We introduce the resurrection axioms, a new class of forcing axioms, and the uplifting cardinals, a new large cardinal notion, and prove that various instances of the resurrection axioms are equiconsistent over ZFC with the existence of an uplifting cardinal.

I provide indestructibility results for large cardinals consistent with V = L, such as weakly compact, indescribable and strongly unfoldable cardinals. The Main Theorem shows that any strongly unfoldable cardinal κ can be made indestructible by <κ-closed. κ-proper forcing. This class of posets includes for instance all <κ-closed posets that are either κ -c.c, or ≤κ-strategically closed as well as finite iterations of such posets. Since strongly unfoldable cardinals strengthen both indescribable and weakly compact cardinals, the Main Theorem therefore makes (...) these two large cardinal notions similarly indestructible. Finally. I apply the Main Theorem forcing extension preserving all strongly unfoldable cardinals in which every strongly unfoldable cardinal κ is indestructible by <κ-closed. κ-proper forcing. (shrink)

Using the lottery preparation, we prove that any strongly unfoldable cardinal $\kappa$ can be made indestructible by all.

We introduce the strongly uplifting cardinals, which are equivalently characterized, we prove, as the superstrongly unfoldable cardinals and also as the almost-hugely unfoldable cardinals, and we show that their existence is equiconsistent over ZFC with natural instances of the boldface resurrection axiom, such as the boldface resurrection axiom for proper forcing.

We show that the theory, consisting of the usual axioms of but with the power set axiom removed—specifically axiomatized by extensionality, foundation, pairing, union, infinity, separation, replacement and the assertion that every set can be well‐ordered—is weaker than commonly supposed and is inadequate to establish several basic facts often desired in its context. For example, there are models of in which ω1 is singular, in which every set of reals is countable, yet ω1 exists, in which there are sets of (...) reals of every size, but none of size, and therefore, in which the collection axiom fails; there are models of for which the Łoś theorem fails, even when the ultrapower is well‐founded and the measure exists inside the model; there are models of for which the Gaifman theorem fails, in that there is an embedding of models that is Σ1‐elementary and cofinal, but not elementary; there are elementary embeddings of models whose cofinal restriction is not elementary. Moreover, the collection of formulas that are provably equivalent in to a Σ1‐formula or a Π1‐formula is not closed under bounded quantification. Nevertheless, these deficits of are completely repaired by strengthening it to the theory, obtained by using collection rather than replacement in the axiomatization above. These results extend prior work of Zarach. (shrink)

A half century ago electronic fetal monitoring was rushed into clinical use with the promise that the secrets of fetal heart rate decelerations had been discovered and that the newly discovered knowledge would prevent cerebral palsy with just in time cesarean sections preventing babies from experiencing asphyxia, which was thought to be the primary cause of cerebral palsy. In the years since electronic fetal monitoring’s debut, it has been discovered that asphyxia is a rare cause of cerebral palsy. At the (...) same time electronic fetal monitoring use increased to 85% of all labors, the C-section rate increased to 33% without an attributable decrease in the rate of cerebral palsy. What went wrong with electronic fetal monitoring? The answer lies in a new analysis of the physiologic theories concerning fetal heart rate decelerations, demonstrating that the earlier electronic fetal monitoring theories were wrong. This revelation is only the latest evidence that electronic fetal monitoring use today... (shrink)

The Alice Books, full of illogical thoughts, words, and contradictions, were unrivaled entertainment until the publication of the medical literature promoting electronic fetal monitoring for every pregnancy. The modern-day EFM advocates acknowledge EFM’s decades long failure but simultaneously recommend EFM use for lawsuit protection and because the profession has used EFM for every pregnancy for fifty years, therefore, it must be efficacious. These self-indulgent, illogical rationalizations ignore the half century of evidence-based scientific research proving that EFM is a complete failure (...) as well as ignoring the fact that continued EFM use violates the fundamental principles of modern bioethics. This blind advocacy perpetuates four pernicious EFM harms occurring to mothers, babies, and the medical profession itself. This article sets out these four EFM harms with the goal of abolishing the misguided, illogical, contradictory, arguments used by the twenty-first century EFM Lewis Carroll mimics. (shrink)

