If the ordinary quantal Liouville equation ℒρ= $\dot \rho $ is generalized by discarding the customary stricture that ℒ be of the standard Hamiltonian commutator form, the new quantum dynamics that emerges has sufficient theoretical fertility to permit description even of a thermodynamically irreversible process in an isolated system, i.e., a motion ρ(t) in which entropy increases but energy is conserved. For a two-level quantum system, the complete family of time-independent linear superoperators ℒ that generate such motions is derived; and (...) a physically interesting example is presented in detail. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Contemplating the Beautiful: The Practical Importance of Theoretical Excellence in Aristotle’s EthicsJames L. Wood (bio)Aristotle, unlike plato, famously distinguishes φρόνησις from, practical from theoretical wisdom, in Book VI of the Nicomachean Ethics. He distinguishes them on the basis of both their objects and their psychic spheres: is the excellence or virtue (ἀρετή) of the scientific faculty, τὸ ἐπιστημονικόν, “by which we contemplate [θεωρου̑μεν] the sort of beings whose principles (...) [ἀρχαί] do not admit of being otherwise,” while φρόνησις is an excellence of the calculative faculty, τὸ λογιστικόν, by which we contemplate “the sort of beings that admit of being otherwise” (VI.1, 1139a6–8).1 Φρόνησις is skilled and experienced deliberation about human action and emotion, and in particular about “the sort of things that relate to (πρός) living well in general” (VI.5,1140a28); so φρόνησις guides right action, and as it turns out, directly entails excellence of character, ἠθική ἀρετή (VI.13, 1145a1–2)., on the other hand, while necessary for complete happiness (VI.12, 1144a1–6), “contemplates none of the things that make a human being happy” (VI.12, 1143b19–20), because it contemplates not changeable human affairs, circumstances, and actions, but eternal and unchanging realities (VI.6–7; X.7–8; cf. On the Soul, III.9, 432b26–433a1). Θεωρία, contemplation itself, is defined with reference to in Book X, where contemplation is made the basis of the highest human happiness as the excellent activity of intellect (νου̑ς) by which “beautiful and divine” realities are apprehended (X.7, 1177a15–18 and following). In contrast, the excellence of practical activity (both φρόνησις and ἠθική ἀρετή) is explicitly distinguished from the excellent theoretical activity of νου̑ς in θεωρία and relegated to a merely “secondary” importance (X.8, 1178a9 and following).2 [End Page 391]We might well conclude from this account that theoretical activity has nothing to do with practical activity, even if each is independently necessary for complete human happiness, and even if, as Aristotle says, practical excellence is somehow necessary to prepare the way for theoretical excellence (cf. VI.13, 1145a6–11). I wish to counter this impression, however, by showing that there is a theoretical dimension to excellent practical activity.3 More precisely, I will argue that theoretical activity contributes to practical excellence by furnishing the principles (ἀρχαί) of practical reasoning to the calculative faculty and the motivating end (τέλος) of action to the irrational-appetitive (τὸ; ἄλογον) part of the soul. The intellectual faculty that performs this theoretical activity is νου̑ς; the principles that νου̑ς apprehends are the first premises of ethical and political deliberation; and the τέλος that νου̑ς holds up to the appetitive soul as an orienting and motivating object is το καλόν.4 What distinguishes this activity from the theoretical activity that furnishes the principles of scientific reasoning (ἐπιστήμη) for the sake of knowledge is both the kinds of objects studied and the purpose of the study. One typically studies mathematics or astronomy in order to gain knowledge, not to act virtuously; however, one can certainly study the principles of human nature for the sake of virtuous action (as well as knowledge), as Aristotle himself does in the Ethics and other treatises (cf. II.2, 1103b27–29).5 Moreover, the theoretical study of the most “beautiful and divine” realities, described in Book X of the Ethics and Book XII of the Metaphysics, raises the possibility of a direct contribution of θεωρία at the highest levels to πρα̑ξις through the mediating activity of νου̑ς in the contemplation of the highest beauty and divinity.In what follows I will develop and defend these points through a close examination of Aristotle’s discussion of these concepts. My argument has three main parts. The first examines the role of thought in excellent action, the second brings out [End Page 392] the significance of το καλόν as the universal object of practical excellence, and the third argues in three subsections for the contribution in different ways of theoretical to practical excellence.1. The Dependence of Desire on Thought in Excellent ActionAs is clear from his concluding remarks in Book VI, where he declares that the possession of φρόνησις entails the possession of all the virtues of character (VI.13, 1145a1–2), Aristotle holds that the ἀρεταί of practical thought and character, φρόνησις and ἠθική ἀρετή, are interdependent and mutually implicating in virtuous choice and action. Thought needs desire in order to be practically effective... (shrink)

