In his well-known paper on Euclid’s geometry, Ken Manders sketches an argument against conceiving the diagrams of the Elements in ‘semantic’ terms, that is, against treating them as representations—resting his case on Euclid’s striking use of ‘impossible’ diagrams in some proofs by contradiction. This paper spells out, clarifies and assesses Manders’s argument, showing that it only succeeds against a particular semantic view of diagrams and can be evaded by adopting others, but arguing that Manders nevertheless makes a compelling case that (...) semantic analyses ought to be relegated to a secondary role for the study of mathematical practices. (shrink)

I develop an account of how mathematized theories in physics represent physical systems, in response to the frequent claim that any such account must presuppose a non-mathematized, and usually linguistic, description of the system represented. The account I develop contains a circularity, in that representation is a mathematical relation between the models of a theory and the system as represented by some other model --- but I argue that this circularity is not vicious, in any case refers in linguistic accounts (...) of meaning and representation, and is simply a consequence of the fact that we have no unmediated, representation-independent access to the world. (shrink)

Doctors’ strikes are legally permissible in the UK, with the situation differing in other countries. But are they morally permissible? Doug McConnell and Darren Mann have systematically attempted to dismiss the arguments for the moral impermissibility of doctors’ strikes and creatively attempted to provide further moral justification for them. Unfortunately for striking doctors, they fail to achieve this. Meanwhile, junior doctors’ strikes have continued in the UK through 2023 and have now extended into 2024. In this response, which focuses on (...) the UK situation and specifically junior doctors’ strikes in the National Health Service (NHS) in England, I will demonstrate a central problem with their arguments—namely that they underplay the harms caused by prolonged doctors’ strikes by ignoring the harms to patients with cancer. This weakens their conclusion that strikes are morally permissible in terms of the conditions and thresholds they set. I then provide a psychological critique of their justification for strikes in terms of the interests of the public. It follows that invoking the controversial concept of supererogatory action is ungrounded but also absurd when you consider time-critical cancer care. If those representing striking doctors wish to maintain a modicum of moral respectability, they should mitigate for patients with cancer and negotiate reasonably and with urgency. (shrink)

Ursula K. Le Guin’s classic work of anarchist literature, _The Dispossessed_ (1974), is preoccupied with the issue of imprisonment. This is hardly surprising given anarchism’s longstanding critical engagement with the prison as state apparatus. For classical anarchists, the prison represents one of the most vile and visible examples of state repression. However, while the abolition of prisons constitutes one of the fundamental goals of anarchism, the alternatives put forth by classical anarchist thinkers risk perpetuating the underlying power relations of carceral (...) justice by encouraging social shaming and the policing of norms. The anarchist society of _The Dispossessed_ uses these techniques to discourage the accumulation of power in order to create an egalitarian society. Unfortunately, these same techniques encourage a conformity that hinders other anarchist values, such as creativity and individual self-determination. In essence, the anarchist society depicted in the novel replaces the literal prison with a different form of imprisonment—the social prison, which continues the repressive function of the state through different means. By creating an “ambiguous” anarchist utopia, Le Guin anticipates the critiques of classical anarchism formulated by poststructural and postmodern anarchist theorists. These critiques are most evident in the theme of imprisonment that threads throughout the novel. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Abnegation as Key to Providence:Six Spiritual Theologians on ProvidenceDavid W. FagerbergIf a contest were held for the most difficult doctrine, I suppose it would be a toss-up between Trinity, Incarnation, and transubstantiation. But if the contest were over the most awkward doctrine, I predict that providence would take the prize. We believe it; we want to believe it; we find it difficult to believe it. In the continuing friction (...) between Christian faith and a modern worldview, the rivalry seems sharpest between providence and modernity's footings in secularity (no divine reality), autonomy (no divine interference), and chance (no divine steering).Several reactions might follow. One might ignore the issue; one might house the viewpoints in two heterogeneous spheres; one could believe the one but live under the regulation of the other; perhaps one would call in philosophy to conduct a workaround by metaphysics, or linguistic analysis of determinism and freedom. I do not propose to follow any of these paths, but to rather turn to a different resource, namely, consult some classic Catholic spiritual writers to examine how they treat the doctrine of providence. They believed it; they wanted to believe it; they found less difficulty in believing it than we do. In fact, they seem to find joy in the doctrine of providence. My suspicion as to why this is so is because they place the difficulty of believing providence in the heart, and not in the head, and so attunement to providence is less an intellectual struggle and more an interior accomplishment. They gazed fixedly at what God wants for the soul. Most of the actions taken by a parent might be misunderstood by the child if the child does not know the actions were designed to encourage and support coming to maturity. [End Page 343] Most of the actions taken by God might be misunderstood by the soul if the soul does not believe these graces were designed to bring about deification. Providence is the execution of God's design for the perfection of a human being as a mystical liturgist living in union with him.I have recently been researching a cast of characters I have been calling "theologians of liturgical abnegation," for whom providence is undergirded by an act of liturgical abnegation.1 Although all speak of providence, six of these authors have given significant attention to the doctrine of providence, either in a separate monograph or in large portions of their corpus, and for an understanding of providence I propose to listen to these spiritual writers instead of to the philosophers. Providence is being "abyssed" in love (de Sales), and it requires particular and personal faith (Grou), which means we do not choose our own crosses (Fénelon), but instead make trustful surrender (Saint-Jure and de la Colombière) because we prefer God's will to our own (de Caussade).Francis de Sales—Being Abyssed in Love"It is our duty to adore this amiable Providence, by casting ourselves into its arms."2 We cannot worship God as God without acknowledging his providence. The obligation to daily liturgize God with adoration, glory, and thanksgiving requires delight in his daily providence, but such acknowledgment is not primarily a rational act, it is an act of liturgical abnegation that consists of casting ourselves into God's arms in a way that will contribute to his greater glory. Even sorrow, trial, and tempest can contribute to God's glory. "I am expecting a great tempest to burst over me, but I await it joyously; and looking to the Providence of God, I hope that this will conduce to His greater glory, and the more perfect repose of my soul."3 Providence operates differently in each life because God desires a different measure of [End Page 344] glory from each life. If we are confused about providence's work in a life, it is because we are ignorant of the glory to which each life will contribute. Our life-liturgies will not be the same, but they will each delight God, who is their source. "Every one will see and love him, according to the particular measure of glory which the divine Providence... (shrink)

