Quelle est l'intention de Platon lorsqu'il fait de Socrate un virtuose de l'étymologie dans le Cratyle? Préciser les rapports entre la " science des lettres " qui se constitue en son siècle et la nouvelle théorie des Idées qu'il élabore. Socrate s'entretient avec le jeune Hermogène puis avec l'énigmatique Cratyle des rapports entre les mots et les choses. La rectitude des noms est-elle affaire de convention, ainsi que le soutient Hermogène? Ou s'agit-il d'un accord " naturel ", comme le prétend (...) Cratyle? Découvre-t-on cet accord par science ou par inspiration? Au terme du débat, après avoir mis à l'épreuve toutes les ressources de la " science des lettres ", Socrate propose une nouvelle théorie du nom, instrument faillible construit pour faire voir la réalité en la minant. Il dessine aussi un ordre des priorités : il faut d'abord connaître les êtres, puis les noms. " Savoir comment il faut apprendre ou découvrir les êtres, peut-être est-ce là trop lourde tâche pour toi et moi! C'est déjà beau de reconnaître qu'il ne faut pas partir des noms. ". (shrink)

The philosophical theory of scientific explanation proposed here involves a radically new treatment of causality that accords with the pervasively statistical character of contemporary science. Wesley C. Salmon describes three fundamental conceptions of scientific explanation--the epistemic, modal, and ontic. He argues that the prevailing view is untenable and that the modal conception is scientifically out-dated. Significantly revising aspects of his earlier work, he defends a causal/mechanical theory that is a version of the ontic conception. Professor Salmon's theory furnishes a robust (...) argument for scientific realism akin to the argument that convinced twentieth-century physical scientists of the existence of atoms and molecules. To do justice to such notions as irreducibly statistical laws and statistical explanation, he offers a novel account of physical randomness. The transition from the "reviewed view" of scientific explanation to the causal/mechanical model requires fundamental rethinking of basic explanatory concepts. (shrink)

Le lecteur trouvera dans une Introduction substantielle tous les éléments d’érudition et d’interprétation sur lesquels se fonde la représentation générale que se fait l’auteure du Cratyle de Platon. L’authenticité du dialogue attestée par la tradition qui le classifia dans la deuxième tétralogie établie par Dercyllidès-Thrasylle en tête du Théétète, du Sophiste et du Politique, n’est plus mise en doute aujourd’hui, malgré les critiques de C. Schaarschmidt en 1865, écartées par C. Cucuel dès 1886 et plus récemment nuancées par G. Fano (...) qui avance l’hypothèse de certaines reformulations tardives de la terminologie grammaticale dans les sections étymologiques du dialogue. Pour la date de composition du dialogue, Dalimier signale entre les spécialistes un écart de vingt ans, soit de 390 à 370 av. J.-C.. Elle ne prend pas position sur cette chronologie, mais un écart de vingt ans nous semble difficilement tolérable. Nous retiendrions plutôt les dates proposées par W. Lutoslawski en 1896, H. Von Arnim en 1929 et plus récemment par L. Brandwood, soit entre 390 et 386. Le Cratyle se situe très bien à la fin de la période de la jeunesse et avant la composition du Phédon et du Banquet. La date dramatique du dialogue est plus difficile à établir, parce qu’il n’est fait allusion à aucun événement historique qui pourrait servir d’indice à la détermination de cette date. L’auteure retient néanmoins trois passages qui pourraient éventuellement servir de base à la datation dramatique: la présence d’Euthyphron à Athènes, un peu avant le procès de Socrate, la situation judiciaire d’Hermogène qui n’est pas encore libre de disposer de son héritage et dont le père, Hipponicos, serait probablement mort en 423/422, et l’enseignement de Prodicos à Athènes dont Socrate pourrait encore tirer profit et qui nous renverrait aux quinze premières années de la Guerre du Péloponnèse. À partir de ces indices que l’auteure trouve encore «bien minces», la date dramatique du dialogue pourrait être fixée avant 423. (shrink)

