The book offers an overview of experiences, theories and conceptions of time in the Graeco-Roman world. It presents the results of new research on neglected medical texts, relating to time management, aging and times of life, and the importance of t.

Galen's æuvre presents a remarkably varied body of texts–varied in subject matter, style, and didactic purpose. Logical tracts sit alongside tomes of drug–lore; handbooks of dietetics alongside anatomical investigations; treatises of physiology alongside ethical opuscula. These differences in type have received some, though as yet insufficient, scholarly attention. Mario Vegetti demonstrated the coexistence of two ‘profili’ or images of the art of medicine: Galen presents the art as an Aristotelian deductive science, on the one hand, and as a technician's craft, (...) on the other. The former image, offering an ambitious elevation of the doctor's cultural status, has medicine as a philosophical episteme analogous to the mathematical sciences, exercised above all to provide causal accounts and logical demonstrations, and centred on the knowledge of anatomy. The second image is that of the clinician, concerned with the body in its pathological manifestations and using as its prime model the ‘pre-anatomical’ theory of the humours. And the content of the treatises shifts in relation to this dual image: ‘profilo alto’ and ‘profilo basso’ are reflected in different types of work. Polemical writings such as the Protrepticus, as well as the great treatises of anatomy and physiology, De usu partium and De naturalibus facultatibus, present medicine in the former light, while works like De temperamentis or Quod animi mores base themselves on humoral pathology and accord with the earlier, artisan-like image. (shrink)

I argue that quantum optical experiments that purport to refute Bohr’s principle of complementarity fail in their aim. Some of these experiments try to refute complementarity by refuting the so called particle–wave duality relations, which evolved from the Wootters–Zurek reformulation of BPC. I therefore consider it important for my forgoing arguments to first recall the essential tenets of BPC, and to clearly separate BPC from WZPC, which I will argue is a direct contradiction of BPC. This leads to a need (...) to consider the meaning of particle–wave duality relations and to question their fundamental status. I further argue that particle and wave complementary concepts are on a different footing than other pairs of complementary concepts. (shrink)

A consistent causal interpretation of the Klein-Gordon equation treated as a field equation has been developed, and leads to a model of entities described by the Klein-Gordon equation, i.e., spinless, massive bosons, as objectively existing fields. The question arises, however, as to whether a causal interpretation based on a particle ontology of the Klein-Gordon equation is also possible. Our purpose in this article will be to indicate, by making what we believe is a best possible attempt at developing a particle (...) interpretation of the Klein-Gordon equation, that such an interpretation is untenable. To resolve the nonpositive-definite probability density difficulties with the Klein-Gordon equation, we modify this equation by the introduction of an evolution parameter. We base our subsequent considerations on this modified Klein-Gordon equation. Partly to motivate the need for a relativistic causal interpretation and partly to give emphasis to aspects of the causal interpretation often overlooked, we begin our article with a brief historical survey of the causal interpretation. (shrink)

"Case notes." Ethos: Official Publication of the Law Society of the Australian Capital Territory, (198), pp. 35–36.

Background:: Over the past few years, research ethics committees have increasingly demanded explicit consent before archival tissue samples can be used in research projects. Current UK guidance in this area requires an assessment of whether it is “practical” to obtain explicit consent. Ethics committees have little experience or evidence to help them to judge what is “practical” in this context.Methods:: We attempted to obtain general consent for research use of surplus tissue from renal transplant biopsies from the entire patient population (...) of the renal transplant unit in Leicester. The nature of this patient population would be expected to facilitate this task.Results:: A total of 495 letters were sent. Attempts were made to contact non-responders when they attended the outpatient clinic. One year after the initiation of the project, the opinions of 26% of the patients had still not been ascertained.Conclusions:: The results confirm that the vast majority of patients are happy for “surplus” biopsy material to be used for research; the situation does not parallel the use of autopsy tissue. A requirement to obtain explicit consent for the study of archival tissue is likely, however, to block or at least seriously delay research, which is contrary to the public interest and specifically may harm the interests of the patients concerned. In the UK, the problem of tissue being used against the wishes of the donor has now been largely replaced by the problem of prohibition of tissue use against the wishes of the donor. (shrink)

All Galen's surviving shorter works on psychology and ethics - including the recently discovered Avoiding Distress, and the neglected Character Traits, extant only in Arabic - are here presented in one volume in a new English translation, with substantial introductions and notes and extensive glossaries. Original and penetrating analyses are provided of the psychological and philosophical thought, both of the above and of two absolutely central works of Galenic philosophy, Affections and Errors and The Capacities of the Soul, by some (...) of the foremost experts in the field. Each treatise has also been subjected to fresh textual study, taking account of the latest scholarly developments, and is presented with accompanying textual discussions, adding greatly to the value and accuracy of the work without detracting from its accessibility to a wider readership. The volume thus makes a major contribution to the understanding of the ancient world's most prominent doctor-philosopher in his intellectual context. (shrink)

The Twenty-seventh Congress of the CPSU has set the course to guide the present development of our society and determine its short- and long-term prospects. The Congress took place at a watershed in the development of the country and the contemporary world as a whole. It generalized the accumulated domestic and international experience in socialist construction, formulated a strategy to achieve the triumph of the ideals of communism, peace, and progress, made a creative contribution to the development of Marxist-Leninist theory, (...) and formulated a complex of problems to be resolved by social scientists and philosophers.Prior to the Congress, the journal published a series of articles analyzing advances made by Soviet scholars over the previous five years in the main avenues of phibsophy-dialectical and historical materialism, socio-philosophical problems in the development of socialism, philosophical problems in the natural sciences, the problems of scientijk-technological and social progress, culture and the cultural heritage, the development of the individual and communist education, ethics and esthetics, the history of philosophy, and the ideological struggle in the modern world.Today, the guidepost defining the primary content of the work ofphilosophers must be those programmatic theses of the Twenty-seventh CPSU Congress that point to the need for a broader orientation of the social sciences toward the concrete needs ofpractical life, for quick reactions to the shifts currently occurring in our life, for the careful analysis of new phenomena, and, by virtue of this, for the attainment of impressive theoretical andpractical results. The basis for this is a creative application of materialist dialectics, particularly in striving for a deeper analysis of the problems of socialism, social progress, and the maintenance of peace. This gives rise to the need for ficndamental advances in philosophical theory. Of primary importance is the acceleration of the countrys socioeconomic development, which requires investigation into the economic, social, political, cultural, and other aspects of the acceleration of social progress and the elevation in it of the role of the masses and the human factor.The new CPSU Program concentrates the attention of social scientists on the study and comprehensive analysis of global development, the creation of a new society in the USSR and in other socialist countries, the dialectics of the productive forces and production relations, the material and intellectual spheres under socialism, patterns in the establishment of the communist formation, and the paths and means toward the gradual approach to its highest phase. The scientijic analysis of the objective contradictions in socialist society, the elaboration of well-founded recommendations on their resolution, of reliable economic and social prognoses, is an urgent task of the social sciences at the contemporary stage of development.In initiating a new rubric, we by tradition would like to share with readers our plans in this area. In this issue we enumerate the basic problems for the discussion and preparation of articles in light of the materials of the Twenty-seventh Congress. The journal plans to conduct a discussion of these problems and, with the help of its wide range of authors, to publish a series of articles.The editors will embark under this new rubric with an article from the vice-president of the USSR Academy of Sciences, Academician P. N. Fedoseev, entitled "Dialectics in the Contemporary World.". (shrink)