PURPOSE—A substantial fraction of the observations made by clinicians and entered into patient records are expressed by means of negation or by using terms which contain negative qualifiers (as in “absence of pulse” or “surgical procedure not performed”). This seems at first sight to present problems for ontologies, terminologies and data repositories that adhere to a realist view and thus reject any reference to putative non-existing entities. Basic Formal Ontology (BFO) and Referent Tracking (RT) are examples of such paradigms. The (...) purpose of the research here described was to test a proposal to capture negative findings in electronic health record systems based on BFO and RT. METHODS—We analysed a series of negative findings encountered in 748 sentences taken from 41 patient charts. We classified the phenomena described in terms of the various top-level categories and relations defined in BFO, taking into account the role of negation in the corresponding descriptions. We also studied terms from SNOMED-CT containing one or other form of negation. We then explored ways to represent the described phenomena by means of the types of representational units available to realist ontologies such as BFO. RESULTS—We introduced a new family of ‘lacks’ relations into the OBO Relation Ontology. The relation lacks_part, for example, defined in terms of the positive relation part_of, holds between a particular p and a universal U when p has no instance of U as part. Since p and U both exist, assertions involving ‘lacks_part’ and its cognates meet the requirements of positivity. CONCLUSION—By expanding the OBO Relation Ontology, we were able to accommodate nearly all occurrences of negative findings in the sample studied. (shrink)

The paradigm of referent tracking is based on a realist presupposition which rejects so-called negative entities (congenital absent nipple, and the like) as spurious. How, then, can a referent tracking-based Electronic Health Record deal with what are standardly called ‘negative findings’? To answer this question we carried out an analysis of some 748 sentences drawn from patient charts and containing some form of negation. Our analysis shows that to deal with these sentences we need to introduce a new ontological relationship (...) between a particular and a universal, which holds when no instance of the universal has a specific qualified ontological relation with the particular. This relation is found to be able to accommodate nearly all occurrences of negative findings in the examined sample, in ways which involve no reference to negative entities. (shrink)

This paper presents the Obstetric and Neonatal Ontology (OntONeo). This ontology has been created to provide a consensus representation of salient electronic health record (EHR) data and to serve interoperability of the associated data and information systems. More generally, it will serve interoperability of clinical and translational data, for example deriving from genomics disciplines and from clinical trials. Interoperability of EHR data is important to ensuring continuity of care during the prenatal and postnatal periods for both mother and child. As (...) a strategy to advance such interoperability we use an approach based on ontological realism and on the ontology development principles of the Open Biomedical Ontologies Foundry, including reuse of reference ontologies wherever possible. We describe the structure and coverage domain of OntONeo and the process of creating and maintaining the ontology. (shrink)

Electronic health records (EHRs) serve as repositories of documented data collected in a health care encounter. An EHR records information about who receives, who provides the health care and about the place where the encounter happens. We also observe additional elements relating to social relations in which the healthcare consumer is involved. To provide a consensus representation of common data and to enhance interoperability between different EHR repositories we have created a solution grounded in formal ontology. Here, we present how (...) an ontology for the obstetric and neonatal domain deals with these general elements documented in health care encounters. Our goal is to promote the interoperability of information among EHRs created in different specialties. To develop our ontology, we used two main approaches: one based on ontological realism, the other based on the principles of the OBO Foundry, including reuse of reference ontologies. (shrink)

What does it mean to be visually literate? Does it mean different things in the arts and the sciences? In the West, in Asia, or in developing nations? If we all need to become "visually literate," what does that mean in practical terms? The essays gathered here examine a host of issues surrounding "the visual," exploring national and regional ideas of visuality and charting out new territories of visual literacy that lie far beyond art history, such as law and chemistry. (...) With an afterword by Christopher Crouch, this groundbreaking collection brings together the work of major art and visual studies scholars and critics to explore what impact the new concept of "visual literacy" will have on the traditional field of art history. Contributors: Matthias Bruhn, Vera Dünkel, Jonathan Crary, Christopher Crouch, Peter Dallow, James Elkins, Henrik Enquist, W.J.T. Mitchell, Richard K. Sherwin, Susan Shifrin, Jon Simons, Barbara Maria Stafford, William Washabaugh. (shrink)

