Appreciation and gratitude get good press: They are central virtues in many religious and secular ethical frameworks, core in positive psychology research, and they come highly recommended by the self‐improvement set. Generally, appreciation and gratitude feature as good things, in popular consciousness. Of course, on an Aristotelian model, the belief that these are virtues implies they are something people can get right or wrong. This paper examines bad appreciation and bad gratitude, characterizing forms of appreciation and gratitude at the center (...) of some major social norms and practices, and demonstrating that they mask familiar oppressive expectations and power relations. (shrink)

Ever feel concerned that you may not achieve your career goals, or feel worried about where your life is going? Such examples may reflect the experience of status anxiety, that is, concerns that one may be stuck or not able to move up in life, or worries that one may be too low in standing compared to society’s standards. Status anxiety is believed to be exacerbated by economic inequality and negatively affect well-being. While job satisfaction is an important determinant of (...) well-being, no research has examined whether status anxiety can also help explain people’s satisfaction with their jobs. We tested whether status anxiety differs from other organizational constructs and uniquely relates to job satisfaction among full-time working adults. In a pilot study we found that status anxiety is separate from the concept of job insecurity (e.g.,, perceived threat of job loss). Results of our main study also indicated that higher status anxiety significantly predicted lower job satisfaction beyond several other indicators of organizational attitudes (job insecurity, occupational self-efficacy, distributive, procedural, and interactional justice), as well as the tendency to seek status and several background factors (e.g., income, education, perceived socioeconomic status). We discuss the unique role of status anxiety in job satisfaction and the implications of this research to our understanding of status concerns as well as organizational attitudes and policies. (shrink)

In 2014 the Essex Autonomy Project undertook a six month project, funded by the AHRC, to provide technical advice to the UK Ministry of Justice on the question of whether the Mental Capacity Act is compliant with the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. Over the course of the project, the EAP research team organised a series of public policy roundtables, hosted by the Ministry of Justice, and which brought together leading experts to discuss and debate (...) the issues. A one-day public conference was held at the Institute for Government in July. In September 2014, the EAP research team submitted its findings to the Ministry of Justice. (shrink)

EveryK-trivial set is computable from an incomplete Martin-Löf random set, i.e., a Martin-Löf random set that does not compute the halting problem.

In _Around the Day in Eighty Worlds_ Martin Savransky calls for a radical politics of the pluriverse amid the ongoing devastation of the present. Responding to an epoch marked by the history of colonialism and ecological devastation, Savransky draws on the pragmatic pluralism of William James to develop what Savransky calls a “pluralistic realism”—an understanding of the world as simultaneously one and many, ongoing and unfinished, underway and yet to be made. Savransky explores the radical multifariousness of reality by (...) weaving key aspects of James's thought together with divergent worlds and stories: of Magellan's circumnavigation, sorcery in Mozambique, God's felt presence among a group of evangelicals in California, visible spirits in Zambia, and ghosts in the wake of the 2011 tsunami in Japan. Throughout, he experiments with these storied worlds to dramatize new ways of approaching the politics of radical difference and the possibility of transforming reality. By exploring and constructing relations between James's pluralism and the ontological turn in anthropology, Savransky offers a new conceptualization of the pluriverse that fosters modes of thinking and living otherwise. (shrink)

In March 1928, John Dewey responded to a request from Marie Meloney, editor of the New York Herald-Tribune Sunday Magazine, and offered his recommendations on recently published texts on education. Dewey wrote, "I think the best educational books of recent publication are Bode, Modern Educational Theories . . . Kilpatrick, Education for a Changing Civilization . . . & Martin, The Meaning of a Liberal Education".1 This was not the first time Dewey recommended Everett Dean Martin's book. In (...) 1927, the editors of the Journal of the National Education Association approached Dewey and asked, "What book have you recently found especially worthwhile? Something that you have read easily, eagerly, and with profit—either in .. (shrink)

It now seems technically feasible to culture human embryos beyond the “fourteen‐day limit,” which has the potential to increase scientific understanding of human development and perhaps improve infertility treatments. The fourteen‐day limit was adopted as a compromise but subsequently has been considered an ethical line. Does it remain relevant in light of technological advances permitting embryo maturation beyond it? Should it be changed and, if so, how and why? What justifications would be necessary to expand the limit, particularly given that (...) doing so would violate some people's moral commitments regarding human embryos? Robust stakeholder engagement preceded adoption of the fourteen‐day limit and should arguably be part of efforts to reassess it. Such engagement could also consider the need for enhanced oversight of human embryo research. In the meantime, developing and implementing reliable oversight systems should help foster high‐quality research and public confidence in it. (shrink)

