This paper, which has both a historical and a polemical aspect, investigates the view, dominant throughout the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, that the sense of sight is, originally, not phenomenally three-dimensional in character, and that we must come to interpret its properly two-dimensional data by reference to the sense of 'touch'. The principal argument for this claim, due to Berkeley, is examined and found wanting. The supposedly confirming findings concerning 'Molyneux subjects' are also investigated and are shown to be either (...) irrelevant or disconfirming. Recent investigations on infant and neonatal perception are discussed and are also found to be disconfirming. An innatist version of the theory is then considered and is shown to be undermined by the largely 'Gibsonian' character of early space-perception. Finally three recent arguments in favour of the theory - two from psychologists, one from a philosopher - are considered and answered. (shrink)

That a coherent account of the origins and early history of the British Association for the Advancement of Science has yet to be written is not altogether surprising. Even when the facts of the matter have been retrieved from the scattered papers of Babbage, Brewster, J. D. Forbes, Murchison, John Phillips, Vernon Harcourt, Whewell, and the rest, their organization into a connected whole remains a formidable business. The present paper seeks to identify the roles played in this important chapter in (...) the chronicles of British science by David Brewster (1781–1868), the Scottish natural philosopher, and William Vernon Harcourt (1789–1871), the York clergyman. Inquiries of this kind—into the proper apportioning of the credit for a discovery, a technique, or the rise of an institution—are only saved from sterility if they make possible a better understanding of the critical events. The present review of the origins of the British Association leads to the modest but important conclusion that the organization brought into existence by Vernon Harcourt at York in September 1831 was subtly but significantly different from that which had originally been proposed by Brewster. If this is so, some of the existing accounts of the matter stand in need of revision. (shrink)

Moral theories which, like those of Plato, Aristotle and Aquinas, give a central place to the virtues, tend to assume that as traits of character the virtues are mutually compatible so that it is possible for one and the same person to possess them all. This assumption—let us call it the compatibility thesis—does not deny the existence of painful moral dilemmas: it allows that the virtues may conflict in particular situations when considerations associated with different virtues favour incompatible courses of (...) action, but holds that these conflicts occur only at the level of individual actions. Thus while it may not always be possible to do both what would be just and what would be kind or to act both loyally and honestly, it is possible to be both a kind and a just person and to have both the virtue of loyalty and the virtue of honesty. (shrink)

(1984). Social and technological change: Diversity or commonality in post‐school education. British Journal of Educational Studies: Vol. 32, No. 2, pp. 118-124.

The purpose of this paper is to discuss and to relate to each other two topics: the admissibility of ignorance and mistake of fact as defences against negligence in crime; and the inadmissibility of ignorance and mistake of law as defences against criminal charges. I am in not concerned at all with torts negligence, only with criminal offences which can be committed negligently, where negligence suffices for liability, as in the law of homicide. This produces an untidy classification of elements, (...) one or other of which is needed to provide the required mens rea : intention, knowledge, recklessness and negligence. It is untidy, because the last does not belong on the same list as the other three, each of which can appropriately be called a state of mind in what we might say to be a positive sense, for each of them includes some degree of awareness of and/or attitude to relevant facts. If negligence is to be called a state of mind, it is so in a very stretched and negative way: to be told that a person was not attending to, thinking of or noticing something that he should have been is to be given some information, of a negative sort, about his state of mind, but it tells us very little, for it eliminates only one of an unlimited range of states of mind. His not attending, noticing, etc., is equally compatible with his daydreaming and with his concentrating hard on something else. If negligence requires inadvertence, as is commonly maintained, then there was a state of mind which the agent should have been in but was not; if, as I would argue, it does not require inadvertence, then there was a state of mind which the agent should have been in, and maybe he was not in it, maybe he was in it. would not require it; the definition runs, ‘a person is negligent if he fails to exercise such care, skill or foresight as a reasonable man in his situation would exercise’. However, that is only a proposal; at present advertent negligence is rare in criminal law, although common in torts.) On this view, the questions are whether his performance fell below scratch, what are to be the excusing conditions for such a performance, and if the answer to is yes, whether his performance was covered by the excusing conditions. (shrink)

The concept of information has not only a narrowly specific but also a broadly philosophical, epistemological content. In published writings discussing the nature of information and its interrelation with other categories of science, a number of interesting philosophical problems have been raised. The following questions, in particular, are being discussed: What property of matter is reflected by the concept of information? Is this property possessed by all matter or only by certain of its forms? What follows is an attempt to (...) answer these questions. (shrink)

_ Source: _Volume 53, Issue 2-4, pp 269 - 293 This article presents some results of the study of seventeen medieval treatises containing a logical analysis of the syncategorem ‘_an_’. On the one hand, a new classification is proposed of the literary genres of the _Logica Modernorum_, based on the four elements involved in the logical analysis of syncategorematic terms: the meaning of the syncategorem, logical rules, related sophisms, and proposed solutions. On the other, three texts are studied in detail, (...) showing the origins and development of the logical analysis of the syncategorem ‘_an_’ between the 12th and the 13th centuries. Finally, a comparative study is offered of different analyses of the sophism ‘_Tu scis an de mentiente sit falsum Sortem esse illum_’, a sophism that does not raise any problem as to the particle ‘_an_’, but introduces the issue of the truth conditions of the _dicta_. (shrink)

