Researchers from diverse disciplines, including organismal and cellular physiology, sports science, human nutrition, evolution and ecology, have sought to understand the causes and consequences of the surprising variation in metabolic rate found among and within individual animals of the same species. Research in this area has been hampered by differences in approach, terminology and methodology, and the context in which measurements are made. Recent advances provide important opportunities to identify and address the key questions in the field. By bringing together (...) researchers from different areas of biology and biomedicine, we describe and evaluate these developments and the insights they could yield, highlighting the need for more standardisation across disciplines. We conclude with a list of important questions that can now be addressed by developing a common conceptual and methodological toolkit for studies on metabolic variation in animals. (shrink)

This (1982) essay sets out the claim that psychoanalysis is a cogent extension of the intuitive common sense psychology by which we naturally understand human action. In this psychology explanation proceeds by relating actions to the logically and causally cohering desires and beliefs of agents. As Freud showed, this kind of explanation is systematically deepened and extended by the explanation of dreams, the symptoms of mental disorder, and other related phenomena via the Freudian concept of wish fulfilment, which was later (...) extended to the more inclusive post-Freudian concept of phantasy. In this extension everyday actions, such as Freud's writing up his patient Irma's case history on the day before his dream of Irma's injection, are seen to be rooted in the same unconscious motives as are represented as fulfilled in dreams and symptoms -- e.g., in this case, by unconscious stirrings of deep guilt on the topic of injection, of which Freud was unaware until he analysed the dream. As this illustrates, the understanding of wishfulfilments and other formations of phantasy enables us fill out our account of agents and their actions by adding a stock of previously unacknowledged desires and modes of expression of desire. These are seen to cohere with, and also to deepen, our previous understanding: after understanding Freud's dream, we also have a deeper and firmer (and so more cogent) understanding of his behaviour on the previous day. In this way Freud effected an extension of our everyday mode of understanding that was cogent, cumulative, and radical, as illustrated further by examination of Freud's case history of the patient described as the Rat Man. (shrink)

R. G. Collingwood thought that to express emotion is to come to understand it and that this is something art can enable us to do. The understanding in question is distinct from that offered by emotion concepts. I attempt to defend a broadly similar position by drawing, as Collingwood does, on a broader philosophy of mind. Emotions and other affective states have a profile analogous to the sensory profiles exhibited by the things we perceive. Grasping that one's feeling exhibits such (...) a profile is to understand it. That understanding differs from any involved in conceptualizing the affect in question. And, I argue, engagement with the expressive character of works of art is one way to gain it. (shrink)

Representational pictures and sculptures both present their objects visually: to grasp what they represent is in some sense to see, not only the representation before one, but the object represented. But is the form of visual presentation the same? Or does a deep difference lie at the heart of our experience of these representations, a difference in how each presents us with its object? Almost all philosophical discussion of pictures and 3D representations has assumed or implied a negative answer to (...) this question. The notable exception is M.G.F.Martin’s account of pictures in terms of an ‘image’, a pure visibile that presents the represented object and its features without exemplifying them. In order to interpret Martin’s view so as to bring out its plausibility, I relate it to the somewhat similar position advocated by Lambert Wiesing’s account of pictures and our experience of them. That done, I ask whether a position drawing on both these positions can justify drawing a fundamental distinction between the ways in which pictures and sculptures present what they represent. (shrink)

In every picture there is a perspective: the picture represents its object from a point (or points) of view. Is the same true of sculpture, and in particular is it true of the purest form of sculpture, sculpture in the round? I address this issue in two ways. First, I explore the prospects for reasoning that perspective forms part of the content of some sculptures by adapting an argument from M. G. F. Martin for the parallel claim in the case (...) of visualizing. I conclude that the argument does not transfer successfully to the sculptural case. Second, I turn to the question whether sculptural experience presents the sculpted object from a point of view. That is, does our experience of sculpture involve, not merely a perspective on the sculpture itself, but a distinct perspective on the object visible in that sculpture? I consider, and reject, an argument for thinking that the answer is ‘yes’ before turning to two arguments for distinguishing sculpture from pictorial representations in this respect. That leaves us with no reason to think sculpture does involve perspective, rather than having reason to think it does not. I end by considering a principle that would allow us to close this gap. (shrink)

CONTENTS James G. Hart: Wisdom, Knowledge, and Reflective Joy: Aristotle and Husserl Wayne Martin: Judgment Stroke-Truth Predicate: Frege and the Phenomenology of Judgment David R. Cerbone: Distance and Proximity in Phenomenology: Husserl and Heidegger Ra·l GutiTrrez: "The Logic of Decadence": Deficient Forms of Government in the Republic Heribert Boeder: Derrida's Endgame Jacques Derrida: Phenomenology and the Closure of Metaphysics (1966) Hans Rainer Sepp: Jan Patocka and Cultural Difference Carl Friedrich Gethmann: Hermeneutic Phenomenology and Logical Intuitionism: On Oskar Becker's Mathematical Existence (...) Essays in Honor of Heribert Boeder by Dennis J. Schmidt, Claus-Artur Scheier, Klaus Erich Kaehler, Franco Volpi, Martfn Zubirfa, Burt Hopkins, and Marcus Brainard Edmund Husserl: The Idea of a Philosophical Culture (1923) Johannes Daubert: Notes from Husserl's Mathematical-Philosophical Exercises (1905), ed. and intro. Mark van Atten and Karl Schuhmann (German/English) Jacob Klein: On Aristotle Eugen Fink and Jan Patocka: On the Phenomenological Reduction. (shrink)

