Publication de deux poèmes byzantins du 12ème s. attribués à Théodore Prodomos, qui fournissent un certain nombre de renseignements sur les tentes des camps d'hiver des Comnène, et en particulier sur celle de la maison d'Irène la Sevastokratorissa. Cette étude mène l'auteur à un commentaire historico-artistique des éléments décrits: il compare d'abord ceux-ci avec l'art des 11ème et et 12ème s., et particulièrement avec l'art profane, puis il s'interroge sur l'authenticité des descriptions par rapport aux figures de rhétorique employées dans (...) ces textes. (shrink)

This paper explores possible connections between gender and the willingness to tolerate unethical academic behavior. Data from a sample of 285 accounting majors at four public institutions reveal that females are less tolerant than males when questioned about academic misconduct. Statistically significant differences were found for 17 of 23 questionable activities. Furthermore, females were found to be less cynical and less often involved in academic dishonesty. Overall, the results support the finding of Betz et al. (1989) that the gender socialization (...) approach dominates the structural approach. (shrink)

This collection of essays, offered in honor of the distinguished career of prominent political philosophy professor Clifford Orwin, brings together internationally renowned scholars to provide a wide context and discuss various aspects of the virtue of “humanity” through the history of political philosophy.

Signaling by the Epidermal Growth Factor Receptor (EGFR) and related ErbB family receptor tyrosine kinases can be deregulated in human malignancies as the result of mutations in the genes that encode these receptors. The recent identification of EGFR mutations that correlate with sensitivity and resistance to EGFR tyrosine kinase inhibitors in lung and colon tumors has renewed interest in such activating mutations. Here we review current models for ligand stimulation of receptor dimerization and for activation of receptor signaling by receptor (...) dimerization. In the context of these models, we discuss ErbB receptor mutations that affect ligand binding and those that cause constitutive receptor phosphorylation and signaling as a result of constitutive receptor dimerization. We discuss mutations in the cytoplasmic regions that affect enzymatic activity, substrate specificity and coupling to effectors and downstream signaling pathways. Finally, we discuss how emergent mechanisms of ErbB receptor mutational activation could impact the search for clinically relevant ErbB receptor mutations. BioEssays 29:558–565, 2007. © 2007 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. (shrink)

As Post observes, accounting firms are unique among multinationals. They are more likely than firms in almost any other category to go abroad. They also have less choice in location as their expansion is determined largely by the desired locations of their clients. Given the widespread global presence of such firms, it can be argued that the global audit firm is uniquely at risk from variations in ethical perceptions across nations. This study extends the U.S. accounting literature on determinants of (...) cheating among accounting students to the U.K. Based on the work of Cohen et al. it develops a model that suggests that students in lower "uncertainty avoidance" countries will be both less likely to cheat, and when they do cheat, will be driven by internal rather than external mode. Our results supported the model as proposed as our results indicated that U.S. students were more likely to cheat and were more responsive to external stimuli than were the U.K. students. (shrink)

To test the notion that shifts in visual imagery and attention are correlated with experiences of emotion, we studied 10 dream reports using an affirmative probe of emotion and a quantitative measure of plot discontinuity. We found that emotion, especially changes in emotion, are correlated with discontinuities in visual imagery. These correlations are quantified using a new graph theoretical method for analyzing narrative reports.

This essay, by the editor of Common Knowledge, introduces the sixth and final installment of “Fuzzy Studies,” the journal's “Symposium on the Consequence of Blur.” Suggesting that “Fuzzy Studies” should be understood in the context of a desultory campaign against zeal conducted in the journal for almost twenty years, he explains that the editors' assumption has been that any authentic case for the less adamant modes of thinking, or the less focused ways of seeing, needs to be unenthusiastic and carefully (...) ramified. To establish the distinction between overenthused and unemphatic approaches to blur, he contrasts the ecstatically amorphous “Blur building” with examples of classical Chinese landscape painting. Elizabeth Diller and Richard Scofidio, in their book blur: the making of nothing, chronicle the development of their plans for the Blur building and, in the process, inadvertently show that, to overbear various negative associations of blur and fog, the authors/architects grew self-contradictorily emphatic about the need to produce de-emphasis in architecture and in modern life. Perl shows how this self-contradiction appears also in phenomenology-inflected writings on blur by T. J. Clark, Yve-Alain Bois and Rosalind Kraus, J.-P. Sartre, and Georges Bataille, but not in the work of the phenomenologist François Jullien, whose book The Great Image Has No Form analyzes the role of blur in classical Chinese art theory and practice. Where traditional Western painting, Jullien argues, calls for voyeuristically intense focus, traditional Chinese painting stimulates “dé-tente, relaxation or ‘untensing’.” Intense focus on a blur is still, Perl observes, an intense focus. In describing a painting by the Yuan Dynasty master Ni Zan, Perl concludes that the only way to be un-self-contradictorily positive about fuzziness, whether in logic or aesthetics, is to de-reify and de-differentiate with the aim of achieving blandness. (shrink)

