Given its brevity, Plato's Meno covers an astonishingly wide array of topics: politics, education, virtue, definition, philosophical method, mathematics, the nature and acquisition of knowledge and immortality. Its treatment of these, though profound, is tantalisingly short, leaving the reader with many unresolved questions. This book confronts the dialogue's many enigmas and attempts to solve them in a way that is both lucid and sympathetic to Plato's philosophy. Reading the dialogue as a whole, it explains how different arguments are related to (...) one another and how the interplay between characters is connected to the philosophical content of the work. In a new departure, this book's exploration focuses primarily on the content and coherence of the dialogue in its own right and not merely in the context of other dialogues, making it required reading for all students of Plato, be they from the world of classics or philosophy. (shrink)

Despite the many well-documented similarities -- genetic, cognitive, behavioral, social -- between our human selves and our evolutionary forebears, a significant gulf remains between us and them. Why is that? How did it come about? And how did we come to be the way we are? In this book fourteen distinguished scholars -- including humanist, atheist, and theist voices -- address such questions as they explore how and when human personhood emerged. Representing various disciplines, the contributors all offer significant insights (...) into new scientific research about the origins of human nature -- research that challenges some traditional views. CONTRIBUTORS Francisco J. Ayala Justin L. Barrett Roy F. Baumeister Warren S. Brown Richard W. Byrne Matthew J. Jarvinen Malcolm Jeeves Timothy O'Connor Lynn K. Paul Colin Renfrew Ian Tattersall Anthony C. Thiselton Alan J. Torrance Adam Zeman. (shrink)

A categorical, higher dimensional algebra and generalized topos framework for Łukasiewicz–Moisil Algebraic–Logic models of non-linear dynamics in complex functional genomes and cell interactomes is proposed. Łukasiewicz–Moisil Algebraic–Logic models of neural, genetic and neoplastic cell networks, as well as signaling pathways in cells are formulated in terms of non-linear dynamic systems with n-state components that allow for the generalization of previous logical models of both genetic activities and neural networks. An algebraic formulation of variable ‘next-state functions’ is extended to a Łukasiewicz–Moisil (...) Topos with an n-valued Łukasiewicz–Moisil Algebraic Logic subobject classifier description that represents non-random and non-linear network activities as well as their transformations in developmental processes and carcinogenesis. The unification of the theories of organismic sets, molecular sets and Robert Rosen’s (M,R)-systems is also considered here in terms of natural transformations of organismal structures which generate higher dimensional algebras based on consistent axioms, thus avoiding well known logical paradoxes occurring with sets. Quantum bionetworks, such as quantum neural nets and quantum genetic networks, are also discussed and their underlying, non-commutative quantum logics are considered in the context of an emerging Quantum Relational Biology. (shrink)

This paper reviews the literature concerning the neural correlates of the self, the relationship between self and memory and the profile of memory impairments in Alzheimer’s disease and explores the relationship between the preservation of the self and anosognosia in this condition. It concludes that a potential explanation for anosognosia in AD is a lack of updating of personal information due to the memory impairments characteristic of this disease. We put forward the hypothesis that anosognosia is due in part to (...) the “petrified self.”. (shrink)

2021 marks Dylan's 80th birthday and his 60th year in the music world. It invites us to look back on his career and the multitudes that it contains. Is he a song and dance man? A political hero? A protest singer? A self-portrait artist who has yet to paint his masterpiece? Is he Shakespeare in the alley? The greatest living exponent of American music? An ironsmith? Internet radio DJ? Poet (who knows it)? Is he a spiritual and religious parking meter? (...) Judas? The voice of a generation or a false prophet, jokerman, and thief? Dylan is all these and none. The essays in this book explore the Nobel laureate’s masks, collectively reflecting upon their meaning through time, change, movement, and age. They are written by wonderful and diverse set of contributors, all here for his 80th birthday bash: celebrated Dylanologists like Michael Gray and Laura Tenschert; recording artists such as Robyn Hitchcock, Barb Jungr, Amy Rigby, and Emma Swift; and 'the professors’ who all like his looks: David Boucher, Anne Margaret Daniel, Ray Monk, Galen Strawson, and more. Read it on your toaster! (shrink)

An overview of the following three related papers in this issue presents the Emergence of Highly Complex Systems such as living organisms, man, society and the human mind from the viewpoint of the current Ontological Theory of Levels. The ontology of spacetime structures in the Universe is discussed beginning with the quantum level; then, the striking emergence of the higher levels of reality is examined from a categorical—relational and logical viewpoint. The ontological problems and methodology aspects discussed in the first (...) two papers are followed by a rigorous paper based on Category Theory, Algebraic Topology and Logic that provides a conceptual and mathematical basis for a Categorical Ontology Theory of Levels. The essential links and relationships between the following three papers of this issue are pointed out, and further possible developments are being considered. (shrink)

In the outpatient ultrasound suite of a major urban medical center, the mood is somber. A young woman lies tense and anxious. Pregnant for the first time, she has experienced early first-trimester bleeding. The radiologist relates the ultrasound findings: there has been a small hemorrhage, but there is a six-week-size fetus with normal cardiac activity. Translation: the baby is alive! The woman quietly sobs, happy but apprehensive.Across the drive, in the main hospital building, a young boy lies unresponsively comatose in (...) the Pediatric Intensive Care Unit. He was hit by a car while riding his bicycle. He is relying on a ventilator to breath, but his cardiovascular system is supporting itself. After a series... (shrink)

