This chapter contains sections titled: The Key: Losing Oneself Windsurfing Performance, Psychology, and Embedded Cognition Windsurfing and Flow.

In this essay I want to focus on a quality inherent in that range of feelings we associate with an experience described as ‘flow’. Csíkszentmihályi describes it as a state that arises in people involved in some skilled activity who become fully immersed in it; they reach a state of ‘intrinsic motivation’ and loss of self-awareness; their actions seem to occur spontaneously so that they seem to become simultaneously a passive witness to their own highly skilled agency. There are skilled (...) movements and manoeuvres in sailing in which the equipment becomes, as we say, “an extension of oneself”. Under these conditions the sailor has usually reached such a level of proficiency that the state of flow just described may obtain. Moments of flow are relatively rare, and are highly prized by those who know what to look for. Losing oneself in the activity in this way is one of its highpoints, a point which makes it thereby significant and meaningful. Excellence in sailing confers a kind of fulfilment we rarely attain. It is, for this reason, an ideal worth striving for. (shrink)

In this dissertation I seek to answer the question, “What are the virtues of the excellent citizen in a liberal democracy?" This question is important on three levels. First, if civic virtue is as important to the perpetuation of liberal democratic community as neo-liberal and communitarian thinkers have argued, then curiosity alone should motivate us. Second, if projects to foster the virtues are critical, then we must understand the virtues in order to foster them effectively and appropriately. Third, those who (...) wish to attain greater excellence in citizenship need to know what the virtues are so that they may pursue them. In Chapters One and Two, I argue that current accounts of civic virtue are deficient because they fail to explore its basis, nature, and constituents. To better understand civic virtue, we must explore specific citizen virtues. To fulfill this aim, we require a citizen virtue catalog structured by an explanatory framework that is anchored in the role-based nature of citizen virtue. Such a framework provides the rationale for determining which virtues should be included in the catalog and which should not as well as a basis for comparing competing catalogs. As the role of citizen is to assist his state, the citizen virtues are those qualities that enable the citizen to assist the state in achieving its aims” in protecting, promoting, and realizing the liberal democratic ideals (namely, freedom, equality, self-government, collective cooperation, and stability). In the remaining chapters, I survey neo-liberal accounts of citizen virtue proposed by Richard Dagger, William Galston, David Jones, Mark Kingwell, Stephen Macedo, and Thomas Spragens, Jr. I apply the Chapter Two framework to assess the virtue candidates they propose. These chapters share a common format but differ in focus. Chapter Three takes up the citizen virtues that treat political community: cooperation, participation, vigilance, deliberative excellence, and obedience to law. Chapter Four, the liberal citizen virtues: allegiance to liberal democratic community, tolerance, and respect for rights. And Chapter Five, the citizen virtues relating to self-governance: autonomy, responsibility, and restraint. Chapter Six concludes. (shrink)

