Much more than just an anthology, this survey of humanity's search for the meaning of life includes the latest contributions to the debate, a judicious selection of key canonical essays, and insightful commentary by internationally respected philosophers.

This collection of essays on themes in the work of John Locke , George Berkeley , and David Hume , provides a deepened understanding of major issues raised in the Empiricist tradition. In exploring their shared belief in the experiential nature of mental constructs, The Empiricists illuminates the different methodologies of these great Enlightenment philosophers and introduces students to important metaphysical and epistemological issues including the theory of ideas, personal identity, and skepticism. It will be especially useful in courses devoted (...) to the history of modern philosophy. (shrink)

As a first step in involving user emotion in human‐computer interaction, a memory‐based expert system (JANUS; Kearney, 1991) was designed to interpret facial expression in terms of the signaled emotion. Anticipating that a VDU‐mounted camera will eventually supply face parameters automatically, JANUS now accepts manually made measurements on a digitized full‐face photograph and returns emotion labels used by college students. An intermediate representation in terms of face actions (e.g., mouth open) is also used. Production rules convert the geometry into these. (...) A dynamic memory (Kolodner, 1984; Schank, 1982) interprets the face actions in terms of emotion labels. The memory is dynamic in the sense that new emotion labels can be learned with experience. A prototype system has been implemented on a Sun 2/120 system using POPLOG. Validation studies on the prototype suggest that the interpretations achieved are generally consistent with those of college students without formal instruction in emotion signals. (shrink)

The thesis that there can be vague objects is the thesis that there can be identity statements which are indeterminate in truth-value (i.e., neither true nor false) as a result of vagueness (as opposed, e.g., to reference-failure), "the singular terms of which do not have their references fixed by vague descriptive means". (if this is "not" what is meant by the thesis that there can be vague objects, it is not clear what "is" meant by it.) the possibility of vague (...) objects should not be taken, in itself, to imply the more radical thesis that the identity relation can be one of "degree". one can hold that the concept of degrees of identity is absurd (how can one thing be more or less identical to another?) "and" that indeterminacy in identity is possible; hence, any incoherence in the idea of degrees of identity does not thereby undermine the idea of indeterminate identity. (shrink)

This essay examines historical and contemporary connections between Buddhist and medical traditions through a study of the Accomplishing Medicine ( sman sgrub ) practice and the Yuthok Heart Essence ( G.yu thog snying thig ) anthology. Accomplishing Medicine is an esoteric Buddhist yogic and contemplative exercise focused on several levels of “alchemical” transformation. The article will trace the acquisition of this practice from India by Tibetan medical figures and its assimilation into medical practice. It will propose that this alchemical practice (...) forms the central nexus of connection between Tibetan medicine and the Buddhist Nyingma tradition, and that this little-studied link is not a marginal feature of Tibetan medicine but rather one that has had a significant shaping factor on each tradition throughout history. (shrink)

As its title suggests, Mondin’s book is encyclopedic. It treats of theological language from the Greeks—in fact, Plato and Aristotle with very brief mention of others—to the present time. The entries are necessarily short but Karl Barth, Paul Tillich and Rudolf Bultmann among the moderns and Augustine and Aquinas among the classics get complete chapters to themselves. Heidegger does not, perhaps surprisingly, receive separate treatment although he is referred to as the source of both Gadamer and Ricoeur and specifically as (...) the source of the overcoming of the subject-object schema and so of the new hermeneutics. One might have expected more discussion of Bultmann’s relation to Heidegger. The section on linguistic analysis in general and Wittgenstein in particular is quite short but, granted that the book is taken as an encyclopedic reference work, is quite useful for anyone unfamiliar with analysis who wanted to begin a study of the theory of theological language within this school. Indeed, the usefulness of the book as a reference work on the problem is its major merit. The essays or entries do not pretend to achieve more than a swift survey of the author or school treated. As an aid to work the book is worth having. No price is given; there is an index of authors mentioned which in most cases is accurate; the entry on Freud is wrongly noted at 435 instead of 434. The bibliographies are restricted to the footnotes which is perhaps slightly awkward and sometimes only the Italian translation of a book is given e.g. on page 460 footnote 66 there is a reference to MacQuarrie, Ha senso parlare di Dio? which, I presume, is a translation of God-Talk. The book would be a better instrument if the original titles were given as well. (shrink)