This co-edited volume compares Chinese and Western experiences of engineering, technology, and development. In doing so, it builds a bridge between the East and West and advances a dialogue in the philosophy of engineering. Divided into three parts, the book starts with studies on epistemological and ontological issues, with a special focus on engineering design, creativity, management, feasibility, and sustainability. Part II considers relationships between the history and philosophy of engineering, and includes a general argument for the necessity of dialogue (...) between history and philosophy. It continues with a general introduction to traditional Chinese attitudes toward engineering and technology, and philosophical case studies of the Chinese steel industry, railroads, and cybernetics in the Soviet Union. Part III focuses on engineering, ethics, and society, with chapters on engineering education and practice in China and the West. The book’s analyses of the interactions of science, engineering, ethics, politics, and policy in different societal contexts are of special interest. The volume as a whole marks a new stage in the emergence of the philosophy of engineering as a new regionalization of philosophy. This carefully edited interdisciplinary volume grew out of an international conference on the philosophy of engineering hosted by the University of the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing. It includes 30 contributions by leading philosophers, social scientists, and engineers from Australia, China, Europe, and the United States. (shrink)

During the intense philosophical and theological renaissance of the Russian Silver Age, the German Cardinal Nicholas of Cusa (1401–1464) received a unique appraisal in the work of Semyon Liudwigovich Frank (1877–1950), hailed by some as ‘the greatest Russian philosopher’. This paper will show that five of Frank's central philosophical arguments can be traced directly to Cusa's writings. Once these key arguments are taken together with Frank's own comments about Cusa, it can be concluded that Frank saw himself as Cusa's modern (...) successor, presenting his ideas in a different intellectual context. In this sense, we can speak of Frank as the ‘Russian Cusanus’. The arguments in question include Cusa's docta ignorantia, our knowledge of being, the recognition of absolute being as ‘non‐other’, the identity of possibility and actuality in the absolute, and finally the coincidentia oppositorum. (shrink)

This rich and varied collection of essays addresses some of the most fundamental human questions through the lenses of philosophy, literature, religion, politics, and theology. Peter Augustine Lawler and Dale McConkey have fashioned an interdisciplinary consideration of such perennial and enduring issues as the relationship between nature and history, nature and grace, reason and revelation, classical philosophy and Christianity, modernity and postmodernity, repentance and self-limitation, and philosophy and politics.

Catalan translation, introductory study and notes on W. K. Clifford’s “The Ethics of Belief”. Published in Clifford, W.K. “L’ètica de la creença”. Quaderns de Filosofia, vol. III, n. 2 (2016), pp. 129–150. // Catalan translation, introductory study and notes on William James’s “The Will to Believe”. Published in James, William. “La voluntat de creure”. Quaderns de Filosofia, vol. III, n. 2 (2016), pp. 151–172. [Introductory study published in Oya, Alberto. “Introducció. El debat entre W. K. Clifford i William (...) James”. Quaderns de Filosofia, vol. III, n. 2 (2016), pp. 123–127]. (shrink)