This issue covers a topic widely being discussed at Ethics Committee meetings around the country, namely the line between life and death in organ procurement. While the debate over whether and when...

S’il fallait encore une occasion pour rendre à Jean-Luc Nancy l’hommage qu’on lui doit ici dans sa Wahlheimat et dans les – dans ses – Cahiers philosophiques de Strasbourg, on pourrait dire que ce volume répond à une apparition et à une disparition dont Nancy est à l’origine : d’une part, au trentième anniversaire de la parution du premier numéro des Cahiers créés par Jean-Luc Nancy et Philippe Lacoue-Labarthe en 1994 ; d’autre part, à la disparition de Jean-Luc Nancy, qui (...) nous a quitté en 20... (shrink)

Rethinking the powers of the imagination, Søren Kierkegaard both anticipates and challenges contemporary approaches to a descriptive philosophy of religion. In contrast to the reigning approaches to religion in his day, Kierkegaard reconceives philosophy as, first of all, descriptive of human, including specifically ethical and religious, existence. To this end, he develops conceptual tools, including a descriptive ontology of human existence, a “pluralist epistemology” exploring both cognitive and passional dimensions of religion, and a role for the poetic in philosophy, strikingly (...) expressed in his observer figures who “imaginatively construct” “thought projects” to explore human existence. While this new descriptive account anticipates subsequent approaches to the philosophy of religion, it could be interpreted as another “objectivist” endeavor, yet Kierkegaard attempts more in this descriptive philosophy. He imaginatively deploys conceptual and rhetorical strategies maieutically to both describe and elicit self-reflection aimed at transformation, thus expanding the imagination’s uses for his readers. Comparing Kierkegaard to Pierre Hadot’s recovery of ancient Greek philosophy as “a way of life” will show how Kierkegaard also engages the particularity of “the Christian principle”, with implications for how philosophy can both describe and elicit the pathos of other religious traditions as well. (shrink)

The notion of sound symbolism receives increasing interest in psycholinguistics. Recent research – including empirical effects of affective phonological iconicity on language processing (Adelman et al., 2018; Conrad et al., 2022) – suggested language codes affective meaning at a basic phonological level using specific phonemes as sublexical markers of emotion. Here, in a series of 8 rating-experiments, we investigate the sensitivity of language users to assumed affectively-iconic systematic distribution patterns of phonemes across the German vocabulary:After computing sublexical-affective-values (SAV) concerning valence (...) and arousal for the entire German phoneme inventory according to occurrences of syllabic onsets, nuclei and codas in a large-scale affective normative lexical database, we constructed pseudoword material differing in SAV to test for subjective affective impressions.Results support affective iconicity as affective ratings mirrored sound-to-meaning correspondences in the lexical database. Varying SAV of otherwise semantically meaningless pseudowords altered affective impressions: Higher arousal was consistently assigned to pseudowords made of syllabic constituents more often used in high-arousal words – contrasted by less straightforward effects of valence SAV. Further disentangling specific differential effects of the two highly-related affective dimensions valence and arousal, our data clearly suggest arousal, rather than valence, as the relevant dimension driving affective iconicity effects. (shrink)

