are still questions whether the ‘de‐identified raw data’ can be given to other researchers or made public without the original study participant’s approval. It may be the case that this approval could be done at the start of any research study where the individual considering study participation would be counseled on what the process of de‐identification consists of and would be asked whether the participant would allow use of the data by other researchers or made available to the public in a de‐identified state. However, there may be questions of the study participants as to whether the data are truly de‐identified and untraceable back to the study participant since the participant would not be able to see the process actually being carried out in detail in all relevant circumstances. Using Raw Data in Context Simply being in possession of raw data is never enough to build on that data from a research perspective. Researchers need to understand the context of the scientific research study in which the data were collected. This research context includes (but is not limited to): (i) the scientific hypothesis of the research study, (ii) the inclusion and exclusion criteria selected by the research designers of the study to determine which study participants were included and which were excluded from the study, (iii) the methods used to collect the data and possibilities of errors in the data collection processes, and (iv) answers to questions regarding whether any data were excluded from the study data and why these data were excluded. Ownership Rights Over Data There are ownership rights over data. Ownership rights include court decision making related to the question which parties are to be considered as the owners of the data. Possible owners here include (but are not limited to) (i) the study sponsor whose only role was to fund that study, (ii) the principal investigator(s) who developed the scientific hypothesis, and (iii) individual study participants through special contracts made by individual participants who negotiate such contracts with study sponsors and principal investigators to share in the ownership of data. Examples of such data are participant sources of unique gene lines or unique cell lines to be used in future research. Objections to Data Sharing Finally, individual researchers may simply object to sharing data. A researcher’s arguments here may be simply stating that he or she has a right to fully analyze the data since the collection of the data was the researchers’ idea in the first place. These researchers may argue that they have the right to mine the data as fully as they can before deciding to make the data open to the public for others to analyze. Works Cited 1 Kaiser, J. ‘Making Clinical Data Widely Available.’Science 322.5899 (10 Oct. 2008): 217–8. 2 de Lusignan, S., J.F. Metsemakers, P. Houwink, V. Gunnarsdottir, and J. van der Lei. ‘Routinely Collected General Practice Data: Goldmines for Research? A Report of the European Federation for Medical Informatics Primary Care Informatics Working Group (EFMI PCIWG) from MIE2006, Maastricht, The Netherlands.’Informatics in Primary Care 14.3 (2006): 203–9. 3 Sim, I. ‘Human Studies Database Project’, CTSA Data Repositories Symposium (17 Oct. 2008). 23 Nov. 2010. 4 Sim, I., C.G. Chute, H. Lehmann, R. Nagarajan, M. Nahm, and R.H. Scheuermann. ‘Keeping Raw Data in Context.’Science 323.5915 (6 Feb. 2009): 713. 5 U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, National Institutes of Health, HIPAA Privacy Rule, Information for Researchers. 13 Nov. 2010. 6 Wilczynski, N.L., R.B. Haynes, and Hedges Team. ‘EMBASE Search Strategies for Identifying Methodologically Sound Diagnostic Studies for Use by Clinicians and Researchers.’BMC Medicine 29.3 (March 2005): 7. (shrink)

Although the theory of greatest-element rationalizability and maximalelement rationalizability on general domains and without full transitivity of rationalizing relations is well-developed in the literature, these standard notions of rational choice are often considered to be too demanding. An alternative definition of rationality of choice is that of non-deteriorating choice, which requires that the chosen alternatives must be judged at least as good as a reference alternative. In game theory, this definition is well-known under the name of individual rationality (...) when the reference alternative is construed to be the status quo. This alternative form of rationality of individual and social choice is characterized in this paper on general domains and without full transitivity of rationalizing relations. (shrink)

This article explores the philosophy of Alain Badiou from the vantage point of the concepts of the localization, delocalization, and relocalization of the void as thematized through literary arts, religion, emancipatory politics, and the subject of psychoanalysis. In short, these moments around the void characterize the processes through which truth is processed and seen through their full realization by a philosophical engagement across the various conditions in which these truths occur. The localization of a void is the naming of (...) an indiscernible element that is incommensurable to the rubric of constructible knowledge, sense and meaning which could saturate the space of truth. Thus, the naming that localizes the void acts as a subtraction of the invariant in the variance of situation such that across various points in space and time, we are still able to subtract the universal as the invariant not just as the fidelity to the localized truth but also as the resurrection of truth upon its relocalization at a different place and a different time. At its core, this article is concerned with truth, why truth is persistent, and why we have to struggle to articulate the truth that we are trying to be faithful to again and again with each instance that truth risks being covered-over and obscured. (shrink)

Although the view that sees proper names as referential singular terms is widely considered orthodoxy, there is a growing popularity to the view that proper names are predicates. This is partly because the orthodoxy faces two anomalies that Predicativism can solve: on the one hand, proper names can have multiple bearers. But multiple bearerhood is a problem to the idea that proper names have just one individual as referent. On the other hand, as Burge noted, proper names can have predicative (...) uses. But the view that proper names are singular terms arguably does not have the resources to deal with Burge’s cases. In this paper I argue that the Predicate View of proper names is mistaken. I first argue against the syntactic evidence used to support the view and against the predicativist’s methodology of inferring a semantic account for proper names based on incomplete syntactic data. I also show that Predicativism can neither explain the behaviour of proper names in full generality, nor claim the fundamentality of predicative names. In developing my own view, however, I accept the insight that proper names in some sense express generality. Hence I propose that proper names—albeit fundamentally singular referential terms—express generality in two senses. First, by being used as predicates, since then they are true of many individuals; and second, by being referentially related to many individuals. I respond to the problem of multiple bearerhood by proposing that proper names are polyreferential, and also explain the behaviour of proper names in light of the wider phenomenon I called category change, and show how Polyreferentialism can account for all uses of proper names. (shrink)

The article deals with Cantor's argument for the non-denumerability of reals somewhat in the spirit of Lakatos' logic of mathematical discovery. At the outset Cantor's proof is compared with some other famous proofs such as Dedekind's recursion theorem, showing that rather than usual proofs they are resolutions to do things differently. Based on this I argue that there are "ontologically" safer ways of developing the diagonal argument into a full-fledged theory of continuum, concluding eventually that famous semantic paradoxes based (...) on diagonal construction are caused by superficial understanding of what a name is. (shrink)

The progressive language of growth and development that informs our shared ideal of the educated subject also informs the curricular structure of schooling, in which new learning builds upon established knowledge and students' development depends upon their desire to take on those identities associated with various achievements of knowledge. Each re-creation of the student's identity requires a new production of the student's former identity as an uneducated self — a negative statement of the self-overcome, fashioned in the language of the (...) curriculum. But what of those objects of attachment or aspects of the child's identity that can neither be integrated in the student's educated identity nor accounted for as a recognizable lost object of childhood? In this essay James Stillwaggon argues that considering the student subject in terms of its melancholic attachments offers some alternatives to thinking of student identity primarily in terms of its progressive learning function. Julia Kristeva's treatment of melancholia as “asymbolia,” or against the representational function of language, is especially significant to this discussion, as it highlights the melancholic's resistance to the most basic educational purpose, namely the further engagement of the subject in language. (shrink)

We present the first effectively presentable fully abstract model for Starkʼs Reduced ML, a call-by-value higher-order programming language featuring integer-valued references. The model is constructed using techniques of nominal game semantics. Its distinctive feature is the presence of carefully restricted information about the store in plays, combined with conditions concerning the participantsʼ ability to distinguish reference names. We show how it leads to an explicit characterization of program equivalence.

