Written by pioneers in the field, this practical book presents an authoritative yet accessible overview of the methods and applications of causal inference. The text provides a thorough introduction to the basics of the theory for non-time-varying treatments and the generalization to complex longitudinal data.

Based on research on the increasingly popular unconscious thought effect (UTE), it has been suggested that physicians might make better diagnostic decisions after a period of distraction than after an equivalent amount of time of conscious deliberation. However, published attempts to demonstrate the UTE in medical decision making have yielded inconsistent results. In the present study, we report the results of a meta-analysis of all the available evidence on the UTE in medical decisions made by expert and novice clinicians. The (...) meta-analysis failed to find a significant contribution of unconscious thought to the accuracy of medical decisions. This result cannot be easily attributed to any of the potential moderators of the UTE that have been discussed in the literature. Furthermore, a Bayes Factor analysis shows that most experimental conditions provide positive support for the null hypothesis, suggesting that these null results do not reflect a simple lack of statistical power. We suggest ways in which new studies could usefully provide further evidence on the UTE. Unless future research shows otherwise, the recommendation of using unconscious thought to improve medical decisions lacks empirical support. (shrink)

This article outlines the theoretical developments experienced in historical studies over the last two decades. As a consequence of the growing critical reconsideration of some of the main theoretical assumptions underlying historical explanation of individuals' meaningful actions, a new theory of society has taken shape among historians during this time. By emphasizing the empirical and analytical distinction between language as a pattern of meanings and language as a means of communication, a significant group of historians has thoroughly recast the conventional (...) notions of society, experience, interests, culture, and identity, and has developed a new concept of social action. Thus, historiographical debate seems to have started to transcend, for the first time, the longstanding and increasingly futile contest or dilemma between objectivism and subjectivism, between materialism and culturalism, between social and intentional explanation, or between social constraints and human agency. The groundwork has now been laid for an alternative to the declining paradigm of social history that does not entail a revisionist return to idealist history but opens a quite different path. (shrink)

Helisaeus Roeslin’s manuscript Speculum et harmonia mundi, Das ist Wellt Spiegel Erster Theil was conceived as part of a broader project comprising a Speculum ecclesiae as well as a Speculum naturae. This project was connected with a Chronology aiming to establish the precise date of the most important events in history as well as to advance some conjectures about the approaching eschatological future. This article presents some recent discoveries that shed new light on Roeslin’s chronological work after 1579, most importantly (...) the incontrovertible attribution to Roeslin of the anonymous manuscript De potestatibus orbis Christiani, et politicis et ecclesiasticis, Discursus. Here Roeslin presented his discovery of the numerical proportions governing the numbers of spiritual and temporal potestates in the three historical periods, affirming that these numbers were now nearly fullfilled, along with their ensuing eschatological implications. We show how Roeslin published this discovery in his Kurtz Bedencken against the calendar reform and again in 1612 in a short tract on the occasion of the coronation of Emperor Matthias I. The article focuses in particular on the appended broadsheet Tabella des Welt Spiegels, which displayed the completion and culmination of history, according to the astronomical revolutions of the planets as well as the numbers of temporal and spiritual governors. (shrink)

The purpose of this paper is to study Leonardo Polo's conception of the principle of identity. This identity is also called Origin; however, an adequate understanding of that expression requires a careful study of the way man comes to be aware of it.

We re-examine Mersenne's critique of Giordano Bruno concerning the question of the extension of the universe and the plurality of worlds as well as that of universal animation. For this, it is necessary to distinguish, especially in the examination of the first question, the strictly cosmological problem from its metaphysical and theological foundation in which the relation between God and the universe is resolved. Mersenne's critique fundamentally concerns this second side of our problem, according to his conviction that Bruno repeats (...) the age-old errors of philosophical paganism and reaffirms an 'impiety' completely incompatible with Christian doctrine.------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------------------------------------------. (shrink)

Las Confesiones de San Agustín son una obra muy peculiar. Lectores e investigadores convienen en ello. No es fácil ‘definir’ ni comprender ese escrito. El presente estudio intenta una aproximación a su contenido mediante un examen de ciertos rasgos característicos de la obra que derivan de su propia singularidad. Y denunciamos también algunos impedimentos de comprensión y lectura. Confiemos en que esta mirada pueda ofrecer una guía inicial, pero orientadora, a la misma. Además, el estudio formal y temático revela una (...) dinámica interna, de su estructura misma, que va del relato autobiográfico a la reflexión (consideratio), de lo narrativo al pensamiento. Este avance tendencial culmina al concluir el libro IX, donde la dimensión narrativa de la obra termina. Razón por la cual los libros X-XI alcanzan el vértice teorético de las Confesiones, con su investigación de la memoria y del tiempo. El presente estudio concluye con una breve exposición del problema agustiniano de la subjetividad o el yo, en la base de esos dos libros. (shrink)

Authoritative and comprehensive interpretation of the Scottish philosopher's writings on religion.

This book provides a detailed reconstruction of the process of formation of the modern concept of society as an objective entity from the 1820s onwards, thus helping to better understand the shaping of the modern world and the nature of the current crisis of modernity. The concept has exerted considerable influence over the last two centuries, during which time many people have conceived themselves and behave as members of a society, and social scientists have explained human subjectivities and conducts as (...) social effects. For both groups, society exists as a very real phenomenon. Historical inquiry shows, however, that the modern concept of society is no more than a historically contingent way of imagining and making sense of the human world.. (shrink)

My main concern in this article is to arrive at a clear view of the nature, extent, and value of Descartes’ universal doubt, not to determine whether Hume’s critique of Cartesian doubt is compellin...

Higher plants must undergo a major developmental switch, the transition to flowering, if they are to successfully complete their life cycle. In many plants, the crucial decision of when to begin to produce flowers is primarily controlled by environmental signals. The process of floral induction involves the integration of the activities of two types of genes: those that control flowering time as a response to the environment as well as an endogenous clock, and those that determine the floral identity of (...) the cells. The first direct link between these two classes of genes has now been demonstrated(1). Forced expression of CONSTANS, a flowering‐time gene, promotes flowering through the transcriptional activation of LEAFY, a flower‐meristem‐identity gene. (shrink)