Machine generated contents note: 1. Professor Chattopadhyaya As I Know Him -- Kireet Joshi -- 2. On DP. Chattopadhyaya's Picture of Interdisciplinary -- Rajendra Prasad -- 3. The Humanization of Transcendental Philosophy: Notes -- Towards an Understanding of DP. Chattopadhyaya -- R Sundara Rajan -- 4. Freedom-East and West: A Tribute to -- DP. Chattopadhyaya -- Fred Dallmayr -- 5. Traditional Culture and Secularism -- R Balasubramanian -- 6. Induction and Doubt -- PK Sen -- 7. The Culture of Science (...) -- Jayant V. Narlikar -- 8. An Essay on DP. Chattopadhyaya's Challenge to -- Classical Rationalism -- Ramakant Sinari -- 9. Laws, Theory and Metaphors -- AV. Afonso -- 10. Scepticism, Relativism and Absolutism -- Sibajiban Bhattacharyya -- 11. Reunderstanding Human Rights -- Ioanna Kucuradi & Bhagat:Oinam -- 12. On Relations between Science, Technology, -- Philosophy and Culture -- Evandro Agazzi -- 13. Mathematics and Culture: -- CK Raju -- 14. "Dialectical Dynamism" of DP. Chattopadhyaya -- Marietta Stepaniants -- 15. Social Processes and Creativity: Indian Context -- A. Rahman -- 16. A Constructive Critique of RG. Collingwood -- JS. Grewal -- 17. Narration and Indian Perspective -- Vidya Niwas Misra -- 18. Rethinking the Discourse of History -- Ravinder Kumar -- 19. Some Salient Features in DP. Chattopadhyaya's -- Reflections; on Aesthetics -- Kalyan Bagchi -- 20. The Past Beckons -- B. V. Subbarayappa -- 21. The Critique of Historicism -- JN. Mohanty -- 22. Sri Aurobindo's Philosophy on Culture -- GC. Pande -- 23. The Subjective and the Objective in History: -- Chattopadhyaya's Interpretation Revisited -- Bhuvan Chandel -- 24. Towards Realizing the Right to Development: -- The Elements of a Programme -- Arjun Sengupta -- 25. Time, Truth and Transcendence -- Daya Krishna -- A Short IntelllectualAutobiography ofDP. Chattopadhyaya -- Publications of DP. Chattopadhyaya -- Contributors. (shrink)

A brief statement of medieval linguistic analysis as found chiefly in the works of Thomas Aquinas. A thin survey of contemporary analysis is offered in order to contrast the purported acceptance of analysis as the end of philosophy with Thomas' use of analysis as method. Unfortunately, most of the constructive work in language analysis during the past ten years is not considered. The brevity of the text precludes persuasive treatment; yet the book succeeds in its expressed purpose of sketching some (...) chief differences between the medieval and contemporary approaches in the hope that the confrontation of these currents will bring to the fore the analytic work of Aquinas himself.--D. P. B. (shrink)

Many medical ethicists accept the thesis that there is no moral difference between withholding and withdrawing life-sustaining therapy. In this paper, we offer an interesting counterexample which shows that this thesis is not always true. Withholding is distinguished from withdrawing by the simple fact that therapy must have already been initiated in order to speak coherently about withdrawal. Provided that there is a genuine need and that therapy is biomedically effective, the historical fact that therapy has been initiated entails a (...) claim to continue therapy that cannot be attributed to patients who have not yet received therapy. This intrinsic difference between withholding and withdrawing therapy is of moral importance. In many instances, patients will waive this claim. But when one considers withdrawing therapy from one patient to help another in a setting of scarce resources, this intrinsic moral difference comes into sharp focus. In an era of shrinking medical resources, this difference cannot be ignored. (shrink)

