This book traces the intellectual revolution initiated by Thales in the sixth century BC to its culmination in the metaphysics of Parmenides.

This book traces the intellectual revolution initiated by Thales in the sixth century BC to its culmination in the metaphysics of Parmenides.

This book traces the intellectual revolution initiated by Thales in the sixth century BC to its culmination in the metaphysics of Parmenides.

Graduate-level historical study is ideal for students intending to specialize in the topic, as well as those who only need a general treatment. Part I discusses traditional and symbolic logic. Part II explores the foundations of mathematics, emphasizing Hilbert’s metamathematics. Part III focuses on the philosophy of mathematics. Each chapter has extensive supplementary notes; a detailed appendix charts modern developments.

This article deals with four almost classic problems in Anaximander. of these the first is of comparatively minor importance, and the second is important not for what Anaximander thought but for what Aristotle thought he thought. Problem i is: Did Anaximander describe his as ? Problem 2: Did Aristotle mean Anaximander when he referred to people who postulated an intermediate substance ? Problem 3: Did Anaximander think that there were innumerable successive worlds? Problem 4: What is the extent and implication (...) of the extant fragment of Anaximander? Appended is a brief consideration of the nature of Theophrastus' source-material for Anaximander; on one's opinion of this question the assessment of the last two problems will clearly depend. (shrink)

Our ultimate purpose is to give an axiomatic treatment of recursion theory sufficient to develop the priority method. The direct or abstract approach is to keep in mind as clearly as possible the methods actually used in recursion theory, and then to formulate them explicitly. The indirect or experimental approach is to look first for other mathematical theories which seem similar to recursion theory, to formulate the analogies precisely, and then to search for an axiomatic treatment which covers not only (...) recursion theory but also the analogous theories as particular cases.The first approach is more general because it does not depend on the existence of analogues. A concrete mathematical theory, it seems, need have no such analogues and still be important, as e.g. classical number theory. In such a case, an axiomatic treatment may still be useful for exhibiting the mathematical structure of the theory considered and the assumptions on which it rests. However, it will lack one of the most heavily advertised advantages of the axiomatic method, namely, the “economy of thought” which results from an uniform theory for several different and interesting cases: we cannot hope for this if, by hypothesis, we know of only one particular case. In contrast, the second approach, if successful at all, is bound to achieve such “economy” because we start out with several interesting particular cases. Another possible virtue of the second approach is that of field work over insight: the abstract pattern that we are looking for and hoping to formalize in axioms, may not be evident in any one mathematical theory, but may spring to the eye if one happens to look simultaneously at several theories which happen to realize the pattern. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Editors’ IntroductionElizabeth S. Radcliffe and Mark G. SpencerThis issue opens with the winning essay in the Third Annual Hume Studies Essay Prize competition: “Hume beyond Theism and Atheism” by Dr. Ariel Peckel. Dr. Peckel’s essay was chosen as the winner from among papers submitted by emerging scholars from August 2022 through July 2023. Please see the full prize announcement with information about this talented Hume scholar elsewhere in this (...) issue. Our Call for Papers for the Fourth Essay Prize competition is printed in the back of this issue and on-line at the Hume Studies website. The contest is open to authors ten or fewer years from the Ph.D. and closes on August 1, 2024. If you are eligible, please consult our “Call” for further details!In other Hume Studies news, we have once again acquired a new printer. Christensen Printing (Lincoln, Nebraska), whose work for us was excellent, suddenly closed its business when its owner retired this past year and had no one to succeed him. We received the news just when our November issue was ready to go to press. With the assistance of our friends at the Philosophy Documentation Center, we obtained estimates from three printers and have now engaged Bailey Printing in Charlottesville, Virginia. Our November issue was published on-line by November 1 (at the Philosophy Documentation Center website, the Project Muse website, and the Hume Society website), but the print issue took longer to get to subscribers.For a second time, we want to bring to the attention of our readers that Hume Studies will be marking its 50th year of publication in 2025. As we have previously noted, we are planning an anniversary issue for 50:1 (April 2025). We hope to include among the special features of that issue paragraphs or statements from our readers in answer to this query: “Of all of the articles that have been published in [End Page 7] Hume Studies over the past 50 years, which one is most noteworthy to you? Why so?” Please see the “Call for Entries” in the back of this issue or on the Hume Studies website (https://www.humesociety.org/ojs/index.php/hs), which includes details on where to send your response. The due date is October 15, 2024, but we encourage you to send your entries as soon as possible! [End Page 8]Copyright © 2024 Hume Studies... (shrink)

