The use of evidence in medicine is something we should continuously seek to improve. This book seeks to develop our understanding of evidence of mechanism in evaluating evidence in medicine, public health, and social care; and also offers tools to help implement improved assessment of evidence of mechanism in practice. In this way, the book offers a bridge between more theoretical and conceptual insights and worries about evidence of mechanism and practical means to fit the results into evidence assessment procedures.

In this article, we present results from a literature review of intrinsic, instrumental, and relational values of nature conducted for the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services, as part of the Methodological Assessment of the Diverse Values and Valuations of Nature. We identify the most frequently recurring meanings in the heterogeneous use of different value types and their association with worldviews and other key concepts. From frequent uses, we determine a core meaning for each value type, which is (...) sufficiently inclusive to serve as an umbrella over different understandings in the literature and specific enough to help highlight its difference from the other types of values. Finally, we discuss convergences, overlapping areas, and fuzzy boundaries between different value types to facilitate dialogue, reduce misunderstandings, and improve the methods for valuation of nature's contributions to people, including ecosystem services, to inform policy and direct future research. © 2023 The Author(s). Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the American Institute of Biological Sciences. (shrink)

The purpose of this article is twofold. First, on the basis of a re-examination of the sources and with new arguments, it discusses the meaning of a verse-fragment quoted anonymously by Servius ad Aen. 4.638 (Enn. Ann. Dub. Fr. V Sk. = Inc. 31 blänsdorf, p. 434 courtney), and supports the attribution of this fragment to Ennius’ “Annales”. Second, it demonstrates that this attribution is not undermined by the presence, in the fragment, of a parenthetical phrase that is “in apposition”, (...) a stylistic feature which, though commonly believed to date back to Virgil’s time, may, in fact, be also attested in another Ennian fragment from the “Annales” (Enn. Ann. 22 Sk.). (shrink)

L'articolo analizza alcune opere di Pietro Prini, noto studioso di Rosmini, sulla questione dell'essere.

Este artigo recorda os principais aspectos e motivações da Expedição Langsdorff, missão de reconhecimento do interior do Brasil iniciada em 1821, composta pelo cônsul russo barão Langsdorff, o pintor alemão Moritz Rugendas, Aimé-Adrien Taunay, Nicolas-Antoine Taunay, o polígrafo Hercules Florence e o especialista em mapas Néster G. Rubtsov. Busca diferenças entre esta expedição e iniciativas outras, a título de exemplo, as dos bandeirantes e jesuítas, bem como a expedição indigenista de Rondon, e propõe o aprofundamento das investiga­ções. Apresenta atributos (...) resgatados pela poesia brasileira contemporânea e elementos cons­titutivos da identidade cultural brasileira presentes na Expedição Langsdorff, os quais os auto­res sugerem ser relevantes para pesquisadores do tema e para a inserção do Brasil no contexto internacional político, diplomático e econômico nos tempos hodiernos. (shrink)

O artigo quer avaliar a presença das intuições religiosas de Dostoievski na escritura teológica do jovem Barth. Procuramos demonstrar os elementos fundamentais de sua trajetória teológica e, sobretudo, seu contato com Eduard Thurnysen, autor de uma obra sobre Dostoiévski, que exerceu uma influência determinante no horizonte hermenêutico que deu forma à postura teológica do Barth de Römerbrief, obra que instaurou uma negatividade desconstrutora de toda euforia religiosa do humanismo moderno. Partimos do pressuposto que Dostoievski determinou a intelligentsia religiosa do cristianismo (...) em proporções pouco explicitadas, e a obra do jovem Barth representou parte de uma reflexão teológica que encontrou no autor russo os fundamentos de um cristianismo trágico que emancipou-se das ilusões de uma auto-idolatria moderna e eclesiástica. Palavras-chave : Dostoiévski. Barth. Humanismo. Negatividade. Niilismo.This article aims to analizes the presence of Dostoievski's religious insights in the theological writing of the young Barth. We tried to demonstrate the key elements of his theological career and, especially, his contact with Eduardo Thurnysen, author of a book on Dostoievski, who exercised a decisive influence on the hermeneutical horizon that shaped the theological posture of Romerbrief' s Barth - a work that established a negativity that desconstructed all religious euphoria of modern humanism. We assumed that Dostoyevsky has determined a religious intelligenstsia of Christianity in proportions rarely made ​​explicit. The work of the young Barth represented part of a theological reflection which found in the Russian author the foundations of a tragic Christianity that has emancipated Barth from illusions of a modern and ecclesiastical self-idolatry Keywords : Dostoievsky. Barth. Humanism. Negativity. Nihilism. (shrink)

