In a recent re-assessment of the medical aspects of the Plague of Athens which is, to date, the most scholarly and comprehensive, Poole and Holladay have emphasized the tendency of many infectious diseases markedly to decline in virulence over decades and centuries and, sometimes, significantly to change their clinical manifestations. In the light of modern medicine they consider four possibilities: The Plague was a disease which still exists today. This they regard as improbable, It still exists in some remote (...) place or places unknown to medical science. This is discussed and dismissed, It became extinct, It was caused by an agent which nowadays causes a significantly different clinical syndrome. They conclude as follows: ‘The truth, we suggest, almost certainly lies in possibility or . But we can see no way of choosing between them. On either view the question: “What was the Athenian Plague?” is in principle unanswerable if the questioner is wanting to attach to the Plagsie the name of some modern disease or diseases’. (shrink)

"First published by Oxford University Press, 1916."--Title page verso.

We estimate that 208,000 deep brain stimulation (DBS) devices have been implanted to address neurological and neuropsychiatric disorders worldwide. DBS Think Tank presenters pooled data and determined that DBS expanded in its scope and has been applied to multiple brain disorders in an effort to modulate neural circuitry. The DBS Think Tank was founded in 2012 providing a space where clinicians, engineers, researchers from industry and academia discuss current and emerging DBS technologies and logistical and ethical issues facing the field. (...) The emphasis is on cutting edge research and collaboration aimed to advance the DBS field. The Eighth Annual DBS Think Tank was held virtually on September 1 and 2, 2020 (Zoom Video Communications) due to restrictions related to the COVID-19 pandemic. The meeting focused on advances in: (1) optogenetics as a tool for comprehending neurobiology of diseases and on optogenetically-inspired DBS, (2) cutting edge of emerging DBS technologies, (3) ethical issues affecting DBS research and access to care, (4) neuromodulatory approaches for depression, (5) advancing novel hardware, software and imaging methodologies, (6) use of neurophysiological signals in adaptive neurostimulation, and (7) use of more advanced technologies to improve DBS clinical outcomes. There were 178 attendees who participated in a DBS Think Tank survey, which revealed the expansion of DBS into several indications such as obesity, post-traumatic stress disorder, addiction and Alzheimer’s disease. This proceedings summarizes the advances discussed at the Eighth Annual DBS Think Tank. (shrink)

It is often said to-day that mathematics is nothing but an extension or development of logic; indeed, the identity of logic and pure mathematics is alleged so confidently by persons whose mathematical attainments entitle them to consideration when they talk about the subject-matter of mathematics, as to be in danger of being ranked with the truths that an educated man should accept on the authority of the specialist. Yet a little reflection might at least make one hesitate. For whatever else (...) may be said about logic, it is generally allowed to study thinking. Some would say merely that it studies inference; but inference is thinking. Now the mathematician thinks and infers, but he does not study the activity of thinking and inferring; and a study of that activity would never make the discoveries credited to the mathematicians. (shrink)

A relaxed and short road to peace of mind uncomplicated by the intellect and personal history. This renowned German teacher advocates deconstructing the tyrants called "feelings" and the egocentered programming of many lifetimes.

First published in 1938. The aim of this book is to expound Kant’s _Critique of Judgement _by interpreting all the details in the light of what Kant himself declares to be his fundamental problem. _A Commentary on Kant’s Critique of Judgement _provides an excellent introduction to Kant’s third critique, and will be of interest to students of philosophy.

This article presents an analysis of "spirituality." Ryle said that a belief is not known to be truly held unless one bases crucial action on it; but the qualifications "truly" and "crucial" can be stripped away. Spirituality then becomes consistency of actual action with a belief; or in behavior analytic terms, spirituality is "rule-governed" behavior. Beliefs can function not only as "discriminative stimuli" but also as "reinforcing stimuli." A belief need not correspond to the world as experienced in order to (...) have these functions. Spirituality, thus far in the analysis, is only rule-governed behavior, regardless of the source of the rule and regardless of the content of the rule except that the rule must specify actually performable behavior so that consistency of the action with the belief can be assessed. The separation of action from belief is a form of alienation in a Marxian sense ; to paraphrase Kant, beliefs without actions are empty and actions without beliefs are blind. That is, a belief that is not acted upon is literally useless, and action that is not based on a belief is literally irrational. Alienation is resolved when action is based on "right" motives, which are motives based on a set of principles. Analogously, spirituality is a special kind of rule-governed behavior because the rules that govern this behavior are part of a coherent system that defines "rightness.". (shrink)