continent. 2.1 (2012): 29–35. Translated by Vincent W.J. van Gerven Oei from Jeroen Mettes. "Politieke Poëzie: Enige aantekeningen, Poëtica bij N30 (versie 2006)." In Weerstandbeleid: Nieuwe kritiek . Amsterdam: De wereldbibliotheek, 2011. Published with permission of Uitgeverij Wereldbibliotheek, Amsterdam. L’égalité veut d’autres lois . —Eugène Pottier The modern poem does not have form but consistency (that is sensed), no content but a problem (that is developed). Consistency + problem = composition. The problem of modern poetry is capitalism. Capitalism—which has no (...) image: the unrepresentable Idea of “everything.” The problem is that a poem cannot be justified. There is no excuse for it. Political poetry— pure poetry—has to be problematic, though not in a mannerist way. Yes, its problem is first its own problem—poetry’s existence in the same world as the newspaper—but therefore also always everybody’s problem (the problem of any world at all). The cult of the sublime points at a suspect desire for transcendence, nostalgia for paradise lost (the womb?). Melancholia of the post-. But a problem neither sorrows nor mourns, it is alive, and the fact that it is alive is the problem—the problem for death (rigidity, the status quo). Our symbols and ideologies do not hide any god: symbolic = state; imaginary = human; real = money. Problem: the possibility of communal speech (poetry) in the absence of a “we.” Or: what is a “we” that is not a collective subject (or in any case is not a volonté générale )? What is a universal history that is not a History? This work was started in the shade of the anti-globalization protests at the end of November 1999. I considered N30 to be the closure of the nineties, of my adolescence, and of the a seemingly total extinction of social desire. From the beginning I was skeptical about the alterglobalization movement as the avant-garde of a new politics, but something was happening . Maybe this event did not show that, as the slogan would have it, “another world” is possible, but for me it indicated that such possibility was at least still possible. That naked possibility is carrying forward. And if the fundamental tone of this work sounds more desperate than utopian, this is not caused by the catastrophic sequence that since 1999 has plunged us ever deeper into the right-wing nightmare—a nightmare that this work also gives an account for—but because my hope as yet remains empty. Composition . Composition is no design, but the production of an autonomous block of affects (i.e. a POEM), rhythmically subtracted from the language of a community. A poem does something. Is something. New Sentence . Choosing the non sequitur as compositional unit has the advantage that an abstract composition is subjected to the stress of concrete, social references. Where there is a sentence, there is always a world. (This does not hold necessarily for words on their own.) And where sentences collide, something akin to a textual civil war takes place. It is not about “undermining” whatever, or de-scribing the raging global civil war, but about writing social (or even: ontological) antagonism -- including all its catastrophic and utopian possibilities. Minor resistance. Why would poetry be the no protest zone par excellence? It is nothing but protest, not simply qua “content,” but in its most fundamental essence: rhythm. Rhythm is resistance against language, time, and space, and the basis of (what we will continue to call) autonomy. Rhythm starts with the anti-rhythmic caesura as Hölderlin remarked about Sophocles, a disruption of the quotidian drone. The destruction of everything that is dead inside of us. The noise of the avant-garde has never been the representation of the noise of (post)modernity (from the television or shopping mall), but the sober noise of the systematic exchange of an unbearable worldview. The poet does not describe, but looks for a way out: There is a Grain of Sand in Lambeth that Satan cannot find Nor can his Watch Fiends find it, tis translucent & has many Angles But he who finds it will find Oothoons palace, for within Opening into Beulah every angle is a lovely heaven William Blake was not mad. And there has always been only one poetry: the poetry of paradise. The principle is that there is something in art (the essentially creative element) that is disgusted by that which, unlike art, does not aim for the supreme. Wonder is not supreme, tranquility is not supreme, beauty is not supreme. Even amusement is not supreme! The supreme is supremely open, “das Einfache,/ Das Schwer zu machen ist” 1 : paradise. That is abstract. Literally. For me it is not about a concrete imagination, an idyll or utopia. There is no doubt a need for that, but it is not so much the supposed lack of imagination or ideals (human rights are ideals), but a fundamental lack of desire (human rights are no desires) that we suffer from, and from which we do not need to remove Nietzsche’s label of “nihilism.” “We.” George Oppen: “ Of Being Numerous asks the question whether or not we can deal with humanity as something which actually exists.” What is less actual than humanity? Nowadays it appears as a lifeless ideology of cynical power politics. Or as what makes one think. It is a shame to be human. The event is the caesura that defines rhythm. Writing toward the event is not the description of the event, but marking an abstract and intense space in which the event may unfold and keep itself. It is a task. “Remember that thou blesseth the day on which I seized thee, because such is thy obligation.” The event is a contraction (or a series of contractions) with its own rhythm and unique qualities. It is more than an explosion or demonstration. But at the same time less. The endless repetition of images and stories in the media points to a fear for the indeterminate and indeterminable void of the event. In the end there is nothing to see. We do not live in disaster’s shade or miracle’s light, but rather in the rhythm, which is contracted time, having little to do with omnipresent representations. For this book I did not intend a rhythm of evental representations (a narrative rhythm), but a rhythm which would be an event itself , because it draws the border between artwork and history. My desire for a direct engagement with the “extra-textual reality” has nothing to do with the representation of “rumor in the streets.” (What has less street cred than representation?) Naturally, a poem is no historical event and does not change anything. But a poem is a part of history that wants to be repeated forever, constructed in such a way that it is worthy of repetition. It is a part of desire (composition) made consistent (durable). The “historical event” flares up and burns down, and has to burn down to be effective. The leftovers are images and stories (representations), History—no event. The artwork—that is the ambition— remains event (though monumental and inefficient/inoperable). (No wonder that a historical singularity, a revolution, reminds us of a work of art; the resurrection yearns for a judgment, an affirmation; everything depends on it.) Hence the title does not summarize the book, let alone contract its “content” into a quasi-transcendental signifier. The title is juxtaposed to the book, like everything else inside the book, and in that relation it precisely forms a part of it. The ideal work is an open whole, lacking nothing but to which everything may be added. I have been interested in this “everything,” the world, or as I said above: capitalism. “Everything” is not the space for “wonder”—a code word, a shibboleth for petty bourgeois imagination (I recognize myself in the strangest things, a speaking dog, a canal, a pond standing straight—oh my god). No. The world is a social world, not YOUR world, poet. Power is number one. I will call “Dutch,” or “shitty,” whatever denies this power. That hurts, but this pain is an expression of the desire in the world to write another world, or as Blanchot says, “the other of all worlds” 2 : the world. Not as what “is there,” but rather as that which urges for an escape from what “is.” This is a testament of how radical reality has become, for me—or rather, a writing body—in a having-been-written. I am not interested in the problem of “meaning” as misunderstood by literary scholarsi: “order” in “chaos,” “symbolization.” Bullshit. What is there, hop, hope, now: the meaning of the taste in my mouth. Bullshit. I am not interested in the frustration of interpretation; I am writing for readers who do not want to interpret. I do not know how many “professional readers” will hear the music of a paragraph like: Sun. Sushi. Volvo. I hope more than I would think. There is a suggestion (or rather, an actual production) of speed and infinitive owing to the absence of plosives, i.e. articulations such as /k/, /t/, or /p/. Can you hear the slick suaveness? Driving car dark, vocal chiaroscuro of the word “sushi.” The unstressed /i/ stands in the middle of dark vowels and thus acquires its own special out of focus , like a momentary flash or brilliance—an obscure light. It is not about recognizing a story, but about avoiding any story whatsoever: the car disappears in the glow, cars and raw fish have nothing in common except their articulation in a language that brings them together, blurring them. A world appears in its disappearance. For a moment, light is a metaphor for language, though it cannot be reduced to tenor. It is not necessary to be a linguist or philosopher to hear this—a “difficult” poem all too often becomes an allegory of its own impenetrable being-language. The only demand: leave your hermeneutical fetish at home. This was no interpretation. Most shit has been stolen etcetera. That is no longer interesting. You cannot shoot the body with information and let your lawyers reclaim the bullets. So every sentence has been stolen. Also the ones “out” “of” “my” “head.” Why would I be allowed to steal from myself and not from others? Man takes what he needs to move forward. Whatever he encounters, finds in front of him, “occurs” to him. The writer as text editor, or singing pirate. Nothing new here. Important difference with for example Sybren Polet’s 4 montage technique: anti-thematicism. Most of the time ferocious citation from whatever I was reading, listening to, ended up in, and so on. I wrote chapter 12 on my laptop while watching CNN. On the air instead of en plein air . I often employed search engines to generate material. Chapter 20 offers the purest example of this. Often I stop recognizing a particular citation after some time. It is not uncommon for a stolen sentence to conform itself to the paragraph in which it finds itself. Sometimes I nearly arbitrarily replace words. Arbitrariness as a guarantee for absolute democracy. It is a poetics of the non sequitur : a conclusion that does not follow from the premises, the strange element in the discourse. A discourse of strangers. No logical, narrative, thematic unity. There is unity in speed/flight. It has to be read linearly, but not necessarily (not preferably) from beginning to end. The shortest distance between two points is a straight line, but this line precedes every point. The middle, the acceleration, comes first. A point occurs where two lines cross. It has been written from up close, at the level of the tension between sentences. Nothing to be seen from a distance: no form except the exchange of form, no geometrical or mythical meaning. You have to get in, “groping toward a continuous present, a using everything a beginning again and again” (Stein). 5 In Dutch, experimental poetry has been mainly dense: a small rectangular form filled with a maximum amount of poetic possibility. But at the moment the poem starts to relax, the anecdotical content seems to increase. This is what is called “epic”: long, narrative. I believe that an epic is more than that, in fact something completely different. An epic is “a poem including history,” 6 a long poem tied up with the life of community, that as a whole does not need to be narrative. The American poets of the twentieth century (Pound, Williams, Zukofsky, Oppen, Olson, Silliman) have put the epic back on the map by interpreting the poem itself as a map, and writing it as navigation. They have invented the experimental epic, a genre that has generated little original following in “our” poetry. N30 is the middle part—“always start in the middle”—of a trilogy, the contours of which remain as of yet unclear, although each episode investigates one of the three “ecstasies of time”—past, present, future—concerning society X. N30 concerns itself with the PRESENT: not with the description of actual facts but of the rhythm and the intense depth in which facts appear to us. Where are we? We are camping in the desert. Sometimes we are looking at the stars. As opposed to maximum density and minimal tension (a characteristic of most (post-)experimental lyricism), I have sought a minimal density and maximum tension in this book, considered as a long non-narrative prose poem. On the one hand, the minimal density is obtained by the inherent formlessness of prose, on the other hand by the conscious refusal of any active (formal, non-rhythmic) synthesis: the poem tells nothing, shows nothing, has no theme. I did not seek maximum tension either by loading the quotidian with epiphanic radioactivity (“wonder,” confirmation from above), or by means of the intensity of the linguistic structure. I want an abstract tension, but social in its abstraction, in other words, not neutralized by and subjected to Form. Instead of form (transcendent): composition (immanent). The concept is series. Ideal: every unit is necessary for the efficacy of the others and the whole, their relation is purely linear, i.e. non-hierarchic, non-syllogistic, non-discursive, non-narrative. Sentence related to sentence like paragraph to paragraph and chapter to chapter; the whole means nothing and represents nothing. Inside the sentence: syntax (Chomsky’s tree, a type of parallel circuit), outside: parataxis (coordination, an asyntactic line through language and world). I consider duration—the energy of duration (rhythm)—to be the fundament of a poem, the temporal inclination to delimit a “space.” Being as consistency, its consistency. A spatial part of time is not merely a metaphor for an inevitable trajectory, an inescapable time, something like “our time.” Not merely—because rhythm comes from language and is not projected onto it; the poem derives from the world like a scent and a color and a life from a flower. A series, a sequence: nothing potential, but truly infinite—the movement of an infinitude. The infinite series = everything minus totality. That means that there is no container—no Form, no Self, no Image, no Structure, not even a Fragment—just “the prose of the world.” No representation, but also no staging of the impossibility of representation (the postmodern sublime). These are no fragments, no image of a fragmented world or personality, no cautious incantations around the Void. It does not exist. It is a movement. Buying bread, a flock of birds, a bomb falling—they do not depict or represent anything, not literally, not metaphorically. There is an Idea, which is however nothing more than a rhythm, in the same way that capitalism is nothing more than a pure function. Parataxis: the white space between two sentences stresses, which is nevertheless always there, also between words, even between letters: the out of focus of idle talk, the gutter, the irreducible Mallarméan mist which renders even the seemingly most transparent text legible. The white space suggests a neutral medium for free signification, a substance of language. A non sequitur is an element from a foreign discourse, which stresses the white space as space, and problematizes freedom for supra-sentential signification. I start by withdrawing material, leaving the initiative to the sentences. In general a word presupposes less often a discourse than a sentence. What discourse is presupposed by “dog”? We could think of several, but why would we? It is more probable that, when faced with the naked word, we think of its naked (dictionary) meaning, of its denotative signified. By means of two simple interventions we may also write the word as sentence: Dog. In no way this suggests the discourse from which this sentence originates, but in any case we’re presupposing one. This is shown by questions like: “Whose dog? Who’s a dog? What kind of dog?” Etc. (Sentences are question marks.) A sentence implies/is a microcosm—a subject, a verb, an object, and so on. Even an incomplete or ungrammatical sentence does so. My main fascination while writing this book is the worldly and social aspect of language, an aspect that often becomes invisible, or rather, transparent in narrativity—the stretching of sentences into stories. Narrativity organizes a new discourse and a new world, and places a sometimes all too dispersing relation of transparence in between. The conventional novel is the brothel of being. I do not intend to prohibit brothels, and I have certainly not intended to write an anti-novel (THIS IS A POEM), but I do consider narrativity (in general, in poetry, in the news, in daily life) to be ontologically secondary with regard to an immediate being in the world through sentences, also if the latter have been withdrawn from a narrative or otherwise externally structured discourse (which in that case would therefore be chronologically primary ). Naturally, two or more sentences are always in danger of telling stories or arguing, just like the world is always in danger of becoming an objective representation, facing us, strangers. That is why need to wage war—against representation and against the interface, against interaction. AGAINST THE “READER.” To the extent that a sentence is worldly, writing is a condensed global war, and in so far as there is ultimately only one world and one open continuum of languages, it is a global civil war. Nice subject for an epic. The elaboration of a singular problem—prose as the outside of poetry, the form of the novel as purely prosodic composition scheme—“expresses” the universal problem: capitalism as Idea of the world vs. poetry as language of an (im)possible community. The paragraphs are blocks of rhythmically contracted social material. By choosing the sentence as the basic compositional component, an abstract whole may contain social sounds, without telling a story or showing an image. Composition is subrepresentative —a rhythmic, passive synthesis, or rather: a synthesis of syntheses. I never write large blocks of prose in one sitting, because there is no obvious organizational vector —plot, theme, conscience—outside the inherent qualities of the material itself. Usually I write down one sentence, sometimes two, but rarely more than three. Those sentences are usually placed in the text which I am editing at the time. In fact, there is no original composition, new chapters split off from chapters which became too long during the editing process. (Revision mainly consists of adding and inserting, displacing and dividing; only during the last phase, when the text has gained enough consistency, there may be subtraction to tighten the composition; each chapter requires a season of daily revision). This constant revision, accompanied by a continuous influx of collective background noise (to speak with Van Bastelaere), 7 makes every chapter a block condensed (“historical” and “personal”) time. The block itself is a-personal and a-historic; it is ontologically autonomous. If there is such a thing as a spirit of the times, I do not try to offer an image of it, but rather to cancel something of it by erecting a monument of its own excrement within its own boundaries. Tuning and dis-tuning , “in de taal der neerslachtigen een eigen geluid doen klinken,” 8 in other words, desiring in an Elysian way. In this sense I have intended to be able to write a political poetry. The ultimate political poem is the epic, “the tale of the tribe.” I consider N30 to be a prolegomenon to a future epic (of which it in the end will form a part a structural moment, as introduction-in-the-middle), an extended pile on top of an epic as narrative, a question of the tribe and question of its history. I was burdened by too much satire, too much bullshit. But: satire willy-nilly = the only justifiable satire. Against the abstract universalism of the market (“globalism”): concrete disgust, a positive way of saying “No.” Moreover, disgust is a specifically total attitude, which ultimately concerns the world as a whole. I hate this or that, but I am disgusted by EVERYTHING (when I am disgusted), and so it appears that satire is in fact related to the epic, in so far as it concerns society, the cosmos, history. Maybe it is no coincidence that the Dutch literary canon knows no great poet of disgust; what could be more fearful to us than society, the cosmos, and history? The T-tendency (T from Tollens 9 ) clearly points into the direction of the small, friendly, ironic, melancholic, acquiescent, wondrous, and so on. The anti-political, anti-cosmic, anti-historical. (Why am I so philosophical? To scare away the Dutchies.) And most of all: the “poetical” (the pseudo-mysticism from the backyard). Yes, the N in N30 also stands for the Netherlands (just like 30 indicates the number of chapters). I was not in Seattle, I do not live in Iraq. But is not the whole world bleeding to death on Dutch paving stones? Let’s hope that we mowed away something with this total satire, also “in myself.” The arrogant stupidity that definitely thinks to know the essence of freedom (the free development of esthetic needs inside the void), that cannot take anything serious, only believes in the disciplined bestiality of the individual (“norms and values”) and the mere functioning of a social factory which finds no justification whatsoever outside its functioning (“get to work”)… Who knows. A certain aimed destruction leaves grooves and craters, mapping out a next adventure. Pound’s periplum : sailing while mapping the coasts. Immanent orientation. The terrain changes with the map, history changes with the poem. Maps never merely organize the chaos, transcendent schemes imposed on a formless Ding-an-sich . They organize from within, surfing. But they are most of all routes back into the chaos or forward to paradise (final identity of chaos and paradise; Schlegel: “ Nur diejenige Verworrenheit ist ein Chaos aus der eine Welt entspringen kann ”10). A poem is not only a piece of history, it is also a flight from history. Maps give chaos to the form of reality , open escape routes, break through representations, make us shivery and dazed. Paradise is immanent to a fleeting desire. History is the history of labor—this is Adam’s curse—and the poet works too: For to articulate sweet sounds together Is to work harder than all these, and yet Be thought an idler by the noisy set Of bankers, school masters, and clergymen The martyrs call the world 11 But: the poet works in paradise. The paradox of the artwork, the work that is no work, the piece of history that cannot be reduced to History—this is explained by The Space of Literature , a virtual space, an autonomous rhythm, not outside, but in the midst of the noise, a piece of paradise in hell, a postcard from the vale of tears addressed to paradise, to X. Political poetry means: a poetry that dares to think about itself, about its language and about its world and about the problematic relation between both, which is this relation as problem. A poetry that thinks at all, articulates its problem. It has nothing to do with journalism or morality or debate, let alone the law or the state. It has nothing to do with “criticism” if this means the replacement of incorrect representations by other, more correct representations. It has something to do with ethics in the sense of learning to live. It has something to do with the community and the language of the community (whichever that may be) and the role of the poet regarding the community. It concerns justice without judgement or measure. In the end the just word is just a word , to paraphrase Godard: it is from a future that is unimaginable. It Is no rational engagement, but an aversion against everything that obstructs life, and love for everything what is worthy of having been loved. The world is engaged with me, not the other way round. First Exodus, then Sinai. A desire does not start with an agenda. To answer the question whether I am really so naive as to want to change the world: “We only want the world.” Justice is the world appealing to us to liberate it from all possible chains, from each organization and inequality, to be it, smooth, equal, under a clear sky—a desert and a people in a desert. That moment between Egypt and the Law. It is not a revolution, but the sky above the revolution. Poetry = the science of escape. There is no art that we already know. The weakness of modernistic epic poetry seems to me to be the unwillingness to completely abandon narrative as a structural principle, in favor of a composition “around” or from an event. The China Cantos and Adams Cantos are the low point, and the Pisan Cantos the high point of Pound’s poetry. Two types of research: archival representation of the past vs. ontology of the present (which virtually presupposes the entire history). Presupposing an event means that it is impossible for the poet to stage his own absence, but in no way makes the work personal. An event is the unknown, the new invading into the business as usual, so also the personal. The question heading this research is not: “Who am I?” but “What is happening?” The book is as little illegible as Mondrian’s work is invisible. Form is of interest only to the extent that it empowers liberation. Ron Silliman So no formalism, but what it means to live in this world and to have a future in it. I want something that holds together that’s not smooth. Bruce Andrews The past above, the future below and the present pouring down: the roar, the roar of the present, a speech— William Carlos Williams If my confreres wanted to write a work with all history in its maw, I wished, from the beginning to start all over again, attempting to know nothing but a will to create, and matter at hand. Ronald Johnson NOTES 1) “The easy thing/ that is difficult to make.” Bertold Brecht, Lob des Kommunismus . (All footnotes are the translator’s) 2) Maurice Blanchot, The Space of Literature , trans. Ann Smock. Lincoln/London: University of Nebraska Press (1989), 75. 3) Mettes uses the word “Neerlandicus,” which refers to scholars of Dutch language and literature. 4) Dutch poet. 5) Gertrude Stein. “Composition as Explanation.” A Stein Reader . Ed. Ulla E. Dydo. Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press (1993), 495-503. 6) Ezra Pound. 7) Flemish poet. 8) “Resounding an original sound in the language of the despondent.” A. Roland Holst, De afspraak . 9) Dutch poet. 10) “Only such a confusion is a chaos which can give rise to a world.” 11) W.B. Yeats, “Adam’s Curse.&rdquo. (shrink)