The word is generally regarded as having two distinct and separate meanings: threshing-floor, and garden, orchard, or vineyard. Like the classical the word must originally have denoted a threshing-floor. How the second, and apparently incongruous, meaning became attached to it has never been explained. Both are found in Homer. In the Iliad the horses of Achilles trample down the dead like oxen treading the barley on the well-built threshing-floor; the arrow rebounds from the breastplate of Menelaos like beans or chickpeas (...) flying off the blade of the winnowing shovel on the great threshing-floor; the dust of the conflict that lay white on the Achaeans is likened to the whitening heaps when the wind drives off the chaff on the holy threshing-floors when men are winnowing and Demeter separates the chaff from the grain. (shrink)

This paper looks into the contents of the Tractatus suppositionum terminorum by Master Franquera, in the context of the teaching of logic in Salamanca in the fifteenth century. Franquera’s work is characterised by its explicit realist bias and its rejection of Ockhamist theses, i.e., by its recognition of the existence of a natura communis or a universale in re, which is evident in all discussions related to suppositio simplex and the theory of significatio. But, apart from this, Franquera’s discussion of (...) the theory of suppositio stands out as a strange mixture of different doctrines: some of them are derived from thirteenth-century analyses, others from fourteenth-century developments; realist goals are reached by means of instruments that, while not being nominalist, are definitely inspired by terminism. While upholding the theses of realist schools, Franquera adopts the definitions and rules of nominalist authors. (shrink)

The paper examines a single, apparently simple argument for the existence of incompatibilities between the virtues as traits of character. This argument appeals not to empirical truths about human psychology or human nature but to the possibility of conflict between the exercise of different virtues in action. There are, for example, situations in which we can exercise the virtue of truthfulness only at the expense of not exercising the virtue of tact, as when we are asked a question to which (...) the straightforward answer will pain our questioner. The person who in these situations would give a straightforward answer possesses the virtue of truthfulness to a higher degree than the person who would respond more evasively, whereas the latter person possesses the virtue of tact to a higher degree than the former. But since the two responses are mutually exclusive, it follows that the degree to which we possess the virtue of truthfulness must, at least in some measure, correlate inversely with the degree to which we possess the virtue of tact. And similarly for many other pairs of virtues. My paper focusses on the two cardinal assumptions of this argument, viz., (i) that sometimes the exercise of one virtue can conflict with the exercise of another, and (ii) that the degree to which a person possesses a virtue correlates directly with the extent of its exercise, and defends both assumptions against a variety of objections which allege that, in different ways, they are insensitive to the complexity of the virtues. (shrink)

Eduard Norden, in the second half of his Agnostos Theos, has maintained with great learning and ingenuity the thesis that predications in the style ‘Thou art ,’ ‘I am ,’ are due to Oriental influence; purely Greek religious language does not go beyond ‘Thou dost ,’ ‘We are indebted to thee for .’ This view appears to be substantially correct. To Oriental influence we may, I think, trace also the custom of stringing together a series of brief predications in or (...) of the second person, for the most part not connected by conjunctions, and producing the effect of a rapid fire of assertions. The earlier Greek examples are not, as a rule, asyndetic. In the Hellenistic age and later we see the other style, as in Catullus 34. 13: ‘tu Lucina dolentibus Iuno dicta puerperis, tu potens Triuia et notho es dicta lumine luna, tu cursu dea menstruo … exples’ 61. 51: ‘te suis tremulus parens inuocat, tibi uirgines zonula soluunt sinus, te timens cupida nouus captat aure maritus’; in Lucretius' proem; in Ovid, Met. IV. 17: ‘tibi enim inconsumpta iuuenta est, tu puer aeternus, tu formosissimus alto conspiceris caelo, tibi cum sine cornibus adstas, uirgineum caput est’; in the invocation of Apollo at the end of the first book of Statius' Thebaid; in Capaneus' prayer to his strong right arm : ; in the Orphic hymns, II. 10-, though they consist mostly of accumulations of epithets; in Menander Rhetor περ πιδειкν : περ [al. Θοραι], περ σ Θνδες, παρ σοкα σελνη τν ετνα λαμβνει; in Valerius Maximus VI. (shrink)

Eduard Norden, in the second half of his Agnostos Theos, has maintained with great learning and ingenuity the thesis that predications in the style ‘Thou art,’ ‘I am,’ are due to Oriental influence; purely Greek religious language does not go beyond ‘Thou dost,’ ‘We are indebted to thee for.’ This view appears to be substantially correct. To Oriental influence we may, I think, trace also the custom of stringing together a series of brief predications in or of the second person, (...) for the most part not connected by conjunctions, and producing the effect of a rapid fire of assertions. The earlier Greek examples are not, as a rule, asyndetic. In the Hellenistic age and later we see the other style, as in Catullus 34. 13: ‘tu Lucina dolentibus Iuno dicta puerperis, tu potens Triuia et notho es dicta lumine luna, tu cursu dea menstruo … exples’ 61. 51: ‘te suis tremulus parens inuocat, tibi uirgines zonula soluunt sinus, te timens cupida nouus captat aure maritus’; in Lucretius' proem; in Ovid, Met. IV. 17: ‘tibi enim inconsumpta iuuenta est, tu puer aeternus, tu formosissimus alto conspiceris caelo, tibi cum sine cornibus adstas, uirgineum caput est’; in the invocation of Apollo at the end of the first book of Statius' Thebaid; in Capaneus' prayer to his strong right arm : ; in the Orphic hymns, II. 10-, though they consist mostly of accumulations of epithets; in Menander Rhetor περ πιδειкν : περ [al. Θοραι], περ σ Θνδες, παρ σοкα σελνη τν ετνα λαμβνει; in Valerius Maximus VI. (shrink)