CONTENTS James G. Hart: Wisdom, Knowledge, and Reflective Joy: Aristotle and Husserl Wayne Martin: Judgment Stroke-Truth Predicate: Frege and the Phenomenology of Judgment David R. Cerbone: Distance and Proximity in Phenomenology: Husserl and Heidegger Ra·l GutiTrrez: "The Logic of Decadence": Deficient Forms of Government in the Republic Heribert Boeder: Derrida's Endgame Jacques Derrida: Phenomenology and the Closure of Metaphysics Hans Rainer Sepp: Jan Patocka and Cultural Difference Carl Friedrich Gethmann: Hermeneutic Phenomenology and Logical Intuitionism: On Oskar Becker's Mathematical Existence Essays (...) in Honor of Heribert Boeder by Dennis J. Schmidt, Claus-Artur Scheier, Klaus Erich Kaehler, Franco Volpi, Martfn Zubirfa, Burt Hopkins, and Marcus Brainard Edmund Husserl: The Idea of a Philosophical Culture Johannes Daubert: Notes from Husserl's Mathematical-Philosophical Exercises, ed. and intro. Mark van Atten and Karl Schuhmann Jacob Klein: On Aristotle Eugen Fink and Jan Patocka: On the Phenomenological Reduction. (shrink)

At first glance it seems strange to compare the views of two philosophers from such different contexts as are Harry G. Frankfurt1 and Aurelius Augustinus. After all, Frankfurt makes virtually no use of Augustine, virtually no mention of his philosophical doctrines—whether on free will or anything else.2 And yet, the two have more to do with each other than initially meets the eye. For in their own ways both of them sketch a respective theory of freedom that is similarly insightful; (...) moreover, the theories of both lapse into paradox (paradox of which each author is aware but from which neither seeks to escape). Of course, Frankfurt's articulation of his theory is more systematic, more focused than is Augustine's. Indeed, Augustine seems to make most of his points as if en passant; even in De Libero Arbitrio he shows little interest in sustained treatment of the topic heralded in the title. So what links Frankfurt and Augustine is not their philosophical style but rather (1) their putative triumph over the philosophical elusiveness and the conceptual impenetrability of the notion of freedom-of-will and (2) the fact that in coming to cognate conclusions, they share similar strategies. Thus, they admit of plausible comparison. (shrink)

CONTENTS An Editor's Introduction INTRODUCTORY CHRONOLOGICAL OVERVIEW HEIDEGGER'S ACADEMIC CAREER 1909-1930 A. Background B. Lehrveranstaltungen/University Education and Teaching C. Heidegger's Early Occasional Writings: A Chronological Bibliography PART I: STUDENT YEARS 1. Curricula Vitae 2. Two Essays for The Academician o Authority and Freedom o On a Philosophical Orientation for Academics 3. The Problem of Reality in Modern Philosophy 4. Recent Research in Logic 5. Meßkirch's Triduum: A Three-day Meditation on the War 6. Question and Judgment 7. The Concept of Time (...) in the Science of History 8. The Doctrine of Categories and Meaning in Duns Scotus : Supplements o Author's Notice o Conclusion: The Problem of Categories 9. On Schleiermacher's Second Speech "On the Essence of Religion" PART II: EARLY FREIBURG PERIOD 10. Letter to Engelbert Krebs on his Philosophical Conversion 11. Letter to Karl L÷with on his Philosophical Identity 12. Vita, with an Accompanying Letter to Georg Misch 13. Critical Comments on Karl Jaspers' Psychology of Worldviews 14. Phenomenological Interpretations with Respect to Aristotle: Indication of the Hermeneutical Situation PART III: THE MARBURG PERIOD 15. The Problem of Sin in Luther 16. The Concept of Time 17. Being-There and Being-True According to Aristotle 18. Wilhelm Dilthey's Research and the Current Struggle for a Historical Worldview 19. On the Essence of Truth, Pentecost Monday 20. Letter Exchange with Karl L÷with on Being and Time 21. "Phenomenology," Draft B, with Heidegger's Letter to Husserl 22. "Heidegger, Martin": Lexicon Article Attributed to Rudolf Bultmann APPENDICES: SUPPLEMENTS BY HEIDEGGER'S CONTEMPORARIES Appendix I: Academic Evaluations of Heidegger by his Teachers and Peers A. Evaluation of Martin Heidegger's Dissertation by Arthur Schneider B. Evaluation of Dr. Heidegger's Habilitation by Heinrich Rickert C. Nomination for Associate Professor at G÷ttingen D. Nomination for Associate Professor at Marburg E. Nomination for Professor at Marburg F. Nomination for Husserl's Chair at Freiburg Appendix II: Husserl and Heidegger A. Their Correspondence to and about Each Other B. "For Edmund Husserl on his Seventieth Birthday" Appendix III: Karl L÷with's Impressions of Husserl and Heidegger, 1926-1927 Annotated Glossary Bibliography of GA-Editions of the Lecture Courses Select Secondary Bibliography. (shrink)