Pragmatism is the most famous single work of American philosophy. Its sequel, The Meaning of Truth, is its imperative and inevitable companion. The definitive texts of both works are here available for the first time in one volume, with an introduction by the distinguished contemporary philosopher A. J. Ayer. In Pragmatism James attacked the transcendental, rationalist tradition in philosophy and tried to clear the ground for the doctrine he called radical empiricism. When first published, the book caused an uproar. It (...) was greeted with praise, hostility, ridicule. Determined to clarify his views, James collected nine essays he had written on this subject before he wrote Pragmatism and six written later in response to criticisms by Bertrand Russell and others. He published The Meaning of Truth in 1909, the year before his death. These two works show James at his best full of verve and good humor. Intent upon making difficult ideas clear, he is characteristically vigorous in his effort to make them prevail. (shrink)

Anyone who has paid attention to the work of Leon Kass over the years is likely to have read earlier versions of many of the essays collected in Leading a Worthy Life: Finding Meaning in Modern Times. Even so, they will repay repeated readings, if only because they are evidence that one who has spent his life in the academy can write prose that is clear, readable, and often arresting. Moreover, the essays, taken as a whole, exemplify nicely, as Kass (...) puts it, “the two major activities of my professional life”—namely, “examining closely the human meaning of the new biology” and “teaching searchingly great books that offer profound but competing accounts of the good life” (p. 12). (shrink)

Employing a time-lagged sample of 371 North American individuals working full time in a wide range of industries, occupations, and levels, we contribute to research on employee outcomes of corporate social responsibility attributions as substantive or symbolic. Utilizing a mediated moderation model, our study extends previous findings by explaining how and why CSR attributions are related with work-related attitudes and subsequent individual performance. In support of our hypotheses, our findings indicate that the relationships between CSR attributions and individual performance (...) are mediated through person–organization fit and work-related attitudes. Additionally, when CSR is perceived as important, substantive CSR is positively related to, and symbolic CSR is negatively related to, perception of fit with the organization. These findings contribute toward our understanding of the complex effect CSR has on employees’ work outcomes. Practical implications and future research directions are discussed. (shrink)

Levinas’ thought concerning God continues the philosophical discussion – how to speak about the divine within human language. His thought takes into account Heidegger’s Ontology and Rosenzweig’s exploration of revelation and the meaning of Divinity. Levinas sees the meaning of God’s names as an ethical commandment toward the Beyond – toward the other person. By using the Talmudic writings, Levinas describes the custom of Jewish wisdom to talk about God’s names and attributes as referring the subject towards other persons. As (...) this paper suggested, Levinas’ thought reaches its full implications with his treatment towards the importance of writing and erasure of the Divine Names. -/- . (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Human Perfection in Byzantine Theology: Attaining the Fullness of Christ by Alexis TorranceJoshua H. LimHuman Perfection in Byzantine Theology: Attaining the Fullness of Christ by Alexis Torrance, Changing Paradigms in Historical and Systematic Theology (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2020), ix + 239 pp.As a part of the series Changing Paradigms in Historical and Systematic Theology, Alexis Torrance's Human Perfection in Byzantine Theology examines the role of Christ's human (...) perfection within key figures in the Byzantine tradition against the backdrop of trends in contemporary Orthodox theology. Torrance seeks to uncover a common "Christocentrism" within the Byzantine tradition that challenges the contemporary tendency among contemporary Orthodox theologians to "unmoor" theological anthropology from the doctrine of the humanity of Christ. Indeed, according to Torrance, some of these approaches go so far as to risk the danger of "theological shipwreck" (1). As general representatives of the tendency Torrance has in mind, we can name such figures as John Zizioulas and Vladimir Lossky, whose personalist anthropologies depart from the tradition by "bypassing or deferring Christology" (10) In the case of Zizioulas, for instance, Torrance sees the disintegration of theological anthropology into "a sentimental application or projection of worldly and hazy concepts of personality and 'community' to both the Godhead and the people of God" (10). If, for Torrance, the above thinkers appear to represent a wayward tendency (even if he takes issue with certain of their "starting points," Torrance nevertheless seems to agree with most of their conclusions), it is Fr. John Behr whose theology Torrance likely has in mind as risking "theological shipwreck."As we shall see, the overall intelligibility of Torrance's work appears only in the final chapter, against the backdrop of Behr's "unmistakably Christocentric" (206) anthropology. While Torrance joins Behr in bemoaning the non-Christocentric character of much of modern theological anthropology, nevertheless, he sees Behr's project as positing a Christocentrism that flies in the face of the Byzantine tradition. In light of Behr's Christocentrism (and in a way that is reminiscent of Gaudium et Spes §22), Torrance wishes to [End Page 373] show that, for any genuinely Byzantine doctrine, Christ, in his particular and enduring humanity, must be the starting point of the human ideal: "Human perfection and human destiny are only revealed, known, and bequeathed in the person of Jesus Christ, the God-man" (11). To this end, Torrance proposes a "fresh Christocentric paradigm" (3).Torrance's study provides insight into important texts which both implicitly and explicitly reflect the priorities of the Fathers. Taking the historical and systematic approach of Georges Florovsky's "neo-patristic synthesis" as his cue, Torrance highlights the centrality of Christ's humanity in four key figures. He examines the immovability of the human will in the eschaton in Maximus the Confessor (ch. 2), the particular ("depictable") and enduring humanity of Christ in Theodore the Studite (ch. 3), the attainability of human perfection in Symeon the New Theologian (ch. 4), and the possibility of deification through uncreated grace in Gregory Palamas (ch. 5). In each of these thinkers Torrance discovers a "thoroughly Christocentric gaze" (37), which begins from the concrete and particular human nature of Christ, and thereby provides a contrast with the abstract tendency of certain contemporary Orthodox thinkers. However, as we shall see, on account of the ambiguity surrounding the term "Christocentric," it is not always clear whether or how Christ's humanity and human perfection figure into the themes discussed. More problematically, it is not always clear whether Christ's perfect humanity provides an insight into human perfection or human nature, as such.For the purposes of this review, we will focus on Torrance's chapter on Theodore the Studite. Torrance's treatment of Theodore is distinct from his treatment of other Byzantine figures inasmuch as Theodore's teaching on Christ's depictability is historically situated in an explicitly Christological debate. While the studies on Maximus, Symeon, and Palamas certainly have themes that, in one way or another, advert to Christ's humanity, nevertheless none of particular issues treated can be said to have Christ's humanity as their essential starting point. This is to say that Christ's human perfection... (shrink)

