In this book, a Burmese manuscript from the mid-nineteenth century is the catalyst for a study of the multifaceted Buddhist cosmos. The manuscript not only lays out the complex array of realms in the Buddhist universe but also ventures into a number of esoteric and little-understood aspects of the Therav da cosmological system and its inhabitants. By presenting translations and narration of much of the manuscript's text and sharing his careful analysis of its vivid illustrations, the author uncovers fascinating details (...) of the Therav da Buddhist cosmos. Detailed color and black-and-white illustrations, including a complete reduced-scale reproduction of the manuscript, help clarify and explain the complex, segmented Buddhist cosmology. (shrink)

Interview by Marco Emanuele of James Brusseau. October 27, 2021, The Science of Where. Topics include: AI ethics, Accelerationism, Decentralization.

Book reviewed in this article: Principles of Biomedical Ethics. By Tom L. Beauchamp and James F. Childress.

Death in the Clinic fills a gap in contemporary medical education by explicitly addressing the concrete clinical realities about death with which practitioners, patients, and their families continue to wrestle. Visit our website for sample chapters!

Book reviewed in this article: Principles of Biomedical Ethics. By Tom L. Beauchamp and James F. Childress.

This collection of essays highlights the influence of Swedish visionary Emanuel Swedenborg on art, spirituality, and culture. Opening with an essay by Spanish-language writer and metaphysician Jorge Luis Borges, from which the collection draws its name, the volume includes a description of Swedenborg's influence on Fyodor Dosteovsky by Czleslaw Mloscz; a look at Swedenborg from a mystical perspective from Wilson Van Dusen; the transcendentalist connection with Ralph Waldo Emerson in an essay by Eugene Taylor; and Buddhist scholar D. T. (...) Suzuki's describes similarities between Swedenborg's philosophy and Buddhism. Essays by Kathleen Raine on Swedenborg's poetic influence and Colin Wilson on the psychological perspective on Swedenborg's visions round out the collection. (shrink)

In 2010, a scholarly conference on Emanuel Swedenborg’s ideas and influence was held at the Center for the History of Science at the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences in Stockholm. The conference was a celebration a recently completed digital catalog of the academy’s Swedenborg archive, which in 2006 was designated as part of UNESCO’s World Memory program. This was the first time that an academic conference on Swedenborg was hosted by a non-Swedenborgian institution. The conference attracted presenters from all (...) over the world, including some top scholars. Papers were divided into three categories. “Content” describes Swedenborg’s thought, from his use of spheres in his scientific writings to his views on sexuality and marriage to analyses of his theological writings. “Context” explores his times, putting Swedenborg in the context of eighteenth-century philosophy and looking at the organization of the earliest Swedenborgian church. “Contribution” looks at Swedenborg’s influence on philosophy and the arts, from Ralph Waldo Emerson and Czeslaw Milocz to Elizabeth Barrett Browning and William James. These papers present a rare insight into Swedenborg. Although only a limited number of attendees were invited to the conference, now the research is available to all. (shrink)

This is the first critical study of The Logic of Sense, Gilles Deleuze's most important work on language and ethics, as well as the main source of his vital philosophy of the event.James Williams explains the originality of Deleuze's work with careful definitions of all his innovative terms and a detailed description of the complex structure he constructs. This reading makes connections to his ground-breaking work on literature, to his critical but also progressive relation to the sciences, and to (...) his controversial denial of the priority of standard logics, human values and 'meaning' in thinking.This book will open new debates and develop current ones around Deleuze's work in philosophy, politics, literature, linguistics, cultural studies and sociology. (shrink)

Owing to various reasons, Stalinism still represents, according to this essay, a fertile intellectual topic. Therefore, my aim here is to offer a reading of Pavel Campeanu’s works on Stalinism – a relatively unknown Romanian Marxist – through the social history of the Soviet Union in general and of Stalinism in particular advanced by Moshe Lewin. The argumentation advances by taking into account the overall historical frame of the debate (Eastern and Western Marxism during the Cold War) and by stressing (...) some key issues like primitive accumulation, legitimacy, a certain overstretching of the concept of Stalinism and, finally, the issue of totalitarianism. The stake of the essay resides in claiming that Campeanu’s analyses of Stalinism, original and convincing as they are, may favor, in the above-mentioned issues, and regardless the author’s intentions, interpretations belonging to or deriving from the totalitarian school of Cold War and Soviet Studies. (shrink)

INTRODUCTION The Questions of Medical Ethics Call him Andrew. His face is gaunt and unshaven but peaceful. His eyelids are gently closed. ...