In an intrepid article entitled “Why Anselm's Proof in the Proslogion Is Not an Ontological Argument,”45 G.E.M. Anscombe takes issue with the traditional reading of Anselm's text. According to this reading Anselm's proof in Proslogion 2 depends upon the premise that existence is a perfection; and as a result of this dependency it has been given the label “ontological argument.” I In challenging the traditional reading, Anscombe proposes a corrected version of Anselm’s proof—a version which eliminates the premise that existence (...) is a perfection and which thereby undermines the rationale for considering the proof to be an “ontological argument.” Her corrected version runs as follows: 26 Anscombe on Anselm.. (shrink)

If, as Schmitt suggests, Heidegger bases the claim that moods are cognitive on the philosophical distinction between theoretical and non-theoretical knowing, then much of what Heidegger says in this connection turns out to be either unclear, trivially true, or else false. Yet Schmitt himself only occasionally seems to recognize how dubious this account really is. Moreover, in attempting to help Heidegger say what he means, Schmitt's interpretation in Chapter 5 falters. It falters because(1) the emphatic likening of moods to skills,(2) (...) the introduction of the bizzare notion “knowing how occurrently,” and (3) the misconceiving of self-deception, are not to be found in Sein und Zeit. They represent, rather, an imposition upon Sein und Zeit from without. This fact means either that Schmitt's interpretation is faulty or else that it is as much reconstructive as explicative. And if reconstructive, then several conceptual mistakes are attributable to him more than to Heidegger. In spite of these difficulties Martin Heidegger on Being Human is a prize book. It attempts to understand a thinker better than he understood himself. And according to Schleiermacher this is the goal of every hermeneutic.In contrast to the successful parts of the book, the chapter on moods fails to make sense out of Heidegger's view - one reason being, I would guess, that Heidegger is, after all, equivocating on the German word “Stimmung.” Sometimes he uses it to refer specifically to states such as being depressed, being serene, being anxious. At other times he uses it to refer vaguely to Dasein's “attunement” to the world. If the human being is always already (immer schon) attuned to the world, and if such a posture toward the world is also considered a mood, then in some imprecise way one's being in a mood might be a necessary condition for any belief to affect him emotionally. But, of course, “mood” in this broad sense would indicate an ontologically, and not a causally, necessary condition. And so, it would not follow that every belief which affected one emotionally need have some specific mood (e.g., depression, serenity, anxiety) as its necessary causal antecedent. Nor would it follow that, as a matter of fact, a change of belief could not effect a specific change of mood.I fear that with regard to some topics the sense in which one understands Heidegger better than he understood himself may well be the original Socratic sense: one knows what Heidegger himself does not know, viz., that the conceptions of Sein und Zeit are not always intelligible. And one wonders whether any philosophical midwifery can really be of aid - at least with respect to the claim that moods are cognitive. (shrink)

CONTENTS An Editor's Introduction INTRODUCTORY CHRONOLOGICAL OVERVIEW HEIDEGGER'S ACADEMIC CAREER 1909-1930 A. Background (1889-1930) B. Lehrveranstaltungen/University Education and Teaching (1909-1930) C. Heidegger's Early Occasional Writings: A Chronological Bibliography PART I: STUDENT YEARS 1. Curricula Vitae 2. Two Essays for The Academician o Authority and Freedom (1910) o On a Philosophical Orientation for Academics (1911) 3. The Problem of Reality in Modern Philosophy (1912) 4. Recent Research in Logic (October-December 1912) 5. Meßkirch's Triduum: A Three-day Meditation on the War (January 1915) (...) 6. Question and Judgment (July 1915) 7. The Concept of Time in the Science of History (July 1915) 8. The Doctrine of Categories and Meaning in Duns Scotus (1915): Supplements o Author's Notice (1917) o Conclusion: The Problem of Categories (1916) 9. On Schleiermacher's Second Speech "On the Essence of Religion" (1917) PART II: EARLY FREIBURG PERIOD 10. Letter to Engelbert Krebs on his Philosophical Conversion (1919) 11. Letter to Karl L÷with on his Philosophical Identity (1921) 12. Vita, with an Accompanying Letter to Georg Misch (June 1922) 13. Critical Comments on Karl Jaspers' Psychology of Worldviews (1920) 14. Phenomenological Interpretations with Respect to Aristotle: Indication of the Hermeneutical Situation (1922) PART III: THE MARBURG PERIOD 15. The Problem of Sin in Luther (February 1924) 16. The Concept of Time (July 1924) 17. Being-There and Being-True According to Aristotle (December 1924) 18. Wilhelm Dilthey's Research and the Current Struggle for a Historical Worldview (Kassel Lectures, April 1925) 19. On the Essence of Truth, Pentecost Monday (May 24, 1926) 20. Letter Exchange with Karl L÷with on Being and Time (August 1927) 21. "Phenomenology," Draft B (of the Encyclopaedia Britannica Article), with Heidegger's Letter to Husserl (October 1927) 22. "Heidegger, Martin": Lexicon Article Attributed to Rudolf Bultmann (1927-1928) APPENDICES: SUPPLEMENTS BY HEIDEGGER'S CONTEMPORARIES Appendix I: Academic Evaluations of Heidegger by his Teachers and Peers A. Evaluation of Martin Heidegger's Dissertation by Arthur Schneider (July 1913) B. Evaluation of Dr. Heidegger's Habilitation by Heinrich Rickert (July 1915) C. Nomination for Associate Professor at G÷ttingen (November 1922) D. Nomination for Associate Professor at Marburg (December 1922) E. Nomination for Professor at Marburg (August 1925) F. Nomination for Husserl's Chair at Freiburg (February 1928) Appendix II: Husserl and Heidegger A. Their Correspondence to and about Each Other (1914-1934) B. "For Edmund Husserl on his Seventieth Birthday" (April 8, 1929) Appendix III: Karl L÷with's Impressions of Husserl and Heidegger, 1926-1927 Annotated Glossary Bibliography of GA-Editions of the Lecture Courses Select Secondary Bibliography. (shrink)