Maclntyre's claim that contemporary moral language is, by traditional standards, merely chaotic somewhat exaggerates our chaos, and traditional order. He accuses. Moore and his disciples in particular of using moral language merely as propaganda, failing, like other critics, to reckon with the Platonic context of Moore's argument and the reasons why Goodness is an idea that rational inquiry should not abandon. Genuine moral action is done as the right thing, that produces more that is good than any alternative. (...) Plato's model of the threefold structure of human motivation, and his image of the cave, locates moral action at a higher level than action from desire or social prejudice. We discover our real selves, distinct from our physical and social natures, in seeing what Goodness requires. This neo?Platonism is a better bet than Maclntyre allows, and an answer to the barbarian puppeteers he rightly condemns. (shrink)

We present a one per cent measurement of the cosmic distance scale from the detections of the baryon acoustic oscillations in the clustering of galaxies from the Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey, which is part of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey III. Our results come from the Data Release 11 sample, containing nearly one million galaxies and covering approximately 8500 square degrees and the redshift range 0.2 < z < 0.7. We also compare these results with those from the publicly released (...) DR9 and DR10 samples. Assuming a concordance Λ cold dark matter cosmological model, the DR11 sample covers a volume of 13 Gpc3 and is the largest region of the Universe ever surveyed at this density. We measure the correlation function and power spectrum, including density-field reconstruction of the BAO feature. The acoustic features are detected at a significance of over 7σ in both the correlation function and power spectrum. Fitting for the position of the acoustic features measures the distance relative to the sound horizon at the drag epoch, rd, which has a value of rd,fid = 149.28 Mpc in our fiducial cosmology. We find DV = at z = 0.32 and DV = at z = 0.57. At 1.0 per cent, this latter measure is the most precise distance constraint ever obtained from a galaxy survey. Separating the clustering along and transverse to the line of sight yields measurements at z = 0.57 of DA = and H =. Our measurements of the distance scale are in good agreement with previous BAO measurements and with the predictions from cosmic microwave background data for a spatially flat CDM model with a cosmological constant. © 2014 The Author Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Royal Astronomical Society. (shrink)

Ulrich von Wilamowitz-Moellendorff wrote surprisingly often to British colleagues. Usually it was a matter of a letter or two. The prolonged exchange with Gilbert Murray is the exception. More typical is the brief but important one with Sir James George Frazer. Extant evidence attests that he corresponded with some forty Englishmen and Scots. I omit Anglo-Irish: J.B. Bury, J.P. Mahaffy, L.C. Purser and the papyrologist, J.G. Smily. The evidence is incomplete because most letters after the letter N were stolen (...) and burned in the Berlin winter 1945-6. A first catalogue of his British correspondents is assembled. Because of the remoteness of much published biographical material, I include references to the important published sources and occasionally publish a document which otherwise would be forgotten. For the first time Wilamowitz's influence on the English scholars of his time is precisely documented. (shrink)

The practical question about God's relation to human freedom isthe issue between Nietzsche and Sartre, on the one hand, and Marcel,on the other. God is compatible with human freedom, for Marcel,because He is conceived as an absolute “Thou,” not an objectivecause, and because human freedom is essentially disposability, openand receptive to the other. God is relevant to human freedom becauseHe is more intimate to me than I am to myself, because He can re-veal to me possibilities about myself and the (...) world which I can thenaccept or reject. If the other is essential for self-knowledge in thefinite sphere, then the absolute Other is essential for the deepestself-knowledge. Also God is essential as the ground of that hopewithout which creative fidelity would die.The most fundamental question, therefore, of the atheism-theismdebate is the nature of freedom. If freedom is conceived in an “either-or” manner as totally subjective, independent, and closed in uponitself, then there is an essential antagonism between man and God.If freedom is conceived in a “both-and” fashion as both independentand dependent, active and receptive, personally responsible and yetopen to the other, then there is not antagonism, but rather fruitfulinteraction. One of Gabriel Marcel's major contributions to existentialphilosophy and the philosophy of religion is to have indicated theplausibility and fruitfulness of such a model. (shrink)