Un bambino di quattro anni nascosto sotto il tavolo in cucina, nell'attesa degli eventi che diventeranno poi la sua vita. È questa la prima immagine che appare a Emanuele Severino quando, errando tra i ricordi, riavvolge i fili della propria esistenza. Errando, appunto, perché il ricordo è di per sé falso e distratto. Tra aneddoti e suggestioni, riaffiorano l'infanzia a Brescia e gli anni della guerra; la scomparsa del fratello Giuseppe, arruolatosi come "volontario" sul fronte francese, e l'incontro con Esterina, (...) "la ragazza più bella di Brescia", che diventerà sua moglie ed è lo sfondo di queste pagine; gli studi universitari a Pavia e l'insegnamento alla Cattolica di Milano, a seguito del "maestro" Gustavo Bontadini; la controversia con la Chiesa, che nel 1970 proclamò l'incompatibilità delle sue posizioni con quelle della dottrina cattolica; il rapporto con i figli; la stesura delle sue opere e le conversazioni filosofiche con gli amici. Emanuele Severino, con uno sguardo delicato e ironico, ripercorre la sua vita, illuminando luoghi, volti ed esperienze, perché "ciò che se ne va scompare per un poco. Ma poi, tutto ciò che è scomparso riappare". (shrink)

As a leading judge of seventeenth century Scotland, Viscount Stair (1619−1695) was a significant public figure in the immediate period before the Scottish Enlightenment. Indeed, he offers a vital but often overlooked insight into the intellectual life of Scotland during his lifetime. However, as Stair never published anything specifically on moral philosophy, this article asks if it is possible to reconstruct a moral theory on his behalf based on his printed legal and theological works. On the assumption that this is (...) feasible, this article examines how Stair’s moral theory relates to the Scottish variant of natural jurisprudence. In response to these questions, the analysis offered here argues that one can constructure answers to central questions of moral philosophy from Stair’s printed works, and further that it is possible to classify his moral theory as an early example of Scottish natural jurisprudence. Although there are acknowledged challenges in reconstructing his moral theory, it is suggested by the argument below that, to fully grasp the intellectual life of seventeenth century Scotland, we may need to engage more deeply with the theological works of seventeenth century Scots as well as adopt resourceful methods to build a picture of seventeenth century ideas relating to morality. (shrink)

This review article gives an overview of the two most influential definitions of antisemit­ism in Europe: the non-legally binding working definition by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) and the so-called Jerusalem Declaration on Antisemitism. Furthermore, the article explains where the definitions come from and summarises the current debates and discourses on how to define antisemitism in view of the history and politics of Europe. It also gives brief attention to the Nexus Document as a third influential definition, which plays (...) a more important role in the United States. The article ends with a reflection on the definition offered by the historian Helen Fein, which is more action-based, and Amos Morris-Reich’s statement of the importance of reflecting on the role of language and the ability of language to create hate and to hurt. (shrink)

Within feminist literature from the early 1970s to this day, assisted reproductive technologies have been largely known to divide, replace or eliminate biological motherhood. For example, while in the past biological motherhood was considered a continuous experience, in vitro fertilisation (IVF) and IVF using egg donation allowed a split between two biological mothers, one providing eggs (genetic mother) and the other one gestation (gestational mother). This split was considered irreparable: the genetic mother could not be also gestational, and vice versa. (...) On the contrary, this paper aims to show that assisted reproductive technologies may also have a constructive potential towards biological motherhood(s). To explain how it could be possible, two existing techniques are explored: the first is maternal spindle transfer, which allows a double genetic motherhood; the second is reciprocal effortless IVF, which supposedly enables a double gestational motherhood. While in the first part, these techniques are examined singularly, in the second part a feasible combination of them is speculated. The idea is that assisted reproductive technologies could ‘recombine’ genetic and gestational motherhood in two figures that include both, namely in two ‘complete’ biological mothers, both genetic and gestational. (shrink)

