In Balanced Wonder, Jan B. W. Pedersen digs deep into the alluring topic of wonder, in dialogue with Neo-Aristotelian philosophers, arguing that the experience of wonder, when balanced, serves as a strong contributor to human flourishing.

Howard Phillips Lovecraft’s work of fiction can roughly be grouped into three distinct categories, each evoking a singular extraordinary state of mind. Poe-inspired tales of the macabre such as “The Tomb” (1917) and “The Statement of Randolph Carter” (1919) produce terror because of the atmosphere they convey and because of the particular end the main characters meet. Lovecraft’s later “Yog-Sothothery” or work in the Cthulhu Mythos tradition, including his signature pieces of weird fiction “The Call of Cthulhu” (1926) and “The (...) Shadow over Innsmouth” (1931), inspires ‘horror’ because the life-worlds of the protagonists in these stories are utterly destroyed. However, the gentleman of Providence is also known for a different sort of fiction. His Dunsanian tales—among them short stories such as “The White Ship” (1919), “Celephaïs” (1920), and the three works“ The Silver Key” (1926), The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath (1926–27), and “Through the Gates of the Silver Key” (1932–33; with E. Hoffmann Price), centered on the exploits of Lovecraft’s recurring character and alter ego Randolph Carter—are epitomes to this feat. These prehistoric or dreamland tales do not inspire ‘terror’ or ‘horror’; rather, they predominately seek to evoke the extraordinary state of mind called ‘wonder. This article offers a preliminary exploration of Lovecraft’s relationship with wonder, highlights what wonder is, how Lovecraft was exposed to wonder at an early age, and argues that he developed a lifelong positive relationship with this particular state of mind. (shrink)

One of the vexed questions in the philosophy of wonder and indeed education is how to ensure that the next generation harbours a sense of wonder. Wonder is important, we think, because it encour- ages inquiry and keeps us as Albert Einstein would argue from ‘being as good as dead’ or ‘snuffed-out candles’ (Einstein 1949, 5). But how is an educator to install, bring to life, or otherwise encourage a sense of wonder in his or her stu- dents? Biologist Rachel (...) Carson suggests that exploring nature and specifically undertaking walks along the rocky coast of Maine would keep alive a person’s inborn sense of wonder (Carson 1984). Philosopher Jesse Prinz thinks that exposure to art will encourage wonderment because artworks, as he puts it, are “inventions for feeding the appetite that wonder excites in us” (Prinz 2013). Weird fiction (a subgenre of speculative fiction) – and in particular the work of one of its greatest exponents, the early-20th-century American author How- ard Phillips Lovecraft – is likewise a catalyst for wonder. The reason behind this is that Lovecraft’s ‘wonder-stories’ are densely packed with wonder per design; and in support of this claim I shall in what is to come 1) provide a brief introduction to Lovecraft and weird fiction; 2) present a working definition of wonder; and 3) clarify what is meant by something being ‘densely packed with wonder’ via bringing to the fore evidence of Lovecraft’s literary wonder- mongery. The paper ends with some reflections on the notion of ‘dark wonder’, why this peculiar label might be suitable for the kind of wonder we find in Lovecraft’s work, and why exposure to ‘dark wonder’ can be edifying, and in that sense educational. (shrink)