Moore, Gerard Review of: Baptism: Historical, theological and pastoral perspectives, by Gordon L. Heath, and James D. Dvorak, eds, McMaster Divinity College Press Theological Study Series 4, pp.271, $44.95.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:diacritics 35.1 (2005) 136-146MuseSearchJournalsThis JournalContents[Access article in PDF]The Christian Bain de Diane, or the Stakes of an Ambiguous ParatextPatrick AmstutzTranslated by Gerald MooreUpon its publication, Le bain de Diane elicited few reactions on the part of criticism. Klossowski's name was still a secret and, despite its note among writers such as Bataille, Beauvoir, Camus, Parain, and Sartre and their public following, the number of readers to have read this (...) fifth work remained confined to those already familiar with Klossow-ski the essayist (Sade mon prochain, Méditations bibliques de Hamann), or the novelist (La vocation suspendue, Roberte, ce soir). The discreet silence that characterized the first reception of Le bain de Diane would last until the end of the seventies, despite a reedition in 1972 by the same publisher. During this time three important moments made Le bain de Diane resurface at the heart of the literary world: first, in fictional form, thanks to a subtle but explicit homage paid by Henri Thomas [Le promontoire]; second, in the form of a penetrating commentary article by Michel Foucault ["La prose d'Actéon"], and finally, at the hands of René Micha and Catherine Backès-Clément, key contributors to the issue that the review L'Arc dedicated to the writer. The reedition of Le bain de Diane by Gallimard1 would significantly relaunch interest in this work which, one comes increasingly to realize, is a major text in the Klossowskian oeuvre: offering a reflection on the image and writing, it was Gilles Quinsat who would open this new period of critical reception.An Uncertain IdentityQuinsat emphasizes the "series of 'tableaux' that glazes Le Bain de Diane" in accordance with a "circular" descriptive movement, he says, "from vision to commentary, attributed to the deferral without end of signs, and which feeds the entire work of Pierre Klossowski" [95]. And if he borrows the term "exegesis" from Foucault to describe the genre of the work, he immediately associates it with that of "narrative." A quarter of a century earlier, a commentary in the new Nouvelle revue française had already underlined the "disconcerting" character of Klossowski's book, by accentuating not only the strangeness of its thematic, but also the difficulties posed by the uncertainty of its generic belonging (which is echoed by the absent mention of a paratext): the critic, hesitating, suggested somewhat confusedly a typological kinship with philosophical commentary, theological scholasticism, prose poetry, series of paintings, historical narrative and even the analysis of myths [Amer 144]. In fact, this mythological "reverie," neither an essay nor a narrative, is, from this point of view, a typically Klossowskian [End Page 136] book, as Ian James has more recently reminded us [143]. Le bain de Diane mixes erudite commentary and narrative discourse so well that it entices its commentators into the traps of scholarly, historical, and philological annotation. Yet this would be to forget, as Maurice Blanchot has observed [92–94], that the written oeuvre of Klossowski belongs fully to the field of literature, even more so than to those of philosophy, theology, or psychoanalysis.When it comes to discerning the literariness of this literary object, which the different paratextual and intertextual stakes and levels underline, the principal difficulty consists in not losing oneself in a mythological labyrinth and innumerable variants of the cult of Artemis, which was one of the most significant, oldest, and popular cults of the Greco-Roman era and which plunges into a world on whose complexity historians and philologists have insisted on many occasions. The study of Klossowski's sources could lead one through multiple disciplines (philology, mythography, psychoanalysis, the history of religions, history of art, French literature—all centuries cobbled together, and so on) to overly vast inquiries: the goddess "of a thousand names" assumes a properly vertiginous semiotic richness, and the cult of Artemis, before being linked to that of Apollo, stretches back to time immemorial where, behind Artemis, can be glimpsed the Asiatic figure of a Great Mother Goddess, whose... (shrink)

This book, one of the "Great American Thinkers" series, seems primarily intended for the reader with no previous knowledge of James or of philosophy in general. The author discusses James's psychology, pragmatism, philosophy of religion, and metaphysics, and makes some attempt to trace common themes and present James's thought as a unified whole. The exposition is generally clear and straightforward, and Moore avoids many of the clichés and misunderstandings common in discussions of James and pragmatism. (...) Within this rather small book the author attempts not only to present James's treatment of some of the classic problems of philosophy, but also to give an elementary introduction to those problems. Unfortunately, the simplified and schematic presentation which results often fails to capture effectively the flavor, subtlety, and excitement of James's thought.—P. F. L. (shrink)

