After presenting a variety of arguments in support of the idea that ordinary names are indexical, I respond to John Perry's recent arguments against the indexicality of names. I conclude by indicating some connections between the theory of names defended here and Wittgenstein's observations on naming, and suggest that the latter may have been misconstrued in the literature.
After presenting a variety of arguments in support of the idea that ordinary names are indexical, I respond to John Perry's recent arguments against the indexicality of names. I conclude by indicating some connections between the theory of names defended here and Wittgenstein's observations on naming, and suggest that the latter may have been misconstrued in the literature.
We have compared two different laser-induced optical light traps for their utility in moving organelles within living animal cells and walled fungal cells. The first trap employed a continuous wave neodymium-yttrium aluminum garnet laser at a wavelength of 1.06 micron. A second trap was constructed using a titanium-sapphire laser tunable from 700 to 1000 nm. With the latter trap we were able to achieve much stronger traps with less laser power and without damage to either mitochondria or spindles. Chromosomes and (...) nuclei were easily displaced, nucleoli were separated and moved far away from interphase nuclei, and Woronin bodies were removed from septa. In comparison, these manipulations were not possible with the Nd-YAG laser-induced trap. The optical force trap induced by the tunable titanium-sapphire laser should find wide application in experimental cell biology because the wavelength can be selected for maximization of force production and minimization of energy absorption which leads to unwanted cell damage. (shrink)
Biotechnology is one of the fastest-growing areas of scientific, technical and industrial innovation and one of the most controversial. As developments have occurred such as genetic test therapies and the breeding of genetically modified food crops, so the public debates have become more heated and grave concerns have been expressed about access to genetic information, labelling of genetically modified foods and human and animal cloning. Across Europe, public opinion has become a crucial factor in the ability of governments and biotech (...) industries to exploit the new technology. This 2002 book presents the results of a unique cross-national and cross-disciplinary study of the relationship between the development of new biotechnology and public perception, media coverage and policy formulation. It outlines a conceptual framework for understanding these issues and contains a number of empirical studies including studies of the international controversies surrounding the cloning of Dolly the sheep and GM Soya. (shrink)
Precision Medicine has become a common label for data-intensive and patient-driven biomedical research. Its intended future is reflected in endeavours such as the Precision Medicine Initiative in the USA. This article addresses the question whether it is possible to discern a new ‘medical cosmology’ in Precision Medicine, a concept that was developed by Nicholas Jewson to describe comprehensive transformations involving various dimensions of biomedical knowledge and practice, such as vocabularies, the roles of patients and physicians and the conceptualisation of disease. (...) Subsequently, I will elaborate my assessment of the features of Precision Medicine with the help of Michel Foucault, by exploring how precision medicine involves a transformation along three axes: the axis of biomedical knowledge, of biomedical power and of the patient as a self. Patients are encouraged to become the managers of their own health status, while the medical domain is reframed as a data-sharing community, characterised by changing power relationships between providers and patients, producers and consumers. While the emerging Precision Medicine cosmology may surpass existing knowledge frameworks; it obscures previous traditions and reduces research-subjects to mere data. This in turn, means that the individual is both subjected to the neoliberal demand to share personal information, and at the same time has acquired the positive ‘right’ to become a member of the data-sharing community. The subject has to constantly negotiate the meaning of his or her data, which can either enable self-expression, or function as a commanding Superego. (shrink)
The present work is volume II of the author's Gifford Lectures. MacMurray sustains and enriches the point of view that he presented in The Self as Agent, developing at length the implications of his insistence that the self must be understood primarily as an agent. The apprehension of the Other, the modes of morality, the nature of society and community, and the role of religion are examined. --S. M. W.
The author shows Maritain's view of the place of political philosophy in the hierarchy of the speculative and practical sciences. Some criticisms of Maritain are also suggested, particularly in connection with democratic theory. --S. M. W.
The passing on of information to GPs by genito-urinary doctors is to be encouraged but is not always possible and ultimately the patient's wishes and confidentiality must be respected if sexually transmitted diseases and HIV infection are to be controlled. Infected health-care workers should seek counselling and medical support and clear guidelines from professional organisations which are in existence. However, they will only do so if strict confidentiality is maintained and assurance about future employment can be given.
This fine new translation of Voltaire's Letters Concerning the English Nation supersedes other out-of-date translations. Although the format is attractive, the introduction is disappointingly brief and uninformative.--S. M. W.
In this brief and readable survey of the Reformation in Scotland, Professor Renwick succeeds in supplying both a sketch of the pre-Reformation church in Scotland, and an account of the entanglements of blood, religion and politics involving the Scottish throne. Frankly written from the Protestant point of view, the author demonstrates restraint in his treatment of the role of Mary Stewart, and gives an interesting narrative of John Knox's part in bringing about the reformation of the church.--S. M. W.
This is a controlled and enlightening study of the concept of method during the Renaissance. The text is rich in quotations, supplemented by very numerous footnotes. By dint of letting the evidence speak for itself, Gilbert succeeds in deepening the understanding of the Renaissance and consequently of the significance of the methodological innovations that followed it in the 17th century.--S. M. W.
