Since its founding in 1943, Medievalia et Humanistica has won worldwide recognition as the first scholarly publication in America to devote itself entirely to medieval and Renaissance studies. Since 1970, a new series, sponsored by the Modern Language Association of America and edited by an international board of distinguished scholars and critics, has published interdisciplinary articles. In yearly hardbound volumes, the new series publishes significant scholarship, criticism, and reviews treating all facets of medieval and Renaissance culture: history, art, literature, music, (...) science, law, economics, and philosophy. (shrink)

Despite the extensive commentary on the work of Peter Winch, there has been inadequate recognition of how his Idea of a Social Science discerned the implications of Wittgenstein’s philosophy for confronting issues regarding the nature and interpretation of social phenomena. Winch’s subsequent confrontation with anthropology can be further illuminated by examining one of the most contentious contemporary debates in this field. This case illustrates the paradoxes involved in meta-practices such as philosophy and social science seeking to make descriptive and normative (...) claims about conceptually preconstituted forms of life, and it indicates the limitations of philosophical realism as a social scientific meta-theory. (shrink)

Most land plants associate with mycorrhizal fungi that can connect roots of neighboring plants in common mycelial networks (CMNs). Recent evidence shows that CMNs transfer warning signals of pathogen and aphid attack between plants. However, we do not know how defence‐related signaling via CMNs operates or how ubiquitous it is. Nor do we know what the ecological relevance and fitness consequences are, particularly from the perspective of the mycorrhizal fungus. Here, we focus on the potential fitness benefits for mycorrhizal fungi (...) and outline hypothetical scenarios in which signal transfer via CMNs is modulated in order to acquire the most benefit for the fungus (i.e. acquisition of carbon) for minimal cost. We speculate that the signal may be quantitative and may elicit plant defence responses on different levels depending on the distance the signal is transferred. Finally, we discuss the possibility of practical applications of this phenomenon for crop protection. (shrink)

(Statement of Responsibility) by Lewis Carroll ; with illustrations in colors.

This book is a sustained examination of issues in the philosophy of ecology that have been a source of controversy since the emergence of ecology as an explicit scientific discipline. The controversies revolve around the idea of a balance of nature, the possibility of general ecological knowledge and the role of model-building in ecology. The Science of the Struggle for Existence is also a detailed treatment of these issues that incorporates both a comprehensive investigation of the relevant ecological literature and (...) the development of an explicit theoretical framework in the philosophy of science. It addresses issues in the philosophy of ecology that are of particular importance for the deployment of ecology in the solution of environmental problems. It will have a cross-disciplinary appeal and will interest students and professionals in science, the philosophy of science, and environmental studies as well as policy-makers. (shrink)

This book brings together twenty-three distinctive and influential essays on ancient moral philosophy--including several published here for the first time--by the distinguished philosopher and classical scholar John Cooper.

Preface This volume represents the proceedings of the First Conference on Situation Theory and Its Applications held by CSLI at Asilomar, California, ...

Using this case, Lavazza and Reichlin (2018) explored the ethical dilemmas associated with decision making in people with Alzheimer’s disease (AD), specifically when their new preferences conflict...

NEITHER in the scholarly nor in the philosophical literature on Aristotle does his account of friendship occupy a very prominent place. I suppose this is partly, though certainly not wholly, to be explained by the fact that the modern ethical theories with which Aristotle’s might demand comparison hardly make room for the discussion of any parallel phenomenon. Whatever else friendship is, it is, at least typically, a personal relationship freely, even spontaneously, entered into, and ethics, as modern theorists tend to (...) conceive it, deals rather with the ways in which people are required to regard, and behave toward, one another, than with the organization of their private affairs. To the extent, then, that one shares this modern outlook one will tend to neglect, or treat merely as an historical curiosity, Aristotle’s efforts to define friendship and to place it within the framework of human eudaimonia, the theory of which is central to moral philosophy as he understands it. Yet in the Nicomachean Ethics the two books on φιλία make up nearly a fifth of the whole, and this seems to me a fair measure of the importance of this subject to the complete understanding both of Aristotle’s overall moral theory and even of many of the more circumscribed topics to which so much scholarly and philosophical attention has been devoted. If, as I suggest, the failure of commentators to appreciate its importance is partly the effect of distortions produced by the moral outlook that has predominated in modern moral philosophy, the careful study of these books may help to free us from constricting prejudices and perhaps even make it possible to discover in Aristotle a plausible and suggestive alternative to the theories constructed on the narrower base characteristic of recent times. (shrink)

This book is a collection of secondary essays on America's most important philosophic thinkers—statesmen, judges, writers, educators, and activists—from the colonial period to the present. Each essay is a comprehensive introduction to the thought of a noted American on the fundamental meaning of the American regime.