It has been demonstrated that death certificates do not accurately record the actual cause of death in up to one-fourth of cases, as determined from subsequent autopsy findings. The purpose of this study was to explore the use of natural language autopsy data bases as an automated quality assurance mechanism. We translated the account of the major process leading to death, or the primary diagnosis, from all 45,564 narrative autopsy reports obtained at The Johns Hopkins Hospital between May 28, (...) 1889, and June 30, 1987, into the hierarchical system of Medical Subject Heading (MeSH) titles. We obtained a total of 125,772 MeSH title translations, 1,563 of them distinct (average 2.8 per case), ranging in frequency from 6,029 occurrences of LUNG to 1 occurrence apiece of 357 MeSH titles. The natural-language-to-MeSH translations showed expected trends over the past century: fewer infectious diseases; more cardiovascular and neoplastic disease among adults; and more respiratory diseases and congenital malformations in the pediatric age group. The greater availability of autopsy documents in electronic form should increase the value of this resource for quality assurance. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Heroic Virtue, Comic Infidelity: Reassessing Marguerite de Navarre’s HeptaméronG. Mallary MastersHeroic Virtue, Comic Infidelity: Reassessing Marguerite de Navarre’s Heptaméron, by Dora E. Polachek; 170 pp. Amherst: Hestia Press, 1993, $19.00.The volume of essays edited by Professor Polachek represents one of the most attractive collections of symposium papers I have seen in recent years. Attractive to see and to read, it contains a variety of approaches dealing with a (...) timely topic, the “feminine” perspective of a sixteenth-century French collection of novellas within the framework of a “romance” written by a female author. Professor Polachek has masterfully edited the materials, grouping them by subject and giving her readers a text remarkably clean of typographical errors. Her introduction gives a review, as it were, a critical evaluation of the contents. The reader who wishes a more detailed synopsis of the studies in the volume may consult it to advantage.Building upon the historic reference implicit in the introduction, “The Heptaméron Then and Now,” the first group of essays by Robert D. Cottrell, Robert Melançon, and Judy Kem appear in the section entitled “Locus Amænus: Setting the Stage.” They provide background setting for the two groups that follow. Articles by Patricia Francis Cholakian, Carla Freccero, Jeffery C. Persels, and François Paré deal with the topic “Heroic Virtue: Signaling Crisis.” Gary Ferguson, Paula Sommers, Jerry C. Nash, and Dora E. Polachek conclude the volume’s third part with the theme “Engendering Laughters: Men Mocked.”The Amherst conference on Marguerite proved, of the three I attended, the most varied in theme, in critical approach, and in openness of discussion. It produced an outstanding volume of essays: timely, imaginative, qualitative, and even provocative. Colloquium implies dialogue, and dialogue means dialectic, open debate of divergent opinions. And yet, even as Marguerite herself would [End Page 150] wish it, the total experience is one of harmony, the sounding together in unison of the divergent themes, the seemingly discordant approaches that parallel the different voices created by one of the great sixteenth-century female authors of the French Renaissance. In her edition of the conference, Professor Polachek has succeeded very well in presenting a coincidentia oppositorum of the sometimes discordant opinions of Marguerite’s critics whose divergent points of view contribute to our better understanding of her too often underestimated text.The volume will prove very useful for students of Marguerite at all levels of inquiry, as it permits exposure to many different critical approaches to the text and provides additional bibliography such that readers may pursue their own interests and serious research on the subject by looking into the best of Marguerite criticism of the last decades and, indeed, of the last two centuries. The studies contained in it propel us back to the beginnings, so to speak, of Marguerite criticism, bring us up to date in terms of the most recent approaches, and move us forward through the setting of new directions and standards for future research.G. Mallary MastersUniversity of North Carolina, Chapel HillCopyright © 1995 The Johns Hopkins University Press... (shrink)