This paper examines the analysis of judgements of belief that Wittgenstein offers in 5.54–5.5423 of the Tractatus. We offer an interpretation of these paragraphs wich also pays attention to 5.5423, usually forgotten. In our opinion, this interpretation fits with Wittgenstein’s doctrines, and makes clear that such non-genuine propositions are nonsense. These are not, as has sometimes been proposed, the propositions of psychology. In the second part of the article we give a detailed discussion of interpretations of these paragraphs which have (...) been offered previously. (shrink)

This work examines Richard Kilvington's Sophisma 47, in the context of the Doctrine of Obligations. Its aim is to revise the thesis of P. V. Spade, who attributes to Kilvington an intermediate position between Burley and Swyneshed, and interprets the Doctrine of Obligations in general as a Theory of Counterfactuals.

Everybody is to some extent pacific, as everybody prefers to attain his ends by peaceful means if he can. Even the most bloodthirsty militarist uses threats of war rather than war, if threats will do the work. Though most people prefer persuasion to violence and peace to war, they are prepared as a last resort to go to war and use violence, when that seems the only means to attaining some end they consider to be of vital importance. The one (...) hundred per cent pacifist, however, refuses to engage in war or support warlike action under any circumstances whatever. It is his case that I wish to consider. It is not my purpose to try to persuade anyone to be a pacifist or to be the opposite, but to point out that absolute pacifism carries with it certain logical consequences which are not particularly palatable. The opposed view, which I shall call the case for civic virtues, also carries unpalatable though different consequences. These two appear to be simple and clear-cut opposed views which I propose to state as fairly as I can, with their consequences. Certain qualifications and modifications will have to be considered later, but I do not think that there is actually any possible mean position which avoids the dilemma I am concerned to present. I shall state the case for civic virtue first and the pacifist case second. (shrink)

Evolutionary psychology and human sociobiology often reject the mere possibility of symbolic causality. Conversely, theories in which symbolic causality plays a central role tend to be both anti-nativist and anti-evolutionary. This article sketches how these apparent scientific rivals can be reconciled in the study of disgust. First, we argue that there are no good philosophical or evolutionary reasons to assume that symbolic causality is impossible. Then, we examine to what extent symbolic causality can be part of the theoretical toolbox of (...) the evolutionary social sciences. This examination leads to the conclusion that it is possible to make evolutionary sense of Mary Douglas’s theory of disgust, and that her view of symbolic causality can and should inform evolutionary theories of (sociocultural) disgust. (shrink)

There is a short answer to the question, whether scientific method can be applied to the study of the social relations of men, or, whether social sciences are possible; it is that these sciences exist and are in fact among the most ancient. Their success has perhaps been less startling than that of the physical sciences and they have perhaps been pursued with less enthusiasm. But there are reasons for this inherent in the nature of the social sciences, as I (...) shall try to show. (shrink)

Edited book on the prospects of non-Platonist realism in the philosophy of mathematics. Physicalism holds that mathematics studies properties realised or realisable in the physical world. This collection of papers has its origin in a conference held at the University of Toronto in June of 1988. The theme of the conference was Physicalism in Mathematics: Recent Work in the Philosophy of Mathematics. At the conference, papers were read by Geoffrey Hellman (Minnesota), Yvon Gauthier (Montreal), Michael Hallett (McGill), Hartry Field (USC), (...) Bob Hale (Lancaster & St Andrew's), Alasdair Urquhart (Toronto) and Penelope Maddy (Irvine). This volume supplements updated versions of six of those papers with contributions by Jim Brown (Toronto), John Bigelow (La Trobe), John Burgess (Princeton), Chandler Davis (Toronto), David Papineau (Cambridge), Michael Resnik (North Carolina at Chapel Hill), Peter Simons (Salzburg) and Crispin Wright (St Andrews & Michigan). Together they provide a vivid, expansive snapshot of the exciting work which is currently being carried out in philosophy of mathematics. (shrink)

Pregnant women and their interests have been underrepresented in health research. Little is known about issues relevant to women considering research participation during pregnancy. We performed in-depth interviews with 22 women enrolled in either one of two trials sponsored by the National Institutes of Health to assess the safety and immunogenicity of the H1N1 vaccine during pregnancy. Three themes characterized women’s decisions to participate in research: they valued early access to the vaccine, they perceived a safety advantage when participating in (...) research, and they wanted to help advance scientific knowledge. However, there were also some considerations that would disincline them to participate in research—for instance, a significant risk of maternal or fetal harm, the presence of a placebo arm in a study, or a requirement to significantly change planned therapy or behavior. Pregnant women who participated in the H1N1 vaccine trials viewed research favorably, citing its advantages over standard clinical care. These findings emphasize that access to benefit should guide policy for including pregnant women in research. (shrink)

The chromodomain is a highly conserved sequence motif that has been identified in a variety of animal and plant species. In mammals, chromodomain proteins appear to be either structural components of large macromolecular chromatin complexes or proteins involved in remodelling chromatin structure. Recent work has suggested that apart from a role in regulating gene activity, chromodomain proteins may also play roles in genome organisation. This article reviews progress made in characterising mammalian chromodomain proteins and emphasises their emerging role in the (...) regulation of gene expression and genome organisation. BioEssays 22:124–137, 2000. ©2000 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. (shrink)