This essay introduces the second installment of a symposium in Common Knowledge called “Apology for Quietism.” This introductory piece concerns the sociology of quietism and why, given the supposed quietude of quietists, there is such a thing at all. Dealing first with the “activist” Susan Sontag's attraction to the “quietist” Simone Weil, it then concentrates on the “activist” William Empson's attraction to the Buddha and to Buddhist quietism, with special reference to Empson's lost manuscript Asymmetry in Buddha Faces. The author, (...) who is also editor of the journal, argues against the effort of some contributors to substitute new terms for quietism and emphasizes instead what he calls “the need for repose.”. (shrink)

This essay, which is the editor's introduction to part 1 of a multipart symposium on quietism, also constitutes his call for symposium papers. The symposium is meant be comprehensive. It is described as political and broadly cultural as well as religious, and in religious terms is said to cover not only the Catholic and Protestant quietisms (most properly so called) of the late seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, but also the proto-quietisms of the medieval Western church and reputedly quietist aspects of (...) the Gnostic, Eastern Orthodox, early Hasidic, Shi'ite, Jain and other Indic, Taoist, and Zen religious traditions. This introduction emphasizes the secular approaches, mostly antipolitical or postphilosophical, that wear the adjective “quietist” metaphorically, including the postmodern currents that Martha Nussbaum has named “hip quietism” and the “minimalist” philosophical version developed by Wittgenstein and some of his successors, notably Richard Rorty. This introduction concludes with attention to Rorty's late essay “Naturalism and Quietism,” then with a dedication of the entire symposium to Rorty's memory. (shrink)

This essay introduces the second installment of a symposium in Common Knowledge called “Apology for Quietism.” This introductory piece concerns the sociology of quietism and why, given the supposed quietude of quietists, there is such a thing at all. Dealing first with the “activist” Susan Sontag's attraction to the “quietist” Simone Weil, it then concentrates on the “activist” William Empson's attraction to the Buddha and to Buddhist quietism, with special reference to Empson's lost manuscript Asymmetry in Buddha Faces (and to (...) Sharon Cameron's work on the topic in her book Impersonality). The author, who is also editor of the journal, argues against the effort of some contributors to substitute new terms for quietism and emphasizes instead what he calls (quoting Sontag) “the need for repose.”. (shrink)

Understanding recreational experiences is a longstanding research tradition and key to effective management. Given the complexities of human experience, many approaches have been applied to study recreational experience. Two such approaches are the experiential approach (based in a positivistic paradigm) and emergent experience (based in an interpretive paradigm). While viewed as being complementary, researchers have not offered guidance for incorporating the approaches into a common model of recreational experience. This study utilized longitudinal, qualitative data to examine aspects of recreational experience (...) posited by these two approaches. Results provided a framework for synthesizing across the two approaches. Respondents had clear pre-activity expectations, and most respondents realized their expected outcomes. This supports the experiential approach. Of the 48 activity narratives, 27 experienced something unexpected, and 45 described process-oriented, intrinsic motivation, suggesting evidence of emergent and unique characteristics specific to an individual’s realization of recreational experience. This supports the application of the emergent experience approach to understand how individuals create meaning from recreational engagements. The paper proposes a model for integrating results of the two approaches. While not advocating for any specific approach, the findings can serve as an example of building a holistic model of the outdoor recreation experience. The purpose of the model is to allow for a more complete understanding of how individuals create recreation experiences, more complete documentation of the benefits of outdoor recreation for both researchers and managers, and better synthesis across studies. (shrink)

As sharing and secondary research use of biospecimens increases, IRBs and researchers face the challenge of protecting and respecting donors without comprehensive regulations addressing the human subject protection issues posed by biobanking. Variation in IRB biobanking policies about these issues has not been well documented.