In 1958 William L. Langer, in a well-known presidential address to the American Historical Association, declared the informed use of psychoanalytic depth psychology as "the next assignment" for professional historians. _Psychoanalysis and History_, volume 31 of _The Annual of Psychoanalysis_, examines the degree to which Langer's directive has been realized in the intervening 45 years. Section I makes the case for psychobiography in the lives of historical figures and exemplifies this perspective with analytically informed studies of the art of Wassily (...) Kandinsky; the films of Stanley Kubrick; and the anti-Semitism of Adolf Hitler. Section II reviews Freud's own psychohistorical contributions and then considers the relevance to historical inquiry of the more recent perspectives of Winnicott, Kernberg, and Kohut. Section III explores an intriguing tributary of psychobiographical inquiry: the impact of the biographer's own subjectivity on his or her work. Section IV turns to a topic of perennial interest: the psychobiographical study of American presidents. Section V turns to the special challenges of applying psychoanalysis to topics of religious history and includes topical studies of religious figures as disparate as the 15th century Asian Drukpa Kunley and Osama bin Laden. Section VI focuses on the recent extension of psychohistorical inquiry to groups of people and to cultural phenomena more generally: an investigation of the youth movement in pre-Nazi Germany; consideration of how societies, no less than individuals, reenact and work through traumas over time; and an outline of the role of analysis in constructing a depth-psychological "social psychology" of use to historians. These papers, no less than those that precede them, are compelling testimony to the claim with which editors James William Anderson and Jerome A. Winer begin the volume, to wit, that "Psychoanalysis would seem to be a resource indispensable to the study of history.". (shrink)