OBJECTIVE: To examine the long-term effects of an innovative curriculum on medical house officers' (HOs') knowledge, confidence, and attitudes regarding medical ethics. DESIGN: Long term cohort study. The two-year curriculum, implemented by a single physician ethicist with assistance from other faculty, was fully integrated into the programme. It consisted of monthly sessions: ethics morning report alternating with didactic conferences. The content included topics such as ethics vocabulary and principles, withdrawing life support, informed consent, and justice. Identical content was offered simultaneously (...) at the largest affiliated community hospital. SETTING: A multi-hospital university training programme from July, 1992 to June, 1994. PARTICIPANTS: Thirty-nine HOs responded in 92. Thirty HOs from the same cohort responded in 94 (response rates = 83% v 71%; P = 0.19). RESULTS: The curriculum was well received, with 96% of HOs finding the sessions stimulating. Previously validated scales of knowledge and confidence were administered at baseline and at follow-up. The average knowledge score improved 14% (P < 0.001). Confidence also improved, rising from 3.3 to 3.8 on a 5-point Likert scale (P < 0.001). These findings were independent of age, gender, religion, and prior education. The only attitudinal change was an increase in the proportion of residents who thought that ethics should be a required part of residency training (57% v 80%, P = 0.05). CONCLUSION: This curriculum appears practical, popular, and effective. It should be readily transferable to other institutions. (shrink)

In 1885, during initial discussions of J. C. Maxwell's celebrated thermodynamic demon, Whiting (1) observed that the demon-like velocity selection of molecules can occur in a gravitationally bound gas. Recently, a gravitational Maxwell demon has been proposed which makes use of this observation [D. P. Sheehan, J. Glick, and J. D. Means, Found. Phys. 30, 1227 (2000)]. Here we report on numerical simulations that detail its microscopic phase space structure. Results verify the previously hypothesized mechanism of its paradoxical behavior. This (...) system appears to be the only example of a fully classical mechanical Maxwell demon that has not been resolved in favor of the second law of thermodynamics. (shrink)

We report the results of a randomized trial to assess the impact of an innovative ethics curriculum on the knowledge and confidence of 85 medical house officers in a university hospital programme, as well as their responses to a simulated clinical case. Twenty-five per cent of the house officers received a lecture series, 25 per cent received lectures and case conferences, with an ethicist in attendance, and 50 per cent served as controls. A post-intervention questionnaire was administered. Knowledge scores did (...) not differ among the groups. Confidence regarding ethical issues was significantly greater in the aggregate intervention group compared to the control group. Confidence regarding procedural issues related to ethics was significantly higher for the EI group than for the controls. Responses to a simulated case showed that significantly fewer house officers in the EI group would intubate a patient for whom such therapy would be futile. We conclude that ethics education can have an impact on house officers' confidence and their responses to a simulated case, and that the EI was more effective than the LI. Such results have implications regarding the implementation of ethics education during residency. (shrink)

The use of logico-semiotic and systems-structural approaches in the analysis of types of abstraction and forms of generalization of concepts was begun in the '50s and '60s by D. P. Gorskii, who at that time introduced the concept of idealization into the terminology. In the early '70s he continued his analysis of the problem of scientific understanding, delineating the specific features of definitions in the theories of natural sciences and in the social science disciplines. In the book under review, Gorskii (...) in a certain sense sums up his results and develops them further. (shrink)

Most scholars regard Ernst Cassirer as a thinker in the Marburg Neo-Kantian tradition whose writings take him from its concern with the analysis of the logical foundations of science to problems in intellectual history, theory of language, and culture. The critical work on his thought has reflected and supported this view. There is a second image of Cassirer which is shared by the large number of students and general readers who have come to his thought through two works that appeared (...) at the end of his life—An Essay on Man and the Myth of the State. These works have gone through numerous printings and have appeared in editions in most major Western and Oriental languages. These readers have found in Cassirer not primarily an epistemologist and historian of thought but a philosopher of humanity, an interpreter of the fragmentation of contemporary cultural life and the nature of the political world. These two sides shown by Cassirer’s thought are not exactly opposed, but also they are not joined. (shrink)

A laboratory-testable, solid-state Maxwell demon is proposed that utilizes the electric field energy of an open-gap p-n junction. Numerical results from a commercial semiconductor device simulator verify primary results from a 1-D analytic model. Present day fabrication techniques appear adequate for laboratory tests of principle.

