This book offers an introduction to the Sophists of fifth-century Athens and a new overall interpretation of their thought. Since Plato first animadverted on their activities, the Sophists have commonly been presented as little better than intellectual mountebanks - a picture which Professor Kerferd forcefully challenges here. Interpreting the evidence with care, he shows them to have been part of an exciting and historically crucial intellectual movement. At the centre of their teaching was a form of relativism, most famously expressed (...) by Protagoras as 'Man is the measure of all things', and which they developed in a wide range of views - on knowledge and argument, virtue, government, society, and the gods. On all these subjects the Sophists did far more than simply provoke Plato to thought. Their contributions were substantial and serious; they inaugurated the debate on many central philosophical questions and decisively shifted the focus of philosophical attention from the cosmos to man. (shrink)

In the modular design of generative theory the syntax-semantics interface has accounted all along for meanings at the level of Logical Form. The syntax-pragmatics interface, on the other hand, is the result of what one may call the 'pragmatic turn' in the linguistic theory, where content is partitioned into given and new information. In other words, the structural division of the clause has been subjected to criteria of information, or discourse structure. Both interfaces require a structurally descriptive inventory whose specific (...) shapes can be motivated on theory-internal grounds only. The present collection of original articles develops the concept of these interfaces further. The papers in the first section focus on the syntax-semantics interface, those in the second section on the syntax-pragmatics interface. (shrink)

"It is the purpose of this article to attempt to re-examine the account of Thrasymachus' doctrine in Plato's Republic, and to show how it can form a self-consistent whole. [...] In this paper it is maintained that Thrasymachus is holding a form of [natural right]." Note: Volume 40 = new series 9.

All-encompassing text examines every aspect of coma from neurochemistry, monitoring, and treatments to prognostic factors.

In the article "The Epistemological Nature of Information Modeling" [Gnoseologicheskaia priroda informatsionnogo modelirovaniia], Voprosy filosofii, 1963, No. 10, Academician V. M. Glushkov examines two important methodological aspects of the modeling of natural objects and phenomena in the contemporary natural sciences. The first consists of the informational nature of the models created, and the second of their dynamism. The dynamic nature of today's models in the natural sciences means that it is not so much the material structure of the object that (...) is modeled as its behavior and functions in some sphere of natural phenomena. In this sense, the models under examination may also be termed functional, as distinct from the structural models pertaining to a static description of objects. (shrink)

This paper attempts to delineate some of the principal features and tasks of a politics of postmodernity. An attempt is made in the first part of the paper to reflect on the democratic revolutions of 1989 in Eastern Europe and to discern what lessons they might have to offer. What is called for, it is maintained, is a renewed theory of democracy and, more particularly, a reformulation of traditional liberalism. In the second part of the paper the author seeks to (...) suggest how such traditional liberal concepts as the individual, reason, universality, and freedom can be reformulated in a genuinely postmetaphysical, postmodern fashion. (shrink)

F.A.Hayek is generally considered to be a representative of what, in regard to the methodology of the human sciences, is commonly referred to as ?methodological individualism?; (MI). This paper is an attempt to determine the exact nature and significance of Hayek's own particular brand of ?individualism.?; In particular, it attempts to show that Hayek's MI is grossly misinterpreted when it is viewed as being merely another instance of the atomistic or analytic individualism characteristic of much modern thinking. The ?true?; individualism (...) that Hayek argues for is in fact one which highlights the irremediably social nature of human being that recent hermeneutical and postmodern writers have stressed. (shrink)