Joel Feinberg : In Memoriam. Preface. Part I: INTRODUCTION TO THE NATURE AND VALUE OF PHILOSOPHY. 1. Joel Feinberg: A Logic Lesson. 2. Plato: "Apology." 3. Bertrand Russell: The Value of Philosophy. PART II: REASON AND RELIGIOUS BELIEF. 1. The Existence and Nature of God. 1.1 Anselm of Canterbury: The Ontological Argument, from Proslogion. 1.2 Gaunilo of Marmoutiers: On Behalf of the Fool. 1.3 L. Rowe: The Ontological Argument. 1.4 Saint Thomas Aquinas: The Five Ways, from Summa Theologica. 1.5 Samuel (...) Clarke: A Modern Formulation of the Cosmological Argument. 1.6 William L. Rowe: The Cosmological Argument. 1.7 William Paley: The Argument from Design. 1.8 Michael Ruse: The Design Argument. 1.9 David Hume: Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion. 2. The Problem of Evil. 2.1 Fyodor Dostoyevsky: Rebellion. 2.2 J. L. Mackie: Evil and Omnipotence. 2.3 Peter van Inwagen: The Argument from Evil. 2.4 Michael Murray and Michael Rea: The Argument from Evil. 2.5 B. C. Johnson: God and the Problem of Evil. 3. Reason and Faith. 3.1 W. K. Clifford: The Ethics of Belief. 3.2 William James: The Will to Believe. 3.3 Kelly James Clark: Without Evidence or Argument. 3.4 Blaise Pascal: The Wager. 3.5 Lawrence Shapiro: Miracles and Justification. 3.6 Simon Blackburn: Infini-Rien. Part III. HUMAN KNOWLEDGE: ITS GROUNDS AND LIMITS. 1. Skepticism. 1.1 John Pollock: A Brain in a Vat. 1.2 Michael Huemer: Three Skeptical Arguments. 1.3 Robert Audi: Skepticism. 2. The Nature and Value of Knowledge. 2.1 Plato: Knowledge as Justified True Belief. 2.2 Edmund Gettier: Is Justified True Belief Knowledge? 2.3 James Cornman, Keith Lehrer, and George Pappas: An Analysis of Knowledge. 2.4 Gilbert Ryle: Knowing How and Knowing That. 2.5 Plato: "Meno". 2.6 Linda Zagzebski, Epistemic Good and The Good Life. 3. Our Knowledge of the External World. 3.1 Bertrand Russell: Appearance and Reality and the Existence of Matter. 3.2 René Descartes: Meditations on First Philosophy. 3.3 John Locke: The Causal Theory of Perception. 3.4 George Berkeley: Of the Principles of Human Knowledge. 3.5 G. E. Moore: Proof of an External World. 4. The Methods of Science. 4.1 David Hume: An Inquiry Concerning Human Understanding. 4.2 Wesley C. Salmon: An Encounter with David Hume. 4.3 Karl Popper: Science: Conjectures and Refutations. 4.4 Philip Kitcher: Believing Where We Cannot Prove. Part IV: MIND AND ITS PLACE IN NATURE. 1. The Mind-Body Problem. 1.1 Brie Gertler: In Defense of Mind--Body Dualism. 1.2 Frank Jackson: The Qualia Problem. 1.3 David Papineau: The Case for Materialism. 1.4 Paul Churchland: Functionalism and Eliminative Materialism. 2. Can Non-Humans Think? 2.1 Alan Turing: Computing Machinery and Intelligence. 2.2 John R. Searle: Minds, Brains, and Programs. 2.3 William G. Lycan: Robots and Minds. 3. Personal Identity and the Survival of Death. 3.1 John Locke: The Prince and the Cobbler. 3.2 Thomas Reid: Of Mr. Locke’s Account of Our Personal Identity. 3.3 David Hume: The Self. 3.4 Derek Parfit: Divided Minds and the Nature of Persons. 3.5 Shelly Kagan: What Matters. 3.6 John Perry: A Dialogue on Personal Identity and Immortality. Part V: DETERMINISM, FREE WILL, AND RESPONSIBILITY. 1. Libertarianism: The Case for Free Will and Its Incompatibility with Determinism. 1.1 Roderick M. Chisholm: Human Freedom and the Self. 1.2 Robert Kane: Free Will: Ancient Dispute, New Themes. 2. Hard Determinism: The Case for Determinism and its Incompatibility with Its Incompatibility with Any Important Sense of Free Will. 2.1 James Rachels: The case against Free Will. 2.2 Derk Pereboom: Why We Have No Free Will and Can Live Without It. 3. Compatibilism: The Case for Determinism and Its Compatibility with the Most Important Sense of Free Will. 3.1 David Hume: Of Liberty and Necessity. 3.2 Helen Beebee: Compatibilism and the Ability to do Otherwise. 4. Freedom and Moral Responsibility. 4.1 Galen Strawson: Luck Swallows Everything. 4.2 Harry Frankfurt: Alternate Possibilities and Moral Responsibility. 4.3 Thomas Nagel: Moral Luck. 4.4 Susan Wolf: Sanity and the Metaphysics of Responsibility. Part VI: MORALITY AND ITS CRITICS. 1. Changes to Morality. 1.1 Joel Feinberg: Psychological Egoism. 1.2 Plato: The Immoralist’s Challenge. 1.3 Friedrich Nietzche: Master and Slave Morality. 1.4 Richard Joyce: The Evolutionary Debunking of Morality. 2. Proposed Standards and Right of Conduct. 2.1 Russ Shafer-Landau: Ethical Subjectivism. 2.2 Mary Midgley: Trying Out One’s New Sword. 2.3 Aristotle: Virtue and the Good Life. 2.4 Thomas Hobbes: Leviathan. 2.5 Plato: Euthyphro. 2.6 Immanuel Kant: The Good Will and the Categorical Imperative. 2.7 J.S. Mill: Utilitarianism, Chapters 2 and 4. 2.8 W. D. Ross: What Makes Right Acts Right? 2.9 Hilde Lindemann: What Is Feminist Ethics? 3. Ethical Problems. 3.1 Kwame Anthony Appiah: What Will Future Generations Condemn Us For? 3.2 Peter Singer: Famine, Affluence and Morality. 3.3 John Harris: The Survival Lottery. 3.4 James Rachels: Active and Passive Euthanasia. 3.5 Mary Anne Warren: The Moral and Legal Status of Abortion. 3.6 Don Marquis: Why Abortion Is Immoral. 4. The Meaning of Life. 4.1 Epicurus: Letter to Menoeceus. 4.2 Richard Taylor: The Meaning of Life. 4.3 Richard Kraut: Desire and the Human Good. 4.4 Leo Tolstoy: My Confession. 4.5 Susan Wolf: Happiness and Meaning. 4.6 Thomas Nagel: The Absurd. (shrink)