Common sense realism, by E. G. Bewkes.--Theology and religious experience, by Vergilius Ferm.--A reasoned faith, by G. F. Thomas.--Can religion become empirical? By J. S. Bixler.--Value theory and theology, by H. R. Niebuhr.--The truth in myths, by Reinhold Niebuhr.--Is subjectivism in value theory compatible with realism and meliorism? By Cornelius Krusé.--The semi-detached knower: a note on radical empiricism, by R. L. Calhoun.--The new scientific and metaphysical basis for epistemological theory, by F. S. C. Northrop.--A psychological approach to reality, by Hugh (...) Hartshorne.--A definition of religious liberalism, by D. S. Robinson. (shrink)

Expression is at once content and structure. Of late attention has shifted from the meaning of expression as content to its meaning as structure. This shift has occurred in various fields: in philosophy notably with the Heidegger of Holzwege and with the later Wittgenstein; in linguistics there is the well known work of Sapir and men like Bernstein who acknowledge a debt to Sapir; in social anthropology the investigations of Lévi-Strauss are associated with this movement; and the French structuralist school (...) in literary criticism also approaches some problems from this angle. It is not a wholly new approach and doubtless historians will reveal its antecedents; what is new, perhaps, is the shift in emphasis. Marshall McLuhan has brought this shift in emphasis to the public notice in works that are both lively and at times provocative. But McLuhan is suggestive above all and he rarely carries his suggestions through. One would hope that those following him might take up some of the suggestions and work them out more fully. The telephone, for instance, has connected distant parts of the world so that decisions made in one hemisphere can be, in a few moments, communicated to another. Conversely, since the decision of the man on the spot can be communicated to the remote chief at once, the practice of delegation of authority changes. But how much, how often, to what extent does the technology run before its reasonable implementation? Such are the precise questions that now emerge. Unfortunately, The Presence of The Word does not take us much farther towards an answer. However, besides these investigations, there is another aspect to the whole field: the very notion of content and structure. In much of the writing in this area there seems to be some confusion, and some authors, when professedly talking of structure, allow content in by the back door. This criticism has been made by Durand of Lévi-Strauss. The confusion stems from a prior failure to distinguish between expression and meaning and a consequent failure to differentiate modalities of meaning. Prior to a discussion of a distinction between structure and content on the level of expression, there is needed a clarification of the structure of meaning. No matter what science one may be referring to, one will discover that it is theory verified in instances. When this has been clarified one can go on to discuss the relation of expression to theory e.g. the structure of scientific expression. Besides scientific meaning, there is aesthetic, symbolic and interpersonal meaning and here again their structure must be analysed. One question in the analysis will be, as before, the relation of expression to meaning. The relation of expression to meaning will differ in the several modalities and the significance of a shift in the way of expression will likewise differ from mode to mode. Fr Ong does not very clearly advert to this aspect of the problem and nowhere does he treat it adequately. (shrink)

