Averroes on Intellect provides a detailed analysis of the Muslim philosopher Averroes 's notorious unicity thesis -- the view that there is only one separate and eternal intellect for all human beings. It focuses directly on Averroes' arguments, both from the text of Aristotle's De Anima and, more importantly, his own philosophical arguments in the Long Commentary on the De Anima. Stephen Ogden defends Averroes' interpretation of De Anima using a combination of Greek, Arabic, Latin, and contemporary sources. Yet, Ogden (...) also insists that Averroes is not merely a 'commentator' but an incisive philosopher in his own right. The author thus reconstructs and analyzes Averroes' two most significant independent philosophical arguments, the Determinate Particular Argument and the Unity Argument. Alternative ancient and medieval views are also considered throughout, especially from two important foils before and after Averroes, namely, Avicenna and Thomas Aquinas. Aquinas' most famous and penetrating arguments against the unicity thesis are also addressed. Finally, Ogden considers Averroes' own objections to broader metaphysical views of the soul like Avicenna's and Aquinas', which agree with him on several key points including the immateriality of the intellect and the individuation of human souls by matter, while still diverging on the number and substantial nature of the intellect. The central goal of this book is to provide readers with a single study of Averroes' most pivotal arguments on intellect, consolidating and building on recent scholarship and offering a comprehensive case for his unicity thesis in the wider context of Aristotelian epistemology and metaphysics. (shrink)

One of the largest ongoing debates in scholarship on Avicenna concerns his epistemology of the first acquisition of intelligible forms or concepts. “Emanationists” hold that intelligibles are emanated by the separate Active Intellect directly into human minds. “ionists” hold that intelligibles are abstracted by the human intellect from sensory images. Neither of these positions has a satisfactory grip on Avicenna’s philosophy. I propose that the two positions can be reconciled because Avicenna states in many texts that what the AI emanates (...) is a power, and not the various intelligible forms. I argue that this can only be the power of abstraction itself. This new interpretation does greater justice to Avicenna’s system and reveals his unique place in the history of epistemology. (shrink)

Usage-based approaches to language hold that we learn multiword expressions as patterns of language from language usage, and that knowledge of these patterns underlies fluent language processing. This paper explores these claims by focusing upon verb–argument constructions such as “V about n.” These are productive constructions that bind syntax, lexis, and semantics. It presents analyses of usage patterns of English VACs in terms of their grammatical form, semantics, lexical constituency, and distribution patterns in large corpora; patterns of VAC usage in (...) child-directed speech and child language acquisition; and investigations of VAC free-association and psycholinguistic studies of online processing. We conclude that VACs are highly patterned in usage, that this patterning drives language acquisition, and that language processing is sensitive to the forms of the syntagmatic construction and their distributional statistics, the contingency of their association with meaning, and spreading activation and prototypicality effects in semantic reference. Language users have rich implicit knowledge of the statistics of multiword sequences. (shrink)

The philosopher Lev Shestov aimed to establish a new free way of thinking, which manifested itself as a struggle against the delusion that we have a rational grasp of the necessary truths on matters that are of the greatest importance to us, such as the questions of life and death. Philosophy, as the Russian philosopher understood it, is not pure thinking, but ‘some kind of inner doing, inner regeneration, or second birth’ (Shestov in Lektsii po Istorii Grecheskoi Filosofii [Lectures on (...) the history of Greek philosophy], YMCA-PRESS, Moscow, 2001, p. 53). Having adopted the notion of the ‘regeneration of one’s convictions’ from Dostoevsky’s vocabulary in his earlier works, Shestov developed the idea of ‘awakening’ further in his mature thought, in which the motif of ‘awakening’ comprised one of the main ideas of his philosophy: the fight for the individual’s right to freedom and to creative transformation at a time when she is in despair or on the brink of death. In this article, I analyse Shestov’s idea of ‘awakening’ as one of the key tropes and developmental characteristics of his philosophical vision. In particular, I argue that, having stemmed from Shestov’s earlier interpretations of Dostoevsky, Shakespeare and Plotinus, in his later writings, the notion of ‘awakening’—the possibility of a fundamental, inner transformation of one’s worldview (probuzhdenie, pererozhdenie)—marked the beginning of a new salvific mode in his writing. (shrink)