De Neys argues against assigning exclusive capacities to automatic versus controlled processes. The dual implicit process model provides a theoretical rationale for the exclusivity of automatic threat processing, and corresponding data provide empirical evidence of such exclusivity. De Neys's dismissal of exclusivity is premature and based on a limited sampling of psychological research.

A monosexual configuration of sexuality assumes that sexual desire is directed at either men or women. Bisexuality resists a choice between oppositional categories and is often theorised as having a transgressive potential to destabilise binary logic, not only in relation to sexuality but also to gender. There is, however, a lack of empirical work exploring how this potential might be realised in the accounts of bisexual individuals. Drawing on interviews with South African bisexual women, we use a narrative-discursive lens to (...) examine the discursive resources employed by participants to trouble or resist hetero-gendered norms. Our findings demonstrate how resistance to the gender binary hinges on citational politics that are fundamentally gendered and linked to sexuality. Instead of entirely destabilising hetero-gendered norms, participants draw on gendered scripts that simultaneously expand norms to accommodate their sexual difference and, through processes of othering, function to reiterate hetero-gendered norms. While complete subversion of gender binaries is not possible in participants’ discursive contexts, what does occur is a ‘slow bending’ of norms. Theorising bisexuality as transgressing oppositional categories closes off opportunities to interrogate the pervasive influence of gender binaries in contexts that remain marked by pervasive heteronormativity and heterosexism. Significantly, it also obscures more modest improvisations of gender scripts that hold potential for destabilising gender binaries. (shrink)

We distinguish between different problems of “aboutness”: the “hard” problem of explaining the everyday phenomenon of intentionality and three less challenging “easy” sets of problems concerning the posits of folk psychology, the notions of representation invoked in the mind‐brain sciences, and the intensionality (with an “s”) of mental language. The problem of intentionality is especially hard in that, as is the case with the hard problem of phenomenal consciousness, there is no clear path to a solution using current methods. We (...) argue that naturalistic theories of mental representation do not address the hard problem—either they are only intended to address the easy problems, or the claims they make help address the problem of intentionality only under undefended and prima facie implausible assumptions to the effect that the hard problem reduces to some combination of the easy problems. We offer a positive account of what would be required to properly face up to the problem of intentionality. (shrink)

This paper proposes a five-part empirical typology of interconnections of race and class. We describe the mechanisms whereby (1) race is a form of class relation; (2) race relations and class relations reciprocally affect each other; (3) race acts as a sorting mechanism into class locations; (4) race acts as a mediating linkage to class locations; and (5) race interacts with class in determining other outcomes. Rather than insisting on one or another mechanism as the overarching framework for conceptualising the (...) interconnections between race and class, we propose a theoretical integration of all five within a functionalist model. The model reconciles the empirical effects of race variables with a class-functionalist explanation of race. Our typology of interconnections is useful for situating concrete empirical phenomena, and our theoretical integration of those interconnections offers a coherent explanatory system that captures the recursive causality of race and class. (shrink)

Interviews with David Benatar and Thaddeus Metz about some core aspects of their views about meaning in life, including debate between them. Accessible to a generally educated audience. Edited by Mark Oppenheimer and Jason Werbeloff.