Expression is at once content and structure. Of late attention has shifted from the meaning of expression as content to its meaning as structure. This shift has occurred in various fields: in philosophy notably with the Heidegger of Holzwege and with the later Wittgenstein; in linguistics there is the well known work of Sapir and men like Bernstein who acknowledge a debt to Sapir; in social anthropology the investigations of Lévi-Strauss are associated with this movement; and the French structuralist school (...) in literary criticism also approaches some problems from this angle. It is not a wholly new approach and doubtless historians will reveal its antecedents; what is new, perhaps, is the shift in emphasis. Marshall McLuhan has brought this shift in emphasis to the public notice in works that are both lively and at times provocative. But McLuhan is suggestive above all and he rarely carries his suggestions through. One would hope that those following him might take up some of the suggestions and work them out more fully. The telephone, for instance, has connected distant parts of the world so that decisions made in one hemisphere can be, in a few moments, communicated to another. Conversely, since the decision of the man on the spot can be communicated to the remote chief at once, the practice of delegation of authority changes. But how much, how often, to what extent does the technology run before its reasonable implementation? Such are the precise questions that now emerge. Unfortunately, The Presence of The Word does not take us much farther towards an answer. However, besides these investigations, there is another aspect to the whole field: the very notion of content and structure. In much of the writing in this area there seems to be some confusion, and some authors, when professedly talking of structure, allow content in by the back door. This criticism has been made by Durand of Lévi-Strauss. The confusion stems from a prior failure to distinguish between expression and meaning and a consequent failure to differentiate modalities of meaning. Prior to a discussion of a distinction between structure and content on the level of expression, there is needed a clarification of the structure of meaning. No matter what science one may be referring to, one will discover that it is theory verified in instances. When this has been clarified one can go on to discuss the relation of expression to theory e.g. the structure of scientific expression. Besides scientific meaning, there is aesthetic, symbolic and interpersonal meaning and here again their structure must be analysed. One question in the analysis will be, as before, the relation of expression to meaning. The relation of expression to meaning will differ in the several modalities and the significance of a shift in the way of expression will likewise differ from mode to mode. Fr Ong does not very clearly advert to this aspect of the problem and nowhere does he treat it adequately. (shrink)

Tales and Teachings of the Buddha The Jataka Stories in Relation to the Pali Canon. John Garrett Jones. Foreword by Dr I. B. Horner. George Allen and Unwin, London 1979. xvi-216 pp. £6.95.

Physical activity, and likely the motivation for it, varies throughout the day. The aim of this investigation was to create a short assessment (CRAVE: Cravings for Rest and Volitional Energy Expenditure) to measure motivation states (wants, desires, urges) for physical activity and sedentary behaviors. Five studies were conducted to develop and evaluate the construct validity and reliability of the scale, with 1,035 participants completing the scale a total of 1,697 times. In Study 1, 402 university students completed a questionnaire inquiring (...) about the want or desire to perform behaviors “at the present moment (right now).” Items related to physical activity (e.g., “move my body”) and sedentary behaviors (e.g., “do nothing active”). An exploratory structural equation model (ESEM) revealed that 10 items should be retained, loading onto two factors (5 each for Move and Rest). In Study 2, an independent sample (n= 444) confirmed these results and found that Move and Rest desires were associated with stage-of-change for exercise behavior. In Study 3, 127 community-residing participants completed the CRAVE at 6-month intervals over two years- two times each session. Across-session interclass correlations (ICC) for Move (ICC = 0.72–0.95) and Rest (ICC = 0.69–0.88) were higher than when they were measured across 24-months (Move: ICC = 0.53; Rest: ICC = 0.49), indicating wants/desires have state-like qualities. In Study 4, a maximal treadmill test was completed by 21 university students. The CRAVE was completed immediately pre and post. Move desires decreased 26% and Rest increased 74%. Changes in Move and Rest desires were moderately associated with changes in perceived physical fatigue and energy. In Study 5, 41 university students sat quietly during a 50-min lecture. They completed the CRAVE at 3 time points. Move increased 19.6% and Rest decreased 16.7%. Small correlations were detected between move and both perceived energy and tiredness, but not calmness or tension. In conclusion, the CRAVE scale has good psychometric properties. These data also support tenets of the WANT model of motivation states for movement and rest (Stults-Kolehmainen et al., 2020a). Future studies need to explore how desires to move/rest relate to dynamic changes in physical activity and sedentarism. (shrink)

Common sense realism, by E. G. Bewkes.--Theology and religious experience, by V. Ferm.--A reasoned faith, by G. F. Thomas.--Can religion become empirical? By J. S. Bixler.--Value theory and theology, by H. R. Niebuhr.--The truth in myths, by R. Niebuhr.--Is subjectivism in value theory compatible with realism and meliorism? By C. Krusé.--The semi-detached knower: a note on radical empiricism, by R. L. Calhoun.--The new scientific and metaphysical basis for epistemological theory, by F. S. C. Northrop.--A psychological approach to reality, by H. (...) Hartshorne.--A definition of religious liberalism, by D. S. Robinson. (shrink)

