The purpose of this paper is to show through the concrete example of epileptic seizure anticipation how neuro-dynamic analysis and “pheno-dynamic” analysis may guide and determine each other. We will show that this dynamic approach to epileptic seizure makes it possible to consolidate the foundations of a cognitive non pharmacological therapy of epilepsy. We will also show through this example how the neuro-phenomenological co-determination could shed new light on the difficult problem of the “gap” which separates subjective experience from neurophysiological (...) activity. (shrink)

The academic literature in research ethics has been marked in the past decade by a much broader focus on the need for the protection of developing communities subjected to international clinical trials. Because of the proximity of the revision of the Declaration of Helsinki, completed in October 2008, most papers have addressed the issue of a double standard of care following the use of placebo. However, other no less important issues, such as interactions between the lifestyles structures of low-income communities (...) and the efficiency of risk-minimising procedures also deserve attention. The purpose of this paper is to discuss forms of uncertainty involved in clinical trials in poor and low-income countries that are not addressed by conventional methods of risk assessment. Furthermore, the increase in size of risks that are identified by conventional assessment methods will be addressed. Besides, the difficulty in properly applying risk-minimising procedures will be discussed. Finally, this paper proposes the involvement of research ethics committees in the risk evaluation process and the establishment of national ethics evaluation systems. (shrink)

Eleven essays, on a variety of topics, most of them first given as lectures or published in periodicals and Festschriften. This is "late" Heidegger --alternately brilliant and mystifying, provocative and exasperating, at least to the uninitiated. Perhaps the best pieces in the book are the three which discuss passages in pre-Socratic philosophers--here, familiar texts are given fresh, if unorthodox, interpretations, and are made to suggest philosophical conclusions of remarkable subtlety and scope. --V. C. C.

Thomas Szasz wrote over thirty books and several hundred articles, replete with mordant criticism of psychiatry. His works made him arguably one of the world's most recognized psychiatrists, albeit one of the most controversial. This book critically examines the legacy of a man who challenged the very concept of mental illness.

De Wulf's work has been largely supplanted since its first appearance in 1903, but it is still of some use as an introduction and survey. This edition reprints the English translation of 1907. --V. C. C.

In a relaxed and yet persuasive manner, the author relates a number of American writers to sets of Christian beliefs, noting that those whom he regards as orthodox are generally thought today to be greater literary artists than the "heretics"--i.e., those who "ignore Original Sin."--V. C. C.

An exact reprint of the fourth edition of Butcher's famous commentary on the Poetics, together with his Greek text and English translation. Includes a helpful introductory essay, written especially for this edition, on "Aristotelian Literary Criticism".--V. C. C.

An attempt to deal with "the fundamental philosophical problem of the Absolute" in an original way. Absolute Being is interpreted as "the act of total existence," and is taken to include all that is or can be, as well as what "exists" negatively or is not.--V. C. C.

Five recent journal articles--including "Meaning and Synonomy in Natural Language" and "Empiricism, Semantics and Ontology"-have been appended to the main study as it first appeared in 1947, to form this second edition. The articles serve as a kind of commentary on key sections of the original work, interpreting and clarifying, sometimes modifying, a number of its doctrines.--V. C. C.

A new edition of a famous classic, printed with elegance and taste. Mr. Shields' introduction succinctly reviews Mill's life and work, outlines the essay, and points up some of its problems.--V. C. C.

Alberti's Della pittura was the first, and in many ways the most important, of the Renaissance treatises on painting, elaborating as it does the theoretical backgrounds of the influential new art of 15th-century Florence. This edition presents the work with distinction. The translation--the first in English since 1755--is based upon the known manuscript sources, and has been provided with a helpful introduction and notes. Diagrams serve to clarify Alberti's accounts of perspective. --V. C. C.

A brief but meaty survey of the immediate background of contemporary Oxford analysis, concentrating chiefly on the rise and fall of Logical Atomism, with some asides on the Logical Positivist movement in England. Mr. Urmson describes pre-Oxford analytic tenets and techniques clearly and fairly, though in rather disorganized fashion, and presents, with considerable force, the arguments brought against them. These arguments are perhaps less destructive than Mr. Urmson himself seems to suppose, nor is it clear that they justify, philosophically, the (...) widespread shift to the Oxford brand of analysis. But the book provides a useful historical explanation of the abandonment by English philosophers of the "reductive" analysis practiced by the atomists and positivists, and of their search for something different.--V. C. C. (shrink)

The second installment of Dr. Needham's epic venture into the intellectual history of ancient and medieval China. The work's general emphasis is upon science and technology; the present volume expounds the teachings of the main philosophical systems and schools--Confucianism, Taoism, Mohism, etc.--and describes their bearing upon the scientific thinking of their times. The detail with which these accounts are carried out is staggering, yet the narrative line remains clear. The work's scope, too, is incredible, as Dr. Needham delves fully into (...) the backgrounds, social, cultural, and intellectual, of the various systems of thought. Full references to sources and complementary accounts, frank acknowledgment of the disputedness of certain interpretations, and the provision of the Chinese characters for key terms, increase the work's value for scholars. Certainly this is a monumental achievement, however the details be judged by the experts. The volume is beautifully produced, with tables and many fine illustrations.--V. C. C. (shrink)

Eight short papers, semi-popular in intent, surveying British philosophy from Bradley, through Russell, Moore, and Wittgenstein, to the contemporary analysis of Ryle and Austin. Coverage is spotty, and some of the treatments are so brief and sketchy as to be of dubious value. Ryle's introduction, however, and concluding papers by Strawson and Warnock are both pleasant and instructive.--V. C. C.