W. David Solomon sits at the very center of the revival of virtue ethics. Solomon's work extended what began with the publication of G. E. M. Anscombe's "Modern Moral Philosophy" (1958) by solidifying virtue ethics as a viable approach within contemporary moral philosophy. Beyond the Self: Virtue Ethics and the Problem of Culture comprises twelve chapters: eleven that employ Solomon's work and legacy, followed by a twelfth concluding chapter by Solomon himself. Each chapter deepens and develops virtue ethics as (...) a rich intellectual tradition rooted in Aristotle and Thomas Aquinas. Editor Raymond Hain divides the volume into three sections. The first addresses the historical contexts of happiness, justice, and mercy in the tradition of Aristotle and Thomas Aquinas. The second turns to recent themes in normative ethics, focusing on topics such as morality, virtue, and egoism. The third discusses broader ethical issues with significant cultural implications, such as human dignity, physician-assisted suicide, and secularization. Beyond the Self uncovers the shortcomings of contemporary moral philosophy and the depth and capacity of the Aristotelian and Thomistic traditions, reminding the reader that classical virtue ethics remains the most promising framework for understanding the moral life. Contributors include: Michael Beaty, Kevin L. Flannery, Raymond Hain, John Haldane, Thomas Hibbs, Irfan Khawaja, Alasdair MacIntyre, John O'Callaghan, Bryan C. Pilkington, W. David Solomon, Christopher Toner, and Candace Vogler. (shrink)

O presente artigo busca compreender o conceito de corpo em Henry David Thoreau. Para isso, o texto se divide em três momentos: o primeiro, que tem por objetivo expor como se entende, inicialmente, o corpo como um dualismo preso entre as experiências do civilizatório e o selvagem; o segundo, que parte de uma compreensão desde a experiência dos rios para expor uma corporalidade líquida como ponto conhecimento e de relação com o mundo; e, finalmente, o terceiro expõe a filosofia (...) thoreauviana do caminho como uma maneira de compreender o corpo desde o terreno e, por sua vez, como devir. Tudo isso a partir de uma interpretação filosófica que permite compreender a corporalidade em Thoreau como uma possibilidade experiencial capaz de produzir pensamento a partir de uma mística com a natureza; ou seja, no autor há uma filosofia que compreende o estar-no-mundo como uma experiência intimamente ligada com a natureza. (shrink)

Oftentimes, we have been informed that democracy is the best form of government possible. In African politics, this view has mostly been adopted and pursued as true. Surprisingly, democracy has mostly failed as a system in most parts of the continent—with most democratic governments undermining the mandates of the citizens who are supposed to have placed them in power, and also escalating the already spiralling decline of the continent through bad leadership and corruption. In this article, and with Nigeria as (...) the primary case study, I offer explanations regarding why democracy fails in most African countries. Specifically, I argue that mass miseducation and false self‐interestedness are the main culprits that limit the success of democracy in Africa. I further propose that democracy in Africa can only be salvaged when there is proper moral ideology guiding the informal education of citizens, when citizens are offered proper quality formal education that would grant them the necessary skills and aid them to make informed decisions, and when citizens take a turn from false self‐interestedness to true self‐interestedness (which is fealty to collective interests). (shrink)

I argue that the adjective δαιμόνιος (‘daemonic’) and the substantivized adjective τὸ δαιμόνιον (‘the daemonic’) that occur in Aristotle’s dream treatises basically mean ‘divine-like,’ denoting an illusory appearance of divine intervention, typically in the form of an alleged god-sent prophetic dream. Yet the appearances to which the terms refer are, in fact, neither divine nor supernatural at all, but involve merely coincidental correlations between the dream and the fulfilling event. It is shown that Aristotle’s use of ‘daemonic’ is traditional and (...) reflects the endoxon that prophetic dreams are closely related to the divine. The paper also examines a set of earlier readings of the daemonic in De divinatione in relation to the proposed interpretation. (shrink)

Arguments concerning divine conservation and concurrence often assume that actions of certain descriptions would be superfluous if God were to perform them, and it is then concluded that God does not perform such actions. In particular, it often seems that atomic actions cannot be the result of cooperative activity between God and creatures since there is no apparent way to divide the labor between the two. However, the actions that are atomic in one model of divine action may not be (...) atomic on another. On fine-grained models there may be unexpected prospects for nonredundant divine action. (shrink)

A collection of 14 essays honoring the life and work of Oxford philosopher Wiggins touching on topics from ancient philosophy to ethics, metaphysics and the theory of meaning. The contributing scholars debate many of the seminal issues of Wiggins' work, including the determinancy of distinctness, relative identity, naturalism in ethics, logic and truth in moral judgments, and the practical wisdom of Aristotle. The collection uniquely features replies by Wiggins to each of the papers. Annotation copyright by Book News, Inc., Portland, (...) OR. (shrink)

Dentro del espíritu del pensamiento de Walter Benjamin, quien vio en las pequeñas cosas grandes síntomas de la modernidad industrial, este texto se aproxima al reguetón para comprender algunas contradicciones características del presente. Una estética de la saturación, una poética de la apropiación y la alteración de la voz por el uso del Auto-Tune son rasgos definitivos para comprender los motivos por los cuales este género musical moviliza multitudes, tanto como es objeto de rechazos enfurecidos en el contexto de las (...) actuales sociedades digitales. (shrink)

