"Uprightness" was termed the "leitmotiv in the formation of the human organism" by Erwin Straus (1966, p. 139). He felt that without it the human being was certainly doomed to die. Yet, what happens with those who are deprived of their "uprightness" in either the literal or moral sense (as in "not to stoop to anything"), through becoming Dis-abled? Getting up, rising in opposition to the "other" (Allon) implies a moral dimension in the case of human Dis-ability which is tied (...) to the leitmotiv established by the upright posture of anthropos . The suggestion that there is a moral dimension to Disability is a radical notion in a culture whose health professionals have become very sensitive to any idea that suggests we are blaming those who through no fault of their own have become in some way disadvantaged as compared to the mainstream of society. Although the importance of rising in opposition to the world (Allon) was perhaps originally established upon the upright posture quite literally, because man is a sense-making and sense-giving creature, this primordial act which establishes our full humanity may itself be represented and re-enacted in a variety of ways which can and should become the central project of rehabilitation of the body, as opposed to the current emphasis on technique and technological innovation. It is in the changing physiognomy of the Dis-abled person's ruptured world that we may discover the phenomenological sense of Dis-ability. Keywords: Dis-Ability, Uprightness, Rehabilitation CiteULike Connotea Del.icio.us What's this? (shrink)

It has been demonstrated that death certificates do not accurately record the actual cause of death in up to one-fourth of cases, as determined from subsequent autopsy findings. The purpose of this study was to explore the use of natural language autopsy data bases as an automated quality assurance mechanism. We translated the account of the major process leading to death, or the primary diagnosis, from all 45,564 narrative autopsy reports obtained at The Johns Hopkins Hospital between May 28, 1889, (...) and June 30, 1987, into the hierarchical system of Medical Subject Heading (MeSH) titles. We obtained a total of 125,772 MeSH title translations, 1,563 of them distinct (average 2.8 per case), ranging in frequency from 6,029 occurrences of LUNG to 1 occurrence apiece of 357 MeSH titles. The natural-language-to-MeSH translations showed expected trends over the past century: fewer infectious diseases; more cardiovascular and neoplastic disease among adults; and more respiratory diseases and congenital malformations in the pediatric age group. The greater availability of autopsy documents in electronic form should increase the value of this resource for quality assurance. (shrink)

William Whewell is considered one of the most important nineteenth-century British philosophers of science and a contributor to modern philosophical thought, particularly regarding the problem of induction and the logic of discovery. In this volume, Robert E. Butts offers selections from Whewell's most important writings, and analysis of counter-claims to his philosophy.

This volume includes Whewell's seminal studies of the logic of induction (with his critique of Mill's theory), arguments for his realist view that science discovers necessary truths about nature, and exercises in the epistemology and ontology of science. The book sets forth a coherent statement of a historically important philosophy of science whose influence has never been greater: every one of Whewell's fundamental ideas about the philosophy of science is presented here.

The Routledge Handbook of Social Work Ethics and Valuesis a comprehensive exploration and assessment of current and future issues facing social work practice and education. It is the first book to codify ethical practices for social workers from across the globe and in myriad workplace settings. Each section meaningfully captures this complex subject area: ethics writ large visions of diverse values abortion relationship and gender issues micro and mezzo practice settings social work education technological issues spirituality globalism economic issues special (...) topics Leaving no stone unturned, this handbook comprehensively addresses the most controversial topics in an evenhanded manner. Among professional social workers, values and ethics traverse political boundaries, cultural identifications, and languages. This handbook will help to make sense of this unity within diversity. With contributions from the world's leading scholars, this book will be a valuable resource for all social work students, academics, researchers, and practitioners who seek a coherent and objective analysis in the abstract arena of ethics and values. lity globalism economic issues special topics Leaving no stone unturned, this handbook comprehensively addresses the most controversial topics in an evenhanded manner. Among professional social workers, values and ethics traverse political boundaries, cultural identifications, and languages. This handbook will help to make sense of this unity within diversity. With contributions from the world's leading scholars, this book will be a valuable resource for all social work students, academics, researchers, and practitioners who seek a coherent and objective analysis in the abstract arena of ethics and values. (shrink)

This volume examines the philosophical thought of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and is an assessment of King’s contribution to philosophy—especially ethics, social philosophy and philosophy of religion. It also explores the relevance of King’s thoughts as “liberatory discourse”—insurgent thinking aimed at enabling contemporary social justice.