In the first part of the 19th century, geologists explained volcanoes, earthquakes and mountain-formation on the assumption that the earth has a large molten core underneath a very thin solid crust. This assumption was attacked on astronomical grounds by William Hopkins, who argued that the crust must be at least 800 miles thick, and on physical grounds by William Thomson, who showed that the earth as a whole behaves like a solid with high rigidity. Other participants in the debate (...) insisted that there is evidence for a fluid or plastic layer not far below the crust. It was also suggested that the interior of the earth is a supercritical fluid. By the end of the century many geologists had incorporated the doctrine of a completely solid earth into their theories. Acceptance of a relatively small liquid core, indicated by seismological research, was delayed for another two decades. (shrink)

In September 2010 at the Johns Hopkins Hospital, one of the nation's elite academic hospitals located in East Baltimore, Maryland, Paul Warren Pardus entered the facility to visit his mother, a patient. During a discussion with her doctor in a hospital hallway, Pardus became “overwhelmed” about the care and condition of his mother, pulled a handgun from his waistband, and shot the doctor in the chest. Pardus then locked himself and his mother in her room, shot and killed her, (...) and committed suicide.Dr. Gabe Kelen, a national expert on emergency preparedness and director of the Johns Hopkins emergency department, admitted several years later that this tragic event “really got us thinking in a very serious way.” Together with colleagues at the Johns Hopkins Office of Critical Event Preparedness and Response, Kelen conducted research on the threat and impact of “active shooters” in health care settings. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:“Unduly Iterative Ethical Review?”Franklin G. MillerMadam:Renée C. Fox and Nicholas A. Christakis have written a provocative article, “Perish and Publish: Non-Heart-Beating Organ Donation and Unduly Iterative Ethical Review” (KIEJ, December 1995). The language of their argument and some of the implicit assumptions on which it rests deserve critical scrutiny. They describe the articles presenting and commenting on the University of Pittsburgh protocol as “disquieting” because the display “trial-and-error ethics.” (...) To dismiss “trial-and-error ethics” implies that we antecedently possess all the moral knowledge we need to evaluate and regulate developments in medicine. Should we summarily reject experimentation in ethics, particularly with respect to complex issues involving scientific and technological changes? For if we need to reconsider and possibly revise what counts as moral knowledge, the proposing an experimental approach to the ethics of a novel practice, which is presented publicly and made open to revision, as in the Pittsburgh protocol, may be precisely the best way to proceed.Fox and Christakis resort to invidious insinuation in their criticism of ethicists who have written, and journals that have published, articles about non-heart-beating organ donation. Publication on this issue has given ethicists the opportunity of “adding numerous items to their vitae.” Their appraisal of the vitae-boosting behavior represents an interesting rhetorical specimen: “Although there is nothing inherently dishonorable about this it does create tension between two motives: conviction about the importance of perfecting ethical conduct, on the one hand, and the desire to advance one’s professional career, on the other” (p. 340). I am not sure what the authors mean by “perfecting ethical conduct.” Yet they suggest that a group of reputable scholars, who have taken diverse positions on the ethics of non-heart-beating organ donation, have come perilously close to venality.Finally, in order to avoid further legitimating what they consider to be an ethically objectionable practice, the authors advocate that journals exercise “restraint” in publishing articles about this topic. Perhaps in a future pronouncement they will enlighten us about how enforcing a publication policy that avoids the vice of “unduly iterative ethical review” might work without compromising freedom of discussion. Moral dogmatism and censorship have a long history of association.Franklin G. MillerCenter for Biomedical Ethics University of Virginia Charlottesville, VACopyright © 1996 The Johns Hopkins University Press... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Criminal Law, Pain Relief, and Physician Aid in DyingFaye Girsh, Ed.D., Executive DirectorMadam:The article by Cantor and Thomas on “Pain Relief, Acceleration of Death, and Criminal Law” (KIEJ, June 1996) was a tortured attempt to develop criteria for the humane and compassionate physician who tries to serve the needs of a patient in unremitting pain. There are three areas that merit comment.The authors dealt with pain medications that might (...) have the undesirable side effect of causing death. They did not mention tolerance, which usually occurs in a patient with chronic pain and which would require exceedingly high doses to be effective. They did not mention barbiturates, which are preferable to opiates in causing death and which are used increasingly by compassionate physicians to answer the pleas of their suffering patients, but for which there is no excuse about alleviating pain. Would the criminal law just call the prescription of a lethal dose of barbiturates a reckless act and require conviction? Fortunately, juries, as the authors point out, do not balance these formulas on the head of a pin. When they see the circumstances under which these doctors do help their patients, they choose to nullify the law and would ignore the suggestions made in this article.The authors refer to the “consent” of the patient. They do not mention that these doctors are operating with more than consent; they are administering these medications because suffering patients are begging them to put them out of their pain and the indignities of the dying process. The article discusses the process as though it were the same as consent to elective surgery. These patients—with AIDS, cancer, and hopeless neurological degeneration—are not simply agreeing to a procedure; they are desperately seeking a way out. If the criminal law were to develop criteria for physician aid in dying, certainly one of them should be the active, witnessed, repeated request of such a patient for a certain, quick, painless, gentle death.The third point is that physicians do not face prosecution when administering no treatment to a patient whose life could be saved with treatment but who chooses not to receive it. This has been upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court; no criteria for suffering, alternatives, terminality, justifiability, or