This paper examines narrativism’s claim that the historical past cannot be known once and for all because it must be continuously re-described from the standpoint of the present. We argue that this claim is based on a non sequitur. We take narrativism’s claim that the past must be re-described continuously from the perspective of the present to be the result of the following train of thought: 1) “all knowledge is conceptually mediated”; 2) “the conceptual framework through which knowledge of reality (...) is mediated changes with every new generation of historians”; therefore (narrativism’s claim) “the historical past changes with every new generation of historians”. The idea of an unchanging past, for the narrativist, requires denying premise 1 (all knowledge is conceptually mediated”) and therefore rests on a problematic commitment to the chimerical notion of the past as it is in-itself, wie es eigentlich gewesen. We argue that the narrativist’s conclusion does not follow unless one adds a further premise, namely 3) “it is not possible to view reality through the categorial framework of historical agents”. If one asserts the possibility of grasping reality through the categorial framework of others, be they contemporary or past agents (as much philosophy of history written in an idealist key does), then one no longer has to accept the narrativist’s inference that since the past cannot be known in-itself or independently of conceptual mediation, then it cannot be known as it always was for the historical agents. Narrativism’s inference that the past cannot be known as it always was does not follow from premises 1 and 2 unless one smuggles in another problematic premise, premise 3. In this paper we defend the claim that the past can be known as it always was (not as it is in-itself) by invoking a different conception of the role of conceptual mediation in historical knowledge, one which assumes the possibility of viewing reality through the categorial framework of others. This notion of the role of conceptual mediation in historical knowledge is prevalent in the idealist tradition but, in the interest of brevity, we will defend this notion of mediacy by specific reference to the idealist philosophy of R.G. Collingwood. (shrink)

This chapter identifies some themes in British idealism, especially those which resonate in contemporary debates, through an examination of T.H. Green, F.H. Bradley and J.M.E. McTaggart. It focuses primarily on metaphysics and epistemology, supplemented by discussion of the ethics of Green and Bradley. In characterizing British idealism in more detail, it is important to start with T.H. Green, whose importance lay both in his philosophical thought, and also in his active engagement with Oxford local politics, educational standards and school reform, (...) and issues of social justice, the common good and the recognition theory of rights. Green's major philosophical monograph, published posthumously in 1883, was Prolegomena to Ethics. This can be seen as a broadly Kantian account of the presuppositions of knowledge. The two main claims that concern us here are, first, that the real consists in relations and, secondly, that the related whole constitutes an “eternal consciousness”. (shrink)

A combination of social forces has thrown marriage into question in westernised societies at the end of the millennium. This uncertainty creates space for new ways of thinking about marriage. In this context, we examine the idea of marriage as friendship. We trace its genealogy in the work of Mary Wollstonecraft, John Stuart Mill and Harriet Taylor and then subject it to critical scrutiny using some of Michel de Montaigne’s ideas. We ask how applicable the ideal of higher friendship is (...) to marriage and what might be gained and lost by a synthesis of marriage and friendship. Grounding the discussion in historical sources is valuable because the topic is so little explored in the contemporary philosophical literature. This approach also allows any enduring value in these historical texts to be elicited. (shrink)

While the United States is an important Asia-Pacific actor, its engagement with the region is complex and often difficult. Not only must US regionalism balance the diverse requirements of an ambitious policy agenda, but also US policy norms and priorities often clash with those of other regional actors. This has important implications for the capacity of the United States to provide regional leadership. Recent years have seen growing policy convergence between the United States and other Asia-Pacific actors, particularly in economic (...) terms, but US regionalism continues to feature competition alongside collaboration. (shrink)