This study examines how meritocracy as a collective social imaginary promoting social justice and fairness reproduces class and caste inequalities and fosters ethical violence. We interrogate discourse of merit in the narratives of the professional–managerial class-in-making at an Indian business school. Empirically, we draw on interviews, full-text responses to a qualitative questionnaire, and a student’s poem. We describe how business school students articulate merit as a neoliberal ethic, emphasizing prudential, enterprising attitudes, and responsibility. However, this positive, aspirational façade of (...) merit masks practices of ethical violence, wherein individuals invoke an ethical principle as grounds for moral condemnation and linguistic injuries. These practices of ethical violence desubjectify disadvantaged students and result in silence as a form of inequality. We contribute to organizational research on inequalities by foregrounding ethical violence and desubjectification. We detail the possibilities of discursive agency in contesting and interrupting ethical violence. (shrink)

In this article, it is argued that Ch'oe Han-gi (1803-1877), a Korean Confucian scholar from the late Chosŏn, can be credited with finding the full philosophical significance of the notion of experience (kyŏnghŏm). At the same time, his philosophy of experience can be interpreted adequately in the context of not British empiricist but Confucian philosophical assumptions. There is both continuity and discontinuity in Ch'oe's relation to Confucian tradition. Unlike the Confucian traditionalist, he admitted that inherited knowledge and practice are (...) potentially fallible. Confucian tradition, though still reliable, becomes less important than the process of the world itself, in whose flux all experience must be repeatedly tested. For Ch'oe, humans imbued with configurative energy and with their capability for correlative thinking become skilled in experiencing the world directly without absolute dependence on past Confucian traditions. (shrink)

Providing information to consumers in the form of food labels about modern systems of animal farming is believed to be crucial for increasing their awareness of animal suffering and for promoting technological change towards more welfare-friendly forms of husbandry (CIWF, 2007). In this paper we want to explore whether and how food labels carrying information about the lives of animals are used by consumers while shopping for meat and other animal foods. In order to achieve this, we draw upon a (...) series of focus group discussions that were held in Italy as part of a large EU funded project (Welfare Quality®). In the focus group discussions we addressed how, when or if, claims made about the lives of animals on food labels intervened in what the participants bought and ate. We contend that such labels bring the lives of animals to the forefront and act as new ‘subjectifiers’ (Latour, 2005: 212) that offer a new tool for becoming an ‘ethically competent consumer’, who cares about the lives of animals while shopping for food. However, this offer is not always easily accommodated within existing competences and previous commitments, as it requires a reassessment of existing, and often intimate, practices of shopping, cooking and eating. We argue that new labels carrying welfare claims, with their intention of increasing market transparency, produce two contrasting outcomes: they open new spaces of action, which offer an opportunity for investing in new competences and for engaging with animal welfare issues, in short, they allow an ‘ethically competent consumer’ to emerge, but they also produce another outcome, or a collateral casualty (Bauman, 2007), namely the ethically non-competent consumer. ‘In daily matters, be competent’ (From How to live ethically, the Tao Te Ching). (shrink)

Mahmad Fadlallah al-Sivāsī as well as important in terms of political and social history of Turkey, he is also is an important person for Turkish literature. Realizing the late Ottoman period and the first years of the republic, Mahmad Fadlullāh, is a momentous person who taught in many different cities of Turkey and participateded in Erzurum Congress -where there have been made decisions for development and prosperity of the country-as delegate of Sivas. That the literary personality of these features, as (...) well as the foreground. By the pieces he indited he took part in the last authors of Divan Literature. Wrote many pieces, he has shown that he is a prolific author. One of these works al-Itidal fī-Mohabbati'l-Āl which expresses the love to ahl al-beyt. In this article, the aforementioned work will be presented to the realm of science by introducing full text of the work. (shrink)

Providing information to consumers in the form of food labels about modern systems of animal farming is believed to be crucial for increasing their awareness of animal suffering and for promoting technological change towards more welfare-friendly forms of husbandry (CIWF, 2007). In this paper we want to explore whether and how food labels carrying information about the lives of animals are used by consumers while shopping for meat and other animal foods. In order to achieve this, we draw upon a (...) series of focus group discussions that were held in Italy as part of a large EU funded project (Welfare Quality®). In the focus group discussions we addressed how, when or if, claims made about the lives of animals on food labels intervened in what the participants bought and ate. We contend that such labels bring the lives of animals to the forefront and act as new ‘subjectifiers’ (Latour, Citation2005: 212) that offer a new tool for becoming an ‘ethically competent consumer’, who cares about the lives of animals while shopping for food. However, this offer is not always easily accommodated within existing competences and previous commitments, as it requires a reassessment of existing, and often intimate, practices of shopping, cooking and eating. We argue that new labels carrying welfare claims, with their intention of increasing market transparency, produce two contrasting outcomes: they open new spaces of action, which offer an opportunity for investing in new competences and for engaging with animal welfare issues, in short, they allow an ‘ethically competent consumer’ to emerge, but they also produce another outcome, or a collateral casualty (Bauman, Citation2007), namely the ethically non-competent consumer. ‘In daily matters, be competent’ (From How to live ethically, the Tao Te Ching). (shrink)

Benjamin Constant and Jean-Jacques Rousseau were both Swiss-French political thinkers who had a significant influence on the subsequent development of political thought. Constant is known not only as a political philosopher but also as an active politician, who today is considered one of the founding fathers of liberalism. Rousseau, in turn, is considered one of the most controversial thinkers of the Enlightenment, who has been accused of laying the foundation for many revolutionary political movements and repressive regimes. The main objective (...) of this work is to illustrate Benjamin Constant’s liberal objections to the political philosophy of Jean-Jacques Rousseau. First, it is important to focus on Rousseau’s main ideas for the full disclosure of the topic. Likewise, it is also crucial to take into account the historical context, which will be useful for understanding the motives for the formation of Constant’s liberal views. Thus, in the first part of the work, we will briefly consider the main concepts developed by Rousseau in his book, The Social Contract, such as popular sovereignty, the state of nature, and direct democracy. In the second part, we will analyze the main political concepts of Constant and his critique of Rousseau, based on his books The Liberty of the Ancients Compared with that of the Moderns and Principles of Politics Applicable to All Governments. (shrink)

There is an obvious paradox in any attempt to map the topography of Paradise, for Paradise, theologians assure us, is outside of space as well as time. Yet mapping Paradise is what Dante's poem, the Paradiso, attempts to do. For the two preceding realms of the afterlife, hell and purgatory, Dante provides numerous finely articulated descriptions of rigorously ordered regions. And again for Paradise, the variegated states of the souls making up the spiritual order of the realm are expressed very (...) precisely by a topographical scheme, one in this case based on Ptolemy's system of the heavens. The seven planetary spheres are followed by the sphere of the fixed stars and the primum mobile, the whole finally bordering on the completely nonspatial heaven of the Empyrean. But this last “sphere” alone is Paradise in the full and strict sense. As Dante has Beatrice explain in canto 4.28–48, the whole poem attempts to describe this totally nonspatial order in terms of the array of the nine physical heavens as metaphorical correlatives for the successive degrees of beatitude experienced by the souls “in” the Empyrean. Paradise in this sense—as the Empyrean—is thus utopic, if any place is: it is literally “no place” at all. (shrink)