unbearability are required. The doctor can stand by while the patient dies what may be a protracted, difficult death, but it is within the law. What matters in this situation is the decision of the patient to refuse treatment, and that is absolute. How ironic that the patient who cannot refuse treatment must, with his or her doctor, jump through all these hoops to achieve a peaceful death.One worries that the physician who must balance the risk of “risky pain relief” against the accusation of recklessness will err in the direction of allowing [End Page 103] the patient to bear the pain rather than help with a dose of analgesics that might be considered beyond the stipulated “risk.”Why don’t we just be honest about it? Allow dying or hopelessly ill patients to make the decision about what they want by passing a carefully defined law allowing euthanasia rather than balancing the risk and trying to determine the “purpose” of the physician’s ministrations. We protect some patients from themselves while allowing others almost complete autonomy to make the choice of ending their lives. The authors were right in saying that proponents of rational laws consider this sheer hypocrisy.Faye Girsh, Executive DirectorHemlock Society U.S.A. Denver, COFaye Girsh misconceives our article’s objective as an “attempt to develop criteria” for the humane physician. Our goal in writing the paper was to analyze the current criminal law framework in the hope of sharpening debate and engendering normative critiques. We readily acknowledge tensions in the current legal framework and would support changes in that framework.Copyright © 1997 The Johns Hopkins University Press... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Introduction to the Special SectionFranklin G. MillerHappy is a female elephant who has been confined at the Bronx Zoo for over 40 years. In 2018 the Nonhuman Rights Project sued the Wildlife Conservation Society, which manages the zoo, seeking habeas corpus for Happy in order to release her to an elephant sanctuary. Numerous amicus curiae briefs were filed in favor and against the petition on behalf of Happy. The (...) case reached the highest court in New York State, which denied the petition of the plaintiff in June 2022.This special section includes views on the case of Happy by David DeGrazia, Martha Nussbaum, and Christine Korsgaard, three distinguished moral philosophers who have made significant contributions to animal ethics. The essays by Martha Nussbaum and Christine Korsgaard are drawn from the amicus briefs that they filed in the legal proceedings, which they agreed could be published here.Professor Nussbaum applies her "capabilities approach" as a foundation for promoting wellbeing and recognizing rights to Happy and to elephants in general. She argues that Happy is a being with a meaningful life and is entitled to be treated with respect and dignity, which is incompatible with her conditions of confinement at the zoo. Professor Korsgaard applies her understanding of the moral philosophy of Immanuel Kant to the case of Happy—a "cognitively sophisticated [End Page 1] animal" which, like human beings, should be treated as an end in herself and not merely as a means to the purposes of human beings. Professor DeGrazia, in an invited essay, analyzes the meanings of "person" and examines the pertinent characteristics of elephants that make them at least "borderline persons," with the moral status of possessing basic rights.While Happy remains confined at the Bronx Zoo, these three incisive contributions challenge readers to reflect on the ethical treatment of nonhuman animals, especially those with complex and rich capacities of intelligence and emotion. [End Page 2]Franklin G. MillerWeill Cornell Medical College, New YorkCopyright © 2023 Johns Hopkins University Press... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:“Unduly Iterative Ethical Review?”Franklin G. MillerMadam:Renée C. Fox and Nicholas A. Christakis have written a provocative article, “Perish and Publish: Non-Heart-Beating Organ Donation and Unduly Iterative Ethical Review” (KIEJ, December 1995). The language of their argument and some of the implicit assumptions on which it rests deserve critical scrutiny. They describe the articles presenting and commenting on the University of Pittsburgh protocol as “disquieting” because the display “trial-and-error ethics.” (...) To dismiss “trial-and-error ethics” implies that we antecedently possess all the moral knowledge we need to evaluate and regulate developments in medicine. Should we summarily reject experimentation in ethics, particularly with respect to complex issues involving scientific and technological changes? For if we need to reconsider and possibly revise what counts as moral knowledge, the proposing an experimental approach to the ethics of a novel practice, which is presented publicly and made open to revision, as in the Pittsburgh protocol, may be precisely the best way to proceed.Fox and Christakis resort to invidious insinuation in their criticism of ethicists who have written, and journals that have published, articles about non-heart-beating organ donation. Publication on this issue has given ethicists the opportunity of “adding numerous items to their vitae.” Their appraisal of the vitae-boosting behavior represents an interesting rhetorical specimen: “Although there is nothing inherently dishonorable about this it does create tension between two motives: conviction about the importance of perfecting ethical conduct, on the one hand, and the desire to advance one’s professional career, on the other” (p. 340). I am not sure what the authors mean by “perfecting ethical conduct.” Yet they suggest that a group of reputable scholars, who have taken diverse positions on the ethics of non-heart-beating organ donation, have come perilously close to venality.Finally, in order to avoid further legitimating what they consider to be an ethically objectionable practice, the authors advocate that journals exercise “restraint” in publishing articles about this topic. Perhaps in a future pronouncement they will enlighten us about how enforcing a publication policy that avoids the vice of “unduly iterative ethical review” might work without compromising freedom of discussion. Moral dogmatism and censorship have a long history of association.Franklin G. MillerCenter for Biomedical Ethics University of Virginia Charlottesville, VACopyright © 1996 The Johns Hopkins University Press... (shrink)

It was with this bitter intervention from Thrasymachus, occurring halfway through the first of its ten Books, that that work begins to come urgently alive. For the remainder of Book I the Socrates of the Dialogue asks questions and raises objections, while Thrasymachus keeps urging that in fact the just become through their very justice the victims of exploitation–the suckers!

