Several lines of evidence suggest that children born via Cesarean section are at greater risk for adverse health outcomes including allergies, asthma and obesity. Vaginal seeding is a medical procedure in which infants born by C-section are swabbed immediately after birth with vaginal secretions from the mother. This procedure has been proposed as a way to transfer the mother's vaginal microbiome to the child, thereby restoring the natural exposure that occurs during vaginal birth that is interrupted in the case of (...) babies born via C-section. Preliminary evidence indicates partial restoration of microbes. However, there is insufficient evidence to determine the health benefits of the procedure. Several studies, including trial, are currently underway. At the same time, in the clinic setting, doctors are increasingly being asked to by expectant mothers to have their babies seeded. This article reports on the current research on this procedure and the issues it raises for regulators, researchers, physicians, and patients. (shrink)

The thematic survey of traditional literature uncovered a pressing need to study the M-L figure as a phenomenon in its own right. A design was constructed intending to evoke the figure's full phenomenal appearance. Instead of framing a highly determinate structure wherein a specific question is posed, E presented the figure to naive Ss, simply asking them to describe it. The purpose was to ascertain what naive Ss would perceive if not encumbered by a prior set. In addition, five experiential (...) questions about the descriptive task were included, aiming to elucidate and render intelligible the factual perceptions. The results showed that the M-L figure appears physiognomically. Typical responses exhibiting stylistic variation pointed to the dialectic between perceiver and perceived thing. A second finding was that the perception of equal horizontal lines as unequal emerged as a predominant, but only one of several possible ways of resolving the M-L figure's many perceptual possibilities. In fact, the data revealed a trend that elucidates the conditions which make possible the "M-L effect." Finally, "direction-orientation," a phenomenal variable elucidated by Merleau-Ponty's notions about the body and perception, emerged as the most characteristic way of perceiving the experimental figure. (shrink)

Jerry Fodor has consistently cited the persistence of illusions--especially the M.

This book represents a considerable revision and expansion of Public Choice II. Six new chapters have been added, and several chapters from the previous edition have been extensively revised. The discussion of empirical work in public choice has been greatly expanded. As in the previous editions, all of the major topics of public choice are covered. These include: why the state exists, voting rules, federalism, the theory of clubs, two-party and multiparty electoral systems, rent seeking, bureaucracy, interest groups, dictatorship, the (...) size of government, voter participation, and political business cycles. Normative issues in public choice are also examined including a normative analysis of the simple majority rule, Bergson–Samuelson social welfare functions, the Arrow and Sen impossibility theorems, Rawls's social contract theory and the constitutional political economy of Buchanan and Tullock. (shrink)

This contribution focuses on three aspects of Nietzsche’s art of living that have become relevant today especially in the United States (but not only here): first, regarding some facets of the economic-political conditions of any contemporary art of living; second, the widespread adoption of Nietzsche’s notion of self-overcoming and artistic self-design in entrepreneurship and individual’s lives; and third, how his notion of ‘incorporation’ has been further developed in current approaches to habit design. Eventually I will show via the example of (...) Anthony Robbins that some notions of Nietzsche’s art of living have become most popular outside of academia, namely in the commercial industries of what has been called ‘self-growth’ or ‘self-development.’. (shrink)

Le monde occidental s'interroge aujourd'hui sur la passion de la mort qui pousse de jeunes terroristes au suicide et au crime. Le présent essai traite d'une autre fascination, non moins troublante : celle qui travaille sourdement les grands textes de notre modernité. Après Alexandre Kojève, l'écriture de Georges Bataille, de Maurice Blanchot, de Jacques Derrida ou de Jacques Lacan, laisse transparaître un lyrisme de la destruction, un engouement pour l'abîme, qu'il faut savoir reconnaître sous la rigueur de la pensée. D'où (...) vient cette esthétique du malheur? Quels enjeux recouvre-t-elle? Au fil d'une minutieuse lecture, l'auteur s'attache à dénuder un complexe de valeurs et d'affects qui remontent aux origines symboliques de notre civilisation. On entrevoit peu à peu que cette revendication de la mort pourrait bien n'être que le signe inversé de la grande protestation humaine, de sa soif d'infini et de son désir d'être. Betty Rojtman, née à Paris, a dirigé le département de littérature française à l'université hébraïque de Jérusalem. Elle situe sa recherche au carrefour de la pensée contemporaine et de l'exégèse juive traditionnelle. Parmi ses publications : Feu noir sur feu blanc. Essai sur l'herméneutique juive (1986); Une grave distraction (préface de Paul Ricoeur, 1991) ; Une rencontre improbable (2002) et Moïse, prophète des nostalgies (2007). (shrink)