Rene Descartes Discourse on the Method of Rightly Conducting the Reason, and Seeking Truth in the Sciences by Rene Descartes The Discourse on the Method (French: Discours de la methode) is a philosophical and autobiographical treatise published by Rene Descartes in 1637. Its full name is Discourse on the Method of Rightly Conducting One's Reason and of Seeking Truth in the Sciences (French title: Discours de la methode pour bien conduire sa raison, et chercher la verite dans les (...) sciences). The Discourse on The Method is best known as the source of the famous quotation "Je pense, donc je suis" ("I think, therefore I am"), which occurs in Part IV of the work. Good sense is, of all things among men, the most equally distributed; for every one thinks himself so abundantly provided with it, that those even who are the most difficult to satisfy in everything else, do not usually desire a larger measure of this quality than they already possess. And in this it is not likely that all are mistaken the conviction is rather to be held as testifying that the power of judging aright and of distinguishing truth from error, which is properly what is called good sense or reason, is by nature equal in all men; and that the diversity of our opinions, consequently, does not arise from some being endowed with a larger share of reason than others, but solely from this, that we conduct our thoughts along different ways, and do not fix our attention on the same objects. For to be possessed of a vigorous mind is not enough; the prime requisite is rightly to apply it. The greatest minds, as they are capable of the highest excellences, are open likewise to the greatest aberrations; and those who travel very slowly may yet make far greater progress, provided they keep always to the straight road, than those who, while they run, forsake it. (shrink)

How do we refer to people in everyday conversation? No matter the language or culture, we must choose from a range of options: full name ('Robert Smith'), reduced name ('Bob'), description ('tall guy'), kin term ('my son') etc. Our choices reflect how we know that person in context, and allow us to take a particular perspective on them. This book brings together a team of leading linguists, sociologists and anthropologists to show that there is more to person (...) reference than meets the eye. Drawing on video-recorded, everyday interactions in nine languages, it examines the fascinating ways in which we exploit person reference for social and cultural purposes, and reveals the underlying principles of person reference across cultures from the Americas to Asia to the South Pacific. Combining rich ethnographic detail with cross-linguistic generalizations, it will be welcomed by researchers and graduate students interested in the relationship between language and culture. (shrink)

Objective: To systematically analyze the effects of art therapy on the levels of depression, anxiety, blood glucose, and glycated hemoglobin in diabetic patients.Methods: We searched Cochrane Library, PubMed, Embase, and ClinicalTrials.gov databases from inception to January 24, 2021. The language of publication was limited to English. Randomized controlled trials that used art therapy to improve mental disorders in diabetic patients were involved. After selection of eligible studies, data were extracted, including the first author's full-name, year of publication, the (...) first author's country of residence, number of intervention and control groups, the mean age of participants, method of intervention, duration of follow-up, and outcome measures. Assessment of quality of the included studies and data extraction were independently carried out by two researchers. RevMan 5.3 software was used to perform statistical analysis.Results: A total of 396 samples from five studies were included, and the eligible studies were RCTs with a parallel design. Methods of art therapy included music therapy and painting therapy. The results showed that compared with the control group, art therapy could positively affect the levels of depression [standardized mean difference, −1.36; 95% confidence interval, ; P < 0.00001] and blood glucose in diabetic patients [mean difference, −0.90; 95% CI, ; P < 0.0001], while it had no influence on the levels of anxiety [SMD, −0.31; 95% CI, ; P = 0.32] and glycated hemoglobin [MD, 0.22; 95% CI, ; P = 0.07].Conclusion: Art therapy may have significant effects on the levels of depression and blood glucose for diabetic patients. (shrink)

The early period Ismaili jurist Al-Qādî al-Nu'mān appears as an important figure in the formation of Ismaili jurisprudence. There is very little information about Kadı Nu'mân's family, childhood, education and intellectual environment. His full name is Abû Hanîfah Nu'man b. Muhammad b. Mansûr al-Qādî at-Tamîmî Al Qayrawānî. He was born around 290/903 (late 3rd (9th) century) into an educated family in Qayravan in North Africa. There are different opinions about the sect he belonged to when he was growing (...) up. On the other hand, it is difficult to say for certain whether Nu’mān received education in the Ismaili sect due to the understanding of taqiyya in the madhhab. However, it is understood from the basic jurisprudence texts Nu’mān wrote that he most likely did not receive a Sunni education. Historians refer to him as 'Qadi Nu’mān or Abu Hanifah al-Shi'i' in order not to confuse him with the imam of the Hanafi school. Qādî Nu’mān served at different levels of the Fatimid State. Around 313/925, he entered the service of the first Fatimid caliph, Mahdi (r. 909-934 CE/297-322 AH), as a copyist and secretary. During the reigns of the third caliph Mansur and the fourth Fatimid caliph Mu’izz (d. 365/975), Qādî Nu’mān first served as a judge in Tripoli and then in Mansouriya, the Fatimid capital. After the Fatimids conquered Egypt and the center of government was moved to Cairo, Qādî Nu’mān was appointed by the fourth caliph Mu’izz as the head of the appellate courts (maẓālim). Qadi Numans career was at the peak in the period of Caliph Muiz. Qādî Nu’mān worked as a judge in the Fatimid State for about twenty-six years and continued this duty until his death in 363 (973). After the fall of the Fatimid caliphate, there haven’t been any other Fatimid or Ismaili jurists. Qādî Nu’mān is considered by contemporary Ismaili writers as a figure who systematically transformed Ismaili fiqh into an independent sect of fiqh. It can be said that Ismaili fiqh was developed through his works in the Fatimid period. His works continued as the main references in the fiqh studies and after the Fatimid period. With the death of Qādî Nu’mān, the period of ijtihad in Ismaili fiqh and its the establishment phase of Ismaili fiqh came to an end; The sect, in which esoteric interpretations were at the forefront, emerged as a distinctive school of fiqh by discarding ambiguity. Qādî Nu’mān was a very productive writer. He wrote important works related to the field of furu al-fiqh and usûl al-fiqh. Among his works, Ikhtilāf uṣūl al-madhāhib is undoubtedly one of the most important works in the early history of fiqh methodology. The work in question, which was originally written with the aim of rejecting the Sunni fiqh method, discusses the approaches of the Sunni schools of fiqh on ikhtilāf, taqlid, ijma, nazar, qiyas, istihsan, ijtihad and ra’y in a polemical manner. It reveals the differences of the Ismaili method from the Sunni method in terms of the sources on which the fiqh is based, the authority to make ijtihad and the theory of interpretation of the texts. Qādî Nu’mān examined the relationship between reason and revelation in general and the role of religious authority in comprehending and interpreting the texts while criticizing Sunni methods. Ikhtilāf uṣūl al-madhāhib has the characteristics of the works of development period as a form. It is possible to observe the question-answer and dialectic form which can be seen in the works of the development period throughout the work in question. Qādî Nu’mān endeavoured to persuade his opponents with a dialectical and argumentative style. Again, he replied to the Sunnis, who were his interlocutors, with their own proofs. In addition to these, Ikhtilāf uṣūl al-madhāhib has a unique feature in the matter of content. Because it is not very familiar to any Sunni handbook of usûl al-fiqh. It does not mention the hâss, âmm, ijma, qiyas, amir, nahy, alfaz bets, etc. The text is very similar to the Ahbari movement of the Jafari sect for it rejects all forms of ijtihad. It was written at a time when fiqh was not yet stable. Ikhtilāf uṣūl al-madhāhib gives us crucial information about the development of different usûl and fiqh sources in the middle of the fourth century. However, what is interesting here is that the information he gives about Ismaili method and fiqh is very little compared to the one about Sunni method and fiqh. Much of it centered on Sunni thought and its rejection. However, his ultimate goal was to defend the Ismaili doctrine. (shrink)

