I have never read the two great stanzas of Odes III. 3 without a feeling that the above phrase was rather inadequate, according to what I suppose to be the accepted translation. I base the word ‘accepted’ on Forcellini, and Lewis and Short, who give the reference under the head of propositum, ‘purpose,’ ‘intention,’ ‘resolution,’ ‘design.’ But the capacity of sticking to some particular purpose is not a very noble quality, and if we take the phrase in the wider (...) sense of general tenacity of purpose, I do not feel that we get the ‘iustus’ of the ode, though we may perhaps get a person who is likely to succeed in life. Taken in this way, ‘tenax propositi’ suggests the portrait of Henry VIII., with his gross face and striding legs, dominating the English Church and the High Table of Trinity. I shall perhaps be told that the context shows the meaning. It may no doubt prevent the phrase from being misleading, but it does not make it worthy of its setting. I may add that in the other two places, where I know of its occurring, it has no very lofty meaning. In Ovid Met. X. 415, ‘propositi tenax’ is used to describe the persistent efforts of Myrrha's nurse to find out what is the matter. In Quintilian XI. 1, 90, in a discourse on mild equivalents, we are told that the ‘pertinax’ may be spoken of as ‘ultra modum propositi tenax.’. (shrink)

Throughout the biological and biomedical sciences there is a growing need for, prescriptive ‘minimum information’ (MI) checklists specifying the key information to include when reporting experimental results are beginning to find favor with experimentalists, analysts, publishers and funders alike. Such checklists aim to ensure that methods, data, analyses and results are described to a level sufficient to support the unambiguous interpretation, sophisticated search, reanalysis and experimental corroboration and reuse of data sets, facilitating the extraction of maximum value from data sets (...) them. However, such ‘minimum information’ MI checklists are usually developed independently by groups working within representatives of particular biologically- or technologically-delineated domains. Consequently, an overview of the full range of checklists can be difficult to establish without intensive searching, and even tracking thetheir individual evolution of single checklists may be a non-trivial exercise. Checklists are also inevitably partially redundant when measured one against another, and where they overlap is far from straightforward. Furthermore, conflicts in scope and arbitrary decisions on wording and sub-structuring make integration difficult. This presents inhibit their use in combination. Overall, these issues present significant difficulties for the users of checklists, especially those in areas such as systems biology, who routinely combine information from multiple biological domains and technology platforms. To address all of the above, we present MIBBI (Minimum Information for Biological and Biomedical Investigations); a web-based communal resource for such checklists, designed to act as a ‘one-stop shop’ for those exploring the range of extant checklist projects, and to foster collaborative, integrative development and ultimately promote gradual integration of checklists. (shrink)

Hermann Grassmann's ideas on the nature and foundations of mathematics were published as an integral part of his mathematical treatise, the Ausdehnungslehre, in 1844. In spite of its notoriously obscure style we can better understand the work if we view it as an expression of the dialectical philosophy of his mentor, the theologian F. Schleiermacher. The relation to Schleiermacher is presented here through an analysis of the principal ideas of the Ausdehnungslehre.

D. Compaeetti, Leggi antiche delta città di Gortyna, Firenze, 1885 F. Bücheler and E. Zitelmann, Rheinisches Museum N. F. Bd. 40 J. and T. Baunack, Die Inschrift von Gortyn, Stuttgart, 1886H. Lewy, Stadtrecht von Gortyn, Berlin, 1885Museo Italiano di Antickità classiche, edited by D. Comparetti, Florence, 1885 sqq. Vols. i, ii.

Bhattacharyya, K. The Advaita concept of subjectivity.--Deutsch, E. Reflections on some aspects of the theory of rasa.--Nakamura, H. The dawn of modern thought in the East.--Organ, T. Causality, Indian and Greek.--Chatterjee, M. On types of classification.--Lacombe, O. Transcendental imagination.--Bahm, A. J. Standards for comparative philosophy.--Herring, H. Appearance, its significance and meaning in the history of philosophy.--Chang Chung-yuan. Pre-rational harmony in Heidegger's essential thinking and Chʼan thought.--Staal, J. F. Making sense of the Buddhist tetralemma.--Enomiya-Lassalle, H. M. The mysticism of Carl Albrecht (...) and Zen.--Parrinder, G. The nature of mysticism.--Cairns, G. E. Axiological contributions of East and West to the spiritual development of mankind.--Mayeda, S. Śaṇkara's view of ethics.--Mercier, A. On peace.--Barlingay, S. S. A discussion of some aspects of Gaudapāda's philosophy. (shrink)