OBJECTIVES: To study the accuracy of reviewing ward notes (chart review) as a measure of the quality of care rendered to patients with "Do Not Resuscitate" (DNR) orders. DESIGN: We reviewed the charts of 19 consecutive, competent inpatients with DNR orders for evidence that the staff addressed a broad range of patient care needs called Concurrent Care Concerns (CCCs), such as withholding treatments other than resuscitation itself, and attention to patient comfort needs. We then interviewed the patient, consultant physician, house (...) officer, and primary nurse and compared the ward notes with the understandings of these staff members. SETTING: The medical service of an urban university medical centre. RESULTS: The average number of documented CCCs addressed per DNR order was 1.1. The ward notes generally agreed with the perceptions of patients, house officers, and nurses (% agreement with notes = 79%, 77%, and 82%; kappa = 0.43, 0.40, 0.50). Consultant physicians' understandings were poorly reflected in the ward notes (% agreement = 59%; kappa = 0.18). They overestimated attention to CCCs compared with the notes (P < 0.0001) and with other observers (P < 0.0001). CONCLUSION: Chart review for attention to CCCs accurately reflects the understandings of patients, house officers, and nurses, but consultant physicians report more attention to CCCs than is recorded in the ward notes or understood by other observers. Better communication regarding end-of-life care plans should be encouraged. (shrink)

In a recent article in this journal our unit was accused of a number of errors of judgment in applying covert video surveillance (CVS) to infants and children suspected of life-threatening abuse. The article implied, that on moving from the Royal Brompton Hospital in London to North Staffordshire Hospital, we failed to present our work to the Research Ethics Committee (REC). We did send our protocol to the REC though we did not consider that, after a total of 16 patients (...) had been documented as being the subject of life-threatening abuse, this was research. The REC in Staffordshire agreed with us. We were also accused of undertaking work that should be pursued by the Police. We agree with this. However, unlike the Metropolitan Police the Staffordshire Police would not undertake CVS. We fail to agree that 'working together' with parents is necessarily practical or safe when trying to protect children from life-threatening abuse of this kind. (shrink)

Over the last 10–15 years the second law of thermodynamics has undergone unprecedented scrutiny, particularly with respect to its universal status. This brief article introduces the proceedings of a recent symposium devoted to this topic, The second law of thermodynamics: Foundations and Status, held at University of San Diego as part of the 87th Annual Meeting of the Pacific Division of the AAAS (June 19–22, 2006). The papers are introduced under three themes: ideal gases, quantum perspectives, and interpretation. Roughly half (...) the papers support traditional interpretations of the second law while the rest challenge it. (shrink)

Recent studies in semantics of modal and superintuitionistic predicate logics provided many examples of incompleteness, especially for Kripke semantics. So there is a problem: to find an appropriate possible- world semantics which is equivalent to Kripke semantics at the propositional level and which is strong enough to prove general completeness results. The present paper introduces a new semantics of Kripke metaframes' generalizing some earlier notions. The main innovation is in considering "n"-tuples of individuals as abstract "n"-dimensional vectors', together with some (...) transformations of these vectors. Soundness of the semantics is proved to be equivalent to some non- logical properties of metaframes; and thus we describe the maximal semantics of Kripke- type. (shrink)

After a brief review of pragmatic arguments against emotivism, the author of this monograph proceeds to outline and criticize two conflicting concepts of the morally right in Dewey's writings. A third interpretation, involving an "interaction of the factual and the normative" is advanced as more conformable to the spirit of instrumentalism.--A. D. P. M.

