The success of deep brain stimulation (DBS) for movement disorders and the improved understanding of the neurobiologic and neuroanatomic bases of psychiatric diseases have led to proposals to expand current DBS applications. Recent preclinical and clinical work with Alzheimer's disease and obsessive-compulsive disorder, for example, supports the safety of stimulating regions in the hypothalamus and nucleus accumbens in humans. These regions are known to be involved in addiction and overeating associated with obesity. However, the use of DBS targeting these areas (...) as a treatment modality raises common ethical considerations, which include informed consent, coercion, enhancement, threat to personhood, and manipulation of the reward center. Pilot studies for both of these conditions are currently investigational. If these studies show promise, then there is a need to address the ethical concerns related to the initiation of clinical trials including the reliability of preclinical evidence, patient selection, study design, compensation for participation and injury, cost-effectiveness, and the need for long-term follow-up. Multidisciplinary teams are necessary for the ethical execution of such studies. In addition to establishing safety and efficacy, the consideration of these ethical issues is vital to the adoption of DBS as a treatment for these conditions. We offer suggestions about the pursuit of future clinical trials of DBS for the treatment of addiction and overeating associated with obesity and provide a framework for addressing ethical concerns related to treatment. (shrink)

Two overriding considerations shaped the development of early research on the biological effects of microwave radiation—possible medical application and uncertainty about the hazards of exposure to radar. Reports in the late 1940s and early 1950s of hazards resulting from microwave exposure led to the near abandonment of medical research related to microwave diathermy at the same time that military and industrial concern over hazards grew, culminating in the massive research effort known as ‘the Tri-Service program’ . Both the early focus (...) on medical application and the later search for hazards played important roles in dictating how this field of research developed as a science. (shrink)

The constraint formalism of classical mechanics is extended to field theories with gauge groups. Explicit examples of Klein-Gordon and Maxwell fields are presented. The symmetry properties of the Maxwell fields have the unexpcted feature in this formalism of forming a first-class algebra which is not Lie, a situation already encountered in the general theory of relativity.

