In the Planetary Hypotheses, Ptolemy summarizes the planetary models that he discusses in great detail in the Almagest, but he changes the mean motions to account for more prolonged comparison of observations. He gives the mean motions in two different forms: first, in terms of ‘simple, unmixed’ periods and next, in terms of ‘particular, complex’ periods, which are approximations to linear combinations of the simple periods. As a consequence, all of the epoch values for the Moon and the planets are (...) different at era Philip. This is in part a consequence of the changes in the mean motions and in part due to changes in Ptolemy’s time in the anomaly, but not the longitude or latitude, of the Moon, the mean longitude of Saturn and Jupiter, but not Mars, and the anomaly of Venus and Mercury, the former a large change, the latter a small one. The pattern of parameter changes we see suggests that the analyses that yielded the Planetary Hypotheses parameters were not the elegant trio analyses of the Almagest but some sort of serial determinations of the parameters based on sequences of independent observations. (shrink)

Models of planetary motion as observed from Earth must account for two principal anomalies: the nonuniform speed of the planet as it circles the zodiac, and the correlation of the planet’s position with the position of the Sun. In the context of the geometrical models used by the Greeks, the practical difficulty is to somehow isolate the motion of the epicycle center on the deferent from the motion of the planet on its epicycle. One way to isolate the motion of (...) the epicycle center is to determine the longitude and time of oppositions of the planet with the mean Sun. A Greek astronomer might have realized that the predictions of mean oppositions by Babylonian models could serve as useful proxies for real empirical observations. It is shown that a Greek astronomer with a reasonable understanding of Babylonian System A models for the outer planets and the Sun–Moon could have used those models to estimate approximate values for the eccentricity e and longitude of apogee A required for geometrical models. The same method would work for the inner planets if conjunctions were observable, but they are not, and the variation of the observable synodic events—first and last morning and evening visibilities—is dominated more by the motion of the planet in latitude than the nonuniform motion of the epicycle center. (shrink)

Top-down feedback does not benefit speech recognition; on the contrary, it can hinder it. No experimental data imply that feedback loops are required for speech recognition. Feedback is accordingly unnecessary and spoken word recognition is modular. To defend this thesis, we analyse lexical involvement in phonemic decision making. TRACE (McClelland & Elman 1986), a model with feedback from the lexicon to prelexical processes, is unable to account for all the available data on phonemic decision making. The modular Race model (Cutler (...) & Norris 1979) is likewise challenged by some recent results, however. We therefore present a new modular model of phonemic decision making, the Merge model. In Merge, information flows from prelexical processes to the lexicon without feedback. Because phonemic decisions are based on the merging of prelexical and lexical information, Merge correctly predicts lexical involvement in phonemic decisions in both words and nonwords. Computer simulations show how Merge is able to account for the data through a process of competition between lexical hypotheses. We discuss the issue of feedback in other areas of language processing and conclude that modular models are particularly well suited to the problems and constraints of speech recognition. Key Words: computational modeling; feedback; lexical processing; modularity; phonemic decisions; reading; speech recognition; word recognition. (shrink)

I argue that fitting resentment tracks unacceptable ‘ecological’ imbalances in relative social strength between victims and perpetrators that arise from violations of legitimate moral expectations. It does not respond purely, or even primarily, to offenders’ attitudes, and its proper targets need not be fully developed moral agents. It characteristically involves a wish for the restoration of social equilibrium rather than a demand for moral recognition or good will. To illuminate these contentions, I focus on cases that I believe demonstrate a (...) corollary thesis, namely, that strength, broadly construed, is a necessary condition of resentment-worthiness. I argue that weakness can make resentment unfitting in two ways. First, weakness may prevent a wrongdoer from shifting the balance of social power. Second, a weak wrongdoer may do social damage but be so lowly that resentment, which would represent him as excessively strong, would be inapt. Finally, I consider how accepting the ecological view might affect our theorizing about moral responsibility and the ethics of blame. (shrink)

