The prospect of using cell-based interventions to treat neurological conditions raises several important ethical and policy questions. In this target article, we focus on issues related to the unique constellation of traits that characterize CBIs targeted at the central nervous system. In particular, there is at least a theoretical prospect that these cells will alter the recipients' cognition, mood, and behavior—brain functions that are central to our concept of the self. The potential for such changes, although perhaps remote, is cause (...) for concern and careful ethical analysis. Both to enable better informed consent in the future and as an end in itself, we argue that early human trials of CBIs for neurological conditions must monitor subjects for changes in cognition, mood, and behavior; further, we recommend concrete steps for that monitoring. Such steps will help better characterize the potential risks and benefits of CBIs as they are tested and potentially used for treatment. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Dharma Bums: The Beat Generation and the Making of Countercultural PilgrimageP. J. JohnstonI believe in the sweetness of Jesus And Buddha— I believe, In St. Francis, Avaloki Tesvara, the Saints Of First Century India A D And Scholars Santidevan And Otherwise Santayanan Everywhere.(Kerouac 1959: 15)Preliminary Polemics“PILGRIM, n. A traveler that is taken seriously.”—Ambrose Bierce, The Devil’s Dictionary 2007: 133As Beat commentator Stephen Prothero describes in his article “On the (...) Holy Road: The Beat Movement as Spiritual Protest” (1991), the Beats and their pilgrimages have most emphatically not been taken seriously. Both critics and scholars have been unkind to members of the Beat generation, and this unkindness has manifested itself in relative neglect of the Beats in all possible aspects of scholarly investigation. But nowhere does this appear more pronounced than in the area of Beat religion. Though some recent scholarship has been picking up from this earlier neglect and it is now [End Page 165] possible to find serious biographies of most of the major Beat writers and some belated attention to the movement as a literary phenomenon, the only book-length treatment of Beat Buddhism I was able to locate (Tonkinson 1995) hardly qualifies as a scholarly work and was published not by an academic press but as a special feature of the Buddhist magazine Tricycle. Prothero hypothesizes that this is because of the movement’s reputation as rebellious and antinomian—in its heyday the movement was characterized in identical unsavory terms by publications representing interests as diverse as Life and Playboy, with the latter describing the Beats as “nihilists” and the former claiming that the Beats were at war with “Mom, Dad, Politics, Marriage, the Savings Bank, Organized Religion, Literary Elegance, Law, the Ivy League Suit and Higher Education, to say nothing of the Automatic Dishwasher, the Cellophane-wrapped Soda Cracker, the Split-Level House and the clean, or peace-provoking H-bomb” (Prothero 1991: 206). Norman Podhoretz of Partisan Review went further still, claiming that the Beats were “hostile to civilization” and that the movement as a whole amounted to “a revolt of the spiritually underprivileged and crippled of soul” and “an affirmation of death” (ibid., 206). One couldn’t ask for a more passionate disavowal of the Beats or a more thorough polemic that the movement was profoundly antireligious.This could not contrast more with the Beats’ representation of their movement and its aims, with Jack Kerouac going so far as to reinterpret the crucial term “Beat” (a term for someone down and out originally borrowed from criminal street jive) as a noun derived from the adjective “beatific,” a specifically religious term familiar from such phrases as “the beatific vision” (ibid., 206–207). Several of the representative Beat writers were practicing Buddhists, influencing the entire movement to such an extent that Buddhist ideas and imagery suffused Beat literature as a whole. Ginsberg and Kerouac especially emphasized the positive and constructive elements of their spiritual vision, arguing that literature such as On the Road and Howl should be understood as religious affirmations of what is good and holy rather than as purely critical undertakings: “For the crucifix I speak out, for the Star of Israel I speak out, for the divinest man who ever lived who was German (Bach) I speak out, for sweet Mohammed I speak out, for Buddha I speak out, for Lao-tse and Chuang-tse I speak out” (ibid., 206–207). Or, as Allen Ginsberg put it less lyrically (and rather more bluntly): “Howl is an ‘Affirmation’ by individual experience of God, sex, drugs, and absurdity... the poems are religious and I meant them to be” (ibid., 207).But for the most part, Beat asseverations in no way diminished scholarly wariness about the Beat movement and its spirituality—as Prothero concludes, “the tendency among literary scholars is to see these [religious] concerns as tangential rather than constitutive” while “historians of American religion who have explored beat spirituality have tended to focus almost exclusively on the beats’ engagement with Zen and then to dismiss that engagement as haphazard” (ibid., 207).It is my contention that the mainstream scholarly neglect of Beat spirituality is in some part... (shrink)

We welcome Ballantyne & Schaefer’s discussion of the issues concerning consent and use of health data for research. In response to their acknowledgement of the need for public debate and discussion, we provide evidence from our own public consultation on this topic.

This paper describes the introduction of Liebig's ideas on agricultural chemistry into the Netherlands. The aversion to Liebig held by the Utrecht professor G. J. Mulder hindered the direct influence that might have been borne by Liebig's own writings; the introduction was made principally by means of Dutch translations of the text-books of the Scottish agricultural chemist J. F. W. Johnston, who generally followed Liebig's ideas.

Diogenes Laertius reports that Xenophanes of Colophon said that τὰ πολλὰ ἥσσω νοῦ εἶναι— on one defensible translation: that ‘many things are weaker than mind.’ The remark has been interpreted in various ways, none of them entirely convincing. However, a review of the relevant fragments and ancient testimonia will provide the basis for a credible interpretation. Ultimately, it will emerge that the remark reflects Xenophanes’ understanding of the relationship between the divine mind and the cosmos.