A critical appraisal of the theories founded on the theorem of the multiaxial flower , shows an evolution fromWettstein's original version of 1907 to various hypotheses founded on the the same theme and partly derived from the Wettsteinian doctrine. A number of circumstances such as semantic inconsistencies, but principally the choice of inadequate archetypes, prevented the success of the theory of a polystachyous floral region, because the deductions and interpretations emanating from this concept were not sufficiently convincing to defeat the (...) opposed theory of the uniaxial euanthous flower or anthostrobilus hypothesis. Only after the amendation of the theory of a multiaxial reproductive region on the basis of the anthocorm concept can one arrive at a plausible idea of the evolution of the angiospermous flower which is compatible with all aspects of the phylogeny of the Flowering Plants , and with the floral morphology and anatomy of the various kinds of flowers.Eine kritische Bewertung der Theorien die auf dem Theorem der mehrachsigen Blüte gegründet worden sind zeigt die Entwicklung von einer vonWettstein in 1907 vorgeschlagenen Originalversion zu mehreren, teilweise davon abgeleiteten, Theorien über das Thema der Entstehung der Angiospermenblüte. Verschiedene Umstände, wie z.B. semantische Widersprüche, aber in erster Stelle die Wahl eines inadäquaten Prototypus, verhinderten anfänglich den Erfolg der Hypothese eines mehrachsigen Blütenbereiches, weil es den hervorgehenden Schlussfolgerungen und Deutungen zu viel an Ueberzeugungskraft mangelte um die gegnerische Theorie der einachsigen Ranalesblüte oder Anthostrobilushypothese endgültig zu verdrängen. Erst die Ergänzung der Theorie einer vielachsigen Blüte ermöglichte die plausibele Darstellung der Evolution der Angiospermenblüte, welche Erörterung in befriedigender Weise in Uebereinstimmung ist mit allenA spekten der Phylogenie der Blütenpflanzen , und auch mit den morphologischen and anatomischen Verhältnissen bei Blüten jeder Art im Anklang ist.Une évaluation critique des différentes théories fondées sur le théorème de la fleur pluriaxiale montre une évolution qui commence avec une version originale proposée parWettstein en 1907 et qui mène à plusieurs théories, partiellement dérivées de l'idée wettsteinienne, sur le thème de l'origine de la fleur. Quelques circonstances, comme par exemple des contrariétés sémantiques, mais surtout la choix d'un prototype inadéquat, ont prévenu au début le triomphe de l'hypothèse d'une région florale pluriaxiale, puisque les conclusions et les interprétations qui provenaient de cette théorie étaient privées de toute conviction pour suppléer la théorie opposée de la fleur ranalienne et uniaxiale . Une explication recevable de l'évolution de la fleur angiospermique qui harmonise avec tous les aspects de la phylogénie des plantes floriales , et aussi avec les conditions morphologiques et anatomiques de toutes sortes de fleurs, ne gagnait de terrain qu'après le perfectionnement de la théorie de la fleur pluriaxiale. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Humanism, Female Education, and Myth:Erasmus, Vives, and More's To CandidusA. D. CousinsWhen considering pleasure and chance as aspects of human experience, Thomas More sometimes gendered them female; that is to say, at times he represented them by drawing from the mythographies of Venus and of Fortune. But what did he suggest that actual women, as distinct from goddesses, were or should be or might become: what were his notions (...) of being a woman, of femaleness? Further, what did he suggest that women might contribute to the common weal? A useful way to start answering that question is to look at what More seems to have thought about educating women: in particular, women who were entering adult life—entering into what was agreed to be the major female role—by marrying for the first time and therefore newly taking upon themselves the management of a household. In one of his most ambitious Latin poems, as nowhere else, More wrote elaborately, concisely and problematically on the education of women who were in just those circumstances. My discussion attempts a repositioning of that poem, To Candidus: How to Choose A Wife A Poem in Iambic Dimeter Brachycatalectic (Versvs Iambici Dimetri Brachycatalectici ad Candidvm, Qvalis Vxor Deligenda). To make the attempt involves examining More's other Latin poems on women, as would be anticipated; however, I am mainly concerned here with affinities between To Candidus—then, to a lesser extent, some of More's associated Latin poems—and notions about female education that were or were to become part of the already long, and mostly male, debate about the nature of femaleness.1 To be [End Page 213] specific, I am chiefly concerned with affinities between More's poem and writings by Erasmus and by Vives on the education of prospective or of recent brides.Because the primary concern in my discussion is to clarify the relations between More's To Candidus and humanist notions on female education, especially notions put forward by two of More's humanist friends about young brides, I want initially to revisit the early modern debate on educating women, of course an important element of the wider debate about femaleness itself. One medieval and thence early modern idea on female education was that, in addition to what their mothers taught them, most women needed merely to receive religious and ethical instruction from their husbands, who would likewise instruct them in how to govern a household.2 After all, it was often pointed out, the household was women's natural domain: since, therefore, they would not normally engage with the world at large as would men—since, for example, they would not normally be educators, or writers, or politicians—women did not usually need the broad education appropriate to men.3 Assertion to the contrary was variously argued—and differences between or among those contrary assertions did not always depend on whether an author was male or female. In The Book of the City of Ladies (1405), a response to Boccaccio's De Mulieribus Claris and, perhaps unknowingly, also to Plutarch's The Virtues of Women, Christine de Pizan attempted to construct at once a refuge and a resource for [End Page 214] women, whom she recognized as having been misrepresented to themselves no less than to men throughout generations of misogynistic male fictions, ranging from satire to epic, from fable to history.4 Her City, in so far as it is a revisionist history of women, forms a textual space which does indeed offer a refuge as well as a resource, for Christine advocates that women, fulfilling their capabilities as women, aim at "cultivat[ing] virtue" and thereby gaining inclusion in the true, illustrious record of female achievement: membership of a textual community within which they will see themselves reflected and which is at one with the City of God.5 Inseparable from their seeking to do so, she emphasizes, will be their receiving education.6 Despite that emphasis—and despite her emphasizing that women are men's intellectual equals or, not infrequently, superiors—Christine nevertheless defends the concept that the domestic sphere and not the public is in general that "appropriate" to women.7... (shrink)

