The purpose of this essay is to investigate and critically analyse some of the formative factors which led to the spiritual maturation of a leading Vīraśaiva saint, Basava. This inquiry focuses on a single event in the life of this great reformer of medieval times, i.e. his spiritual conflict leading to his rejection of the upanayana ceremony. The study will proceed through an investigation of the earliest and subsequent sources which veil the personality of Basava. The traditional view will be (...) challenged as one-sided. By critically comparing the sources, a more comprehensive and plausible account will be suggested. (shrink)

IntroductionBisphenol A is highly debated and studied in relation to a variety of health outcomes. This large variation in the literature makes BPA a topic that is prone to selective use of literature, in order to underpin one’s own findings and opinion. Over time, selective use of literature, by means of citations, can lead to a skewed knowledge development and a biased scientific consensus. In this study, we assess which factors drive citation and whether this results in the overrepresentation of (...) harmful health effects of BPA.MethodsA citation network analysis was performed to test various determinants of citation. A systematic search identified all relevant publications on the human health effect of BPA. Data were extracted on potential determinants of selective citation, such as study outcome, study design, sample size, journal impact factor, authority of the author, self-citation, and funding source. We applied random effect logistic regression to assess whether these determinants influence the likelihood of citation.ResultsOne hundred sixty-nine publications on BPA were identified, with 12,432 potential citation pathways of which 808 citations occurred. The network consisted of 63 cross-sectional studies, 34 cohort studies, 29 case-control studies, 35 narrative reviews, and 8 systematic reviews. Positive studies have a 1.5 times greater chance of being cited compared to negative studies. Additionally, the authority of the author and self-citation are consistently found to be positively associated with the likelihood of being cited. Overall, the network seems to be highly influenced by two highly cited publications, whereas 60 out of 169 publications received no citations.ConclusionIn the literature on BPA, citation is mostly driven by positive study outcome and author-related factors, such as high authority within the network. Interpreting the impact of these factors and the big influence of a few highly cited publications, it can be questioned to which extent the knowledge development in human literature on BPA is actually evidence-based. (shrink)

Background: Debates over legalisation of physician-assisted suicide or euthanasia often warn of a “slippery slope”, predicting abuse of people in vulnerable groups. To assess this concern, the authors examined data from Oregon and the Netherlands, the two principal jurisdictions in which physician-assisted dying is legal and data have been collected over a substantial period.Methods: The data from Oregon comprised all annual and cumulative Department of Human Services reports 1998–2006 and three independent studies; the data from the Netherlands comprised all four (...) government-commissioned nationwide studies of end-of-life decision making and specialised studies. Evidence of any disproportionate impact on 10 groups of potentially vulnerable patients was sought.Results: Rates of assisted dying in Oregon and in the Netherlands showed no evidence of heightened risk for the elderly, women, the uninsured , people with low educational status, the poor, the physically disabled or chronically ill, minors, people with psychiatric illnesses including depression, or racial or ethnic minorities, compared with background populations. The only group with a heightened risk was people with AIDS. While extralegal cases were not the focus of this study, none have been uncovered in Oregon; among extralegal cases in the Netherlands, there was no evidence of higher rates in vulnerable groups.Conclusions: Where assisted dying is already legal, there is no current evidence for the claim that legalised PAS or euthanasia will have disproportionate impact on patients in vulnerable groups. Those who received physician-assisted dying in the jurisdictions studied appeared to enjoy comparative social, economic, educational, professional and other privileges. (shrink)

The purpose of this note is to examine the notion of obligations to future generations, a notion that finds increasing use in discussions of social policies and programs, particularly as concerns population distribution and control and environment control. Thus, it may be claimed, the solution of problems in these areas is not merely a matter of enhancing our own good, improving our own conditions of life, but is also a matter of discharging an obligation to future generations.

This white paper aims to identify an open problem in 'Quantum Physics and the Nature of Reality' -namely whether quantum theory and special relativity are formally compatible-, to indicate what the underlying issues are, and put forward ideas about how the problem might be addressed.