The Dimensions of Spirituality Inventory (DSI) is a 50-item quantitative assessment of spirituality. Whereas “spirituality” has seemed to some to be too vague for research purposes, the DSI follows earlier qualitative research in showing that usage of the word points to an intelligible conceptual structure. Instead of defining spirituality and then operationalizing it, as most extant instruments do, the DSI defines and operationalizes 21 relatively uncontroversial elemental components of spirituality, so the overall interpretation of spirituality can only emerge after factor (...) analysis. Just as an alphabet flexibly expresses words and sentences, so the 21 DSI dimensions permit the discovery of latent constructs corresponding to cultural packages of spirituality at the present time. The DSI avoids culturally parochial formulations of items, thanks to intense multidisciplinary engagement among social scientists, scholars of religion, and psychologists of religion, and thus is suitable for cross-cultural application. This paper reports on a study based on a participant pool recruited for ExploringMyReligion.org, in part from Prolific (N = 820, after culling unreliable responses). The DSI is interpreted and validated in relation to several other relevant measures, and the factor analysis is strongly resonant with prior qualitative studies. The psychometric properties of the DSI make it usable as an overall spirituality scale as well as a sensitive inventory of types and configurations of spirituality. (shrink)

This article discusses the fortune of Geoffrey de Ste. Croix’s famous article ‘The Character of the Athenian Empire’, and reassesses its basic thesis that the Athenian Empire was popular among the lower classes of the allied cities in the light of recent developments in the field. After surveying the article’s immediate and more recent reception, and discussing its relation with The Origins of the Peloponnesian War and The Class Struggle in the Ancient Greek World, it isolates four key new trends (...) in Greek history that, while going against some of Ste. Croix’s basic convictions, end up reinforcing his overall case. These are: a renewed attention to the mass and elite dichotomy, with recent work interpreting Greek oligarchy as a fundamentally reactive and anti-demotic regime; the recognition of the continued relevance of Persian meddling in the later fifth-century; a sea-change in Attic epigraphy which has led to the post-dating of several ‘imperial’ decrees; the new recognition of the dynamism of the Greek economy, and of the economic function of the Athenian Empire itself. Finally, the article addresses the paradigm of class struggle and stresses how democracy and economic dynamism, to which the Athenian Empire contributed, fostered the growth of slave markets and worsened the exploitation of ‘marginal’ regions as slave suppliers. (shrink)

A stellar group of philosophers offer new works on themes from the great philosophy of Wittgenstein, honoring one of his most eminent interpreters David Pears. This collection covers both the early and the later work of Wittgenstein, relating it to current debates in philosophy. Topics discussed include solipsism, ostension, rules, necessity, privacy, and consciousness.