Philosophical analyses can aid scientists in several ways. For example, they can help resolve disagreements among scientists about issues such as the relative value of facts versus theories and observations versus inferences; they provide historical descriptions of how science went when it went well or badly and scientists can imitate these descriptions as though they were prescriptive rules; they identify "families" of theories and methodologies on the basis of common uses of key words, which can help scientists understand theories and (...) methodologies other than their own; and they can provide essential backgrounds for scientistsí debates about issues such as final causality, chance causality, and context effects. However, philosophical analyses cannot provide support for empirical findings or theoretical concepts. (shrink)

This paper defends the view of continuants as 'four-dimensional worms' against an argument of Geach's. This is to the effect that if continuants are four-dimensional worms then their stages either do, or do not, fall under the very general terms satisfied by the continuants themselves (a stage of a man either is, or is not, a man); but that either alternative is untenable. I try to show how the former alternative may be defended by appealing to some of Geach's own (...) ideas about identity; then go on to defend the four-dimensionalist view from a criticism of it by Mellor, and finish with an account of the intuitive distinction between process and continuant terms. (shrink)

British accounts of medical ethics concentrate on confidentiality to the exclusion of wider questions of privacy. This paper argues for consideration of privacy within medical ethics, and illustrates through the television series `Hospital', what may go awry when this wider concept is forgotten.

There is preserved in Suidas' Lexicon a story about Polycrates of Samos and the island of Delos. It is offered by the lexicographer as an explanation of the phrase τατ σοι κα πύθια κα δλια , when used in a colloquial sense to mean ‘it's all the same to you’. Polycrates had instituted a festival on Delos and asked the Pythia whether to call it by the one name or the other. The phrase, which was supposed to have been the (...) Pythia's reply, was taken to mean that it was all the same to Polycrates whatever he called it, and the death of Polycrates, coming soon after, was interpreted as the fulfilment of the prophecy. Suidas cites Epicurus and Menander for the phrase itself, which was therefore in familiar use by the end of the fourth century B.C. As for the story about Polycrates, it is quite likely that Suidas' ultimate source was some writer of about that period, such as Demon, περ παροιμιν. It is very much in the manner of his fragments. (shrink)

This article reconstructs Nietzsche's shifting views on democracy in the period 1870–86 with reference to his enduring preoccupation with tyrannical concentrations of power and the conviction that radical pluralism offers the only effective form of resistance. As long as he identifies democracy with pluralism , he sympathizes with it as a site of resistance and emancipation. From around 1880 on, however, Nietzsche increasingly links it with tyranny, in the form of popular sovereignty, and with the promotion of uniformity, to the (...) exclusion of genuine pluralism. Democracy's emancipatory claims are reinterpreted as "misarchism," or hatred of authority, and Nietzsche looks to the "exceptional beings" excluded by democracy for sources of resistance to the "autonomous herd" and "mob rule." Against elitist readings of this move, it is argued that Nietzsche opposes the domination of the herd type under democracy from a standpoint in human diversity and a generic concern with the future of humankind. Exceptional individuals are conceived in pluralistic, agonal terms, as a community of legislators engaged in a process of transvaluation that serves the interests not of one or a few but of all of us: "the self-overcoming of the human.". (shrink)

The recent discussions about alternative sources of human embryonic stem cells , while stirring new interest in the developmental potential of the various abnormal embryos or constructs proposed as such sources, also raise questions about the potential of the derived embryonic stem cells. The data on the developmental potential of embryonic stem cells that seem relevant for ethical considerations and aspects of patentability are discussed. Particular attention is paid to the meaning of “totipotency, omnipotency and pluripotency” as illustrated by a (...) comparison of the developmental potential of three-dimensional clusters of blastomeres , embryonic stem cells, somatic or stem cells or other somatic cells. This paper focuses on embryoid bodies and on direct cloning by tetraploid complementation. Usage and patenting of these cells cannot be considered to be ethically sound as long as totipotency and tetraploid complementability of embryonic stem cells are not excluded for the specific cell line in question. Testing this poses an ethical problem in itself and needs to be discussed in the future. (shrink)

First published in 2002. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.