Sooner or later there comes a time in the history of a science when it pauses from dealing with its innumerable special problems and returns to the study of first principles and the foundations that delimit its particular field of inquiry. The result is usually a radical revision of a number of established basic ideas, the discovery of some hitherto unknown dimension in the field, and the emergence of an appropriate paradigm for investigating the field. It was the fate of (...) logic to be one of the first fields to undergo such a reformation, which lasted more than two centuries. Its instigators were Rene Descartes and Benedict Spinoza. (shrink)

By ‘moral liberty’ Reid means, not freedom to act, but freedom to choose, or to decide. And the choosing he is talking of is an internal something, not the external performance that choosing often is, where it is the executing of one of a number of options—as in the response to “Choose any card from this deck.” Non-human animals sometimes act voluntarily, but those actions “seem to be invariably determined by the passion, or appetite, or affection, or habit, which is (...) strongest at the time.” A voluntary action is for Reid a willed action, i.e., an action done with an object. Even if some animals sometimes perform such actions, they have no power to determine their own wills, no “power of self-government.” Moral liberty is the liberty of a moral agent, his power over the determinations of his will, which requires “not only a conception of what he wills, but some degree of practical judgment or reason.” Moral liberty, then, is “the Liberty of Moral Agents, who are capable of acting well or ill, wisely or foolishly.” Unless we are in that sense free, nothing that we do can be the proper object of blame or approval. (shrink)

The claims that Dr. F. H. George makes on behalf of his machines are obscurely stated. Does he claim that a machine has been made and has actually produced a kind of response which is incalculable, given the specification to which it has been built and also the prescribed conditions, what is put in for the particular performance in question? “Incalculable” does not mean that nobody has bothered to calculate, but that somebody has bothered, that the calculations show that the (...) response in question is not among the calculated ones, that it is not chance or mechanical breakdown, but a specific response to something specific among the given conditions. If he could substantiate this claim, then I would reluctantly agree that some machines are cleverer and more thoughtful than I thought possible, and some men sillier and less thoughtful, for they deliberately design machines to do they know not what. (shrink)

The authors attempt to speculatively reconstruct the concept of the “So­viet computer game”. They propose to consider gaming practices associ­ated with computers as a derivative of the accepted ideological guidelines that accompany the Soviet project of machine modernization. Within this framework, the concept of the Soviet computer game appears as an unre­alized historical alternative to the normative game design that has devel­oped in countries with market economies. Despite the industry — or the electronic entertainment market — not having had the (...) time to be properly established in the USSR, there were a number of discursive attitudes re­garding the game as such, and the gaming function of computing devices in particular. Even early Soviet pedagogical theories assumed that “playing like a Soviet” involves performing activities structurally similar to labor, where the player becomes part of production. Later, cybernetic discourse, through game theory, indicated the possibility of formalizing any prag­matic activity as a game model; with the advancement of programming, the pragmatics of digital gaming as a way of educating and solving utili­tarian tasks was developed. Based on the memoir archive of Soviet cyber­netics, and publications in the late-Soviet press, the authors demonstrate that the Soviet computer game was not seen an entertainment product, but a representative model for solving problems in an algorithmic form. Thus, the article is not about specific games that could be called Soviet, but about the logic that guided and set the tone for the interpretation of certain computer-game phenomena in the USSR. (shrink)

Hippolytus, Refutatio omnium haeresium, V. 9. 8, p. 99, Wendland preserves a curious hymn to Attis: ετε Κρόνον γένος ετε ‘Pέας μεγάλης, χαρ’ τ κατης κουσμα ‘Pέας Ἄττι σ καλοσι μν’ Ασσύριοι τριπόθητον Ἄδωνιν, δλη δ' Αγυπτος Ὄσιριν, πουράνιον μηνς κέρας ‘Eλληνς σοία, Σαμοθρκες Ἅδαμνα σεβάσμιον, Αίμόνιοι Κορύβαντα, κα ο ρύγες λλοτε μν IIάπαν, ποτ δ’ α νέκυν θεν… It is preceded by a long exegetical disquisition, which treats the various divine names in the order in which they occur in (...) the hymn, and includes the remarks, 8. 13, p. 91, τοτόν, ησι, θρκες ο περ τν Αμον οκοντες Κορύβαντα καλοσι, κα θρξν ο Φρύγες μοίως… τν ατν δ τοτν, Φησι, Φρύγες κα IIπαν καλοσιν . The statement here made is obviously at variance with the hymn: Αμόνιοι are properly Thessalians, and have nothing to do with Mount Haemus. Moreover, we have evidence for the cult of a Korybas, more commonly called a Kabeiros, at the foot of Mount Olympus, and as Mount Olympus lies on the borders of Thessaly and Macedonia, this may be designated as a cult by Thessalians. Αμόνιοι therefore agrees with facts, and the explanation given by Hippolytus or by the authority whom he was following can be explained as due to a confusion of place-names. It led here to the further error of θρκες; the attribution of orgiastic cults to Thracians was natural, but there seems a lack of evidence for Korybas or Korybantes in Thrace. (shrink)