Seventeenth century philosophers were pre-occupied with the justification for the use of coercion; the nature and scope of the citizen's duty to obey the law was a central concern. The typical philosophical accounts which attempt to articulate the conditions under which a citizen has an obligation to obey the law tend to fall into two camps: those that ground the obligation to obey the law in consent, and those that ground it in benefits received, or possibly a combination of both. (...) More recently, however, some have argued that questions about the obligation to obey the law have been eclipsed by questions about distributive justice. Many leading figures in modern analytic jurisprudence remain concerned with the nature of political obligation. Joseph Raz is a current-day theorist who has recognized the importance of this issue and the need for an answer that is not over-simplistic. Recently Raz has re-examined his account in ?The Problem of Authority: Revisiting the Service Conception, - making an exploration of his theory particularly timely. Raz argues that all governments claim morally legitimate authority, but not all of them actually possess it. His theory seeks to give us the tools by which to distinguish the legitimate claims from imposters. The complexity and flexibility of Raz's understanding of the nature and scope of the individual's obligation to obey the law accounts for its appeal. Upon closer inspection, however, difficulties emerge. I argue that Raz's theory is plagued by a deep-seated tension between his two central theses: the pre-emption thesis and the normal justification thesis. While I explore both theses in further depth, the gist of the pre-emption thesis is that it requires a pre-commitment to authority in order for the law?s mediating role to be performed. Conversely, the normal justification thesis invites a case by case assessment of the bindingness of norms. I argue that instead of offering us a unified conception of authority, Raz vacillates unstably between two models - a consent-based model and a benefits received model. I demonstrate that this tension is ineradicable because the theses are connected to divergent models of law and incompatible methodologies. (shrink)

‘Marital faithfulness’ refers to faithful love for a spouse or lover to whom one is committed, rather than the narrower idea of sexual fidelity. The distinction is clearly marked in traditional wedding vows. A commitment to love faithfully is central: ‘to have and to hold from this day forward, for better for worse, for richer for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, till death us do part… and thereto I plight [pledge] thee my troth [faithfulness]’. (...) Sexual fidelity is promised in a subordinate clause, symbolizing its supportive role in promoting love's constancy: ‘and, forsaking all other, keep thee only unto her/him.’. (shrink)

Lighting upon Weber as a history student in the late 1950s led to all round engagement with his work to the present day, beginning with rationality and bureaucracy, passing through appreciation of his synoptic vision of modernity, and arguing for the continuing relevance of his rationalization thesis. This emphasis on Weber’s contribution to understanding the course of modernity led in the 1990s to pointing out that his approach to epochal shift provides the basis for understanding the global age. The ever-developing (...) nature of his thought can be further illustrated in his studies of China. (shrink)

Patient’s decision making competence is a widely discussed subject. Issues of competence, autonomy, well-being and protection of the patient come up every day. In this article we analyse what role PDMC plays in Dutch legislation and what dilemmas healthcare professionals may experience, notably in patients suffering from Korsakoff’s syndrome. Dilemmas emerge if professionals want to meet the requirements mentioned in Dutch law and the desires of their patients. The autonomy of the patient and the healthcare professionals’ duty to take care (...) of their patient’s best interests, create a tension and lead to uncomfortable situations. Healthcare professionals describe difficulty finding a balance between these issues and assessing the degree of mental competence still present. In long term care situations, quality of the relationship between healthcare professionals and their patients seems to be of much more importance in decision making on minor issues of competence than simply relying on legal or house rules. In being committed to their cases, professionals will be more sensitive to individuals habits, abilities, welfare and dignity, which will make it easier to decide on issues of competence, and to find creative solutions to their dilemmas. (shrink)

For your students, celebrating this day is a source of rare and pure joy. The only way we can be adequate to this occasion is to let the gratitude that we owe you become the fundamental mood suffusing everything from beginning to end. In keeping with a beautiful tradition, today on this celebratory occasion we offer you as our gift this slender volume of a few short essays. In no way could this ever be an adequate return for all that (...) you, our teacher, have lavished upon us, and awakened and nourished in us. In the coming days many will try to survey your work in philosophy and to evaluate its impact and effect on various scales. In so doing, they will bring to mind many things that we should not forget. However, that way of parceling out a person's intellectual impact and of calculating the influence of his writings fails to grasp the essential matter for which we owe you our thanks. That essential element will not be found by considering how fruitful your teaching career has been. Surely such effectiveness will continue to be the prerogative and good fortune of every professor as long as German university escapes the doom of getting turned into a mind-numbing trade school. No, the essence of your leadership consists in something else, namely that the content and style of your questioning immediately forces each of us into an intense, critical dialogue, and it demands that we always be ready to reverse or even abandon our position. There is no guarantee, of course, that any of us will find our way to the one thing that, so unpretentously, your work sought to lead us to: that releasement in which one is seasoned and ready for the problems.2 So too the works we present to you are mere witnesses to the fact that we wanted to follow your guidance, not proof that we succeeded in becoming your disciples.3 But there is one thing we will retain as a lasting possession: Each of us who had the privilege of following in your footsteps was confronted by you, our esteemed teacher, with the option either of becoming the steward of essential matters or of working against them. On this celebratory occasion, as we view your philosophical existence in this light, we also acquire secure points of reference for giving a true assessment of the value of your work in philosophy. Does it consist in the fact that some decades ago a new movement emerged in philosophy and gained influence among the then-dominant trends? Or that a new method was added to the list of previous ones? Or that long-forgotten problem-areas got reworked.. (shrink)