Corruption involves greed, money, and risky decision-making. We explore the love of money, pay satisfaction, probability of risk, and dishonesty across cultures. Avaricious monetary aspiration breeds unethicality. Prospect theory frames decisions in the gains-losses domain and high-low probability. Pay dissatisfaction (in the losses domain) incites dishonesty in the name of justice at the individual level. The Corruption Perceptions Index, CPI, signals a high-low probability of getting caught for dishonesty at the country level. We theorize that decision-makers adopt avaricious love-of-money aspiration (...) as a lens and frame dishonesty in the gains-losses domain (pay satisfaction-dissatisfaction, Level 1) and high-low probability (CPI, Level 2) to maximize expected utility and ultimate serenity. We challenge the myth: Pay satisfaction mitigates dishonesty across nations consistently. Based on 6500 managers in 32 countries, our cross-level three-dimensional visualization offers the following discoveries. Under high aspiration conditions, pay dissatisfaction excites the highest- (third-highest) avaricious justice-seeking dishonesty in high (medium) CPI nations, supporting the certainty effect. However, pay satisfaction provokes the second-highest avaricious opportunity-seizing dishonesty in low CPI entities, sustaining the possibility effect—maximizing expected utility. Under low aspiration conditions, high pay satisfaction consistently leads to low dishonesty, demonstrating risk aversion—achieving ultimate serenity. We expand prospect theory from a micro and individual-level theory to a cross-level theory of monetary wisdom across 32 nations. We enhance the S-shaped Curve to three 3-D corruption surfaces across three levels of the global economic pyramid, providing novel insights into behavioral economics, business ethics, the environment, and responsibility. (shrink)

People are motivated to acquire self-evaluative information that favours themselves or information that confirms their present self-views. We proposed that par...

The Scottish Philosophy of Common Sense originated as a protest against the philosophy of the greatest Scottish philosopher. Hume's sceptical conclusions did not excite as much opposition as might have been expected. But in Scotland especially there was a good deal of spoken criticism which was never written; and some who would have liked to denounce Hume's doctrines in print were restrained by the salutary reflection that if they were challenged to give reasons for their criticism they would find it (...) uncommonly difficult to do so. Hume's scepticism was disliked, but it was difficult to see how it could be adequately met. At this point Thomas Reid stepped into the field. He was the only man of his time who really understood the genesis of Hume's scepticism and succeeded in locating its sources. At first sight it would seem that this discovery required no peculiar perspicuity. It would seem that nobody could help seeing that Hume's sceptical conclusions were based on Locke's premises, and that Hume could never be successfully opposed by any critic who accepted Locke's assumptions. But this is precisely one of those obvious things that is noticed by nobody. And in fact Reid was the first man to see it clearly. It thus became his duty to question the assumptions on which all his own early thought had been based. The result of this reflection was the conclusion that, since the "ideal theory" of Locke and Berkeley logically led to Hume's scepticism, and since scepticism was intolerable, that theory would have to be amended, or, if necessary, abandoned. This volume contains works by Thomas Reid, Adam Ferguson, James Beattie, and Dugald Stewart. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Editors' IntroductionThomas Cattoi and Kristin Johnston LargenIn 2018, Buddhist-Christian Studies published the proceedings of an international conference on Ippolito Desideri (1684–1733) that had been held in Pistoia in October 2017. Marking the two-hundredth anniversary of the arrival of the Tuscan Jesuit in Lhasa, the event explored from a variety of disciplinary perspectives the extraordinary contribution of a figure who effectively inaugurated the theological conversation between Tibetan Buddhism and Christianity. (...) Desideri, however, was neither the only nor the first Catholic missionary to reach Tibet—a number of other Jesuits and a few members of other religious orders had visited the Land of Snows or even settled there before his arrival. In this issue of the journal, we are therefore glad to open this issue with the translation of another report by a missionary—this time, the author is the Capuchin Domenico da Fano, who authored his memories of his time in Tibet in 1713. The translation is by Michael J. Sweet and Leonard Zwilling—names many of our readers will recognize as the translator and the editor of Desideri's Relazione. As Luciano Petech's collection Il Nuovo Ramusio contains quite a few more reports by Italian Catholic missionaries to Asia, this may not even be the last such translation that the journal is going to publish.Continuing our long-established tradition, the first part of the issue contains a number of papers that were initially presented at the annual meeting of the Society for Buddhist-Christian Studies. For the second year in a row, because of the global health emergency, the meeting was held remotely, but the energy and the enthusiasm of both speakers and audience ensured that the sessions were both compelling and inspiring. A first set of essays touches on the relationship between Buddhist-Christian dialogue and the environmental crisis, exploring perspectives as diverse as process thought, hybridity, the interface between environmental activism and spiritual practice, and the need to listen to the environmental wisdom of the marginalized voices from the Global South. The second section explores different facets of the exchange between Japanese Buddhism and Christianity. Two contributions map the contribution of the Jesuit scholar and practitioner William Johnston, SJ (1925–2010), who played an important role in laying the foundations of dialogue between Japanese Zen and Catholic Christianity; another piece—also presented at the SBCS meeting in November 2021—addresses the fraught question of different responses to US nationalism during the Japanese-American conflict in World War II, while a final essay introduces us to the way women practitioners respond to [End Page vii] challenging aspects of Shin Buddhist teachings. The third and the last section of the first part includes four essays that sketch the contours of a number of interreligious encounters; one explores monastic obedience in Franciscan spirituality and Theravada Buddhism, one touches on the spirituality of victim souls and the Tibetan practice of gcod, and a final one brings into conversation Dignāga, Dharmakīrti, and Lonergan.In 2016, members of the Research Center for World Buddhist Cultures at Ryukoku University started an interreligious project under the title "Conversations in Comparative Theology: Shin Buddhism, Christianity, Islam." The goal was to organize a series of events where a few scholars from these three traditions would present papers on shared themes and discuss points of shared concerns. This initiative led to a series of four meetings that concluded in 2019. Thanks to Dennis Hirota and Perry Schmidt-Leukel, Buddhist-Christian Studies is glad to publish a series of eight essays that emerged from these conversations. Readers will notice that some of these essays are of an interreligious nature, but do not actually discuss the intersection of Buddhism and Christianity. In line with the policy adopted with the publication of the proceedings from the 2019 Lotus Sutra seminar organized in Tokyo by Risshō-Kōsei-Kai, the editors decided to publish all the contributions from these events, so as to make sure that the proceedings of these important interreligious exchanges would all be available in the same place.On January 22, 2022, the Vietnamese Buddhist leader Thich Nhat Hahn reached the end of his life. Thich Nhat Hahn had devoted his... (shrink)