Background 300 million operations and procedures are performed annually across the world, all of which require a patient’s informed consent. No standardised measure of the consent process exists in current clinical practice. We aimed to define a core outcome set for informed consent for therapy. Methods The core outcome set was developed in accordance with a predefined research protocol and the Core OutcoMes in Effectiveness Trials methodology comprising systematic review, qualitative semi structured interviews, a modified Delphi process and consensus webinars (...) to ratify outcomes for inclusion in the final core outcome set.. Participants from all key stakeholder groups took part in the process, including patients and the public, healthcare practitioners and consent researchers. Results 36 outcome domains were synthesised through systematic review and organised into a consent taxonomy. 41 semi-structured interviews were performed with all consent stakeholders groups. 164 participants from all stakeholder groups across 8 countries completed Delphi Round 1 and 125 completed Round 2. 11 outcomes met the ‘consensus in’ criteria. 6 met ‘consensus in’ all stakeholder groups and were included directly in the final core outcome set. 5 remaining outcomes meeting ‘consensus in’ were ratified over two consensus webinars. 9 core outcomes were included in the final core outcome set: Satisfaction with the quality and amount of information, Patient feeling that there was a choice, Patient feeling that the decision to consent was their own, Confidence in the decision made, Satisfaction with communication, Trust in the clinician, Patient satisfaction with the consent process, Patient rated adequacy of time and opportunity to ask questions. Conclusion This international mixed-methods qualitative study is the first of its kind to define a core outcome set for informed consent for intervention. It defines what outcomes are of importance to key stakeholders in the consent process and is a forward step towards standardising future consent research. (shrink)

Background Inadequate knowledge among health care providers (HCPs) and parents of affected children limits the understanding and utility of secondary genetic findings (SFs) in under-represented populations in genomics research. SFs arise from deep DNA sequencing done for research or diagnostic purposes and may burden patients and their families despite their potential health importance. This study aims to evaluate the perspective of both groups regarding SFs and their choices in the return of results from genetic testing in the context of orofacial (...) clefts.Methods Using an online survey, we evaluated the experiences of 252 HCPs and 197 parents across participating cleft clinics in Ghana and Nigeria toward the return of SFs across several domains.Results Only 1.6% of the HCPs felt they had an expert understanding of when and how to incorporate genomic medicine into practice, while 50.0% agreed that all SFs should be returned to patients. About 95.4% of parents were willing to receive all the information from genetic testing (including SFs), while the majority cited physicians as their primary information source (64%).Conclusions Overall, parents and providers were aware that genetic testing could help in the clinical management of diseases. However, they cited a lack of knowledge about genomic medicine, uncertain clinical utility, and lack of available learning resources as barriers. The knowledge gained from this study will assist with developing guidelines and policies to guide providers on the return of SFs in sub-Saharan Africa and across the continent. (shrink)

This article develops an analysis of disability according to which disabling conditions are properties of organisms embedded in sets of environments. We begin by presenting the three mainstream accounts of disability—the medical, social, and interactionist models—and rehearsing some known limitations. We argue that, because of their primary focus on etiology, all three models share, more or less implicitly, a problematic assumption. This is the tenet that disabilities are individual properties. The second part of the essay presents an “ecological” interpretation of (...) disability, inspired by classic and contemporary research on biological niches. Our proposal preserves many insights underlying extant approaches, while allowing a more accurate characterization of the nature and experience of disability. We conclude by drawing some general implications of our analysis. (shrink)

ABSTRACTInitial evaluations generalise to new contexts, whereas counter-attitudinal evaluations are context-specific. Counter-attitudinal information may not change evaluations in new contexts beca...

As one of the most important ethicists to emerge since the Second World War, Alan Gewirth continues to influence philosophical debates concerning morality. In this ground-breaking book, Gewirth's neo-Kantianism, and the communitarian problems discussed, form a dialogue on the foundation of moral theory. Themes of agent-centered constraints, the formal structure of theories, and the relationship between freedom and duty are examined along with such new perspectives as feminism, the Stoics, and Sartre. Gewirth offers a picture of the philosopher's theory and (...) its applications, providing a richer, more complete critical assessement than any which has occurred to date. (shrink)

The progression of research and scholarly inquiry does not occur in isolation and is wholly dependent on accurate reporting of methods and results, and successful replication of prior work. Without mechanisms to correct the literature, much time and money is wasted on research based on a crumbling foundation. These guidelines serve to outline the respective responsibilities of researchers, institutions, agencies, and publishers or editors in maintaining the integrity of the research record. Delineating these complementary roles and proposing solutions for common (...) barriers provide a foundation for best practices. (shrink)

McKay & Dennett (M&D) convincingly argue against many proposals for adaptively functioning misbelief, but the conclusion that true beliefs are generally adaptive does not follow. Adaptive misbeliefs may be few in kind but many in number; maladaptive misbeliefs may routinely elude selective pruning; reproductively neutral misbeliefs may abound; and adaptively grounded beliefs may reliably covary with but not truthfully represent reality.