First published in 2000. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

This chapter shows even tighter textual and conceptual connections between these philosophers, delineating how Spinoza drew from Avicenna on the definition of essence and the essence/existence distinction. Spinoza departs from Avicenna, potentially regarding the tendency of essences for existence and especially regarding their universality and particularity. Multiple doses of Avicennianism likely made their way into Spinoza's bloodstream. Avicenna's Najāt and the IP are the most likely sources for Maimonides's own knowledge of Avicenna. In medieval philosophy, including Avicenna accidents are real (...) beings and are isomorphic to Spinoza's modes. As may already be clear and is well‐attested, Avicenna and Spinoza agree that the essence/existence distinction only holds for things other than God. Spinoza's apparent insistence on essence as particular in itself seems to a more fundamental contrast with Avicenna and a more obviously modern/late medieval innovation than Spinoza's utilization of God's nominal essence in an ontological proof. (shrink)

Principles of legislation.--Principles of the civil code.--Principles of the penal code.

Joanna Crosby and Dianna Taylor: The theme of this special section of Foucault Studies, “Foucauldian Spaces,” emerged out of the 2016 meeting of the Foucault Circle, where the four of you were participants. Each of the three individual papers contained in the special section critically deploys and/or reconceptualizes an aspect of Foucault’s work that engages and offers particular insight into the construction, experience, and utilization of space. We’d like to ask the four of you to reflect on what makes a (...) space Foucauldian, and whether or not you’d consider the space created by the convergence of and intellectual exchanges among an international group of Foucault scholars at the University of New South Wales in the summer of 2016 to be Foucauldian. (shrink)

First Published in 1999. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

Background In Switzerland, right-to-die organisations assist their members with suicide by lethal drugs, usually barbiturates. One organisation, Dignitas, has experimented with oxygen deprivation as an alternative to sodium pentobarbital. Objective To analyse the process of assisted suicide by oxygen deprivation with helium and a common face mask and reservoir bag. Method This study examined four cases of assisted suicide by oxygen deprivation using helium delivered via a face mask. Videos of the deaths were provided by the Zurich police. Dignitas provided (...) protocol and consent information. Results One man and three women were assisted to death by oxygen deprivation. There was wide variation in the time to unconsciousness and the time to death, probably due to the poor mask fit. Swiss law prevented attendants from effectively managing the face mask apparatus. Purposeless movements of the extremities were disconcerting for Dignitas attendants, who are accustomed to assisting suicide with barbiturates. None of the dying individuals attempted self-rescue. Conclusions The dying process of oxygen deprivation with helium is potentially quick and appears painless. It also bypasses the prescribing role of physicians, effectively demedicalising assisted suicide. Oxygen deprivation with a face mask is not acceptable because leaks are difficult to control and it may not eliminate rebreathing. These factors will extend time to unconsciousness and time to death. A hood method could reduce the problem of mask fit. With a hood, a flow rate of helium sufficient to provide continuous washout of expired gases would remedy problems observed with the mask. (shrink)