(1) In the first part of this paper, I review Chomsky's meandering journey from the formalism/mentalism of Syntactic Structures, through several methodological positions, to the minimalist theory of his latest work. Infected with mentalism from first to last, each and every position vitiates Chomsky's repeated claims that his theories will provide useful guidance to later theories in such fields as cognitive psychology and cognitive neuroscience. With the guidance of his insights, he claims, psychologists and neuroscientists will be able to avoid (...) costly dead-end lines of research. -/- (2) This never happened. As I have shown, this never could have happened. (See Johnston, 2018). What has happened, instead, is that current neurolinguistic research (with the arguable exception of the now-dated Lemma Model of Willem Levelt) proceeds without reference to Chomsky. It also wholeheartedly rejects the mentalism of the associated Language of Thought theory of Jerry Fodor. (See Johnston, 2018). -/- (3) I make this argument in the first part of this paper. I would also like to point out that most of my argument was developed in 1972, when I was a graduate student. I know of no other sustained criticisms of Chomsky at that time, and certainly none along the lines I had developed back then. -/- (4) In the second part of this paper, I present my own account of the methodology of science. When I was a graduate student, philosophy of science was dominated by an attempt to describe a methodology common to all the specific sciences, i.e. Hempel’s deductive-nomological model. These days, Hempel’s emphasis on the methodological unity of science has been rejected by such “dis-unity” philosophers of science as Ian Hacking, Patrick Suppes and Nancy Cartwright (see Cat, 2021). -/- (5) I view this change as the swing of a pendulum or, to change the metaphor, a journey from one end point of a continuum to another. As the level of abstraction at which one tries to describe scientific method is raised, the descriptions become increasingly general. Whether or not unity-of-science theories become so general as to be vacuous, is ultimately a subjective judgment. And so I expect that philosophers will eventually become tired of increasingly specific “close to the workbench” descriptions of how scientists work, and begin to turn back to methodological “big pictures”, finding in them powerful abstractions rather than empty irrelevancies. -/- (6) In the second part of this paper, I present my own account of the methodology of science, which I would situate somewhere between the “unity” and “dis-unity” accounts. However, I am not a scientist. My own views about scientific method have three origins: -/- (6a) my work as a graduate student from 1966 until I passed my comprehensive exams in 1973 (at a different university); -/- (6b) reading every issue of Scientific American from 1972 until nearly 2000, (at which point I continued to read it only sporadically, since I concluded that, around that time, it had evolved from a serious science magazine to a popular science magazine); and -/- (6c) my three-year immersion in the cognitive neuroscience of language after I retired, based on repeated study of and note-taking for (Banesh & Compton, 2018), (Kemmerer, 2015), several other books and, finally, numerous articles not hidden behind a paywall. -/- So, as always with my writings: caveat emptor. (shrink)