With a vast majority of the land in the Driftless Region of the Midwestern United States dedicated to agricultural production, the future of farming has significant economic, social, recreational, agricultural, and ecological implications. An important literature stream has developed on ways agriculture can change to impact both human and ecological communities positively. In this study, we examine the processes and extent to which community narratives assert and inform regional identities that shape the meaning of being a good farmer. Using a (...) mixed methods approach, we examine what farmers consider good farming and how they utilize community narratives to assert their perspective of good farming. Employing a correlational analysis, we examined the relative importance of the four dimensions of good farming (productivist, conservationist, civic-minded, and naturalist). In addition, we used narrative analysis to explore the development of community narratives that assert a multi-dimensional view of good farming. Data for this study was collected through 21 semi-structured interviews with farmers, two focus groups of farmers, and a survey of farmers with 82 survey participants. The mean scores for conservationist, civic-minded, and naturalist dimensions were significantly higher than those for productivists. There was no significant correlation between the productivists dimension and the three other dimensions of good farming. Through analysis of transcripts, we identified a community narrative that actively problematized a dominant cultural narrative centered on production agriculture. Collectively, a community narrative is emerging in the Driftless Region that sought to normalize agricultural practices that promote profitable farms, vibrant communities, and a wide array of ecosystem services. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Skeptical Selves: Empiricism and Modernity in the French NovelDaniel GordonSkeptical Selves: Empiricism and Modernity in the French Novel, by Elena Russo; 225 pp. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1996, $35.00.Skeptical Selves explains how linguistic relativism has shaped French literature from the Enlightenment to the present. Elena Russo provides three cases: Prévost’s Histoire d’une Grecque moderne (1740), Constant’s Adolphe (1816), and des Forêts’s Le Bavard (1946). Her fascinating (...) scholarly goal is to portray the inexorable decline of the novel in a climate of ever growing doubt about the truthfulness of narration. Her remarkably ambitious philosophical goal is to save the novel by refuting skepticism!More precisely, Russo’s target is not every form of doubt but rather a specific current of French skeptical consciousness. In recent years, the representatives of this current have been Derrida and Blanchot. Its main feature is a denial of the correspondence notion of the language-truth relationship combined—paradoxically—with an intense nostalgia for a perfectly mimetic language that has allegedly been lost. The seemingly most radical critics of the sign, Russo claims, never overcome the perverse yearning for the very mimesis whose possibility they deny (p. 3).Russo is getting at an interesting distinction here, the distinction between epistemological modesty, which she upholds, and French skepticism, which she deplores. Epistemological modesty means the redefinition of truth according to some criterion other than perfect representation of the external world. French skepticism for her means the insistence on an absolute standard of mimetic reliability and a simultaneous denial that this standard can ever be reached. “Much of the language of negativity we have grown accustomed to in contemporary criticism rests upon the following syllogism: to know is to know directly and without mediation; this is not possible; therefore, the world is unknowable. Any conceptualization is ipso facto viewed as suspect, hence the flight towards nonverbal forms of expression, such as music and silence” (p. 13).After suggesting in her first chapter that French skepticism is a specific style of thought, not a final answer to our epistemological queries, Russo goes on to illustrate the impact of this skepticism on the novel. Prévost’s text, she observes, is one of the first novels built around the distorted point of view of a fallible [End Page 179] narrator. The narrator is the French ambassador to Constantinople who falls in love with a woman, Théophé, recently freed from a seraglio. Both his love and his comprehension are frustrated by the woman’s apparent simplicity and virtue. “Signs acquire a meaning opposite to their manifest one,” Russo notes. “It is precisely the discourse that should have made Théophé look credible that makes her appear suspicious. She is cunning and deceptive because she appears ‘naive’ and ‘innocent’; she is opaque because of her ‘simplicity’ and ‘openness’” (p. 42). The whole point of the novel is to show that we are imprisoned in subjectivity and there is no way out. For a time the narrator attempts to resolve his doubts regarding Théophé’s words by concentrating instead on her body. But here as well he can discover only ambiguity: nothing reveals clearly whether she is conquerable and whether she already has another lover.The novel ends with the unexplained death of