Eastern philosophy and western science have convergent and divergent viewpoints for their explanation of consciousness. Convergence is found for the practice of meditation allowing besides a time dependent consciousness, the experience of a timeless consciousness and its beneficial effect on psychological wellbeing and medical improvements, which are confirmed by multiple scientific publications. Theories of quantum mechanics with non-locality and timelessness also show astonishing correlation to eastern philosophy, such as the theory of Penrose-Hameroff (ORC-OR), which explains consciousness by reduction of quantum (...) superposition in the brain. Divergence appears in the interpretation of the subjective experience of timeless consciousness. In eastern philosophy, meditation at a higher level of awareness allows the personal experience of timeless and non-dual consciousness, considered as an empirical proof for the existence of pure consciousness or spirituality existing before the material world and creating it by design. Western science acknowledges the subjective, non-dual experience, and its multiple beneficial effects, however, the interpretation of spirituality designing the material universe is in disagreement with the Darwinian Theory of mutation and selection. A design should create an ideal universe without the injustice of 3% congenital birth defects and later genetic health problems. The western viewpoint of selection is more adapted to explain congenital errors. The gap between subjectivity and objectivity, the mind-body problem, is in eastern philosophy reduced to the dominance of subjectivity over objectivity, whereas western science attributes equal values to both. Nevertheless, there remains an astonishing complementarity between eastern and western practices. (shrink)

The current debate regarding the suitability of anencephalics as organ donors is due primarily to misunderstandings. The anatomical and neurophysiological literature shows that the anencephalic lacks a cerebrum because of the failure of neuralplate fusion. However, even the incomplete function of an atrophic brain stem is currently accepted at law in most if not all countries as sufficient for brain life: which is to say, cessation of breathing is currently required in order to make the diagnosis of brain death. Because (...) of the extensive incompleteness of the anencephalic's brain, it is not possible to postpone death significantly by mechanical ventilation and intravenous feeding. It is acceptable to maintain life for a short period of time in order to allow organ transplantation subsequent to the declaration of death at the point of cessation of the capacity for spontaneous respiration. The most important issue is not transplantation, but the issue of brain life raised by the case of anencephalics. Since brain life in any significant sense begins only after the closure of the neural tube on the 30th day after conception, it is reasonable to take this as the point at which brain life begins. Laws should be amended in all countries to allow the abortion of anencephalics at any time, in that they do not at any time possess brain life. (shrink)

The seven contributors present the reader with a set of perspectives on the subsequent histories of the central ideas of these great thinkers. The essays focus on the ways in which these ideas were caught up in social movements and had been taken up by others who used them to support programs for radical historical changes, thereby subjecting them to distortions and perversions. The whole book reflects the feeling that history itself has purged away the dross which lay within the (...) original ideas, and that what now remains is either pure gold or later perversions illicitly smuggled in under the cover of various "isms."--K. P. F. (shrink)

To this day, the Italian Jewish literary postwar canon is undisputedly ruled by Primo Levi, Giorgio Bassani and Carlo Levi. This study of three major Italian Jewish women writers – Natalia Ginzburg, Clara Sereni and Lia Levi – highlights the presence in Italian literature of a subversive Jewish écriture feminine. These writers’ formal independence and subversive redeployment of narrative and thematic strategies not only consolidated a strong female voice in Italian literature but also produced a specific Italian brand of Jewish (...) literature. The following analysis shows how, through their literary ‘life miniatures’, Ginzburg, Sereni and Levi recentre the domestic everydayness of woman’s personal and historical experience, while, simultaneously, challenging the traditional representations of women’s positions within family and within the public space, as well as interrogating their Jewish identity vis-a-vis their country’s Fascist past. In particular, this article focuses on the way in which all three authors portray themselves as women trying to strike a balance between their Jewish identity and history alive only in the domestic space of their family lives, and their gender identity which is repressed by the patriarchal system both in the house and in the public arena. These women respond by moving ‘out’ of their homes, by exploring the city space – thus turning the ‘urban monster’ into a positive locus for women’s self-determination and political action – and by bonding with other women. Through a demasculinization of the city space, these memoirs re-elaborated notions of family, Judaism, private and historical memory, and they reinvented a poetics for the ‘small virtues’ of woman’s everyday existence while also pioneering a new space in literature that radically changed the direction of patriarchal Italian culture in the second half of the twentieth century. (shrink)

This provocative, if sketchy, essay develops the theme that, although thought and reality are ultimately distinct, both are elements of one and the same reality--"a communion of living and interacting forces." The presentation recognizes a dialectical character to reality, in the form of opposing thrusts and tendencies, and a plurality of foci of demands to be met, all operating through and partially constituting history. It fails, however, to explicate the movement in the dialectic of reality and to explore the possibility (...) and value of dialectic as a cognitive process.--K. P. F. (shrink)

Apart from the names of Jan Baudouin de Courtenay (1845-1929), Mikołaj Kruszewski (1851-1887), and, later, Jerzy Kuryłowicz (1895-1978), Polish linguists and Polish linguistics generally have been little known in the West. The first two were mentioned with approval by Saussure in an unpublished paper, and this reference was picked up by Roman Jakobson and others many years later. Kuryłowicz, for his part, made himself well known in the West through his important work as Indo-Europeanist, even Semiticist, and as a general (...) linguist. The present volume is a first attempt to broaden the perspectives on the Polish contribution to linguistics both inside and outside of Poland during the past centuries. Specialists in their respective fields contributed chapters on the origins and development of general linguistics (Z. Wąsik), applied linguistics (F. Grucza), lexicology (T. Piotrowski), dialectology (St. Gogolewski), and onomastics (S. Gala), followed by five chapters presenting the theories of the arguably most remarkable Polish linguistic thinkers, from Baudouin de Courtenay (A. Adamska-Sałaciak), Kruszewski (F. M. Berezin), and Kuryłowicz (W. Smoczyński) to Mikołaj Rudnicki (1881-1978) and Ludwik Zabrocki (1907-1977) (both written by J. Bańczerowski). Detailed individual bibliographies, a full index of names (with life dates of Polish linguists from the Renaissance to the present day), and a thorough index of subjects and terms make this volume an important reference tool for anyone wishing to acquaint himself with the rich heritage of Polish linguistic thought. (shrink)