This paper argues for a new interpretation of the rider to the Spartan rhetra. The rider's obscure terms should not be pressed for specific institutional correlates, for its language draws upon the imagery of the exposure of deformed children. The primitive nature of the thought behind the rider suggests that it may actually be an older document than the main text of the rhetra, and such a hypothesis helps to resolve some difficulties concerning the rhetra itself and early Spartan history.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:What Philosophy Can't Say About Literature:Stanley Cavell and EndgameBenjamin H. OgdenIn "Ending the Waiting Game," the philosopher of ordinary language Stanley Cavell attempts to say what Samuel Beckett's Endgame means by explaining what the characters in the play mean by what they say. Cavell attempts to do the very thing that the work says cannot be done, or mocks as foolish and misguided, or resists giving clues to how (...) it could ever be done: he tries to say just "how Beckett's objects mean at all, the original source of their conviction."1 This is not simply a reading tactic that Cavell thinks is well-suited to the difficult task of making sense of a difficult play. It is a demonstration of the theory of language (ordinary language philosophy) that Cavell defends and applies in his collection of essays Must We Mean What We Say?, of which "Ending the Waiting Game" is a chapter. Cavell's literary criticism is in the service of his philosophy. His work of criticism is in search of something that it must find (that is, something that it claims to have found even when it may not have); what it must find is a work of literature that demonstrates the utility and validity of ordinary language philosophy.If we are to take issue with Cavell for too strenuously transposing philosophy onto literature, then we must also know something of the philosophy he draws upon. Ordinary language philosophy traces its origins to Wittgenstein, and was popularized by J. L. Austin and Gilbert Ryle at Oxford in the 1940's. It is a branch of analytic philosophy that foregoes any attempt to create an "ideal philosophical language" of the sort Wittgenstein developed in his early Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus. Instead of seeing the abstractions and ambiguities of ordinary usage as something to be supplanted by a more logically rigorous system, ordinary language philosophers argue that debates over the meaning [End Page 126] of abstract terms come about precisely because words are removed from their ordinary context. For Cavell, the whole idea of an "ideal language" is absurd because, as anyone who has ever tried to learn a foreign language knows, every language has its own unique set of usages and idioms and unspoken rules. In order to speak a language properly, then, one cannot just know the dictionary or formal definitions of words (its "ideal" generative grammar), but must understand the "natural environment" in which phrases and words are logical or appropriate. Often these contexts (which determine the rules for "what we should say when" [p. 20]) invest words with meanings that you won't find in any dictionary, and cannot be catalogued in a grammatical or syntactical system.So, if one asks, "Did you dress that way voluntarily?" (p. 9), the word "voluntarily" takes on a meaning that is not included among its dictionary definitions (according to Cavell). Clearly, in asking whether you dress voluntarily one is not asking whether you have free-will to dress as you please, but is calling attention to the funny way you dress. In this case, successful communication is only possible if the one who is being questioned understands from context and the ordinary use of language precisely what is being asked. If he answers, "Of course I dressed voluntarily, I believe in free will," he will have misspoken, been incorrect. Clearly, he doesn't understand what the question must mean because the statement "MUST MEAN that my clothes are peculiar" (p. 9). For it to mean anything else would be a mistake and a misuse of language by the speaker, or a misunderstanding of language by the listener. To learn a language (which for Cavell means to become like a native speaker) is to learn the nature of the contingency between the explicit meaning of an expression and the occasion on which an expression is appropriate, and to be aware of what you must mean when you speak (what you cannot help but mean or imply by the language you use).What this means is that for Cavell reading literature becomes a process of readers "naturalizing ourselves to a new form of life, a new... (shrink)

Averroes is well-known for his controversial thesis that there is only one separate intellect for all humankind. This article provides a detailed analysis of Averroes’s Unity Argument from his Long Commentary on De Anima, which argues from unified intelligible concepts to a single transcendent intellect. I set out the Unity Argument in its textual and philosophical context, explain exactly how the argument works on a new interpretation of its infinite regress, and offer some brief suggestions as to how it might (...) be further evaluated in light of alternative ancient and medieval theories. Ultimately, I demonstrate that the Unity Argument is Averroes’s most important philosophical argument for his distinctive view of intellect. (shrink)

Bakhtin’s view of the history of the novel, through the lens of Dostoevsky’s writing in his famous study on Dostoevsky’s poetics (1963), has had a significant impact on the way we read Dostoevsky today. On the other hand, Shestov’s original explorations of the human soul, which were drawn on his reading of Dostoevsky and made a lasting impression on his contemporaries, are still relatively unknown to the English-speaking reader. Having traced the history of the regenerations of Dostoevsky’s convictions in his (...) earlier works, in his mature writings Shestov proposed that at a time of deep crisis the human mind may acquire a new dimension, which lies beyond the limits of the comprehensible and the explicable. Building on his analysis of Dostoevsky’s life and work, a transformative shift in Shestov’s own worldview, led to significant alterations in his reading of Dostoevsky in the final years of his life.In this essay, as I draw the two thinkers into a dialogue, I try to look beyond the obvious differences in the two philosophers’ views (though I acknowledge them) and, with respect to both thinkers’ outstanding contributions to twentieth-century European culture, I attempt to discover a number of key developing points in their views derived from their shared love of Dostoevsky’s art. Contrasting Shestov’s interpretation of Dostoevsky to that of Bakhtin’s, I argue that despite their different methods, standpoints, and philosophical views, and despite the seemingly antagonizing nature of their observations, Bakhtin and Shestov arrived at a number of conclusions, which contributed to our present understanding of Dostoevsky’s worldview. (shrink)