The purpose of this note is to redirect attention to some of the literary evidence that concerns the site of Apollo's temple on the Palatine. For this evidence has an irritating habit of refusing to confirm what would otherwise be irrefutable archaeological proof of the temple's site. It is now fashionable to identify the site of the temple with that occupied by the temple-core that was originally assigned to Iuppiter Victor on the south-west angle of the Palatine in the region (...) of the Scalae Caci, the Temple of Magna Mater, the Casa Romuli, and the so-called House of Liuia. This was, in the view of most scholars, Euander's citadel that Virgil calls Pallanteum and this must be the site of the Augustan buildings. Now the House of Liuia has been identified with apparent probability as the House of Augustus, and we know from literary evidence that the temple of Apollo, Augustus' private house, and the house decreed to him by the senate must have been in close proximity to each other. The temple-core on the south-west of the Palatine is of Augustan date and is built over the remains of houses of the late republic1 which appear to have been demolished for the purpose. If Liuia's House was the house of Augustus then Iuppiter Victor's temple must be assigned to Apollo. (shrink)

Professor Richmond's reply t o m y article on Palatine Apollo is argued with his usual enthusiasm and cogency. This reply to him, which has been delayed by my departure for Australia, must begin with an expression of the respect that I feel for an antagonist far more able and experienced than I can claim to be. Indeed, it was while lecturing on Ovid, Tristia 3 that I first met Professor Richmond's masterly article on the Augustan Palatium. From this article (...) my enthusiasm for the subject began, and I know that Professor Richmond has always welcomed discussion and argument about the famous Augustan temple of Apollo on the Palatine. I can but join him in urging any who may have been interested by our discussion to study his original article which contains much more besides a discussion of the site of Apollo's temple. (shrink)

The purpose of this note is to redirect attention to some of the literary evidence that concerns the site of Apollo's temple on the Palatine. For this evidence has an irritating habit of refusing to confirm what would otherwise be irrefutable archaeological proof of the temple's site. It is now fashionable to identify the site of the temple with that occupied by the temple-core that was originally assigned to Iuppiter Victor on the south-west angle of the Palatine in the region (...) of the Scalae Caci, the Temple of Magna Mater, the Casa Romuli, and the so-called House of Liuia. This was, in the view of most scholars, Euander's citadel that Virgil calls Pallanteum and this must be the site of the Augustan buildings. Now the House of Liuia has been identified with apparent probability as the House of Augustus, and we know from literary evidence that the temple of Apollo, Augustus' private house, and the house decreed to him by the senate must have been in close proximity to each other. The temple-core on the south-west of the Palatine is of Augustan date and is built over the remains of houses of the late republic1 which appear to have been demolished for the purpose. If Liuia's House was the house of Augustus then Iuppiter Victor's temple must be assigned to Apollo. (shrink)

Myles Burnyeat maintains that Aristotelian epistêmê, in so far as it deals with explanations, is properly identified as understanding rather than as knowledge. Although Burnyeat is right in thinking that the cognitive achievement Aristotle typically has in mind is not justified true belief, Aristotelian epistêmê cannot be equated with understanding. On some occasions in Aristotle’s writings (e.g. Apo 71a4), the term designates a particular science such as mathematics; on others (e.g. Apo 72b18-20), it designates the grasp of a first principle; (...) on others (e.g. Apo 94a20) it is a systematic grasp of fact and explanation that is properly termed understanding; and on still others (e.g. N. Ethics 1147a22) it is that combination of factual knowledge and competency in demonstration that qualifies as ‘expertise’ or ‘disciplinary mastery’. (shrink)

The papers presented in this special collection focus upon conceptual, the oretical and epistemological aspects of sociobiology, an emerging discipline that deals with the extent to which genetic factors influence or control patterns of behavior as well as the extent to which patterns of behavior, in turn, influence or control genetic evolution. The Prologue advances a compre hensive acco/unt of the field of gene-culture co-evolution, where Lumsden and Gushurst differentiate between "classical" sociobiology (represented especially by Wilson's early work) and current (...) research on human socio biology (represented by Lumsden and Wilson's later work), which emphasizes interplay between genes, minds, and culture. The specter of genetic deter minism, no doubt, has created considerable controversy, some of which may be laid to rest by Hanna's analysis of the (ambiguous) notion of a "genetic program", which indicates the necessity for distinguishing between descriptive and prescriptive dimensions of this complex concept. Brandon offers a framework for assessing the respective contributions of nature and of nurture by advancing a means for measuring genetic and cultural influences upon "inheritance", which supports the conclusion that evolving patterns of behavior do not always maximize inclusive fitness, contrary to what socio biologists have claimed. The influence of culture upon genetic evolution, of course, can be adequately appraised only when a suitable account of culture itself has been found, a desideratum Smillie attempts to satisfy by utilizing the notion of "cinfo" as culturally transmitted ecological informa tion, a resource other species tend not to exploit. (shrink)

Orestes has returned to Argos, . For him to brandish at his father's murderers is natural there, where he is delivering a sort of general manifesto as to his aims, and where the strong word is justified and alleviated by the jingle with juxtaposed . But there is no reason for Orestes to go on insisting on the bloodthirstiness of these aims, and reads oddly in 100, where he is explaining soberly his plan of campaign.