Robert Grosseteste was a prolific theological and scientific writer, a translator, bishop of Lincoln , and a candidate for sainthood. There have been several studies of his life and his works, the most recent being that of Richard Southern. Nevertheless, James McEvoy's comment in 1983 that “the course of Grosseteste's life up until 1225 is almost completely unknown” remains largely true. The problem is common in medieval history—there is a dearth of reliable sources for the subject's early life. I do (...) not intend to discuss here Grosseteste's youth, or even his life until 1198 . I will accept, with a few reservations, the model Southern presented for Grosseteste's life until 1198 — that Grosseteste came from an undistinguished family, acquired an education, and may have taught in local schools; after serving the bishop of Lincoln in a minor capacity, he managed to obtain an administrative position under Bishop de Vere in the diocese of Hereford. Unfortunately, Bishop de Vere died on Christmas Day 1198, and his household was disbanded. It is the period following 1198 until 1225 that needs scrutiny. The recent discovery of a reference to Robert Grosseteste in a thirteenth-century cartulary demands that we reconsider the way in which historians have structured Grosseteste's career, both because of what this manuscript records and because of the light it sheds upon the methodology that has underpinned Grosseteste scholarship. (shrink)

Some people have supposed that utility is good in itself, non-in-strumentally good, as distinct from good because conducive to other good things. And in modern versions of this view, utility often means want-satisfaction, as distinct from pleasure or happiness. For your want that p to be satisfied, is it necessary that you know or believe that p, or sufficient merely that p is true? However that question is answered, there are problems with the view that want-satisfaction is a non-instrumental good. (...) What if you want something only because you have a false belief? What if the time at which you want that p is fifty or five hundred years before the time to which p itself refers? To meet these difficulties, qualifications have to be introduced, and much has been written about how exactly these qualifications are to be framed.1 There is however what may be a rather more serious objection to the view that want-satisfaction is a non-instrumental good, or rather to the combination of that view with the principle that it is sufficient for your want that p to be satisfied simply that p is true. The objection is that this combination forces you to give undue weight to the mere acquisition of desires when you come to make judgements about changes in the value of things. It forces you to say that for any true proposition p, which initially you do not want to be true, your mere acquisition of a desire that p will, other things being equal, make the world better. Non-instrumental value can be increased merely by multiplying desires, even though everything else remains the same. Surely, however, improving the world is not as easy as that. (shrink)

Donation after circulatory determination of death (DCDD) is an accepted practice in the United States, but heart procurement under these circumstances has been debated. Although the practice is experiencing a resurgence due to the recently completed trials using ex vivo perfusion systems, interest in thoracoabdominal normothermic regional perfusion (TA-NRP), wherein the organs are reanimated in situ prior to procurement, has raised many ethical questions. We outline practical, ethical, and equity considerations to ensure transplant programs make well-informed decisions about TA-NRP. We (...) present a multidisciplinary analysis of the relevant ethical issues arising from DCDD-NRP heart procurement, including application of the Dead Donor Rule and the Uniform Definition of Death Act, and provide recommendations to facilitate ethical analysis and input from all interested parties. We also recommend informed consent, as distinct from typical “authorization,” for cadaveric organ donation using TA-NRP. (shrink)

The theory of mental models and its computer implementations have led to crucial experiments showing that no standard logic—the sentential calculus and all logics that include it—can underlie human reasoning. The theory replaces the logical concept of validity (the conclusion is true in all cases in which the premises are true) with necessity (conclusions describe no more than possibilities to which the premises refer). Many inferences are both necessary and valid. But experiments show that individuals make necessary inferences that are (...) invalid, e.g., Few people ate steak or sole; therefore, few people ate steak. Other crucial experiments show that individuals reject inferences that are not necessary but valid, e.g., He had the anesthetic or felt pain, but not both; therefore, he had the anesthetic or felt pain, or both. Nothing in logic can justify the rejection of a valid inference: a denial of its conclusion is inconsistent with its premises, and inconsistencies yield valid inferences of any conclusions whatsoever including the one denied. So inconsistencies are catastrophic in logic. In contrast, the model theory treats all inferences as defeasible (nonmonotonic), and inconsistencies have the null model, which yields only the null model in conjunction with any other premises. So inconsistences are local. Which allows truth values in natural languages to be much richer than those that occur in the semantics of standard logics; and individuals verify assertions on the basis of both facts and possibilities that did not occur. (shrink)