Though the title is a bit misleading, this is a splendid collection of essays, five of which are insightful philosophical commentaries on specific American philosophers and one an exercise in philosophical analysis by a distinguished living American philosopher. W. V. Quine maintains that philosophical inquiry should begin with "clear words" rather than "clear ideas" and it would seem that it also ends with words. In an essay remarkable for both its economy and clarity, Quine charts a path which begins with (...) "observation sentences" and the "primacy of bodies," passes through a "brave new ontology" in which bodies disappear and ends with a nonreductionist linguistic physicalism. Quine states that the "physicalist does not insist on an exclusively corporeal ontology. He is content to declare bodies to be fundamental to nature in somewhat this sense: There is no difference in the world without a difference in the position of states of bodies." The crucial question, as Quine readily acknowledges, is "what to count as states of bodies." Physics seems to point in the direction of a "field theory" in which "bodies themselves go by the board" leaving us with a "brave new ontology"—"the purely abstract ontology of set theory, pure mathematics." To which Quine’s response seems to be that this is so much the worse for ontology. Having earlier stressed that "all entities are theoretical," Quine now asserts that "sentences, in their truth and falsity, are what runs deep; ontology is by the way." While his physicalism is admittedly unfinished and incomplete, the direction is set—to reformulate physicalism "by reference not to physical objects but to physical vocabulary." Roland A. Delattre explores "the political implications and resonances" of Edwards’s metaphysics of beauty. Inasmuch as "beauty" is central to the Edwardean vision, Delattre contends that it must have a bearing upon politics. Admittedly going beyond "anything explicitly offered by Edwards," Delattre convincingly argues that "the logic of this vision of reality is to relativize the claim that the political order is to be understood religiously as the scene for a movement through history towards the kingdom of God." A. Robert Caponigri argues quite persuasively that transcendentalism, as expressed by Emerson and Thoreau, affirms an individualism which allows for the state only as a necessary evil. Brownson, however, rescues transcendentalism by distinguishing "civil society" from both the government and the abstract individual and showing how it serves to mediate "the claim and obligation" between state and citizen. In a delightful and informative essay, Max H. Fisch traces pragmatism backwards and forwards from James’s 1898 address to the Philosophical Union of the University of California. It was in this address that the word "pragmatism" was first used publicly but Fisch supplies compelling evidence that the structure of Peirce’s pragmatism was in print as early as 1868. In sketching the development of "pragmatism from Peirce to C. I. Lewis, Fisch gives us perceptive indications of the varieties of pragmatism. Santayana, according to Frederick A. Olafson makes some telling points against a rationalism which isolates reason from its natural conditions and continuities. But Olafson forcefully argues that Santayana jeopardizes the autonomy and significance of reason by reducing it to an esthetic epiphenomenon. Peter Fuss continues his incisive and controversial interpretation of Royce. Centering on Royce’s analysis of Hegel, Fuss maintains that while Royce occasionally flirts with the "correct" understanding of Hegel’s Absolute, he finally surrenders the view of the Absolute as an all-inclusive unity of a community of finite selves in favor of the outmoded view of the Absolute as a transcendent entity. In an unusually clear and focused introduction, the editors have provided useful mini-versions of each essay.—E.F. (shrink)