That style which modern scholars have called “curial” or “clergial” is an elaborate fifteenth-century prose style practiced most notoriously by William Caxton in works published during the last decades of the century. It is often assumed that he learned the style from French courtly models. This view has recently suffered modification through the work of Diane Bornstein, whose study of the Tale of Melibee revealed that Chaucer had an independent grasp of many features of the style almost a hundred years (...) before Caxton used it. Although she was successful in demonstrating the use at an early date of these stylistic features, Bornstein did not question or discuss the sources of Chaucer's evident competence. It could be reasonably assumed, as had been assumed for Caxton, that they lay in French literary texts, since features of the style are present in the source of Melibee, the Livre de Mellibee et de Prudence, and they could be presumed to have occurred also in other literary texts of French origin with which Chaucer was doubtless familiar. (shrink)

It is widely agreed that a new conception of history was developed in the early nineteenth century: the past came to be seen in a new light, as did the way of studying the past. This article discusses the nature of this collective revision, focusing on one of its first and most important manifestations: Ranke's 1824 Geschichten der romanischen und germanischen Völker. It argues that, in Ranke's case, the driving force of the revision was religious, and that, subsequently, an understanding (...) of the nature of Ranke's religious attitude is vital to any interpretation of his historical revision. Being aesthetic-experiential rather than conceptual or "positive," this religious element is reflected throughout Ranke's enterprise, in source criticism and in historical representation no less than in the conception of cause and effect in the historical process. These three levels or aspects of the historical enterprise correspond to the experience of the past, and are connected by the essence of the experience: visual perception. The highly individual character of the enterprise, its foundation in sentiments and experiences of little persuasive force that only with difficulty can be brought into language at all, explains the paradoxical nature of the Rankean heritage. On the one hand, Ranke had a great and lasting impact; on the other hand, his approach was never re-utilized as a whole, only in its constituent parts—which, when not in the relationship Ranke had envisioned, took on a new and different character. This also suggests the difference between Ranke's revision and a new paradigm: whereas the latter is an exemplary solution providing binding regulations, the former is unrepeatable. (shrink)

In A.D. 60 Nero instituted at Rome a quinquennale certamen which he called Neronia. It was in three sections—athletics, chariot-racing, and music —after a Greek model. This model would be that of the Pythian rather than of the Olympic Games, for at the latter there was no regular musical contest; though perhaps Nero got his immediate inspiration from the Augustalia at Naples, which was an athletic and musical festival of a religious nature.

Thus the passage is printed in the Teubner edition of Seneca's Dialogues by E. Hermes, who, on the strength of Aen. 8. 702 f. , adds a note on the quotation ‘versus sunt Vergilii a Seneca licenter mutati’. Now the imputation to Seneca of such gross alteration of Virgil can only be supported if we disregard or eject the evidence to the contrary. As only the last five words are actually Virgilian; as Seneca himself says ‘aput vate nostra?’; as out (...) at the beginning of the second line may introduce a second quotation ; and as est, which Gertz secluded, has a part to play if the lines are by different poets, it is safer to take a step backwards and dispose the passage thus. (shrink)

‘Shameful are the scars inflicted by the sin of fraternal strife! What has ourunconscionable generation shunned, what abomination left undone? Ourgodless soldiery has held nothing sacred. I pray that Fortune may, on a new anvil, give our blunted swords another shape, to use against Massagetae andArabs!‘.

This book is designed to explore the various kinds of association found in Chaucer's lexical usage, and so to alert the reader to the wider implications of ...

Pleidooi voor een metafysische visie op hedendaagse sociale en economische problemen.

The aim of this systematic review was to summarize and assess the quality of asthma intervention health economic studies from 2002 to 2007, compare the study findings with clinical management guidelines, and suggest avenues for future improvement of asthma health economic studies. Forty of the 177 studies met our inclusion criteria. We assessed the quality of studies using The Quality of Health Economic Studies validated instrument (total score range: 0-100). Six studies (15%) had quality category 2, 26 studies (65%) achieved (...) quality category 3, and the remaining eight (20%) studies were scored as the highest quality level, category 4. Overall, the findings from this review are in line with the Global Initiative for Asthma clinical guidelines. Many asthma health economic studies lacked appropriate long term time horizons to match the chronic nature of the disease and suffered from using effectiveness measures that did not capture all disease related risks and benefits. We recommend that new asthma simulation models: be flexible to allow for long term time horizons, focus on using levels of asthma control in their structure, and estimate both long term asthma specific outcomes like well-controlled time as well as generic outcomes such as quality adjusted survival. (shrink)

