Over the last decades, the Commissio Leonina has built up a very strong reputation. Editions such as theSentencia libri De anima and the Sentencia libri de sensu et sensato by R.-A. Gauthier or the commentaries on Boethius by P.-M. Gils, L.-J. Bataillon and C.A. Grassi have set new philological standards, not only because of their fine critical introductions and excellent reconstructions of Thomas Aquinas’ texts, but also because of their rich and accurate apparatus fontium. It may be doubted, however, whether (...) the present edition of De spiritualibus creaturis by Father J. Cos lives up to the same high standards. (shrink)

The validity of an argument depends on the soundness of its premises. In the recent paper by Steele et al., conclusions are based on the initial construction of definitions relating to ‘desire’ and...

The major competing statistical paradigms share a common remarkable but unremarked thread: in many of their inferential applications, different probability interpretations are combined. How this plays out in different theories of inference depends on the type of question asked. We distinguish four question types: confirmation, evidence, decision, and prediction. We show that Bayesian confirmation theory mixes what are intuitively “subjective” and “objective” interpretations of probability, whereas the likelihood-based account of evidence melds three conceptions of what constitutes an “objective” probability.

In two studies, we used the Ethics Position Questionnaire (EPQ) to investigate the relationship between individual differences in moral philosophy, involvement in the animal rights movement, and attitudes toward the treatment of animals. In the first, 600 animal rights activists attending a national demonstration and 266 nonactivist college students were given the EPQ. Analysis of the returns from 157 activists and 198 students indicated that the activists were more likely than the students to hold an "absolutist" moral orientation (high idealism, (...) low relativism). In the second study, 169 students were given the EPQ with a scale designed to measure attitudes toward the treatment of animals. Multiple regression showed that gender and the EPQ dimension of idealism were related to attitudes toward animal use. (shrink)

IT may be taken as a great verity of Greek syntax that ν is not construed with the present or the perfect of the indicative. Exceptions are either apparent, needing explanation, or errors in transmission, requiring correction. There are no discordant voices in the expert choir on this point, all say the same. As usual the collections of examples are most copious in Kühner-Gerth, other authorities attempting only to adduce a few new examples. Since these are so readily available there (...) is no need to review all the pertinent passages here. The apparent exceptions are either cases of confusing word-order or anacolutha. Confusing word-order occurs for example when ν attaches itself to a verb of speaking, or to a negative when it belongs logically elsewhere in the sentence. The anacolutha are principally formulaic in character, as when kaν єi is used simply as ═ kαiє and so brings an extra ν into the sentence which may seem to belong to an indicative. (shrink)

Many studies have documented gender differences in attitudes toward and experiences with science. Compared to men, for example, women are less likely to study science and to pursue careers in science-related fields. Given these findings, should we expect gender differences in support for scientific involvement in U.S. environmental policy? This study empirically examines the relationship of gender to attitudes toward science and preferred roles of scientists in environmental policy among various environmental policy participants. Data collected in 2006 and 2007 from (...) national surveys of four different groups involved in environmental policy and management suggest that social context, including education and occupation, shapes the way that gender matters. Specifically, we find that gender is less important among scientists and managers than among interest groups and the general population regarding attitudes toward science and views about preferred roles of scientists in environmental decision making. (shrink)

With their comprehensive categorization of “ambivalence-related phenomena,” Moore et al. helpfully clarify and contextualize these decisional states as they arise in patient care. Given the...

Ethics courses are most commonly evaluated using reaction measures. However, little is known about the specific types of reaction data being collected and how these reaction data relate to improvements in trainee performance. Using a sample of 381 ethics training sessions, major reaction data categories were identified. Content and course satisfaction were the most frequently collected types of reaction criteria. Furthermore, content relevance and course satisfaction showed strong, positive relationships with performance criteria, whereas content satisfaction demonstrated a moderate, negative relationship. (...) These results and future directions for ethics training evaluation are discussed. (shrink)

Although the treatise presented here is most interesting, it was never widely disseminated. As far as we know, it is preserved only in Latin, in one manuscript. The text poses many questions. Who produced a copy of the text? Who is the translator? Is the treatise a genuine work of Averroes? And if so, what was his intention in writing this monograph on the First Cause?