It now seems technically feasible to culture human embryos beyond the “fourteen‐day limit,” which has the potential to increase scientific understanding of human development and perhaps improve infertility treatments. The fourteen‐day limit was adopted as a compromise but subsequently has been considered an ethical line. Does it remain relevant in light of technological advances permitting embryo maturation beyond it? Should it be changed and, if so, how and why? What justifications would be necessary to expand the limit, particularly given that (...) doing so would violate some people's moral commitments regarding human embryos? Robust stakeholder engagement preceded adoption of the fourteen‐day limit and should arguably be part of efforts to reassess it. Such engagement could also consider the need for enhanced oversight of human embryo research. In the meantime, developing and implementing reliable oversight systems should help foster high‐quality research and public confidence in it. (shrink)

‘Marital faithfulness’ refers to faithful love for a spouse or lover to whom one is committed, rather than the narrower idea of sexual fidelity. The distinction is clearly marked in traditional wedding vows. A commitment to love faithfully is central: ‘to have and to hold from this day forward, for better for worse, for richer for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, till death us do part… and thereto I plight [pledge] thee my troth [faithfulness]’. (...) Sexual fidelity is promised in a subordinate clause, symbolizing its supportive role in promoting love's constancy: ‘and, forsaking all other, keep thee only unto her/him.’. (shrink)

BACKGROUND AND RATIONALE: Evidence based medicine is the present backbone of rational and objective, modern medical problem solving and is a meeting ground for quantitative and qualitative researchers alike as it culminates into applying the fruits of clinical research to the individual patient. A systematic enquiry into the evolving paradigms in EBM is a need of the hour. AIMS AND METHODS: A qualitative enquiry examining the impact of different methodologies in EBM and their role in generating meaning interpretable at individual (...) levels. RESULTS: Present day outcome based research deals less with patients as individuals than as populations. Evidence based medicine struggles to apply the fruits of population based research to individuals who are often not as predictable as linear quantitative research would like them to be. The present EBM literature neglects a lot of events it doesn't believe to be statistically significant and perhaps here is an area that needs to be improved on - it assumes that because associations are demonstrated between interventions and outcomes in RCTs/meta-analysis, these associations are linear and causal in the real world. While they may be demonstrated repeatedly in highly controlled environments, in the real 'uncontrolled' world of clinical practice with real people, their validity breaks down. CONCLUSIONS: One needs to make the EBM standard model patient-individual (a projection of collective patient event data) resemble the real human individual patient so that optimal EBM individual data that matches our query can be easily and quickly spotted from the dense jungle of information that has grown over the years. This hints at rethinking our entire research methodology and modifying it to suit the needs of the individual patient. (shrink)

