This commentary examines the incursion on the neutrality of medical personnel now taking place as part of the human rights crises in Bahrain and Syria, and the ethical dilemmas which these incursions place not only in front of physicians practicing in those nations, but in front of the international community as a whole.In Bahrain, physicians have recently received harsh prison terms, apparently for treating demonstrators who clashed with government forces. In Syria, physicians are under the same political pressure to avoid (...) treating political demonstrators or to act as informants against their own patients, turning them in to government authorities. This pressure has been severe, to the point that some physicians have become complicit in the abuse of patients who were also political demonstrators.This paper posits that physicians in certain countries in the Middle East during the “Arab Spring,” specifically Syria and Bahrain, are being used as both political pawns and political weapons in clear violation of Geneva Convention and World Medical Association guidelines, and that this puts them into the most extreme sort of “dual loyalty” dilemma. They are being forced to choose between their own safety and well-being and that of their patients – a negative sum scenario wherein there is no optimal choice. As such, an international call for a United Nations inquiry must be made in order to protect the neutrality of medical care and personnel during times of armed conflict. (shrink)

This volume explores the versatility of the concept of pneuma in philosophical and medical theories in the wake of Aristotle’s physics. It offers fourteen separate studies of how the concept of pneuma was used in a range of physical, physiological, psychological, cosmological and ethical inquiries. The focus is on individual thinkers or traditions and the specific questions they sought to address, including early Peripatetic sources, the Stoics, the major Hellenistic medical traditions, Galen, as well as Proclus in Late Antiquity and (...) John Zacharias Aktouarios in the early 14th century. Building on new scholarly approaches and on recent advancements in our understanding of Graeco-Roman philosophy and medicine, the volume prompts a profound re-evaluation of this fluid and adaptable, but crucially important, substance, in antiquity and beyond. (shrink)

How can self-deception avoid intention and conscious recognition? Nine processes of self-deception seem to involve biased links between plausible ideas. These processes allow self-deceivers to regard individual conclusions as fair and reasonable. Bias is only detected by comparing broad patterns, which individual self-deceivers will not do.

This paper discusses findings from a study funded by the Equality Commission for Northern Ireland (NI) to explore the promotion of gender equity in the classroom and the extent to which initial teacher training and in-service courses address gender issues. Data from a questionnaire survey of 344 teachers and the qualitative dimensions of the study suggest that teachers are generally aware of gender stereotypes in the classroom and that, despite their lack of training in gender issues, where appropriate, most attempt (...) to challenge this type of behaviour. Concern was expressed with the role of teachers in unconsciously perpetuating stereotypes and the extent to which equality issues are directed more towards girls than boys. (shrink)

We argue that for scientists and science communicators to build usable knowledge for various publics, they require social and political capital, skills in boundary work, and ethical acuity. Drawing on the context of communicating seasonal climate predictions to farmers in Australia, we detail four key issues that scientists and science communicators would do well to reflect upon in order to become effective and ethical intermediaries. These issues relate to the boundary work used to link science and values and thereby construct (...) public identities, emplacement, that is, the importance of situating knowledge in relation to the places with which people identify, personal and organizational processes of reflexivity, and the challenges of developing and maintaining the social and political capital necessary to simultaneously represent people’s identities and lifeworlds and the climate systems that affect them. Through a discourse analysis of in-depth interviews with Australian agro-climatologists, we suggest that three distinct “modes of extension” are apparent, namely, discursive, conceptual, and contextual. Our participants used these three modes interdependently to create knowledge that has salience, credibility, and legitimacy. They thereby generated new narratives of place, practice, and identity for Australian agriculture. (shrink)