This volume examines the philosophical thought of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and is an assessment of King’s contribution to philosophy—especially ethics, social philosophy and philosophy of religion. It also explores the relevance of King’s thoughts as “liberatory discourse”—insurgent thinking aimed at enabling contemporary social justice.

Robustness has long been recognized as an important parameter for evaluating game-theoretic results, but talk of ‘robustness’ generally remains vague. What we offer here is a graphic measure for a particular kind of robustness (‘matrix robustness’), using a three-dimensional display of the universe of 2 × 2 game theory. In such a measure specific games appear as specific volumes (Prisoner’s Dilemma, Stag Hunt, etc.), allowing a graphic image of the extent of particular game-theoretic effects in terms of those games. The (...) measure also allows for an easy comparison between different effects in terms of matrix robustness. Here we use the measure to compare the robustness of Tit for Tat’s well-known success in spatialized games (Axelrod, R. (1984). The evolution of cooperation . New York: Basic Books; Grim, P. et al. (1998). The philosophical computer: Exploratory essays in philosophical computer modeling . Cambridge, Mass: MIT Press) with the robustness of a recent game-theoretic model of the contact hypothesis regarding prejudice reduction (Grim et al. 2005. Public Affairs Quarterly, 19 , 95–125). (shrink)

The respondent agrees with William Grassie that many windows on nature are possible; that emphasis must remain on the generation of order; that “chance” would better be recast as “contingency”; and that the ecological metaphysic has wide implications for a “politics of nature”. He accepts the challenge by Pedro Sotolongo to extend his metaphysic into the realm of pan-semiotics and agrees that an ecological perspective offers the best hope for solving the world’s inequities. He replies to Stanley Salthe that he (...) now agrees that the second law of thermodynamics is the overarching law of nature, but only when the duality inherent in of the concept of entropy is widely recognized. The respondent is enthusiastic over Jeffrey Lockwood’s extrapolation of process ecology to include the concept of “species” and over John Haught’s description of how the construct paves the way for a “theology of evolution” by recasting evolution as an unfolding “drama”. (shrink)

In the past, hypothesis testing in medicine has employed the paradigm of the repeatable experiment. In statistical hypothesis testing, an unbiased sample is drawn from a larger source population, and a calculated statistic is compared to a preassigned critical region, on the assumption that the comparison could be repeated an indefinite number of times. However, repeated experiments often cannot be performed on human beings, due to ethical or economic constraints. We describe a new paradigm for hypothesis testing which uses only (...) rearrangements of data present within the observed data set. The token swap test, based on this new paradigm, is applied to three data sets from cardiovascular pathology, and computational experiments suggest that the token swap test satisfies the Neyman Pearson condition. (shrink)

Myoe the Dreamkeeper, Fantasy and Knowledge in Early Kamakura Buddhism. George Tanabe, Jr. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1992. xiv, 291 pp. $35.

The concept of person is a primary interest of the contemporary intellectual world. Modern literature, films, theater, theology and philosophy focus their attention increasingly on the meaning of person. The current interests of philosophers can activate and direct their reading of the history of philosophy. The rereading of the history of philosophy with a new interest can lead to new insights and discoveries. Through these insights and discoveries, philosophies of the past come to life in the present and influence the (...) future. One of the tasks of contemporary philosophers is to read and examine philosophies of the past under the light of the current interest in person so that errors of previous philosophers might be avoided and insights of previous philosophers might be assimilated. The rereading, examination and exposition of past philosophers is and must be a community project. Both the vastness of philosophical literature and importance of dialogue, if progress is to be made, necessitate that the project be undertaken by many. This exposition of William Torrey Harris’ philosophy is offered as part of the project. Though Harris’ philosophy has been identified as a personalism, it has not received adequate study as a personalism nor has Harris’ concept of person been sufficiently examined. Of Harris, Nicholas Murray Butler wrote. (shrink)