Anselm: I agreed that Pegasus is a flying horse according to the stories people tell, the paintings painters paint and so on . That is, Pegasus is a flying horse in the understanding of storytellers, their readers and the artists who depict Pegasus. You asked whether flying is not an unmediated causal power . Well, it could be an unmediated causal power if you or I had it, but not if a being with only mediated powers had it. And so (...) poor Pegasus, a being whose powers are only those given him by storytellers and artists, has only the mediated power of flying that they have given him. He flies in the thoughts and depictions of beings with unmediated powers. Still, Pegasus has not only the mediated power to fly but also the mediated power to entertain us, and perhaps even inspire us. Fool: But people could tell stories about you, too, about how you sprouted wings and flew onto the roof of Canterbury Cathedral. Anselm: Alas, if it were only in stories that I could do that, then flying would not be an unmediated causal power of mine. I would still have unmediated causal powers all right, and so would be greater than Pegasus. But flying is not one of my unmediated causal powers. However, something than which nothing greater can be conceived would, and does, as I have proved in my Proslogion, have unmediated causal powers – indeed, much greater unmediated causal powers than any poor mortals like you and me.1 •↵1 For …. (shrink)

In this paper, the author attempts to explore some of the problems connected with the formulation and application of international biomedical ethical guidelines, with particular reference to Africa. Recent attempts at revising and updating some international medical ethical guidelines have been bedevilled by intractable controversies and wrangling regarding both the content and formulation. From the vantage position of relative familiarity with both African and Western contexts, and the privilege of having been involved in the revision and updating of one of (...) the international ethical guidelines, the author reflects broadly on these issues and attempts prescribing an approach from both the theoretical and practical angles liable to mitigate, if not completely eliminate, some of the problems and difficulties. (shrink)

The practice of paternalism has changed along with developments in medicine, philosophy, law, sociology and psychology. Physicians have learned that a patient's values are a factor in determining what is best for that patient. Modern paternalism continues to be guided by the principle that the physician decides what is best for the patient and pursues that course of action, taking into account the values and interests of the patient. In the autonomy model of the doctor-patient relationship, patient values are decisive. (...) In the paternalistic model, they are but one among several factors the physician must consider in making a medical decision. Although difficult to practise because of limitations in empathising with another person, modern paternalism remains a way to achieve maximum patient benefit. (shrink)

In these two volumes, David P. Levine undertakes the systematic clarification and further development of the theoretical contributions of classical political economy. It focuses on such central issues in economic theory as: * need, value and exchange * capital and its production * the concept of labour * growth * the firm * price determination. Throughout the treatment is at a high level of abstraction.

Plato's Sophist begins with an attempt to arrive by division at a definition of a Sophist. In the course of the attempt six different descriptions are discussed and the results summarized at 231 c-e. A seventh and final account may be said to occupy the whole of the rest of the dialogue, including the long digression on negative statements. The first five divisions characterize with a considerable amount of satire different types of sophist, or more probably different aspects of the (...) sophistic art. The sixth division is very different. To quote Cornford's words, ‘satire is dropped. The tone is serious and sympathetic, towards the close it becomes eloquent’. (shrink)

John Rawls’ use of a contractarian strategy for justifying basic principles of justice has raised the hope that a similar strategy might work for a theory of right and moral principles generally. I want to show that this hope cannot be fulfilled.In what follows I interpret contractarianism in a Rawlsian way on the grounds that his is the most plausible version of the doctrine we are likely to get. I am not however concerned with the details of Rawls’ argument for (...) justice but instead with an idea that appears to underlie the contractarian strategy. In order to avoid the complications of Rawlsian exegesis, I choose to discuss the doctrine as it might be used to justify a moral principle of mutual assistance and not as Rawls in fact uses it to justify principles of justice. (shrink)

In response to the recent antitheory movement which has called into question the relevance of theory itself, this paper seeks to defend the practice of theory. Taking hermeneutical theory as its model, it seeks to show how a properly postmodern conception of the role and function of theory eludes the criticisms elaborated by various antitheorists. In formulating a new way of envisaging the relation betweeen theory and practice, it seeks not only to defend the theoretical enterprise but to demonstrate as (...) well its importance for the discursive practices of the human sciences and for sociopolitical praxis. (shrink)