** The primary topic of this dissertation is the study of the relationships between parts and wholes as described by particular physical theories, namely generalized probability theories in a quasi-classical physics framework and non-relativistic quantum theory. ** A large part of this dissertation is devoted to understanding different aspects of four different kinds of correlations: local, partially-local, no-signaling and quantum mechanical correlations. Novel characteristics of these correlations have been used to study how they are related and how they can be (...) discerned via Bell-type inequalities that give non-trivial bounds on the strength of the correlations. ** The study of quantum correlations has also prompted us to study a) the multi-partite qubit state space with respect to its entanglement and separability characteristics, and b) the differing strength of the correlations in separable and entangled qubit states. Results include a novel classification of multipartite (partial) separability and entanglement, strong constraints on the monogamy of entanglement and of non-local correlations, and many new entanglement detection criteria that are directly experimentally accessible. ** Because of the generality of the investigation these results also have strong foundational as well as philosophical repercussions for the different sorts of physical theories as a whole; notably for the viability of hidden variable theories for quantum mechanics, for the possibility of doing experimental metaphysics, for the question of holism in physical theories, and for the classical vs. quantum dichotomy. (shrink)

In this paper I hope to show that a conception of human rights requires a view of the social ideal and the good life, and requires a view of the nature of human community. But what I say in favor of these points hardly amounts to a demonstration. Instead I try to exhibit how we think and talk about rights in general, and what the presuppositions of such thought and talk are. Throughout, I emphasize the pragmatic side of rights-discourse and (...) I try to establish some of the contexts in which such discourse can be significantly employed. Much of what I say is motivated by the consideration that an historically important factor in the generation of various rights, their acknowledgement and implementation, and their extension to increasingly larger segments of the population, has been the claims put forward and the demands made by individuals and groups against individuals and groups. This factor constitutes a suggestive clue for the development of a theory of rights. The treatment here, however, is largely programmatic and fragmentary. The space allotted does not permit more. Moreover, I lead up to—but do not go into—the social ideal and the human community. The title of this essay indicates its limited scope. The above points are, of course, hardly novel; many older writers laid great stress upon them. But of late they have not received the attention that they in my view deserve. What does it mean for someone to maintain a conception of human rights? How is this conception given any concrete content? The answers to these questions, I believe, ultimately lead to a consideration of social ideals and the human community. What follows is meant to stimulate new thinking on these old-fashioned topics. (shrink)

Background Regarding controversial medical services, many have argued that if physicians cannot in good conscience provide a legal medical intervention for which a patient is a candidate, they should refer the requesting patient to an accommodating provider. This study examines what US physicians think a doctor is obligated to do when the doctor thinks it would be immoral to provide a referral. Method The authors conducted a cross-sectional survey of a random sample of 2000 US physicians from all specialties. The (...) primary criterion variable was agreement that physicians have a professional obligation to refer patients for all legal medical services for which the patients are candidates, even if the physician believes that such a referral is immoral. Results Of 1895 eligible physicians, 1032 (55%) responded. 57% of physicians agreed that doctors must refer patients regardless of whether or not the doctor believes the referral itself is immoral. Holding this opinion was independently associated with being more theologically pluralistic, describing oneself as sociopolitically liberal, and indicating that respect for patient autonomy is the most important bioethical principle in one's practice (multivariable ORs, 1.6–2.4). Conclusions Physicians are divided about a professional obligation to refer when the physician believes that referral itself is immoral. These data suggest there is no uncontroversial way to resolve conflicts posed when patients request interventions that their physicians cannot in good conscience provide. (shrink)

The traditional paradox of the stone may be interpreted as posing a competition between a pair of omnipotent beings, represented by God at two different times. The new paradox poses a question about simultaneous competition between a pair of omnipotent beings. We make use of an attractive Thomistic response to the former paradox in arguing that the latter situation is logically possible.

Glowacki defines peace as harmonious relationships between groups maintained without the threat of violence, where groups can be anything from families to nation states. However, defining such contentious concepts like “peace” and “groups” is a difficult task, and we discuss the implications of Glowacki's definitions for understanding intergroup relationships and their evolutionary history.