"The fixed person for fixed duties, who in older societies was such a godsend, in the future ill be a public danger." Twenty years ago, a single legal metaphor accurately captured the role that American society accorded to physicians. The physician was "c- tain of the ship." Physicians were in charge of the clinic, the Operating room, and the health care team, responsible - and held accountabl- for all that happened within the scope of their supervision. This grant of responsibility (...) carried with it a corresponding grant of authority; like the ship's captain, the physician was answerable to no one regarding the practice of his art. However compelling the metaphor, few would disagree that the mandate accorded to the medical profession by society is changing. As a result of pressures from a number of diverse directions - including technological advances, the development of new health professionals, changes in health care financing and delivery, the recent emphasis on consumer choice and patients' rights - what our society expects phy- cians to do and to be is different now. The purpose of this volume is to examine and evaluate the conceptual foundations and the moral imp- cations of that difference. Each of the twelve essays of this volume assesses the current and future validity of the "captain of the ship" metaphor from a different perspective. The essays are grouped into four sections. In Section I, Russell Maulitz explores the physician's role historically. (shrink)

For time-independent fields the Aharonov-Bohm effect has been obtained by idealizing the coordinate space as multiply-connected and using representations of its fundamental homotopy group to provide information on what is physically identified as the magnetic flux. With a time-dependent field, multiple-connectedness introduces the same degree of ambiguity; by taking into account electromagnetic fields induced by the time dependence, full physical behavior is again recovered once a representation is selected. The selection depends on a single arbitrary time (hence the so-called holonomies (...) are not unique), although no physical effects depend on the value of that particular time. These features can also be phrased in terms of the selection of self-adjoint extensions, thereby involving yet another question that has come up in this context, namely, boundary conditions for the wave function. (shrink)

N. M. L. Nathan; VI*—Scepticism and the Regress of Justification, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Volume 75, Issue 1, 1 June 1975, Pages 77–88, https:/.

When do two mental items belong to the same life? We could be content with the answer -just when they have certain volitional qualities in common. An affinity is noted between that theory and Berkeley's early doctrine of the self. Some rivals of the volitional theory invoke a spiritual or physical owner of mental items. They run a risk either of empty formality or of causal superstition. Other rivals postulate a non-transitive and symmetrical relation in the set of mental items. (...) They must allow in consequence either for joint ownership of one and the same mental item, or for incompatible simultaneous decisions by one and the same person, or for new forms of death. This makes them disquieting. Another rival invokes a transitive and symmetrical relation defined in terms of co-consciousness. Even that allows for incongruous simultaneities. The volitional theory is free from such disadvantages. (shrink)

N. M. L. Nathan; VIII*—Democracy, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Volume 93, Issue 1, 1 June 1993, Pages 123–138, https://doi.org/10.1093/aristotelian/.

The purpose of the study is to identify a common theoretical basis for the study of human life as capital and unconditional higher value. Theoretical basis is based on the value-laden and revised structural constructivism, provided by the French philosopher and sociologist Pierre Bourdieu, critical analysis of the concepts of capital as the embodiment of social expectations, the biological concept of the value of human life, as well as the concepts of its sanctity. Originality. It is proved that one should (...) not consider the value of human life as capital only but instead takes into account its different value interpretations, especially when forming the social identity of a person. Moreover, in each of the value systems, the value of human life can be recognized as unconditional, which does not prevent the coexistence of such different value interpretations within the framework of one social identity, which then inevitably becomes a multiple social identity. Conclusions. Human life cannot be considered as a result of integrating economic expectations into the concept of "advertising" capital: first, expectations may well be inadequate; second, expectations by themselves are not directly related to capital; third, expectations do not necessarily lead to development; fourth, one should clearly distinguish between the spontaneous "expectations" and the values that express people’s strong motivation as members of social communities. The multiplicity of possible cultural conditions that affirm the unconditional value of life indicates that this unconditionality is always relevant rather than absolute. The multiple social identities could be used to add value to the protection of human life, the affirmation of multiple social identities is a means of affirming the unconditional value of human life – it is unconditional in several alternative ways. (shrink)