(1) This is Part 2 of the semantic theory I call TM. In Part 1, I developed TM as a theory in the analytic philosophy of language, in lexical semantics, and in the sociology of relating occasions of statement production and comprehension to formal and informal lexicographic conclusions about statements and lexical items – roughly, as showing how synchronic semantics is a sociological derivative of diachronic, person-relative acts of linguistic behavior. I included descriptions of new cognitive psychology experimental paradigms which (...) would allow us to precisely measure the two constituents of semantics – meaning and reference – both at the level of individual speech acts and at the level of societal convergences, i.e. at both the token and type levels. -/- (2) In the Introduction, I recapitulate the arguments of Part 1. The Introduction also develops some analytic philosophical and lexical semantics themes not discussed in Part 1. -/- (3) After the Introduction, I present neural TM (nTM) as a theory of the neural mechanisms and processes which give rise to these person/occasion-relative acts of linguistic behavior. I develop nTM at three levels, the first two of which describe linguistic/semantic functions independently of their cortical locations. At the first level, I describe individual word-to-word and word-to-object connections. At the second level, I describe the corresponding structuralist networks of which they are the individual components. At this level, I introduce some key linguistic concepts of TM – its graded meaning, reference, and generalization sets, and the types of statements which express various levels of word-to-word and word-to-object relationships among lexical items which, because of the constraints they impose on the use of those lexical items in statements we produce and comprehend, are concepts. This constitutes the second structural level of nTM. -/- (4) At the third level, I associate the non-localized structures of the previous levels with cortically located neural structures and with the fasciculi that connect them. I distinguish neural areas in which primary (phonetic) and secondary (orthographic) lexicons are stored in long-term memory. I also describe the embodied concepts which co-exist in the anterior temporal lobes with the images they lexicalize. These concepts are often said to name physical objects and their features, although what they in fact name are kinds of physical objects and features. I describe how conceptual constraints and referential constraints interact to channel our intentions to say how things are into statements which are semantically well-formed, and which consequently successfully communicate information. -/- (5) Following this presentation of nTM, I examine five prominent neural semantic theories. I point out what is wrong with each of them as far as their explanations of semantics are concerned, and I also indicate how nTM can replace the “semantic cores” of those theories. -/- (6) The two basic mistakes made by neuroscience semantic theories, as I will explain, are (i) that all but one of them regard semantics as a matter of the association of words with perceptual images, and of generalizations from those associations; and (ii) that they all rely on an unspecified set of neural structures which purportedly encode the meaning of concepts in abstraction from their phonological and orthographic forms. nTM maintains, in contrast, that there are no abstract neural representations of semantic content. Neural constraints on our linguistic behavior, especially on our ascriptive and co-ascriptive use of words, express the semantic constraints on those words which make them concepts. That is the semantic content of words. -/- (7) I next consider several results from neuroscience experimental data which have been given one interpretation by one or another of the standard neurosemantic theories, but to which nTM gives a different interpretation. I include several predictions which I have found neither confirmed nor disconfirmed in the experimental neuroscience literature. -/- (8) After a concluding section in which I summarize the major changes to neurosemantic theory introduced by TM, and the analytic philosophy of language and lexical semantics contexts within which TM is situated, there follows an appendix in which I discuss neural net AI, and make some recommendations for implementing nTM in silicon. (shrink)