Amartya Sen has demonstrated a possible inconsistency between a (liberal) right and Pareto optimality. Neither Sen nor the subsequent literature have discussed the origin of the rights that lead to the liberal paradox. In this article I examine one possible origin of rights definitions-a constitutional contract agreed to by all members of the community. Constitutional rights are show to be vulnerable to a similar paradox as with liberal rights, but if the writers of the constitution were correct in their choice (...) of actions to protect, such paradoxes will be unlikely and involve small welfare losses when they do occur. The article demonstrates that both the origin of rights and their potential role in advancing the interests of citizens can be explained using a utilitarian/welfarist methodology. (shrink)

Marx’s theory of ground rent has been widely used to help understand the trinity of land, labor, and capital. However, limited attention has been paid to the role of water within the Marxian rent framework. This lack of attention proves troubling due to the role of surface waters as an essential means of production throughout capitalism. Here I restate Marxian ground rent in the form of water rent and discuss the function of water-rent in the two dominant surface water rights (...) doctrines of the United States—the riparian doctrine and the doctrine of prior appropriation. In doing so, I revise the distinction between differential rent 1 and differential rent 2 to provide more analytically useful categories. Paying special attention to issues of drought and scarcity, I fully articulate the function of Marxian rent and its four forms for both surface water rights doctrines, while clearly stating where they do and do not differ. (shrink)

The case describes the developments of an ethics code observed in the local government of Suffolk County, New York, USA. In Suffolk County, there is now a dedicated Board of Ethics Agency (“Board”) within the local government to ensure that business operations and government operations run as ethically compliant as possible. This Board was created in 2012 in order to follow compliance with a law that established a replacement for the Ethics Commission (previously existing within Suffolk County) because this Ethics (...) Commission had been involved in a serious controversy. The former County Executive, Steve Levy, was found guilty of compromising the “integrity of an ethics commission”. Suffolk County government prescribed various measures in order to ensure that the citizens of Suffolk County were protected from business ethical violations. The Board also preemptively created laws that discouraged businesses from acting unethically. (shrink)

This is a book about speech and the silencing of speech; about who gets to speak and who does not; about who is listened to and who is ignored. In this down-to-earth analysis of the democratic principle of freedom of speech, Betty McLellan insists that, if this prized democratic principle is to have any continuing credibility, free speech must be free for all.

Band 1. Bücher 1, 3, 7 und 8 -- Band 2. Bücher 2, 4, 5 und 6.

Das neue Versorgungsrecht für Beamte, Richter und Pensionäre Erhebliche Kostensteigerungen der öffentlichen Haushalte, die zunehmende Zahl der Versorgungsempfänger und deren längere Lebensdauer, aber auch die politische Fortentwicklung der Beamtenversorgung im Einklang mit dem Rentenrecht haben zu zahlreichen und gravierenden Änderungen - aus der Sicht der Beamten und Pensionäre meist Verschlechterungen - des für alle Dienstherrn in Bund und Ländern einheitlichen Rechts der Beamtenversorgung geführt. Dieser Praxiskommentar enthält zahlreiche Anwendungshilfen, Beispiele und Modellrechnungen. Bestens geeignet für jeden Beamten, insbesondere für die mit (...) der Beamtenversorgung befassten Personalleiter und Sachbearbeiter sowie Gewerkschaften des öffentlichen Dienstes. (shrink)

Is it possible that all of the social sciences could employ a common methodology? If so, what would it be? This article adresses these questions. It takes off from James Coleman’s recent book, The Foundations of Social Theory. Coleman’s social theory is built on the postulate that individuals are rational actors, the same postulate that most of modern economics is built upon. This article critiques the use of this postulate in economics, and thus questions whether it is a useful building (...) block for the methodological foundations of social science research. It proposes an adaptive view of human behavior as an alternative in which preferences are conditioned by past experience. The work of Joseph Schumpeter is discussed as an exemplar of the methodology advocated here. (shrink)

The basic hypothesis of this book is that linguistic reference to kinds should be seen as reference to sortal concepts, i.e. cognitive categories for identifying and classifying objects. Viewed that way, kinds serve as the interface between the conceptual system and the grammatical system. Kind-level predicates differ as to whether they presuppose (e.g. to be extinct) or entail (e.g. to invent) the existence of objects, with crucial consequences for the interpretation of indefinite argument noun phrases. Moreover, object reference always involves (...) underlying kind reference, but kind reference does not always involve object reference. This asymmetry, once recognized, proves useful in solving otherwise puzzling problems in semantic composition. (shrink)