The self is one of the perennial topics in philosophy, and also one of the most debated. Its existence has been both defended and contested in equal measure by philosophers including Descartes and Hume. A Map of Selves: Beyond Philosophy of Mind proposes an original and compelling defense of selfhood. N. M. L. Nathan argues that the self is an enduring substance with a unique quality not shared with any other substance. He criticizes the panpsychist theory that material objects are (...) composed of selves analogous to ours and argues for the existence of at least one transcendent self, whose activity explains both our own existence and the existence of the natural world. He concludes by considering how the world would be for us if such selves did not exist, and we were, as some philosophers think we are, not selves, but, e.g., brains or simply sequences of mental events. A radical and innovative philosophical theory of the self, A Map of Selves: Beyond Philosophy of Mind will be of interest to those working on the philosophy of self and personal identity, philosophy of mind and metaphysics. (shrink)

Beneath metaphysical problems there often lies a conflict between what we want to be true and what we believe to be true. Nathan provides a general account of the resolution of this conflict as a philosophical objective, showing that there are ways of thinking it through systematically with a view to resolving or alleviating it. The author also studies in detail a set of interrelated conflicts about the freedom and the reality of the will. He shows how difficult it is (...) to find a freedom either of decision or of action which is both an object of reflective desire and an object of rational belief. He also examines conflicts about volition as such, contending that the veridicality of volitional experience is no less easy to doubt than the veridicality of our experience of colors. In this context, arguments emerge for a voluntarist theory of the self. Nathan's important book will be essential reading for all philosophers interested in free will, volition, the self, and the methodology of metaphysics. (shrink)

_The purpose _of this article is to find out whether philosophical and anthropological studies of human nature affect the legitimization of decisions about human life and death, using the example of a philosophical analysis of the problem of euthanasia. _Theoretical__ basis._ Philosophically and anthropologically based situational analysis in bioethics is chosen as the research methodology, which reveals the legitimation of euthanasia as a complex and highly responsible moral decision, which should be based on both the consideration of all the patient’s (...) special circumstances and the competent and adequate application of fundamental knowledge about the human being. _Originality._ From a philosophical point of view, it would be correct to legalize euthanasia, but under the condition of significantly limiting the cases of its application, clearly defining the conditions for its provision and strict control over its implementation. It is morally unacceptable to justify either murder or torture, so euthanasia appears as an attempt to avoid both at the same time. _Conclusions._ Specific solutions to practical problems often indicate the necessary direction for solving theoretical difficulties. Thus, making proper moral decisions about euthanasia requires reliance on fundamental knowledge about human beings, but at the same time it provides arguments "for" and "against" artificial termination of life. The basic principles of bioethics – autonomy, nonmaleficence, beneficence and respect for the dignity of human life – serve as criteria for making balanced ethical decisions both in theory and in practice. These principles should be complemented by a coherent ethical, legal and philosophical position on euthanasia, which is achieved through legitimation procedures. Decisive for making a decision on euthanasia should be the strong desire of the patient himself. (shrink)