PurposeThe COVID-19 lockdown interrupted normal daily activities, which may have led to an increase in sedentary behavior. The aim of this study was to investigate the effect of the COVID-19 pandemic on the level of physical activity among Swiss office workers.MethodsOffice workers from two Swiss organizations, aged 18–65 years, were included. Baseline data from January 2020 before the COVID-19 pandemic became effective in Switzerland were compared with follow-up data during the lockdown phase in April 2020. Levels of physical activity were (...) assessed using the International Physical Activity Questionnaire. Paired sample t-tests or Wilcoxon signed-rank test were performed for statistical analysis.ResultsData from 76 participants were analyzed. Fifty-four participants were female. The mean age was 42.7 years at baseline. About 75% of the participants met the recommendations on minimal physical activity, both before the COVID-19 pandemic and during the lockdown. Weak statistical evidence for a decline in total physical activity in metabolic equivalent of task minutes per week was found, with no evidence for a decrease in the three types of activity: walking, moderate-intensity activity and vigorous-intensity activity. Across the three categories “high,” “moderate,” and “low” physical activity, 17% of the participants became less active during the lockdown while 29% became more active.ConclusionThe COVID-19 pandemic did not result in a reduction in total physical activity levels among a sample of Swiss office workers during the first weeks of lockdown. Improved work-life balance and working times may have contributed to this finding.Clinical Trial Registrationwww.ClinicalTrials.gov, NCT04169646. Registered 15 November 2019 – Retrospectively registered, https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT04169646. (shrink)

A review of Thomas Johansen's book: The Powers of Aristotle's Soul.

John Dee’s mathematical interests have principally been studied through his Mathematicall praeface to Henry Billingsley’s 1570 translation of Euclid’s Elements. The focus here is broadened to include the notes he added to Books X–XIII of the Elements. I argue that this additional material drew on a manuscript text, the Tyrocinium mathematicum, that Dee wrote a decade earlier, probably as tutor to the youthful Thomas Digges. Using new evidence for this now-lost work, as well as his notes on Euclid, makes (...) it possible to clarify Dee’s approach to geometry. The contrasting positions adopted by his Parisian acquaintance Petrus Ramus also illuminate Dee’s geometrical choices and values. Unlike Ramus, Dee was not a pugnacious advocate of radical reform, yet he did look beyond the limits of Euclid’s geometry towards deeper disciplinary visions of knowledge. The first published work of his pupil Thomas Digges not only suggests how Dee shaped the younger man’s work but also reflects fresh light back on Dee’s own programme for a ‘more general art Mathematical.’. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Merton and Buddhism: Wisdom, Emptiness and Everyday MindKristin Johnston LargenMerton and Buddhism: Wisdom, Emptiness and Everyday Mind. Edited by Bonnie Bowman Thurston. Louisville, KY: Fons Vitae, 2007. 271 pp.This particular book—Merton and Buddhism—is the fourth in a series that seeks to study world religions “through the lens of Thomas Merton’s life and writing” (p. viii). The first three volumes in the series are Merton and Sufism, Merton (...) and Hesychasm, and Merton and Judaism. This book continues in the same format and includes essays from a variety of scholars addressing various aspects of Merton’s engagement with different schools of Buddhism. It is divided into four main parts, with a fifth part that contains a helpful bibliography as well as notes on the different contributors. Additionally the text is peppered with a variety of illustrations, including a center section with many pictures of images of the Buddha from different cultural contexts. The assortment of black-and-white illustrations include pictures of people Thomas Merton (1915–1968) met on his travels, pictures he took while on his “Asian Journey,” and pictures of Merton himself and Our Lady of Gethsemani Monastery.The volume begins with two helpful essays that orient a novice reader to the volume. The first essay, by the late Roger Corless (1938–2007), is a simple, straight-forward [End Page 218] introduction to Buddhism. This is useful for readers who are drawn to this book by the desire to learn more about Merton but have no background in Buddhism itself. The second essay is by Bonnie Thurston, who describes her piece as “Merton and Buddhism 101” (p. 15). Her essay describes primarily the “when” and the “why” of Merton’s interest in Buddhism, noting that Merton was not interested in becoming a Buddhist himself, but rather believed that his own (and others’) practice of Christianity could be positively informed by Buddhism, particularly in its attention to meditation and dismantling what Merton called the “false self.”The second main part of the book is devoted to essays that each focus on Merton’s engagement with a specific Buddhist tradition. While it is clear that Merton was particularly influenced by and drawn to Zen Buddhism (Ruben Habito supplies the essay on Merton’s experience with Zen in this section), he did not limit himself to Zen, but sought out connections and experience with individuals from diverse Buddhist backgrounds. Thus, the first essay in this section details his meetings with monks from the Theravada tradition and emphasizes the central role Merton’s own monastic identity played in his understanding and evaluation of Buddhism as a whole.The second essay is of particular importance, as it discusses Merton’s engagement with Tibetan Buddhism, which many believe would have developed into a much deeper connection had his exposure to Tibetan Buddhism not come at the very end of Merton’s life. The author of this essay, Judith Simmer-Brown, notes that “Previously, Merton’s interests had been in Zen Buddhism, but after meeting Tibetans in India he felt an immediate rapport” (p. 53). The Tibetans also shared this experience. The Dalai Lama (from whom Merton received meditation instruction), Trungpa Rinpoche, and Chadral Rinpoche, among others, all recognized his spiritual depth and honesty. At the end of her essay, Simmer-Brown reflects on the strong impression the mountain Kanchenjunga made on him (this is the “seventh mountain” of Merton’s personal geography—see The Seven Mountains of Thomas Merton, by Michael Mott) and speculates as to how Merton might have continued to explore Tibetan Buddhism, had he lived beyond the year.The final essay in this section is of a different nature, but serves a very important purpose. John Keenan’s essay, “The Limits of Thomas Merton’s Understanding of Buddhism,” makes clear that Merton’s understanding of Buddhism reflects the general ignorance of Buddhism by Western Christians at that time, and thus, while Merton’s engagement with Buddhism was “welcome and mind-stretching” to his audience in the 1960s, it is “quite insufficient today for any dialogue with Buddhism, or with Zen” (p. 121). Keenan notes that a large part of the problem stems from Merton’s... (shrink)