Democratic societies find it difficult to reach consensus concerning principles for healthcare distribution in the face of resource constraints. At the same time the need for legitimacy of allocation decisions has been recognised. Against this background, the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) aspires to meet the principles of procedural justice, specifically the conditions of accountability for reasonableness as espoused by Daniels and Sabin, that is, publicity, relevance, revisions and appeal, and enforcement. Although NICE has adopted a (...) highly standardised approach and continuously publishes key documents on its website, its technology appraisal programme does not fulfil the publicity condition of accountability for reasonableness. Economic models are not made sufficiently transparent to enable public scrutiny, and decision criteria other than cost-effectiveness remain enigmatic. NICE’s reliance on cost-utility analysis and “plausible” cost-per-quality-adjusted life year (QALY) benchmarks further raises serious issues with regard to the relevance condition of accountability for reasonableness. This is illustrated by counterintuitive cost-per-QALY rankings that are difficult to justify using reflective equilibrium methods, and by the current debate surrounding expensive therapies for rare diseases (“orphan” treatments). In addition, an excessive focus on QALYs may stand in the way of exploiting the best available effectiveness evidence. The NICE mechanism for revision and appeals is also more restrictive than provided in accountability for reasonableness. As to the enforcement condition, no effective quality assurance processes are in place for technology assessments, and implementation of guidance remains imperfect. NICE, despite impressive efforts, appears to have a long way to go before meeting the conditions of accountability for reasonableness. (shrink)

There is much public focus in North America today on issues of corporate governance and ethics due mainly to the malpractice of several high profile corporate leaders and the negative impact of this on their corporation's stakeholders, employees and communities. This has caused a crisis of trust in the public and lead to much discussion on ways to prevent such unethical behavior by adopting new approaches through legislation and the structure of corporations. This article is not about introducing a new (...) approach to corporate ethics and governance as there is much change already taking place. The National Quality Institute in Canada offers a demonstrated and proven way, through the application of the Excellence Frameworks, of providing for good corporate guidance and ethical leadership practices. Organizations, which adopt a strategic focus on Excellence, attain great results and become healthy organizations, as their leaders understand the dynamic relationship and the balance that exists between "employees, customers, and stakeholders". These organizations build trust by acting responsibly. NQI works with many organizations in Canada that have a strategic leadership focus on organizational excellence utilizing the criteria in the NQI Canadian Excellence Frameworks for Quality and for Healthy Workplace. Organizations that take an integrated approach to Excellence also perform well in such areas as corporate social responsibility, employee health and customer satisfaction. This article has specific references to three organizations that have achieved Canada's prime recognition the Canada Awards for Excellence. (shrink)

This study explores how Machiavelli's unique understanding of founders and the nature of their enterprise reflects his judgments about what constitutes the highest human excellence. Both virtue and founding are examined before Machiavelli's treatments of the "most excellent" founders of Prince 6 are considered in detail. Ultimately, comprehending the excellence peculiar to these founders facilitates an understanding of the standard by which Machiavelli evaluates humans; this standard is a key element in unlocking Machiavelli's thoughts.

This book discusses a theory called "success emulation," formulated several years ago by James Lewis, Jr. The essence of this theory is that a person or an organization can attain a high degree of success or excellence by studying the products, programs, principles, and practices of successful organizations and then adopting those that are appropriate in the new situation, with or without modifications. Lewis presents 12 important lessons which will show school districts how to achieve excellence by adopting (...) those principles and practices that have worked for the best-run companies in America. ISBN 0-915253-03-8: $18.95. (shrink)

Crisis rarely comes with a warning. When blindsided by trauma, betrayal, or soul-crushing news, it's natural to want to give up. Is it possible to rise above calamity and even thrive despite the turmoil? Britney Ruby Miller, entrepreneur and CEO of a nationally ranked, family-owned restaurant group, says yes, it absolutely is. Having faced family tragedy, peer rejection, infidelity, infertility, and a pandemic that threatened not only to close her family's business but also to decimate the restaurant industry, Britney (...) battled back with the winning combination of faith and fight that has led to her five-star life. Britney demonstrates what it means to live authentically and effectively as a strong woman in leadership. With captivating stories and practical applications to lead you deeper into principles for success, this book will show you how to increase your faith and hope in the midst of challenges, setbacks, and even tragedy as you persevere to attain your own Five-Star Life"--Back cover. (shrink)

There is much public focus in North America today on issues of corporate governance and ethics due mainly to the malpractice of several high profile corporate leaders and the negative impact of this on their corporation''s stakeholders, employees and communities. This has caused a crisis of trust in the public and lead to much discussion on ways to prevent such unethical behavior by adopting new approaches through legislation and the structure of corporations. This article is not about introducing a new (...) approach to corporate ethics and governance as there is much change already taking place. The National Quality Institute (NQI) in Canada offers a demonstrated and proven way, through the application of the Excellence Frameworks, of providing for good corporate guidance and ethical leadership practices. Organizations, which adopt a strategic focus on Excellence, attain great results and become healthy organizations, as their leaders understand the dynamic relationship and the balance that exists between employees, customers, and stakeholders. These organizations build trust by acting responsibly. NQI works with many organizations in Canada that have a strategic leadership focus on organizational excellence utilizing the criteria in the NQI Canadian Excellence Frameworks for Quality and for Healthy Workplace. Organizations that take an integrated approach to Excellence also perform well in such areas as corporate social responsibility, employee health and customer satisfaction. This article has specific references to three organizations that have achieved Canada''s prime recognition the Canada Awards for Excellence (CAE). (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Beauty in the Context of Particular LivesPauliina Rautio (bio)IntroductionThere is a village in the north of Finland with some thirty inhabitants. While the villagers do not lead the idyllic lives that are sold as images to tourists, they also do not lead lives of depression, alcoholism, poverty, and seclusion—an image generated by research results from the likes of National Research and Development Centre for Welfare and Health. The ill-being (...) of rural northern villages is well documented in large-scale quantitative research,1 but qualitative research on the actual well-being, of what is already good and fulfilling, is scarce.In this paper I present a research project in education in which I have collected the data through a year-long correspondence with four participants from a small village. Letters in this correspondence were exchanged once a month in a way that everyone read everyone’s letters. I asked the participants to write about beauty. The aim of this research has been to find out what kind of place beauty, as defined by the participants themselves, holds in the their everyday lives. In this paper I will discuss some challenges of researching everyday beauty empirically. I will also concentrate on selected findings that highlight the importance of context in discussing experiences and use of beauty.Everyday life2 has been characterized in research by concepts such as “time,” “space,” “rhythm,” and “bodily movement.”3 These concepts embrace an idea of a continuum and refer to everyday life as subjectively experienced and actively engaged in. Everyday life is a contextual process but one that nevertheless defies definitions bound in time and space. This is because as subjectively experienced, it entails simultaneously the past, the present, and the future as necessary for the managing of it. By managing of everyday life I mean a practice that consists of constant reflection, evaluation, and steering, but one that we are mostly unaware of engaging [End Page 38] in. We are in a way creating our everyday lives as we go. This makes the everyday a subjective construct instead of an objectively definable unit such as “a Monday.” And so, instead of an attempt to tame the very vague notion of “everyday” as something universally shared,4 this research delves into particular individuals’ everyday lives as uniquely managed continuums. And to strike a rare positive chord to research on rural northern villages, I have chosen aesthetics, the notion of beauty in particular, as the vantage point to this making of everyday.I’m aligning with Ludwig Wittgenstein and quoting Katya Mandoki in stating that “beauty is a linguistic effect used by a particular subject to describe personal experiences and social conventions... a linguistic categorisation of a non-linguistic experience.”5 And despite the ambivalence that surrounds beauty as a concept in scholarly discussion, it is to be noted that it has remained in constant use in everyday conversation of common experience. When commonly used, “beautiful” still signals admiration, excellence, and that which is desirable.6 Beauty is therefore future-oriented, bringing about replication, distribution, and a wish to protect.7 As such a concept and a word of everyday use, “beauty” orients us to concentrate on the desirable in our lives at present. In doing so it guides us to evaluate this desirableness in light of the past and commits us to replicate and protect it for the future. Embedded in the use of the concept of beauty is thus a continuum of evaluating one’s relation to her surroundings. As beauty is not a quality of objects in themselves but an effect of the relation between the experiencing subjects and certain objects,8 it is not the objects of everyday beauty that I explore but the relation of particular people to their everyday life environments through ways of using and expressing beauty.The significance in thinking of beauty as something we create and use rather than something that exists objectively is in the realization that we can change what we find beautiful. Beauty as used by a particular subject is not fixed but changes and mirrors the changing of that subject herself. In realizing beauty this way, it becomes a... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Under Confucian Eyes: Writings on Gender in Chinese History, and: Women in DaoismZhou YiqunUnder Confucian Eyes: Writings on Gender in Chinese History. Edited by Susan Mann and Yu-yin Cheng. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2001. Pp. xiii + 310.Women in Daoism. By Catherine Despeux and Livia Kohn. Cambridge, MA: Three Pines Press, 2003. Pp. viii + 296.Anyone who looks for a quick taste of what is exciting and (...) important about the research of the past two decades on Chinese women's history should pick up the reader edited by Susan Mann and Yu-yin Cheng. In eighteen chapters, each with a translator's preface and an introduction to the selected text, Under Confucian Eyes: Writings on Gender in Chinese History covers the period from the Tang to the Qing (when the Confucian orthodoxy steadily became entrenched), includes twelve genres, foregrounds women's own voices, and repeatedly introduces the non-Han peoples to the spotlight. The guiding standard for the choice of the diverse, rich, and in many cases new historical materials in the book is that they form a "dialogue" with and provide a "counterpoint, critique, or confirmation" of Confucian values and norms about gender roles (p. 5). The clearheaded and balanced attention to not only "counterpoint" and "critique" but also "confirmation" produces a dynamic and nuanced picture of Chinese gender relations that is radically different from the old stereotypes and yet remains firmly grounded in the reality of a society where Confucianism provided the most important system of values and institutions against which almost all other ideas and practices in traditional China have to be understood.The most crucial confirmed point is perhaps the high value set on family and household in Confucianism, which serves here to explain the considerable power and influence that Chinese women were able to wield despite their confinement in the inner quarters. The funerary biographies by Chen Liang (chapter 4), Luo Rufang (chapter 6), and Zhang Xuecheng (chapter 14), all eminent Confucian scholars, commemorate [End Page 684] women who upheld their families with principle, courage, and practical wisdom and attribute to them their kinsmen's success and sometimes sheer survival. As evidence from the other end is a letter that Gu Ruopu, a seventeenth-century matriarch and poet, wrote to her sons, in which she asserts "every fiber and every grain that this family owns are the fruits of my industry and hardship over several decades" and offers household instructions with indisputable authority (chapter 9). Always keeping in mind the assertiveness and authority of a matriarch like Gu and the deep admiration and emotion shown in the three biographies by the male elite will help us understand the recognition of women's functions and contributions in Confucian ethics and put in the right perspective the alternative means of self-fulfillment for Chinese women that is abundantly featured in the same volume.In its broad representation of alternative value systems, multiple voices in a single author or text, and formerly ignored populations and practices, the book offers an excellent sampling of the recent research agendas in Chinese women's history. Religion provides a prime example of the areas where the discovery and celebration of diversity and multiplicity are the order of the day. The two Daoist and Buddhist hagiographies (chapters 1, 2) and a rare extant autobiography of a Buddhist laywoman (chapter 8) set religious salvation above and against the obligations of family life.These voices of discontent form a contrast with the biographies by Luo Rufang and Zhang Xuecheng (chapters 6, 14), which either suggest a possible resolution of the conflict within the domestic context or insinuate highly ambiguous meanings of religion for contented Chinese mothers and wives. Besides religious and spiritual cultivation, communities such as poetry societies are shown as providing women with strong intellectual and emotional support beyond the kinship network (chapters 11, 12), and literary authorship creates an illusory world in which a frustrated woman of talent seeks communion with former worthies (chapter 16). Romantic love is likewise shown to be in a position to contend with family relationships, as suggested by the contrasting treatments of love letters and family letters in the seventeenth-century epistolary... (shrink)