Each of the five volumes in the Stone Art Theory Institutes series—and the seminars on which they are based—brings together a range of scholars who are not always directly familiar with one another’s work. The outcome of each of these convergences is an extensive and “unpredictable conversation” on knotty and provocative issues about art. This fourth volume in the series, _Beyond the Aesthetic and the Anti-Aesthetic_, focuses on questions revolving around the concepts of the aesthetic, the anti-aesthetic, and the political. (...) The book is about the fact that now, almost thirty years after Hal Foster defined the anti-aesthetic, there is still no viable alternative to the dichotomy between aesthetics and anti- or non-aesthetic art. The impasse is made more difficult by the proliferation of identity politics, and it is made less negotiable by the hegemony of anti-aesthetics in academic discourse on art. The central question of this book is whether artists and academicians are free of this choice in practice, in pedagogy, and in theory. The contributors are Stéphanie Benzaquen, J. M. Bern­stein, Karen Busk-Jepsen, Luis Camnitzer, Diarmuid Costello, Joana Cunha Leal, Angela Dimitrakaki, Alexander Dumbadze, T. Brandon Evans, Geng Youzhuang, Boris Groys, Beáta Hock, Gordon Hughes, Michael Kelly, Grant Kester, Meredith Kooi, Cary Levine, Sunil Manghani, William Mazzarella, Justin McKeown, Andrew McNamara, Eve Meltzer, Nadja Millner-Larsen, Maria Filomena Molder, Carrie Noland, Gary Peters, Aaron Richmond, Lauren Ross, Toni Ross, Eva Schürmann, Gregory Sholette, Noah Simblist, Jon Simons, Robert Storr, Martin Sundberg, Timotheus Vermeulen, and Rebecca Zorach. (shrink)

This article is part of a For-Discussion-Section of Methods of Information in Medicine about the paper "Biomedical Informatics: We Are What We Publish", written by Peter L. Elkin, Steven H. Brown, and Graham Wright. It is introduced by an editorial. This article contains the combined commentaries invited to independently comment on the Elkin et al. paper. In subsequent issues the discussion can continue through letters to the editor.

_Rediscovering Aesthetics_ brings together prominent international voices from art history, philosophy, and artistic practice to discuss the current role of aesthetics within and across their disciplines. Following a period in which theories and histories of art, art criticism, and artistic practice seemed to focus exclusively on political, social, or empirical interpretations of art, aesthetics is being rediscovered both as a vital arena for discussion and a valid interpretive approach outside its traditional philosophical domain. This volume is distinctive, because it provides (...) a selection of significant but divergent positions. The diversity of the views presented here demonstrates that a critical rethinking of aesthetics can be undertaken in a variety of ways. The contributions open a transdisciplinary debate from which a new field of aesthetics may begin to emerge. Contributors include: Claire Bishop, Diarmuid Costello, Paul Crowther, Arthur Danto, Nicholas Davey, Thierry de Duve, James Elkins, Francis Halsall, Michael Ann Holly, Julia Jansen, Michael Kelly, Robert Morris, Tony O'Connor, Peter Osborne, Adrian Piper, David Raskin, Carolee Schneemann, Richard Shiff, Wolfgang Welsch, and Richard Woodfield. (shrink)

Peter Alexander: It is presumably admitted that laws, whether causal or not, are universal in form; they are appropriately stated in universal categoricals or unrestricted hypotheticals. I assume that this is not at issue in the question set. I take our question to be this: given that causal laws are universal statements, can they be said to be about, to apply to, to hold for, individual things? -/- Peter Downing: Mr. Alexander maintains that there are 'irreducibly singular' causal (...) statements, and that from this it follows that causal laws need not be purely general. The view that there are irreducibly singular causal statements appears to commit Alexander to rejecting two theses: (i) that singular causal statements are analysable into statements containing specific generalizations, [...] (ii) That singular causal statements are analysable into statements containing incompletely specified generalizations [...]. Thesis (i) is, I think, clearly false. [...] Thesis (ii), however, is not easily refuted. (shrink)