This paper first elaborates ‘Art’ and the aesthetic as these concepts emerged in the eighteenth century, and uncovers the conflict between the resulting ideal of ‘art for art’s sake’ and the increasing use ‘art therapy’ for personal and social purposes. Taking this conflict to be a reason for the rejection of ‘Art’, it considers two accounts of ‘the end of Art’, one by Arthur Danto and the other by Nicholas Wolterstorff. The paper argues that both accounts fall short of (...) adequately recognizing the presence of the aesthetic in everyday life, and that once we do acknowledge the properly aesthetic character of ‘Design’, a way of thinking is opened up that can make better sense of art therapy. The paper concludes with a brief indication of where the next philosophical question about art therapy lies. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Torah and Law in “Paradise Lost,”Gordon TeskeyTorah and Law in “Paradise Lost,” by Jason P. Rosenblatt; Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1994, $39.50.The epic project that includes the poems Paradise Lost and Paradise Regained marks the last occasion in Europe when the most ambitious literary form sought stability in theology rather than in philosophy. The philosophical poem, a minor form before the Enlightenment, became after Milton the general (...) idea of what a great long poem should be. One thinks of Faust, naturally enough, where the triumph of philosophy over theology is enacted, of Coleridge’s youthful plans for a philosophical epic, and of Wordsworth’s qualified achievement of it in The Prelude. Hegel said that art, having been supplanted by philosophy as the discourse of truth, must be for us a thing of the past. A less striking but perhaps more accurate statement would be that the art that once sought stability in the knowledge of God now seeks it in the impersonal knowledge of truth. The Milton who, before Paradise Lost, composed for his own use a theological treatise in which every point made is anchored in scripture, belongs to an earlier age. Yet there are in him clear indications of what is to come. No poet before Milton is so preoccupied with metaphysical questions, with the ultimate nature of being and the causative principles governing creation.It is the theological Milton with which Jason P. Rosenblatt is concerned in this fine study of Paradise Lost, a study that is more controversial than is suggested by its title or by its eirenic scholarly tone. The book is an attack on what its author regards as the Pauline bias of Milton studies in the tradition of A. S. P. Woodhouse and Arthur Barker. It is a bias, persisting even in Miltonists who are unconcerned with theological questions, against Hebraism in general and the “Old Law” in particular, the system of law referred to as Torah. Expressed in positive terms, Rosenblatt’s aim is to show how Milton’s prose tracts of 1643–1645 (the tracts on divorce) are “the principal doctrinal matrix of the middle books of Paradise Lost” (p. ix), that is, of the books in which human beings are shown in the state of innocence, giving us a utopian model [End Page 546] of what we should strive for in our own lives. But the Hebraic ethos of Eden gives way in the later books of the epic, after the Fall, to a Pauline perspective where the Law is an evil that stands in the way of our freedom. Whereas Pauline theology condemns the Hebrew Law as a law of bondage, Torah, like the Tao, is a means to live freely in accord with the law of one’s nature. Such law is felt not as a restraint but as a path. Rosenblatt suggests that Paradise Lost is not the unified, orthodox Christian vision Woodhouse claimed it to be but a work that undergoes radical ideological change after the Fall, reenacting the historical change brought about by Christianity itself.In the 1640s Milton embarked on an arduous program of Hebraic studies, spurred on by his desire to recuperate the one Mosaic law Christ explicitly overturned: that permitting divorce for causes other than fornication, a word that, as Milton’s Satan says of another, bears no single sense. After the exaggerated assessments, earlier this century, of Milton’s Hebrew erudition an over-correction set in, asserting that because Milton resorted to secondary sources, reference works, and translations his Hebrew learning was shallow. But Milton never pretended to be a Hebrew or an Aramaic scholar. He knew the languages and used them to learn more, as he used and acknowledged the work of great scholars like Selden; and for an amateur his attainments were truly remarkable. Miltonists will value this book for its balanced, expert reassessment of the poet’s Hebrew learning. And it will be especially appreciated by Miltonists for the new insight it brings to the importance of the divorce tracts of the 1640s for the representation of human innocence in Paradise Lost.For most readers the book will be of interest as... (shrink)

v. 1, pt. 1. The essays -- v. 1, pt. 2. Exigesis, 1-184.

Understanding in Epistemology Epistemology is often defined as the theory of knowledge, and talk of propositional knowledge has dominated the bulk of modern literature in epistemology. However, epistemologists have recently started to turn more attention to the epistemic state or states of understanding, asking questions about its nature, relationship … Continue reading Understanding in Epistemology →.