Women who had had breast cancer and had been enrolled in a large genetic breast cancer epidemiological study were interviewed about their experience of participation in the study, their attitudes to the confidentiality of data, and the feedback of personal and general research results. Collection of family history information seemed more salient in indicating the genetic nature of the study than the enrolment information sheet. There were no concerns about confidentiality.While participants would have welcomed general feedback about the results of (...) the study and were critical that this had not been provided, the feedback of personal information proved complicated and, sometimes, difficult. It is suggested that individual feedback of genetic test information in epidemiological studies should be undertaken only when there are specific reasons. (shrink)

Bhattacharyya, K. The Advaita concept of subjectivity.--Deutsch, E. Reflections on some aspects of the theory of rasa.--Nakamura, H. The dawn of modern thought in the East.--Organ, T. Causality, Indian and Greek.--Chatterjee, M. On types of classification.--Lacombe, O. Transcendental imagination.--Bahm, A. J. Standards for comparative philosophy.--Herring, H. Appearance, its significance and meaning in the history of philosophy.--Chang Chung-yuan. Pre-rational harmony in Heidegger's essential thinking and Chʼan thought.--Staal, J. F. Making sense of the Buddhist tetralemma.--Enomiya-Lassalle, H. M. The mysticism of Carl Albrecht (...) and Zen.--Parrinder, G. The nature of mysticism.--Cairns, G. E. Axiological contributions of East and West to the spiritual development of mankind.--Mayeda, S. Śaṇkara's view of ethics.--Mercier, A. On peace.--Barlingay, S. S. A discussion of some aspects of Gaudapāda's philosophy. (shrink)

Collection of essays around the work of H.L.A. Hart.

We present PhrasIS, a benchmark dataset composed of natural occurring Phrase pairs with Inference and Similarity annotations for the evaluation of semantic representations. The described dataset fills the gap between word and sentence-level datasets, allowing to evaluate compositional models at a finer granularity than sentences. Contrary to other datasets, the phrase pairs are extracted from naturally occurring text in image captions and news headlines. All the text fragments have been annotated by experts following a rigorous process also described in the (...) manuscript achieving high inter annotator agreement. In this work we analyse the dataset, showing the relation between inference labels and similarity scores. With 10K phrase pairs split in development and test, the dataset is an excellent benchmark for testing meaning representation systems. (shrink)

We maximally extend the quantum‐mechanical results of Muller and Saunders ( 2008 ) establishing the ‘weak discernibility’ of an arbitrary number of similar fermions in finite‐dimensional Hilbert spaces. This confutes the currently dominant view that ( A ) the quantum‐mechanical description of similar particles conflicts with Leibniz’s Principle of the Identity of Indiscernibles (PII); and that ( B ) the only way to save PII is by adopting some heavy metaphysical notion such as Scotusian haecceitas or Adamsian primitive thisness. We (...) take sides with Muller and Saunders ( 2008 ) against this currently dominant view, which has been expounded and defended by many. *Received July 2008; revised May 2009. †To contact the authors, please write to: F. A. Muller, Faculty of Philosophy, Erasmus University Rotterdam, Burg. Oudlaan 50, H5–16, 3062 PA Rotterdam, The Netherlands; e‐mail: [email protected] , and Institute for the History and Foundations of Science, Utrecht University, Budapestlaan 6, IGG–3.08, 3584 CD Utrecht, The Netherlands; e‐mail: [email protected] . M. P. Seevinck, Institute for the History and Foundations of Science, Utrecht University, Budapestlaan 6, IGG–3.08, 3584 CD Utrecht, The Netherlands; e‐mail: [email protected]. (shrink)

Bioethics needs an expanded moral vision. It is now time for bioethics to take full account of the problems of health disparities and structural injustice that are made newly urgent by the COVID-19 pandemic and the effects of climate change. Nancy M. P. King, Gail E. Henderson, and Larry R. Churchill make the case for a more social understanding and application of justice, a deeper humility in assessing expertise in bioethics consulting, a broader and more relevant research agenda, and greater (...) appreciation of the profound health implications of global warming. (shrink)