The great critic Peter Viereck, in a volume that both reproduces an earlier effort and presents an entirely new work on the intersection of history and literature, offers a biting critique of the American desire for normalcy that leads to a culture of the surrender of personality. In contrast to this voluntary thought control process is the unadjusted person. Cast in the mold of great individualists from Thomas More to Friedrich Nietzsche, such a person responds to fundamental values of (...) conscience rather than conformity built exclusively on ego gratification and icon worship. Viereck's book is a stinging critique of the liberal presumption of a monopoly in critical thought. He argues to the contrary, that most varieties of liberal expression offer little else than the common platitude dressed up as critique. In such a cultural environment, conservatism is the skeleton in the liberal closet. The virtue of conservatism is that in its very stress on liberty as dependent on tradition and law, it permits the human being an opportunity to test all transient things by the touchstone of all lasting ideas. Unadjusted Man cuts deep and in many directions: against left totalitarian regimes of Europe and right wannabes like McCarthyism in America. For Viereck, the art of conserving is not an embrace of utopias to come or empires that were, but retaining the sense of individuality over against the senselessness of the "massman." Civil liberties in this approach are a right to non-conspiratorial dissent informed by fundamental values. The new material is presented unabashedly--without an attempt to rewrite personal history, and with an admission that not every prediction made in the original edition has come to fruition. That said, the underlying themes of the original are not so much repeated as expanded upon. For those seeking a work in the classic mold of conservatism, rather than the strident reactionary views that have come to dominate much of the conservative dialogue, this will be a special book, a special entrance to the mind of a great figure in American culture wars of present as well as past. (shrink)

Peter Koestenbaum and Peter Block offer you a new perspective forviewing the workplace through the lens of philosophy so that youmay have a better understanding of how to reclaim your freedom andaccountability and encourage the same in others. They provide aradical new approach to your work-a-day life that will bring truemeaning and power to your work. Freedom and Accountability at Work offers you the information youneed to: * Gain strength and meaning by transforming your thinking on howyou view (...) anxiety, doubt, death, and guilt * Find new ways to bring spiritual and ethical values into yourworkplace * Engage in profound change that will help you overcome cynicismthat comes from superficial change * Replace your loss of organizational loyalty and safety with asense of freedom and accountability "Both Koestenbaum and Block are such passionate men who bringtogether what we all seek in our work life-meaning, insight, andhumanness. Bless them for this book." --Joyce DeShano, board chair, Ascension Health. (shrink)

Philosophy in the Islamic world from the 9th to 11th centuries was characterized by an engagement with Greek philosophical works in Arabic translation. This volume collects papers on both the Greek philosophers in their new Arabic guise, and on reactions to the translation movement in the period leading up to Avicenna.

This study explores the nature of the conflict between science and religion. It shows through a detailed examination of this conflict as it was manifested in nineteenth century Britain that it is a fallacy that religion and science can co-exist in mutual harmony, since the legacy of their conflict in the past century has been inherited by this century, greatly to the detriment of religious belief. It is the author's contention that a return to the essentials of Kant's critical philosophy (...) would lay bare the profound differences between religious and scientific approaches to the world, and the nature of the choice people can make between them. In his effort to demarcate the outlines of a genuine Biblical theology (and to articulate the proper procedures for producing one) the author casts light on important questions of Biblical interpretation, and demands a radical reassessment of the meaning of science for society. (shrink)

Review of: Religion of the Field Negro: On Black Secularism and Black Theology.