The standard foil for recent theories of hope is the belief-desire analysis advocated by Hobbes, Day, Downie, and others. According to this analysis, to hope for S is no more and no less than to desire S while believing S is possible but not certain. Opponents of the belief-desire analysis argue that it fails to capture one or another distinctive feature or function of hope: that hope helps one resist the temptation to despair;2 that hope engages the sophisticated capacities of (...) human agency, such as planning;3 or that hope involves the imagination in ways desire need not.4 Here, I focus on the role of imagination in hope, and discuss its implications for hope’s relation to practical commitment or end-setting. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Martin Warner PHILOSOPHICAL POETRY: THE CASE OF FOUR QUARTETS I FOR plato the quarrel between philosophy and poetry was already an ancient one. Since his day strenuous efforts have been made to eliminate it by circumscribing each widiin carefully specified boundaries, on die principle that strong fences make good neighbors, and allowing die one to venture onto the territory of the other only as licensed. Thus until recently (...) assessments of the literary quality of a philosopher's writing have commonly been treated as extraneous to its value as philosophy, and philosophical probing of die thought of a poem as irrelevant to a literary critic's final assessment ofit. For some works, however, such compromises seem forced; Four Quartets is a case in point. Here we have a sustained effort to explore issues of a philosophical and theological nature in poetic terms — in a manner that challenges our understanding and lays claim to our assent. The poetry does not merely encapsulate a theoretical position, but enacts a process ofthought perceived as bearing on diese topics at least as significandy as do those processes commonly termed "philosophical," and diereby raises by implication more general issues concerning die status of those "philosophical" modes themselves. F. R. Leavis is well known both for his engagement with the poetry of T. S. Eliot, and for his insistence on a clear separation between literary criticism and philosophy; dius his raising of philosophical questions as an integral and decisive element in his final and most extensive analysis ofthe Quartets is particularly striking: That Four Quartets offers us thought, searching, basic and rigorous, we have our assurance in the first ten lines of"Burnt Norton".... As thought, it aspires to a general validity.... 222 Martin Warner223 The questions, how must reality be conceived, and what is the nature of the human situation, have been raised in a way diat compels one to determine and verify one's own ultimate beliefs.1 Of course, Leavis is clear that the manner in which die poem raises these questions is not that traditionally associated with philosophy: "The 'music' of Four Quartets challenges a criterion that is not logic, but something equivalent in the field of total meaning. We can only tell what it is by intelligent self-exposure to the poetry" (p. 159). Similarly his mode of"determining " and "verifying" his own beliefs in response is that proper to literary criticism. But the questions are plainly philosophical ones, and one does not need the authority of Leavis to see that the poem raises them. From a philosophical point ofview, the interesting questions are the status of the manner in which it does so and the nature of the "criterion that is not logic" which is said to have an internal relation to that "intelligent selfexposure to the poetry" which Leavis in his critical practice seeks to exemplify. Unfortunately, this late commentary on Eliot's poetry is among the weakest in the Leavis corpus, precisely lacking "intelligent self-exposure to the poetry";2 but this should not lead us to dismiss its more general claims. In earlier and far stronger criticism Leavis had already argued that "Burnt Norton" does "by strictly poetical means the business ofan epistemological and metaphysical inquiry" ("Eliot's Later Poetry," p. 65). Further, die most distinguished recent criticism of Eliot's poetry is probably that of A. D. Moody,3 and he too finds himself driven to place his own "ultimate beliefs" in relation to it. On the one hand, "There is likely to be at least some degree of essential conformity between the way we live now and die way in which the poem would order life; and to that extent the poem can be said to express, and to give a form to, the sensibUity ofits age" (p. 264). But on the other, "It is a neurotic vision, one arising from some disorder or disease of the personality — or of his culture.... It is not easy to attain a detached view of die neurosis which is like a dominant gene in our culture. It is a matter... of the alienation ofman from mat to which he properly, of his nature, belongs — his being cut off from... (shrink)

In his fascinating doctoral thesis, W.J. Hanegraaff has drawn a clear map to the labyrinth called 'New Age', which he defines as 'the cultic milieu having become conscious of itself as constituting a more or less unified movement'. It is an 'etic' description of 'emic' points of view held by a wide variety of representatives of this movement. The book is divided in three parts: 1. A general orientation; 2. The varieties of New Age experience; 3. An interpretation of the (...) material presented in parts 1 and 2. The author argues that although New Age is composed of many heterogenous elements, nevertheless a measure of coherence can be demonstrated even on the level of beliefs. He holds that as New Age is based on popular culture criticism, thus western esotericism, in which the movement is rooted, it is a third, 'gnostic' option in western culture next to philosophical and scientific rationalism and institutional Christianity. The reviewer, though enthusiastic about the book, questions it on its criteria for distinguishing New Age and Christianity and on the question of possible esoteric influences on apparently Christian movements. The distinction between faith and gnosis could perhaps be profitably related to God's transcendence and his immanence. The platonism of the early Church, adapted for Christian use, ought to be compared with the many platonic elements of present day New Age. (shrink)

1 Evidence-based policy requires researchers to provide the answers to ecological questions that are of interest to policy makers. To find out what those questions are in the UK, representatives from 28 organizations involved in policy, together with scientists from 10 academic institutions, were asked to generate a list of questions from their organizations. 2 During a 2-day workshop the initial list of 1003 questions generated from consulting at least 654 policy makers and academics was used as a basis for (...) generating a short list of 100 questions of significant policy relevance. Short-listing was decided on the basis of the preferences of the representatives from the policy-led organizations. 3 The areas covered included most major issues of environmental concern in the UK, including agriculture, marine fisheries, climate change, ecosystem function and land management. 4 The most striking outcome was the preference for general questions rather than narrow ones. The reason is that policy is driven by broad issues rather than specific ones. In contrast, scientists are frequently best equipped to answer specific questions. This means that it may be necessary to extract the underpinning specific question before researchers can proceed. 5 Synthesis and applications. Greater communication between policy makers and scientists is required in order to ensure that applied ecologists are dealing with issues in a way that can feed into policy. It is particularly important that applied ecologists emphasize the generic value of their work wherever possible. (shrink)