Professor Lauer at the beginning of his book makes clear what he is doing by indicating what he is not doing. He is not giving a commentary, like Hyppolite, nor a genial discussion of the issue, like Lowenberg. Lauer’s is a reading of the Phenomenology, not the only reading or even the best reading, but a plausible one that he hopes will spare others the tortures he himself had to go through in understanding Hegel and that will facilitate one’s own (...) reading of this difficult work. In the opinion of this reviewer, Lauer largely succeeds in his project. (shrink)

Organ donation after the circulatory determination of death requires the permanent cessation of circulation while organ donation after the brain determination of death requires the irreversible cessation of brain functions. The unified brain-based determination of death connects the brain and circulatory death criteria for circulatory death determination in organ donation as follows: permanent cessation of systemic circulation causes permanent cessation of brain circulation which causes permanent cessation of brain perfusion which causes permanent cessation of brain function. The relevant circulation that (...) must cease in circulatory death determination is that to the brain. Eliminating brain circulation from the donor ECMO organ perfusion circuit in thoracoabdominal NRP protocols satisfies the unified brain-based determination of death but only if the complete cessation of brain circulation can be proved. Despite its medical and physiologic rationale, the unified brain-based determination of death remains inconsistent with the Uniform Determination of Death Act. (shrink)

Studies in philosophy: I. Tufts, J.H. On moral evolution. II. Willcos, W.F. The expansion of Europe in its influence upon population. III. Woods, R.A. Democracy a new unfolding of human power. IV. Sharp, F.C. An analysis of the moral judgment. V. Woodbridge, F.J.E. The problem of consciousness. VI. Norton, E.L. The intellectual element in music. VII. Raub, W.L. Pragmatism and Kantianism. VIII. Lyman, E.W. The influence of pragmatism upon the status of theology.--Studies in psychology: IX. Delabarre, E.B. Influence of surrounding (...) objects on the apparent direction of a line. X. Swift, E.J. Beginning a language; a contribution to the psychology of learning. XI. Pierce, A.H. An appeal from the prevailing doctrine of a detached subconsciousness. XII. Woodworth, R.S. The cause of a voluntary movement. XIII. Burnett, C.T. An experimental test of the classical theory of volition. (shrink)

In Darwin’s Sacred Cause, Adrian Desmond and James Moore contend that “Darwin would put his utmost into sexual selection because the subject intrigued him, no doubt, but also for a deeper reason: the theory vindicated his lifelong commitment to human brotherhood”. Without questioning Desmond and Moore’s evidence, I will raise some puzzles for their view. I will show that attention to the structure of Darwin’s arguments in the Descent of Man shows that they are far from straightforward. (...) As Desmond and Moore note, Darwin seems to have intended sexual selection in non-human animals to serve as evidence for sexual selection in humans. However, Darwin’s account of sexual selection in humans was different from the canonical cases that Darwin described at great length. If explaining the origin of human races was the main reason for introducing sexual selection, and if sexual selection was a key piece of Darwin’s anti-slavery arguments, then it is puzzling why Darwin would have spent so much time discussing cases that did not really support his argument for the origin of human races, and it is also puzzling that his argument for the origin of human races would be so poor. (shrink)