Classic studies of explanation, such as those of Hempel and Bromberger, took it for granted that an explanation-seeking question of the form "Why P?" should be understood as asking about the proposition P. This view has been recently challenged by Bas van Fraassen and Alan Garfinkel. They acknowledge that some questions have the surface form "Why P?", but they hold that a correct reading for why-questions should take the form "Why P (rather than Q)?", where Q is a contrasting alternative. (...) This contrast theory is discussed here. It is argued that, properly understood, the contrast theory and the propositional approach can and should give equivalent readings to why-questions. (shrink)

Contemporary philosophers of moral responsibility are in widespread agreement that we can only be blamed for actions that express, reflect, or disclose something about us or the quality of our wills. In this paper I reject that thesis and argue that self disclosure is not a necessary condition on moral responsibility and blameworthiness: reactive responses ranging from aretaic appraisals all the way to outbursts of anger and resentment can be morally justified even when the blamed agent’s action expresses or discloses (...) nothing significant about his or her “deep self,” judgments and cares, or the quality of his or her will. I argue that the self-disclosure requirement on responsibility overestimates the extent to which our blaming practices and responsibility judgments are responsive to agents as opposed to actions, and that this mistake has the potential to distort both our reactive responses and our understanding of blamed agents’ characters. (shrink)

A close look at the Jesuit and Catholic recusant network that existed in the English midlands yields a pathway to the Chandos portrait of Shakespeare. The portrait is traced from the 3rd Duke of Chandos to Grafton Manor, seat of the Shrewsbury earls and a principal Jesuit center in the Jesuit district comprising Worcestershire and Warwickshire created in 1623. The article finds that during Shakespeare’s lifetime, Grafton Manor was owned by a Catholic recusant member of the Talbot family with (...) ownership ties to Welbeck Abbey located in the small township of Holbeck, Nottinghamshire; the parish of Holbeck included Welbeck Abbey and the adjacent Holbeck Hall, which was owned by the family that sheltered Edmund Campion and which served later as home to a major Jesuit library and as a shelter for Jesuits themselves. Keeping in mind Shakespeare’s indebtedness to North family writings as source material for the plays, the article finds that the provenance of an unpublished manuscript by George North which influenced Shakespeare, the manuscript’s content, and George North’s circle of acquaintances lead directly to Edmund Campion and the Pierrepont family that sheltered him before his execution by the crown in 1581. The article shows ties of the George North manuscript to Welbeck Abbey, ties of the North family to the nearby Wroxton Abbey, and possible ties of the alleged painter of the Chandos portrait to the North family at Wroxton Abbey. The article is written in response to the recently published book by Dennis McCarthy and June Schlueter on the discovery of an unpublished manuscript written by George North that they believe inspired Shakespeare. Further shown through parallel language and thought that George North in writing A Brief Discourse likely drew material from Campion’s Histories of Ireland, including material that eventually led to the episodes on Jack Cade in 2 Henry VI and the Merlin prophecy in King Lear—all before Campion’s Histories was absorbed by Holinshed’s Chronicles and ultimately absorbed by Shakespeare. The article, utilizing research by an eminent Jesuit historian showing a personally advantageous relationship between George North’s patron, the Queen’s favored Sir Christopher Hatton, and the Jesuit William Crichton, traces the Shakespeare First Folio discovered on the Isle of Bute in 2016 back through time to the North family and ultimately to the Jesuit Crichton. In consideration of a probable biographical relationship between Shakespeare and Hatton, another connection between Shakespeare and the Jesuits is revealed. Lastly, the article details textual support for the author’s previous research showing a relationship between the writings of the Jesuit John Floyd and the Shakespearean canon—hinting that Shakespeare assisted the Jesuits. (shrink)

Hospital ethics, familiar enough in practice but surprisingly neglected in the literature, deals with the ethical problems that arise distinctively or typically in hospitals. More precisely, it consists of the ethical principles that shouldgovern 1) the conduct of healthcare professionals and other staff in their capacities as members of the hospital as an institution, and 2) the conduct of the hospital itself as an institution. It is a species of institutional ethics, which focuses on the ethical problems created or significantly (...) shaped by the institutional setting in which they occur. (shrink)