"A very good book indeed: there is scarcely an issue anyone has thought to raise about the topic which Childress fails to treat with sensitivity and good judgement....Future discussions of paternalism in health care will have to come to terms with the contentions of this book, which must be reckoned the best existing treatment of its subject."--Ethics. "A clear, scholarly and balanced analysis....This is a book I can recommend to physicians, ethicists, students of both fields, and to those most affected--the (...) patients themselves."--Edmund D. Pellegrino, John Carroll Professor of Medicine and Medical Humanities, Georgetown University Medical Center. (shrink)

A revised, expanded and fully up-to-date critical introduction to Deleuze's most important work of philosophyBy critically analysing Deleuze's methods, principles and arguments, James Williams helps readers to engage with the revolutionary core of Deleuze's philosophy and take up positions for or against its most innovative and controversial ideas.

It is widely held that all lies are assertions: the traditional definition of lying entails that, in order to lie, speakers have to assert something they believe to be false. It is also widely held that assertion contrasts with presupposition and, in particular, that one cannot assert something by presupposing it. Together, these views imply that speakers cannot lie with presuppositions—a view that Andreas Stokke has recently explicitly defended. The aim of this paper is to argue that speakers can lie (...) with presuppositions, and to discuss some of the implications this outcome has for current research on lying, assertion and presupposition. (shrink)

Noted psychologist and philosopher develops his own brand of pragmatism, based on theories of C. S. Peirce. Emphasis on "radical empiricism," versus the transcendental and rationalist tradition. One of the most important books in American philosophy. Note.

Comprehensive in scope and research, this book will be a crucial resource for researchers in the medical sciences, as well as teachers and students alike.

The distinction between lying and mere misleading is commonly tied to the distinction between saying and conversationally implicating. Many definitions of lying are based on the idea that liars say something they believe to be false, while misleaders put forward a believed-false conversational implicature. The aim of this paper is to motivate, spell out, and defend an alternative approach, on which lying and misleading differ in terms of commitment: liars, but not misleaders, commit themselves to something they believe to be (...) false. This approach entails that lying and misleading involve speech-acts of different force. While lying requires the committal speech-act of asserting, misleading involves the non-committal speech-act of suggesting. The approach leads to a broader definition of lying that can account for lies that are told while speaking non-literally or with the help of presuppositions, and it allows for a parallel definition of misleading, which so far is lacking in the debate. (shrink)

Because rate of force development is an emerging outcome measure for the assessment of neuromuscular function in unfatigued conditions, and it represents a valid alternative/complement to the classical evaluation of pure maximal strength, this scoping review aimed to map the available evidence regarding RFD as an indicator of neuromuscular fatigue. Thus, following a general overview of the main studies published on this topic, we arbitrarily compared the amount of neuromuscular fatigue between the “gold standard” measure and peak, early and late (...) RFD. Seventy full-text articles were included in the review. The most-common fatiguing exercises were resistance exercises, endurance exercises/locomotor activities, isokinetic contractions, and simulated/real sport situations. The most widely tested tasks were knee extension and plantar flexion. The reason for evaluating RFD was lacking in 36% of the studies. On average, the amount of fatigue for MVF was comparable to late RFD but lower compared to both peak RFD and early RFD. Even if the rationale for evaluating RFD in the fatigued state was often lacking and the specificity between test task and fatiguing exercise characteristics was not always respected in the included studies, RFD seems to be a valid indicator of neuromuscular fatigue. Based on our arbitrary analyses, peak RFD and early phase RFD appear even to be more sensitive to quantify neuromuscular fatigue than MVF and late phase RFD. (shrink)

Moral philosophy is the study of what morality is and what it requires of us. As Socrates said, it's about "how we ought to live"-and why. It would be helpful if we could begin with a simple, uncontroversial definition of what morality is. Unfortunately, we cannot. There are many rival theories, each expounding a different conception of what it means to live morally, and any definition that goes beyond Socrates's simple formula-tion is bound to offend at least one of them. (...) This should make us cautious, but it need not paralyze us. In this chapter, I will describe the "minimum conception" of morality. (shrink)