Despite the salient experience of encoding threatening events, these memories are prone to distortions and often non-veridical from encoding to recall. Further, threat has been shown to preferentially disrupt the binding of event details and enhance goal-relevant information. While extensive work has characterised distinctive features of emotional memory, research has not fully explored the influence threat has on temporal memory, a process putatively supported by the binding of event details into a temporal context. Two primary competing hypotheses have been proposed; (...) that threat can impair or enhance temporal memory. We analysed two datasets to assess temporal memory for an in-person haunted house experience. In study 1, we examined the temporal structure of memory by characterising memory contiguity in free recall as a function of individual levels of heart rate as a proxy of threat. In study 2, we replicated marginal findings of threat-related increases in memory contiguity found in study 1. We extended these findings by showing threat-related increases in recency discriminations, an explicit test of temporal memory. Together, these findings demonstrate that threat enhances temporal memory regarding free recall structure and during explicit memory judgments. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:AQUINAS ON THE IMMATERIALITY OF THE INTELLECT DAVID RUEL FOSTER Seton Hall University South Orange, New Jersey I. A Controversial Question? HE QUESTION of the immateriailiity of the intelloot s,an important part of the wider question about the nau11e of the soul. The axgiumen'ts for the immaiteriality of rthe intellect a11e particularly important to Thomas's thought because they undergil1d his argument for the incorruptibility of the soul; the (...) incorruptibiility of the soul, in turn, leads towards the dootrine of the immortaility of the soruJ, a tenet of faith which Thoma.s wants to explain and deifend.1 This article will present Thomas's two most prominent arguments for the immateriality of the intieliteot and critique the first iin light of rthe seoond.2 Whether,the principle of int~Uectual ilife must, by the very 1.Arguments for the immateriality of the intellect do not necessarily appear in articles on the incorruptibility of the soul but are always presupposed by them in Thomas. For example, in Summa theologiae I, q. 75, a. 6, "Whether the human soul is incorruptible?" (" Utrum anima humana sit corruptibilis "), Thomas supports the crucial premise in his argument by referring to the,arguments for the immateriality of the intellect in articles 2 and 5 (" Utrum anima humana sit aliquid subsistens? "; "Utrum anima sit composita ex materia et forma?" Summa theologiae I, q. 75, aa. 2 and 5). 2 Five important instances of the arguments are as follows: In Sententias II, d. 19, q. 1, a. l; Summa contra gentiles II, chapters 49-50; Summa theologiae I, q. 75, aa. 2 and 5; Quaestiones Dis-putatae De anima a. 14; Oompendium theologiae, De fide, chapters 79 and 84. This chronological ordering is based on Weisheipl's catalogue in Friar Thomas D'A.quino, pp. 355-406; and Eschmann's, A Catalogue of St. Thomas's Work, in Gilson's, The Christian Philosophy of St. Thomas Aquinas, pp. 381-439. The dating of the Compendium theologiae is the most problematic. 415 416 DAVID RUEL FOSTER natUJ.1e of its.act, be immaterial is a particularly controrverted question today. Many corutempo~ary thinkers helie¥e that human understanding can be ex:pfained in strictly physical terms. ':Chis was not the case in Thomas's day, and it is important to takie notre of this. Thomas W1as noit foroed by any opponent to sharpen his arguments for the imma.teriality of the inteHect. The major Islamic philosophers, ailithough they disagreed among themselves about aspects of the inbe1iJiect's nature (e.g., the plaice and ro[e of the agent intellect)' md agree thait the intellectual soul was immaterial. Plato and Aristotle, according.to Thomas, agreed on this f.undamental point. In fact, although there were post-Socratic materialists,3 Thoma;s usuru1Jy goes ha;ek to the Pre-Socratics in order rto give an example of someone who taJUght that the inte!IJiectual :act. depends entirely on physicrul principles. Perhaps it is better to s1ay that, because the doctrine of runiversal hylomorphism was so widely accepted in his time, Thomas was not challenged regarding the incorporeality of the intellect. Many of Thoma:s's contemporaries, foililowing the tewching of Awoobroin, held that the intellectuaJ. souil was composed of spiritua.l matter.and the appropriate form,4 hut this was not in opposition to Thomas's arguments for the immateriality of the intellect. II. The Two Most Prominent Arguments A. Type I The first argument (hereaf·ter caUed Type 1) proceeds from the intellect's potential to know all corporeal things. It is justifiably described as Thomas's preferred argument,5 for s For example, the Epicureans. 4 J. Weisheipl, "Albertus Magnus and Universal Hylomorphism: Avicebron," in Albert the priam rationem formalem, which is :to grasp the essence of the obj,oot. Then Thom!lis draws his conclusion " therefore,... the inte!llecrbuaJ soul itse[f is an absolute form." The conclusion that the irntellect's mode of being is immaterial, a " form without matter," follows from the premises: majorr premise, the objeclt is,in the knower in an ahso1uite way, i.e., without matter; minor premise, the object is received in the knower.ruooording to rthe mode of he... (shrink)

Research has suggested an increase in loneliness during the COVID-19 pandemic, but much of this work has been cross-sectional, making causal inferences difficult. In the present research, we employed a longitudinal design to identify loneliness trajectories within a period of twelve months during the COVID-19 pandemic in Belgium (N = 2106). We were particularly interested in the potential protective role of self-compassion in these temporal dynamics. Using a group-based trajectory modelling approach, we identified trajectory groups of individuals following low (11.0%), (...) moderate-low (22.4%), moderate (25.7%), moderate-high (31.3%), and high (9.6%) levels of loneliness. Findings indicated that younger people, women, and individuals with poor quality relationships, high levels of health anxiety, and stress related to COVID-19, all had a higher probability of belonging to the highest loneliness trajectory groups. Importantly, we also found that people high in two of the three facets of self-compassion (self-kindness and common humanity) had a lower probability of belonging to the highest loneliness trajectory groups. Ultimately, we demonstrated that trajectory groups reflecting higher levels of loneliness were associated with lower life satisfaction and greater depressive symptoms. We discuss the possibility that increasing self-compassion may be used to promote better mental health in similarly challenging situations. (shrink)

Essays from the cutting edge of psychedelic research, from Breaking Convention 2017.

