Notwithstanding the general rise of experimental disciplines in biology in the first decades of our century, in Germany and in the Netherlands the interest in the idealistic morphological tradition flourished, and compensated for a reductionistic causal approach to natural phenomena. This article analyses the influence of the German idealistic morphologists W. Lubosch and A. Meyer on the development of C.J. van der Klaauw's epistemology. It discusses the gradual incorporation of non-causal principles into van der Klaauw's concept of biology. Van der (...) Klaauw's epistemological concept of holistic biology was shaped in a critical confrontation with German idealistic morphology, and his early considerations can be interpreted as a direct impulse towards the development of his theory of functional components. Van der Klaauw's theories, being an alternative to the reductionistic experimental sciences, were among the causes of the fact that in the first half of our century biology in the Netherlands took a course deviating from the development of biology in the Anglo-American countries. (shrink)

Q. Sept. Florent. Tertulliani Opera ex recensione Aug. Reifferscheid et Georg Wissowa. Pars I. Vienna, Tempsky, 1890. Mk. 15.60. Patristische Studien I. II. III. IV. By Dr. Wilhelm von Hartel. Vienna, Tempsky, 1890. Mk. 5.80. Studia Ecclesiastica. Tertullianus. I. Critica et Interpretatoria scripsit DR. J. Van Der Vliet. Leyden, Brill, 1891. 2s. 6d. Gai Vetti Aquiliai Juvenci Evangeliorum Libri Quattuor. Ed. J. Huemer, Vienna, 1891. Mk. 7. 20. Ueber das Evangelienbuch des Juvencus in seinem Verhältniss zum Bibeltext. By K. Marold. (...) [Zeitschrift für wissenschaftliclie Theologie, 1890, pp. 329–341.] Geschichte der Christlich-lateinisehen Poesie. By M. Manitius. Stuttgart, 1891. 12 Mk. (shrink)

Review on Philip J. van der Eijk, Medicine and Philosophy in Classical Antiquity: Doctors and Philosophers on Nature, Soul, Health and Disease, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2005.

In Anarchy, State, and Utopia, Robert Nozick contrasts entitlement theories of justice and “traditional” theories such as Rawls', utilitarianism or egalitarianism, and advocates the former against the latter. What exactly is an entitlement theory of justice? Nozick's book offers two distinct characterizations. On the one hand, he explicitly describes “the general outlines of the entitlement theory” as maintaining “that the holdings of a person are just if he is entitled to them by the principles of justice in acquisition and transfer, (...) or by the principle of rectification of injustice ”. On the other hand, his famous “Wilt Chamberlain” argument against alternative theories is first said to apply to “non-entitlement conceptions”, and later to any “end-state principle or distributional patterned principle of justice” — which amounts to an implicit characterization of an entitlement conception as a conception of justice which is neither end-state nor patterned. (shrink)

Van der Klaauw was a professor of Descriptive Zoology in the period 1934–1958. This paper presents a concise annotated overview of his publications. In his work three main topics can be recognized: comparative anatomy of the mammalian auditory region, theoretical studies about ecology and ecological morphology, and vertebrate functional morphology. In particular van der Klaauw developed new concepts on functional morphology, based upon a holistic approach. A series of studies in functional morphology of Vertebrates by his students is added. An (...) overview of recent morphological and theoretical studies show that this new approach had a long lasting impact in studies of functional morphology. (shrink)