Common symptoms of multiple sclerosis include motor impairments of the lower extremities, particularly gait disturbances. Loss of balance and muscle weakness, representing some peripheral effects, have been shown to influence these symptoms, however, the individual role of cortical and subcortical structures in the central nervous system is still to be understood. Assessing [18F]fluorodeoxyglucose uptake in the CNS can assess brain activity and is directly associated with regional neuronal activity. One potential modality to increase cortical excitability and improve motor function in (...) patients with MS is transcranial direct current stimulation. However, tDCS group outcomes may not mirror individual subject responses, which impedes our knowledge of the pathophysiology and management of diseases like MS. Three PwMS randomly received both 3 mA tDCS and SHAM targeting the motor cortex that controls the more-affected leg for 20 min on separate days before walking on a treadmill. The radiotracer, FDG, was injected at minute two of the 20 min walk and the subjects underwent a Positron emission tomography scan immediately after the task. Differences in relative regional metabolism of areas under the tDCS anode and the basal ganglia were calculated and investigated. The results indicated diverse and individualized responses in regions under the anode and consistent increases in some basal ganglia areas. Thus, anodal tDCS targeting the M1 that controls the more-affected leg of PwMS might be capable of affecting remote subcortical regions and modulating the activity of the circuitry connected to these regions. (shrink)

Psychopathy refers to a range of complex behaviors and personality traits, including callousness and antisocial behavior, typically studied in criminal populations. Recent studies have used self-reports to examine psychopathic traits among noncriminal samples. The goal of the current study was to examine the underlying factor structure of the Self-Report of Psychopathy Scale–Short Form (SRP-SF) across complementary samples and examine the impact of gender on factor structure. We examined the structure of the SRP-SF among 2,554 young adults from three undergraduate samples (...) and a high-risk young adult sample. Using confirmatory factor analysis, a four-correlated factor model and a four-bifactor model showed good fit to the data. Evidence of weak invariance was found for both models across gender. These findings highlight that the SRP-SF is a useful measure of low-level psychopathic traits in noncriminal samples, although the underlying factor structure may not fully translate across men and women. (shrink)

Rare copy number variants have a prominent role in the aetiology of schizophrenia and other neuropsychiatric disorders. Substantial risk for schizophrenia is conferred by large CNVs at several loci, including microdeletions at 1q21.1, 3q29, 15q13.3 and 22q11.2 and microduplication at 16p11.2. However, these CNVs collectively account for a small fraction of cases, and the relevant genes and neurobiological mechanisms are not well understood. Here we performed a large two-stage genome-wide scan of rare CNVs and report the significant association of copy (...) number gains at chromosome 7q36.3 with schizophrenia. Microduplications with variable breakpoints occurred within a 362-kilobase region and were detected in 29 of 8,290 patients versus 2 of 7,431 controls in the combined sample. All duplications overlapped or were located within 89 kilobases upstream of the vasoactive intestinal peptide receptor gene VIPR2. VIPR2 transcription and cyclic-AMP signalling were significantly increased in cultured lymphocytes from patients with microduplications of 7q36.3. These findings implicate altered vasoactive intestinal peptide signalling in the pathogenesis of schizophrenia and indicate the VPAC2 receptor as a potential target for the development of new antipsychotic drugs. © 2011 Macmillan Publishers Limited. All rights reserved. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:The Theologian's Doubts:Natural Philosophy and the Skeptical Games of GhazālīLeor HaleviIn the history of skeptical thought, which normally leaps from the Pyrrhonists to the rediscovery of Sextus Empiricus in the sixteenth century, Abū Ḥāmid Muḥammad al-Ghazālī (1058-1111) figures as a medieval curiosity. Skeptical enough to merit passing acknowledgment, he has proven too baffling to be treated fully alongside pagan, atheist, or materialist philosophers. As a theologian defending certain Muslim (...) dogmas, Ghazālī has not met what historians consider the mark of the true skeptic, a mind doubting the possibility of all systems of knowledge. But what is fascinating about him is that he brought into practical operation the tools of what I call "functional skepticism."1He denied the claims to truth of Aristotelian physics—whose basis he showed to rest on groundless belief—then turned and argued for the possibility of the Resurrection tooth and nail. The scholarly debate on The Incoherence of the Philosophers (Tahāfut al-falāsifa) has concentrated on the extent to which Ghazālī qua Ashcarite theologian was seduced into Aristotelian philosophy despite himself.2 In my view this debate has been misguided in the