The purpose of this paper is to discuss and to relate to each other two topics: the admissibility of ignorance and mistake of fact as defences against negligence in crime; and the inadmissibility of ignorance and mistake of law as defences against criminal charges. I am in not concerned at all with torts negligence, only with criminal offences which can be committed negligently, where negligence suffices for liability, as in the law of homicide. This produces an untidy classification of elements, (...) one or other of which is needed to provide the required mens rea : intention, knowledge, recklessness and negligence. It is untidy, because the last does not belong on the same list as the other three, each of which can appropriately be called a state of mind in what we might say to be a positive sense, for each of them includes some degree of awareness of and/or attitude to relevant facts. If negligence is to be called a state of mind, it is so in a very stretched and negative way: to be told that a person was not attending to, thinking of or noticing something that he should have been is to be given some information, of a negative sort, about his state of mind, but it tells us very little, for it eliminates only one of an unlimited range of states of mind. His not attending, noticing, etc., is equally compatible with his daydreaming and with his concentrating hard on something else. If negligence requires inadvertence, as is commonly maintained, then there was a state of mind which the agent should have been in but was not; if, as I would argue, it does not require inadvertence, then there was a state of mind which the agent should have been in, and maybe he was not in it, maybe he was in it. would not require it; the definition runs, ‘a person is negligent if he fails to exercise such care, skill or foresight as a reasonable man in his situation would exercise’. However, that is only a proposal; at present advertent negligence is rare in criminal law, although common in torts.) On this view, the questions are whether his performance fell below scratch, what are to be the excusing conditions for such a performance, and if the answer to is yes, whether his performance was covered by the excusing conditions. (shrink)

Among the accusations Procopius brings against Justinian in the Secret History is the following: The matter of the kataskopoi is as follows. From ancient times many men were maintained at public expense. They would enter enemy territory and gain access to the palace of the Persians, either under the guise of trading or by some other ploy. After investigating everything thoroughly, they would return to Roman territory and be able to report all the secrets of the enemy to the government (...) officials. Forewarned, they were on their guard and nothing unforeseen would take them by surprise. (shrink)

In order to slow down the inexorable increase in spending on health care, the British government has implemented an initiative proposed by Griffiths. This initiative is designed to make doctors more accountable for the decisions they may take. In this essay I argue first, that the conflation of two decisions (financial and clinical) leads to unnecessary ethical dilemmas and secondly, that as psychologically it is difficult to take two decisions simultaneously, inevitably the clinician is forced to name either the financial (...) or the clinical decision as the prior problem. To decide for the former inevitably strains the traditional doctor/patient relationship of mutual trust. (shrink)

Are we to restore ‘sit on eggs’ after Hesychius or ‘cry ’, ‘lament’ after Nauck? In his recent supplement to the Loeb Aeschylus, Mr. Lloyd-Jones says that the latter ‘is far better suited to the context’, by which I am given to understand that he means that Aeschylus would have been very unlikely to employ the brooding metaphor in this passage. Admonished by Wilamowitz that ‘es unverzeihlich ist, das Bild der briitenden Henne zu vertreiben’, I fall back in some bewilderment (...) on the fact that I personally like it very much and that the tomb-nest symbolism, though not absolutely presupposed by Cho. 247 ff. and 501(), would certainly have encouraged the poet to write these later passages. But there is a dearth of objective argument on this matter which I want, if possible, to supply. (shrink)

Originally published 1970.This book traces the history of the sixth form in Britain from the first decade of this century and follows the continuing debate over its function to the present day. It analyzes what kind of organisation is required to meet the demands of rising numbers and questions whether the needs of older adolescents can be better met in the "new" sixth form of the comprehensive school or in a separate type of sixth-form college. The book also discusses the (...) balance between general and specialized courses. (shrink)

Originally published 1970.This book traces the history of the sixth form in Britain from the first decade of this century and follows the continuing debate over its function to the present day. It analyzes what kind of organisation is required to meet the demands of rising numbers and questions whether the needs of older adolescents can be better met in the "new" sixth form of the comprehensive school or in a separate type of sixth-form college. The book also discusses the (...) balance between general and specialized courses. (shrink)