In the case of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) imaging, image processing is crucial. In the medical industry, MRI images are commonly used to analyze and diagnose tumor growth in the body. A number of successful brain tumor identification and classification procedures have been developed by various experts. Existing approaches face a number of obstacles, including detection time, accuracy, and tumor size. Early detection of brain tumors improves options for treatment and patient survival rates. Manually segmenting brain tumors from a significant (...) number of MRI data for brain tumor diagnosis is a tough and time-consuming task. Automatic image segmentation of brain tumors is required. The objective of this study is to evaluate the degree of accuracy and simplify the medical picture segmentation procedure used to identify the type of brain tumor from MRI results. Additionally, this work suggests a novel method for identifying brain malignancies utilizing the Bagging Ensemble with K-Nearest Neighbor (BKNN) in order to raise the KNN’s accuracy and quality rate. For image segmentation, a U-Net architecture is utilized first, followed by a bagging-based k-NN prediction algorithm for classification. The goal of employing U-Net is to improve the accuracy and uniformity of parameter distribution in the layers. Each decision tree is fitted on a little different training dataset during classification, and the bagged decision trees are effective since each tree has minor differences and generates slightly different skilled predictions. The overall classification accuracy was up to 97.7 percent, confirming the efficiency of the suggested strategy for distinguishing normal and pathological tissues from brain MR images; this is greater than the methods that are already in use. (shrink)

An attempt at a Montague-style reconstruction of the semantics of Buridan's logic on a regimented fragment of Latin.

Adults are skilled at using language to construct/negotiate identity and to signal affiliation with others, but little is known about how these abilities develop in children. Clearly, children mirror statistical patterns in their local environment (e.g., Canadian children using zed instead of zee), but do they flexibly adapt their linguistic choices on the fly in response to the choices of different peers? To address this question, we examined the effect of group membership on 7‐ to 9‐year‐olds' labeling of objects in (...) a trivia game, exploring whether they were more likely to use a particular label (e.g., sofa vs. couch) if members of their “team” also used that label. In a preregistered study, children (N = 72) were assigned to a team (red or green) and were asked during experimental trials to answer questions—which had multiple possible answers (e.g., blackboard or chalkboard)—after hearing two teammates and two opponents respond to the same question. Results showed that children were significantly more likely to produce labels less commonly used by the community (i.e., dispreferred labels) when their teammates had produced those labels. Crucially, this effect was tied to group membership, and could not be explained by children simply repeating the most recently used label. These findings demonstrate how social processes (i.e., group membership) can guide linguistic variation in children. (shrink)

It seems very commonly agreed that Sappho's wedding-songs display none of the ritual obscenity so frequent in the genre. Thus D. L. Page wrote of fr. i ioa that ‘There is no trace here or elsewhere in Sappho of that ribaldry which was characteristic of the songs recited at this and other stages of Greek wedding-ceremonies’. Similarly Sir Maurice Bowra asserted of fr. 111 that it is ‘neither bawdy nor exalted, but playful. If the humour is a bit primitive, that (...) is due to tradition, which expected jokes at this level’. On the next page he writes of the songs sung outside the bridal chamber, as distinct from those sung in the procession thither, that ‘Here too Sappho seems to avoid bawdry but is not averse from rather elementary jokes’. (shrink)

ObjectiveTo explore how clients in clinical settings experience the process of opening up and sharing their inner experiences in the initial phase of therapy.MethodsTwo psychotherapy sessions of clients were videotaped and followed by interviews. Interpersonal process recall was used to obtain in-depth descriptions of clients’ immediate experiences in session. A follow-up interview was conducted 3 months later. The interviews were analyzed using thematic analysis.ResultsThe data revealed how and why clients distanced themselves from inner experiences in the initial phase of therapy. (...) The overarching theme was “Holding back and struggling to open up,” which included four subthemes: fearing the intensity and consequences of negative emotions; experiences of being incapable and bodily stuck; being insecure about one’s worthiness and right to share inner experiences with the therapist; and struggling with feeling disloyal to loved ones.ConclusionThe participants held back because they feared different consequences of opening up. A range of concerns led participants to distance themselves from their inner experiences and/or to refrain from openly talking about them to the therapist. Concerns related to appropriate interpersonal conduct as client were especially important. This knowledge is highly relevant to clinicians when building safety for psychotherapeutic work. (shrink)