This essay attempts to describe contemporary Catholic sponsored health care in the United States and to describe the purpose and structure of these particular Christian charitable organizations within the broader society. As health care has become more complex, critics claim that there is not a need for Catholic sponsored health care any longer. The author attempts to evaluate critically whether Catholic health care has a place in contemporary society. He reviews some salient biblical, ecclesial, and justice teachings of the Church (...) to demonstrate why religious institutional presence is still needed. The author reviews contemporary health care structures to show how this is accomplished. He also uncovers additional issues which need to be addressed in order for these charitable institutions to carry on the ministry of the Church, to shape social structures, and to proclaim the reign of God. (shrink)

In this paper, I argue that the principle of respect for autonomy can serve as the basis for laws that significantly limit conduct, including orders mandating isolation and quarantine. This thesis is fundamentally at odds with an overwhelming consensus in contemporary bioethics that the principle of respect for autonomy, while important in everyday clinical encounters, must be 'curtailed', 'constrained', or 'overridden' by other principles in times of crisis. I contend that bioethicists have embraced an indefensibly 'thin' notion of autonomy that (...) uproots the concept from its foundations in Kantian ethics. According to this thin conception, respect for autonomy, if unconditioned by competing principles (beneficence, justice, non-maleficence) would give competent adults the right to do anything they desired to do so long as they satisfied certain baseline psychological conditions. I argue that the dominant 'principlist' model of bioethical reasoning depends on this thin view of autonomy and show how it deprives us of powerful analytical tools that would help us to think seriously about the foundations of human rights, justice, and law. Then, I offer a brief sketch of a 'thick', historically grounded notion of autonomy and show what we could gain by taking it seriously. (shrink)

Abstract:This study explores a phenomenon that has been shown to adversely affect managers’ decisions—competitive irrationality. Managers are irrationally competitive in their decisions when they focus on damaging the profits of competitors, rather than improving their own profit performance. Studies by Armstrong and Collopy (1996) and Griffith and Rust (1997) suggest that the phenomenon is common but not universal. We examine the question of why some individuals exhibit competitive irrationality when making decisions, while others do not by focusing on four aspects (...) of moral philosophy—deontological orientation, cognitive moral development, idealism, and relativism. Results suggest that individuals high in deontological orientation, high in cognitive moral development, high in idealism, and low in relativism will be less competitively irrational than those who are not. (shrink)

This study proposes a conceptual model to explain persistent, accepted-as-normal corporate wrongdoing (hereafter banality of wrongdoing), particularly for high performance organizations. The model describes five explanatory variables: the culture of competition, ends-biased leadership, missionary zeal, legitimizing myth, and the corporate cocoon. Our thesis is that the nature of competition drives both legitimate and illegitimate goal-seeking to adopt an iconoclastic (rule-breaking) orientation. High performance organizations are favorable hosts for wrongdoing because high performance requires aggressive behavior at the ethical margins of what (...) is acceptable. The way leadership reacts to competition sets the stage for ethical or unethical cultures to develop. Ends-biased leadership will project strong vision, using ideology and legitimizing myth as tools to inspire and motivate. The resulting missionary zeal justifies using questionable means because of the perceived value of the end. One critical method for building strong culture is creating a sense of being separate and apart from the ordinary. This cocoon effect may create a self-referential value system that is significantly at odds with mainstream culture and in which wrongdoing is banal. We intend an empirical study of the variables described in this model. (shrink)

Digital technologies are changing our understanding of ethical emulation. In this article, Matthew Dennis proposes that some social media technologies have given rise to a strikingly new set of ethical ideals, often concerned with the ideal of self-cultivation. While there is relatively little philosophical discussion of these kinds of ideals, Dennis suggests that scrutiny of Friedrich Nietzsche's ethical philosophy offers a guiding account of why the ideal of self-directed character change is important. He concludes by speculating on how (...) the digital affordances of social media technologies will change the way in which ethical exemplars influence future generations. (shrink)