This work is the product of several years of intense study of the various aspects of Kant's work, and the attempt to provide insights for students both with respect to the details of the Kantian system, and into the development and implications of the system as a whole. During that time many individuals have contributed to its ultimate formulation, and I would like to express my appreciation at least to the more generous contributors. For a careful reading of the manuscript (...) in its earlier forms, and suggestions which helped in many ways to improve the work and to crystalize its thesis, I would like to thank Professors Wilbur Long, A. C. Ewing, and Richard Bosley. For their interest and encouragement in the later stages of the project, I must thank Professor Lewis White Beck, and the many students who have taken my Kant seminar at the University of Alberta, especially Mr. Dieter Hartmetz. And finally, 1 acknowledge with pleasure my longstanding debt to Professor William H. Werkmeister for his years of critical advice and encouragement. Perhaps only Kant and my wife have contributed more to my philosophic development. Acknowledgment must also be made of the permission kindly granted by various publishers for the use of material from the following works under their copyright. Kant's Critique of Practical Reason, translated by Lewis White Beck (copyright 1956, by The Liberal Arts Press, Inc. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:The Logic Pamphlets of Charles Lutwidge Dodgson and Related PiecesIrving H. AnellisFrancine F. Abeles, editor. The Logic Pamphlets of Charles Lutwidge Dodgson and Related Pieces. The Pamphlets of Lewis Carroll, 4. New York-Charlottesville-London: Lewis Carroll Society of North America-University Press of Virginia, 2010. Pp. xx + 271. Cloth, $75.00.Until William Bartley’s rediscovery and reconstruction of Dodgson’s lost Part II of Symbolic Logic, Lewis Carroll’s reputation (...) in logic, when taken seriously, rested upon his few published articles on logical paradoxes and puzzles, while his published books, The Game of Logic and Symbolic Logic, were regarded as suitable perhaps as pedagogical tools, but dismissed otherwise as amusements, on a par with the Alice works. Richard Braithwaite asserted (“Lewis Carroll as Logician”) that “Carroll regarded formal and symbolic logic not as a corpus of systematic knowledge about valid thought nor yet as an art for teaching a person to think correctly.” He suggested that Dodgson used his pseudonym for his popular and whimsical writings, reserving his legal name only for his serious mathematical products. Philosophers practicing linguistic analysis in their assault on nonsense deriving from misuse of language meanwhile developed an interest in Carroll (e.g. George Pitcher, “Wittgenstein, Nonsense, and Lewis Carroll”). Abeles, on the contrary, stresses the seriousness of Dodgson’s pedagogical and popularizing mission (195–99).Bartley’s discovery opened the door for reevaluating Dodgson as a serious logician, and Abeles has been in the forefront of that reevaluation. Her general introduction and introductions to the main divisions of this collection of Carroll’s publications (and additional material from his Nachlass and a handful of publications of others, composed in response to Carroll’s published articles) place his serious logical work and its significance in historical perspective, providing a deeper, more sophisticated view than found in Bartley’s “Editor’s Introduction” to Lewis Carroll’s Symbolic Logic. Abeles also offers brief introductions to the individual entries, which describe their physical characteristics and circumstances of composition.Dodgson aligned with the majority of those British logicians of his day, starting with George Boole, who understood formal logic to be Aristotelian syllogistic, and symbolic logic to be syllogistic logic expressed algebraically. His notational innovation was employing indices to terms so that, independently of the arrangement of terms, propositions could easily be read; thus, “xy0” can be read as “no x are y” or “no y are x” and “x1y0” as “all x are not y” or “no x are y”. In dealing with the classical elimination problem in the class calculus—to determine the maximum information, without duplications, obtainable from a given set of premises—Dodgson in his later work and unpublished letters anticipated several concepts of automated theorem proving.Central to both geometry and to formal logic are the rules of logical inference that establish the validity of arguments and guarantee that conclusions inferred from true [End Page 506] premises are true. The modern analytic tableaux, or tree method, is a fundamental tool in this regard, both for deriving theorems and for determining the validity or invalidity of the proofs for propositional calculus and first-order predicate calculus.Introducing his reconstruction of Part II of Symbolic Logic, Bartley noted that, along with the logic diagrams that Carroll devised, he also devised a tableau method that strongly resembled Beth’s semantic tableaux. Abeles went more deeply and convincingly into that resemblance in her earlier research. Beth’s tableaux, together with Hintikka’s model sets, were the direct ancestors of Smullyan’s analytic tableaux, which in turn are the theoretical basis for the Robinson resolution method that continues to be central to much work in programming logic.Abeles has also shown that the work in Studies in Logic by Charles Peirce and his logic students at Johns Hopkins University served as a source of inspiration for Dodgson. More critically, she demonstrated that Dodgson devised and employed the tree method for carrying out proofs of syllogisms and chains of syllogisms, or soriteses, in Part II of Symbolic Logic (see her “Lewis Carroll’s Method of Trees: Its Origins in Studies in Logic,” Modern Logic 1 [1990]: 25–34). The tree... (shrink)

The essays in this book analyze significant perspectives of the recent past in American philosophy; they represent some of the major trends of this period. Alfred North Whitehead is included with the recent American philosophers since his major philosophic ideas were fully developed in this country. There has been no attempt to deal comprehensively with this period. Several philosophers of equal importance who also deserve attention-C. l. Lewis, A. O. Love joy, W. F. Montague, R. B. Perry, F. J. (...) E. Woodbridge, and others have not been discussed. Most of the essays were published at various times in various journals. Though all of the perspectives are presented with sympathetic understanding, they are also critically evaluated. 2 AMERICAN PHILOSOPHY OF THE RECENT PAST But even more than individual philosophers and schools of philos ophy the larger background of contemporary American life has nour ished the empirical spirit. Science as the most pervasive climate of our intellectual and practical activity has enhanced the empirical attitude. The great development, in this country, of business and technological industry has encouraged the pragmatic, empirical outlook. Empiricism, however, is an ambiguous term, and its different meanings have different philosophic consequences. For some it means that only concrete personal experience can be accepted as reality; for others it means the succession of sense-impressions. The more recent usage, the one that has been dominant in American philosophy, identifies empiricism with objectively and socially verifiable pronounce ments, that is, with experimentalism, or confirmation through demon strable evidence. (shrink)