This book traces the development of theories of the self and personal identity from the ancient Greeks to the present day. From Plato and Aristotle to Freud and Foucault, Raymond Martin and John Barresi explore the works of a wide range of thinkers and reveal the larger intellectual trends, controversies, and ideas that have revolutionized the way we think about ourselves. The authors open with ancient Greece, where the ideas of Plato, Aristotle, and the materialistic atomists laid the groundwork (...) for future theories. They then discuss the ideas of the church fathers and medieval and Renaissance philosophers, including St. Paul, Philo, Augustine, Aquinas, and Montaigne. In their coverage of the emergence of a new mechanistic conception of nature in the seventeenth century, Martin and Barresi note a shift away from religious and purely philosophical notions of self and personal identity to more scientific and social conceptions, a trend that has continued to the present day. They explore modern philosophy and psychology, including the origins of different traditions within each discipline, and explain both the theoretical relevance of feminism and gender and ethnic studies and also the ways that Derrida and other recent thinkers have challenged the very idea that a unified self or personal identity even exists. Martin and Barresi cover a number of issues broached by philosophers and psychologists, such as the existence of a fixed and unchanging self and whether the concept of the soul has a use outside of religious contexts. They address the question of whether notions of the soul and the self are still viable in today's world. Together, they reveal the fascinating ways in which great thinkers have grappled with these and other questions and the astounding impact their ideas have had on the development of self-understanding in the west. (shrink)

English summary: Friedrich Schleiermacher's work as a theologian and Plato scholar marked the start of a new epoch: as a system-forming philosopher, he claimed independent validity, and as church politician, educational policy-maker, and academic theorist, he was one of the most important figures during the Prussian reforms, whose contributions to pedagogy remain influential to this day. This volume provides a clear-sighted overview of the various stages in Schleiermacher's life (1768-1834), with each contribution portraying his fields of work and their contexts, (...) placing his literary work and conceptions in the framework of the respective contemporary debates. Important stages in Schleiermacher reception and impact history are likewise considered. The authors' diverse approaches to interpreting and understanding his output mean that the Guide to Schleiermacher offers concentrated insight into the consensus on and controversies in current Schleiermacher research. German description: Friedrich Schleiermacher (1768-1834) hat als Theologe, aber auch als Plato-Forscher Epoche gemacht; als systembildender Philosoph erhob er selbstandigen Geltungsanspruch, als Kirchen- und Bildungspolitiker sowie als Theoretiker der Universitat gehorte er zu den wichtigsten Akteuren der preussischen Reformen, und seine Beitrage zur Padagogik wirken bis heute nach. Die Gliederung des Handbuchs folgt grob Schleiermachers Lebensstationen. Die einzelnen Beitrage schildern seine Arbeitsfelder und -kontexte und stellen seine literarischen Arbeiten und Entwurfe in den jeweiligen zeitgeschichtlichen Debattenlagen dar. Auch wichtige Stationen seiner Wirkungs- und Rezeptionsgeschichte werden thematisiert.Die Autorinnen und Autoren der Beitrage verfolgen ganz unterschiedliche Interpretations- und Deutungsansatze. Deshalb bietet das Handbuch auch einen konzentrierten Einblick in den gegenwartigen Stand der Schleiermacher-Forschung mit ihren Konsensen und ihren Kontroversen. Mit Beitragen von: Christian Albrecht, Andreas Arndt, Bernd Auerochs, Ulrich Barth, Albrecht Beutel, Georg Eckert, Hermann Fischer+, Ursula Frost, Albrecht Geck, Simon Gerber, Wilhelm Grab, Peter Grove, Matthias Heesch, Eilert Herms, Kirsten Huxel, Walter Jaeschke, Lutz Kappel, Hans-Martin Kirn, Dietz Lange, Inken Madler, Helmut Merkel, Martin Ohst, Claus-Dieter Osthovener, Hermann Patsch, Reiner Preul, Andreas Reich, Joachim Ringleben, Jan Rohls, Martin Rossler, Dirk Schmid, Friedemann Voigt, Folkart Wittekind, Matthias Wolfes. (shrink)

Resumen: El texto propone un recorrido sucinto por los modos en que las lecturas marxistas de fines de los años setenta del siglo XX se apropiaron de la figura de Carl Schmitt, con el propósito de enriquecer con su concepción fuerte de lo político lo que era considerado una debilidad propia del marxismo: su teoría política. Se toman dos casos paradigmáticos en materia de articulación entre Schmitt y Marx: el del italiano Mario Tronti y el del argentino José María Aricó. (...) La lectura parte de la hipótesis de que los ejercicios de Tronti y Aricó se pueden leer como intentos de complementar a Marx con las contribuciones de Schmitt, razón por la cual permanecen al interior del marxismo como horizonte problemático. Finalmente, sugerimos que sobre todo a partir de los años ochenta, y con mayor énfasis de los noventa hacia el presente, las lecturas de Schmitt que continuaron formulándose desde el campo de las izquierdas se hicieron por fuera -y quizá en contra- del marxismo, en la medida en que se lo considera incapaz de producir una teoría compleja de lo político. Se abre entonces la pregunta por los alcances de estas distintas operaciones en materia de crítica del presente.: This paper proposes a brief tour of the ways in which Marxist readings of the late 1970s appropriated the figure of Carl Schmitt in order to enrich Marxist political theory with Schmitt’s strong conception of the political. The paper revisits two paradigmatic cases of complementarity between Schmitt and Marx: the Italian Mario Tronti and Argentine Jose Maria Aricó. The paper puts forward the hypothesis that the exercises of Tronti and Aricó are attempts to supplement Marx with contributions from Schmitt, which is why they remain problematic within Marxism. Finally, we suggest that from the 1980s onward, and with greater emphasis since the 1990s, readings of Schmitt made from the left are outside Marxism, to the extent that they are considered unable to produce a complex theory of the political. The paper ends by discussing the present-day scope of these various critiques. (shrink)