These are three welcome works on medieval logic. The Summa Logica of William of Ockham has long been a classic, and scholars have been waiting for this critical edition, begun almost a quarter of a century ago by Philotheus Boehner and finally brought to completion by the combined efforts of Stephen Brown and especially Gedeon Gal, now the general editor of the Opera Philosophica et Theologica being prepared at the Franciscan Institute at St. Bonaventure University. The editors date this work (...) after the Commentary on the Sentences, two volumes of which have already appeared in the above mentioned series. It also postdates Ockham’s commentaries on Porphyry, the Praedicamenta, Perihermenias, and Sophisticis Elenchis, as well as the first four books of Aristotle’s Physics. As a terminus ante quem the editors take the fifth book of this same Physics and see it as certainly prior to the Tractatus de praedestinatione, and to the De corpore Christi and De Sacramento Altaris. Parts of the Quodlibetal questions, however, precede it, and others follow. Loux’s translation, unfortunately, antedated this splendid edition of the Summa Logicae, being based on only the partial, earlier edition of Boehner. Nevertheless, it is a useful instrument providing a good and relatively complete introduction to the basic themes of Ockham’s philosophy of language as well as his ontology. A spot check reveals some misprints, e.g., on pp. 56, 192 and on page 38, lines 68-83 of the Latin edition he used have not been translated. The work is introduced by two essays: "The Ontology of William Ockham" and "Ockham on Generality"—the latter dealing with his theory of supposition. Nuchelmans’ interesting work, though it deals mostly with the medieval history of propositions as bearers of truth and falsity, contains some six chapters which trace the history of the term as early as Plato’s treatment in the Sophist, through Aristotle and the important Stoic lekton and axioma. He also concludes with a useful chapter on the significance of a true propositio, both as a mode of being of a thing and as the mental conception.—A.B.W. (shrink)

In earlier writings, I have sought to establish a link between Howard Phillips Lovecraft and Romanticism, and this paper adds to that body of work. -/- The essay begins with a preliminary sketch of the use of gardens in Romantic thought and the highlighting of six themes: contemplation, joy, the dramatic, the strange, the foreign, and the beautiful, that all underpins Romanticism. -/- This is followed by an elucidation of Lovecraft’s fascination with gardens, his dealings in Romantic themes, and what (...) role they play in his short 1917 poem “A Garden”. -/- The essay concludes that given Lovecraft’s love of gardens and that his poem “A Garden” is imbued with Romantic themes and involves ‘wondrous contemplation’ and ‘poetic knowledge’, the case for his Romanticism has been strengthened. (shrink)

Dette kapitel fokuserer på ’etik og patientinddragelse’, men søger med afsæt i devisen ‘sapere aude’ også at skabe interesse for filosofi og etik blandt sygeplejestuderende. Kapitlet er en opfordring til sygeplejestuderende om at betjene sig af egen forstand og finde mod til at filosofere over problematikker i forbindelse med patientinddragelse frem for at falde tilbage i umyndighedens bekvemmelighed og vente på at andre træder til. Kapitlet starter med at se nærmere på, hvordan patientinddragelse italesættes i vor tid efterfulgt af en (...) kort eksposition af to af oplysningstidens vigtigste libera- le filosoffer, herunder pligtetikeren Immanuel Kant og nytteetikeren John Stuart Mill, hvis syn på henholdsvis autonomi og frihed influerer debatten om patientinddragelse. Efterfølgende præsenteres og diskuteres to eksempler, hvor patientinddragelse og etik er i rampelyset. Mere specifikt rettes fokus på 1) etik, patientinddragelse og den psykiatriske patient og 2) etik, patientinddragelse og unge mennesker. Eksemplerne er udvalgte med henblik på at belyse, hvad der kan komme på spil i sundhedsfaglige situationer udspændt mellem individuel frihed, herunder også ideen om autonomi; sygehusvæsenet, inklusive personale, som autoritær vi- dens-institution/aktør og det etiske, herunder ideen om ’det gode’ eller efterstræbelsesværdige. Afslutningsvis argumenteres der for, at sundhedsarbejdere med blik for etik og patientinddragelse kan udgøre en positiv kraft for den inddragede patient, men at det kræver, at denne vover at være vis. Afsnit: Resume Patientinddragelse i vor tid Autonomi, frihed og patientinddragelse Etik, patientinddragelse og den psykiatriske patient Etik, patientinddragelse og den unge Afslutning . (shrink)