BackgroundThe U.S. Food and Drug Administration traditionally has kept confidential significant amounts of information relevant to the approval or non-approval of specific drugs, devices, and biologics and about the regulatory status of such medical products in FDA’s pipeline.ObjectiveTo develop practical recommendations for FDA to improve its transparency to the public that FDA could implement by rulemaking or other regulatory processes without further congressional authorization. These recommendations would build on the work of FDA’s Transparency Task Force in 2010.MethodsIn 2016-2017, we convened (...) a team of academic faculty from Harvard Medical School, Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Yale Medical School, Yale Law School, and Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health to develop recommendations through an iterative process of reviewing FDA’s practices, considering the legal and policy constraints on FDA in expanding transparency, and obtaining insights from independent observers of FDA.ResultsThe team developed 18 specific recommendations for improving FDA’s transparency to the public. FDA could adopt all these recommendations without further congressional action.FundingThe development of the Blueprint for Transparency at the U.S. Food and Drug Administration was funded by the Laura and John Arnold Foundation. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:92 HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY is a great deal to blame for the wrongheaded views that got about in the ancient world concerning this gifted Alexandrian thinker; and in the whole business there is more than a hint of clash between Eastern and Western temperament. When, in dealing with modern critics of Origen, he roundly castigates the scholarly ghettoism that goes on, one is in complete sympathy. Kerr for instance (...) gets scolded for not quoting De Lubac. Lutheran scholars and Catholic, Germans perhaps and French, will tend to approach Origen with preformed conclusions. They have too often written within an exceedingly limited scholarly tradition. Fair enough. People have not any excuse for ignoring one another's contributions. Evidences of this sort of thing, with conspicuous faults on both sides (Lutheran and Catholic, that is) are not far to seek, God knows. One is not so happy however when the faint suggestion is made, particularly in the appendix, that it is only to students with the proper dispositions that Origen will yield up his message. That one must believe with Origen, so to speak. It may be the enthusiasm of the moment, or the undue influence of Origen's own attitude to holy writ; but this could be a disastrous line of argument. It comes perilously near to the reasons Julian the Apostate gave for excluding Christians from the Hellenist schools. And it smacks too much of Hellenistic ideas about doctrine for the multitude and for the initiate. Incidentally Crouzel argues that Origen, contrary to the accepted beliefs about him, was singularly free of this sort of thing. Some of his supposedly esoteric doctrines are found in the most popular of his compositions, and vice versa. In all it is a book calculated to set students of Origen thinking, and searching. DENIS MEEIIAN Valyermo Priory Duns Scotus, Philosophical Writings: A Selection. Edited and translated by Allan Wolter, O.F.M. (The Nelson Philosophical Texts; Edinburgh: Nelson, 1962. Pp. xxiii + 198. Latin text and translation, 162 parallel pages. SOs., $6.50.) Minor, sometimes indirect, causes have kept the name of John Duns Scotus in the minds of many philosophers of the twentieth century. The dependence of Gerard Manly Hopkins' notion of inscape on Duns Scotus' doctrine on intuitive cognition and individuation is a case in point. Another and more direct instance is that of the concurrence of some modern theories on free will with the exposition of Scotus. Those whose interest in Duns Scotus has been piqued by some allusion invariably ask the question, where can one get something in English by the man? The answer still is, the man has had quite a few expositors but not many translators. The latest of such expositions is Duns Scotus: The Basic Principles of His Philosophy, B. Bonansea's translation of an Italian work by E. Bettoni. The only complete work of Duns Scotus in English translation is his small opus presenting a demonstration of the existence of God: The De Primo Principio of John Duns Scotus, (St. Bonaventure, N. Y.: 1949), translated by Evan Roche, O.F.M. Allan Wolter is presently engaged in producing a new translation with more extensive notes, since the original translation is out of print. A small selection from Scotus' Oxford Commentary is contained in Richard McKeon's Selections from Medieval Philosophers, Vol. II. The reason for the scarcity of translations has been the lack of a definitive edition of BOOK REVIEWS 93 Scotus's works. No one wanted to undertake an extensive translation from insufficiently edited texts, especially when a definitive text was thought to be imminent. A commission was appointed thirty-six years ago to do for John Duns Scotus what had been done so magnificently for his Franciscan predecessor, St. Bonaventure. The first definitive edition of the opera ornnia of a Scholastic in the period of Scholastic revival was published by Franciscan scholars at Quaracchi near Florence: the Opera Ornnia Sancti Bonaventurae (1882-1901) in nine volumes. The same scholars, under the leadership of E. Longpr~, O.F.M., turned their attention to the works of Scotus. The problems facing the commission were admittedly much greater. Manuscripts had to be gathered, authenticated, compared. Work went slowly... (shrink)