I discuss the division of the soul in plato's "republic". i concentrate on the arguments and illustrative examples given in book iv, but i treat the descriptions of different types of person in viii-ix and elsewhere as further constituents of a single, coherent theory. on my interpretation plato distinguishes three basic kinds of motivation which he claims all human beings regularly experience in some degree. reason is itself the immediate source of certain desires. in addition, there are appetitive and also--quite (...) distinct from either of the other two--competitive motivations. (shrink)

The phenomenological effects of deep brain stimulation (DBS) on the self of the patient remains poorly understood and under described in the literature, despite growing evidence that a significant number of patients experience postoperative neuropsychiatric changes. To address this lack of phenomenological evidence, we conducted in-depth, semistructured interviews with 17 patients with Parkinson's disease who had undergone DBS. Exploring the subjective character specific to patients' experience of being implanted gives empirical and conceptual understanding of the potential phenomenon of DBS-induced self-estrangement. (...) Our study concluded that (1) the more patients preoperatively felt alienated by their illness, the more they experienced postoperative self-estrangement, and (2) the notion of self-estrangement seems to exist in association with certain common qualitative characters, namely, loss of control, which reflects a deteriorative estrangement, and distorted perception of capacities, which reveals a restorative estrangement. These findings indicate that subjective self-reports help us to understand some aspects of the potential phenomenon of DBS-induced self-estrangement. (shrink)

Philosophers have recently revived the study of the ancient Greek topics of virtue and the virtues—justice, honesty, temperance, friendship, courage, and so on as qualities of mind and character belonging to individual people. But one issue at the center of Greek moral theory seems to have dropped out of consideration. This is the question of the unity of virtue, the unity of the virtues. Must anyone who has one of these qualities have others of them as well, indeed all of (...) them—all the ones that really do deserve to be counted as virtues? Even further, is there really no set of distinct and separate virtuous qualities at all, but at bottom only a single one—so that the person who has this single condition of “virtue” is entitled also to the further descriptions “honest” and “well-controlled” and “just” and “friendly” and “courageous” and “fostering” and “supportive,” and so on, as distinguishable aspects or immediate effects of his unitary “virtue”? (shrink)

In "Pursuits of Wisdom," John Cooper brings this crucial question back to life. This marvelous book will shape the way we think about and engage with ancient philosophical traditions.

I Deliberation, Practical Syllogisms , and Intuition. Introduction Aristotle's views on moral reasoning are a difficult and much disputed subject. ...

ObjectiveTo assess distracted attention and performance on a computer task following completion of a sustained attention and acute media multitasking task among adolescents with varying self-reported usual media multitasking.MethodsNinety-six 13- to 17-year-olds played the video game Tetris following completion of a Go/No-go paradigm to measure sustained attention in the presence of distractors, an acute media multitasking, or a passive viewing condition. Adolescents completed the conditions on separate visits in randomized order. Sustained attention was measured within the Go/No-go task by measuring (...) errors of omission. Distracted attention while playing the Tetris task was measured by computing eye tracking measures of attention to irrelevant distractor images that bordered the Tetris game. Participants also self-reported their daily media multitasking.ResultsThe Go/No-go task revealed important qualitative differences in sustained attention among low and high usual media multitaskers. There was a uniform improvement in sustained attention among low usual media multitaskers, demonstrated by a consistent linear decrease in omission errors. Among high usual media multitaskers, there was initially a decrease in sustained attention followed by an increase. Completing the Go/No-go task also statistically significantly reduced distractibility and increased performance while playing Tetris compared to the passive viewing condition, but only among those with low usual media multitasking. There was a non-statistically significant trend that completing the acute media multitask increased subsequent distractibility and performance while playing Tetris among high media multitaskers.ConclusionIn this sample of adolescents, practicing a sustained attention task reduces distractibility and improves task performance among those who have low levels of usual media multitasking. (shrink)