Background: Hospital nurses are frequently the first care givers to receive a patient’s request for euthanasia or physician-assisted suicide (PAS). In France, there is no consensus over which medical practices should be considered euthanasia, and this lack of consensus blurred the debate about euthanasia and PAS legalisation. This study aimed to investigate French hospital nurses’ opinions towards both legalisations, including personal conceptions of euthanasia and working conditions and organisation. Methods: A phone survey conducted among a random national sample of 1502 (...) French hospital nurses. We studied factors associated with opinions towards euthanasia and PAS, including contextual factors related to hospital units with random-effects logistic models. Results: Overall, 48% of nurses supported legalisation of euthanasia and 29%, of PAS. Religiosity, training in pallative care/pain management and feeling competent in end-of-life care were negatively correlated with support for legalisation of both euthanasia and PAS, while nurses working at night were more prone to support legalisation of both. The support for legalisation of euthanasia and PAS was also weaker in pain treatment/palliative care and intensive care units, and it was stronger in units not benefiting from interventions of charity/religious workers and in units with more nurses. Conclusions: Many French hospital nurses uphold the legalisation of euthanasia and PAS, but these nurses may be the least likely to perform what proponents of legalisation call “good” euthanasia. Improving professional knowledge of palliative care could improve the management of end-of-life situations and help to clarify the debate over euthanasia. (shrink)

Among the accusations Procopius brings against Justinian in the Secret History is the following: The matter of the kataskopoi is as follows. From ancient times many men were maintained at public expense. They would enter enemy territory and gain access to the palace of the Persians, either under the guise of trading or by some other ploy. After investigating everything thoroughly, they would return to Roman territory and be able to report all the secrets of the enemy to the government (...) officials. Forewarned, they were on their guard and nothing unforeseen would take them by surprise. (shrink)

In medical practice and research it is necessary to consider the rights of the researcher or physician and of the subject or patient, to conform to scientific standards and to examine the appropriateness with respect to laws and moral values. Research ethics committees have an important role to play in ensuring the ethical standards and scientific merit of research on human subjects. Research of no scientific value is also against ethical principles. To obtain valid and reliable results from biomedical research, (...) it is a scientific and ethical obligation to make use of the science of statistics. Therefore, for research to be evaluated using biostatistics intensively from ethical and scientific points of view, a biostatistics expert is necessary on research ethics committees. Developments in Turkey are used as examples. (shrink)

La possibilité de transplantation d’organes a posé de nouveaux problèmes à l’éthique médicale aussi bien qu’à la médecine clinique. Deux systèmes tentent de résoudre l’un de ces problèmes, celui qui concerne l’approvisionnement en organes. Nombre d’États ont adopté le système « optin » qui cherche à répandre la conscience du problème et du choix personnel de l’individu de faire le don de ses organes. Un autre système, appelé « optout » ou « accord tacite », où tous les membres de (...) la société sont considérés comme donateurs potentiels, a été introduit dans certains pays. Dans ce système, les individus doivent indiquer explicitement qu’ils ne souhaitent pas donner leurs organes, faute de quoi ils sont considérés comme donateurs. En essayant de baser notre argumentaire sur les diverses justifications, nous soutenons que le système « optout » est plus juste, compte tenu du droit à l’accès aux soins médicaux nécessaires. Il devrait par conséquent être introduit à la place de « optin ». (shrink)

This paper examines the analysis of judgements of belief that Wittgenstein offers in 5.54-5.5423 of the Tractatus. We offer an interpretation of these paragraphs wich also pays attention to 5.5423, usually forgotten. In our opinion, this interpretation fits with Wittgenstein's doctrines, and makes clear that such non-genuine propositions are nonsense. These are not, as has sometimes been proposed, the propositions of psychology. In the second part of the article we give a detailed discussion of interpretations of these paragraphs which have (...) been offered previously. (shrink)

In this book, Nuttall traces the development of "solipsistic fear... the fear that the external world... may not exist at all," in philosophy and literature, mainly English, from the late seventeenth century to the present. His method is first to trace some aspect of the philosophical discussion about the reality of the external world, and then to examine works of literature from the same period in which the same or similar views on the problem are expressed. In philosophy, Nuttall’s attention (...) centers on Locke, Berkeley, Hume, Bradley, and Wittgenstein, while in literature he focuses primarily on Sterne, Wordsworth, Sartre, and Eliot. Nuttall argues that Wittgenstein’s private language argument in the philosophical realm, and Eliot’s poetry in the literary, decisively counteract the solipsistic fear which the empiricist and idealist philosophers and their literary counterparts had developed. (shrink)

A leading psychologist at the Menninger Foundation analyzes the current cultural situation where deep unbelief alienates itself from classical belief. He recognizes that unbelief is not just a simple negation of belief but is itself pluralistic, and the varieties of unbelief have now become the attitudes of masses of modern men. The author makes extensive use of recent philosophical reflection. He is also well aware of how social policy may tend to replace what had once been religious goals and institutions, (...) and how secular institutions may become the vehicle of sacred values. Both belief and unbelief are understood as aspects of man’s pursuit of happiness, although the classical philosophical considerations of this happiness principle are never debated. The psychological foundations of the book lie in psychoanalytic object relations theory suggesting an isomorphism between personal relations and the relations between the self and reality. Overbeliefs, [[sic]] whether secular or religious, are analyzed as a function of such object relations. With this in mind the author treats, for both believers and unbelievers, problems of dependency and autonomy, mystery, options, Providence, and fantasy and reality. The analysis and suggestions will be helpful to the lay audience but will not seem especially new to trained philosophers. Strangely enough, the author himself seems to remain in the position between belief and unbelief. He understands each side sufficiently well so as not to reveal decision for either but offers instead a strong philosophically supported plea for tolerance. It is even stranger, in a book concentrating upon the alienation from belief, that so much analysis is given to the nature, content, and psychology of belief. Unfortunately, what one misses the most is what is most needed and desired in a more secular culture; a profound and penetrating analysis of the psychology or psychologies of the unbeliever. Just how the sincere secular man’s psychological character operates to affirm unbelief, involving the psychological analysis of his character so that we may understand his attitude toward anxiety, despair, suicide, hope, self-respect, concern and care, the psychology of tolerance, mortality and death, meaning and meaninglessness surely deserve the same depth and care of analysis that hundreds of years in the psychology of belief has offered, but this, one does not find. One can only hope that out of his extensive clinical experience the author will further reveal the deep ambiguities and psychological character of the sincere unbeliever and his internal struggle with the good, the true, and the beautiful. In such an analysis the profound struggle of unbelief with any classical theories of man’s natural inclination towards belief, clarifying precisely what is being denied, and how one negates it and lives with this negation psychologically, would form a fascinating adventure into the psychological processes of contemporary secular man.—H.A.D. (shrink)