“The object of this book,” writes William C. Dowling in his preface, “is to make the key concepts of Paul Ricoeur’s _Time and Narrative_ available to readers who might have felt bewildered by the twists and turns of its argument.” The sources of puzzlement are, he notes, many. For some, it is Ricoeur’s famously indirect style of presentation, in which the polarities of argument and exegesis seem so often and so suddenly to have reversed themselves. For others, it is the (...) extraordinary intellectual range of Ricoeur’s argument, drawing on traditions as distant from each other as Heideggerian existentialism, French structuralism, and Anglo-American analytic philosophy. Yet beneath the labyrinthian surface of Ricoeur’s _Temps et récit_, Dowling reveals a single extended argument that, though developed unsystematically, is meant to be understood in systematic terms. __Ricoeur on Time and Narrative_ _presents that argument in clear and concise terms, in a way that will be enlightening both to readers new to Ricoeur and those who may have felt themselves adrift in the complexities of _Temps et récit,_ Ricoeur’s last major philosophical work. Dowling divides his discussion into six chapters, all closely involved with specific arguments in _Temps et récit_: on mimesis, time, narrativity, semantics of action, poetics of history, and poetics of fiction. Additionally, Dowling provides a preface that lays out the French intellectual context of Ricoeur's philosophical method. An appendix presents his English translation of a personal interview in which Ricoeur, having completed _Time and Narrative, _looks back over his long career as an internationally renowned philosopher. __Ricoeur on Time and Narrative___ _communicates to readers the intellectual excitement of following Ricoeur’s dismantling of established theories and arguments—Aristotle and Augustine and Husserl on time, Frye and Greimas on narrative structure, Arthur Danto and Louis O. Mink on the nature of historical explanation—while coming to see how, under the pressure of Ricoeur’s analysis, these ideas are reconstituted and revealed in a new set of relations to one another. "The scholarship in William C. Dowling's __Ricoeur on Time and Narrative____ __is impeccable; Dowling knows Ricoeur inside out. He highlights Ricoeur's most important arguments, presents them in a limpid, concise language, and links them to the relevant nineteenth- and twentieth-century philosophical developments. Dowling's book provides us with a lucid, intelligible version of Ricoeur's major work, one that will be of considerable significance to philosophers, historians, and literary theorists." —_Thomas Pavel, Gordon J. Laing Distinguished Service Professor of French Literature, and the Committee on Social Thought, University of Chicago_ "William C. Dowling's __Ricoeur on Time and Narrative___ _is a subtle and remarkably well-sustained piece of work. It provides a detailed introduction to a major work of philosophy and narrative theory—already a considerable achievement, given the difficulty of Ricoeur's text. However, Dowling also shows us, sometimes explicitly, sometimes simply through the way he conducts his argument, why we should bother with Ricoeur—what we have to gain from knowing him better than we do, however well we may think we know him." —_Michael Wood, Charles Barnwell Straut Class of 1923 Professor of English and Comparative Literature, Princeton University _. (shrink)

Translating current research into accessible terms, Taylor discusses the brain's electrical and chemical processes, amnesia, mystical states, and multiple personality and the nature of dreaming, memory, pain, and intelligence.

This paper continues my work of [9], which showed there was a broad family of many valued logics that have a strict/tolerant counterpart. Here we consider a generalization of weak Kleene three valued logic, instead of the strong version that was background for that earlier work. We explain the intuition behind that generalization, then determine a subclass of strict/tolerant structures in which a generalization of weak Kleene logic produces the same results that the strong Kleene generalization did. This paper provides (...) much background, but is not self-contained. Some results from [9] are called on, and are not reproved here. [9] Melvin C. Fitting. “A Family of Strict/Tolerant Logics”. In: Journal of Philosophical Logic. Online. Print publication forthcoming. (shrink)

In this book, Professor Adkins undertakes an examination of certain key value-words in the period between Homer and the end of the fifth century. The behavior of these words both affected and was affected by the nature of the society in which their usage developed. The author shows how only with a complete understanding of the implications and significance of these value-words can the essence of the Greeks and their society be grasped.

Ethics of Artificial Intelligence This article provides a comprehensive overview of the main ethical issues related to the impact of Artificial Intelligence on human society. AI is the use of machines to do things that would normally require human intelligence. In many areas of human life, AI has rapidly and significantly affected human society … Continue reading Ethics of Artificial Intelligence →.

This is a new edition of the first volume of G.P.Baker and P.M.S. Hacker’s definitive reference work on Wittgenstein’s _Philosophical Investigations_. New edition of the first volume of the monumental four-volume _Analytical Commentary on the Philosophical Investigations._ Takes into account much material that was unavailable when the first edition was written. Following Baker’s death in 2002, P.M.S. Hacker has thoroughly revised the first volume, rewriting many essays and sections of exegesis completely. Part One - the Essays - now includes two (...) completely new essays: 'Meaning and Use' and 'The Recantation of a Metaphysician'. Part Two - Exegesis §§1-184 - has been thoroughly revised in the light of the electronic publication of Wittgenstein’s _Nachlass_, and includes many new interpretations of the remarks, a history of the composition of the book, and an overview of its structure. The revisions will ensure that this remains the definitive reference work on Wittgenstein’s masterpiece for the foreseeable future. (shrink)