How (Not) to Be Secular is what Jamie Smith calls "your hitchhiker's guide to the present" -- it is both a reading guide to Charles Taylor's monumental work A Secular Age and philosophical guidance on how we might learn to live in our times. Taylor's landmark book A Secular Age (2007) provides a monumental, incisive analysis of what it means to live in the post-Christian present -- a pluralist world of competing beliefs and growing unbelief. Jamie Smith's book is a (...) compact field guide to Taylor's insightful study of the secular, making that very significant but daunting work accessible to a wide array of readers. Even more, though, Smith's How (Not) to Be Secular is a practical philosophical guidebook, a kind of how-to manual on how to live in our secular age. It ultimately offers us an adventure in self-understanding and maps out a way to get our bearings in today's secular culture, no matter who "we" are -- whether believers or skeptics, devout or doubting, self-assured or puzzled and confused. This is a book for any thinking person to chew on. (shrink)

To understand the endogenous components of the event-related brain potential (ERP), we must use data about the components' antecedent conditions to form hypotheses about the information-processing function of the underlying brain activity. These hypotheses, in turn, generate testable predictions about the consequences of the component. We review the application of this approach to the analysis of the P300 component. The amplitude of the P300 is controlled multiplicatively by the subjective probability and the task relevance of the eliciting events, whereas its (...) latency depends on the duration of stimulus evaluation. These and other factors suggest that the P300 is a manifestation of activity occurring whenever one's model of the environment must be revised. Tests of three predictions based on this “context updating” model are reviewed. Verleger's critique is based on a misconstrual of the model as well as a partial and misleading reading of the relevant literature. (shrink)

We analyze recent criticisms of the use of hyperreal probabilities as expressed by Pruss, Easwaran, Parker, and Williamson. We show that the alleged arbitrariness of hyperreal fields can be avoided by working in the Kanovei–Shelah model or in saturated models. We argue that some of the objections to hyperreal probabilities arise from hidden biases that favor Archimedean models. We discuss the advantage of the hyperreals over transferless fields with infinitesimals. In Paper II we analyze two underdetermination theorems by Pruss and (...) show that they hinge upon parasitic external hyperreal-valued measures, whereas internal hyperfinite measures are not underdetermined. (shrink)

Dieses Buch bietet die erste systematische Interpretation von Husserls Ideen für eine reine Phänomenologie und phänomenologische Philosophie anhand der neuen kritischen Edition von Ideen II. Es ermöglicht eine phänomenologische Auslegung des allgemein-metaphysischen Problems, wie physische, mentale und soziale Tatsachen zusammenhängen. Das Buch diskutiert und interpretiert detailliert einige von Husserls zentralen Konzeptionen und zeigt die Konsequenzen seines Denkansatzes und seiner Theorieentwicklung. Natur und Gemeingeist sind Husserl zufolge die Grundbegriffe der naturalistischen und der personalistischen Einstellungen und dienen als Leitfaden der Unterscheidung zwischen (...) Natur- und Geisteswissenschaften. In der kritischen Auseinandersetzung mit diesem wissenschaftstheoretischen Dualismus führt Husserl den Habitus-Begriff methodisch ein, um das Verhältnis von Natur- und Sozialontologie aus der konkreten Erfahrung heraus phänomenologisch neu zu deuten, womit der spätere, anti-dualistische Weg der Lebensweltphänomenologie vorbereitet wird. In Husserls Studien zur Regionalontologie des Gemeingeistes rückt das konkrete Subjekt in den Vordergrund der Intentionalitätsanalyse, indem die sinntragenden Elemente der Inaktualitität auf Habitualisierungsprozesse und die Intersubjektivität auf Sozialisierungsstufen zurückgeführt werden. Dank der durch den Habitus-Begriff ermöglichten klaren Unterscheidung zwischen konstituierender Aktualität und konstitutiver Relevanz des inaktuellen Horizonts kann Husserls Philosophie des Geistes als individualistisch und holistisch zugleich gelten. Dieser ontologischen Position entspricht auch Husserls sozialepistemologische Ansicht, dass sich Wissenschaften erst im Rahmen idealisierter Sozialstrukturen entfalten können. Durch diese idealisierenden Operationen wird die Konstitution der Objektivität möglich, welche die Wissenschaften anstreben. Deren Rationalität ist deshalb in ihren konkreten und idealisierten Sozialitätsstufen und Habitualitäten zu befragen. (shrink)