In 1925 a debate erupted in the correspondence columns of the British Medical Journal concerning the effectiveness of eating raw pancreas as a treatment for diabetes. Enthusiasts were predominantly general practitioners , who claimed success for the therapy on the basis of their clinical impressions. Their detractors were laboratory‐oriented ‘biochemist‐physicians,’ who considered that their own experiments demonstrated that raw pancreas therapy was ineffective. The biochemist‐physicians consistently dismissed the GPs' observations as inadequately ‘controlled’. They did not define the meaning of ‘control’ (...) in this context, although it clearly did not have the term's present‐day meaning of a trial employing an untreated comparison group of patients. Rather, the physician‐biochemists' ‘properly controlled’ experiments involved careful regulation of their patients' diet and other environmental factors, and evaluation of the therapy's success through biochemical, rather than just clinical, criteria. However, my analysis suggests that these factors alone are inadequate to account for the biochemist‐physicians' dismissal of the GPs' work as ‘uncontrolled’. I suggest that the biochemist‐physicians were deliberately exploiting the powerful rhetorical connotations of the term ‘control’. Ultimately, they implied that only a trial which they themselves had conducted could be deemed ‘adequately controlled’. (shrink)

No contemporary intellectual historian has produced more influential reflections on the historian’s craft than Hayden White and Quentin Skinner, yet their legacy has never been meaningfully compared. Doing so reveals a surprising complementarity in their approach, at least to the extent that Skinner’s stress on recovering the intentionality of authors fits well with White’s observation that irony is the dominant rhetorical mode of historical narrative in our day. Irony itself, to be sure, has to be divided broadly speaking into its (...) dramatic or Socratic variants and the unstable and paradoxical alternative defended by poststructuralist critics. The latter produced in White an anxiety about the anarchistic implications of an allegedly inherent undecidability in historical interpretation and narration, which threatened to conflate history entirely with fiction. By recovering the necessary role of intentionality as a prerequisite for a more moderate version of Socratic and dramatic irony—in which hindsight provides some purchase on a truth denied actors at the time history is made—it is possible to rescue an ironic attitude that can register the frequency of unintended consequences without surrendering to the conclusion that no explanation or interpretation is superior to another. Against yet a third alternative, which tries to reconstruct the past rationally as a prelude to the present, acknowledging the ironic undermining of intentions avoids giving all the power to the contemporary historian and restores a dialogic balance between actors in the past and their present-day interpreters. (shrink)

On the day of German Labor, on the day of the Community of the People, the Rector of Freiburg University, Dr. Marin Heidegger, made his official entry into the National Socialist Party. And so begins one of the most controversial philosophical texts available today. Heidegger, a German Nationalist and proud Nazi, thoroughly examines the history, the philosophy, and the rise to power of the Nazi movement in Germany. Martin Heidegger s distinguished Italian colleague, Professor Benedetto Croce, said of his (...) German contemporary, This man dishonors philosophy and that is an evil for politics too. Croce s severe rebuke was not singular at the time when Hitlerism was rampant over Europe. It is true that among the almost one thousand professional philosophers of Germany and Austria only very few actively opposed National Socialism. On the other hand, no one degraded his historic profession in the manner Heidegger did, by becoming a spokesman for National Socialism and attempting to mold his theories into one pattern with Hitlerism. Heidegger s contribution to the growth and development of National Socialism was immense. In this small anthology Dr. Runes endeavors to point to the utter confusion Heidegger created by drawing, for political and social application of his own existentialism metaphysics, upon the decadent and repulsive brutalization of Hitlerism. Martin Heidegger was a philosopher most known for his contributions to German phenomenological and existential thought. Heidegger was born in rural Messkirch in 1889 to Catholic parents. While studying philosophy and mathematics at Albert-Ludwig University in Freiburg, Heidegger became the assistant for philosopher Edmund Husserl. Influenced by Husserl, Kierkegaard, and Nietzsche, Heidegger wrote extensively on the quality of Being, including his opus Being and Time. He served as professor of philosophy at Albert-Ludwig University and taught there during the war. In 1933, Heidegger joined the National Socialist German Worker s (or Nazi) Party and expressed his support for Hitler in several articles and speeches. After the war, his support for the Nazi party came under attack, and he was tried as a sympathizer. He was able to return to Albert-Ludwig University, however, and taught there until he retired. Heidegger continued to lecture and write until his death 1973. (shrink)