Recently, we initiated a new research line on fulfillment in life by developing a conceptual framework and a self-report measure. To enhance conceptual clarity and complement theoretical considerations and empirical findings, we investigated lay conceptions of a fulfilled life in German-speaking participants at different life stages. First, we selected a qualitative approach using an open-ended question asking participants to describe a fulfilled life. Second, for a more comprehensive understanding, quantitative data were collected about the relevance of sources in providing (...) fulfillment and ratings on a fulfilling life in the present and a fulfilled life in retrospect. Qualitative content analysis was used to assess the responses to the open-ended question. One-fifth of the data was double coded, and intercoder reliability was high. Responses comprised a variety of descriptions, and we grouped them into seven themes, three of which overlapped with the prior conceptualization, namely the core elements of general description, cognitive appraisals, and affective appraisals. Cognitive evaluations related to intrapersonal aspects, particularly having lived life fully, attained personally significant goals, and developed oneself, as well as interpersonal, generative aspects, such as having made a contribution and been able to leave something of value. These categories are mostly in line with what the Fulfilled Life Scale measures. Further themes referred to correlates—including sources—and antecedents, including resources, personal characteristics, and quality of life, all considered worthy to be the subject of empirical investigation but which were not included in the conceptual model. Qualitative and quantitative results suggest that individuals derive fulfillment from different sources. Fulfillment from a profession and having a life task was strongly associated with longer-term fulfillment. Only a few age and sex differences were found. The overarching framework developed from the qualitative results can stimulate further investigation. Our findings underscore that a fulfilled life as a distinct construct should be measured directly rather than via a proxy. Insights into the constituents, sources, and antecedents of a fulfilled life can inform practice to promote a life well lived. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Confessions of a Poisoner, Written by HerselfGail K. Hart (bio)Confessions of a Poisoner, Written by Herself. Translated and introduced by Raleigh Whitinger and Diana Spokiene. New York: MLA, 2009. xliii + 196 pp. $12.95.Confessions of a Poisoner is an epistolary, autobiographical novel, first published anonymously in German as Bekenntnisse einer Giftmischerin in 1803. Lurid accounts of sex, incest, murder, and other crimes contributed to its status as a (...) sensational document in its day, especially in light of the illicit activities of the Countess Charlotte Ursinus, who was arrested and prosecuted for multiple poisonings allegedly committed between 1779 and 1803. Readers were eager for details of the countess's affairs and crimes, and the novel can indeed be read as an account, perhaps her account, of a very busy life of iniquity.The book is extremely engaging, and absorbing because our autobiographical narrator has unusually acute insight into human affairs and human character. From early youth, she finds pleasure in the art of seeming and she is proud of the skill with which she reads those who have something to offer her. Indeed the book could double as a seminar in social manipulation as the narrator negotiates her culture's obstacles to women's self-fulfillment. One is often reminded of George Lillo's murderous Millwood from The London Merchant, who in 1731 made the observation:It is a general maxim among the knowing part of mankind that a woman without virtue, like a man without honor or honesty, is capable of any action, though never [End Page 68] so vile. And yet what pains will they not take, what arts not use, to seduce us from our innocence and make us contemptible and wicked, even in their own opinions?(I:3)The narrator of Poisoner, though she might agree with Millwood, sees her part in the vile actions as both determined and chosen. The early steps of corruption were abetted by passion (incited with some calculation by early lovers) but also by the education she received, which she describes as being more masculine than feminine. Her father's failure to guide and restrain her thirst for knowledge has apparently left her with the ambitions of a conquerer and the social duties of an aristocratic woman—and, as Countess Orsina would have it, where men use daggers, women use poison. Yet she also accepts responsibility for all that she has done, quite convinced that most of it was wrong. The moral philosophy of the piece is somewhat peculiar, but she strives in the space of the one long letter that makes up the book to give an honest account of her duplicitous deeds.This intriguing life story also has significant scholarly value, and the editors/translators, Raleigh Whitinger and Diana Spokiene, have appended an excellent introduction that examines the poisoner's confessions as a document of its time. Our narrator is both wise and well-educated, and she discourses frequently on contemporary literature and philosophy, inserting herself into a variety of cultural debates. For example, her opinions on the value of Richardson's novels for the education and protection of young woman—that Richardson's ideals of virtue are delusional and therefore dangerous—run counter to prevailing wisdom on what young ladies should read. Her struggles with Kant and critical philosophy, which, she claims, diminished her pulchritude, are also instructive. Additionally, the editors make a very convincing case for the authorship of Friederike Helene Unger, whose husband was the publisher, and whose other works bear certain strong resemblances to the prose and the ideas of Poisoner.All of this excitement and knowledge comes to us in a supremely lucid and readable translation. I rarely read fiction in translation without being regularly reminded in some way of the translator. One sees an odd word, puzzles out a sentence and thinks about how one might have done that differently—and one gets distracted. That is not the case with this text, and this is especially surprising because the original German is that "of an era both culturally and historically distant" (xxvii). Whitinger and Spokiene have done a superb job of resurrecting a forgotten German text, embedding it in... (shrink)

We can make a difference in shaping the future by ensuring that computers "serve human needs." By making explicit the enduring values that we hold dear we can guide computer system designers and developers for the next decade, century, and thereafter. After setting our high-level goals we can pursue the components and seek the process for fulfilling them. High-level goals might include peace, excellent health care, adequate nutrition, accessible education, communication, freedom of expression, support for creative exploration, safety, and socially (...) constructive entertainment. Computer technology can help attain these high-level goals if we clearly state measurable objectives, obtain participation of professionals, and design effective human-computer interfaces. Design considerations include adequate attention to individual differences among users, support of social and organizational structures, design for reliability and safety, provision of access by the elderly, handicapped, or illiterate, and appropriate user controlled adaptation. With suitable theories and empirical research we can achieve ease of learning, rapid performance, low error rates, and good retention over time, while preserving high subjective satisfaction. To raise the consciousness of designers and achieve these goals, we must generate an international debate, stimulate discussions within organizations, and interact with other intellectual communities. This paper calls for a focus on the "you" and "I" in developing improved user interface research and systems, offers a Declaration of Responsibility, and proposes a Social Impact Statement for major computing projects. (shrink)

This paper presents an alternative concept of excellence in business, which builds upon the conventional notion of excellence as being in harmony with profit. Although the notion of an enduring harmony (or what we call the convergence thesis) between long-term profit and excellence is favoured by many thinkers, the premise neglects the disruptive force of the autonomous pursuit of excellence in theory and constrains it in practice. Further, autonomous excellence, a key condition of a genuine (...) practice, is structurally weakened by the fact that businesses are heavily reliant on market approval to sustain themselves, irreversibly damaging their status as genuine practices. We argue that the autonomous pursuit of excellence requires not only recognizing but also actively strengthening a contingent relationship between internal and external goods, so that internal goods such as the excellence of the product can achieve maximum autonomy from the pressures of external goods. Such a risk-oriented approach may appear antagonistic to business but finds expression in the insight of key business visionaries such as Steve Jobs and Henry Ford that major technological advancements rarely find themselves in consonance with existing market standards and thus require a courageous break from 'market excellence'. (shrink)

The fulfillment of the pedagogical intention of this work takes the form of developing a specific conception of metaphysics. The author’s conception is not the original one in terms of the object of metaphysics, but one that encompasses as well the various philosophical developments that affect the original conception of it, including critiques of it. The author conceives metaphysics in terms of "motives" of thought, originally articulated by Plato, namely, 1) the knowledge of principles of being; 2) the standard (...) of true knowledge; and 3) the way in which this knowledge is attained. According to the author, the first definitive treatment of the first of these themes is given by Aristotle, in the conception of the essences of things as the principles of being. In subsequent treatments, these themes undergo various transformations, which are presented by the author as being the result of critical reflections on prior treatments. In fact, they are the result of shifts in perspective, the most fundamental of which is, as the author himself notes, the introduction of perspectivity as a category in the sense of a condition of knowledge. The author traces the function of this category in the thought of various philosophers from Augustine to Nietzsche, suggesting, though not explicitly establishing, its theological origin. (shrink)

'Trade in Health is a timely reflection on the interface of economics with the ethics and public policy facets of the international movement of patients. Health issues such as these are at the forefront of modern political economy."National" health is increasingly less so. Reisman's previous scholarship in this area is brought to bear in an insightful and eminently readable and engaging fashion. In an area where uncovering the facts is more difficult than "decyphering the Dead Sea Scrolls", such a reflective (...) work on the critical aspects of political economy helps to fill a void in considering whether such trade is likely to be in the interests of patients, nations and the global community. In addition to the rosy picture of healthy and wealthy tourists having a sojourn for medical care during a vacation, Reisman is not afraid to tackle the thorny issues concerning trade in organs, eggs and even death, in this sobering and comprehensive volume. It is a rare skill to bring the luminaries of Smith, Marshall, Mill and Confucius to bear on such a contemporary tale! International travel by patients is at the nexus of a revolution in global health. It is driving and affecting aspects of foreign investment, health worker migration and e-health provision. Reisman skilfully links these foundations of health care, and as such provides critical text for consideration by those seeking to build and strengthen future health systems. Trade in Health is an excellent overview. It provides critical insights for those new to the area as well as new information and challenges for those of us involved for a number of years.' - Richard Smith, Professor of Health Ssytem Economics and Dean of Faculty of Public Health and Policy, London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, UK. Once exports and imports meant agriculture and industry. In the global economy and the electronic age, trade is also expanding into the service sector. This timely book closely examines trade in health. It documents the growth of a cross-national service that in the past was mainly consumed at home. Following from his highly successful book Health Tourism, Professor David Reisman offers a comprehensive and searching multidisciplinary account of the way in which medical services, patients, capital and professionals are making up a global healthcare economy that crosses borders. He reflects on their pursuit of lower prices, better quality and a differentiated product, and suggests that public policy is essential if the ethical capital of interdependent societies is not to be eroded by the international market in health and care. Written in a concise and lucid form, this original book will be of great interest to all people interested in the internationalization of health care. Combining theory and empirical evidence from economics, tourism and medical care, scholars involved in health policy and social administration will find much of significance in this authoritative study. (shrink)

Background In 2002, Belgium set a legal framework for euthanasia, whereby granting and performing euthanasia is entrusted entirely to physicians, and—as advised by Belgian Medical Deontology—in the context of a trusted patient–physician relationship. Euthanasia is, however, rarely practiced, so the average physician will not attain routine in this matter. Aim To explore how general practitioners in Flanders (Belgium) deal with euthanasia. This was performed via qualitative analysis of semistructured interviews with 52 general practitioners (GPs). Results Although GPs can understand (...) a patient's request for euthanasia, their own willingness to perform it is limited, based on their assumption that legal euthanasia equates to an injection that ends life abruptly. Their willingness to perform euthanasia is affected by the demanding nature of a patient's request, by their views on what circumstances render euthanasia legitimate and by their own ability to inject a lethal dose. Several GPs prefer increasing opioid dosages and palliative sedation to a lethal injection, which they consider to fall outside the scope of euthanasia legislation. Conclusions Four attitudes can be identified: (1) willing to perform euthanasia; (2) only willing to perform as a last resort; (3) feeling incapable of performing; (4) refusing on principle. The situation where GPs have to consider the request and—if they grant it—to perform the act may result in arbitrary access to euthanasia for the patient. The possibility of installing transparent referral and support strategies for the GPs should be further examined. Further discussion is needed in the medical profession about the exact content of the euthanasia law. (shrink)