Drawing on evolutionary epistemology, process ontology, and a social-cognition approach, this book suggests cognitive evolution, an evolutionary-constructivist social and normative theory of change and stability of international social orders. It argues that practices and their background knowledge survive preferentially, communities of practice serve as their vehicle, and social orders evolve. As an evolutionary theory of world ordering, which does not borrow from the natural sciences, it explains why certain configurations of practices organize and govern social orders epistemically and normatively, and (...) why and how these configurations evolve from one social order to another. Suggesting a multiple and overlapping international social orders' approach, the book uses three running cases of contested orders - Europe's contemporary social order, the cyberspace order, and the corporate order - to illustrate the theory. Based on the concepts of common humanity and epistemological security, the author also submits a normative theory of better practices and of bounded progress. (shrink)

In this paper we show how some reasoning, though fallacious, can appear to be attractive and useful for beings-like-us. Although they do not provide conclusive evidence to support or reject a certain claim the way scientific statements do, they tell us something interesting about how humans build up their arguments and reasons. First of all, we will consider and investigate three main types of fallacies: argumentum ad hominem, argumentum ad verecundiam, and argumentum ad populum. These three fallacies are traditionally considered (...) as examples of a broader category called ignoratio elenchi. Secondly, we show how people who commit these fallacies rely on information about other human beings in their reasoning. That is, they do not follow certain logical procedures that eventually lead them to correct conclusions. But they simply make use of others as social characters. For example, being an authority, being an expert, being part of a class, etc., become the substitutes for more direct evidence to support a certain claim or to make an argument more appealing. (shrink)

ABSTRACTA probability model is underdetermined when there is no rational reason to assign a particular infinitesimal value as the probability of single events. Pruss claims that hyperreal probabilities are underdetermined. The claim is based upon external hyperreal-valued measures. We show that internal hyperfinite measures are not underdetermined. The importance of internality stems from the fact that Robinson’s transfer principle only applies to internal entities. We also evaluate the claim that transferless ordered fields may have advantages over hyperreals in probabilistic modeling. (...) We show that probabilities developed over such fields are less expressive than hyperreal probabilities. (shrink)

In Emanuel Adler's distinctive constructivist approach to international relations theory, international practices evolve in tandem with collective knowledge of the material and social worlds. This book - comprising a selection of his journal publications, a new introduction and three previously unpublished articles - points IR constructivism in a novel direction, characterized as 'communitarian'. Adler's synthesis does not herald the end of the nation-state; nor does it suggest that agency is unimportant in international life. Rather, it argues that what mediates (...) between individual and state agency and social structures are communities of practice, which are the wellspring and repositories of collective meanings and social practices. The concept of communities of practice casts new light on epistemic communities and security communities, helping to explain why certain ideas congeal into human practices and others do not, and which social mechanisms can facilitate the emergence of normatively better communities. (shrink)

Many recent definitions of lying are based on the notion of what is said. This paper argues that says-based definitions of lying cannot account for lies involving non-literal speech, such as metaphor, hyperbole, loose use or irony. It proposes that lies should instead be defined in terms of assertion, where what is asserted need not coincide with what is said. And it points to possible implications this outcome might have for the ethics of lying.

Hubert Dreyfus has argued that cases of absorbed bodily coping show that there is no room for self-awareness in flow experiences of experts. In this paper, I argue against Dreyfus’ maxim of vanishing self-awareness by suggesting that awareness of agency is present in expert bodily action. First, I discuss the phenomenon of absorbed bodily coping by discussing flow experiences involved in expert bodily action: merging into the flow; immersion in the flow; emergence out of flow. I argue against the claim (...) that flow experience does not involve an awareness of agency for each of these features, while conceding that fluent agency does not involve self-awareness in the thetic sense. I challenge the assumption that the awareness of fluent agency must be understood in terms of a thetic awareness of agency. Instead, I develop an Anscombean account of the awareness of fluent agency in terms of the phenomenal character of knowing one’s aims. I respond to the challenge that if an Anscombean account of the awareness of agency is to succeed, then agents must be able to answer Anscombean questions. I consider the objection that awareness of agency is not a form of self-awareness by outlining an account of self-awareness as self-synthesis that is distinct from self-perception and self-ascription, but which makes room for self-awareness in expert bodily action. (shrink)