The article discusses human dignity in the aspect of modern challenges of technological civilization, which has entered a new stage of its development. Human dignity as a category of ethics remains underestimated, since in the first row of ethical values humanitarians, as a rule, put the categories of freedom and justice. Today, “dignity” acquires a special and higher status, the concept of human dignity is being rethought, going beyond the ethical category itself as a virtue. In the global world, human (...) dignity is a response to such contemporary challenges as the formation of a communicative world community with a focus on digital civilization, the anthropological problem of the future of humanity, the ecological situation on a global scale, the reorientation of the ethical and legal relations of a globalizing world. Human dignity is a problem of national-ethnic and national-state relations in the transition to transnational regulatory interactions. In the interpretation of the nation, the authors do not share the well-known two approaches to understanding the nation, on the one hand ethnocultural, and on the other - national-civil. Both approaches lead, whenever possible or necessary, to the transnational posing of the question, when human dignity becomes a priority regardless of nationality. In this connection, the utopian idea of the possibility of a global ethos is touched upon. The authors focus on the anthropoxy-axiological approach to the understanding of human dignity, where the cosmological principle of human existence is determined by his creative power. The urgency of the problem of human dignity is due to the fact that, as it were, in the modern life world a person did not put the economy above morality, the basis of human dignity in its being is a value moral consciousness, in the depth of which basic human values of transnational nature “work”, contradicting values consumer society driven by practical interests. Human dignity in this regard should be interpreted as an absolute value and at the same time one should take into account the multidimensionality of the problem of dignity in the context of modern globalization processes. Based on the ontological understanding of globalization as megatrends in the self-movement of the natural historical process, the authors substantiate the anthropological value of human dignity, which has universal, transcultural significance. The use of an anthropoxy-axiological approach and interdisciplinary methods reveals the universal value of virtue, based on the anthropo-social moral nature and the creative value of man. The creative transformational activity itself will not be worthy in quality without moral responsibility. The modern concept of human dignity is addressed to the ethics of responsibility, which means responsibility, which highlights the moral and axiological attitude to life, the adoption of responsible decisions in modern conditions of sociocultural interactions. In the context of globalization, the philosophy of human dignity becomes the dominant of all conscious-volitional activities, the core of the moral rethinking of the transnational and national ratio in the light of tolerance, the ability to non-violence. At the same time, the authors indicate in the formulation of the main issue of the philosophy of human dignity the possibility of going beyond the ethical category of human dignity, since the unchanging core of the universal human values of goodness-beauty-truth does not lose its meaning in the global, changing world. (shrink)

G. C. J. Midgley; XIV—Linguistic Rules, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Volume 59, Issue 1, 1 June 1959, Pages 271–290, https://doi.org/10.1093/aristot.

BACKGROUND: It can be argued that the ethical conduct of research involves achieving a balance between the rights and needs of three parties-potential research participants, society, and researchers. Local Research Ethics Committees (LRECs) have a number of roles and functions in the research enterprise, but there have been some indications that LREC members, researchers and the public can have different views about these responsibilities. Any such differences are potential sources of disagreement and misunderstanding. OBJECTIVES: To compare the views of LREC (...) members, researchers and the public towards the roles and functions of LRECs. DESIGN: A questionnaire that contained items concerned with a variety of such roles was distributed to general practice patients (as proxies for potential research participants), researchers and LREC members. FINDINGS: While general practice patients believed that the main function of LRECs is to ensure that research participants come to no harm, LREC members were more concerned with the protection of participants' rights. There was also some disagreement between members and researchers with regard to the consideration of proposals on the grounds of scientific merit. CONCLUSIONS: Local Research Ethics Committee members need to be aware of potential differences in views, that they ought to make their priorities clear, and that membership of LRECs ought to reflect the views of both researchers and potential research participants. (shrink)