ABSTRACT:Despite sustained attention to ethical leadership in organizations, scholarship remains largely descriptive. This study employs an empirical approach to examine the consequences of ethical leadership on leader promotability. From a sample of ninety-six managers from two independent organizations, we found that ethical leaders were increasingly likely to be rated by their superior as exhibiting potential to reach senior leadership positions. However, leaders who displayed increased ethical leadership were no more likely to be viewed as promotable in the near-term compared to (...) those who displayed less ethical leadership. Our findings also show ethical culture and pressure to achieve results are important contextual factors that moderate the relationships between ethical leadership and leader promotability to senior leadership roles. (shrink)

By utilizing new information from both clinical and experimental (lesion, electrophysiological, and gene-activation) studies with animals, the anatomy underlying anterograde amnesia has been reformulated. The distinction between temporal lobe and diencephalic amnesia is of limited value in that a common feature of anterograde amnesia is damage to part of an comprising the hippocampus, the fornix, the mamillary bodies, and the anterior thalamic nuclei. This view, which can be traced back to Delay and Brion (1969), differs from other recent models in (...) placing critical importance on the efferents from the hippocampus via the fornix to the diencephalon. These are necessary for the encoding and, hence, the effective subsequent recall of episodic memory. An additional feature of this hippocampalanterior thalamic and the perirhinal–medial dorsal thalamic systems are compromised, leading to severe deficits in both recall and recognition. (shrink)

The relevance of the guna theory to applications of Western management practice is seen in this paper as an insight holding capacity to guide managerial behaviour. In its essence, the guna theory depicts values which constitute human personality into a sattwa-rajas delineation of deepened understanding, giving direction to action and which, in turn, illustrates negative values likely to cause obstruction. For managers to appreciate this level of understanding, while simultaneously sensing those values which inhibit purposeful action, may be regarded as (...) containing strength in a more intuitive, subjective way than values of moral judgement adopted to guide managerial action in the West. As such, the guna theory has deep relevance in the face of egotistical, contractual or legal values, so often defining the parameters of Western management. (shrink)

Ronald Preston found Alasdair MacIntyre's analysis of plurality and incommensurability unconvincing, holding that, ultimately, a common rationality enabled disparate perspectives to achieve shared positions. This commitment made Preston sceptical of theologies which drew on MacIntyre to deny the possibility of meaningful dialogue with economics but he ignored the argument that shared liberal roots might constrain his own critique of market institutions. Preston's theological conversation with economics assumes a state-based capitalism, political dominance over economics and a thin plurality. Globalisation challenges such (...) foundations severely but MacIntyre's focus on communities of tradition offers only a weak challenge to global economic power. Preston's understanding of the significance of finitude in economics and MacIntyre's focus on the problems of plurality and the communitarian response are both important in any response to contemporary globalisation. This article explores whether the respective virtues of Preston's and MacIntyre's approaches can coalesce in a theology adequate to the global era. (shrink)

As with the dialogue, so with the slave-boy episode within it, two questions are handled, one of them substantive, the other a question of method. The substantive question is how to double the square of a side of 2 units; the procedural question is how, if at all, can an answer be found by one who does not know it. It develops that the answer must be sought exclusively among opinions which the boy already holds, by means of questioning. What (...) I want to argue is that the boy's lesson is not an unqualified success any more than is Meno's. I shall maintain that, exactly parallel to the main discussion, Plato means to cast suspicion on the substantive answer which Socrates and the boy arrive at, and for an exactly parallel reason: the inquiry has been conducted improperly. On the other hand the lesson is far from an unqualified failure, since despite its lack of substantive result, it contains an important message about method. Just as it becomes clear in the discussion with Meno that any disciplined inquiry into virtue must refrain from asking what virtue is like until it has settled the more fundamental question of what virtue itself is, so in the slave-boy passage it is learned that we must refrain from asking what the solution to our problem is like until we have settled on what the solution itself is. (shrink)

In this article, we outline a novel approach to understanding the role of responsibility in health promotion. Efforts to tackle chronic disease have led to an emphasis on personal responsibility and the identification of ways in which people can ‘take responsibility’ for their health by avoiding risk factors such as smoking and over-eating. We argue that the extent to which agents can be considered responsible for their health-related behaviour is limited, and as such, state health promotion which assumes certain forms (...) of moral responsibility should be avoided. This indicates that some approaches to health promotion ought not to be employed. We suggest, however, that another form of responsibility might be more appropriately identified. This is based on the claim that agents have prudential reasons to maintain their health, in order to pursue those things which make their lives go well—i.e. that maintenance of a certain level of health is rational for many agents, given their pleasures and plans. On this basis, we propose that agents have a self-regarding prudential responsibility to maintain their health. We outline the implications of a prudential responsibility approach to health promotion. (shrink)

The goal of our target article was to review a number of emerging facts about the effects of limbic damage on memory in humans and animals, and about divisions within recognition memory in humans. We then argued that this information can be synthesized to produce a new view of the substrates of episodic memory. The key pathway in this system is from the hippocampus to the anterior thalamic nuclei. There seems to be a general agreement that the importance of this (...) pathway has previously been underestimated and that it warrants further study. At the same time, a number of key questions remain. These concern the relationship of this system to another temporal-lobe/diencephalic system that contributes to recognition, and the relationship of these systems to prefrontal cortex activity. (shrink)