Western (deductive) logic originated in Greek antiquity. It found its first expression in those works of the great philosopher Aristotle (384–322 BC) which have come to be known as the Organon, i.e., ‘instrument’. Aristotle’s logic, also known as syllogistics, was unsystematically concerned with patterns of reasoning and argumentation. It remained in this rudimentary state relatively unchanged and unchallenged until the second half of the nineteenth century. At that time, logic underwent a period of unprecedented reform and modernization, due in large (...) part to the German mathematician Gottlob Frege (1848– 1925) It thus became more and more a mathematical endeavor of studying the structure and peculiarities of artificial, formal languages. In this new form, logic gave rise in the twentieth century to disciplines such as theoretical informatics and programming languages, and transformed our lives through computation, information processing, and the Internet. A formal language consists, in effect, of a particular alphabet and some precise rules of forming, and transforming, strings over this alphabet. There exist several types of formal languages analyzed in logic. Depending on their structure, they are called first-order languages, second-order languages, and so on. Today a logic is considered a theory of such a language and is, correspondingly, referred to as a first-order logic, a second-order logic, and so on. In this chapter, we shall outline a first-order logic as a paragon of deductive logic. Its full name is: “Classical, first-order predicate logic with identity”. What all these expressions mean exactly, will become clear below. The logic we shall study first is termed classical logic because the idea to create such an instrument, or ‘organon’, is rooted in Greek antiquity. Owing to its origin, it is based on three time-honored Aristotelian doctrines. For these and several other reasons that we shall discuss later in this chapter, it is also called a logic of the Aristotelian style, or an Aristotelian logic for short. (shrink)

Divided into five parts, the book provides general background information on Biruni's time, his world, and his life. It includes the full names of the 183 books written by Biruni. The titles of these books are given in Arabic, Persian, transliteration of the Arabic title, and English, and they are all annotated and if available the number of folios is given for each one. A list of available references in English on Biruni, including articles, bibliographies, books, internet sites, a (...) dissertation, and even a film. A list of Persian reference sources is also included. (shrink)

The PDF uploaded is ENTIRELY different from the two links provided. Please download the PDF and then read the given links. This has NOTHING to do with philosophy or literature. This is being put up here in the memories of Bro. Cal Whiting cfc and Fr. Larry Abello SJ. This is more of a record for those interested. The full names of the Christian Brother from Australia is Br Robert Cataldus Whiting who is also mentioned among notable Christian Brothers (...) in the Christian Brothers' Wikipedia page. Further, Fr. Abello's full name was Fr. Lawrence Abello Ph.D. I have written about both of them in Indian Catholic Matters. This has been published in The Herald. The links added are to Indian Catholic Matters. The PDF uploaded is entirely different. -/- Then read the first link on the Church's position on the indissolubility of marriage. (shrink)