Information on the factors influencing parents’ decision-making process following a lethal, life-limiting or severely debilitating prenatal diagnosis remains deficient. A comprehensive systematic review and meta-synthesis was conducted to explore the influencing factors for parents considering termination or continuation of pregnancy following identification of lethal, life-limiting or severely debilitating fetal abnormalities. Electronic searches of 13 databases were conducted. These searches were supplemented by hand-searching Google Scholar and bibliographies and citation tracing. Thomas and Harden’s thematic synthesis method was used to synthesise (...) data from identified studies. Twenty-four papers were identified and reviewed, but two papers were removed following quality assessment. Three main themes were identified through systematic synthesis. Theme 1, entitled ‘all life is precious’, described parents’ perception of the importance of the fetus’ life, a fatalistic view of their situation alongside moral implications as well as the implications decisions would have on their own life, in consideration of previous life experiences. Theme 2 contained two sub-themes which considered the parent’s own imagined future and the influence of other people’s experiences. Finally, Theme 3 presented three sub-themes which may influence their parental decision-making: These described parental consideration of the quality of life for their unborn child, the possibility of waiting to try for another pregnancy, and their own responsibilities and commitments. The first review to fully explore parental decision-making process following lethal, life-limiting, or severely debilitating prenatal diagnosis provided novel findings and insight into which factors influenced parents’ decision-making process. This comprehensive and systematic review provides greater understanding of the factors influential on decision-making, such as hope, morality and potential implications on their own and other’s quality of life, will enable professionals to facilitate supported decision-making, including greater knowledge of the variables likely to influence parental choices. (shrink)

_The Contradictions of Modern Moral Philosophy_ is a highly original and radical critique of contemporary moral theory. Paul Johnston demonstrates that much recent moral philosophy is confused about the fundamental issue of whether there are correct moral judgements. He shows that the standard modern approaches to ethics cannot justify - or even make much sense of - traditional moral beliefs. Applied rigorously, these approaches suggest that we should reject ethics as a set of outdated and misguided claims. Rather than facing (...) up to this conclusion, most recent moral philosophy consists of attempts to find some ways of preserving moral beliefs. This places a contradiction at the heart of moral philosophy. As a resilt it is often impossible to tell whether a contemporary philosopher ultimately rejects or endorses the idea of objective right and wrong. On the basis of a Wittgenstein approach Paul Johnston puts forward an alternative account of ethics that avoids this contradiction and recognises that the central issues of ethics cannot be resolved by conceptual analysis. He then uses this account to highlight the contradictions of important contemporary moral theorists such as Bernard Williams, Alasdair MacIntyre, Thomas Nagel and Charles Taylor. (shrink)

Summary A new culture of mathematics was developed in sixteenth-century England, the culture of ?the mathematicalls?. Its representatives were the self-styled mathematical practitioners who presented their art as a practical and worldly activity. The careers of two practitioners, Thomas Bedwell and Thomas Hood, are used as case studies to examine the establishment of this culture of the mathematicalls. Both practitioners self-consciously used mathematical instruments as key resources in negotiating their own roles. Bedwell defined his role in contrast to (...) mechanicians and he secured patronage in military engineering and the service of the commonwealth; Hood worked in the commercial setting of London as a teacher, author, chartmaker, and retailer. Working in new contexts and dealing with new audiences of gentlemen and mechanicians, Bedwell and Hood used instruments to construct a public consensus on the status and aims of mathematics. (shrink)