Who can still keep a secret in a world in which everyone and everything are connected by technology aimed at charting and cross-referencing people, objects, movements, behaviour, relationships, tastes and preferences? The possibilities to keep a secret have come under severe pressure in the information age. That goes for the individual as well as the state. This development merits attention as secrecy is foundational for individual freedom as well as essential to the functioning of the state. Building on Simmel’s work (...) on secrecy, this paper argues that the individual’s secrets should be saved from the ever-expanding digital transparency. The legitimate function of state secrecy in turn needs rescuing from a culture of secrecy and over-classification that has exploded in recent years. Contrary to popular expectation, the digital revolution adds another layer of secrecy that is increasingly hidden behind the facade of the ‘big usable systems’ we work and play with every day. Our dependence on information systems and their black-boxed algorithmic analytical core leads to a certain degree of Weberian enchantment that may increase the disconnect between the system, user and object. (shrink)

ABSTRACT In its attempt to prove that voters, politicians, and bureaucrats are motivated by the public interest, Self-Interest and Public Interest in Western Politics overlooks a great deal of public-choice research, to which much has been added during the two decades since it was published. The importance of self-interest at both the micro and macro levels of politics becomes clear once one looks not simply at the ?inputs? of a democracy but at its ?outputs? as well. The prevalence of interest (...) groups, the dysfunction of the United States tax code, the lobbying by unions for their members? self-interest, the earmarks in the Patriot Act, the numerous cases of corruption in Western democracies, and the dissatisfaction of citizens with their governments? failings all point to the importance of self-interest in politics. (shrink)

Contemporary Kant-scholarship has a tendency to allign Kant’s understanding of depravity closer to Erasmus than Luther in their famous debate on the freedom of the will (1520–1527). While, at face value, some paragraphs do warrant such a claim, I will argue that Kant’s understanding of the radical evil will draws closer to Luther than Erasmus in a number of elements. These elements are (1) the intervention of the Wille for progress towards the good, (2) a positive choice for evil, (3) (...) the inscrutability of moral progress, (4) the rejection of prudence as a means for salvation and (5) the rejection of moral sentimentalism. I believe that Kant-scholarship mistakenly pegs Kant’s rational Enlightenment optimism for an existential optimism while Kant’s view of fallen nature draws closer to Lutheran than Erasmusian depravity. A tacit Lutheran influence pervades Kant’s moral philosophy which could explain the influence Kant’s has had on some more pessimistic 19th century philosophers such as Arthur Schopenhauer and Friedrich Nietzsche. (shrink)

Arguably, Caribbean development has evolved through three distinct historical periods in international political economy and currently must find its way in a fourth—the new multipolar world order. The hitherto three periods were characterized by a system of multipolar colonial imperial empires, bipolar cold war with neocolonialism, and unipolar neoliberalism. The purpose here is to unlock the door to critical thinking on Caribbean social, political, and economic policies for the new multipolarity. The region must dial back its blind pursuit of self-regulating (...) market policies and exercise its sovereign right to determine development paths based on its cultural and historical heritage. A descriptive analysis of theorizing about Caribbean development in each of the periods is presented before some specific sets of conditions are identified for policy formation and operationalization in the new multipolarity. (shrink)