In this study, the distortion of claims on the text of the Qur’ān in Tafsīr al-Qummī which is one of the main sources of Shī‘a has been investigated. al- Qummī, the first scholar of the Shi’ite scholars, claims that in the account of the commentary are distorted in the text of the Qur’ān with various subtitles, such as the verses that are in the land of Allah's descendants and distorted verses. While interpreting the verses, he discloses this claim in detail (...) and sometimes gives the correct shapes of the revelations as the difference of interpretation, sometimes based on the narrations, and sometimes in the way of reading the verse. In this study, the verses alleged to be literally distorted in his commentary have been determined and this claim has been compared with other commentaries. The purpose of the article in this context is; in the case of al-Qummī exegesis, it is the examination of the verses allegedly distorted in the Qur’ān and the determination of the Shī‘ī commentators based on the doctrine of sects by changing the text of the Qur’ān. Summary: The Glorious the Qur’ān by almight Allah, it is a divine book that has been revealed to Muhammad (pbuh) through Gabriel. It has been preserved from all kinds of changing, transmutation and distortion, since the day the Qur’ān was revealed. “ إِنَّا نَحْنُ نَزَّلْنَا الذِّكْرَ وَإِنَّا لَهُ لَحَافِظُونَ ” “We have, without doubt, sent down the message; and we will assuredly guard it (from corruption)”. This verse is the greatest proof that the Holy Qur’ān is under protection, and it has not been distorted or will not. Distortion (falsification) is the change of the sacred texts by adding or subtracting the original text, arbitrarily changing the meaning, or misinterpreting the actual text. This term is often used to describe Jews’ and Christians’ deliberately changing or misinterpreting their own sacred texts. However, this term is also used by the a few scholars of the Shī‘as Imamiyya sect for the Qur’ān. There are two schools who claims the distortion of the Qur’ān within the Imamiyya Shī‘ah. The first is the Akhbāris who claim that the Qur’ān has been distorted; and the second is the Usūlites who oppose this claim. Those who have Akhbārī thoughts do not only interpret the verses according to their sectarian teachings but go further and claim that these teachings are included in the text of the Qur’ān. As a matter of fact, one of those who have this idea is Qummī. The full name of Qummī, the first scholar of the Shi’ite scholars, is Abu’l-Hasan ‘Alī b. İbrāhīm b. Hāshim. It is mentioned that al-Qummī, who had no information about the date of his birth in the sources, died in 329 Hijri. He has written books in almost all of science such as Tafsīr, Hadith, Fiqh and History. Among the books of Qummi, only the book he wrote in the field of commentary has reached the present day. Shī‘a accepts this commentary as the main source. This work, which is classified under the category of tafsīr bil riwayah(narration commentary), is regarded as tafsīr bildirayah(acumen commentator) because he gives weight to his own opinions. Qummī, by trying to make the Qur’ān as book thats only support ʿAlī and his descendants, reflecting a complete ideology in the form of representation of political tafsīr in Shī‘a. It is seen in the issues mentioned in the preface of his tafsīr that he used the method that supports this ideology. As a matter of fact, that Qummī in the preface attempt to explain the doctrines of the sect such as the imāmate, prophecy and the seized of Ahl al-bayt rigt of caliphate in the context of the verses that are different from that which Allah has revealed, distorted verses and taqdim and ta’khir verses in the Qur’ān text. Briefly, Qummī in the preface to of his tafsīr gives examples of some verses that are literally distorted, and explains these distortions in detail when interpreting the verses in question. Qummī gives in the “distorted verses” section that there are deficiencies in some of the verses and claims that the verse is revealed in this way by adding words that are not actually found in the verse. According to Qummī, one of the words extracted from the text of the Qur’ān is “‘Alī” that version of this words in Arabic is “ علي ”. These words are usually in the verses as “ فى علي ” means that “about ‘Alī”, “ فى ولاية علي ” “guardian of ‘Alī”, “ فى حق علي ” “about ‘Alī’s right”. According to Qummī, another expression derived from the Qur’ānic text is “ آل محمد ” means that “family of Muhammad”. He sometimes bases his claim on the narrations that the verses revealed in that way and sometimes verse recited in that way among different recitations. Qummī says that some of the verses have been revealed as such by by adding various phrases to verses besides “ فى علي ” means that “about ‘Alī” and “ آل محمد ” “family of Muhammad”. Some of these words that added to verses are mentioned as the different style of recitation in other sources. In the other words this differentiate is related with how you are reciting. Qummī, another classification which he refers to regarding the allegation of distorting, is that some verses are different from those revealed. He gives examples of this issue in various forms. He sometimes claims that when someone reads a verse, he interrupts the recitation by saying that “the verse has been revealed in this way” base on the narratives; sometimes saying that the verse is revealed differently by indicating the verse is not appropriate in terms of meaning and sometimes without making any explanation claims that how the verse revealed. Qummī’s another distortion claim is that taqdim and ta’khir among the words constitute the verse. Qummī says that the verse is different from the one that was actually revealed, after he stated that it was taqdim and ta’khir among the words mentioned in the verses. Qummī proves the allegations of distortion on the text of the Qur’ān in various ways. One of the ways he follows in this context is that giving the expressions like “ هكذا نزلت ”/ “the verse was revealed in this way”, and “ نزل جبرائيل بهذه الآية هكذا ” “Gabriel sent down the verse in this way” by changing the the different kind of revealing of those verses. The second way Qummī follows is that mentioning the verse different from the fact that it is by changing the its originality. The third way he follows is that mentioning added words as the different kind of the recitation. However, Qummī did not use this method that much. Indeed, while Shī‘ī tafsīrs mention this kind of expressions as a different kind of recitation, Qummī mentions them as a different kind of revealing in his claim. Most of the verses alleged to have been distorted in the Qummī’s tafsīr are relate to the teachings of the Shī‘a sect. In this context, Qummī uses various expressions while explaining his claim that some verses in the Qur’ān has been distorted. By adding ‘Alī phrase, claims that “ فمحى اسمه من هذا الموضع ”/ “His name has deleted from this place”, and by adding “ آل محمد ”/ “Muhammad’s family”, claims that “ فأسقطوا آل محمد من الكتاب ”/ “Muhammad’s family has been reduced from the book”. Sometimes, making some changes on words such as changing the structure of the term “ أمة ”/ “ummah” as “ أئمة ” /“Imāmiyya”. Under the influence of the ideology of Shī‘a, Qummī asserts that Shī‘ah teachings such as prophethood, and Imāmiyya are not just the Qur’ānic interpretations but rather are the Qur’ānic teachings by adding words to the text of the Qur’ān and making some changes in the construction of the Qur’ān. (shrink)

In contemporary onomastics the usage of the full name – given name and surname – lends a certain formality or seriousness to an utterance. It is often assumed that such pragmatics in the employment of names may be easily transferred to the ancient world, but we should none the less confirm our assumptions with textual evidence. This paper will present evidence from the letters between Marcus Aurelius and Marcus Cornelius Fronto which demonstrates not only that the fuller (...) Roman name was used for formal occasions, but also that it could, as in the contemporary world, be employed in an ironic, mock-formal manner to intimate rather the opposite of formality, friendship. (shrink)

On the 28th of October, 2006, Alexander Vladimirovich Kuznetsov, so is his full name, would have turned 80. Although belated, the editorial board of Logic and Logical Philosophy, we, the editors and contributors of the present issue, and other members of the logic community mark this event with the present issue. Most of those who contributed to it knew Kuznetsov in person and/or were influenced by him or by his ideas, which very often resided in somebody else’s papers (...) or became part of a scientific folklore. But, to be sure, there are even more mathematicians and logicians who have been witnesses to his scientific activity and/or have taken advantage of its results. (shrink)