Donald T. Campbell outlines an epistemological theory that attempts to be faithful to evolution through natural selection. He takes his position to be consistent with that of Karl R. Popper, whom he credits as the primary advocate of his day for natural selection epistemology. Campbell writes that neither he nor Popper want to give up the goal of objectivity or objective truth, in spite of their evolutionary epistemology. In discussing the conflict between an epistemology based on natural selection and objective (...) truth, Campbell cites an article by the German sociologist and philosopher Georg Simmel entitled 'On a Connection of Selection Theory to Epistemology', as presenting the issue in a notably forthright manner.The present essay summarizes Simmel's article, with the purpose of clarifying, in terms that Campbell apparently finds satisfactory, the conflict that Campbell acknowledges between an evolutionary epistemology and ultimate truth; the essay then examines the responses of Campbell and Popper to Simmel's position. While Campbell and Popper acknowledge the work of Simmel, their responses suggest something less than a full consideration of Simmel's position. (shrink)

The possible Stoic origins of the natural rights and natural law theories of the Dutch jurist Hugo Grotius (1583–1645) has been a subject of scholarly debate in recent years. Yet discussions about Grotian sociability tend to focus exclusively on the meaning of appetitus societatis in De Jure Praedae (written in 1604–1608) and De Jure Belli ac Pacis (1625), with little reference to the historical context. Insufficient consideration has been given to the intended audience(s) of these works, Grotius’ purpose in writing (...) them, and the possible correlation between his overarching argument and his working methods. This article examines Grotius’ use and abuse of Seneca's philosophical works in De Jure Praedae, commissioned by the directors of the Dutch East India Company (or VOC) in autumn 1604. The brutal murder of Sebald de Weert on the island of Ceylon (modern-day Sri Lanka) in June 1603 is analyzed from a Stoic perspective in Chapter 15 of De Jure Praedae. Following his refusal to hand over Portuguese prisoners, De Weert and his crew were butchered on the beach of Batticaloa by Wilama Dharma Suriya, the ruler of the island's interior. Grotius blamed the victim. VOC commanders in monsoon Asia should suppress any residual loyalty which they might feel towards Christendom. It was imperative to conclude alliances with native rulers against the Iberian colonial powers, regardless of the rulers’ (lack of) faith or their horrific treatment of prisoners. As Grotius noted in Chapter 8 of De Jure Praedae, Seneca distinguished between “two kinds of commonwealth, the world state and the city state.” Spanish and Portuguese violations of the natural law – freedom of trade and navigation in particular – deserved condign punishment for the sake of both the fellowship of mankind and, naturally, the VOC and Dutch Republic. In assessing the uses of Stoicism in De Jure Praedae, much can be learned from the physical characteristics of Ms. BPL 917 in Leiden University Library, its sole surviving manuscript copy. Seneca's philosophical works are not cited at all in the original text of Ms. BPL 917, which Grotius copied out in 1604–1605. Instead, quotations from De Ira, De Clementia and De Beneficiis appear in the top and bottom margins of folio-pages or on inserted sheets of paper, which can be dated to 1607–1608. These quotations serve to flesh out an existing argument about the VOC's just war(s) in the East Indies. A case in point is the heavily rewritten Chapter 2. Grotius added quotations from De Clementia at the same time as he reformulated two natural laws on f. 8–9, a folio sheet inserted in or after January 1607. This was no coincidence. Revenging the past misdeeds of the Portuguese, which Grotius had described in great detail in Chapter 11, could no longer be considered the main or only priority of the VOC. Instead, Grotius contended on f. 8–9 that “evil deeds must be corrected” so as to achieve, in Seneca's words, “universal security.” Acting as a kind of global police force, the VOC should punish transgressors of the natural law on account of “that world community” envisioned by the Stoics. The practical consequences were felt during the Twelve Years Truce (1609–1621). Despite a cessation of arms in Europe, the VOC continued to engage in hostilities in the East Indies. The author of De Jure Praedae supported the Company on this. Like Cicero before him, he had successfully harnessed the Stoa to the cause of empire. (shrink)