There is a mental malaise creeping through the collective human mindset. Mass psychosis is becoming normalized. It is time to break free... One of the key problems facing human beings today is that we do not look after our minds. As a consequence, we are unaware of the malicious impacts that infiltrate and influence us on a daily basis. This lack of awareness leaves people open and vulnerable. Many of us have actually become alienated from our own minds, argues Kingsley (...) L. Dennis. This is how manipulations occur that result in phenomena such as crowd behaviour and susceptibility to political propaganda, consumerist advertising and social management. Mass psychosis is only possible because humanity has become alienated from its transcendental source. In this state, we are prisoners to the impulses that steer our unconscious. We may believe we have freedom, but we don’t. Healing the Wounded Mind discusses these external influences in terms of a collective mental disease – the wetiko virus (Forbes), ahrimanic forces (Steiner), the alien mind (Castaneda), and the collective unconscious shadow (Jung). The human mind has been targeted by corrupt forces that seek to exploit our thinking on a grand scale. This is the ‘magician’s trick’ that has kept us captive within the social systems that both distract and subdue us. In the first part of this transformative book, the author outlines how the Wounded Mind manifests in cultural conditioning, from childhood onwards. In the second part, he examines how ‘hypermodern’ cultures are being formed by this mental psychosis and shaping our brave new world. In an inspiring conclusion, we are shown the gnostic path to freedom through connecting with the transcendental source of life. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Bonaventure's Aesthetics: The Delight of the Soul in Its Ascent into God by Thomas J. McKennaDennis P. BrayThomas J. McKenna, Bonaventure's Aesthetics: The Delight of the Soul in Its Ascent into God. Lanham, Maryland: Lexington Books, 2020. 186 pp. $100. ISBN: 978-1-4985-9765-4.It has been just over three decades since the last book-length engagement with aesthetics in Bonaventure's work (S. McAdams, "The Aesthetics of Light: A Critical Examination of (...) Bonaventure's Doctrine of Light in View of His Aesthetics," [PhD diss., Pontifica Universitas Gregoriana, 1991]). Heartily welcome, then, is Thomas McKenna's Bonaventure's Aesthetics. The purpose of the book, in McKenna's words, is "to provide a comprehensive analysis of Bonaventure's aesthetics, that is, his philosophy, theology, and mystical theology" (2). In so doing, he intends also to argue for a resolution to a list of disputed questions raised by contemporary voices – most famously that of Balthasar – in the debate on Bonaventure's aesthetics. Put another way, McKenna's project has two aims: first, to understand Bonaventure's aesthetics on its own (historical, theological, philosophical) terms; second, to determine whether that aesthetic connects significantly to contemporary questions in the field of aesthetics. In this review I will detail and engage critically with some of the foundational methodological moves McKenna makes in the book's introduction. I will then summarize the big themes of the book's four chapters, and conclude with a few evaluative remarks.However extensive their merits, earlier studies on Bonaventure's aesthetics are not as thorough as McKenna's and, more problematically, are limited by their investment in predominantly Enlightenment-era concerns. What I mean is that thinkers such as Shaftesbury, Baumgarten, and Kant were absorbed with matters such as the immediacy of the aesthetic experience, disinterest, the role of the affect, freedom of the imagination, and the categorization of les beaux arts. It is this trajectory (call it "the standard paradigm," using McKenna's terminology) that the field of aesthetics, as we know it, has largely followed. Early historians of aesthetics viewed, and often evaluated, medievals through the standard paradigm. Even later, more revisionist historical work sought to understand medieval thought in distinction from the paradigm. In most instances, [End Page 243] though, it is the Enlightenment-era list of concerns that serves as the fulcrum on which historical work has tended to swing. Our understanding of Bonaventure, then, is limited to the extent that we take the standard paradigm as guide.Bonaventure's Aesthetics is so compelling, in part, because it does not begin with the standard paradigm, but rather a more historically sound (and frankly, more interesting) list of research questions. This is not to say that McKenna rejects the standard paradigm. It is simply too deeply embedded in how we conceive of such matters to naively ignore. Instead, McKenna works to situate these later concerns as secondary, or parallel, to Bonaventure's concerns and interests. McKenna realizes that he faces a difficulty at this juncture, one that must be addressed by anyone aiming for historical sensitivity regarding their object of study. The difficulty is what McKenna calls "the hermeneutical crisis," and he formulates the key issues by quoting Jean Grondin: "The basic doctrine…is that every particular phenomenon must be conceptualized within the context of its age" to avoid anachronism. But if so, this "raises a striking epistemological problem…Our view of earlier ages must itself be produced by reference to our present, and is thereby relativized." Thus Grondin asks, "how if at all, is it possible to escape from the hermeneutic circle of our historicity?" (9, quoting J. Grondin, Introduction to Philosophicaal Hermeneutics [New Haven: Yale University Press, 1997], 76).Restricted to Bonaventure studies, McKenna poses the worry this way: "is it possible to accurately recover the conceptualization of beauty and, perhaps, the arts of any age – ancient, medieval, or modern – with a reasonable degree of accuracy? If so, does it remain relevant to current aesthetic theory and practice?" (9).In sum, the apparent dilemma is between, on the one hand, "a historically accurate conceptualization of the aesthetic sympathies of the past," and on the other hand, "a... (shrink)