_The Contradictions of Modern Moral Philosophy_ is a highly original and radical critique of contemporary moral theory. Paul Johnston demonstrates that much recent moral philosophy is confused about the fundamental issue of whether there are correct moral judgements. He shows that the standard modern approaches to ethics cannot justify - or even make much sense of - traditional moral beliefs. Applied rigorously, these approaches suggest that we should reject ethics as a set of outdated and misguided claims. Rather than facing (...) up to this conclusion, most recent moral philosophy consists of attempts to find some ways of preserving moral beliefs. This places a contradiction at the heart of moral philosophy. As a resilt it is often impossible to tell whether a contemporary philosopher ultimately rejects or endorses the idea of objective right and wrong. On the basis of a Wittgenstein approach Paul Johnston puts forward an alternative account of ethics that avoids this contradiction and recognises that the central issues of ethics cannot be resolved by conceptual analysis. He then uses this account to highlight the contradictions of important contemporary moral theorists such as Bernard Williams, Alasdair MacIntyre, Thomas Nagel and Charles Taylor. (shrink)

_The Contradictions of Modern Moral Philosophy_ is a highly original and radical critique of contemporary moral theory. Paul Johnston demonstrates that much recent moral philosophy is confused about the fundamental issue of whether there are correct moral judgements. He shows that the standard modern approaches to ethics cannot justify - or even make much sense of - traditional moral beliefs. Applied rigorously, these approaches suggest that we should reject ethics as a set of outdated and misguided claims. Rather than facing (...) up to this conclusion, most recent moral philosophy consists of attempts to find some ways of preserving moral beliefs. This places a contradiction at the heart of moral philosophy. As a resilt it is often impossible to tell whether a contemporary philosopher ultimately rejects or endorses the idea of objective right and wrong. On the basis of a Wittgenstein approach Paul Johnston puts forward an alternative account of ethics that avoids this contradiction and recognises that the central issues of ethics cannot be resolved by conceptual analysis. He then uses this account to highlight the contradictions of important contemporary moral theorists such as Bernard Williams, Alasdair MacIntyre, Thomas Nagel and Charles Taylor. (shrink)

Setting out from a debate between two contemporary Lacanians about the religious significance of psychoanalysis, this paper argues that what such analysis really has to offer to a discussion of religion is purloined by the current round of academic polemics about its "revival." This argument is built in three steps: in the first, I demonstrate that the "site" of a meeting of psychoanalysis and religion is the "fundamental fantasy," tracing that concept's history from its Freudian pre-history through Lacan and showing (...) it to coincide closely with both Freud's and Lacan's criticism of religion. In the second step, I show how the "fundamental fantasy" equally supports Johnston's militant anti-religiosity and Žižek's comparably militant argument for a revolutionary, transformed religion. "Following Atheism" traces the critical weaknesses of either position, noting how both lead to internal contradiction, to a failure to live up to the basic ethical claims of psychoanalysis. Based upon such a demonstration, the final step of the argument shows that, between them, these anti- and pro- religion polemics conspire to hide "in broad daylight" a single critical task for psychoanalytic theory today: they do so because what is emerging in our world defies description as either "anti-religion" or "religion." Turning to a deeper thread of Žižek's thought, "Following Atheism" asserts this basic transformation/replacement of fantasy underway in contemporary society. The paper closes with reflections on the nature of this revolution. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: I II III IV.

The notorious but: unimpeachably corroborated case of Pavlov's mice raises, in capsule form, a variety of fascinating issues with far-reaching ramifications in several directions, but with particularly serious implications, several of which are well worth restating and pondering further (cf. Sebeóle 1977b: 192-201), both for the foundations and research methodology of contemporary semiotics.

When we love a place: world's end with Cormac McCarthy -- Mourning places and time in Augustine -- The conversion of time to the time of conversion: Augustine with Marion -- The time of his syllables: dying together with Derrida and Augustine -- Thinking love and mortality with Heidegger -- World loss or heart failure: pedagogies of estrangement in Harrison and Nancy -- Ages of learning . . . the secular today with Emerson and Nietzsche.

This volume assesses the ethical, quantitative, and qualitative questions posed by the current financing of biomedical research.