We present four new change detection methods that create an automated change map from a probability map. In this case, the probability map was derived from a 3D model. The primary application of interest is aerial photographic applications, where the appearance, disappearance or change in position of small objects of a selectable class (e.g., cars) must be detected at a high success rate in spite of variations in magnification, lighting and background across the image. The methods rely on an earlier (...) derivation of a probability map. We describe the theory of the four methods, namely Bernoulli variables, Markov Random Fields, connected change, and relaxation-based segmentation, evaluate and compare their performance experimentally on a set probability maps derived from aerial photographs. (shrink)

The Cambridge Companion to Spinoza. Don Garrett (ed.). Cambridge University Press, 1996, pp. xiii, 465. ISBN 0-521-39235-7 (hb); ISBN 0-521-39865-7 (pb). 40.00 (hb) 12.95 (pb). Spinoza: The Enduring Questions. Graeme Hunter (ed.). University of Toronto Press, 1994, pp. xviii, 182. ISBN 0-8020-2876-4. 45.00. The Spinozistic Heresy: The Debate on the 'Tractatus Theologico-Politicus'. 1670-77. Paolo Cristofolini (ed.). APA-Holland University Press: Amsterdam and Maarssen, 1995, pp. viii, 260. ISBN 90-302-1502-X. Disguised and Overt Spinozism around 1700. Wiep van Bunge and Wim Klever (...) (eds.). Brill, Leiden, 1996, pp. ix, 378. ISBN 90-04-10307-4. Part of Nature: Self-Knowledge in Spinoza's 'Ethics', by Genevieve Lloyd. Cornell University Press, Ithaca and London, 1994, pp. 182. ISBN 0-8014-2999-4. 24.95. Spinoza and the 'Ethics', by Genevieve Lloyd. Routledge Philosophy Guidebooks, London, 1996, pp. x, 163. ISBN 0-415-10782-2 (pb). 6.99. Spinoza: The Way to Wisdom, by Herman de Dijn. Purdue University Press, West Lafayette, Indiana, 1996, pp. xii, 291. ISBN 1-55753-081-5. (shrink)

Chris Mortensen, Graham Nerlich, Garrett Cullity and Gerard O'Brien.

Unrecognized conventions—practices that are conventional even though their participants do not recognize them as such—play central roles in shaping our lives. They range from the indispensable (e.g. unrecognized linguistic conventions) to the insidious (e.g. some of our gender conventions). Unrecognized conventions pose a challenge for accounts of conventions because it is difficult to incorporate the distinctive arbitrariness of conventions—the fact that conventions always have alternatives—without accidentally excluding many unrecognized conventions. I develop an Accessibility Requirement that allows us to account for (...) both arbitrariness and unrecognized conventions. Specifically, I argue that a conventional practice must have at least one alternative that is at least approximately as good and at least approximately as accessible as the conventional practice itself, independent of the dominance the practice gained as it became conventional. In the course of arguing for this requirement, I also show that two prominent accounts of conventions, David Lewis’s and Ruth Garrett Millikan’s, run into problems with capturing the arbitrariness of conventions. The Accessibility Requirement opens the door to improved accounts of conventions by precisely identifying the way in which conventions are arbitrary. (shrink)