al-Tabarsī is one of the glossators in the Shī‘ah gloss tradition in the second middle period or first sagacity period. al-Tabarsī who had a wide knowledge in the various knowledge branches was mentioned as a glossator, narrator of Mohammad’s all sayings, deeds and approvals and scribe. One of compilations that al-Tabarsī wrote it in the field of gloss is Macmau-l-bayān fī tafsīri-l-Qur’ān. The glossator who widely included the recitations in this work used some evidence related to their averment while he (...) was reporting the recitations, and he made the recitations’ justification in the framework. The averment is a science which determines the correct recitations as distinguishing the correct one of recitation’s differences from the deficient one, and which founds an aspect of the correct category with all the other transferred and linguistic arguments of recitation in the predilection besides the imputation, the formal Qur’ān. Al-Tabarsī first mentioned the recitations under the subtitle of recitation related to the verses in each sura and then transferred the argument of recitations with the term of argument. So the glossator applied to give evidence on them with the linguistic and transferred arguments in each of the parts that the recitations were nearly mentioned. He mentioned the imputation, the Qur’ān lettering, verse, hadith, companion and natural people’s readings. He used Arabic poetry, Arabic idiom, dialect, grammar and syntax rules for the linguistic arguments. In this study, the evidences which were used in the recitations’ averment are reviewed in the sample of al-Tabarsī’s gloss in the name of Majmau-l-bayān. Summary: Full name of al-Tabarsī who was one of the leading scholar of Shī‘a is Fadl b. Hasan b Fadl al-Tabarsī. He was born in Thabaristan. According to some narration he was born in village named Tafrish which is between Kashan and Isfahan. He was called al-Tabarsī by reference to his hometown Thabaristan, according to another opinion he was called al-Tabarsī which comes from his birth place known as Tafrish located between Kashan and Isfahan. Tafrish was translated into Arabic as Tabars. Also, the commentator was known with nicknames such as Amīnü’l-islām, Amīnü’d-dīn and Umdatü’l-Mufassīrīn. He was called Sebzevarī due to the place where he died and named Maşhadī and Ṭūsī because of the place where he was buried. Although he is proficient in many fields, he has been described in the sources as commentator, muhaddīth and faqīh. Mufassīr has written many works in Islamic sciences. one of his works written in the field of commentary is Mujmau-l-bayān fī tafsīri-l-Qurʾān. Mufassīr stated that he wrote this commentary by taking advantage of Ṭūsī 's (d. 460/1067) al-Tibyān by saying “It is a guide from which I benefited from Tibiān light, and I write the subjects on the basis of his method”. The author started to write this work with the encouragement of some of his friends after he had aged quite a bit and his hair turned white. and he saw a gap in this area. He spent a lot of effort to fill that gap. This commentary, written during the first dirayet of the Shī‘a exegesis, is more moderate than the previous periods of Shī‘a commentators. The most basic indicator of this is the definitive rejection of the falsification of the Qurʾān in this period. The second important indicator is that insults and degrading expressions about the first three of the hulafā-i rashid and some of the companions are not accepted. The third important indicator is that most of the verses have been interpreted in a manner that corresponds to the views of the Ahl al-Sunnah school in linguistic analyses and proved by appealing to Arabic poems and sayings. al-Tabarsī mentioned recitation almost in all verses as a subtopic. He performed this in the surah by using subtopics. Then he has used “hujjatuhu” (its evidence) expression to narrate the evident of qirāʾāt. By doing so, commentator grounded qirāʾāts by using their evidences utilizing linguistic and narrative evidences in nearly every mentioned qirāʾāts. İhtijaj is a science that determines the authentic readings by distinguishing authentic readings from the weak ones, and that grounds the reading in the choice of an angle, which is mentioned in the authentic category, with isnād, Mushaf script and all other narrative and linguistic evidences. There are two types of ihtijaj which are ihtijaj bi-l-qirāʾāt ve ihtijaj li-l-qirāʾāt. İhtijaj li-l-qirāʾāt uses the linguistic evidences such as isnād, Mushaf line, Arabic language, consumables-nahiv pedestals, polish differences and the narrative evidences such as verses, hadith, qirāʾāt, Arabic words and poetry in determination and preference of a reading aspect. ihtijaj bi-l-qirāʾāt is the use of kıraa as evidence for any matter of science. al-Tabarsī has also mentioned detection proofs which reveal the authentic ways of qirāʾāt like isnād and rasm al-mushaf. Isnād is attribution to whom take the qirāʾāt from previous persons. This proportion reaches up to the Prophet. The persons in the chain of isnād constitute this chain. al-Tabarsī has given in preface the names of the recitors and narrators, which are famous in the cities, based on the fact that an authentic attribute is the basic element in the determination of the qirāʾāh. Thus he passed on the chains of isnād that reached up to the Prophet. Another thing that al-Tabarsī used in the determination proof of qirāʾāh is rasm al-mushaf. The commentator has used the spelling of al-mushaf scripture as evidence by saying “written in al-mushaf like this”. al-Tabarsī, also mentioned preferable evidences about ways of qirāʾā’s proof. Preferred proofs, are evidence to make choosing between qirāʾāh whose authenticity is defined by means of determination proofs. These evidences are divided into two parts which are determination proofs-based and special. Special evidence has not relation with the determination proofs. It contains evidence categories used to prefer one of the two authentic qirāʾāh as special. These categories are divided into four parts: linguistic, transplant, mental and private. al-Tabarsī has evidenced with verses of narrative proofs in the preferred evidence category. The commentator has mentioned about this method for qirāʾā evidence extensively. He has grounded qirāʾāh by using verses. al-Tabarsī also has evidenced these matters by using words of the Prophet from narrative proofs in the preferred evidence category. In this method commentator has evidenced from hadith after mentioning qirāʾāh ways. al-Tabarsī evidences from narrative proofs with qirāʾāh preferred evidence category. In this context, the commentator mentioned recitation of companion and followers by saying his qirāʾāh after reporting qirāʾāh. Moreover, the commentator has sometimes mentioned recitations which is related with reading seven of the recitation and reading ten of the recitation sciences qurra recitation and sometimes mentioned recitations which are known as shadhdh. Then, he has examined these recitations with the qirāʾāh of companions and followers. al-Tabarsī has benefited from narrative evidences, Arabic poetry and phrase in the preferred evidence category extensively. Another evidence used for examination of qirāʾāh is linguistic evidences. Qirāʾāh are related with Arabic language because it has connection with Qur’ānic wording which revelated in Arabic. al-Tabarsī has benefited from some things such as Arabic grammar rules and dialectic differences extensively. The commentator has benefited from Arabic grammar by emphasizing the meaning of the words with the literary features. He has explained grammar statement related with qirāʾāh aspects. He has also explained linguistic rules which are about aspects. (shrink)

We clarify different definitions of the density matrix by proposing the use of different names, the full density matrix for a single-closed quantum system, the compressed density matrix for the averaged single molecule state from an ensemble of molecules, and the reduced density matrix for a part of an entangled quantum system, respectively. We show that ensembles with the same compressed density matrix can be physically distinguished by observing fluctuations of various observables. This is in contrast to a general (...) belief that ensembles with the same compressed density matrix are identical. Explicit expression for the fluctuation of an observable in a specified ensemble is given. We have discussed the nature of nuclear magnetic resonance quantum computing. We show that the conclusion that there is no quantum entanglement in the current nuclear magnetic resonance quantum computing experiment is based on the unjustified belief that ensembles having the same compressed density matrix are identical physically. Related issues in quantum communication are also discussed. (shrink)

Two minuscule codices carrying collections of grammatical and rhetorical treatises and extracts from such treatises, one written at Monte Cassino between A.D. 779 and 796 ), the other at Benevento towards the middle of the following century , contain among their uncial tituli the three words INCIPIT THVESTES VARII. There follows in both codices a twenty-four-word sentence stating the full name of Varius, the literary character of the Thyestes, an aesthetic judgement on the work, the date of a (...) public performance in a Roman theatre, and the price paid: Lucius Varius cognomento Rufus Thyesten tragoediam magna cura absolutam post Actiacam uictoriam Augusti ludis eius in scaena edidit pro qua fabula sestertium deciens accepit. (shrink)

Ragnar Rommetveit University of Oslo Let me start this introduction to Professor O'Connell's Critical essays on language use and psychology with some reflections on psychologists and crabs. It so happens that the first professor of psychology in Norway had the middle name Krabbe ("Crab") His full name was Harald Krabbe Schjelderup. Hence, the crab became our symbol for the psychologist. For many years a "crab feast" was held every autumn in Oslo in order to celebrate the material (...) union of crabs and psychologists and ponder (symbolically and metaphorically) their shared fate. A comparison between the predicament of the crab and that of the modern psychologist may indeed be illuminating, once we make certain assumptions about their unique epistemic missions and systematically explore the severe constraints on their heroic search for knowledge. The crab is ordained to unravel the mysteries of the ocean, yet doomed to crawl sidewise on the is most of the time mollusks and bottom. His catch, alas, cadavers of sea creatures, and he cannot help envying the fish swimming freely above him. The psychologist's mission is to unravel the mysteries of His obligation to seek insight into essential the human soul. (shrink)