What precisely resides in â oesexualityâ which warrants the popular discourse on sexuality as â oepart of our world freedom, â or something as an inspiring source for â oeour own creationâ of â oenew forms of relationshipsâ or â oenew forms of loveâ never before possible in human history? This popular treatment of sexual freedom has become so politically correct, in this day and age of ours, that it fast degenerates into a seductive ideology which has impoverished our understanding (...) of sexuality by blinding us from its dark sides. Contrary to this intoxicating conventional wisdom, the dark sides of this seductive ideology have yet to be systematically understood and that its very creative freedom is neither possible nor desirable to the extent that its advocates would like us to believe. Of course, this is not to suggest that sexuality should not be about freedom nor creativity, or that the literature in sexual studies (and other related fields like gender studies, queer studies, and cultural studies, for example) should be ignored because of their scholarly nonsense. Needless to say, neither of these two extreme views is reasonable either. Instead, the purpose of this book is to provide an alternative (better) way to understand the nature of sexuality, in special relation to the sexual body and spirit, in conjunction with the mindâ "while learning from different approaches in the literature but without favoring any one of them (nor integrating them, since they are not necessarily compatible with each other). This seminal project, if successful, will fundamentally change the way that we think about the nature of sexuality, from the combined perspectives of the mind, nature, society, and culture, with enormous implications for the human future and what I originally called its â oepost-humanâ fate. (shrink)

What exactly is so appealing in formal science, such that its influence can be seen in numerous disciplines? This contemporary addiction to practical convenience in formal science has turned a blind eye to its other side. This book provides a way to understand the nature of formal science, in relation to systems theory for practical convenience.

This text focuses on why the global spread of formal rationality contributes to a critical spirit which undermines human values and beliefs, be they ancient, medieval, modern and now postmodern. This is so in special relation to the model of the seven major dimensions of human existence: the True (knowledge), the Holy (religion), the Good (morals), the Just (justice), the Everyday (consumeristic culture), the Technological (technophilic culture), and the Beautiful (arts and literature). This not only has happened in the Eastern (...) world but is spreading to the civilizations of the non-West as well. When carried to its logical conclusion, this undermining will yield what the author refers to as the post-human consciousness after postmodernity, in that humans are nothing in the end, to be someday superseded by post-humans. (shrink)

Raymond Aron (1905–1983) assumed many guises over a long and fruitful career: journalist, polemicist, philosopher of history, counselor to political leaders and officials, theorist of nuclear deterrence and international relations. He was also France’s most notable sociologist. While Aron had especially close ties with Britain, a result of his days in active exile there during the Second World War, he was widely appreciated in the United States too. His book Main Currents in Sociological Thought was hailed a masterpiece; more generally, (...) Aron’s books were extensively reviewed in the American Journal of Sociology, the American Sociological Review (in earlier days, it hosted a review section), Contemporary Sociology, and Social Forces. And he was admired and cited by sociologists of the stature of Daniel Bell, Edward Shils, and David Riesman. Yet despite appearing well poised to become a major force in international sociology, analogous to his younger collaborator, Pierre Bourdieu, Aron has almost vanished from the sociological landscape. This article explains why, offering in the process some observations on the conditions—conceptual and motivational—of reputational longevity in sociological theory and showing how Aron failed to meet them. Special attention is devoted to a confusing equivocation in Aron’s description of sociology and to the cultural basis of his ambivalence toward the discipline. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: What is a ‘Tolerant Society’? Respect and Appreciation of Difference Alternatives for Education Notes References.

State-sponsored breastfeeding promotion campaigns have become increasingly common in developed countries. In this article, by using the tools of liberal political theory, as well as public health and health promotion ethics, we argue that such campaigns are not justified. They ignore important costs for women, including undermining autonomy, fail to distribute burdens fairly, cannot be justified neutrally and fail a basic efficacy test. Moreover, our argument demonstrates that breastfeeding campaigns are a rare case that bridges the fields of public health (...) ethics and the ethics of health promotion campaigns. This demonstrates the need to consider the ethics of state promotion of both voluntary and coercive behavioural change that benefits third parties. (shrink)

