This article aims to present a Žižekian reading of the British author David Herbert Lawrence. The contemporary continental philosopher has tackled each of the British author’s reoccurring themes individually and thus may be used as a keystone for a valid literary interpretatio n. The paper begins by shedding light on the representation of Western ideology, moves further into the comprehension of the impacts of modern cultural capital and the limitations of industrialization. While at the same time the (...) dissertation targets another component of the romantic poet’s many writings which are characterized by the regeneration of the subject’s carnal presence as a defense mechanism against the prevalent culture of de-humanization. The argument at hand is that the reconstruction of the bodily image rendered through Lawrence’s erotic literature is not one that portrays promiscuity, but rather demonstrates a transgression of the Lacanian symbolic and the attainment of a partial rendition of a Hegelian totality. Lawrence’s six novels and set of poems are thoroughly analyzed from a strictly Žižekian p erspective to demonstrate that th e two authors share thematic representations, a common worldview and propose a manifestation of how literary analyses may be conveyed using Žižek as a philosophical lens for literary interpretation. (shrink)

O’Donohue et al. sought to derive, from classical ethical theories, the ethical obligation of psychologists to assist “enhanced interrogations and torture” in national defense scenarios under strict EIT criteria. They asked the American Psychological Association to adopt an ethics code obligating psychologists to assist such EIT and to uphold the reputation of EIT psychologists. We contest the authors’ ethical analyses as supports for psychologists’ forays into torture interrogation when the EIT criteria obtain. We also contend that the authors’ application of (...) these ethical analyses violates the Geneva Conventions, contravenes military doctrine and operations, and undermines psychology as a profession. We conclude that “good” public reputation is not owed to, or expected by, “good” intelligence professionals, and collaborating operational psychologists must share their providence. (shrink)

In their recent paper ‘Why lockdown of the elderly is not ageist and why levelling down equality is wrong’ Savulescu and Cameron attempt to argue the case for subjecting the ‘elderly’ to limits not imposed on other generations. We argue that selective lockdown of the elderly is unnecessary and cruel, as well as discriminatory, and that this group may suffer more than others in similar circumstances. Further, it constitutes an unjustifiable deprivation of liberty.

The World Health Assembly adopted the new International Health Regulations on May 23, 2005. The new IHR represent the culmination of a decade-long revision process and an historic development for international law and public health. The new IHR appear at a moment when public health, security, and democracy have become intertwined, addressed at the highest levels of government. The United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan, for example, identified IHR revision as a priority for moving humanity toward “larger freedom.” This article analyzes (...) the new IHR and their implications for global health and security in the 21st century.The WHA instructed the WHO Director-General to revise the IHR in 1995 because the Regulations did not provide an effective framework for addressing the international spread of disease. Doubts about the IHR's effectiveness had, however, been present long before 1995. The critiques identified the narrow scope of the regulations, the lack of compliance by states, and the absence of a strategy for responding to rapid changes in public health's global economic and technological environments. (shrink)

The incident in May-June 2007 involving a U.S. citizen traveling internationally while infected with drug-resistant tuberculosis involved the U.S. federal government's application of its quarantine and isolation powers. The incident and the isolation order raised numerous important issues for public health governance, law, and ethics. This article explores many of these issues by examining how the exercise of quarantine powers provides a powerful lens through which to understand how societies respond to and attempt to govern threats posed by dangerous, contagious (...) pathogens. The article considers historical aspects of governmental power to quarantine and isolate individuals and groups; analyzes the current state of quarantine and isolation law in the United States in light of the recent incident with drug-resistant tuberculosis; and explores global aspects of public health governance and law highlighted by this incident. (shrink)

Dramatic events involving dangerous microbes often focus attention on isolation and quarantine as policy instruments. The incident in May-June 2007 involving Andrew Speaker and drug-resistant tuberculosis joins other communicable disease crises that have forced contemplation or actual application of quarantine powers. Implementation of quarantine powers, which encompasses authority for both isolation and quarantine actions, is important not only for the handling of a specific event but also because the use of such authority provides a window on broader issues of public (...) health and the legal rules, ethical principles, and governance systems that support it. Debates about quarantine powers reflect political and social attitudes about public health that often tell us more about this policy endeavor than acts of isolation and quarantine themselves. (shrink)

:Within the literature surrounding nonhuman animals on the one hand and cognitively disabled humans on the other, there is much discussion of where beings that do not satisfy the criteria for personhood fit in our moral deliberations. In the future, we may face a different but related problem: that we might create beings that not only satisfy but exceed these criteria. The question becomes whether these are minimal criteria, or hierarchical, such that those who fulfill them to greater degree should (...) be afforded greater consideration. This article questions the validity and necessity of drawing divisions among beings that satisfy the minimum requirements for personhood; considering how future beings—intelligent androids, synthezoids, even alternate-substrate sentiences—might fit alongside the “baseline” human. I ask whether these alternate beings ought to be considered different to us, and why this may or may not matter in terms of a notion of “human community.” The film Blade Runner, concerned in large part with humanity and its key synthezoid antagonist Roy Batty, forms a framing touchstone for my discussion. Batty is stronger, faster, more resilient, and more intelligent than Homo sapiens. His exploits, far beyond the capability of normal humans, are contrasted with his frailty and transient lifespan, his aesthetic appreciation of the sights he has seen, and his burgeoning empathy. Not for nothing does his creator within the mythos term him “more human than human.”. (shrink)

We consider the use ofevolving algebra methods of specifying grammars for natural languages. We are especially interested in distributed evolving algebras. We provide the motivation for doing this, and we give a reconstruction of some classic grammar formalisms in directly dynamic terms. Finally, we consider some technical questions arising from the use of direct dynamism in grammar formalisms.