The purpose of this essay is to show that there was one person, perhaps only one, who developed a rigorously scientific cosmology nearly two thousand years ago. Cosmology is the largest of all subjects, with a long history, and the cosmology considered here is the one that endured for the longest part, nearly three-quarters, of that history. By cosmology I mean a description of the universe as a whole and of the arrangement of its principal parts. But by scientific cosmology, (...) I mean something more. For a cosmology to be considered scientific, three criteria must be met: it must be quantitative, physical, and empirical. Quantitative means that it must assign some scale of distances and sizes to its parts. Physical means that it must rest upon some kind of physical or mechanical principles, causes, for the ordering and motion of its parts. Finally, empirical means that it must either be derived from observation or, if derived theoretically, as from physical or mechanical principles, it must be confirmed by observation. I set out these criteria, which may not be exclusive or exhaustive but are surely within reason, in order to define our subject and exclude mythological or theological cosmologies, which generally meet none of the criteria, and philosophical cosmologies, as those of Plato, Aristotle, and Descartes, which may meet one or two in some way, although not rigorously, but surely do not meet all three. I am not concerned with whether the cosmology or the criteria upon which it is based are correct. Compared to our present understanding, the scale may be off by orders of magnitude, the physics may be entirely mistaken, and the observations may be inaccurate. But if all three are present I would call the cosmology scientific, and if not I would not call the cosmology scientific. (shrink)

A systematic study of rational or justified belief, which throws fresh light on current debates about foundations and coherence theories of knowledge, the validation of induction and moral scepticism. Dr Nathan focuses attention on the largely unsatisfiable desires for active and self-conscious assurance of truth liable to be engendered by philosophical reflection about total belief-systems and the sources of knowledge. He extracts a kernel of truth from the doctrine that a regress of justification is both necessary and impossible, contrasts the (...) resultant scepticism with more familiar complaints about the inapplicability of supposedly essential cognitive concepts and explores the feasibility of non-Humean modes of consolation. This is an original and carefully constructed book, which will interest professional philosophers and advanced students of epistemology. (shrink)

The idea that deep brain stimulation (DBS) induces changes to personality, identity, agency, authenticity, autonomy and self (PIAAAS) is so deeply entrenched within neuroethics discourses that it has become an unchallenged narrative. In this article, we critically assess evidence about putative effects of DBS on PIAAAS. We conducted a literature review of more than 1535 articles to investigate the prevalence of scientific evidence regarding these potential DBS-induced changes. While we observed an increase in the number of publications in theoretical neuroethics (...) that mention putative DBS-induced changes to patients’ postoperative PIAAAS, we found a critical lack of primary empirical studies corroborating these claims. Our findings strongly suggest that the theoretical neuroethics debate on putative effects of DBS relies on very limited empirical evidence and is, instead, reliant on unsubstantiated speculative assumptions probablyin lieuof robust evidence. As such, this may reflect the likelihood of a speculative neuroethics bubble that may need to be deflated. Nevertheless, despite the low number of first-hand primary studies and large number of marginal and single case reports, potential postoperative DBS changes experienced by patients remain a critical ethical concern. We recommend further empirical research in order to enhance theoretical neuroethics work in the area. In particular, we call for the development of better instruments capable of capturing potential postoperative variations of PIAAAS. (shrink)

This paper describes the topological aspect of a logic-based, artificial intelligence approach to formalising the qualitative description of spatial properties and relations, and reasoning about those properties and relations. This approach, known as RCC theory, has been under development for several years at the University of Leeds. The main rationale for this project is that qualitative descriptions of spatial properties and relationships, and qualitative spatial reasoning, are of fundamental importance in human thinking about the world: even where quantitative spatial data (...) are most important, they must be attached to the components of a perceived spatial structure if we are to make use of them. RCC theory covers other qualitative aspects of spatial description and reasoning, but the topological properties and relations of spatially extended entities are fundamental to our work. The topological formalisms used by mathematicians are, in general, not well suited to the task of formalising the kinds of ‘common-sense’ or ‘everyday’ qualitative spatial description and reasoning which are our primary interest. Nevertheless, we must come to grips with the concepts of topology as practised by mathematicians if we are not to risk constantly ‘reinventing wheels’. (shrink)

Some Christians combine a doctrine about Christ which implies that there is more than one divine self with the doctrine that God revealed to the Jews a monotheism according to which there is just one divine self. I suggest that it is less costly for such Christians to achieve consistency by abandoning the second of these doctrines than to achieve it by abandoning the first.