Problems in normative ethics paradigmatically concern what it is obligatory or permissible for an individual to do. Yet sometimes, each of us ought to do something individually in virtue of what we ought to do together. Unfortunately, traversing these two different levels at which a moral obligation can arise – individual and collective – is fraught with difficulties that easily lure us into conclusions muddying our understanding of collective obligations. This paper seeks to clearly lay out a systematic problem central (...) to the relation between collective and individual duties in view of alleviating some such confusion and facilitating more concerted attempts at resolving it: Collective duties require individuals to act in order for the collective duty to be fulfilled. Yet typically, a collective duty does not entail any one set of individual duties that would prescribe such contributory actions: The work we need to do in order to fulfil a duty can be allocated differently to the individuals collectively bearing it. Much like in matters of distributive justice, then, deriving individual duties from a collective one requires us to employ a distributive scheme, which raises separate normative concerns that have rarely taken centre stage in the debate so far. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Journal of the History of Philosophy 40.4 (2002) 550-551 [Access article in PDF] Book Review Hegel and Aristotle Alfredo Ferrarin. Hegel and Aristotle. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2001. Pp. xxii + 442. Cloth, $64.95. This is an important book which should be read by anyone interested in either of the two philosophers. Ferrarin demonstrates that the structure and detail of Hegel's executed project owe more to Aristotle than (...) to Kant or any other philosopher. He also shows that Hegel's interpretation of Aristotle is profound and worth careful study, even if it is in some ways mistaken. With the exception of the Poetics and Aesthetics, Ferrarin discusses all the relevant primary texts, and he judiciously uses secondary literature. To my knowledge, aside from his Italian dissertation (published in 1990 and here revised and greatly expanded), this is the first monograph which is exclusively devoted to comparing the executed projects of the two philosophers. He most thoroughly compares the Metaphysics with the Science of Logic and On the Soul with the Organics and Subjective Spirit sections of the Encyclopedia. This latter comparison forms the center of the book, and all scholars of Aristotle and Hegel will benefit from it. Ferrarin does not simply present and praise or criticize Hegel's interpretations of Aristotle; he also investigates Hegel's appropriation of Aristotle for the execution of his own project. Quite significant effort and insight went into the writing of this book, which is densely argued but only very rarely unclear.Ferrarin bases all comparisons on the understanding of energeia. Aside from God, all processes for Aristotle involve not only energeia but also dunamis. For Aristotle, the ends of processes are energeiai, but a process is either an activity (exercising a habit whose end is this exercising) or a motion (expending a power whose end is other than the expending) (cf. 22-5, 266, 270). Accomplishment of the end terminates the motile expending of power but not the active exercise of habit. For both philosophers, activity and motion are the two main types of intelligible. Ferrarin shows that Hegel, in part because of his accurate reliance on Erasmus's superseded edition, misinterprets Aristotle's God as involving both energeia and dunamis.Ferrarin excellently shows that for Aristotle nous (mediated by a dialectical consideration of endoxa) attains a noetic (rather than dianoetic) identity with an intelligible. Ferrarin also asserts that Hegel (supposedly following Leibniz) "efface[s] all notion of rest and coming to a stand from Aristotelian energeia" (229; cf. 20, 399) and "does not see... that... [the exercised habit of] nous finds rest in the discontinuous intellection of indivisibles" (320). However, Aristotle claims that "not everything which is motionless may be at rest but only that which is deprived of motion but can by nature be moved" (Physics 221b12-13, Apostle translation), so since habits cannot be moved by nature, neither unexercised nor exercised habits can be said to be at rest (even though the natural body without which the habits could not be can in some respects be said to be at rest). Therefore, Hegel does not diverge from but rather advances Aristotle's insight when he treats that noetic identity [End Page 550] as a moment of energizing the otherwise static intelligible to entail a further intelligible, so that these intelligibles and this entailing are part of a continuously intellected logos (but cf. 51, 318-9). Contra Ferrarin (98, 194), this is not to assert that some sort of supposedly hubristic modern nous thereby produces the further intelligible.Analogously to how a compulsion to examine one's past can lead one to enact a different future, Hegel claims that some already entailed, posterior intelligibles of this logos are sufficient (once energized by nous) to entail the prior intelligibles which entailed them and that by entailing these prior intelligibles the posterior intelligibles thereby also entail previously unentailed, posterior intelligibles of the logos. Ferrarin erroneously (albeit not without some textual basis) interprets this claim as the assertion that some as yet unentailed posterior intelligibles entail prior intelligibles (77, 251-3)—as the analog of... (shrink)

Philosophers of all times and peoples tried to describe the mystery of magic, each time giving humanity their own images of magical practices, on the one hand, and the attitude to magic from the side of public consciousness, on the other. Turning to the problem of magic even today, in the era of worldview pluralism and the crisis of traditional ideas about the world, turns out to be quite relevant. Magic, which actually originated with humanity itself and passed through centuries (...) and millennia, continues to exist in the consciousness of modern human.Some researchers talk about the onset of a «new magical era» and the formation of a whole subculture of magic followers. Yes, today in the individual and mass consciousness there is a sharp increase in interest in everything mysterious and supernatural: on the pages of newspapers, magazines, and social networks there are many ads from magicians and fortune tellers who promise to fulfill almost any wishes of people for a fee, television channels actively broadcast projects that talk about some magical events and phenomena, and even celebrities in their interviews tell how certain mysterious events happened to them, or how they personally turned to the mystery of magical practices. That is, we can say with confidence that the thinking and behavior of modern man is rightfully considered magical. Therefore, magic is not a relic of the past, but an integral part of the consciousness of a modern people. The aim of the publication is to analyze the influence of magic and magical practices on the consciousness and behavior of modern human. Research methodology. Research methods are comprehensive and based on a philosophical-anthropological and philosophical-cultural analysis of magic as an integral part of human consciousness. Discussion. Magic in the mind of a modern people exists in the form of: something prohibited, anti-social, anti-religious, dangerous and harmful; one’s native achievement of a certain goal or fulfillment of desires; everyday rituals and superstitions, which, although some do not associate the direction with magic, somehow have a strong connection with it.Conclusion. Magic is an integral part of the consciousness of modern human. For some, it is something dangerous, frightening, anti-religious and anti-social, and for some, magic appears to be an excellent means of learning about the surrounding world, a tool for subduing supernatural forces and obtaining certain benefits or fulfilling wishes. One way or another, each of us consciously or subconsciously performs certain magical rituals every day. Magic is so firmly entrenched in human consciousness that some philosophers speak of the onset of a «new magical era», which is associated with the open promotion of magical practices, supernatural forces and phenomena in modern society and the formation of such a phenomenon as a «magical worldview», which will perspective of our further research. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Desideri's Understanding of EmptinessEnzo Gualtiero BargiacchiThe works of Ippolito Desideri (1684–1733)1 lay forgotten in the archives for a very long time;2 had they been studied, European studies of Tibet and Buddhism would have begun a century earlier. The partial publication of his Relazione in 1904 was not enough to make scholars of Buddhism interested in the subject and resulted only a modest enthusiasm in the geographical and anthropological fields.3 (...) Later the Swedish geographer and explorer Sven Hedin (1865–1952) stated that Desideri "had accomplished a journey which ought to make his name forever famous,"4 and also that "by far the greatest part of Desideri's narrative is a description of the cult and religion of the Tibetans, which is not less admirable than the geographical part."5 But it was yet another geographer and explorer, Filippo De Filippi (1869–1938), who made available the Jesuit missionary's work by publishing an English version of the Relazione6 in 1932. Charles Oldham recognized that "there will no longer be any excuse for the ignorance and misconceptions regarding Desideri, to which Cornelis Wessels and De Filippi have drawn such pointed attention."7In reality, however, Desideri's work would still be awarded inadequate consideration for some time, apart from the generous praise of Giuseppe Tucci, which appeared exclusively in Italian articles and books, and of a few other scholars of Buddhism. This continued even after the critical edition of the Relazione and letters, expertly edited by Luciano Petech,8 despite the prestigious reputation of this academic and the ISMEO, the institute directed by Tucci that sponsored the series; very little attention was also paid to the translations by Saverian missionary Giuseppe Toscano9 (1911–2003) of Desideri's works in the Tibetan language.10 Around the turn of the millennium academics such as Donald Lopez, Rudolf Kaschewsky, and Martin Brauen began to pay closer attention to Desideri's work.In recent years there has been a renewed interest in the Jesuit missionary's work, as shown by the panel "Buddhism in the Writings of Ippolito Desideri" at the Fifteenth Congress of the International Association of Buddhist Studies (Atlanta, 23–28 June 2008), as well as two fundamental events concerning it; now Michael Sweet is completing the new English edition and translation of the Relazione.11Even today Desideri's writings can still provide academics in various disciplines with useful material for reflection, and not only in historical terms. As far as Tibetan religion is concerned, Desideri extensively discussed many important topics, in the Relazione and in his works in Tibetan, with considerable interpretative skill. [End Page 101] Unfortunately, none of this information reached the scholarly community, with the exception of a few rough ideas.12Roy Andrew Miller13 has pointed out his correct interpretation of the mantra oṁmaṇi padme hūṁ; more recently Rudolf Kaschewsky has maintained that Desideri's excellent linguistic analysis of this mantra "may mark the memorable beginning of Tibetology in the West."14 But the most surprising result is without doubt his perfect understanding of the Buddhist concept of emptiness. Tucci states thatSome aspects of Tibetan theology are very difficult to understand: for example, the concept of Ton pa gni—insubstantiality of all phenomenal things—in which, following the ancient mystical tendencies of the Mahayana, Buddhists dissolve all appearance and illusion, men and things, inexistent and unreal like a dream or mirage. Even today very few Westerners are able to attain a perfect understanding of the depth of this doctrine. It is therefore amazing how Desideri, with no knowledge of Indian philosophy, was able to grasp the real meaning of these difficult ideas.15Let us define here the reasons for this discovery and consider its profound meaning.Desideri certainly possessed remarkable linguistic and logical-philosophical aptitude, and he had honed and developed these skills during the challenging studies typical of Jesuit schools. He was furthermore assisted by a tenacious and heroic determination to fulfill his mission, but one of the decisive factors in explaining the reasons for his cognitive success lies in the complete honesty of his approach, as a man and a priest convinced of... (shrink)

In this paper questions are raised about the use of Halakhic material discussions of medical ethics. Three ways in which one might use Halakhic material in such discussions are distinguishes: (a) as a source for ideas about medical ethics which can be defended independently of their origin; (b) as a basis for mandating certain forms of behaviour for members of the Jewish faith; (c) as the basis for claims about the Jewish view on disputed topics in medical ethics. The first (...) two raise no methodical problems. The third use raises a number of theoretical and practical issues, with which the paper is concerned. Several problems stem from the fact that Halakhah distinguishes between obligations, fulfilment of which is required for all people. With rare exceptions, the obligations imposed up on the Jewish people are more stringent. The pitfall lurking the in third of the three uses is that authors using Halakhic material may correctly conclude that obligations that are supposed to fall only upon the Jewish people fall upon all people. An analysis of this problem follows, along with a plea for a responsible use of Halakhic material in the third way, so as to avoid certain real pitfalls. CiteULike Connotea Del.icio.us What's this? (shrink)

This article reconsiders the early hominid ‘‘lithic niche’’ by examining the social implications of stone artifact making. I reject the idea that making tools for use is an adequate explanation of the elaborate artifact forms of the Lower Palaeolithic, or a sufficient cause for long-term trends in hominid technology. I then advance an alternative mechanism founded on the claim that competency in making stone artifacts requires extended learning, and that excellence in artifact making is attained only by highly (...) skilled individuals who have been taught and practiced for extensive periods. Consequently both competency and expertise in knapping comes at a high learning cost for both the individual learner and the social group to which they belong. Those high intrinsic costs of learning created contexts in which groups selected cost-reducing forms of social learning and teaching, and in which specialization could develop. Artifacts and their manufacturing processes probably acquired functions as social signals—as honest signals of valuable capacities. The magnification of these signals, through competition between knappers and through inspiring later craftspeople, may account for a substantial amount of the accumulated elaboration visible in the archaeological record. Consequently lithic artifacts operated as material symbols from an early time in hominid evolution. (shrink)