Actual-sequence views of responsibility are views according to which moral responsibility is a function of actual sequences, histories, or ancestries. In recent years these views have acquired much popularity as an attractive kind of compatibilist answer to the problem of determinism and the freedom of the will. But what does it mean to say that responsibility is ‘a function of the actual sequence’? In this paper I examine different possible ways to cash out this idea. I show that one of (...) them is immune to important objections to which the others are prey. This motivates a type of actual-sequence view that is unorthodox in two main respects. First, it understands the expression ‘the actual sequence’ in a way that is different from the way in which it seems typically to have been understood. Second, on this view, non-actualized possibilities of a certain kind are always relevant to the moral responsibility of agents. (shrink)

As Aristotle stated, scientific explanation is based on deductive argument--yet, Wesley C. Salmon points out, not all deductive arguments are qualified explanations. The validity of the explanation must itself be examined. _Four Decades of Scientific Explanation_ provides a comprehensive account of the developments in scientific explanation that transpired in the last four decades of the twentieth century. It continues to stand as the most comprehensive treatment of the writings on the subject during these years. Building on the historic 1948 essay (...) by Carl G. Hempel and Paul Oppenheim, "Studies in the Logic of Explanation,” which introduced the deductive-nomological model on which most work on scientific explanation was based for the following four decades, Salmon goes beyond this model's inherent basis of describing empirical knowledge to tells us “not only _what,_ but also _why_.” Salmon examines the predominant models in chronological order and describes their development, refinement, and criticism or rejection. _Four Decades of Scientific Explanation_ underscores the need for a consensus of approach and ongoing evaluations of methodology in scientific explanation, with the goal of providing a better understanding of natural phenomena. (shrink)

This manuscript reports on a landmark symposium on the ethical, legal and technical challenges of xenotransplantation in the UK. King’s College London, with endorsement from the British Transplantation Society (BTS), and the European Society of Organ Transplantation (ESOT), brought together a group of experts in xenotransplantation science, ethics and law to discuss the ethical, regulatory and technical challenges surrounding translating xenotransplantation into the clinical setting. The symposium was the first of its kind in the UK for 20 years. This paper (...) summarises the content of the expert lectures showcasing the progress which has been made in xenotransplantation including—the history of xenotransplantation, advances in gene edited animals and progress towards clinical xenotransplantation. We then set out the ethical and legal issues still to be resolved. Finally, we report the themes of the roundtable discussion highlighting areas of consensus and controversy. While the detail of the legal discussion was directed towards the UK, the principles and summary reported here are intended to be applicable to any jurisdiction seeking to implement clinical xenotransplantation. (shrink)

The philosophical theory of scientific explanation proposed here involves a radically new treatment of causality that accords with the pervasively statistical character of contemporary science. Wesley C. Salmon describes three fundamental conceptions of scientific explanation--the epistemic, modal, and ontic. He argues that the prevailing view (a version of the epistemic conception) is untenable and that the modal conception is scientifically out-dated. Significantly revising aspects of his earlier work, he defends a causal/mechanical theory that is a version of the ontic conception. (...) Professor Salmon's theory furnishes a robust argument for scientific realism akin to the argument that convinced twentieth-century physical scientists of the existence of atoms and molecules. To do justice to such notions as irreducibly statistical laws and statistical explanation, he offers a novel account of physical randomness. The transition from the "reviewed view" of scientific explanation (that explanations are arguments) to the causal/mechanical model requires fundamental rethinking of basic explanatory concepts. (shrink)

This paper develops the concept of the ‘continuum of destructiveness’ in relation to organizational corruption. This notion captures the slippery slope of wrongdoing as actors engage in increasingly dubious practices. We identify four kinds of individuals along this continuum in corrupt organizations, who range from complete innocence to total guilt. They are innocent bystanders, innocent participants, active rationalizers and guilty perpetrators. Traditional explanations of how individuals move from bystander status to guilty perpetrators usually focus on socialization and institutional factors. In (...) addition to these factors, we propose that the very distance between an act and its ethical consequences (ethical distance) may also play a determining role – if not always in the same way – in the transition process. Having developed this conceptual argument, we conclude with a discussion of managerial and research implications. (shrink)

Within Emile Littreés classification of Hippocratic works, class ten consists of three lost works, two of which appear to have been treatises on the treatment of serious wounds and on the extraction of arrows. The sources for their titles—Erotian, Galen, an eleventh-century Arabic MS and the twelfth-century MS Vat.graec.276–disagree on minor points, but it is clear that they are all referring to the same works.