This book comprises a series of essays exploring the transformative insights of Fichte, Herder, Humboldt and the Romantics into the seminal role of language and imagination in shaping human experience and art, including how language, self-consciousness and understanding arise through speech. Along with topics concerning the literary work of art, the philosophy of history, German humanities, philology, and semiotics, the author also discusses the place of phenomenology and the concept of interpretation in literary theory. In highlighting ideas from A. W. (...) Vico, F. Schlegel, Novalis, Germaine de Staël, and Schleiermacher, the author also elucidates romantic poetics, translation, discourse and cultural transfer themes. Das vorliegende Werk umfasst eine Reihe hermeneutischer Abhandlungen des Autors, in deren Fokus die Deutung der Sprachauffassungen Fichtes, Herders, Humboldts und der Romantiker steht. Der Autor untersucht dabei die Formierung von Erfahrung und Kunst durch Sprache und Einbildungskraft sowie die Entstehung von Sprache, Selbstbewusstsein und Verstehen in der Rede. Desgleichen behandelt er Semiotik, Philologie und Philosophie der Geschichte, sowie die Rolle der Phänomenologie und des Interpretationsbegriffs in der Literaturkritik. Im Besonderen hebt der Autor die Auffassungen von Vico, A.W. und F. Schlegel, Novalis, Germaine de Staël, F. Schleiermacher hervor und beleuchtet Übersetzungs-, Diskurs- und Kulturtransfertheorien sowie die Poetik der Romantiker. (shrink)

An investigation of Benjamin’s conception of the subject as fractured via a reading of Benjamin’s use of Freud, this book engages Benjamin’s writing on sovereignty and myth in the Baroque and analyzes these themes in the context of Benjamin’s writing on the 19th century.

Though much progress has been made on inclusion of non-pregnant women in research, thoughtful discussion about including pregnant women has lagged behind. We outline resulting knowledge gaps and their costs and then highlight four reasons why ethically we are obliged to confront the challenges of including pregnant women in clinical research. These are: the need for effective treatment for women during pregnancy, fetal safety, harm from the reticence to prescribe potentially beneficial medication, and the broader issues of justice and access (...) to benefits of research participation. Going forward requires shifting the burden of justification from inclusion to exclusion and developing an adequate ethical framework that specifies suitable justifications for excluding pregnant women from research. (shrink)

To be a prisoner either in Plato's cave or in the Beast's castle is a form of existence no one would desire. And yet the story of Disney's Beauty and the Beast – in particular, the spell that imprisoned the Beast and his servants – is a tale as old as time. It is one's common human experience: one's recognition that he/she is shackled by ignorance and unfulfilled potential, and his/her desperate desire to escape. Unfortunately, however, breaking the chains and (...) ending the spell is no easy feat. For just as the Beast and his household companions represent a cave‐like imprisonment, Belle represents in her person the two ideals necessary to break the spell: love (which drew her to the castle to find her father) and beauty (which can compel the love of another). Love never happens without an encounter with beauty. (shrink)

While readers of Euripides' Hippolytus have long regarded Phaedra's deltos as a mechanism of punitive revenge, I argue here that the tablet models itself on a judicial curse (defixio) and that its main function is to ensure victory for Phaedra in the upcoming “trial” over her reputation. In support of my thesis I examine three interrelated phenomena: first, Hippolytus' infamous assertion that his tongue swore an oath while his mind remains unsworn (612); second, Phaedra's status as a biaiothanatos; and third, (...) Phaedra's claim that Hippolytus “will learn sophrosune” (731), a speech act that, I conclude, anticipates the silencing effect on Hippolytus of Phaedra's death and her writing. (shrink)

Reasoning well about risk is most challenging when a woman is pregnant, for patient and doctor alike. During pregnancy, we tend to note the risks of medical interventions without adequately noting those of failing to intervene, yet when it's time to give birth, interventions are seldom questioned, even when they don't work. Meanwhile, outside the clinic, advice given to pregnant women on how to stay healthy in everyday life can seem capricious and overly cautious. This kind of reasoning reflects fear, (...) not evidence. (shrink)

A long-standing puzzle for moral philosophers and psychologists alike is the concept of psychopathy, a personality disorder marked by tendencies to defy moral norms despite cognitive knowledge about right and wrong. Previously, discussions of the moral deficits of psychopathy have focused on willingness to harm and cheat others as well as reasoning about rule-based transgressions. Yet recent research in moral psychology has begun to more clearly define the domains of morality, en- compassing issues of harm, fairness, loyalty, authority, and spiritual (...) purity. Clinical descriptions and theories of psychopathy suggest that deficits may exist primarily in the areas of harm and fairness, although quantitative evidence is scarce. Within a broad sample of participants, we found that scores on a measure of psychopathy predicted sharply lower scores on the harm and fairness subscales of a measure of moral concern, but showed no relationship with authority, and very small relationships with ingroup and purity. On a measure of willingness to violate moral standards for money, psychopathy scores predicted greater willingness to violate moral concerns of any type. Results are further explored via potential mediators and analyses of the two factors of psychopathy. (shrink)