Howard Phillips Lovecraft can be viewed as a Romantic based on his lifelong relationship with wonder. This short essay gathers further evidence of Lovecraft’s Romanticism, beginning with a brief exploration of what Romanticism is and then moving on to highlight elements of Romanticism in Lovecraft’s poem “Fact and Fancy” (1917). The essay concludes that, as much as Lovecraft can be labelled a Romantic based on his affinity with wonder, he can also be classified as such based on his aversion to (...) the cold light of reason, which to him was an insufficient antidote to the otherwise dreary world in which he found himself. (shrink)

Lovecraft’s teetotalism is well known among Lovecraftians, but the lengths to which he went to incorporate his views and how he sought to influence the people around him via his various writing remain relatively unexplored. This essay focuses on Lovecraft’s teetotalism and opens with a brief sketch of the historical background from which his dry outlook emerged. It continues by providing evidence for Love- craft’s advocacy of abstinence and Prohibition from a variety of sources, including biographical material, philosophical essays, letters, (...) poetry, and fiction, with a view to showing how he communicated his dry philosophy and how it softened as he advanced into middle age. The essay ends by arguing that although there can be no doubt that Lovecraft was a teetotaler par excellence, his later softened position is more balanced and rooted partly in the realization of his own idiosyncrasy and anachronism. (shrink)

This paper focuses on the importance of wonder in human flourishing and is orientated towards the dynamics between the two, but with an emphasis on how the former is important for illuminating the latter. It begins with a preliminary sketch of both wonder and human flourishing and subsequently moves on to highlight three aspects of human flourishing: 1) ‘Individuality’, 2) ‘Relations’ and 3) ‘The political’, and why these play to wonderment.

I dette bogkapitel skrevet sammen med Ingeborg Ilkjær fremlægges tre etiske positioner herunder dydsetik, pligtetik og konsekvensetik. Disse teorier er sammen med eksempler på etiske principper og værdier det grundlag, som sygeplejersker kan benytte sig af i arbejdet med patientinvolvering og etiske dilemma, hvor der skal foretages et valg, der har betydning for patienter, pårørrende og de klinisk involverede. -/- For at kunne træffe valg af denne art er det vigtigt at kunne gøre det på et oplyst grundlag samt at (...) kunne påtage sig et klinisk lederskab. Derfor er det nødvendigt at benytte sig af en etisk refleksionsmodel. Dette arbejde kan være med til at skabe klarhed over en given situation, der rummer vanskelige etiske dilemmaer. -/- Bogkapitlet findes i bogen Sygepleje & Patientinvolvering Bind 3 redigeret af Steen Hundborg og udgivet på FADL’s Forlag I 2019. (shrink)

I joined Trevelyan College (Trevs), Durham University in 2011 as a mature student under former professor and principle of the college Martyn Evans. It was to be the beginning of a transformative journey culminating in my doctoral thesis: Balanced Wonder: A Philosophical Inquiry into the Role of Wonder in Human Flourishing. -/- In 2020 Trevs kindly asked me to contribute to the Alumni Magazine Hippocampus and in particular to the ‘Where Are They Now’ section. -/- “You Haven’t Done Anything” is (...) my contribution and it highlights in a humorous fashion some of the things I have achieved since I left Trevs. -/- Sections: -/- Standing still is rarely a good strategy in life -/- If One Lives Wisely Sometimes Less is More and Infinately More Valuable. (shrink)