We present a rendering of some common grammatical formalisms in terms of evolving algebras. Though our main concern in this paper is on constraint-based formalisms, we also discuss the more basic case of context-free grammars. Our aim throughout is to highlight the use of evolving algebras as a specification tool to obtain grammar formalisms.

Pancreatitis is a complex, progressively destructive inflammatory disorder. Alcohol was long thought to be the primary causative agent, but genetic contributions have been of interest since the discovery that rare PRSS1, CFTR and SPINK1 variants were associated with pancreatitis risk. We now report two associations at genome-wide significance identified and replicated at PRSS1-PRSS2 and X-linked CLDN2 through a two-stage genome-wide study. The PRSS1 variant likely affects disease susceptibility by altering expression of the primary trypsinogen gene. The CLDN2 risk allele is (...) associated with atypical localization of claudin-2 in pancreatic acinar cells. The homozygous CLDN2 genotype confers the greatest risk, and its alleles interact with alcohol consumption to amplify risk. These results could partially explain the high frequency of alcohol-related pancreatitis in men. © 2012 Nature America, Inc. All rights reserved. (shrink)

The adoption of the new International Health Regulations in May 2005 represents an historic development for international law and public health. This article describes the IHR revision process and analyzes why the new IHR constitute an advance in global health governance.

In this paper we look at the manual analysis of arguments and how this compares to the current state of automatic argument analysis. These considerations are used to develop a new approach combining a machine learning algorithm to extract propositions from text, with a topic model to determine argument structure. The results of this method are compared to a manual analysis.

Papers delivered at the joint meeting of the Hegel Society of America and the Hegel Society of Great Britain held at Merton College, Oxford, Sept. 1-4, 1981, to mark the 150th anniversary of Hegel's death. Includes bibliographical references and index.

How do attempts to foresee the future actually change it? For thousands of years, humans have called upon foresight to shape their own actions in order to adapt and survive; as Charles Darwin revealed in his theory of natural selection, the capacity to do just that is key to the origin of species. The uses of foresight, however, can also be applied to help us further our understanding across a variety of realms in everything from warfare, journalism and music, to (...) ancient civilizations, space weather and science. In a thought-provoking new addition to the Darwin College Lecture Series, eight distinguished authors each present an essay from their area of expertise devoted to the theme of 'foresight'. This provocative read reveals foresight as a process that can be identified across all areas of human endeavour, an art which can not only predict the future, but make it anything but inevitable. (shrink)

This article asks whether enhancement can truly lead to something beyond humanity, or whether it is, itself, an inherently human act. The ‘posthuman’ is an uncertain proposition. What, exactly, would one be? Many commentators suggest it to be an endpoint for the use of enhancement technologies, yet few choose to codify the term outright; which frequently leads to unnecessary confusion. Characterizing and contextualizing the term, particularly its more novel uses, is therefore a valuable enterprise. The abuse of the term ‘Human’, (...) especially in the context of the enhancement debate and the myriad meanings ascribed to it, could give ‘posthuman’ very different slants depending on one's assumptions. There are perhaps three main senses in which the term ‘human’ is employed: the biological, the moral, and the self-idealizing. In the first of these, ‘human’ is often conflated with Homo sapiens, and used interchangeably to denote species; in the second, ‘human’ generally refers to a community of beings which qualify as having a certain moral value; and the third, the self-idealizing sense, is more descriptive; a label denoting the qualities that make us who we are as beings, or ‘what matters about those who matter’. So, what might enhancement make us? A novel species or genus of hominid? Or, perhaps, a morally more valuable being than a regular human? Of course, there's a third option: that a posthuman is a being which embodies our self-ideal more successfully than we do ourselves – one ‘more human than human’. Which to choose? (shrink)

ABSTRACT The article reports on a survey of English primary school head teachers? opinions on disruptive behaviour, coupled with a one?day exercise in the monitoring of disruptive incidents in the same schools. Eighty?five highly experienced head teachers from 38 local education authorities responded to an extensive questionnaire and 77 schools monitored incidents. Schools were categorised by the LEAs as potentially ?difficult?, ?of average difficulty? and ?easy? in respect of intake. Thirty?six Principal Educational Psychologists contributed briefly on a question on age (...) of onset. Findings relate to (a) an examination of the question whether the age of onset of disruptive behaviour is getting earlier, (b) the differing perceptions of questions concerning disruptive behaviour of head teachers, in schools of varying potential difficulty of intake, and (c) the coping strategies used and favoured by head teachers in their work with disruptive behaviour. (shrink)

The use of theories of Sanskrit syntax by Utpaladeva and Abhinavagupta to explain the action of monistic Śaiva myth and ritual is examined. These thinkers develop a distinctive approach to syntax that reductionistically emphasizes the role of the true Self/Śiva as omnipotent agent, in opposition to the denigration of agency by the majority of Hindu as well as Buddhist philosophies. An analogy to the Indian discussions is seen in the typological effort of Kenneth Burke's "Grammar of Motives," and it is (...) suggested that indigenous theories of action syntax would be a useful focus for comparative research. (shrink)

Kierkegaard and Luther reveals what Kierkegaard lauded, lanced, missed, and misjudged of Luther and spotlights the concord the two actually shared, namely, the negative yet necessary role that Christian suffering (Anfechtung) plays in Christian life.