Heidegger commentator J. L. Mehta includes in his book the following quote from Heidegger: “Der Wanderschaft in der Wegrichtung zum Fragwürdigen ist nicht Abenteur sondern Heimkehr.” Adapting this idea to the purpose of my own project in this article, I propose: Wandering on the Footpath of Freedom is both an Adventure and a Homecoming! The aim of this article is to explore the idea of freedom as it is developed in the philosophy of Martin Heidegger. The strategy here is to (...) examine the salient remarks of several commentators, including Mehta, William Richardson, Werner Brock, Charles Guignon, Rüdiger Safransky, and others. Some of the ideas explored here are: transcendence, overtness, authenticity, poetry and resoluteness. (shrink)

"The great value of the book lies in the manner in which May relates the expansionist urge to the "symbolic" differences emerging between the North and the South. The result is a balanced account that contributes to the efforts of historians to understand the causes of the Civil War."--Journal of American History "The most ambitious effort yet to relate the Caribbean question to the larger picture of southern economic and political anxieties, and to secession. The core of this superbly documented (...) book is a detailed description of expansionist ideology and activities during the 1850s."--Civil War History A path-breaking work when first published in 1973, The Southern Dream remains the standard work on attempts by the South to spread American slavery into the tropics--Cuba, Mexico, and Central America in particular--before the Civil War. Robert May shows that the South's expansionists had no more success than when they tried to extend slavery westward. As one after another of their plots failed, southern imperialists lost hope that their labor system might survive in the Union. Blaming northern Democrats and antislavery Republicans alike for their disappointed dreams, alienated southerners embraced secession as an alternative means to achieving the tropical slave empire that they craved. Had war not erupted at Fort Sumter, Confederates might have attempted to conquer the Caribbean basin. May's book serves as an important reminder that foreign policy cannot be divorced from the writing of American history, even in regard to seemingly domestic matters like the causes of the Civil War. Contending that America's Manifest Destiny became "sectionalized" in the 1850s, he explains why southerners considered Caribbean expansion so important and shows how southerners used their clout in Washington to initiate diplomatic schemes like the notorious Ostend Manifesto and presidential attempts to buy the slaveholding island of Cuba from Spain. He also describes southern filibustering plots against Latin American domains, such as the aborted designs on Mexico of the colorful Knights of the Golden Circle and the actual invasions of Central America by native Tennessean William Walker. Walker struck a major blow for the expansion of slavery when he legalized it during his occupation of Nicaragua. Most important, May relates how Caribbean plots affected American public opinion and ignited sectional friction in congressional debates. May argues that President-elect Abraham Lincoln might have saved the Union in the winter of 1860-61, had he agreed to last minute concessions facilitating slavery's future expansion towards the tropics. May's fascinating and often surprising account internationalized the causes of the Civil War. It should be read by anyone who wishes to understand the complex reasons why Americans came to blows with each other in 1861. This reprinting features a new preface by the author, which addresses the latest research on the Caribbean question. Robert E. May is professor of history at Purdue University. (shrink)

America, and the postmodern West in particular, are experiencing a moral and intellectual crisis, according to E. Robert Statham, Jr. In The Constitution of Public Philosophy, Statham argues that Walter Lippman was correct in locating this crisis in the impoverished nature of public philosophy, and he attempts to constitute a role for reason in contemporary America. Statham suggests that the negative rule of law via a written constitution requires the positive rule of reason, or political philosophy, in order to (...) flourish. (shrink)

PurposeGiven the seeming lack of research on the influence of stakeholder activities on organisations such as political parties in the online environment, the purpose of this paper is to empirically investigate how political parties use their web sites to serve and manage their relationships with stakeholders.Design/methodology/approachThis is a qualitative paper, in which a cross‐national comparative analysis has been conducted on four illustrative cases. Personal interviews and web site observations were used as the main data collection methods. Three concurrent flows of (...) activities, i.e. data reduction, data display, and conclusion drawing, have been applied in the data analysis.FindingsThe paper indicate that the stakeholders served by political parties on the web sites studied can be grouped into two categories: internal and external. This paper also revealed that another very important internal stakeholder group overlooked by previous studies is that of core party members.Originality/valueThe paper provides insights and new interesting empirical material which may help to strengthen the theoretical understanding stakeholder management in cyber politics. (shrink)