As the subtitle and consecutive division of contents indicate, these two volumes are integral parts of a single work and one may wonder why they were not published as such since the indices and bibliography in the second volume refers to both works. The basic tripartite thesis of the combined volumes may be stated thus. Both universal properties and universal relationships exist independently of the classifying mind, but not in factual independence of particulars; what universals in fact exist, however, must (...) be determined not a priori by considering what predicates are applied to particulars by linguistic convention, but a posteriori according to the norms of an empiricistic epistemology. Hence, Armstrong calls his theory "a posteriori," or simply, "scientific realism," since it is the task of total science, conceived of as a total inquiry, to determine which monadic or polyadic predicates do correspond to universals and which do not. The first volume is essentially a critical appraisal of classical approaches to the nominalism-realism controversy, whereas the second is a more positive presentation of the author’s own theory and grows out of the prior critique. Thus the second volume can be read independently of the first, especially since a brief recapitulation of the argument of volume one is given at its beginning. Similarly, a brief summary of the argument of volume two is appended to volume one. Thus the two volumes, which apparently grew out of materials presented in independent, but related, seminars, could still be used as such. Only this and the possibility of a student buying the overly expensive work by parts seems to justify the peculiar way in which this set was published. (shrink)

Medieval scholars will welcome these two latest volumes in the splendid critical edition of the nonpolitical works of William of Ockham by the Franciscan Institute of St. Bonaventure University. The first completes the set of Ockham’s major logical works that began with the publication of his monumental summa logicae in 1974 and was followed in 1978 by the second volume in the philosophical series, containing the commentaries on Porphyry and Aristotle’s Praedicamenta and Perihermenias, together with the famous tract on predestination (...) and God’s knowledge of future contingents. Known as the Expositio aurea super artem veterem, this second collection was still available in modern photo-reprints of earlier editions, but the Expositio super libros elenchorum, unlike the popular Summa logicae, was never printed before and this last of Ockham’s commentaries on Aristotle’s logical Organon appears here for the first time in other than manuscript form. Though less important than the other commentaries Ockham did on Aristotle at the Franciscan study house in London during the interim between his completion of the lectures on the Sentences and his summons to the papal court at Avignon in 1324, this work, which antedates his commentaries on the Physics, is not without interest. It illustrates, for instance, how Ockham understood "science" and the subject thereof, to say nothing of the light it throws on how he interpreted the various classical fallacies listed by Aristotle to which he continually refers throughout his other writings. Like the other volumes of this edition, this also contains an excellent analytic index that might well serve as a model for improving other critical editions of medieval works as research tools. (shrink)

From what has been argued, it should now be apparent how Heidegger's philosophy of the affect, its ontological disclosures and its relation to authenticity might be enlarged to meet certain marxist challenges. The most valuable instruction to be gained from these citicisms, I think, is that which Lukacs offers in the example of Szilasi's intuition of co-presence. Traditional phenomenology needs to enrich its investigations into the social and historical reality of situation. Kosik's point that Heideggerian authenticity lacks the crucial third (...) step (revolutionary change of society) is also profound but again, not incompatiblein se with Heidegger's concept. Alternatively, one might as easily say that Critical Marxism or any Marxist Humanism can still be enriched by certain Heideggerian insights. (shrink)

The use of placebo as a control condition in clinical trials of major depressive disorder and anxiety disorders continues to be an area of ethical concern. Typically, opponents of placebo controls argue that they violate the beneficent-based, “best proven diagnostic and therapeutic method” that the original Helsinki Declaration of 1964 famously asserted participants are owed. A more consequentialist, oppositional argument is that participants receiving placebo might suffer enormously by being deprived of their usual medication(s). Nevertheless, recent findings of potential for (...) suicidality in young people treated with antidepressants, along with meta-analyses suggesting that antidepressants add no significant clinical benefit over placebos, warrant a re-evaluation of the arguments against placebo. Furthermore, the nature of placebo treatment in short-term clinical trials is often not well understood, and lack of understanding can foster opposition to it. This paper will show how scientific justifications for placebo use are morally relevant. The fundamental ethical importance of placebo controls is discussed in relation to several aspects of clinical trials, including detection of adverse events, accurate assessment of clinical benefit, advancing understanding of the heterogeneity of depression and anxiety disorders and respecting informed consent requirements. Prohibiting the use of placebo controls is morally concerning in that such prohibitions allow for the possibility of serious adverse public health consequences. Moral worries that research participants receiving placebo are being unduly jeopardised will be shown to be exaggerated, especially in relation to the net benefits for end-users to be gained from the quality of data resulting from using placebo controls. (shrink)