In defending toleration against its many critics, Respecting Toleration has both conceptual and normative aims. Conceptually, I defend and explain the coherence of political toleration. This involves, in part, highlighting a distinction between two forms of toleration; one of which always involves objection, and one which does not. Normatively, I defend a particular understanding of toleration as the best way of accommodating contemporary diversity. In brief, the state should be guided by an active ideal of neutrality, and citizens must at (...) minimum engage in forbearance tolerance with each others’ differences. In this paper, I respond to four main lines of criticism. The first is that my understanding of toleration – in which objection is not always necessary – is too broad, and that my non-moralised understanding of forbearance tolerance requires additional context. Second, my discussion of neutrality runs together the distinction between an active/passive state with a large/small state; wrongly fails to distinguish between mere preferences and deeply held beliefs; and is really a concern about equality. Third, my freedom-based justification for toleration is too limited; and may, in fact, enable recognition rather than resist it. Fourth, my rejection of inter-citizen respect for difference is too quick. (shrink)

This book provides an alternative (better) way to understand the future of acoustics, especially in the dialectic context of sound and silence-while learning from different approaches in the literature but without favoring any one of them (nor integrating them, since they are not necessarily compatible with each other). In other words, this book offers a new theory (that is, the multilateral theory of acoustics) to go beyond the existing approaches in the literature on acoustics in an original way.

Baofu offers a new theory to go beyond the existing approaches in the literature on religion in a new way not thought of before. If successful, this seminal project is to fundamentally change the way that people think about religion, from the combined perspectives of the mind, nature, society, and culture.

What makes the rule of law so special that it is to conscientiously punish the â oebadâ doers and reward the â oegoodâ onesâ "such that, where there is the rule of law, peace and order are to be expected, so that â oethe rule of law is better than the rule of any individualâ? Take the case of international law, as an illustration. While different international courts have been busy going after the killers of innocent victims in Rwanda and (...) Liberia, they have turned a blind eye to the major powers which have killedâ "on a much larger and more brutal scale, by comparisonâ "innocent civilians in Iraq and Afghanistan, just to cite two current examples. Contrary to the conventional wisdom conveniently held by many in human history, the rule of law has its other side which has not yet been systematically understood, such that the rule of law is neither possible nor desirable to the extent that the defenders of legal institutions in human history would like us to believe. Lest any misunderstanding hastily occur, this is not to imply that the rule of law is absolutely useless, or that the literature in jurisprudence (and other related fields like political philosophy, ethics, law and economics, and the sociology of law) should be dismissed because of its scholarly irrelevance. Of course, neither of these two extreme views is reasonable either. Instead, this book provides an alternative (better) way to understand the nature of law, in relation to its necessity and contingency in the context of justiceâ "while learning from different approaches in the literature but without favoring any one of them (nor integrating them, since they are not necessarily compatible with each other). In the process, this book offers a new theory to transcend the existing approaches in the literature in a new directionâ "in that, in the end, there is no justice without injustice and that it will be transcended too. This seminal project, if successful, will fundamentally change the way that we think about the nature of law, from the combined perspectives of the mind, nature, society, and culture, with enormous implications for the human future and what I originally called its â oepost-humanâ fate. (shrink)

Offers an understanding of the future of history, in the dialectic context of universality and relativity - while learning from different approaches in the literature but without favoring any one of them or integrating them, since they are not necessarily compatible with each other.

The levels that compose biological hierarchies each have their own energetic, spatial and temporal structure. Indeed, it is the discontinuity in energy relationships between levels, as well as the similarity of sub-systems that support them, that permits levels to be defined. In this paper, the temporal structure of living hierarchies, in particular that pertaining to Human society, is examined. Consideration is given to the period defining the lifespan of entities at each level and to a periodic event considered fundamental to (...) the maintenance of that level. The ratio between the duration of these two periods is found to be approximately 2.5 × 104. A similar relationship is found when lower, non-living levels of molecules and atoms are considered. This suggests that there is a constant factor of amplification between analogous periodic events at successive levels of the Human hierarchy. (shrink)

Rita Chin, The Crisis of Multiculturalism in Europe: A History, New Jersey, Princeton University Press, 2017. Péter Vataščin.