The author's first-hand knowledge of phenomenology enables him to select advisedly from the vast stores of available material, and to present the thought of the major figures in the movement so that neither the differences nor dependencies are obscured. The history deals with both the French and German branches of phenomenology. There are also helpful examinations of contacts and affinities between the European phenomenologists and American philosophers such as James and Royce. Altogether a thorough and first rate piece of scholarship.--S. (...) M. W. (shrink)
An essay in normative jurisprudence where the author is concerned with delineating and evaluating legal decision procedures. The appeal to precedent and equity are critically examined and found to be deficient. Wasserstrom proposes as an improvement a two-level decision procedure, which is like precedent in appealing to a rule of law as a necessary condition for deciding a case, and like equity "in that considerations of justice are directly relevant to the justification of any decision." He frankly admits that this (...) decision procedure is an improvement at the "price of becoming imprecise at certain crucial points." The discussion is informed throughout with an appreciation of both legal and philosophical treatments of the issues.--S. M. W. (shrink)
The third of three volumes that the author has devoted to the presentation and- development of his philosophy of the instant. In the present work, Life and Meaning, he examines the central and fundamental role of desire or "wanting" in human life. The author vigorously criticizes the rationalistic trend in philosophy which confuses life with thought, and which ignores or intellectualizes the role of desire. His account of the affective life will sometimes seem uncritical to the non-Latin reader.--S. M. W.
An attitude which hopes to derive aesthetic pleasure from an object is often thought to be in tension with an attitude which hopes to derive knowledge from it. The current article argues that this alleged conflict only makes sense when the aesthetic attitude and knowledge are construed unnaturally narrowly, and that when both are correctly understood there is no tension between them. To do this, the article first proposes a broad and satisfying account of the aesthetic attitude, and then considers (...) and rejects twelve reasons for thinking that deriving knowledge from something is incompatible with maintaining an aesthetic attitude towards it. Two main conclusions are drawn. 1) That the representational arts are often in a good position to communicate non-propositional knowledge about human beings. 2) That while our desire to obtain pleasure from a work's manifest properties, and our desire to obtain knowledge from it, are not the same motive, the formal similarities between them are sufficiently impressive to warrant both being seen as elements of the aesthetic attitude. (shrink)
In Fiction, Truth and Literature, Lamarque and Olsen argue that if a critic claims or attempts to prove that the outlook of a work of literature is true or false, he is not engaging in literary or aesthetic appreciation. This paper argues against this position by adducing cases where literary critics discuss the truth or falsity of a work’s view, when their opinions are obviously relevant to the work’s aesthetic assessment. The paper considers in detail the way factual errors damage (...) a work’s aesthetic standing, and shows that Lamarque and Olsen’s alternative account of the role of propositional truths in literature only looks plausible because it considers a restricted range of examples. Finally, it considers the role intention, date and genre play in discussions of the aesthetic damage done by literal falsehood. (shrink)
The first five essays, including the title essay, are a stimulating contribution to contemporary discussion in philosophical theology. Their most striking feature is the attempted synthesis of Heideggerian-Bultmannian existentialism with Hartshorne's neo-classical metaphysics. Unlike Hartshorne, Ogden gives particular attention to the moral argument for God's reality, drawing heavily on the work of Stephen Toulmin, and engaging the atheism of Sartre and Camus in provocative fashion, in both the title essay and in "The Strange Witness of Unbelief." The final three essays (...) treat specifically Christian problems within the context of the philosophical framework previously developed—How is Jesus Christ God's unique and decisive act in history? What does it mean to call him Lord? What is the meaning of Christian eschatology? An explicit discussion of the relation between the theologian as philosopher and the theologian as Christian witness would have been helpful, since it is difficult to gather precisely what Ogden thinks of this relation by comparing the final three with the first five essays.—M. W. (shrink)
The concept of supererogation is an act that it is right to do but not wrong not to do. The moral trinity of the deontic logic excludes such acts from moral theory. A moral theory that is based on duty or obligation unqualified seems inevitably to make all good acts obligations, whether construed from a teleological or deontological point of view. If supererogation is a moral fact, no moral theory can survive without acknowledging it. One way to distinguish supererogation from (...) obligation that is not arbitrary is to draw the line of obligation at death and dismemberment. Such a limit to obligation is often implicit in moral theory. Inclusive obligation requires us all to be heroes all of the time. The moral limit to obligation is one of Hobbes's teachings. Though it is seldom noted in contemporary political and moral theory, it is, for example, implied in Rawls's definition of ‘supererogation.’ In this definition it is said that heroic supererogation would be a duty but for the high cost associated with it. This cost is the risk of life and limb;.it distinguishes supererogation from both benevolence and obligation.A supererogation is a good act with a high cost. The goodness of the act, however determined, must be proportionate to the cost to the agent. If life is risked, life or something deemed no less valuable must be gained. The intention to effect such important goods for others is sufficient for an act to be supererogatory even if it fails.If moral reality is inevitably vague, complex, and incomplete, then it is no surprise that moral theory is that way, too. The challenge is that moral theory be no more vague, complex, and incomplete than necessary and in ways justified by the nature of moral reality. A science, Aristotle advised, can be no more precise than its subject matter permits. (shrink)
The influence of Goethe on Wittgenstein is just beginning to be appreciated. Hacker and Baker, Westphal, Monk, and Haller have all drawn attention to significant affinities between the two men's work, and the number of explicit citations of Goethe in Wittgenstein's texts supports the idea that we are not dealing simply with a matter of deeplying similarities of aim and method, but of direct and major influence. These scholarly developments are encouraging because they help to place Wittgenstein's work within an (...) important tradition of German letters which goes far beyond his contemporaries and immediate forebears in Vienna; and they show that Wittgenstein's profound interest in literature and music is ceasing to be merely a matter of biographical anecdote, and is being used to illuminate some of the most central areas of his work. (shrink)
Limited to a review of Kant's classification of imperatives, Morritz focuses on the hypothetical forms. He offers an emotivist interpretation of such characteristics of imperatives as "being commanded by reason." --S. M. W.