Théophé, and Russo comments: “we are given the impression that, rather than ending his text, Prévost is ridding himself of an intractable problem” (p. 66). Artfully, the rest of the book helps us see that the tendency to thematize philosophical problems that have no solutions is intensified in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries—to the point where not merely the ending of novels but novels themselves disappear. (Of course, Russo means not that people no longer write novels but that the genre has succeeded in diminishing its own stature by so frequently decrying the limits of language.)The chapter on Constant did not strike me as the strongest part of the book. The problem is due perhaps to the fact that Constant was a truly great thinker, a brilliant political theorist and philosopher of religion as well as a romantic novelist. One chapter does not... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:NECESSARY PROPOSITIONS AND THE SQUARE OF OPPOSITION MARK ROBERTS University of Rhode Island Kingston, Rhode Island IT IS COMMONPLACE to define contradictory, contrary, and subcontrary propositions in the following way: contradictory propositions cannot both be true and cannot both be false; contrary propositions cannot both be true but can both be false; and subcontrary propositions can both be true but cannot both be false. In his Introduction to Logic (...) 1 Irving Copi raises a problem with two of these definitions which he believes forces him to limit the range of propositions which can be used in the square of opposition. Since contrary propositions can both be false, but the falsity of a necessarily true proposition is not possible, a necessarily true proposition has no contrary. Therefore, only contingent propositions can be contraries. Subcontrary propositions can both be true, but the truth of a necessarily false proposition is not possible.2 This problem is rarely raised in other logic texts, but, it is interesting to note, it is mentioned by a number of neoscholastic philosophers, for example, P. Nicholas Russo,3 Rev. H. Grenier,4 1 Irving M. Copi, Introduction to Logic (New York: Macmillan, 1986), pp. 178-179. Copi first introduced this problem in the fifth edition of his work on the basis of an article by David H. Sanford entitled " Contraries and Subcontraries,'' Nous 2 (1968) : 95-96. Sanford argues that the most reasonable way to resolve the problem of necessary propositions is to assume that contingent propositions comprise the square of opposition. 2 Copi, pp. 178-179. 8 Nicholas Russo, Summa Philosophica (Boston: Apud Marlier et Socios, 1[;85), p. 23. 4 Henri Grenier, Thomistic Philosophy, Vol. I (Charlottetown, Canada: St. Dunstan's University, 1950), p. 69. 427 428 MARK ROBERTS G. Sanseverino,5 Jacques Maritain,6 F.-X. Maquart,7 P. Coffey,8 and others.9 (It is also mentioned by Bishop Whately.10 ) Each of these philosophers makes necessarily true or false propositions an exception to the definition of contrary and subcontrary propositions. The reason is they and Copi interpret the definitions of contrary and subcontrary propositions to mean that the falsity of each contrary proposition is possible and the truth of each subcontrary proposition is possible. It should be mentioned, however, that the position of the philosophers cited above is not entirely the same as Copi's. Copi reasons that these definitions imply that necessary propositions have no contrary or subcontrary. The other philosophers believe that necessary propositions can be contraries and subcontraries. Thus, in the case of necessary propositions contrary and subcontrary propositions are, instead, defined merely in terms of their quantity and quality, not by whether or not they can both be false or can both be true. In fact, Coffey and some of the other philosophers cited above assert that, when the propositions composing the square are necessary, one can infer the truth of the universal from the truth of 5 Gaietano Sanseverino, Philosophia Christiana, Vol. II (Neapoli: Vincentii Manfredi, 1862), pp. DCCXXXVIII ff. 6 J. Maritain, An Introduction to Logic (London: Sheed & Ward, 1937), p. 135, notes 1 & 2. 7 F.-X. Maquart, Elementa Philosophiae, Vol. I (Parisiis: Andreas Blot, 1937)' p. 126 ff. 8 P. Coffey, The Science of Logic, Vol. 1 (New York: Longmans, Green & Co., 1918), p. 225, 226. 9 Joseph Gredt, Elementa Philosophiae, Vol. I (Friburgi: Herder, 1929), p. 46, notes 1 & 2; Sylvester J. Hartman, A Textbook of Logic (New York: American Book Co., 1936), p. 162 ff; Roland Houde and Jerome J. Fischer, Handbook of Logic (Dubuque, Iowa: Wm. C. Brown Co., 1954), p. 61; Eduard Hugon, Cursus Philosophiae Thomisticae, Vol. I (Parisiis: P. Lethielleux n.d), p. 155; Dennis C. Kane, Logic: The Art of Predication and Inference (Providence: Providence College Press, 1978), p. 98 ff; Francis P. Siegfried, Essentialia Philosophiae (Philadelphia: Dolphin Press, 1927), p. 25; Francis Varvello, Minor Logic, trans. and supplemented Arthur D. Fearon (San Francisco: Univ. of San Francisco Press, 1933), p. 73 ff. 10 Richard Whately, Elements of Logic (Boston: James Munroe & Co., 1854), p. 77 ff. PROPOSITIONS AND THE SQUARE OF OPPOSITION 429 the particular and the falsity of the particular from the falsity of the universal.11 Maritain maintains that in the case... (shrink)