The emotions have long been an interest for those studying ancient Greece and Rome. But while the last few decades have produced excellent studies of individual emotions and the different approaches to them by the major philosophical schools, the focus has been almost entirely on negative emotions. This might give the impression that the Greeks and Romans had little to say about positive emotion, something that would be misguided. As the chapters in this collection indicate, there are representations of positive (...) emotions extending from archaic Greek poetry to Augustine, and in both philosophical works and literary genres as wide-ranging as lyric poetry, forensic oratory, comedy, didactic poetry, and the novel. Nor is the evidence uniform: while many of the literary representations give expression to positive emotion but also describe its loss, the philosophers offer a more optimistic assessment of the possibilities of attaining joy or contentment in this life.The positive emotions show some of the same features that all emotions do. But unlike the negative emotions, which we are able to describe and analyze in great detail because of our preoccupation with them, positive emotions tend to be harder to articulate. Hence the interest of the present study, which considers how positive emotions are described, their relationship to other emotions, the ways in which they are provoked or upset by circumstances, how they complicate and enrich our relationships with other people, and which kinds of positive emotion we should seek to integrate. The ancient works have a great deal to say about all of these topics, and for that reason deserve more study, both for our understanding of antiquity and for our understanding of the positive emotions in general. (shrink)

BackgroundThe terminal illness of late-stage Alzheimer’s and related dementias is progressively cruel, burdensome, and can last years if caregivers assist oral feeding and hydrating. Options to avoid prolonged dying are limited since advanced dementia patients cannot qualify for Medical Aid in Dying. Physicians and judges can insist on clear and convincing evidence that the patient wants to die—which many advance directives cannot provide. Proxies/agents’ substituted judgment may not be concordant with patients’ requests. While advance directives can be patients’ last resort (...) to attain a peaceful and timely dying consistent with their lifelong values, success depends on their being effective and acceptable. A single flaw can provide opponents justification to refuse the directive’s requests to cease assisted feeding.AimThis article considers 24 common advance directive flaws in four categories. Process flaws focus on how patients express their end-of-life wishes. Content flaws reflect drafters’ selection of conditions and interventions, and how they are described. Inherent flaws can make advance directives unacceptable to authorities concerned about premature dying. Strategies are needed to compel physicians to write needed orders and to prevent third parties from sabotaging these orders after they are implemented. The article includes excerpts from “dementia-specific” directives or supplements that exemplify each flaw—mostly from the US and Europe. No directive critiqued here included an effective strategy to resolve this long-debated bioethical conflict: the past directive requests “Cease assisted feeding” but the incapacitated patient apparently expresses the desire to “Continue assisted feeding.” Some opponents to the controversial request, cease assisted feeding, use this conflict as a conceptual wedge to practice hard paternalism. This article proposes a protocol to prevent this conflict from emerging. These strategies may prevent authorities from requiring patients to fulfill authorities’ additional clinical criteria as a prerequisite to honor the requests in patients directives.ConclusionThis critique of flaws may serve as a guide to drafting and to selecting effective and acceptable advance directives for dementia. It also poses several bioethical and clinical questions to those in authority: Does your paternalistic refusal to honor patients’ wishes respect their self-determination? Protect vulnerable patients from harm? Force patients to endure prolonged suffering? Violate the principles of bioethics? Violate the very foundation of patient-centered care? (shrink)

It is inevitable that physicians in training will be exposed to behavior by supervising physicians that the trainees find unethical. By nature these events are rare. It is imperative within any residency training program that resident physicians have immediate access to a meaningful review process in cases of moral conflict with supervising physicians. Here, I discuss the reasons why this issue must be recognized and what it entails. Most important, I discuss the procedural steps that are essential for the training (...) program to make this a meaningful safety mechanism in residency training. This issue is central to promoting conscious development of professionalism in clinical training. Physicians in training, especially resident physicians, need to be taught to value and protect their own professional integrity. The responsibility for fulfilling this ethical duty falls on the individual residency programs as well as the administrative organizations that regulate residency training. Thus, ensuring this process of review is an organizational ethical imperative. Availability of this process is fundamental to promoting and ensuring ethical behavior by all participants in residency training. (shrink)

The international political economy for higher education is marked by an increasing globalisation and regionalisation of activities. In this context an emphasis on the roles of universities as engines of economic growth and sub-national economic and social development can be seen. However, the de-contextualised nature of dominant neo-liberal global pressures gives rise to particular sets of issues for universities and a “missing middle” between contexts of knowledge production and application. This article explores these issues in comparative context, drawing on empirical (...) work undertaken on regional science policies in Europe and considering the implications for African universities as they seek to fulfil a diverse range of scientific and civic roles. It is structured in three sections. First, it examines the global pressures that are leading to a rethinking and rescaling of science. Second, it analyses changing discourses around excellence, relevance and context and in so doing identifies a convergence in models of national science policy. Finally, it examines the implications for the global university order, including issues of stratification and diversification and a resulting tension that emerges between the expectations of higher education and their capacities to deliver. It is this missing middle that needs consideration if expectations and capacity are to be more realistically matched for greater benefit. (shrink)

The feminine complaint that Alex's passion echoes, raising it to a level rarely attained, is not limited to the pursuit of sexual jouissance . Nor can it be reduced to an aversion on the part of women to a morality of the signifier, as maintained by a certain reading of Freud. Very precisely, the persistent note in feminine restlessness is a certain relationship of the subject to the insufficiency of the signifier, which the quest for love registers. The (...) fact that language lacks the very quality that would make it credible and that would guarantee that discourse corresponds to what desire attests to is what delivers femininity over to the unnameable. In love she requires from the other member of the social bond the signifier that is lacking within the structure of femininity and that causes the call to jouissance in her body that drives her to distraction. Thus, the structure at stake in femininity, to which Alex's hysterical passion bears witness, defines in writing, that is, by a mark left on the body, the limitation of the reality of a jouissance which persists beyond the signifier and the object of the fantasy. When the analyst's desire offers support to this quest for a limit to jouissance on the part of a subject, it is in desire that the reality of sex and the other is linked to the signifier that would testify to the truth of the amorous discourse in the unconscious. Thus from one man to another, from the love of the father to the loss of a son, including the desire of the lover and the law of the husband, a woman finds herself supporting, with the letter of her body, the signifier which in its words testifies to jouissance as a place to lose oneself. (shrink)

It is a long time since I have admired a book as much as I admire this one. It is a long time since I have disagreed with a book as profoundly as I disagree with this one. I hope this combination of reactions on my part has more than whatever limited biographical interest it has. I hope it helps to signal the combination of excellence and provocation that mark Timothy Williamson's book, which is at once beautifully clear, forcefully (...) argued, continually insightful, and, in my view, deeply wrong.One thing that I admire about the book is Williamson's preparedness to reflect philosophically on the nature of philosophy, something that is surprisingly rare in a discipline that is marked by such a high degree of self-consciousness and in which there are so few scruples about reflecting on the nature of other disciplines. One thing that gives me pause is Williamson's lack of serious engagement with the history of philosophy. 1 I am convinced that the philosophy of philosophy will always be seriously handicapped if it is as dissociated from the history of philosophy as this. But I shall not dwell on that concern here, because Williamson is clear enough about where his interests lie and I would be in danger, if I did, of succumbing to that familiar absurdity of berating an author for not having written a numerically different book.What I will say is that Williamson's failure to engage seriously with the history of philosophy seems to me indicative of a scientism about philosophy which, despite how much he does to motivate his conception of the discipline, is manifest in how much …. (shrink)

An excellent account of one of those rare occasions in history when a number of great minds, working on a common problem independently, come up with sufficiently new answers as to send their science, and in this case a good part of human thinking, in a completely new direction.

It is arguable that the delivery of global health has reached an impasse. This is evident not only in unresolved debates that are raging about where to allocate health aid or how to sustain and expand funding for AIDS treatment, but also in challenges facing national health systems that are incapable of purely domestic resolution. But there is some irony and much opportunity in this situation. Not only have the last 20 years seen an unprecedented growth in funding for health, (...) mainly through funding for AIDS, but there has also been a range of initiatives and ideas that have generated better knowledge not only of the determinants of health, but also of how to attain it. Scientists, public health experts, and activists have created a store of intellectual knowledge, technology, and ideas, which, if properly and fairly deployed, might provide the opportunity to re-launch tangible progress towards the progressive realization of the right to health on a global scale. (shrink)

It is all too rare that a scholar trained in the history of art turns his critical attention to the issues of the nature of aesthetic value and the criteria of excellence in works of art. But these issues are Rosenberg's primary concern. His method is novel for he begins by discussing the importance of tradition for value judgment. Chapters are dedicated to five important critics from the sixteenth century to the present. In each chapter Rosenberg attempts to extract (...) the distinctive features of art that have been prominent in the criticism of each of these thinkers. The second part of the book, "Quality Judgment Today," applies the principles that Rosenberg has extracted to the evaluation of master drawings from the fifteenth to the twentieth century. While aestheticians may raise doubts about the subtlety of Rosenberg's philosophic distinctions, one is impressed by his attempt to do what philosophers sometimes only talk about, viz., to show how we can rationally evaluate and compare works of art. There are 168 plates and the book is beautifully executed in the style of the Bollingen series of the Mellon lectures.—R. J. B. (shrink)

Talents that selectively facilitate the acquisition of high levels of skill are said to be present in some children but not others. The evidence for this includes biological correlates of specific abilities, certain rare abilities in autistic savants, and the seemingly spontaneous emergence of exceptional abilities in young children, but there is also contrary evidence indicating an absence of early precursors of high skill levels. An analysis of positive and negative evidence and arguments suggests that differences in early experiences, preferences, (...) opportunities, habits, training, and practice are the real determinants of excellence. Key Words: exceptional ability; expertise; gift; innate capacity; music; potential; prodigy; specific ability; talent. (shrink)

Frailty is a state of increased vulnerability to poor resolution of homeostasis after a stressor event. Frailty is most frequently assessed in the old using the Clinical Frailty Scale (CSF) which ranks frailty from 1 to 9. This assessment typically takes less than one minute and is not validated in patients with learning difficulties or those under 65 years old. The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) developed guidelines that use “frailty” as one of the priority-setting criteria (...) for how scarce, but potentially lifesaving, health care resources should be allocated during the COVID-19 pandemic. Similar guidelines have been developed elsewhere. This paper discusses the ethical implications of such rationing and argues that this is an unproven and ethically problematic form of health care rationing. It specifically discusses: (1) how the frailty ascription becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy, (2) the problematic use of “frailty” in COVID-19 “triage,” (3) the circularity of the link between age and frailty, (4) indirect discrimination because of the use of a seemingly neutral criterion in health care rationing, and (5) the difficult link between comorbidities and frailty. It is found that there was no research into the use of global frailty scores as a criterion for access to acute treatment before January 2020 and so it is concerning how readily frailty scoring has been adopted to ration access to potentially lifesaving treatments. Existing gerontological frailty scoring systems have not been developed for this purpose, and repurposing them creates significant ethical issues. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Buddhist Literature as Philosophy and Buddhist Philosophy as Literature ed. by Rafael K. StepienVesna A. Wallace (bio)Buddhist Literature as Philosophy and Buddhist Philosophy as Literature. Edited by Rafael K. Stepien. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 2020. Pp. xi + 381. Paperback $26.95, isbn 978-1-4383-8070-1.The editor of the Buddhist Literature as Philosophy and Buddhist Philosophy as Literature should be commended for bringing together an excellent collection (...) of essays and producing the first comprehensive volume that offers a coherent study of the relationship between Buddhist literature and philosophy. This book is an ambitious and praiseworthy project, which covers a wide range of Buddhist literary genres produced in India, Tibet, and East Asia over two millennia. As a whole, the volume invites the reader to reexamine a centuries-long binary division between the categories of literature and philosophy, which have been often approached in academic studies as mutually exclusive. It does so by demonstrating that in the context of Buddhism, philosophy and literature continuously converge, diminishing the overarching binary and broadening their scopes. Most contributions to this volume demonstrate that Buddhist philosophy as presented and enacted in Buddhist literature is not limited to what some would consider a "pure philosophy." The volume is divided into the two, mutually mirroring sections, with each section containing six chapters. Chapters forming the section one, "Buddhist Literature as Philosophy," aim at broadening our perspective about literary forms, such as tales, novels, hymns, and court poetry, which have not been usually explored as the means of articulating Buddhist philosophical views. Chapters grouped in the section "Buddhist Philosophy as Literature" focus on Buddhist literary theories as philosophy of language and introduce the Buddhist biographical and autobiographical genres characterized by practical philosophy to further challenge our preconceptions of what it is that constitutes literature and philosophy. While some contributors endeavor to demonstrate the presence of rational, analytical reasoning in unexpected literary forms, other contributors problematize a strict distinction between literature and philosophy as inapplicable to Buddhism, which is undeniably cross-disciplinary.The first two chapters in section one, authored by Amber Carpenter and Sarah Shaw respectively, draw examples from jātaka stories to show us how Buddhist ethical lessons work in the narrative tales of the Buddha's former births. These two chapters also draw our attention to an accessible and engaging, [End Page 1] narrative manner that presents the Bodhisattva's philosophical exercises to the audience, a manner that stands in contrast to the a priori reasoning characteristic of philosophical treatises. In the first chapter, titled "Transformative Vision: Coming to See the Buddha's Reality," Carpenter analyzes two jātaka stories--"Bodhi the Wandering Ascetic" and "The Man Without an Heir"--taken from Āryaśūra's Jātakamālā. In the first story, a renunciant Bodhi, while repudiating the king's ministers who are intent on disqualifying him as a king's advisor on morality, makes metaphysical claims regarding the nature of reality, causation, and the universe, and provides the reasons and arguments. According to Shaw, by offering an insight into the Buddhist worldview and morality, jātaka tales have a transformative power not only with regard to ethics but also in transforming the reader's vision of reality. In the chapter "Jātakas and the Abhidhamma: Practical Compassion and Kusala Citta," Shaw suggests that a reason why jātaka stories are rarely discussed seriously in the way that they were intended is their literary format based in narrative and mundane situations. Analyzing the concepts of momentariness and kusala citta ("virtuous consciousness") in these stories, Shaw shows that by communicating the technical and insight-based Buddhist doctrinal elements, jātaka tales significantly contribute to Buddhist practical ethics. The Pāli Javanahaṃsa-jātaka, a tale about the friendship between a goose and a king, introduces the reader to some of the most complex Buddhist ideas such as impermanence, momentariness, and mental states, expounded in the Abhidhamma in extraction. Through her analysis of the Kurudhamma-jātaka and Mahosaddha-jātaka, Shaw further shows the integration of narrative literature and Buddhist philosophical tenets, of Buddhist tales and the Abhidhamma, of the relationship between the intention and consciousness... (shrink)