Background: Omalizumab, an anti-immunoglobulin E antibody, reduces exacerbations and symptoms in uncontrolled allergic asthma. The study objective was to estimate the costs and consequences of omalizumab compared to usual care from a US payer perspective. Methods: We estimated payer costs, quality-adjusted survival (QALYs), and the incremental cost-effectiveness ratio (ICER) of omalizumab compared to usual care using a state-transition simulation model that included sensitivity analyses. Every 2 weeks, patients could transition between chronic asthma and exacerbation health states. The best available evidence (...) informed the clinical and cost input estimates. Five years of omalizumab treatment followed by usual care was assumed to estimate a lifetime horizon. Omalizumab responders (60.5% of treated) were modeled as a separate scenario where nonresponders reverted back to usual care after 16 weeks of active treatment. Results: The mean lifetime discounted costs and QALYs were $83 400 and 13.87 for usual care and $174 500 and 14.19 for omalizumab plus usual care resulting in $287 200/QALY (95% interval: $219 300, $557 900). The ICER was $172 300/QALY when comparing omalizumab to usual care in the responder scenario. One-way sensitivity analyses indicated that the results were sensitive to the difference in treatment-specific utilities for the chronic state, exacerbation-associated mortality, omalizumab price, exacerbation rates, and response definition. Conclusions: The results suggest that adding omalizumab to usual care improves QALYs at an increase in direct medical costs. The cost-effectiveness of omalizumab is similar to other chronic disease biologics. The value increases when omalizumab response is used to guide long-term treatment. (shrink)

The primary aim of this dissertation is an exegesis of Collingwood's historical science of mind. I take seriously Collingwood's claim that history is for "self-understanding" and treat his philosophy of history as a form of reflective philosophy. In particular, I examine the epistemological basis for Collingwood's claim that mind is an object that changes as it understands itself. ;In Chapter One, I consider the distinction between natural process and historical process as central to an understanding of Collingwood's historical science of (...) mind. I defend Collingwood's attempt to preserve the distinction between historical process and natural process in order to reserve for history its appropriate subject matter---mind. ;In Chapter Two, I consider the epistemological basis for Collingwood's claim that mind changes fundamentally in the historical process. I argue that Collingwood's reading of Anselm's proof of the existence of God is the key to understanding his theory of the priority of "faith" to reason and so to the historical nature of first principles. ;Chapter Three has two parts. In part one, I examine Collingwood's logic of philosophical concepts: the scale of forms. In part two, I argue Collingwood's moral philosophy, found in The New Leviathan and in his lectures on "Goodness, Rightness, Utility" , exemplifies this logic. I conclude that Collingwood's historical study of mind is an attempt to overcome the disjunction between theory and practice caused by the abstract thinking of modern scientific consciousness. ;Chapter Four provides a survey of the scholarship surrounding Collingwood's corpus as a whole. I argue that there have been three waves of Collingwood scholarship. The first is influenced by T. M. Knox's editing of Collingwood's manuscripts and his "radical conversion hypothesis." The second wave of Collingwood scholarship argues for the systematic or thematic unity of Collingwood's philosophy. The third and most recent wave builds on the second. As an example, I discuss Guiseppina D'Oro's suggestion that Collingwood's thought is unified by its overarching concern with critical philosophy. I conclude with the suggestion that Collingwood's thought is unified by an attempt to provide a viable reflective philosophy based on historical consciousness. (shrink)

We apply the Galilean covariant formulation of quantum dynamics to derive the phase-space representation of the Pauli–Schrödinger equation for the density matrix of spin-1/2 particles in the presence of an electromagnetic field. The Liouville operator for the particle with spin follows from using the Wigner–Moyal transformation and a suitable Clifford algebra constructed on the phase space of a (4 + 1)-dimensional space–time with Galilean geometry. Connections with the algebraic formalism of thermofield dynamics are also investigated.