Man has the urge to thrust against the limits of language. Think for instance about one's astonishment that anything exists. This astonishment cannot be expressed in the form of a question and there is no answer to it. Anything we can say must, a priori, be nonsense.

It is well known that Augustine, Boethius, Anselm and Aquinas participated in a tradition of philosophical theology which determined God to be simple, perfect, immutable and timelessly eternal. Within the parameters of such an Hellenic understanding of the divine nature, they sought a clarification of one of the fundamental teachings of their Christian faith, the doctrine of the Trinity. These classical theists were not dogmatists, naively unreflective about the very possibility of their project. Aquinas, for instance, explicitly worried about and (...) fought to dispel the seeming contradiction between the philosophical requirement of divine simplicity and the creedal insistence on a threefold personhood in God. 1 Nevertheless, doubts abound. Philosophers otherwise friendly to Classical Theism still remain unsure about the coherence of affirming a God that is at once absolutely simple and triune. 2 A less friendly critic has even suggested that the theory of divine simplicity pressured Augustine and his medieval followers away from recognizing that real complexity within the life of God which Trinitarianism expresses. 3. (shrink)

Despite its importance, the linkage between genetic and cultural evolution has until now been little explored. An understanding of this linkage is needed to extend evolutionary theory so that it can deal for the first time with the phenomena of mind and human social history. We characterize the process of gene-culture coevolution, in which culture is shaped by biological imperatives while biological traits are simultaneously altered by genetic evolution in response to cultural history. A case is made from both theory (...) and evidence that genetic and cultural evolution are inseverable, and that the human mind has tended to evolve so as to bias individuals toward certain patterns of cognition and choice rather than others. With the aid of mathematical models we trace the coevolutionary circuit: The genes prescribe structure in developmental pathways that lay down endocrine and neural systems, imposing regularities in the development of cognition and behavior; these regularities translate upward into holistic patterns of culture, which can be predicted in the form of probability density distributions ; natural selection acts within human history to favor certain epigenetic rules over others; and the selection alters the frequencies of the underlying genes. The effects of genetic and cultural changes reverberate throughout the circuit and are consequently tested with the passage of each life cycle. In addition to modeling gene-culture coevolution, we apply methods from island biogeography and information theory to examine the cultural capacity of the genes, the factors determining the magnitude of cultural diversity, and the possible reasons for the uniqueness of the human achievement. (shrink)

Despite its importance, the linkage between genetic and cultural evolution has until now been little explored. An understanding of this linkage is needed to extend evolutionary theory so that it can deal for the first time with the phenomena of mind and human social history. We characterize the process of gene-culture coevolution, in which culture is shaped by biological imperatives while biological traits are simultaneously altered by genetic evolution in response to cultural history. A case is made from both theory (...) and evidence that genetic and cultural evolution are inseverable, and that the human mind has tended to evolve so as to bias individuals toward certain patterns of cognition and choice rather than others. With the aid of mathematical models we trace the coevolutionary circuit: The genes prescribe structure in developmental pathways that lay down endocrine and neural systems, imposing regularities in the development of cognition and behavior; these regularities translate upward into holistic patterns of culture, which can be predicted in the form of probability density distributions ; natural selection acts within human history to favor certain epigenetic rules over others; and the selection alters the frequencies of the underlying genes. The effects of genetic and cultural changes reverberate throughout the circuit and are consequently tested with the passage of each life cycle. In addition to modeling gene-culture coevolution, we apply methods from island biogeography and information theory to examine the cultural capacity of the genes, the factors determining the magnitude of cultural diversity, and the possible reasons for the uniqueness of the human achievement. (shrink)

In this essay, we defend the design of the Salk polio vaccine trial and try to put some limits on the role schemata should play in designing clinical research studies. Our presentation is structured as a response to de Freitas and Pietrobon who identified the CONSORT statement as a schema that would have, had it existed at the time, ruled out the design of the Salk polio vaccine trial of 1954 in favor of a completely randomized controlled clinical trial. We (...) argue that large-scale public health interventions often require evidence beyond simple efficacy, the limit of what an RCT can provide, and that the design actually adopted for the Salk trial represented a reasonable—albeit imperfect—compromise. This is of more than historical interest in that many contemporary studies are of the scale and scope to require a more pragmatic, rather than explanatory, approach to study design. (shrink)

Friendship, in its nature, purpose, and effects, has been an important concern of philosophy since antiquity. It was of particular significance in the life of Gilles Deleuze, one of the most original and influential philosophers of the late twentieth century. Taking L'Abécédaire de Gilles Deleuze -- an eight-hour video interview that was intended to be aired only after Deleuze's death -- as a key source, Charles J. Stivale examines the role of friendship as it appears in Deleuze's work and (...) life. Stivale develops a zigzag methodology practiced by Deleuze himself to explore several concepts as they relate to friendship and to discern how friendship shifts, slips, and creates movement between Deleuze and specific friends. The first section of this study discusses the elements of creativity, pedagogy, and literature that appear implicitly and explicitly in his work. The second section focuses on Deleuze's friendships with Foucault, Derrida, Claire Parnet, and Félix Guattari and reveals his conception of friendship as an ultimately impersonal form of intensity that goes beyond personal relationships. Stivale's analysis offers an intimate view into the thought of one of the greatest thinkers of our time. (shrink)