In Olivi´s division of the sciences, which can be found in his treatise De perlegendis philosophorum libris, c. 9, there seems to be a twofold place for metaphysics: one as part of the theoretical sciences and another as part of the practical, alongside medicine and ethics. This view is based on a misreading of the manuscripts. For the second appearance of metaphysics one should read “mechanica” instead. Thus, this paper shows that the thesis of an unconventional approach to metaphysics in (...) Olivi cannot be sustained by De perlegendis philosophorum libris. (shrink)

In this article, I aim to demonstrate that in Die Bedeutung der Tragödien Friedrich Hölderlin (1770-1843) takes distance from the Aristotelian interpretation of Tragedy. In this fragment, the poet suggests this literary genre should be understood on the bases of the notion of paradox and on how this concept relates to the tragic hero. In order to prove this, I first clarify what the German poet means when he proposes paradox as the easiest way to understand Tragedy. Second, I highlight (...) the correlations between the assertions of this text and Hölderlin’s former stances about Tragedy in the Grund zum Empedokles, the Anmerkungen zum Oedipus and the Anmerkungen zur Antigonä. Finally, I argue that the approach regarding paradox is evidence of the distance Hölderlin took from the Aristotelian definition of Tragedy as mimesis of an action. (shrink)

This study aimed to explore stakeholders’ perspectives on the ethical considerations for returning individual pharmacogenomics research results to people living with HIV. A qualitative approach to investigation involved five focus group discussions with 30 Community representatives, 12 key informant interviews with researchers, and 12 in-depth interviews with research ethics committee members. In total, 54 stakeholders who were involved in pharmacogenomics research and HIV treatment and care contributed to the data collection between September 2021 and February 2022. The study explored five (...) prominent themes: (i) defining the nature of research results to return to participants; (ii) preparing research participants to receive their results; (iii) obtaining informed consent for the return of results; (iv) opinions on health personnel to return the results to participants; and (v) opinions on how research results should be communicated to participants. Respondents identified various strategies for the return of individual results with minimal ethical risks including the setting up of a diverse and independent committee to undertake a risk-benefit assessment based on local context; ongoing discussions about the possible kinds of results and their implications throughout the study; and employing genetic counsellors to communicate results to participants. The strategies identified in this study should be further studied and independently verified. (shrink)

Hobbes makes a new interpretation about politics backgrounded in full materialistic conception. His materialistic ontology denies the separate essences from the traditional metaphysics and denies the Aristotelian idea of politics as essential nature of humanity. Unlike this view, Hobbes shows that the politics is created by human beings from the power fight and power is a way of satisfying the human desires by synthetized objects and relations. In this way, politics aims to satisfy concrete human needs and the power itself, (...) before being political, is an expression from human activity. Besides, politics exists only while it can keep effective protection for citizens, because its existence depends on its material effectivity. (shrink)

A sustainable supply chain management strategy reduces risks and meets environmental, economic and social objectives by integrating environmental and financial practices. In an ever-changing environment, supply chains have become vulnerable at many levels. In a global supply chain, carefully tracing a product is of great importance to avoid future problems. This paper describes a self-updating smart contract, which includes data validation, for tracing global supply chains using blockchains. Our proposal uses a machine learning model to detect anomalies on traceable data, (...) which helps supply chain operators detect anomalous behavior at any point in the chain in real time. Hyperledger Caliper has been used to evaluate our proposal, and obtained a combined average throughput of 184 transactions per second and an average latency of 0.41 seconds, ensuring that our proposal does not negatively impact supply chain processes while improving supply chain management through data anomaly detection. (shrink)