This essay is the journal editor's introduction to part 3 of an ongoing symposium on quietism. With reference to writings of James Joyce, Francis Picabia, J. M. Coetzee, Charles Taylor, Alasdair MacIntyre, Elaine Pagels, and Karen King—and with extended reference to Jonathan Lear's study of “cultural devastation,” Radical Hope—Jeffrey Perl explores the possibility that the fear of anomie is misplaced. He argues that, in comparison with the violence and narrowness of any given social order, anomie may well be preferable, and, (...) in any case, may be no more than another name for quietism. (shrink)

This essay is the journal editor's introduction to part 3 of an ongoing symposium on quietism. With reference to writings of James Joyce, Francis Picabia, J. M. Coetzee, Charles Taylor, Alasdair MacIntyre, Elaine Pagels, and Karen King—and with extended reference to Jonathan Lear's study of “cultural devastation,” Radical Hope—Jeffrey Perl explores the possibility that the fear of anomie (“anomiphobia”) is misplaced. He argues that, in comparison with the violence and narrowness of any given social order, anomie may well be preferable, (...) and, in any case, may be no more than another name for quietism. (shrink)

In his commentary on theTimaeus, the Neoplatonist Iamblichus argues that time is logically antecedent to change inasmuch as time is no mere aspect of change. Naturally, scholars appraise this thesis in light of Neoplatonic metaphysics. Nevertheless, they neglect the philological framing of this thesis, and thence the philosophical implications thereof. Only J.M. Dillon acknowledges this framing, though even Dillon does not acknowledge the philosophical implications thereof. This article illustrates the logic of said thesis vis-à-vis the Iamblichean exegesis ofTi. 38b7–c1 (Iambl.apudSimpl.in (...) Phys.1.794.21–7 Diels, Iambl.in Ti. fr. 67 Dillon). Beginning from the intuition that time is no mere aspect of change, Iamblichus argues that time can persist apart from change, and thereupon, given the Platonic notion that time is the everlasting image of Eternityquaparadigm, Iamblichus intuits that time is no mere image but everlasting in its own right, being itself a paradigm. Yet this thesis rests upon the indeterminateness of the Platonic titleτὸ παράδειγμα τῆς διαιωνίας φύσεως(‘the paradigm of a thoroughly everlasting nature’) atTi. 38b8 and, still more so, upon the reflexiveness of the ambiguousΑΥΤΩΙ(that is,αὐτῷ‘toit[the paradigm]’, if notαὑτῷ‘toitself[as paradigm]’) atTi. 38c1. Inasmuch as the subject of the Platonic title is indeterminate between Eternity and Eternal Beingquaintelligible everlastingness, Iamblichus construesΑΥΤΩΙnot as a mere reflexive but as self-reflexive, withαὑτῷreferring to Timequaintelligible paradigm. In this light, the Platonic lemma grounds the Iamblichean thesis. (shrink)

In the last homily he gave before becoming Pope Benedict XVI, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger described modern life as ruled by a “dictatorship of relativism which does not recognize anything as definitive and whose ultimate goal consists solely” of satisfying “the desires of one’s own ego.” An eminent scholar familiar with the centuries-old debates over relativism, Ratzinger chose to oversimplify or even caricature a philosophical approach of great sophistication and antiquity. His homily depicts the relativist as someone blown about “by every (...) wind of doctrine,” whereas the relativist sticks firmly to one argument—that human knowledge is not absolute. Gathering prominent intellectuals from disciplines most relevant to the controversy—ethics, theology, political theory, anthropology, psychology, cultural studies, epistemology, philosophy of science, and classics—this special double issue of _Common Knowledge_ contests Ratzinger’s denunciation of relativism. One essay relates the arguments of Ratzinger to those of two other German scholars—the conservative political theorist Ernst Wolfgang Böckenförde and the liberal philosopher and sociologist Jürgen Habermas—since all three men assume that social order depends on the existence of doctrinal authority. The contributors here argue for an intellectual and social life free of the desire for an “infantilizing” authority. One proposes that the Christian god is a relativist who prefers limitation and ambiguity; another, initially in agreement with Ratzinger about the danger relativism poses to faith and morals, then argues that this danger is what makes relativism valuable. The issue closes with the first English translation of an extract from a book on Catholic-Jewish relations by Cardinal Carlo Maria Martini, one of the Catholic Church’s most progressive figures. _Contributors_. David Bloor, Daniel Boyarin, Mary Baine Campbell, Lorraine Daston, Arnold I. Davidson, John Forrester, Kenneth J. Gergen, Simon Goldhill, Jeffrey F. Hamburger, Julia Kristeva, Carlo Maria Cardinal Martini, Christopher Norris, Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, Richard Shusterman, Barbara Herrnstein Smith, Jeffrey Stout, Gianni Vattimo. (shrink)