The physician Herophilus of Chalcedon, who lived and worked in Alexandria in the early third centuryb.c., is best known and justly celebrated for his numerous and ground-breaking anatomical discoveries and advances in such areas as pulse theory. His systematic investigations into the human body led to some of the highest achievements of Hellenistic science, among which the best known is probably his discovery and detailed description of the nervous system and its functions. Yet certain aspects of his thought have seemed (...) difficult to harmonize with the aims and methods of his medical research. One such is his attitude to causality. According to Galen, Herophilus had accepted the existence of causes merely on a hypothetical basis, and indeed had made the striking claim that ‘by nature it is not discoverable whether causes do or do not exist’. Galen associates these views directly with a number of arguments designed to prove that there are no such things as causes, but we are otherwise left with little in the way of context, and different interpretations have unsurprisingly suggested themselves. (shrink)

Abstract This paper examines a fundamental, though relatively understudied, aspect of the physical theory of the physician Asclepiades of Bithynia, namely his doctrine of pores. My principal thesis is that this doctrine is dependent on a conception of void taken directly from Epicurean physics. The paper falls into two parts: the first half addresses the evidence for the presence of void in Asclepiades' theory, and concludes that his conception of void was basically that of Epicurus; the second half focuses on (...) the precise nature of Asclepiadean pores, and seeks to show that they represent void interstices between the primary particles of matter which are the constituents of the human body, and are thus exactly analogous to the void interstices between atoms within solid objects in Epicurus' theory. (shrink)

Social license reflects environmental and social change, and sees community as an important stakeholder and partner. Science, scientists, and science policy have a key role in the processes that generate social license. In this paper, we focus on the interaction between science and social license in salmon aquaculture in south-eastern Tasmania. This research suggests that social license will be supported by distributed and credible knowledge co-production. Drawing on qualitative, interpretive social research we argue that targeted science, instilled by appropriate science (...) policy, can underpin social license by supporting emerging, distributed, and pluralistic knowledge production. Where social license is important and environmental contexts are complex, such knowledge production might support environmental governance, and so improve outcomes in coastal zone management and beyond. (shrink)

Athenaeus of Attaleia (fl. mid-first century BC) offers a fascinating example of the interest among Graeco-Roman physicians in marking out the boundaries between medicine and philosophy. As founder of the so-called Pneumatist medical sect, he was deeply influenced by contemporary Stoicism. A number of surviving ancient testimonia tell us that he held a distinctive view on the question of how far medicine should analyse the composition of the human body. Rather than having recourse to the Stoic cosmic elements fire, air, (...) earth and water, he maintained that in the context of the medical art, the relevant elements were the elemental qualities hot, cold, wet and dry. This paper is an attempt to pin down Athenaeus’ position on these issues, and his motivations for holding it, despite a number of conflicting and problematic claims in the surviving evidence. (shrink)

The medical and philosophical system of Asclepiades of Bithynia ( fl. later second century BC) has been the subject of considerable controversy. His physical theory of anarmoi onkoi in particular has seen intense debate, and although many of its broader features appear to be fairly well established, many of its most fundamental details remain obscure. Perhaps somewhat paradoxically, some of the most important work carried out on Asclepiades has been explicitly focused instead on Heraclides of Pontus, the reconstruction of whose (...) physical theory has often proceeded on the assumption that this was largely replicated by Asclepiades some two centuries later. (shrink)

This paper argues that the Alexandrian physicians Erasistratus of Iulis and Herophilus of Chalcedon adopted an Aristotelian analysis of the composition of organic bodies into three levels, namely elements, uniform and non-uniform parts. They asserted that it was not the task of the doctor to analyse the body at the level of elements, that the uniform parts, being perceptible, should be taken to be most basic in the context of medicine and that the inquiry into the elements be left to (...) philosophers. The paper explores the possible motivations behind this restriction, and considers more generally its connections to the Peripatetic background. (shrink)

Journal Name: Apeiron Issue: Ahead of print.