The purpose of this paper is to review the rising influence of commercialism in American medicine and to examine some of the consequences of this trend. Increased competition subverts physician collegiality, draws hospitals into for-profit ownership and behavior, and leads clinical investigators into secrecy and possibly into bias and abuse. Medicine faces a deprofessionalization evidenced in loss of control over the clinical setting and over self-regulation. Health care becomes a commodity relying on cultivation of desires instead of satisfaction of needs, (...) even as many basic needs go unmet. Patients become consumers empowered with lawsuits and the connection of medicine to the relief of suffering is attenuated. Medical encounters are increasingly impersonal, dominated by specialization, technology, and bureaucracy. Patients are losing their physician-advocates to new conflicts of interests, physicians are losing their impulse to charity, and trust in the doctor-patient relationship and in medicine generally is eroding. (shrink)

That dichotomization is, at least under certain circumstances, a bad idea is not news. A well-known, early example is the biblical story of King Solomon, who used the absurdity of the procedure to help adjudicate a dispute between two women who each claimed to be the mother of a contested child. Solomon reasoned that his proposal to split the child into two, giving half to each woman, would be abhorrent to the real mother, and when one of the women objected (...) while the other thought the proposal was "only fair," the choice between the women was made obvious.Things, however, are not always so clear-cut, and it is not difficult to find arguments that point to the advantages that accrue to those that simplify matters.... (shrink)

The Belmont Report’s distinction between research and the practice of accepted therapy has led various authors to suggest that these purportedly distinct activities should be governed by different ethical principles. We consider some of the ethical consequences of attempts to separate the two and conclude that separation fails along ontological, ethical, and epistemological dimensions. Clinical practice and clinical research, as with yin and yang, can be thought of as complementary forces interacting to form a dynamic system in which the whole (...) exceeds the sum of its parts. Just as effective clinical practice cannot exist without clinical research, meaningful clinical research requires the context of clinical practice. We defend this thesis by triangulation, that is, by outlining how multiple investigators have reached this conclusion on the basis of varied theoretical and applied approaches. More confidence can be placed in a result if different methods/viewpoints have led to that result. (shrink)

This volume sets Berkeley's philosophy in its historical context by providing selections from: firstly, works that deeply influenced Berkeley as he formed his main doctrines; secondly, works that illuminate the philosophical climate in which those doctrines were formed; and thirdly, works that display Berkeley's subsequent philosophical influence. The first category is represented by selections from Descartes, Malebranche, Bayle, and Locke; the second category includes extracts from such thinkers as Regius, Lanion, Arnauld, Lee, and Norris; while reactions to Berkeley, both positive (...) and negative, are drawn from a wide range of thinkers - Leibniz, Baxter, Hume, Diderot, Voltaire, Reid, Kant, Herder, and Mill. (shrink)

The land ethic of Aldo Leopold has increasingly received attention as an example of an environmental virtue ethic. However, an important remaining question is how to cultivate and transmit environmental virtues. The answer to this question can be found in the pursuit of wild leisure. The classical view of leisure primarily as articulated in Aristotle’s Politics provides a good starting point for an examination of wild leisure. Leopold thought wild leisure was important and associated it with his land ethic. Leopold’s (...) view of wild leisure focused on the role of perception in ecological education and the habituation of virtue. The classical virtue of moderation when habituated by wild leisure becomes the central virtue required by an ecological conscience. Wild leisure educates just those intellectual and scientific virtues necessary for refined perception and prudence. These virtues provide connections between good citizenship and land citizenship. (shrink)

Gilles Deleuze is now regarded as one of the most radical philosophers of the twentieth century. His work has become hugely influential across a range of subjects, from philosophy and literature to art, architecture and cultural studies. Gilles Deleuze: Key Concepts brings together leading specialists from a variety of disciplines to introduce the central concepts in the work of Deleuze. The short and accessible chapters in this book each focus on a single concept and show not only what the concept (...) is but what it does. The contributors consider how the concepts are engaged, intersect, link and how they may deviate from other areas of postmodern thought. The concepts Deleuze employs in his writings are key to understanding his philosophical approach: they work to unsettle particular bodies of knowledge, to open them up and to link them to other concepts within and outside that body of knowledge. Aimed at a readership new to Deleuze and from disciplines outside philosophy, Gilles Deleuze: Key Concepts offers an easy to access primer to reading Deleuze. (shrink)

It is perhaps most useful to approach the Doctor-Patient relationship (DPR) by admitting that it’s complicated. We review some of the strategies that have been employed to mitigate this complexity, zeroing in on one that promises to capture the main features of the DPR without eliminating some of its more important, existential components; pieces of the puzzle that must be retained if we are to avoid oversimplification and the errors that can arise by ignoring important foundational properties. We believe that (...) a useful way to look at the DPR and to capture essential features that must be balanced in the process is provided by Partnership Theory and its definition in terms of the so-called domination and partnership systems. We apply this theory to the DPR and investigate the implications of this application to health care. We see that in the absence of mitigating circumstances, adoption of the patient-as-partner model serves healthcare well and is flexible enough to accommodate circumstances that dictate modifications. (shrink)

