Two decades of research on euthanasia in the Netherlands have resulted into clear insights in the frequency and characteristics of euthanasia and other medical end-of-life decisions in the Netherlands. These empirical studies have contributed to the quality of the public debate, and to the regulating and public control of euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide. No slippery slope seems to have occurred. Physicians seem to adhere to the criteria for due care in the large majority of cases. Further, it has been shown (...) that the majority of physicians think that the euthanasia Act has improved their legal certainty and contributes to the carefulness of life-terminating acts. In 2005, eighty percent of the euthanasia cases were reported to the review committees. Thus, the transparency envisaged by the Act still does not extend to all cases. Unreported cases almost all involve the use of opioids, and are not considered to be euthanasia by physicians. More education and debate is needed to disentangle in these situations which acts should be regarded as euthanasia and which should not. Medical end-of-life decision-making is a crucial part of end-of-life care. It should therefore be given continuous attention in health care policy and medical training. Systematic periodic research is crucial for enhancing our understanding of end-of-life care in modern medicine, in which the pursuit of a good quality of dying is nowadays widely recognized as an important goal, in addition to the traditional goals such as curing diseases and prolonging life. (shrink)

History of civilization and human nature of Vietnam.

It will be best to explain here, at the start, that I do not propose new etymologies for the words εὒξεινος and πόντος. I regard, then, εὒξεινος πόντος as meaning ‘the hospitable way’. My purpose is to show how such a name came to be given to the Black Sea by the Greeks. First, the word πόντος. The familiar explanation connects it with a series of words, of which I give the most important: Gk. πάτος ‘trodden path’; Skt. pάnthā ‘way’, (...) fem. pathyā ‘id.’; Zend paθ ‘id.’; Arm. hun ‘ford, road’; Lat. pons ‘bridge’. Further, as a verb the root appears in Gk. πατεν ‘tread down’ and is given in Walde-Pokorny as *pent- ‘tread, go’: W.-P. points out that the derived nouns mean ‘way’, and particularly a way that goes over or through water, as can be seen from the Armenian and Latin. (shrink)

The author discusses the claim that owing to the lack of reference to ordinary experience by which religious assertions could be tested, there is nothing in the mind of the person who makes such religious assertions which could conceivably be objectively true. the author maintains that such a view of religious assertions is groundless, and that, if true, it would leave little of value in religion. (staff).

The object of this paper is twofold: in the first place, to expound afresh a passage of Greek tragedy which has been mauled by recent criticism; and, more particularly, by recognition of the light which it throws upon the development of the action, to vindicate the dramatic unity of the play.

In this collection of historic talks on the yoga process set forth by Lord Sri Krsna in the Sixth and Eighth Chapters of the Bhagavad-Gita, Srila Prabhupada deeply probes the nature of consciousness, meditation, karma, death, and reincarnation. Ultimately he describes in detail the process of bhakti-yoga, by which one can easily purify the mind and elevate the consciousness to a state of ultimate peace and happiness.

INTRODUCTION This volume of essays is meant as a tribute to Alistair Crombie by some of those who have studied with him. The occasion of its publication is ...

_Sonoran Desert, Stuart Hameroff and Alwyn Scott awoke from their_ _siestas to take margaritas in the shade of a ramada. On a nearby_ _table, a tape recorder had accidentally been left on and the following_ _is an unedited transcript of their conversation._.

The logos has· been interpreted in any way by different scholars and· the · proper ·interpretation seems not to be clear. There seems to be a contradiction in the prologue, Jn 1 :1. Again, what is the relationship of the logos to the father as it appears in the prologue? The purpose of this study is to try an attempt a synthesis of those varied interpretations. The significance of the study is that it will help students of scriptures to have (...) more insight into the understanding of the logos and the prologue. The scope of this study is the passage of John 1: 1-18 and other related material. The approach here is the hermeneutical approach which, for Madu (1997), is conceded with how we can get from texts reliable interpretations. (shrink)