This very long book sets out to track and trace the working-class men and, less commonly, women who, against the limited expectations of their social position, learned Greek and Latin as an aspiration for personal change. The ideology of the book is clear and welcome: these figures “offer us a new ancestral backstory for a discipline sorely in need of a democratic makeover.” The book's twenty-five chapters explore how classics and class were linked in the educational system of Britain and (...) in its cultural performativity: Is he a gentleman? Does he have Greek? became the paradigmatic questions, as the study of classics became a sign of cultural attainment and social exclusion. This book sets out to explore the counterstory of the cobblers and shepherds who, like Jude the Obscure, fought against society's oppressiveness to access classical learning.The book's breadth is exemplary. It looks at the issue through genres and media, through different communities and national identities, through the prosopography of ragged-trousered philanthropists, beggar-lecturers, body-building performers, and through other institutions and people who helped, including adult-education teachers, kind bosses, supportive vicars, and fiery communists. This breadth, and the fascinating research that it encapsulates, will make this book a fantastic resource for future scholarship: it outlines the richness of a field that has been all too rarely explored properly. If you do not know Stephen Duck, “the thresher poet,” or Hawkie, the crutch-wielding beggar who performed from the books he sold on the streets of Glasgow, then this book is the place to the meet them. The cast list alone is worth the entrance ticket.Yet this very breadth is also the source of the book's limitations. The sheer number of cases listed, treated at similar length and depth, repeatedly conceals the complexity and even the interest of individual figures or events. So, the numerous representations of Vesuvius in shows around London in the first half of the nineteenth century—after the discoveries at Pompeii—are duly noted as a source of excitement and knowledge about antiquity, but against the recent treatment by Clare Pettitt in Serial Forms (which came out the same year) this mere noting looks desperately thin. There is little discussion of how the characters themselves talked about or negotiated class. This deficiency is particularly important for someone like Charles Kingsley, who was very active in the Chartist movement but also became Queen Victoria's chaplain and the professor of history at Cambridge. There are hilarious descriptions of Kingsley's stammering engagement with the working-class leaders he actively supported, which capture how awkward the interaction of classes could be even and especially when the participants shared a goal of transformation. (Ed Richardson's Classical Victorians: Scholars, Scoundrels and Generals in the Pursuit of Antiquity is good on these moments of awkwardness but is one of several books whose absence from the notes looks pointed.) The authors list cases of working men who were picked up by fashionable society as poets or scholars, many of whom were dropped almost as quickly back into penury—but the telling description of such a case in Kingsley's Alton Locke is passed over, although it reveals an acute self-consciousness about such narratives in a best-selling novel.The very structure of the book tends toward listing cases rather than analyzing them in depth. It is not clear why “Shoemaker classicists” should take up a chapter, bar there having been some. Nor is it clear why some figures are not included. John Brown was an uneducated Scottish shepherd who taught himself Greek, Latin, and Hebrew. He was discovered by a professor, one John Pringle, when he went into a shop to buy a secondhand Greek Testament (though his own church thought this newfound and inexplicable linguistic brilliance suspicious or even satanic). Brown went on to write the wonderfully titled The Self-Interpreting Bible, which remained in print and sold very widely for more than a century after its publication in 1778—especially after it was championed by the evangelical preacher Charles Simeon. It is a pity that Brown escaped the authors’ net, but religion, one of the main reasons to learn the classical languages, is downplayed throughout this study, although its imbrication with classics is everywhere in evidence. The book, significantly enough, leads rather toward a rosy-eyed depiction of posh classical communists like Geoffrey de Ste. Croix and George Thompson, and other such heroes of the authors.The authors are much more at home in the years of ardent republicanism in the decades on either side of the turn of the nineteenth century and in the beginning of the twentieth century, when socialism and communism became embedded in British life. The last half of the nineteenth century, when classics really established itself institutionally as a discipline, and its revolutionary potential moved away from the zeal of the Romantic philhellenists into the artistic idealism of a Richard Wagner or the sexual freedom of an Oscar Wilde, are less adequately explored. The huge attendance at art galleries and the Great Exhibition at Crystal Palace as a route to encountering the past of antiquity in material form are barely addressed (Kate Nichols's Greece and Rome at the Crystal Palace would have helped); nor do shows like Astley's Circus get air time (Rachel Bryant Davies's Troy, Carthage, and the Victorians is revealing). It is particularly noticeable in such a voluminous study that there is no discussion of how turning to Greek was a crucial route for the self-understanding of what was considered transgressive male sexuality—and for a particular engagement between the classes. To understand the social force of classics requires a deeper appreciation of the dynamics between conservatism and transformation, disciplinarity and self-discovery. The big picture of how classics matters is lost in the gems picked out by the authors. Gems they are, but their facets need more attention and their setting a broader perspective. (shrink)

Aristotle's NE X claim that the best human life is one devoted to contemplation seems in tension with his emphasis elsewhere on our essentially political nature, and more specifically, his claim that friendship is necessary for our flourishing. For, if our good can be in principle realized apart from the human community, there seems little reason to suggest we 'need' friends, as he clearly does in NE VIII & IX. I argue that central to Aristotle's NE X discussion of contemplation (...) is the claim that our chief good accords with whatever is 'most divine' in us, viz. our rational nature. Thus, the best human life involves the excellent exercise of our rational capacities. I distinguish two ways in which human beings flourish through exercising their rationality. The first is in the activity of theoria. The second, I argue, can be found in the virtuous activity of complete friendship. For Aristotle the truest form of friendship is an expression of rationality. It is characterized not merely by our living together, but conversing, and sharing one another's thoughts. Examining Aristotle's notion of a friend as 'another self, I argue that through friendship human beings come to better know themselves and the world in which they live. Complete friendship involves a second-order awareness of oneself in another, and through this awareness our understanding of ourselves and the world in which we live is enriched, confirmed, and enjoyed through the presence of other minds. Thus, the highest form of Aristotelian friendship is an intellectual activity through which we attain an analogue of the divine contemplation of the unmoved mover, thereby living with respect to what is most divine in us, but doing so in accordance with our uniquely rational-political nature. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Classical Islamic Philosophy: A Thematic Introduction by Luis Xavier López-FarjeatThérèse-Anne DruartLuis Xavier López-Farjeat. Classical Islamic Philosophy: A Thematic Introduction. New York: Routledge, 2022. Pp. 368. Paperback, $34.36.Interest in classical Islamic philosophy has grown and recently given rise to several presentations of the field: The Routledge Companion to Islamic Philosophy, edited by Richard C. Taylor and Luis Xavier López-Farjeat (New York: Routledge, 2016); Islamische Philosophie im Mittelalter. Ein Handbuch, (...) edited by Heidrun Eichner, Matthias Perkams, and Christian Schäfer (Darmstadt: WBG, 2017); and The Oxford Handbook of Islamic Philosophy, edited by Khaled El-Rouayheb and Sabine Schmidtke (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017). One may, therefore, wonder whether López-Farjeat should have provided another one. My answer is a resounding "yes." The Oxford Handbook presents specific texts, The Routledge [End Page 320] Companion gives brief overviews of specific themes, and Islamische Philosophie provides a sketch of the development of Arabic-Islamic philosophy as well as an introduction to some of the major philosophers' most significant themes or works. By contrast, López-Farjeat offers a detailed picture of lively philosophical debates between philosophers, theologians, and other intellectuals, showing how philosophy pervaded thinking in the Islamic lands and was itself enriched by serious thinking in theology and other fields.After presenting the Islamic context and the translation movement from Greek into Arabic, López-Farjeat focuses on six main themes: (1) Theologians and Philosophers on Islamic Revelation; (2) The Classification of the Sciences, Logic, and Language; (3) Philosophy and the Natural Science; (4) Metaphysics in the Islamic Philosophical Context; (5) Psychology and Theories of Cognition; and (6) Ethics and Political Philosophy. In each case, he focuses on various much-debated philosophical issues, reconstructing their evolution. He begins by highlighting the Greek background, then moves to show chronologically how and why those debates evolved. When needed, he indicates in which other section of the book the context for a particular philosopher's or theologian's specific position on a debated issue can be found. Finally, after each chapter, he gives an excellent list of further readings (mostly in English) for the reader who wishes to delve more deeply into the topic.López-Farjeat's approach highlights the liveliness and the nuances of the debates between intellectuals of various religious persuasions in a way rarely done before. Such a detailed attention to specific contexts also means that his book does not allow for a quick, easy read. It provides all the information that even someone unfamiliar with Islamic studies or ancient philosophy may need to appreciate the richness and depth of Islamic-Arabic thinking, but this amount of information requires close and slow reading. López-Farjeat's frequent references to scholarly disagreement about specific issues could make this book at times challenging for nonspecialists. This means, however, that even seasoned scholars might find something to learn from López-Farjeat's treatments of the aspects of Islamic thought they might be less familiar with. And while beginners will need some time to absorb the vast amount of information López-Farjeat provides, they will be grateful for the clear way he has organized it.Too often and for too long have historians of Islamic philosophy focused on thinkers who saw themselves as mainly Aristotelians and neglected what philosophers learned from other disciplines, in particular from theology, be it Islamic or Christian. This book shows how Christians in the Islamic world had already integrated some Greek philosophy into their thinking from an early time, when they first entered into dialogue with Islamic theologians. In turn, Islamic theologians integrated philosophical elements in their works. López-Farjeat's knowledge of Islamic theology and Eastern Christian theology allows him to show that this process of integration was not a one-way street. The Islamic milieu and its theological developments raised new questions and issues that philosophers under Greek influences had to take into account. One does not philosophize in a vacuum: new questions raised in a different cultural and linguistic environment led to a refinement and enrichment in the understanding of philosophical issues.As an example, let us consider chapter... (shrink)