A new member of a growing class of unresolved second law paradoxes is examined.(1–7) In a sealed blackbody cavity, a spherical gravitator is suspended in a low density gas. Infalling gas suprathermally strikes the gravitator which is spherically asymmetric between its hemispheres with respect to surface trapping probability for the gas. In principle, this system can be made to perform steady-state work solely at the expense of heat from the heat bath, this in apparent violation of the second law of (...) thermodynamics. Detailed three-dimensional test particle simulations of this system support this prediction. Standard resolutions to the paradox are discussed and found to be untenable. Experiments corroborating a central physical process of the paradox are discussed briefly. The paradox is discussed in the context of the Maxwell demon. (shrink)

A prosaic and unimaginative introductory textbook. The author claims that his aim is "not to introduce the student to the various philosophies but to introduce him to the kind of thinking from which philosophy comes." The very patness of his presentation, however, discourages original philosophical thinking.--D. P. B.

A collection of papers delivered at a colloquium in 1960. Most are quite brief; all are at a rather high level of technical sophistication. Of general interest are L. Apostel's "Toward the Formal Study of Models in the Non-Formal Sciences," which concludes that a unique definition of models in terms of their function should be the basis for a general description of this "multiform concept"; H. Freudenthal's discussion of "models in Applied Probability"; a historical treatment of "Model and Insight" by (...) A. Kuipers; and P. Suppes's "Comparison of the Meaning and Uses of Models in Mathematics and the Empirical Sciences," which stresses the "set-theoretical" notion of model and emphasizes the possibility of greater formalization of the empirical sciences through the former. Among other authors represented are E. W. Beth, J. L. Destouches, and J. B. Ubbink.--R. D. P. (shrink)

In his struggle to vindicate the religious enterprise from the charge that it is unfalsifiable and meaningless, McKinnon reduces both science and religion to distorted caricatures, ignores the centrality of the problems of evil, anguish, absurdity, and the egocentric predicament for religion, and asserts that religion and science are fundamentally one and the same. He builds his thesis on a distinction between "assertional," "self-instructional," and "ontological-linguistic" intentionality of utterances. By equivocating about whether these usages are logically independent, McKinnon holds that, (...) as "self-instructional," utterances are outside the positivist's arena. He presses the noteworthy point--that utterances sometimes are intended to report an existential stance--in such a way as to divert attention from the vast differences between religious and scientific methods and subject matter. Not content with leaving religious utterances restricted to mere reporting, McKinnon builds a case for bypassing positivistic attack under the other two usages by trading on a supposed incommensurability between particulars and universals. E.g., he holds that "God is love" must be indeterminate and unfalsifiable since both nouns are universals and since God is incomprehensible. And so it goes, a battle between straw men on a shifting field of honor for a prize of dubious worth. Notwithstanding, this is a thought provoking treatment of a difficult topic.--M. D. P. (shrink)

This collection of reprinted social philosophy broadly surveys and introduces problems and positions vis-à-vis the concept of right. Using the tools of ordinary language analysis, M. MacDonald evaluates the attempts of other writers to resolve the tensions between civil and moral responsibility. H. L. A. Hart argues that "... if there are any moral rights at all, it follows that there is at least one natural right." His laudatory deductive exercise and categorization of rights suggests no leads for answering the (...) hypothetical he poses. While MacDonald and Hart raise no gut issues, G. Vlastos gives a common sense analysis of the main stream of classical debate, couching his inquiry in terms of conflicts between collective and distributive justice. His article both includes the scope and surpasses the stopping points of the earlier selections. Through leading to a philosophical discussion of the workings of the denial of human rights within the segregationist position, R. Wasserstrom unmasks the practical stakes involved in what the others leave as an academic problem. H. Morris's witty analysis of a hypothetical "right to be punished" lays bare the fact that social institutions embody some concept of right, duty, and obligation. He leaves the reader with the unanswered but clearly indicated question of which concept of right does one want society to sanction. Also included are: J. Locke's The Second Treatise of Civil Government, Chapters two and five; J. Bentham's Anarchical Fallacies; The Virginia Declaration of Rights ; Declaration of the Rights of Man and of Citizens ; Universal Declaration of Human Rights ; and a portion of the Declaration of Independence of the U.S.A.--M. D. P. (shrink)