In this introduction to part three of the Common Knowledge symposium “Fuzzy Studies: On the Consequence of Blur,” the journal’s editor argues that blur is not a medium of concealment, confusion, or evasion. Making distinctions between kinds of relative unclarity, he reserves the word blur for the kind that results from de-differentiating objects or qualities or states of affairs whose differences have been overstated. To refine what blur is and is not, he compares kinds of unclarity found in images by (...) Giotto, Rubens, Hokusai, Kunitora, Manet, Zeshin, and Richter. With reference to art criticism by Hubert Damisch, Wayne Andersen, Anthony Hughes, Robert Storr, Julian Bell, Christopher Prendergast, and especially T. J. Clark, he agrees that choosing between focus and blur can be a moral decision, though not in the sense for which Clark arraigns the Impressionists. Characterizing the way of seeing that Clark encourages in The Painting of Modern Life as a form of staring, this essay argues that “lean and hungry looking” is indecent, whereas unfocused receptivity is irenic. What Bell calls the “aestheticized halfheartedness” of Manet is redescribed here as a genre of moral heroism, and the essay concludes that it is differentiation that is on morally shaky ground. (shrink)

This essay, by the editor of Common Knowledge, introduces the sixth and final installment of “Fuzzy Studies,” the journal's “Symposium on the Consequence of Blur.” Suggesting that “Fuzzy Studies” should be understood in the context of a desultory campaign against zeal conducted in the journal for almost twenty years, he explains that the editors' assumption has been that any authentic case for the less adamant modes of thinking, or the less focused ways of seeing, needs to be unenthusiastic and carefully (...) ramified. To establish the distinction between overenthused and unemphatic approaches to blur, he contrasts the ecstatically amorphous “Blur building” (on Switzerland's Lake Neuchâtel) with examples of classical Chinese landscape painting. Elizabeth Diller and Richard Scofidio, in their book blur: the making of nothing, chronicle the development of their plans for the Blur building and, in the process, inadvertently show that, to overbear various negative associations of blur and fog, the authors/architects grew self-contradictorily emphatic about the need to produce de-emphasis in architecture and in modern life. Perl shows how this self-contradiction appears also in phenomenology-inflected writings on blur by T. J. Clark, Yve-Alain Bois and Rosalind Kraus, J.-P. Sartre, and Georges Bataille, but not in the work of the phenomenologist (and sinologist) François Jullien, whose book The Great Image Has No Form analyzes the role of blur in classical Chinese art theory and practice. Where traditional Western painting, Jullien argues, calls for voyeuristically intense focus, traditional Chinese painting stimulates “dé-tente, relaxation or ‘untensing’.” Intense focus on a blur is still, Perl observes, an intense focus. In describing a painting by the Yuan Dynasty master Ni Zan, Perl concludes that the only way to be un-self-contradictorily positive about fuzziness, whether in logic or aesthetics, is to de-reify and de-differentiate with the aim of achieving blandness. (shrink)

This essay review is focused on Andrew Strathern and Pamela J. Stewart's book Peace-Making and the Imagination: Papua New Guinea Perspectives but also discusses in some detail other ethnographic and historical works. The reviewer finds that, in every case of peacemaking in Papua New Guinea that Strathern and Stewart consider, the exodus from one conflict proves to be the genesis of another, and he concludes that the insuperable question posed by their study is whether any peace ever transcends the war (...) that it supposedly concludes. The reviewer also finds that, unobtrusively, Strathern and Stewart offer transcultural wisdom about conflict resolution, and he lists seven exemplary instances. To this list, he adds a few more of his own, drawn from his reading of works by the ethnographer Rupert Stasch and the historians Rogers Brubaker and Tara Zahra. This set of principles, which is commended to the improbable attention of students of diplomacy, is founded on belief that imagination, rather than instrumental reason, and ritual action, rather than negotiation, are the best means of achieving peace. (shrink)

Answering important public health questions often requires collection of sensitive information about individuals. For example, our understanding of how HIV is transmitted and how to prevent it only came about with people's willingness to share information about their sexual and drug-using behaviors. Given the scientific need for sensitive, personal information, researchers have a corresponding ethical and legal obligation to maintain the confidentiality of data they collect and typically promise in consent forms to restrict access to it and not to publish (...) identifying data.The interests of others, however, can threaten researchers' promises of confidentiality when legal demands are made to access research data. In some cases, the subject of the litigation is tightly connected to the research questions, and litigants' interest in the data is not surprising. Researchers conducting studies on tobacco or occupational or other chemical exposures, for example, are relatively frequent targets of subpoenas. (shrink)