Following Henkin’s discovery of partially-ordered (branching) quantification (POQ) with standard quantifiers in 1959, philosophers of language have attempted to extend his definition to POQ with generalized quantifiers. In this paper I propose a general definition of POQ with 1-place generalized quantifiers of the simplest kind: namely, predicative, or “cardinality” quantifiers, e.g., “most”, “few”, “finitely many”, “exactly α ”, where α is any cardinal, etc. The definition is obtained in a series of generalizations, extending the original, Henkin definition first to a (...) general definition of monotone-increasing (M↑) POQ and then to a general definition of generalized POQ, regardless of monotonicity. The extension is based on (i) Barwise’s 1979 analysis of the basic case of M↑ POQ and (ii) my 1990 analysis of the basic case of generalized POQ. POQ is a non-compositional 1st-order structure, hence the problem of extending the definition of the basic case to a general definition is not trivial. The paper concludes with a sample of applications to natural and mathematical languages. (shrink)

During the excavations of 1924–5 at Karanis a papyrus of the second or early third century A.D. was discovered, and subsequently published by J. G. Winter , which under its single column has a subscribed title which should almost certainly be restored as ‘Alcidamas, On Homer’. The first fourteen lines of the papyrus give most of the story of Homer's death and the riddle that caused it, which is common to all the extant Lives of Homer; the remainder is a (...) general eulogy of Homer and a profession of transmitting his works to posterity. The interest of the discovery lies in the knowledge that it gives of a hitherto unrecorded work by Alcidamas, the rhetorician and contemporary of Isocrates, and the new fuel that it provides for an old controversy about the origins of the work known as the Certamen. The first part of this article aims at both re-examining the value of the papyrus and reopening some of the old questions on the Certamen. (shrink)

G. E. Moore 's 1912 work Ethics has tended to be overshadowed by his famous earlier work Principia Ethica. However, its detailed discussions of utilitarianism, free will, and the objectivity of moral judgements find no real counterpart in Principia, while its account of right and wrong and of the nature of intrinsic value deepen our understanding of Moore 's moral philosophy. Moore himself regarded the book highly, writing late in his career, "I myself like [it] better than Principia Ethica, because (...) it seems to me to be much clearer and far less full of confusions and invalid arguments." Short but philosophically rich, and written with impressive precision and intellectual candor, Ethics is a minor classic which repays careful study. This new edition includes Moore 's essay "The Nature of Moral Philosophy" as well as editorial notes, an introduction, and a guide to further reading. (shrink)

A series of structural constitutional arguments lodged in multiple cases against Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services’ (CMS) authorities to negotiate prescription drug prices via the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act threaten the legitimacy of CMS program and federal agency powers.

Features of threatening cues and the associated context influence the perceived imminence of threat and the defensive responses evoked. To provide additional knowledge about how the directionality of a threat (i.e. directed-towards or away from the viewer) might impact defensive responses in humans, participants were shown pictures of a man carrying a gun (threat) or nonlethal object (neutral) directed-away from or towards the participant. Cardiac and electrodermal responses were collected. Compared to neutral images, threatening images depicting a gun directed-towards the (...) participant induced sustained bradycardia and an increased electrodermal response, interpreted as immobility under attack. This defensive immobility reaction is evoked by high perceived threat and inescapable situations and indicates intense action preparation. Pictures of guns directed-away from the participant induced shorter bradycardia and no significant modulation of the electrodermal response compared to neutral pictures, which might be consistent with the perception of a less threatening situation. The results show that the directionality of threat stimuli is a key factor that prompts different patterns of defensive responses. (shrink)

In order to study early human development while avoiding the burdens associated with human embryo research, scientists are redirecting their efforts towards so-called human embryo-like structures (hELS). hELS are created from clusters of human pluripotent stem cells and seem capable of mimicking early human development with increasing accuracy. Notwithstanding, hELS research finds itself at the intersection of historically controversial fields, and the expectation that it might be received as similarly sensitive is prompting proactive law reform in many jurisdictions, including the (...) Netherlands. However, studies on the public perception of hELS research remain scarce. To help guide policymakers and fill this gap in the literature, we conducted an explorative qualitative study aimed at mapping the range of perspectives in the Netherlands on the creation and research use of hELS. This article reports on a subset of our findings, namely those pertaining to (the degrees of and requirements for) confidence in research with hELS and its regulation. Despite commonly found disparities in confidence on emerging biotechnologies, we also found wide consensus regarding the requirements for having (more) confidence in hELS research. We conclude by reflecting on how these findings could be relevant to researchers and (Dutch) policymakers when interpreted within the context of their limitations. (shrink)