Objective To evaluate the modes of death and treatment offered in the last 24 h of life to patients dying in 10 Brazilian intensive care units (ICUs) over a period of 2 years. Design and setting Cross-sectional, multicentre, retrospective study based on medical chart review. The medical records of all patients that died in seven paediatric and three adult ICUs belonging to university and tertiary hospitals over a period of 2 years were included. Deaths in the first 24 h of (...) admission to the ICU and brain death were excluded. Intervention Two intensive care fellows of each ICU were trained in fulfilling a standard protocol (κ=0.9) to record demographic data and all medical management provided in the last 48 h of life. The Student t test, Mann–Whitney U test, χ2 test and RR were used for data comparison. Measurements and main results 1053 medical charts were included (59.4% adult patients). Life support limitation was more frequent in the adult group (86% vs 43.5%; p<0.001). A ‘do not resuscitate’ order was the most common life support limitation in both groups (75% and 66%), whereas withholding/withdrawing were more frequent in the paediatric group (33.9% vs 24.9%; p=0.02). The life support limitation was rarely reported in the medical chart in both groups (52.6% and 33.7%) with scarce family involvement in the decision making process (23.0% vs 8.7%; p<0.001). Conclusion Life support limitation decision making in Brazilian ICUs is predominantly centred on the medical perspective with scarce participation of the family, and consequently several non-coherent medical interventions are observed in patients with life support limitation. (shrink)

Our whole discussion has focused on man’s self-fulfillment in and through the marital union. The mutual self-donation of man and woman is a participative act in that whenever acting is performed ‘together with the other,’ the husband and wife transcend themselves in action and thereby realize the authentically personalistic value of the action and man’s self-fulfillment in it. This mutual self-giving of husband and wife finds its expression in and through the body. This self-fulfillment, however, is (...) class='Hi'>attained only when the husband and wife become responsible for each other and meet the demands of the personalistic norm. The marital union must adapt itself to the objective demands of the personalistic norm, without which the act of mutual love between husband and wife is degraded to the ‘utilitarian’ level. The structure of responsibility which demands reference to the object in accordance with its true value must be satisfied. (shrink)

everyone loves superheroes. superheroes, of course, have incredible powers; they can leap tall buildings in a single bound, excel in combat, and have X-ray vision. But, in addition, superheroes have a kind of simplicity of motive and focus that makes them pure and comprehensible in the way in which the people we actually know rarely are. For Superman it is about Truth, Justice, and the American Way. For Batman it is all about fighting evil: defeating the Joker, the Riddler, (...) and other nefarious characters. For Spiderman it is an outsized sense of mission: “With great power comes great responsibility.” Superheroes are superhuman individuals, who have a simple philosophy of life that motivates their every action. Of.. (shrink)

Clearly we have entered an era of heightened interest in spirituality. The proliferation of books, music, and paraphernalia espousing the way of the spirit is a striking phenomenon. Everywhere there is a new willingness to admit that the categories of rational thought, the authority of science, are no longer adequate to the task of making sense of our lives. A search for meaning has become pervasive. Equally striking has been the rise of experiential religion. Evangelical and fundamentalist churches are the (...) fastest growing denominations worldwide. This is no accident, for they respond exactly to the failure of the modern forms of life. The modern ethos, for all its technological prowess, is experienced as an abyss of misery and confusion. The only way out is to leap over the entire modern perspective to locate oneself within the security of a divinely revealed faith. The difficulty, according to author David Walsh, is that neither the new age religions nor the old-time religions have enabled us to leap out of the modern world. The discovery of a source of meaning beyond that world does not automatically clarify all meaning within it. Finding a way to link the modern rational order and a spirituality pointing beyond it is what this book is about. Guarded By Mystery is a contemporary meditation on a problem that has been at the core of the human condition. It is intended for all who have been perplexed by the disconnection between the two worlds in which they live. Walsh explains how their experience of spiritual openness is meaningful within the modern world. He shows how that world is itself dependent on the same sources of spiritual illumination they have discovered within themselves. David Walsh is professor of politics at The Catholic University of America. He is the author of numerous works including, After Ideology: Recovering the Spiritual Foundations of Freedom, The Growth of the Liberal Soul, and The Third Millennium. " Walsh] writes about the spiritual quest in a time dubbed 'postmodern, ' meaning that the older rational securities have been shattered. Walsh ranges widely--from literary criticism to politics and art--in lifting up the luminous hints of the transcendent in the everyday. A most thoughtful reflection that should have a broad appeal."--First Things "At the beginning of a new century and new millennium, we can be grateful for such a wise and experienced guide as David Walsh as we explore the promise and pitfalls in our historical moment. Of most particular note is his intelligently hopeful understanding of the liberal democratic tradition and the ways in which modernity, after a century of catastrophically wrong turns, may now be fulfilling its aspiration toward transcendence. As he convincingly argues, the mystery to which contemporary thought is increasing open is not a threat but our surest guard."--Rev. Richard John Neuhaus, editor in chief, First Things "An engrossing read... a superb tract for the times that is just made to order.... Walsh's book is an apologia for the reality of God and for God's grounding of human existence on both the personal and socio-political levels in a postmodern time."--Prof. William M. Thompson, Duquesne University "Written for a general audience, yet informed by the wisdom of the ages and enlivened by an elegant gift of language, David Walsh's searching meditation on the heights and depths of human existence is a philosopher's illumination of reality of rare beauty and power. It ranges from politics to faith to the arts to find glimmers of hope and unsuspected sources of succor for a time out of joint. It celebrates the individual human person, as imago Dei, the abiding glory of creation. And it explores liberty, the prize of personality and of political order alike, through which we are uniquely drawn to meaningful partic. (shrink)

In recent decades, a ‘realist’ alternative to ideal theories of politics has slowly taken shape. Bringing together philosophers, political theorists, and political scientists, this countermovement seeks to reframe inquiry into politics and political norms. Among the hallmarks of this endeavor are a moral psychology that includes the passions and emotions; a robust conception of political possibility and rejection of utopian thinking; the belief that political conflict — of values as well as interests — is both fundamental and ineradicable; a focus (...) on institutions as the arenas within which conflict is mediated and contained; and a conception of politics as a sphere of activity that is distinct, autonomous, and subject to norms that cannot be derived from individual morality. For political realists, a ‘well-ordered society’ is rarely attainable; a modus vivendi without agreement on first principles is often the only practical possibility. Not only will ‘full compliance’ never be achieved, but also it is an assumption that yields misleading accounts of political norms. While realists offer a number of compelling criticisms of ideal theory, there are some lacunae in their stance. It is not yet clear whether realism constitutes a coherent affirmative alternative to idealism. Nor have realists clarified the extent of conflict that is consistent with political order as such. And because both sides accept ‘ought implies can’ as a constraint on the validity of political norms, much of the debate between realists and idealists revolves around deep empirical disagreements that are yet to be clarified. (shrink)

Excerpt from Essays on the Religion and Philosophy of the Hindus Called by the indulgence of this meeting to a chair, which I could have wished to have seen more worthily filled, upon so interesting an occasion as the first general meeting of a Society instituted for the important purpose of the advancement of knowledge in relation to Asia, I shall, with your permission, detain you a little from the special business of the day, while I draw your more particular (...) attention to the objects of the Institution, for the furtherance of which we are now assembled. To those countries of Asia, in which civilization may be justly considered to have had its origin, or to have attained its earliest growth, the rest of the civilized world owes a large debt of gratitude, which it cannot but be solicitous to repay; and England, as most advanced in refinement, is, for that very cause, the most beholden; and, by acquisition of dominion in the East, is bound by a yet closer tie. As Englishmen, we participate in the earnest wish, that this duty may be fulfilled, and that obligation requited; and we share in the anxious desire of contributing to such a happy result, by promoting an interchange of benefits, and returning in an improved state that which was received in a ruder form. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works. (shrink)

This essay locates the problem of dirty hands within virtue ethics – specifically Alasdair MacIntyre’s neo-Aristotelian thesis in After Virtue. It demonstrates that, contra contemporary expositions of this problem, MacIntyre’s thesis provides us with a more nuanced account of tragedy and DH in ordinary life, in its conventional understanding as a stark, rare and momentary conflict in which moral wrongdoing is inescapable. The essay then utilizes elements from MacIntyre’s thesis as a theoretical premise for Machiavelli’s thought so as to set (...) the foundations for a nascent but richer framework of DH in politics and move beyond the standard, ‘static’ conceptualization of the problem within this context. In developing a dynamic account of DH, I conceive of politics as a distinct practice and way of life, with its own demands and standards of excellence, and draw on Machiavelli’s thought to sketch some of these. The dynamic account uncovers an inexhaustible tension between two ways of life, each with its own demands and standards of excellence: a virtuous politician should become partially vicious and no longer innocent. Understood in dynamic terms, DH in politics involves a paradox of character, not just a paradox of action as the standard, ‘static’ DH thesis suggests. (shrink)

There has been broad interest in the so-called rise of women farmers in United States (US) agriculture. Researchers have elucidated the diverse ways farmers ‘perform’ gender, while also examining how engaging in a masculine-coded industry like agriculture shapes individuals’ gendered identities as well as their social and mental wellbeing. While illuminating, this work is mostly focused on sustainable or direct-market farmers, with surprisingly little research examining women on conventional row crops operations. This paper works to fill this empirical gap and (...) further theorize gender-agriculture intersections through analyzing interviews with Iowa women row-crop farmers to understand the ways they perceive their gendered identities, and how they see them shaping their farming experience and mental wellbeing. Deploying a conceptual understanding of gender as both discursive and embodied as well as relational and fluid, I find respondents see themselves operating in a somewhat liminal gender identity, where they feel adept at moving between masculinized spaces of agriculture and more feminized domains of homes and office jobs. Critically, while women rarely expressed stress about doing “masculine” coded agricultural labor, they had more complex feelings towards either disliking or imperfectly completing feminized care and reproductive labor. Younger women expressed particular ambivalence about assuming the identity of farmer while also fulfilling gendered norms around (heterosexual) marriage and childbearing. The liminality of women’s gender performance also cut both ways, and while they feel able to access different gendered spaces some feel they are not fully accepted in either. I conclude by reflecting on what these particular forms of gendered subjectivity might mean for women’s mental wellbeing and how agencies might better support gender equity in agriculture. (shrink)

We are living in an era where global university schemes only offer narrow conceptions of quality, relying too heavily on international ranking systems. This timely book present an alternative perspective on evaluating 'world-class universities', showcasing how eight very different higher education institutions have defined and are pursuing excellence in their own way. Each case study highlights how institutions can align their work with shared values and goals, and strive to uphold these principles in all they do and say. The (...) portraits offer insights into the ways institutions can create cultures of excellence tied to a vision of how to make a difference for their students and society. Their success suggest that policy makers should reward institutions that adopt and strive to fulfil particular educational purposes rather than continuing to perpetuate the status quo. It is essential reading for researchers and students of education research, education policy, and international education reform. (shrink)

When Laszlo Tisza first came to MIT in 1941, he had already made significant contributions to physics. In the years since, he has consolidated his position as one of the most important theoreticians of his time. Tisza's major areas of activity, closely reflected in these twenty-three essays, have included studies of quantum liquids (in particular, the remarkable properties of liquid helium and the nature of superfluidity and superconductivity), irreversible thermodynamics and the statistical thermodynamics of equilibrium, phase transitions and critical phenomena, (...) and the application of group theory to molecular spectroscopy. Tisza has also given long and close attention to the philosophy and history of his science, to a degree rarely attained by an active research physicist. His special contribution has been his insights into the logical and conceptual structure of physics. This aspect of Tisza's work is less well known than his technical contributions, and the book has been structured to right the balance by revealing Tisza the natural philosopher who collaborates with Tisza the physicist. Written by Tisza's colleagues and former students, the essays are grouped under five headings: Foundations of Probability and Thermodynamics; Condensed Matter Physics; Quantum Mechanics and Relativity; Biological Systems; and History and Philosophy of Science. Abner Shimony, Professor of Philosophy and Physics at Boston University, has contributed a closing evaluation of Tisza's philosophy of science, and Herman Feshbach, Head of the Department of Physics at MIT, has contributed an opening recollection of Tisza's scientific style. (shrink)