Weight-gain in psychiatric populations is a common clinical challenge. Many patients suffering from mental disorders, when exposed to psychotropic medications, gain significant weight with or without other side-effects. In addition to reducing the patients' willingness to comply with treatment, this weight-gain may create added psychological or physiological problems that need to be addressed. Thus, it is critical that clinicians take precautions to monitor and control weight-gain and take into account and treat all problems facing an individual. In this review, we (...) examine some of the key issues surrounding weight-gain in individuals suffering from mental disorders for contemporary practitioners in community clinics. We describe some factors known to make certain patients more susceptible to treatment-induced weight-gain and mechanisms implicated in this process. We also highlight a few psychological and pharmacological interventions that have proven effective in weight management. Importantly, we provide critical steps for management and prevention of weight-gain and related issues in the clinical practice of psychopharmacology. (shrink)

Non-epistemic values play important roles in classificatory practice, such that philosophical accounts of kinds and classification should be able to accommodate them. Available accounts fail to do so, however. Our aim is to fill this lacuna by showing how non-epistemic values feature in scientific classification, and how they can be incorporated into a philosophical theory of classification and kinds. To achieve this, we present a novel account of kinds and classification, discuss examples from biological classification where non-epistemic values play decisive (...) roles, and show how this account accommodates the role of non-epistemic values. (shrink)

Natural kinds are often contrasted with other kinds of scientific kinds, especially functional kinds, because of a presumed categorical difference in explanatory value: supposedly, natural kinds can ground explanations, while other kinds of kinds cannot. I argue against this view of natural kinds by examining a particular type of explanation—mechanistic explanation—and showing that functional kinds do the same work there as traditionally recognized natural kinds are supposed to do in “standard” scientific explanations. Breaking down this categorical distinction between traditional natural (...) kinds and other kinds of kinds, I argue, delivers two goods: It provides us with a view of natural kindhood that does justice to the epistemic roles of kinds in scientific explanations. And it allows us to solve a problem that HPC theory, currently one of the more popular accounts of natural kindhood, confronts. (shrink)

Beginning with a Cuban Catholic ritual in Miami, this book takes readers on a momentous theoretical journey toward a new understanding of religion.

Natural kinds are often contrasted with other kinds of scientific kinds, especially functional kinds, because of a presumed categorical difference in explanatory value: supposedly, natural kinds can ground explanations, while other kinds of kinds cannot. I argue against this view of natural kinds by examining a particular type of explanation—mechanistic explanation—and showing that functional kinds do the same work there as traditionally recognized natural kinds are supposed to do in “standard” scientific explanations. Breaking down this categorical distinction between traditional natural (...) kinds and other kinds of kinds, I argue, delivers two goods: It provides us with a view of natural kindhood that does justice to the epistemic roles of kinds in scientific explanations. And it allows us to solve a problem that HPC theory, currently one of the more popular accounts of natural kindhood, confronts. (shrink)

This work argues for the need to close the gap between the fields of the philosophy of religion and religious studies. Thomas A. Lewis takes up what, in recent years, has often been seen as a fundamental reason for excluding religious ethics and philosophy of religion from religious studies: their explicit normativity. Against this presupposition, Lewis argues that normativity is pervasive--not unique to ethics and philosophy of religion--and therefore not a reason to exclude them from religious studies. He bridges (...) more philosophical and historical subfields by arguing for the importance of history to the philosophy of religion. He considers the future of religious ethics, explaining that the field as whole should learn from the methodological developments associated with recent work in comparative religious ethics and 'comparative religious ethics' should no longer be conceived as a distinct subfield. The concluding chapter engages broader, post-9/11 arguments about the importance of studying religion, arguing that prominent contemporary notions of 'religious literacy' actually hinder our ability to grasp the significance of religion and impact in the world today. (shrink)

Medical tourism is a practice, whereby individuals travel across national borders with the intention of receiving medical care. Medical tourists are motivated to travel abroad by a number of factors, including the affordability of care abroad, access to treatments not available at home, and wait times for care at home. In this article, we share the findings of interviews conducted with 32 Canadian medical tourists with the aim of developing a better understanding of medical tourism, the ethical issues it raises (...) for public health within Canada and other source countries for medical tourists, and to identify research gaps and policy responses to this practice. While patient and academic perspectives overlap in several regards, we suggest areas in which academic consideration of the ethical issues raised by medical tourism can be informed by patient perspectives. (shrink)