The creative imagination changes itself and the world in ways we cannot anticipate. This restless creativity gathers not just refutable facts; it hunts self-transforming revelations, semiotic prizes acclaimed and defended in the realms of inner awareness and political power. So doing, it eludes final description in any one set of signs. This means, I argue here, that sign systems must themselves give chase. Texts of this kind will not be the fixed embalmed arrays of signs and symbols that have sustained (...) our civilizations to date. These texts will be a new kind of artificial life, creative agents that rewrite and re-express themselves on-the-fly, in ways unpredictable by their founding authors. The deconstructive turn in postmodern theory sought interpretive vistas and strange loops to be teased, once upon a time, from each embalmed text. Beyond postmodernity is an aesthetics and a critical theory of empowered texts — sign arrays never quite the same and that, like time itself, sit still for no one. After an initial push by us, they self-evolve. Human sociobiology, asking how culture rewrites the agenda of replicating genes, provides a first glimpse of this new adventure in semiotics and human self-discovery. (shrink)

Louis Frédéric Ancillon was a member of the Prussian Academy of Sciences and Belles Lettres whose imagined dialogue between Berkeley and Hume was read to the Academy in 1796 and published in 1799. It is important as an indicator of the reception of Hume and Berkeley in francophone philosophical circles in late eighteenth-century Prussia. Our introduction is followed by an English translation with notes.

Although Gilles Deleuze never wanted a film to be made about him, he agreed to Claire Parnet's proposal to film a series of conversations in which each letter of the alphabet would evoke a word: From A to Z. These DVDs, elegantly transtlated and subtitled in English, make these conversations available for English-speaking audiences? for the first time.In dialogue with Parnet, the philosopher exhibited the modest and thrilling transparency that his seminal works reveal. The sessions were taped when Deleuze was (...) already terminally ill; he and Parnet agreed that the film would not be shown publicly until after his death. The awareness of mortality floats through the dialogues, making them not just intellectually stimulating but also emotionally engaging. Because Parnet knew Deleuze so well, she was able to draw him out--as no one else had--to what might be the 1001st plateau: a place of brilliance, rigor, and charm.In "A as in Animal," for example, Deleuze vents his hatred of pets: "A bark," he declares, "really seems to me the stupidest cry." Instead, he praises the tick: "... in a nature teeming with life, [the tick] extracts three things": light, smell, and touch. This, he claims, in a sense is philosophy. "And that is your life's dream?" Parnet wryly asks. "That's what constitutes a world," he replies. For Deleuze, doing philosophy meant not just creating concepts but living a life in philosophy. Gilles Deleuze from A to Z presents the mind of a great philosopher at work. (shrink)

The second volume of companion books on comparative student discipline identifies the best practices in dealing with student misconduct, on six continents, in a legally sound manner.

Aristotle assesses as valid three first figure syllogisms, each of which contains at least one premiss expressing a de re contingency. In fact, all three of these moods (namely, Barbara-QQQ, Barbara-XQM, and Barbara-LQM) are invalid. Utilizing the concept of ampliation, this paper shows how the mood Barbara-QQQ must be refined if it is to be deemed valid. It can then become clear as to how Barbara-XQM and Barbara-LQM can be disambiguated and ultimately validated. In treating all three moods, some theses (...) from S4 will be exploited in the context of distinguishing de dicto and de re modes of attributing possibility and necessity. Various Aristotelian propositional forms and rules of inference, including argumentation by ecthesis, will shape the presentation. The viability of Aristotle’s views on the convertibility of universal negative apodeictic propositions will emerge as decisive in evaluating the success of his modal syllogistic. (shrink)

The Standards of Ethical Conduct for Management Accountants (Statement 1C) promulgated by the National Association of Accountants on June 1, 1983, are described and critiqued in this article. Four major issues related to the issuance of the standards are discussed: (1) What are the basic requirements of any ethical system? Does Statement IC meet these requirements? (2) Should a professional be ethical? (3) If ethical behavior is desirable for management accountants, should such standards be formally expressed in writing? (4) If (...) the standards are expressed in writing, what format should be adopted for the content and how should the standards be expressed? (shrink)

In a society that is increasingly reliant on complex technologies, there are vital interests at stake in the ethics education of technical professionals. To promote professional behavior that will enhance the long-term well-being of all citizens and their environment, ethics education should be free of industry bias and use resources developed by independent academic and professional organizations. Recently, however, corporations have attempted to involve themselves in engineering ethics education (through the American Society of Engineering Education) as a spinoff of their (...) n-house employee ethics training. This article examines the “industry perspective” on ethics education offered by Boeing and Lockheed-Martin Corporations and reviews Lockheed-Martin’s “Ethics Challenge” game. The aerospace industry’s narrow focus on employee workplace behavior overlooks larger public-interest concerns. Engineering ethics education must include developing ethical awareness and a sense of social responsibility. (shrink)