There is much interest in moving AI out into real world applications, a move which has been encouraged by recent funding which has attempted to show industry and commerce can benefit from the Fifth Generation of computing. In this article I suggest that the legal application area is one which is very much more complex than it might — at first sight — seem. I use arguments from the sociology of law to indicate that the viewing of the legal system (...) as simply a rule-bound discipline is inherently nave. This, while not new in jurisprudence, is — as the literature of AI and law indicates — certainly novel to the field of artificial intelligence. The socio-legal argument provided is set within the context of AI as one more example of the failure of scientific success and method to easily transmit itself over into the social sciences. (shrink)

Linguistic phenomena of tense and aspect have been investigated in a great deal of theoretical work in linguistics, philosophy and computer science. Modern tense logics, established by Prior, are part of this effort. Point tense logics offer an intuitive representation of tense but lack the expressiveness to represent many aspectual structures. Interval tense logics offer more expressiveness but in the general case can be computationally intractable. From a linguistic perspective there is the problem of precisely how to formalise the aspectual (...) structures, such as a culmination and a culminated process. In this paper we define a computationally tractable augmented fragment of Halpern and Shoham's interval tense logic HS and apply it to represent a core set of aspectual structures, which are incorporated into a temporal semantics of a simple fragment of English. We model the logic fragment using timelines and define two procedures, one for constructing the minimal timelines that satisfy a formula and one for checking semantic entailments between one formula and another by comparing their timelines. The former is applied to compute models of temporal readings and the latter to check entailments between them. Possible extensions to the logic fragment and timeline models are discussed as ways of accounting for a wider range of linguistic behaviour. (shrink)

Calvin's theology can properly be described primarily as commentary upon Scripture as a whole and secondarily as commentary upon the way the church had read Scripture in its theology and creeds.

Printbegrænsninger: Der kan printes 10 sider ad gangen og max. 40 sider pr. session.

The dependence of Christian theology on the Scriptures cannot be stated in tenus of some one method of using them. But there are features of the relationship which belong to the right and true understanding of them that is faithful to what the Christian community recognized as the decisive revelation of God.

This article challenges the idea that success of boundary organizations is marked primarily by the stability of the science–policy interface. We review key theory in the literature on boundary work and boundary organizations. We then present a case, the Derwent Estuary Program in South East Tasmania, Australia, to explore the evolution of successful boundary organization. We detail how a science-oriented program of work achieved success, through early wins that cemented its support and created a relatively stable entity able to navigate (...) the expansion of its remit from managing controversy to implementing an integrated, systems approach to coastal zone management. The creation of “safe spaces” enabled contentious situations to be negotiated through well-established relationships and processes. The interaction among these elements, supported by exemplary leadership, was critical to reframing the problem. We suggest that it is through these abilities to navigate controversy and mediate among divergent interests, while maintaining a committed focus on science, that boundary organizations can succeed. Success in this context is achieved through using credible science to reframe problems. Success is further indicated not just by surviving periodic controversies but by being able to benefit from them, building legitimacy among partners and stakeholders through successfully navigating unforeseen events. (shrink)

European identity is a complex, multi-faced and inherently imprecise concept relating to a range of socio-political and psychological factors. Addressing this topic in educational practice, particularly with respect to Higher Education students, constitutes a complex and open problem for research. This paper reports on an experimental study designed to explore the effectiveness of the educational game “RUEU?” in supporting university students in understanding the key socio-political issues regarding European identity. Quantitative data regarding Greek university students’ attitudes to European identity, before (...) and after playing the game, were collected. Students’ performance of the game group was compared with that of a control group who explored the same issues about European identity through a tutor-guided discussion. The findings showed that both instructional interventions were effective but in different ways. The participants in the game-based group appeared more attached to the EU after the intervention and moved toward a more balanced description of their Greek and European identity. On the other hand, the students in the control group rated higher what “European identity” and being EU citizen means to them. The findings indicated the potential of game-based interventions to deliver not only academic content but also to promote students’ reflection and influence them at an attitudinal and emotional level. (shrink)

Instead of drawing out exact paths for overcoming barriers, the authors of the book Enhancing Science Impact refer back to the necessity of reflecting on all aspects of research. There is no one-fits-all solution of approaching sustainability. Instead a comprehensive understanding of problem-structuring is necessary for addressing current challenges. Even though the work provides a practical foci-guideline, a critical reflection on how nature is represented within research programmes and projects is missing.