Clinicians have an obligation to ensure that patients with adequate capacity can make autonomous decisions. Thus, patients who choose to forego treatment and leave hospitals “against medical advice” are typically allowed to do so. But what happens when they require clinicians’ assistance to physically leave? Is it incumbent upon clinicians to not only respect and fulfill patients’ requests with which they disagree, but to physically assist in their fulfillment? We attempt to develop an ethical framework wherein clinicians can honor patients’ (...) wishes without necessarily sacrificing their own moral position. (shrink)

Andrew Marr has built this masterful study of Mutio Oddi on a set of ironies. He begins with a bitter blow of fortune: Oddi, in the middle of an apparently promising life as mathematician and architect in his native Urbino, had fallen afoul of his lord the Duke, accused of participating in a plot to depose him. After years of apparently unjust imprisonment, he was released in 1610, but into exile. Yet Oddi managed to recast his career in Milan and (...) then in Lucca, building upon a varied set of skills, and even returned eventually to Urbino. That varied set of skills had resulted from yet another, earlier, set of reversals and recoveries: he had turned to mathematics only after first training as an artist in the studio of Federico Barocci, a field he had been forced to abandon due to problems with his eyesight. Oddi was widely respected in his day, not only for his achievements themselves but also for his persistence and ingenuity in overcoming such obstacles. Yet to modern historians of .. (shrink)

Puzzles about persistence and change through time, i.e., about identity across time, have foundered on confusion about what it is for ‘two things’ to be have ‘the same thing’ at a time. This is most directly seen in the dispute over whether material objects can occupy exactly the same place at the same time. This paper defends the possibility of such coincidence against several arguments to the contrary. Distinguishing a temporally relative from an absolute sense of ‘the same’, we see (...) that the intuition, ‘this is only one thing’, and the dictum, ‘two things cannot occupy the same place at the same time’, are individuating things at a time rather than absolutely and are therefore compatible with coincidence. Several other objections philosophers have raised ride on this same ambiguity. Burke, originating what has become the most popular objection to coincidence, argues that if coincidence is possible there would be no explanation of how objects that are qualitatively the same at a time could belong to different sorts. But we can explain an object’s sort by appealing to its properties at other times. Burke’s argument to the contrary equivocates on different notions of ‘cross-time identity’ and ‘the statue’. From a largely negative series of arguments emerges a positive picture of what it means to say multiple things coincide and of why an object’s historical properties explain its sort rather than vice versa – in short, of how coincidence is possible. (shrink)

Round to elongate microbodies associated with fossil vertebrate soft tissues were interpreted as microbial traces until 2008, when they were re‐described as remnant melanosomes – intracellular, pigment‐containing eukaryotic organelles. Since then, multiple claims for melanosome preservation and inferences of organismal color, behavior, and physiology have been advanced, based upon the shape and size of these microstructures. Here, we re‐examine evidence for ancient melanosomes in light of information reviewed in Vinther (2015), and literature regarding the preservation potential of microorganisms and their (...) exopolymeric secretions. We: (i) address statements in Vinther's recent (2015) review that are incorrect or which misrepresent published data; (ii) discuss the need for caution in interpreting “voids” and microbodies associated with degraded fossil soft tissues; (iii) present evidence that microorganisms are in many cases an equally parsimonious source for these “voids” as are remnant melanosomes; and (iv) suggest methods/criteria for differentiating melanosomes from microbial traces in the fossil record. (shrink)

‘uester, de uno, per indignationem’ says Achilles Statius at the first of these two places, and again ‘uester, de uno’ at the second. Muretus on the other hand explains ‘uestrae saeuitiae, ferocitatis illius, uobis omnibus, qui formosi estis, innatae.’ Most commentators have taken part with Muretus, and deny that uester in these two passages means tuus; nor is the usage recognised in the lexicons. But when it comes to explaining what, if not tuus, uester does mean, the interpreters are not (...) agreed: they contradict one another, and they even contradict themselves. (shrink)

Correction . Online publication date: 2‐Feb‐2006. We inadvertently printed three erroneous internal cross references in S. H. Rigby's review of Miguel Cabrera's Postsocial History: An Introduction in theFebruary 2006 issue of : On p. 114, "p. 458" should read "p. 112." On p. 120, the two references to "p. 460" should both read "p. 114." Professor's Rigby's review was rescheduled from an earlier issue and unfortunately we did not notice that these references needed to be updated.

The poetical remains of Dorotheus, on which I made some comments in the Classical Quarterly vol. ii pp. 47–61, have received from the cod. Vat. Graec. 1056 an increase of ten verses, published by Mr J. Heeg in catal. cod. astrol. Graec. vol. v part iii p. 125 and also in Hermes vol. xlv pp. 316–8.

463 ante 462 VGP et ante corr. ut uidetur U, item adnotator super Lucanum ed. Endtii p. 276 et Statii scholiastes ad Theb. VI 760, qui 462 et 464 coniunctos legerunt. 462 ante 463 MZ et ex corr. U. 463 quam MZPGV, qua ex corr. U. 462 manum VGP, lemma schol. Bern., Statii schol., manus Z et ex corr. U de M non liquet. tempus quo noscere possent VGP et ut uidetur M, adn. sup. Luc, Z , Statii schol. , (...) tempus = q.t.i.r.n.p. lemma schol. Bern., uultusque agnoscere quaerunt ex corr. U, Z2 G2, uultus etiam V2. (shrink)