Humans are normative beings through and through. This capacity for normativity lies at the core of uniquely human forms of understanding and regulating socio-cultural group life. Plausibly, therefore, the hominin lineage evolved specialized social-cognitive, motivational, and affective abilities that helped create, transmit, preserve, and amend shared social practices. In turn, these shared normative attitudes and practices shaped subsequent human phylogeny, constituted new forms of group life, and hence structured human ontogeny, too. An essential aspect of human ontogeny is therefore its (...) reciprocal nature regarding normativity. This chapter reviews recent evidence from developmental psychology suggesting that, from early on, human children take a normative attitude toward others’ conduct in social interactions, and thus a collectivistic and impersonal perspective on norms. We discuss to what extent our closest living primate relatives lack normative attitudes and therefore live in a non-normative socio-causal world structured by individual preferences, power relationships, and regularities. (shrink)

We will show that there is a strong form of emergence in cell biology. Beginning with C.D. Broad's classic discussion of emergence, we distinguish two conditions sufficient for emergence. Emergence in biology must be compatible with the thought that all explanations of systemic properties are mechanistic explanations and with their sufficiency. Explanations of systemic properties are always in terms of the properties of the parts within the system. Nonetheless, systemic properties can still be emergent. If the properties of the components (...) within the system cannot be predicted, even in principle, from the behavior of the system's parts within simpler wholes then there also will be systemic properties which cannot be predicted, even in principle, on basis of the behavior of these parts. We show in an explicit case study drawn from molecular cell physiology that biochemical networks display this kind of emergence, even though they deploy only mechanistic explanations. This illustrates emergence and its place in nature. (shrink)

Maintenance and promotion of patient dignity is an ethical responsibility of healthcare workers. The aim of this study was to investigate patient dignity and related factors in patients with heart failure. In this qualitative study, 22 patients with heart failure were chosen by purposive sampling and semi-structured interviews were conducted until data saturation. Factors related to patient dignity were divided into two main categories: patient/care index and resources. Intrapersonal features (inherent characteristics and individual beliefs) and interpersonal interactions (communication, respect, enough (...) information, privacy, and authority) were classified as components of the patient/care index category. Human resources (management and staff) and environmental resources (facilities and physical space) were classified as components of the resources category. The results will increase healthcare staff's understanding of patient dignity and its related factors, and provide information regarding the development of systems and processes that support patients in ways that are consistent with these values. (shrink)

This work combines two early pamphlets by F. H. Bradley, the foremost philosopher of the British Idealist movement. The first essay, published in 1874, deals with the nature of professional history, and foreshadows some of Bradley's later ideas in metaphysics. He argues that history cannot be subjected to scientific scrutiny because it is not directly available to the senses, meaning that all history writing is inevitably subjective. Though not widely discussed at the time of publication, the pamphlet was influential on (...) historian and philosopher R. G. Collingwood. The second pamphlet is Bradley's critique of Henry Sidgwick's The Methods of Ethics. Sidgwick was the first to propose the paradox of hedonism, which is the idea in ethics that pleasure can only be acquired indirectly. Published in 1877, this work is divided into three parts, treating Sidgwick's definitions, arguments, and his view of ethical science. (shrink)

This work combines two early pamphlets by F. H. Bradley , the foremost philosopher of the British Idealist movement. The first essay, published in 1874, deals with the nature of professional history, and foreshadows some of Bradley's later ideas in metaphysics. He argues that history cannot be subjected to scientific scrutiny because it is not directly available to the senses, meaning that all history writing is inevitably subjective. Though not widely discussed at the time of publication, the pamphlet was influential (...) on historian and philosopher R. G. Collingwood. The second pamphlet is Bradley's critique of Henry Sidgwick's The Methods of Ethics. Sidgwick was the first to propose the paradox of hedonism, which is the idea in ethics that pleasure can only be acquired indirectly. Published in 1877, this work is divided into three parts, treating Sidgwick's definitions, arguments, and his view of ethical science. (shrink)