Le catalogue est une forme de base de la littérature grecque. Elle se trouve, pour nous, la première fois chez Hésiode , se recristallise, en prose, dans l’opposition à la forme sérielle qu’Aristote oppose aux formes bouclées des périodes en prose. Or, on peut suivre sa tradition jusque dans l’antiquité dite tardive. Les Vies de philosophes et de sophistes de l’historien Eunape de Sardes peuvent l’illustrer que cette continuité est toujours comprise comme un recours aux catalogues hésiodiques ou autres de (...) l’époque archaïque. Nous procédons selon trois critères : premièrement, la tendance hésiodique de cacher un récit dans une énumération prétendument sobre se retrouve dans la suite de vies, qui se transforment peu à peu en histoire cohérente; deuxièmement le style sériel de la prose hérodotéenne ou d’Hypéride, lui-même héritier de la forme catalogique, se retrouve chez Eunape; troisièmement Eunape évoque comme modèle le Catalogue des femmes et présente son histoire comme une suite du catalogue des âges tel qu’il le lit dans Les Travaux et les Jours d’Hésiode.The Iron Age is over: Eunap of Sardes and the ‘Catalogic’ Pattern. In Greek literature, the catalogue is a basic pattern of epic song from the work of Hesiod onwards. Aristotle recognises this pattern by distinguishing a serial prose-style, as distinguished from a rounded prose-style, and this special pattern continues to be used even in what is called “late” Antiquity. That the writers were fairly aware of both the pattern and its origin, can be demonstrated by analysing “The Lives of Philosophers and Sophists” by Eunap of Sardes . Our study uses three criteria: firstly, the same Hesiodic tendency to conceal a story under what is presented as a mere list or enumeration, can be found in Eunap’s catalogue of Lives, which transform themselves slowly into a history of 4th century neoplatonistic philosophy; secondly, Eunap uses the same serial prose-style as do Herodotus or Hypereides, the heirs of the catalogic pattern; thirdly, Eunap himself mentions the “Catalogue of Women” as a possible model, and presents his history as a continuation of Hesiod’s catalogue of Ages in “Works and Days”. (shrink)

Editorial NoteThis lecture was given by Per Martin-Löf at Leiden University on August 25, 2001 at the invitation by Göran Sundholm to address the topic mentioned in the title and to reflect on Dummett’s earlier effort of almost a decade before. The lecture was part of a three-day conference on Gottlob Frege. Sundholm arranged for the lecture to be recorded and commissioned Bjørn Jespersen to make a transcript. The information in footnote 1, which Sundholm provided, has been independently confirmed (...) by Thomas Ricketts in an email to the author. The present version has been edited by Ansten Klev. Following the displayed text there is a lacuna in the original transcript corresponding to a pause in the recording when the tape was changed. The continuous text of the present version is the result of a few additions to the original transcript suggested by Klev and agreed to by the author. (shrink)

This article presents reflections on our experience with quilombola women, through the lens of the coloniality of power-knowledge. The text aims to challenge the contradictions we face as researchers and as women. We describe the workshop we presented over four days with the participation of the quilombola women, as well as the quilombo community where the activities were held. We discuss the performance of coloniality during the time we spent together and how it was present in the organization of knowledge (...) and in our bodies, the repercussions of coloniality on ourselves, and the possibility of decolonizing knowledge and subjects, in spite of the colonial pattern of power. The activities we carried out with these women left marks on us and served as a stimulus for us to decolonize ourselves, our judgments of the object-other, as well as our writing and research practices. (shrink)

The bestseller The Courage to Be presents Tillich’s “concrete existential” notion of religion that is based on the key terms ‘anxiety’ and ‘courage’. This essay traces this idea’s long history in Tillichian thinking that reaches back to the mid-twenties lectures on dogmatics in Marburg and Dresden, and outlines its core elements, pointing out its contrast to Tillich’s earlier notion of religion as the mind’s intention on absolute meaning. Subsequently, the discussion moves to Tillich’s theorem of the double principle of ‘individualization (...) and participation’, providing instructive insights into basic social presuppositions and types of religion, instructive especially in the present-day situation of religious pluralism. (shrink)

The notion that it is possible to construct intelligent machines out of nonorganic material is as old as Greek mythology. Vulcan, the lame god of fire, fabricated young women out of gold to assist him in his labours. He also made the bronze giant Talus, who guarded the island of Crete by running around it three times a day and heaving huge rocks at enemy ships. A single vein of ichor ran from Talus's neck to his heels. He bled to (...) death when he was wounded in the ankle or, according to another myth, when a brass pin in his heel was removed. (shrink)

On May 18, 1958, Martin Heidegger led a one-day colloquium in Freiburg on the topic of “Art and Thinking” together with Shin’ichi Hisamatsu, the Japanese philosopher and Buddhist scholar. The protocol of the colloquium, published in volume 16 of Heidegger’s Gesamtausgabe, presents a conversation among the colloquium participants about art in the East Asian world. In this conversation, Heidegger is particularly interested in hearing from Hisamatsu about the conception of art present in the East Asian world prior to the (...) introduction of Western aesthetic concepts and about the relationship between form and formlessness in East Asian aesthetics. The conversation allows Hisamatsu to clarify for the participants what he takes to be the most essential features of Zen art and how these features compare with those found in modern Western abstract art. (shrink)