Evolutionary systems biology (ESB) aims to integrate methods from systems biology and evolutionary biology to go beyond the current limitations in both fields. This article clarifies some conceptual difficulties of this integration project, and shows how they can be overcome. The main challenge we consider involves the integration of evolutionary biology with developmental dynamics, illustrated with two examples. First, we examine historical tensions between efforts to define general evolutionary principles and articulation of detailed mechanistic explanations of specific traits. Next, these (...) tensions are further clarified by considering a recent case from another field focused on developmental dynamics: stem cell biology. In the stem cell case, incompatible explanatory aims block integration. Experimental approaches aim at mechanistic explanation while dynamical system models offer explanation in terms of general principles. We then discuss an ESB case in which integration succeeds: search for general attractors using a dynamical systems framework synergizes with the experimental search for detailed mechanisms. Contrasts between the positive and negative cases suggest general lessons for achieving an integrated understanding of developmental and evolutionary dynamics. The key integrative move is to acknowledge two complementary aims, both relevant to explanation: identifying the space of possible dynamic states and trajectories, and mechanistic understanding of causal interactions underlying a specific phenomenon of interest. These two aims can support one another in a joint project characterizing dynamic aspects of evolving lineages. This more inclusive project can lead to insights that cannot be reached by either approach in isolation. (shrink)

Requiring family authorization for apnea testing subtracts health professionals control over death determination, a procedure that has traditionally been considered a matter of clinical expertise alone. In this commentary, we first provide evidence showing that health professionals’ (HPs) disposition to act on death determination without family’s prior consent could be much lower than that referred to by Berkowitz and Garrett (2020). We hypothesize that HPs may have reservations about their own expertise as regards death, and may thus hesitate to (...) impose their views on patients’ families. We then address the theoretical question of clinical expertise in death determination by distinguishing judgments about facts (e.g., the presence or absence of spontaneous breathing) from interpretations given of these facts (i.e., their meaning for the vital status of an individual). We argue that, while clinicians may claim some expert authority on the former, they hold no particular authority on the latter. (shrink)

The twenty-sixth volume in the highly acclaimed Library of Living Philosophers series is devoted to the work of British philosopher of logic and metaphysician, P. F. Strawson. Following the Library of Living Philosophers series format, the volume contains an intellectual autobiography, twenty critical and descriptive essays by leading philosophers from around the world, Strawson's replies to the essays, and a bibliography of Strawson's works. Born in 1919, Strawson was a leading proponent of ordinary language philosophy. He is the author of (...) the early and extremely influential paper "On Referring" in which he criticized Russell's theory of definite descriptions. His most influential book, Individuals, helped to raise the status of metaphysics as a philosophical enterprise. Themes first addressed in this book continued to be of concern to him in his later work, including the possibility of objective knowledge, the subject-predicate distinction, the ontological status of persons, and the problem of individuation. Contributors to the book include: Ruth Garrett Millikan, Susan Haack, E. M. Adams, Panayot Butchvarov, Richard Behling, John McDowell, Simon Blackburn, Tadeusz Szubka, David Frederick Haight, Joseph S. Wu, Andrew G. Black, David Pears, Robert Boyd, Hilary Putnam, Paul F. Snowdon, Arindam Chakrabarti, Wenceslao J. Gonzalez, Ernest Sosa, Chung-M. Tse, John R. Searle, P. F. Strawson. (shrink)

Editor James Fetzer presents an analytical and historical introduction and a comprehensive bibliography together with selections of many of Carl G. Hempel's most important studies to give students and scholars an ideal opportunity to appreciate the enduring contributions of one of the most influential philosophers of science of the 20th century.

In a recent paper, Karl Schafer argues that Hume's theory of mental representation has two distinct components, unified by their shared feature of having accuracy conditions. As Schafer sees it, simple and complex ideas represent the intrinsic imagistic features of their objects whereas abstract ideas represent the relations or structures in which multiple objects stand. This distinction, however, is untenable for at least two related reasons. Firstly, complex ideas represent the relations or structures in which the impressions that are the (...) objects of their simple components stand. Secondly, abstract ideas are themselves instances of complex ideas. I draw two important conclusions from these facts. Firstly, contra Schafer and Garrett, the Copy Principle, properly emended, constitutes the entirety of Hume's theory of mental representation. Secondly, whereas paradigm examples of complex ideas, e.g. ideas of spatial and temporal complexes, are structured by relations of contiguity, abstract ideas are those complex ideas instead structured by relations of resemblance. As such, they represent their objects not as spatially or temporally contiguous but rather as resembling. (shrink)

Individual and Society in Buddhism. W. G. Weeraratne. Metro Printers Ltd., Colombo. 101pp £2.