It is commonly assumed that personalization technologies used by Google for the purpose of tailoring search results for individual users create filter bubbles, which reinforce users’ political views. Surprisingly, empirical evidence for a personalization-induced filter bubble has not been forthcoming. Here, we investigate whether filter bubbles may result instead from a searcher’s choice of search queries. In the first experiment, participants rated the left-right leaning of 48 queries (search strings), 6 for each of 8 topics (abortion, benefits, climate change, sex (...) equality, immigration, nuclear family, Islam, and taxation). An independent sample of participants were then asked to select one of these queries for each of the 8 topics. With the exception of the topic of Islam, participants were significantly more likely to select a query corresponding to their own political leaning, compared to other queries, explaining between 12% and 39% of the variance. A second experiment investigated the effect of the political leaning of the same queries on the overall political leaning of Search Engine Result Pages (SERPs) in Google Search. The top six results of each SERP were rated collectively by a third group of participants, explaining 36.3% of the variance across all 48 search terms (p < .00001). That is, (1) participants in our experiments tended to select own-side search queries, and (2) using those queries tended to yield own-side search results when using the Google search engine. Our results are consistent with the notion of a self-imposed filter bubble in which query selection plays a salient role. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Job, Boethius, and Epic TruthJames G. WilliamsJob, Boethius, and Epic Truth, by Ann W. Anstell; xiii & 240pp. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1994, $32.95.Ann Anstell succeeds in showing that the book of Job and Boethius’ Consolation of Philosophy served as vehicles for the transmission and transformation of heroic poetry through the Middle Ages and into the Renaissance. The style is sometimes forbidding for the nonspecialist because of dry (...) descriptions of various texts and the extensive quotation of Latin without translation. There are certain sections, however, where the author is clearly passionately engaged in the subject and consequently comes across much more clearly and vividly to the reader; this is especially true of part of the discussion of Gregory’s Moralia in Job and the chapter on “Boethian Lovers,” particularly the treatment of Abelard’s Historia Calamitatum.The thesis and argument of the book are of great potential interest both to literary critics and literary historians and to philosophers and historians of philosophy. The “epic truth” of the title is a bridge between literary genre and transmission and the kind of philosophy concerned with concepts of self and [End Page 379] world. Anstell argues that the conventional distinctions between classical epic and medieval romance tend to overlook the historical continuity between the two genres. “The Middle Ages interpreted classical epic in a way that entailed its subsequent imitation in romance” (p. 212). Romance makes explicit what epic is implicitly about, namely a way or journey to self-knowledge.Boethius, writing about 525 as a prisoner, draws upon Virgil’s Georgics and Stoic and Neoplatonic writings. Lady Philosophy appears to him and educes him into recollection of his own true being through remembering the heroes of the past. He thus recognizes his own mortality and passions, the importance of reason, and the reality of his immortal soul. This journey to concrete awareness of the immortal soul is a key step towards the epic truth that emerged in Christian thinking, but in Boethius the centrality of Christ as Logos-Redeemer does not come into view. It does, however, in the tradition of reading and interpreting Job.Through his meditations and moral instructions on Job, Gregory (Pope, 590–604) used the precedent of Boethius’ Consolation to draw the classical form of the vir, the heroic mortal and the model of virtus, virtue, into the Christian configuration of sainthood. Using a Christian form of allegory, the “other-speaking” of a text that articulates its deeper structure and truth, Gregory portrays Job as a man of fortitude, courage, and patience whose suffering becomes the occasion truly to understand that his immutable soul is not the prisoner of the body that is sick and dying. “Job’s human nature, perfected in wisdom and power through suffering, reflects Christ’s own divine humanity, and far surpasses in heroic virtue the excellence of even an allegorized Aeneas” (p. 91).These two works, then, are the chief exemplars of the “heroic poetry” of the Middle Ages, which joined the literatures commonly designated as “epic” and “romance.” This medieval synthesis insisted on figural or allegorical continuity with classical antiquity but departed formally from classical literary conventions. Job and Boethius provided critical authorization for these tendencies. Job as Christ-figure was the model for legends of the saints, while the Consolation influenced the romance literature that featured stages of spiritual growth; this literature “extended into a history of personal salvation by assimilating the lover’s sufferings to those of Job and Christ” (p. 214). These two paradigmatic works, which provided models of the stable saint as Christ-figure and the emotional pilgrim on a spiritual journey, began to dissolve in the Renaissance. Boethius’s Consolation ceased to be understood in terms of the epic and Job came to be seen as a drama and a tragedy. Thus the author concludes that “the virtues... the Middle Ages attributed to Job, especially wisdom and fortitude, belong no longer to man but to God” (p. 215). Human beings must make their way in an inconstant, puzzling world separated from God.James G. WilliamsSyracuse UniversityCopyright © 1995 The Johns Hopkins University Press... (shrink)