Twelve essays from a symposium concerned with the influence of relativistic concepts on the development of the social sciences. There is general agreement that methodological relativism, though often appropriate to scientific inquiry, has lead to a normative relativism which is inappropriate to the study of man.--R. D. P.

A journal, many of whose articles bring Thomistic philosophy to bear on non-Thomistic traditions, philosophical and otherwise, in a scholarly and sympathetic fashion.--R. D. P.

A text covering twenty-nine ethical systems from Plato to Stevenson. Each essay treats one thinker and is liberally seeded with quotations from his major works. Thinkers are grouped according to schools of thought.--R. D. P.

In 2000, a simple, foundational thermodynamic paradox was proposed: a sealed blackbody cavity contains a diatomic gas and a radiometer whose apposing vane surfaces dissociate and recombine the gas to different degrees (A $_{2} \rightleftharpoons $ 2A). As a result of differing desorption rates for A and A $_{2}$ , there arise between the vane faces permanent pressure and temperature differences, either of which can be harnessed to perform work, in apparent conflict with the second law of thermodynamics. Here we (...) report on the first experimental realization of this paradox, involving the dissociation of low-pressure hydrogen gas on high-temperature refractory metals (tungsten and rhenium) under blackbody cavity conditions. The results, corroborated by other laboratory studies and supported by theory, confirm the paradoxical temperature difference and point to physics beyond the traditional understanding of the second law. (shrink)

In any competition for monuments of wasted labour the collection of accidental acrostics in Latin poets published by I. Hilberg would stand a good chance of a prize. But amongst his examples of ‘neckische Spiele des Zufalls’ is one I am gullible enough to believe may be more significant. In Aeneid 7. 601–15 Vergil describes the custom of opening the gates of war in a long anacoluthic sentence, the first four lines of which run: Mos erat Hesperio in Latio, quern (...) protinus urbes Albanae coluere sacrum, nunc maxima rerum Roma colit, cum prima movent in proelia Mortem, Sive Getis inferre manu lacrimabile bellum…. (shrink)

The general topic is morality, divided into three notions, Action, Wisdom and Grace. The lectures are lively historical reflections on these notions seen in the context of Greek thought, especially that of Plato and Aristotle.--R. D. P.

The National Conference of Catholic Bishops has argued for significant government involvement in health care in order to assure respect for what they regard as the right to health care. Critics charge that the bishops are wrong because health care is not a right. In this article, it is argued that these critics are correct in their claim that health care is not a right. However, it is also argued that the premise that health care is not a right does (...) not imply that the market is the most equitable and just system for providing health care. Natural law arguments in the tradition of Roman Catholic social teaching lead to the conclusion that a just and prosperous society has a moral obligation to provide health care even if there is no such right. Further, there are strong moral grounds for concluding that the bishops are correct in their claim that health care ought not to be considered a market commodity. It is argued that if health care ought not to be considered a commodity, then national health insurance is the best available alternative for fulfilling the social obligation to distribute health care resources justly and fairly at this time in American history. The bishops' case for government involvement can be made on the strength of the Catholic tradition in theological argumentation, independent of the claim that health care is a right. (shrink)

Southern examines three phases in the development of the western view of Islam from 650 to 1570. In an historical study of these phases he traces the gradual emergence of a critical spirit of inquiry regarding Islam. The author argues that "... medieval scholars and men of affairs came up against problems with which, in a different context, we are familiar."--D. P. B.