A close study, paragraph by paragraph and often line by line, of a work crucial to the understanding of Heidegger's thought as a whole. M. Wahl is a conscientious reader and careful interpreter; he exhibits a sympathetic understanding of the Heideggerian method while dissenting at various points from its results, particularly as regards the important Seinsfrage. In general, it is suggested, Heiddegger's Einführung is to be taken not as doctrine or a set of conclusions, but as an exercise, like Plato's (...) Parmenides.--V. C. C. (shrink)

Winner of the 2021 Toshihide Numata Book Award in Buddhism The assertion that there is nothing in the constitution of any person that deserves to be considered the self (ātman)—a permanent, unchanging kernel of personal identity in this life and those to come—has been a cornerstone of Buddhist teaching from its inception. Whereas other Indian religious systems celebrated the search for and potential discovery of one’s “true self,” Buddhism taught about the futility of searching for anything in our experience that (...) is not transient and ephemeral. But a small yet influential set of Mahāyāna Buddhist texts, composed in India in the early centuries CE, taught that all sentient beings possess at all times, and across their successive lives, the enduring and superlatively precious nature of a Buddha. This was taught with reference to the enigmatic expression tathāgatagarbha—the “womb” or “chamber” for a Buddha—which some texts refer to as a person’s true self. The Buddhist Self is a methodical examination of Indian teaching about the tathāgatagarbha (otherwise the presence of one’s “Buddha-nature”) and the extent to which different Buddhist texts and authors articulated this in terms of the self. C. V. Jones attends to each of the Indian Buddhist works responsible for explaining what is meant by the expression tathāgatagarbha, and how far this should be understood or promoted using the language of selfhood. With close attention to these sources, Jones argues that the trajectory of Buddha-nature thought in India is also the history and legacy of a Buddhist account of what deserves to be called the self: an innovative attempt to equip Mahāyāna Buddhism with an affirmative response to wider Indian interest in the discovery of something precious or even divine in one’s own constitution. This argument is supplemented by critical consideration of other themes that run through this distinctive body of Mahāyānist literature: the relationship between Buddhist and non-Buddhist teachings about the self, the overlap between the tathāgatagarbha and the nature of the mind, and the originally radical position that the only means of becoming liberated from rebirth is to achieve the same exalted status as the Buddha. (shrink)

The first two volumes of a four-volume study, destined surely to become the standard work in its field. Literary criticism in the broadest sense is the book's subject, but the author tries to avoid purely philosophical aesthetics at one extreme--Kant is given 3 pages to Schiller's 24--as well as unsubstantiated judgments of taste at the other. Since he tries to see the past as bearing upon and productive of the literary theory of the present, the book might be said to (...) be more an account of the sources and growth of contemporary thinking about literature and criticism than a "history" in the usual sense. Professor Wellek has a rich store of scholarly knowledge at his disposal, and his interpretive generalizations are well supported by references and texts; yet the argument moves easily and clearly. A fine piece of creative scholarship.--V. C. C. (shrink)

The purpose of this book is purely expository, but within its limits it is perhaps the best account of existentialism yet to appear in English. Its virtues are clarity, balance, accuracy, and an objectivity of tone which is maintained even in the treatment of emotionally charged subject-matter. Mr. Grimsley summarizes the views of Kierkegaard, Heidegger, Sartre, Jaspers, and Marcel in separate chapters of fairly extensive scope, mainly through direct exposition of their major works. In a short introduction, and again in (...) a shorter postscript, he attempts to characterize existentialism and the existential attitude as a whole; his success makes one wish he had done more in this direction.--V. C. C. (shrink)

A Sartre sampler, showing the range of its author's interests as well as the subtlety and inventiveness of his thinking. Most of the "literary" essays--seven short pieces on individual authors and books--have a decidedly philosophical turn despite their disjointedness; a discussion of The Sound and the Fury, e.g., becomes an examination of Faulkner's "metaphysics of time." The three philosophical pieces, including the anti-Marxist "Materialism and Revolution," are longer and more systematic. There are also three essays on America, arising out of (...) Sartre's 1945 visit, which are perceptive, fresh, and sometimes profound.--V. C. C. (shrink)

A new translation of Parmenides' poem, preceded by a long introduction. M. Beaufret's attitude towards, and interpretation of, the Parmenidean fragments have been influenced heavily by Heidegger, as has, in some cases, his choice of readings. The Greek is included, however, on pages facing the translation, and departures from the standard text of Kranz are noted.--V. C. C.

An attempt to discover the most fundamental "logical" categories or principles of unity which lie at the basis and determine the structure of all reality. The three central principles or categories are "Wissen," "Wollen," and "Ichheit," from which it is clear that reality has a personal basis and that its fundamental structure is that of a self or person. The presentation is highly compressed and often obscure, but there is much in it that is suggestive.--V. C. C.