ObjectivesTo determine to which degree industry partners in randomised clinical trials own the data and can constrain publication rights of academic investigators.MethodsCohort study of trial protocols, publication agreements and other documents obtained through Freedom of Information requests, for a sample of 42 trials with industry involvement approved by ethics committees in Denmark. The main outcome measures used were: proportion of trials where data was owned by the industry partner, where the investigators right to publish were constrained and if this was (...) mentioned in informed consent documents, and where the industry partner could review data while the trial was ongoing and stop the trial early.ResultsThe industry partner owned all data in 20 trials (48%) and in 16 trials (38%) it was unclear. Publication constraints were described for 30 trials (71%) and this was not communicated to trial participants in informed consent documents in any of the trials. In eight trials (19%) the industry partner could review data during the trial, for 20 trials (48%) it was unclear. The industry partner could stop the trial early without any specific reason in 23 trials (55%).ConclusionsPublication constraints are common, and data is often owned by industry partners. This is rarely communicated to trial participants. Such constraints might contribute to problems with selective outcome reporting. Patients should be fully informed about these aspects of trial conduct. (shrink)

Emerging from the internationally recognised Theorising Normalcy and the Mundane conference series, the chapters in this book offer wide-ranging critiques of that most pervasive of ideas, 'normal'. In particular, they explore the precarious positions we are presented with and, more often than not, forced into by 'normal', and its operating system, 'normalcy' (Davis, 2010). They are written by activists, students, practitioners and academics and offer related but diverse approaches. Importantly, however, the chapters also ask, what if increasingly precarious encounters with, (...) and positions of, marginality and non-normativity offers us a chance (perhaps the chance) to critically explore the possibilities of 'imagining otherwise'? The book questions the privileged position of 'non-normativity'; in youth and unpacks the expectation of the 'normal' student in both higher and primary education. It uses the position of transable people to push the boundaries of 'disability', interrogates the psycho-emotional disablism of box-ticking bureaucracy and spotlights the 'urge to know' impairment. It draws on cross-movement and cross-disciplinary work around disability to explore topics as diverse as drug use, The Bible and relational autonomy. Finally, and perhaps most controversially, it explores the benefits of (re)instating 'normal'. By paying attention to the opportunities presented amongst the fissures of critique and defiance, this book offers new applications and perspectives for thinking through the most ordinary of ideas, 'normal'. (shrink)

School-wide positive behavior support is a well-evaluated school approach to promoting a positive school climate and decreasing problem behaviors. Initial implementation is one of the most critical stages of program implementation. In this qualitative study, the initial implementation of SWPBIS in Swedish schools was studied using an implementation model of behavior change as guidance for interviews and analyses. The study makes significant contributions to previous research as little is known of the implementation of SWPBIS in Swedish context. Focus-group interviews were (...) conducted with 59 professionals on implementation teams from nine schools. Themes were extracted according to implementation team members' perceptions and descriptions of how the initial implementation was carried out. The results of this study revealed relevant themes within the three domains of Capability, Opportunity, and Motivation. Core features were found under the themes of knowledge and experience of similar evidence-based programs, process or result orientation, time, manual content, organizational prerequisites, team functioning, implementation leadership, program as a unifying factor, program aligning with staff beliefs, plausible expectations, and emotional reinforcement. Results are discussed in terms of how they can be used in continuing to develop the Swedish model of SWPBIS. Implications regarding implementation in Swedish schools are discussed, as is the applicability of the model of behavior change for studying implementation in schools. (shrink)

Spinoza’s employment of essence and existence is well-known. Though there are precursors to Avicenna for the essence/existence distinction, it is Avicenna who firmly establishes it and many of the surrounding arguments for the rest of the Islamic, Jewish, and Christian traditions. Although there are myriad possible links, it is worth considering how Avicenna himself factors into Spinoza’s views since he is the major source for this tradition. I aim to show even tighter textual and conceptual connections between these philosophers, delineating (...) how Spinoza drew from Avicenna (directly or indirectly) on the definition of essence and the essence/existence distinction. Nevertheless, Spinoza departs from Avicenna, potentially regarding the tendency of essences for existence and especially regarding their universality and particularity. (shrink)