This collection of previously published essays attempts to rescue the classical orthodoxy of Milton's theology from the oft-repeated charge of Arianism. With the discovery of Milton's theological essay Christian Discourses in 1823, scholars concluded that Milton's theological orthodoxy was questionable; he was suspected of the heresy of Arianism. Paradise Lost was then reinterpreted in the light of this widely accepted charge. This interpretation has lasted for over 100 years. Beginning in the 1950's, and quite independently, the authors of these essays (...) published papers attempting to show that the charge of Arianism was a misinterpretation: which conclusion, at the same time, required a reinterpretation of Paradise Lost. The issues to be resolved centered around the role of Christology in the trinity, and whether or not Milton subordinated the second person of the trinity in an unacceptable and heretical way. In order to restore Milton to the tradition of Orthodoxy, the authors were called upon to investigate the theological and philosophical vocabulary surrounding the language of essence, substance, person, and hypostaseis; [[sic]] and to analyze their philosophical relevance including the meaning of ousia as developed by Aristotle and the Stoics. It was also necessary to investigate the history of Christian thought, including both Reformation and Renaissance orthodoxy and the relationships of Milton to such traditions. They thereby traced Milton's orthodoxy back to Tertullian, to the orthodoxy of the creed of Nicea and its long dispute over Homoousia, as well as to a pre-Nicean orthodoxy. They found in pre-Nicean orthodoxy a doctrine of subordination which is not Arian and with which Milton is quite compatible. In view of Milton's role as the poet of the Logos, they investigated the Logos concept in Platonic and Neo-Platonic sources-noting the continuity, but also the differences, between Milton and such Neo-Platonism. They also distinguish Milton from the antitrinitarians among his contemporaries. One major section is devoted to the relationship of the Son to God; and another, to the relationship of the Son to man and the Universe: for not only did the authors need to establish the proper relationship within the Godhead, but they needed, as well, to escape the inclination toward pantheism. Finally the authors are able to reinterpret Paradise Lost in the light of Milton as a non-Arian, suggesting that his poetic solution of the problems of his age allowed him to reconcile orthodox dogma with poetic drama. Although the authors do not attempt here to reply to the responses which have already appeared to these articles since they were originally published, it is clear they have discovered a new Milton who deserves a voice. This collection will be a significant aid to students of literature and intellectual history in making a case for the Milton or orthodoxy available in a single volume.--H. A. D. (shrink)

This is a rich and rewarding book although its richness will be easily overlooked. It is in fact one of the first efforts to return American theology to one of its classical traditions, a theology of religious experience, not in the manner of scientism but religious experience in the manner of everyday human orientation. A review of this book may easily leave the impression of sentimental piety and lack of realism. Nothing could be further from the truth. The book is (...) anti-sentimental, post-secular theology, and post-existential. It is a new treatise on religious affection. What for many are abstract or empty theological categories are here given a direct and immediate meaning in everyday experience even in the midst of technological society. Modern man, identified as radial man in a radial world, lives in the presence of power with the problem of appropriating this power. To analyze this situation and in addition to more familiar thinkers, the author draws on often neglected sources which nevertheless have a living influence in his history—Edwards, Schleiermacher, Bunyan, Coleridge, and the New England Divine David Brainard. Conscious of the secularization of our day, but not in the tradition of "Death of God" theology, he isolates and analyzes the immediate and meaningful character of religious experience even in secular society. There also one seeks orientation to the powers which impinge upon one providing the central feature of religion. Faith is distinguished from both rationalism and voluntarism while returning to the Edwardian concept of "religious affection" as a total personal response to these powers. As power makes its impact upon us experientially in suffering, believing finds its place as a "form of valuing with self-restraint," and as "admiring with humility." Believing in God involves the self being diminished and enlarged, both fear and gladness, the experiential center of justification by grace through faith. The author offers thereby an elaboration of Kantian categories which provides conditions of experience. Those who expect an experiential approach to religion to be more scientific will be disappointed, and those who wish greater exactness will find the categories too metaphorical, but those who read with any religious sympathy and sensitivity will find not only a rewarding analysis of human experience but also a new direction in American theology. Even sensitive readers, however, will remain troubled by the possibility of interpreting the same experiences with nonreligious categories. That alternative is hardly discussed, the debate with purely secular categories is seldom joined, and the resolution of such an option seems to remain with the basic orientation of the reader, which is what religious faith or affection is all about. Those who have any interest in the possibility of a religious orientation to the powers in the midst of which we move daily should read this book.—H. A. D. (shrink)