The dynamics of single populations up to ecosystems, are often described by one or a set of non-linear ordinary differential equations. In this paper we review the use of bifurcation theory to analyse these non-linear dynamical systems. Bifurcation analysis gives regimes in the parameter space with quantitatively different asymptotic dynamic behaviour of the system. In small-scale systems the underlying models for the populations and their interaction are simple Lotka-Volterra models or more elaborated models with more biological detail. The latter ones (...) are more difficult to analyse, especially when the number of populations is large. Therefore for large-scale systems the Lotka-Volterra equations are still popular despite the limited realism. Various approaches are discussed in which the different time-scale of ecological and evolutionary biological processes are considered together. (shrink)

In some respects this work represents the culmination of a search Weiss first began in a systematic way some twenty years ago when he set out to investigate reality in terms of what he called "cosmic necessities." This quest resulted in his ontological classic, Modes of Being in which he reduces the necessities to four, Actuality, Ideality, Existence and God. He then circled back, as it were, to study specific areas of philosophic interest in detail, employing his fourfold conceptual scheme (...) to throw light on the God we worship, man and his manifold activities, with special studies on art, sport, cinematics, and finally personhood itself. In the course of this gargantuan enterprise he discovered both the strength and weakness of his original categorial system. The result of this critical reevaluation appeared in two complementary works, Beyond All Appearances and First Considerations. This neo-Weissian view contrasted actuality, as the category of the irreducible, independent, contingent centers of action and value with the five finalities or a priori conditions of intelligibility, namely Substance, Being, Possibility, Existence, and Unity. These are required analytically by the actualities in order that they may have unifying contexts and thus a relational field from which stems their comprehensibility and ultimate value. The self or person is the most important actuality, and Weiss explores the complex interrelationships between persons in terms of the personal pronouns. For those who have followed Weiss's intellectual odyssey, this will undoubtedly be a stimulating book, particularly if it is read in connection with Weiss's seventh volume of Philosophy in Process, in which the thinking processes that led up to the production of the present work are set forth in a more informal and readable fashion, together with a number of tentative drafts of what its contents should be. One of these represents a tour de force of how his expanded categorial scheme might be applied. Another reflection questions the wisdom of trying to apply this scheme too mechanically. (shrink)

The late John Burrow, one of the most stimulating promoters of the distinctively interdisciplinary enterprise that is Intellectual History, was a vital member of what has become known as the ‘Sussex School’. In exploring the resonances of his singular and richly idiosyncratic contribution, this article places his unique historical sensibility within a series of interpretative contexts, demonstrating the vitality of writings that will continue to inspire and inform scholarship in the field for decades to come. ☆ The Sussex Centre for (...) Intellectual History Lecture delivered at the University of Sussex on 21st October, 2010. I am deeply indebted to Noël Sugimura for reading and commenting on an earlier version of the present essay with her customary sense and sensibility. (shrink)

Herein we examine the theory and practical limits of designing a voluntary incentive scheme to protect endangered species on private land. We consider both an ay-ante scheme, in which a contract to the landholder depends only on what the landholder reports, and an ay-post scheme, in which a contract to the landholder depends on reports from all landowners. Except in special cases, the ex-ante scheme never implements the full information allocation, and can actually set aside too much land. In contrast, (...) expected habitat size under the ex-post scheme is smaller than both the ex-ante and full information allocations. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science (USA). (shrink)

Lines 4–5 of Antiphanes fr. 46 KA, an Athenian view of the stereotypical Spartan life, present several difficult, interrelated problems. The text as printed by Kassel- Austin is grammatically intelligible, although problematic, since καταρονέω is used absolutely elsewhere in old or middle comedy only at Amph.