In Matthew 24, Jesus prophesied to his disciples about ‘wars and rumours of wars’ and other eschatological birth-pangs to prepare them in advance on how they are to be responding to eschatological events as they would be unfolding in the interim of his ascension and his promised Parousia. What then does Jesus mean by enlisting ‘wars and rumours of wars’ in this eschatological era to be functioning as ‘the beginning of birth-pangs’ and how should Christians be responding to wars and (...) rumours of wars as eschatological birth-pangs? Employing the redaction exegetical method, this study focuses on interpreting Matthew 24:6−8 to explain what Jesus most probably meant as he enlisted ‘wars and rumours of wars’ as eschatological birth-pangs; and with special reference to the Russia–Ukraine war that broke out on 24 February 2022, recommends from the Olivet prophecy how Christians are to be righteously responding to ‘wars and rumours of wars’ as eschatological birth-pangs. Contribution: This study explored Matthew 24:6−8 to unveil what Jesus means by enlisting wars and rumours of wars as eschatological birth-pangs. With special reference to the Russian military invasion of Ukraine, theological highlights were recommended on how Christians are to be responding to war and war rumours as end-time birth-pains. (shrink)

For Hume, one task of logic is “to explain the principles and operations of our reasoning faculties”; this chapter is a study of his logic of inductive reasoning, as presented in Book I of his Treatise and in the Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding. Like other early modern logics—especially those composed, as Hume’s was, under the influence of Locke—Hume’s logic is descriptive, explanatory, and normative. It also aspires to be revelatory. It is descriptive in documenting how our reasoning actually proceeds, explanatory (...) in telling us why it so proceeds, normative in telling us how it should proceed, and revelatory in using those findings to arrive at larger truths about human nature and human life. Hume formulates rules of inductive reasoning and ranks inductive arguments as better and worse. He also advocates the reform of intellectual disciplines. Yet his logic, it is argued, is at the same time deeply skeptical. (shrink)

Introduzione: L'uomo alla scoperta di se stesso, di N. Fabro.--Realtà della condizione umana e valori morali; appunti per una antropologia attuale, di S. Misser.--Fede nella creazione ed evoluzionismo, di P. Smulders.--Il senso biologico della morale di San Paolo, di José-Maria Gonzalez-Ruiz.--Immagine umanistica dell'uomo, di J.P. van Praag.--L'etica della situazione, di E. Schillebeeckx.--Dossier Teilhard de Chardin: Introduzione, Teilhard de Chardin, o della fede nell'uomo, di F.V. Joannes. Destino cosmico e destino individuale dell'uomo, di A. Catemario. L'evoluzione spirituale del genere umano, di (...) P. Martini. La Persona nel fenomeno della socializzazione, di F. Russo. (shrink)

Originally published in 1923 as part of a series of handbooks for teachers, this book sets out a possible course of instruction in citizenship through the teaching of history and geography. Showan includes a helpful bibliography for students and teachers alike who are seeking more information on teaching a subject in such a way, as he says in his preface, 'as to inculcate a respect for our national institutions, a desire and an aptitude for public and social service … and (...) an abiding love for England'. This book will be of value to anyone interested in the history of education, particularly citizenship education. (shrink)

Essays honoring the work of Catholic ethicist James F. Keenan.