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:The Keats Bicentennial u To commemorate the bicentennial of the death of John Keats, the Institute for Digital Archaeaology, in collaboration with the Keats Shelley Memorial Association, has commissioned a series of poems inspired by the poet’s life and works, including the following pieces by UK Poet Laureate, Simon Armitage and poet and performance artist, Scarlett Sabet. All of the commissioned poems will be available in a new anthology (...) entitled Avernus’ Springs to be published by the Acensious Press in 2022. Roger L. Michel, Jr. u arion 28.3 winter 2021... (shrink)

Disturbance-generated biomass results from endogenous and exogenous natural and cultural disturbances that affect the health and productivity of forest ecosystems. These disturbances can create large quantities of plant biomass on predictable cycles. A systems analysis model has been developed to quantify aspects of system capacities (harvest, transportation, and processing), spatial aspects of the biomass generation process, and deterioration impacts on biomass quality in the various inventory states (field stands, field-harvested inventories, transportation prepared inventories, and production facility inventories). Optimal decision alternatives (...) can be used to guide responses to reclamation, utilization, mitigation, and control. This is particularly advantageous in insect and disease outbreaks, in which the process may last several years, with varying levels of intensity. The prescriptive system description, assuming capacities are fixed, results in a linear programming model. The time-dependent capacity decision model results in a mixed-integer programming model. The analytical model is developed in detail in this analysis. (shrink)

THE CENTRALITY OF "SYMPATHY" to Adam Smith's Theory of Moral Sentiments points to the centrality of love in the book. While Smith delineates a somewhat unusual, technical sense of "sympathy", his actual use of the term frequently slips into its more ordinary sense of "compassion" or affectionate fellow feeling. This no doubt intentional equivocation on Smith's part helps suffuse the book with these themes, to the point that, without much exaggeration, one could say that the Theory of Moral Sentiments is (...) generally about love: our need for love and sympathy, love as friendship, self-love, the love of praise and praiseworthiness, the love of beauty. Even in the Wealth of Nations, our loves are thought to be very important in explaining our behavior. Smith is unusual among modern moral philosophers in according so central a place to love in this broad sense, although of course Christianity made love a central theme in reflection on ethical life, and philosophers such as Hutcheson made benevolence a key virtue in their ethical systems. However, it is not our purpose to examine Smith's critique of Hutcheson or indeed of any of his predecessors. Rather we aim in this paper to reflect on his treatment of this topic. We shall do so in part by means of comparisons with Aristotle and Plato, first with respect to friendship and then with respect to love generally. Smith's writing is replete with classical references, raising the issue of the degree to which his thought is "ancient" or "modern." Friendship is arguably the pinnacle of social relations for the ancients, and thus it provides us with a useful device for determining the degree to which Smith's thought embodies classical moral and philosophical principles. The subtlety of Smith's interweaving of traditions will become visible as we reflect not just on the ways Smith's thought exhibits classical conceptions of friendship and love, but also on the ways he departs from them. For in at least one important respect, love is a closed book from Smith's standpoint, and thus, as it turns out, also at odds with classical friendship. (shrink)

As scientific and engineering efforts become increasingly global in nature, the need to understand differences in perceptions of research ethics issues across countries and cultures is imperative. However, investigations into the connection between nationality and ethical decision-making in the sciences have largely generated mixed results. In Study 1 of this paper, a measure of biases and compensatory strategies that could influence ethical decisions was administered. Results from this study indicated that graduate students from the United States and international graduate students (...) studying in the US are prone to different biases. Based on these findings, recommendations are made for developing ethics education interventions to target these decision-making biases. In Study 2, we employed an ethics training intervention based on ethical sensemaking and used a well-established measure of ethical decision-making that more fully captures the content of ethical judgment. Similar to Study 1, the results obtained in this study suggest differences do exist between graduate students from the US and international graduate students in ethical decision-making prior to taking the research ethics training. However, similar effects were observed for both groups following the completion of the ethics training intervention. (shrink)

Late Babylonian astronomical texts contain records of the stationary points of the outer planets using three different notational formats: Type S where the position is given relative to a Normal Star and whether it is an eastern or western station is noted, Type I which is similar to Type S except that the Normal Star is replaced by a reference to a zodiacal sign, and Type Z the position is given by reference to a zodiacal sign, but no indication of (...) whether the station is an eastern or western station is included. In these records, the date of the station is sometimes preceded by the terms in and/or EN. We have created a database of station records in order to determine whether there was any pattern in the use of these notation types over time or an association with any bias in the station date or the type of text the station was recorded in. Predictive texts, which include Almanacs and Normal Star Almanacs, almost always use Type Z notation, while the Diaries, compilations, and Goal-Year Texts use all three types. Type Z records almost never include in or EN, while other types seem to include these interchangeably. When compared with modern computed station dates, the records show bias toward earlier dates, suggesting that the Babylonians were observing dates when the planets appeared to stop moving rather than the true station. Overlapping reports, where a station on the same date was recorded in two or more texts, suggest that predicted station dates were used to guide observations, and that the planet’s position on the predicted stationary date was the true point of the observation rather than the specific date of the stationary point. (shrink)