This intellectual portrait of Romain Rolland --French novelist, musicologist, dramatist, and Nobel prizewinner in 1915--focuses on his experiments with political commitment against the backdrop of European history between the two world wars. Best known as a biographer of Beethoven and for his novel, Jean-Christophe, Rolland was one of those nonconforming writers who perceived a crisis of bourgeois society in Europe before the Great War, and who consciously worked to discredit and reshape that society in the interwar period. Analyzing Rolland's itinerary (...) of engaged stands, David James Fisher clarifies aspects of European cultural history and helps decipher the ambiguities at the heart of all forms of intellectual engagement. Moving from text to context, Fisher organizes the book around a series of debates--Rolland's public and private collisions over specific committed stands--introducing the reader to the polemical style of French intellectual discourse and offering insight into what it means to be a responsible intellectual. Fisher presents Rolland's private ruminations, extensive research, and reexamination of the function and style of the French man of letters. He observes that Rolland experimented with five styles of commitment: oceanic mysticism linked to progressive, democratic politics; free thinking linked to antiwar dissent; pacifism and, ultimately, Gandhism; antifacism linked to anti-imperialism, antiracism, and all-out political resistance to fascism; and, most controversially, fellow traveling as a form of socialist humanism and the positive side of antifascism. Fisher views Rolland's engagement historically and critically, showing that engaged intellectuals of that time were neither naive propagandists nor dupes of political parties. David James Fisher makes a case for the committed writer and hopes to re-ignite the debate about commitment. For him, Romain Rolland sums up engagement in a striking, dialectical formula: "Pessimism of the Intelligence, Optimism of the Will." His story presents a powerful challenge to modern intellectuals. (shrink)

Introduction Introduction / Jan de Vries 1 Art in History / Gary Schwartz 7 History in Art / J. W. Smit 17 Pt. I Art and Reality Market Scenes As Viewed by an Art Historian / Linda Stone-Ferrier 29 Market Scenes As Viewed by a Plant Biologist / Willem A. Brandenburg 59 Marine Paintings and the History of Shipbuilding / Richard W. Unger 75 Skies and Reality in Dutch Landscape / John Walsh 95 Some Notes on Interpretation / E. de (...) Jongh 119 Are These Girls Really So Neat? On Kitchen Scenes and Method / Jochen Becker 139 Didactic and Disguised Meanings? Several Seventeenth-Century Texts on Painting and the Iconological Approach to Northern Dutch Paintings of This Period / Eric J. Sluijter 175 The Changing Face of Realism / Lyckle de Vries 209 Pt. II Art, Economy, and Society Art History / Jan de Vries 249 The Volume and Value of Paintings in Holland at the Time of the Dutch Republic / Ad van der Woude 285 Works of Art in Seventeenth-Century Amsterdam: An Analysis of Subjects and Attributions / John Michael Montias 331 Conclusion Science, Commerce, and Art: Neglected Topics at the Junction of History and Art History / David Freedberg 377 Biographical Notes on the Authors 429 Index. (shrink)

The extent and mechanisms through which religion intertwines with decision-making processes in family firms remain inadequately understood. Family firm owners, driven by their commitment to ethical business practices and the safeguarding of their socioemotional wealth, actively seek cues to inform their decision-making processes. This research demonstrates that, among these guiding cues, top-level executives’ perceived religiosity emerges as a relevant factor. Building upon the socioemotional wealth perspective and conducting a longitudinal analysis based on listed family firms between 2009 and 2018, our (...) findings reveal a positive association between family voting rights and the presence of board members perceived to be religious. Furthermore, this relationship is less pronounced if family firms operate in industries with high research and development intensity. Our study confirms that boards with high shares of religiously perceived directors are positively associated with the appointment of chief executive officers perceived to be religious during succession events. We thereby present a unique perspective that acknowledges perceived religiosity as a micro-level constituent shaping board membership and successor selection. This investigation captures the intricate interplay between religion and family firms under a socioemotional wealth umbrella, offering important insights to the family business ethics discourse. Our research also offers practical implications for board and leadership diversity management in family firms. (shrink)

Explores how the emotional experience of gratitude has been enlisted in neoliberal governance through the language of debt. In The Art of Gratitude, Jeremy David Engels sketches a genealogy of gratitude from the ancient Greeks to the contemporary self-help movement. One of the most striking things about gratitude, Engels finds, is how consistently it is described using the language of indebtedness. A chief purpose of this, he contends, is to make us more comfortable living lives in debt, with the (...) nefarious effect of pacifying the citizenry so we are less likely to speak out about social and economic injustice. To counteract this, he proposes an alternative art of gratitude-as-thanksgiving that is inspired by Indian philosophy, particularly the yoga philosophy of the Bhagavad Gita and Patanjali’s Yoga-Sutras. He argues that this art of gratitude can challenge neoliberalism by reorienting our politics away from resentment, anger, and guilt and toward a democratic ethic of thanksgiving and the common good. Jeremy David Engels is the Sherwin Early Career Professor in the Rock Ethics Institute and Associate Professor of Communication Arts and Sciences at Penn State University. He is the author of The Politics of Resentment: A Genealogy and Enemyship: Democracy and Counter-Revolution in the Early Republic. (shrink)