While it is widely assumed that greater diversity in corporate governance will enhance a firm’s corporate social performance, this study considers an alternative thesis which relates managerial control to corporate philanthropy. The study empirically evaluates both board diversity and managerial control of the board as possible predictors of corporate philanthropy. The demonstration of a positive relationship between managerial control and corporate philanthropy contributes to our understanding that corporate social performance results from a complex set of economic and social motives. Possible (...) future research and managerial implications are discussed. (shrink)

In its attempt to prove that voters, politicians, and bureaucrats are motivated by the public interest, Self-Interest and Public Interest in Western Politics overlooks a great deal of public-choice research, to which much has been added during the two decades since it was published. The importance of self-interest at both the micro and macro levels of politics becomes clear once one looks not simply at the “inputs” of a democracy but at its “outputs” as well. The prevalence of interest groups, (...) the dysfunction of the United States tax code, the lobbying by unions for their members’ self-interest, the earmarks in the Patriot Act, the numerous cases of corruption in Western democracies, and the dissatisfaction of citizens with their governments’ failings all point to the importance of self-interest in politics. (shrink)

While it is widely assumed that greater diversity in corporate governance will enhance a firm’s corporate social performance, this study considers an alternative thesis which relates managerial control to corporate philanthropy. The study empirically evaluates both board diversity and managerial control of the board as possible predictors of corporate philanthropy. The demonstration of a positive relationship between managerial control and corporate philanthropy contributes to our understanding that corporate social performance results from a complex set of economic and social motives. Possible (...) future research and managerial implications are discussed. (shrink)

The common discourse on intellectual property rights rests mainly on utilitarian ground, with implications on the question of justice as well as moral significance. It runs like this: Intellectual property rights are to reward the originators for his/her intellectual labour mainly in monetary terms, thereby providing incentives for originators to engage in future innovative labouring. Without such incentives, few, if not none, will engage in creative activities and the whole human community will, thereby, suffer because of reduced inventions. However, such (...) utilitarian argument on piracy as de-motivation may not be necessarily justified. In fact, intellectual property arrangement is one among different institutions concerning how the society may handle new ideas and creative works. In reality, private ownership over one's intellectual product is merely a modern western concept that is being ' advertised' as being normative, which, by itself, is highly debatable. Alarming still, such normative argument assumes both justness and moral dimensions. This article will analyse whether such argument is philosophically sound. (shrink)

"Examines Western culture's... alienation from nature by focusing on the relationship between people and salmon--weaving together key narratives about the Norwegian salmon industry as well as wild salmon in indigenous cultures of the Pacific Northwest"--Amazon.com.

Focusing on the problem of the Prime Matter in the Philoponus' Contra Proclum (Book XI), this study offers the first translation, in French, extensively annoted and commented in the context of the 'quaestio disputata' of the Neoplatonic ...

ArgumentIn 1877, a young mathematician named Joseph Boussinesq presented amémoireto theAcadémiedes sciences which demonstrated that some differential equations may have more than one solution. Boussinesq linked this fact to indeterminism and to a possible solution to the free will versus determinism debate. Boussinesq's main interest was to reconcile his philosophical and religious views with science by showing that matter and motion do not suffice to explain all there is in the world. His argument received mixed criticism that addressed both his (...) philosophical views and the scientific content of his work, pointing to the physical “realisticness” of multiple solutions. While Boussinesq proved to be able to face the philosophical criticism, the scientific objections became a serious problem, thus slowly moving the focus of the debate from the philosophical plane to the scientific one. This change of perspective implied a wide discussion on topics such as instability, the sensitivity to initial conditions, and the conservation of energy. The Boussinesq debate is an example of a philosophically motivated debate that transforms into a scientific one, an example of the influence of philosophy on the development of science. (shrink)

In recent years, critics of modern obstetrics have cited technology as responsible for women's discontent regarding childbirth. In this essay, I investigate and pry apart the connection between the quality of childbirth experience and technology. After identifying three factors considered constitutive of a ‘good birth,’ I demonstrate how technology can either facilitate or hinder each, but how dominant strains of birthing practice that reinforce female shame consistently undermine them all. It is not technology per se, but its sensitive application, which (...) may most effectively promote an optimal and affirming birth experience. (shrink)