Fragt man heute Vertreter verschiedener Disziplinen nach der Bedeutung des Hannoveraner Universalgelehrten Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, so hort man jeweils immer wieder: Leibniz hat Bedeutendes fur unser Fach geleistet. Leibniz beeindruckt nicht nur durch die Exzellenz seiner Leistung, sondern auch durch die Breite seiner Betatigungsfelder. Der aus einer Ringvorlesung an der Leibniz Universitat Hannover hervorgegangene Band fuhrt nun an die Vielfalt der von Leibniz ausgehenden der Leistungen und Anregungen heran. Insbesondere behandeln die Beitrage die Bedeutung von Leibniz fur die Geschichtswissenschaft, die (...) Theologie, die Philosophie, die Rechtswissenschaft und Juristerei, die Politikberatung, das Versicherungswesen, die Mathematik, die Ingenieurwissenschaften und die Sprachwissenschaft. Abgerundet wird der Band durch eine Einfuhrung von Werner Eisner und eine biographische Skizze aus der Feder von Eike Christian Hirsch. (shrink)

"Interplanetary travel is very tempting and exciting because the sky is filled with unlimited globes of varying qualities. the desire to travel to other planets can be fulfilled by the process of yoga, which serves as a means by which one can transfer oneself to whatever planet one likes - possibly to planets where life is not only eternal and blissful but where there are multiple varieties of enjoyable energies. Anyone who can attain the freedom of the spiritual planets need (...) never return to this miserable land of birth, old age, disease and death." --Back cover. (shrink)

_The Wiley Blackwell Handbook of Humanism_ presents an edited collection of essays that explore the nature of Humanism as an approach to life, and a philosophical analysis of the key humanist propositions from naturalism and science to morality and meaning. Represents the first book of its kind to look at Humanism not just in terms of its theoretical underpinnings, but also its consequences and its diverse manifestations Features contributions from international and emerging scholars, plus renowned figures such as Stephen Law, (...) Charles Freeman and Jeaneanne Fowler Presents Humanism as a positive alternative to theism Brings together the world’s leading Humanist academics in one reference work. (shrink)

Reduction and reductionism have been central philosophical topics in analytic philosophy of science for more than six decades. Together they encompass a diversity of issues from metaphysics and epistemology. This article provides an introduction to the topic that illuminates how contemporary epistemological discussions took their shape historically and limns the contours of concrete cases of reduction in specific natural sciences. The unity of science and the impulse to accomplish compositional reduction in accord with a layer-cake vision of the sciences, the (...) seminal contributions of Ernest Nagel on theory reduction and how they strongly conditioned subsequent philosophical discussions, and the detailed issues pertaining to different accounts of reduction that arise in both physical and biological science (e.g., limit-case and part-whole reduction in physics, the difference-making principle in genetics, and mechanisms in molecular biology) are explored. The conclusion argues that the epistemological heterogeneity and patchwork organization of the natural sciences encourages a pluralist stance about reduction. (shrink)

Realism about computation is the view that whether or not a particular physical system is performing a particular computation is at least sometimes a mindindependent feature of reality. The caveat ’at least sometimes’ is necessary here because a realist about computation need not believe that all instances of computation should be realistically construed. The computational theory of mind presupposes realism about computation. If whether or not the human nervous system implements particular computations is not a natural fact about the world (...) that is independent of whether we represent it as doing so, then the computational theory of mind fails to naturalise the mind. Realism about computation is also presupposed by attempts to use computational principles such as Landauer’s Principle to dispel Maxwell’s Demon. Realism about computation has been challenged by Hilary Putnam and John Searle among others. Various arguments have been put forward purporting to show that any physical system of sufficient complexity trivially implements all computations. Ladyman et al. offer a precisification and general proof Landauer’s Principle. In order to do this they present an analysis of what it is for a physical process to implement a logical transformation. In this paper, their analysis is explained and its implications for realism about computation and the use of Landauer’s Principle in foundational debates is assessed. (shrink)

Six individuals with experience of psychosis were interviewed about their psychotic experiences. The material was analyzed using the empirical phenomenological psychological method. The results consist of a whole meaning structure, a gestalt, entailing the following characteristics: The feeling of estrangement in relationship to the world; the dissolution of time; the loss of intuitive social knowledge; the alienation of oneself, and finally; the loss of intentionality/loss of agency. In brief, the results show that an altered perception of the self and the (...) world was an essential part of the psychotic experience where subjects described themselves as changed; something was sensed as being wrong as psychosis is perceptible but hard to communicate. The normal life-world experience was altered and reality seemed strange. Time perception seemed to be changed as temporality appeared dissolved and the experience of time was focused on the current moment excluding the future. The subjects described loss of intentionality, they were no longer agents in their actions but partly steered by others and they could feel as if their experiences were not theirs. The patients also describe problems regarding their ability to socialize and communicate with others. They seem to lose their intuitive social capacity and were prone to suspiciousness. (shrink)