2021 marks Dylan's 80th birthday and his 60th year in the music world. It invites us to look back on his career and the multitudes that it contains. Is he a song and dance man? A political hero? A protest singer? A self-portrait artist who has yet to paint his masterpiece? Is he Shakespeare in the alley? The greatest living exponent of American music? An ironsmith? Internet radio DJ? Poet (who knows it)? Is he a spiritual and religious parking meter? (...) Judas? The voice of a generation or a false prophet, jokerman, and thief? Dylan is all these and none. The essays in this book explore the Nobel laureate’s masks, collectively reflecting upon their meaning through time, change, movement, and age. They are written by wonderful and diverse set of contributors, all here for his 80th birthday bash: celebrated Dylanologists like Michael Gray and Laura Tenschert; recording artists such as Robyn Hitchcock, Barb Jungr, Amy Rigby, and Emma Swift; and 'the professors’ who all like his looks: David Boucher, Anne Margaret Daniel, Ray Monk, Galen Strawson, and more. Read it on your toaster! (shrink)

A defining characteristic of Alzheimer’s disease is difficulty in retrieving semantic memories, or memories encoding facts and knowledge. While it has been suggested that this impairment is caused by a degradation of the semantic store, the precise ways in which the semantic store is degraded are not well understood. Using a longitudinal corpus of semantic fluency data, we derive semantic network representations of patients with Alzheimer’s disease and of healthy controls. We contrast our network-based approach with analyzing fluency data with (...) the standard method of counting the total number of items and perseverations in fluency data. We find that the networks of Alzheimer’s patients are more connected and that those connections are more randomly distributed than the connections in networks of healthy individuals. These results suggest that the semantic memory impairment of Alzheimer’s patients can be modeled through the inclusion of spurious associations between unrelated concepts in the semantic store. We also find that information from our network analysis of fluency data improves prediction of patient diagnosis compared to traditional measures of the semantic fluency task. (shrink)

One of the most significant philosophical doctrines of Buddhism, and an idea that has remained at the centre of its theory and practice in virtually all historical times and places, is karma. The motivations for being involved in the accumulation of karmic merit in early medieval China were diverse, but one frequently mentioned goal was the health of the physical body. This brief article examines several facets of the relationship between karma and well-being, providing a few examples of the wide (...) range of sources on this subject and reflecting on its role in the popularization of Buddhism in China. I argue that medical metaphors were central to how the doctrine of karma was explained to diverse audiences, that the translation of these ideas emphasized connections with indigenous beliefs and social practices and that medical karma encouraged the self-regulation of behaviour and thoughts in conformity with Buddhist ideology. (shrink)

ReOrienting Histories of Medicine: Encounters Along the Silk Roads, by Ronit Yoeli-Tlalim. Bloomsbury Academic, 2021. xvi+236 pp.; Hb $115.00 USD; Pb $39.95. ISBN-13: 9781472512574.

The close relationship between Buddhism and medicine that has become so visible thanks to the contemporary ‘mindfulness revolution’ is not necessarily unique to the twenty-first century. The ubiquitous contemporary emphasis on the health benefits of Buddhist and Buddhist-inspired practice is in many ways the latest chapter in a symbiotic relationship between Buddhism and medicine that is both centuries-long and of global scope. This article represents the first steps toward writing a book that explores the global history of Buddhism and medicine (...) ‘from Sarnath to Silicone Valley’. It identifies patterns in the transmission and reception of texts and ideas, networks of circulation, and intersections with local and regional histories that shaped the history of Buddhist ideas and practices concerning physical health and healing. (shrink)