Chomsky is widely mentioned in those philosophical circles whose interest centers on the analysis of language, but until now he has really been little read; this new work will remedy that situation. Here Chomsky, building on a presupposed acquaintance with linguistics, provides a stimulating examination of four major areas of linguistic theory: first, generative grammars are studied in their relation to language learning and understanding, then they are further considered as theories of linguistic use and competence; Chomsky here sets out (...) the criteria required for a grammar to be considered adequate—the justification of grammars. The second chapter examines syntactic theory with reference to depth structure and the problem of the relation of syntactic description to the traditional, correct account of how language is used. Depth structures and their import with reference to transformations within grammars are the subject matter of the third chapter. The last section considers, among other problems, the interface between syntax and semantics, especially the problems of degrees of grammaticality. A number of notes which go further into certain topics appear after the main text, and there is a useful bibliography. The main thrust of the book is a syntactical treatment of natural language by using transformational generative grammars as descriptive. Although he suggests empirical tests for the models he has constructed, he does not provide an attempt to fully verify the proposed system. This book will certainly be essential for an understanding of the structure of language viewed from the syntactic point of view.—P. J. M. (shrink)

Although Frege is now one of the most important figures in analytical philosophy, there are virtually no full-length studies available. Walker does not try to present all of Frege—that would be a monumental undertaking—but only to consider the philosophical aspects of his thought. Frege's theory of functions, concepts, and objects is first studied; then naming and describing are related to predication and thence to concepts; the notion of the sense of words and expressions, and then the notion of truth, especially (...) as picture-truth, is analyzed with their assistance. The last sections view Frege's general idea of the use of language and symbols, the nature of scientific laws, and the nature of numbers. The author sees Frege as tending to shift his interest from logic to ordinary language and so to the problems of expression in general; this view is reflected in the book itself. The affinities which the author sees with the work of Frege and Wittgenstein is only occasionally treated, but he does make it clear that the Tractatus owes much to Frege. Generally, this compact work will serve well in the study and interpretation of the work of the nineteenth century's greatest logician.—P. J. M. (shrink)

This concise work is a study of the semantical aspects of various paradoxes arising in formal logic. The author constructs a second-order system T with an interpretation in order to provide apparatus for stating and dodging the antinomies. After presenting a number of paradoxes, the author discusses a semantic vicious-circle principle, and provides a clarification of the problems by its application. He then discusses semantic aspects of some classical meta-mathematical results of Gödel, Tarski, Kleene, and Turing on unsolvable problems. Also (...) treated is the topic of impredicative definition in mathematics, especially as it relates to the vicious-circle principle.—P. J. M. (shrink)

Le 9e siècle marque un tournant dans l'hagiographie byzantine qui devient de plus en plus sécularisée à la fois dans sa forme et dans son contenu. Deux Vitae datant de la fin du 9e siècle, la vie d'Antoine le jeune et la vie de l'impératrice Theodora jouent un rôle pivot dans ce processus de sécularisation. Elles offrent les modèles d'une piété masculine et d'une piété féminine en témoignant de deux formes antithétiques de l'expérience religieuse : celle monastique et celle séculaire. (...) Cette tension trouve ses racines dans l'iconoclasme et reste vivante dans la période post-iconoclaste dans le conflit qui oppose le patriarche Ignace à Photios. (shrink)

Science education is most efficacious and enduring when undertaken within a philosophical framework akin to that of science, itself. This entails recognition that, above all, science is a mode of rational inquiry pursued by those who are curious about the natural world and motivated to seek rational answers to personally meaningful questions. The key to successful science instruction lies in fostering a student' 's self-motivation and productively channeling his innate curiosity. To do this a science educator must convey to students (...) an accurate and sympathetic impression of the importance of science to their cultural development; help students develop an ability to evaluate information critically and arrive at logical conclusions; provide students opportunities to engage in creative, personally meaningful scientific research. (shrink)