Like proper names, demonstratives, and definite descriptions, pronouns have referential uses. These can be 'essentially indexical' in the sense that they cannot be replaced by non-pronominal forms of reference. Here we show that the grammar of pronouns in such occurrences is systematically different from that of other referential expressions, in a way that illuminates the differences in reference in question. We specifically illustrate, in the domain of Romance clitics and pronouns, a hierarchy of referentiality, as related to the topology of (...) the grammatical phase. Our explanation is based on extending the 'Topological Mapping Hypotheses' of Longobardi and Sheehan & Hinzen. The extended topology covers the full range of interpretations, from purely predicative to quantificational, to referential and deictic. Along this scale, grammatical complexity increases, and none of these forms of reference is lexical. This provides evidence for the foundational conclusion that the source of essential indexicality is grammatical rather than lexical, semantic or pragmatic. (shrink)

Named for the famous Chinese minister of state, Guan Zhong, the Guanzi is one of the largest collections of ancient Chinese writings still in existence. With this volume, W. Allyn Rickett completes the first full translation of the Guanzi into English. This represents a truly monumental effort, as the Guanzi is a long and notoriously difficult work. It was compiled in its present form about 26 B.C. by the Han dynasty scholar Liu Xiang and the surviving text consists of (...) some seventy-six anonymous essays dating from the fifth century B.C. to the first century B.C.The forty-two chapters contained in this volume include several which present Daoist theories concerning self-cultivation and the relationship between the body and mind as well as the development of Huang-Lao political and economic thought. The "Dizi zhi" chapter provides one of the oldest discussions of education in China. The "Shui di" chapter refers to the circulation of blood some two thousand years before the discoveries of William Harvey in the West. Other chapters deal with various aspects of statecraft, Yin-Yang and Five Phases thought, folk beliefs, seasonal calendars, and farming. Perhaps the best-known chapters are those that deal with various methods of controlling and stimulating the economy. They constitute one of the world's earliest presentations of a quantity theory of money. Throughout the text, Rickett provides extensive notes. He also supplies an introduction to the volume and a comprehensive index. (shrink)

I observe that the “concept-generator” theory of Percus and Sauerland (2003), Anand (2006), and Charlow and Sharvit (2014) does not predict an intuitive true interpretation of the sentence “Plato did not believe that Hesperus was Phosphorus”. In response, I present a simple theory of attitude reports which employs a fine-grained semantics for names, according to which names which intuitively name the same thing may have distinct compositional semantic values. This simple theory solves the problem with the concept-generator theory, but, (...) as I go on to show, it has problems of its own. I present three examples which the concept-generator theory can accommodate, but the simple fine-grained theory cannot. These examples motivate the full theory of the paper, which combines the basic ideas behind the concept-generator theory with a fine-grained semantics for names. The examples themselves are of interest independently of my theory: two of them constrain the original concept-generator theory more tightly than previously discussed examples had. (shrink)

We are used to the idea that computers operate on numbers, yet another kind of data is equally important: the syntax of formal languages, with variables, binding, and alpha-equivalence. The original application of nominal techniques, and the one with greatest prominence in this paper, is to reasoning on formal syntax with variables and binding. Variables can be modelled in many ways: for instance as numbers (since we usually take countably many of them); as links (since they may `point' to a (...) binding site in the term, where they are bound); or as functions (since they often, though not always, represent `an unknown'). None of these models is perfect. In every case for the models above, problems arise when trying to use them as a basis for a fully formal mechanical treatment of formal language. The problems are practical—but their underlying cause may be mathematical. The issue is not whether formal syntax exists, since clearly it does, so much as what kind of mathematical structure it is. To illustrate this point by a parody, logical derivations can be modelled using a Gödel encoding (i.e., injected into the natural numbers). It would be false to conclude from this that proof-theory is a branch of number theory and can be understood in terms of, say, Peano's axioms. Similarly, as it turns out, it is false to conclude from the fact that variables can be encoded e.g., as numbers, that the theory of syntax-with-binding can be understood in terms of the theory of syntax-without-binding, plus the theory of numbers (or, taking this to a logical extreme, purely in terms of the theory of numbers). It cannot; something else is going on. What that something else is, has not yet been fully understood. In nominal techniques, variables are an instance of names, and names are data. We model names using urelemente with properties that, pleasingly enough, turn out to have been investigated by Fraenkel and Mostowski in the first half of the 20th century for a completely different purpose than modelling formal language. What makes this model really interesting is that it gives names distinctive properties which can be related to useful logic and programming principles for formal syntax. Since the initial publications, advances in the mathematics and presentation have been introduced piecemeal in the literature. This paper provides in a single accessible document an updated development of the foundations of nominal techniques. This gives the reader easy access to updated results and new proofs which they would otherwise have to search across two or more papers to find, and full proofs that in other publications may have been elided. We also include some new material not appearing elsewhere. (shrink)

AGM-theory, named after its founders Carlos Alchourrón, Peter Gärdenfors and David Makinson, is the leading contemporary paradigm in the theory of belief-revision. The theory is reformulated here so as to deal with the central relational notions 'J is a contraction of K with respect to A' and 'J is a revision of K with respect to A'. The new theory is based on a principal-case analysis of the domains of definition of the three main kinds of theory-change (expansion, contraction and (...) revision). The new theory is stated by means of introduction and elimination rules for the relational notions. In this new setting one can re-examine the relationship between contraction and revision, using the appropriate versions of the so-called Levi and Harper identities. Among the positive results are the following. One can derive the extensionality of contraction and revision, rather than merely postulating it. Moreover, one can demonstrate the existence of revision-functions satisfying a principle of monotonicity. The full set of AGM-postulates for revision-functions allow for completely bizarre revisions. This motivates a Principle of Minimal Bloating, which needs to be stated as a separate postulate for revision. Moreover, contractions obtained in the usual way from the bizarre revisions, by using the Harper identity, satisfy Recovery. This provides a new reason (in addition to several others already adduced in the literature) for thinking that the contraction postulate of Recovery fails to capture the Principle of Minimal Mutilation. So the search is still on for a proper explication of the notion of minimal mutilation, to do service in both the theory of contraction and the theory of revision. The new relational formulation of AGM-theory, based on principal-case analysis, shares with the original, functional form of AGM-theory the idealizing assumption that the belief-sets of rational agents are to be modelled as consistent, logically closed sets of sentences. The upshot of the results presented here is that the new relational theory does a better job of making important matters clear than does the original functional theory. A new setting has been provided within which one can profitably address two pressing questions for A GM-theory: (1) how is the notion of minimal mutilation (by both contractions and revisions) best analyzed? and (2) how is one to rule out unnecessary bloating by revisions? (shrink)

This article attempts a full appreciation of interdependence in Sartre's thinking about practical freedom. The result is an account that opens Sartre's thinking on practical freedom to more than just the empowerment of individuals and groups. Ultimately, this means privileging, perhaps paradoxically, a vision of practical freedom that is greater by being more limited. The trajectory for this attempt is Sartre's 1971 diagnosis of America as “full of myths,” which provokes a critical examination of a vision of freedom (...) in independence. The attempt is then fleshed out through encounters with notions that linger at the fringes of Sartre's thought, namely, happiness, progress, equality and the possibility of everything. (shrink)