In this classic volume, written at the height of the Cold War, with a new preface of 2006, Peter Viereck, one of the foremost intellectual spokesmen of modern conservatism, examines the differing responses of American and European intellectuals to the twin threats of Nazism and Soviet communism. In so doing, he seeks to formulate a humanistic conservatism with which to counter the danger of totalitarian thought in the areas of politics, ethics, and art. The glory of the intellectuals was (...) the firm moral stance they took against Nazism at a time when appeasement was the preferred path of many politicians; their shame lay in their failure to recognize the brutality of Stalinism to the extent of becoming apologists for or accomplices of its tyranny. In Viereck's view, this failure is rooted in an abandonment of humane values that he sees as a legacy of nineteenth-century romanticism and certain strands of modernist thought and aesthetics. Among his targets are literary obscurantism as personified by Ezra Pound, the academicization of literary culture, the rigidity of adversarial avant-gardism, and the failure of many writers and cultural institutions to conserve the very heritage their political freedom and security depend on. Viereck represents their attitude in a series of satirical dialogues with Gaylord Babbitt, son of Sinclair Lewis' embodiment of conservative philistinism. Babbitt Junior is as unreflective as his father, but the objects of his credulity are the received ideas of liberal progressivism and avant-garde mandarinism. Ultimately, Viereck's critique stands as a timely rebuke to the extremism of both left and right. (shrink)

This book is designed for three classes of people: Beginners who want an introduction to philosophy; Those who have already had an introduction to philosophy and who would like to see it in action now applied to a great book written by a great philosophy, but who have never read Plato's Republic, the most famous and influential philosophy book ever written; Those who have read Plato's Republic before but did not understand its deepest significance. Why is Plato the best introduction (...) to philosophy? Peter Kreeft has taught philosophy for over 50 years, including one section of a course for beginners every semester. He has tried just about everything possible, and a few new things that are impossible. He has experimented with every one of the many alternative methods available for teaching beginners. (He has A.D.D., so he easily gets bored and likes to try new things all the time.) But he has never found anything nearly as successful as Plato. Plato is the best writer in the history of philosophy. Most philosophers are dull, undramatic, abstract writers. (There are a few other exceptions besides Plato: Augustine, Pascal, Nietzsche, Kierkegaard.) But Plato wrote dramatic dialogues, in which Socrates, his famous teacher, interacts with a great variety of fools. These dialogues are like intellectual swordfights, and even though you know Socrates is going to win, they are exciting because you see his ideas come alive, like a sword in the handoff a master. Plato is a great dramatist, a great poet, and a great psychologist as well as a great philosopher. Nobody else who ever lived combined those four talents as well as Plato did. Apprenticeship to a great master is the best way to learn any art. The student will understand what philosophy is better by watching a master do it than by reading abstract definitions of it from a second-rate philosopher, or by a mere scholar. Concrete examples are always the easiest way to learn things. Plato's dialogues are the world's first, and still the best, concrete example of philosophizing. Kreeft introduces his students to this love affair through a great matchmaker, Plato, who is a better teacher than the student will ever meet in the land of the living. In fact, Plato still is in the land of the living. He's still alive and kicking in his dialogues. He rubs off on those who are wise and humble enough to become a student. (shrink)

Nicknamed the "Eye of Paris" by Henry Miller, Brassaï was one of the great European photographers of the twentieth century. This volume of letters and photographs, many published for the first time, chronicles the fascinating early years of Brassaï's life and artistic development in Paris and Berlin during the 1920s and 1930s. "[Brassaï] is probably the only photographer—at least in France—to have acquired such a vast audience and mastered his material to such a degree that he can express himself with (...) a flexibility and apparent ease that is almost literary in its nature."—Jean Gallien, Photo-Monde "The letters that Brassaï wrote to his parents between 1920 and 1940 chronicle the sometimes painful stages by which this gifted man hauled himself from penury to celebrity."—Peter Hamilton, Times Literary Supplement "In these proud, protective, occasionally conscience-stricken missives, the young man full of eager dreams emerges as one of the century's pioneering photographers, revered for his lushly atmospheric portraits of Paris after dark."—Elle "A fascinating insight into how a bright individual slowly found his calling."—Christine Schwartz Hartley, New York Times Book Review. (shrink)