attempt to distill the [End Page 19] essence of Ghazālī from the book's eclectic theology; I will argue for a different view of Ghazālī on the basis of a close reading of key passages. In the unusual sections where Ghazālī applies Aristotelian language to a world not following the ordinary laws of physics, some have found Ghazālī slipping, unconsciously perhaps, into an Aristotelian frame of mind. I will show that, as a skeptical theologian with a dialogic imagination, he was rather deconstructing Aristotelian discourse while playing a Wittgensteinian sort of language game.Natural Philosopher or Speculative Theologian?The disagreement about the extent to which philosophy infected Ghazālī is ancient. Ghazālī might have studied philosophy only in order to refute it. He himself defended his philosophizing with the claim that one cannot deconstruct a system of thought until one has understood it so deeply as to elaborate upon its fundamental principles.3 His Maqāṣid al-falāsifa was in fact received, especially in trans-Pyrenean Europe, as a philosopher's genuine summary of the object of philosophy.4 The book strikes me as suspiciously creative in its representation of philosophical discourse, but it appears in any case as an expert and surprisingly unbiased treatment.5 Arabic readers knew that Ghazālī had also written a polemical treatise against philosophy, Tahāfut al-falāsifa, but they still wondered about his engagement with the ideas he challenged. Abū Bakr Ibn al-cArabī, for example, commented that Ghazālī had been unable to extricate himself from philosophy.6 Other philosophers pondered whether or not he had been a closeted member of their charmed circle and sought in his writings traces of esoteric philosophy.7Averroës's own sober sense of distance between philosophy and theology was partially a reaction to what he perceived as Ghazālī's dangerous and carefree mixture of the two sciences.8 He attacked Ghazālī's book in The Incoherence [End Page 20] of the Incoherence to restore philosophy's sense of purity, an aim he sought to accomplish by separating religious concerns from the philosopher's field of inquiry.9 Ironically, such a separation is precisely what Ghazālī might have wished to provoke by crisscrossing and blurring the line between religion and philosophy.The modern debate on chapter 17 of Tahāfut al-falāsifa has concentrated on defining Ghazālī as either a natural philosopher or an occasionalist theologian. In his defense of the possibility of miracles Ghazālī presented two theories of causation, one denying the logical basis of Aristotelian notions of natural causality, and the other more or less adopting these notions. Jointly, the two theories have seemed incompatible, and for this reason scholars have attempted to sort Ghazālī out of the apparent confusion. In 1978 L. E. Goodman argued persuasively that Ghazālī exploited rather than denied the philosophers' ideas of causality. In two articles Michael Marmura challenged Goodman, contending... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:BOOK REVIEWS 177 Amsterdam, appears in the series of the International Archives of the History of Ideas, published under the direction of P. Dibon of Nijmegen and R. Popkin of the University of California at San Diego and a distinguished international editorial committee. Other volumes demonstrate the philosophical respectability of the collection: three on Descartes and Cartesianism, one on Berkeley's immaterialism, three on Pierre Bayle, the rest on philosophical (...) topics from the Renaissance to the 19th century. In this gallery, these letters by a not very good French poet---who was yet an acute and rather individualistic judge of men and books, already one of the arbiters of intellectual and artistic life in France--may seem a little out of place. Yet, to many historians of intellectual affairs, the firm establishment of dates and personal relationships is a matter of much importance, and documents such as these, largely devoted as they are to the communication of news about books and writers, the activities of rulers and ambassadors, printers and curious travelers, can be a substantial aid in determining the structure of an historical moment, the succession and interrelationship of events. One is willing to grant that much of what Chapelain wrote to Heinsius is trivial and concerns books and literary news of slight importance, that a delicate irony makes less of some of his comments than they were worth at the time. The triviality itself is a clue to the temper of Paris during the Fronde and in the late years of the regency of Mazarin. Great ideas were not being discussed in public when Pascal was writing his Pensdes; the irony is a mode of defense against involvement, and fashionable at the time. Bray's elaborate introduction is more concerned with the artistic and subjective aspect of the letters than with their contribution to intellectual history. In about a hundred pages, he discusses his author's method of writing, the genre which this kind of letter represents, the artistry it exhibits, from basic structure to stylistic ornamentation, and finally the human and even ethical implications of this collection. His notes are full and informative; identifications are well documented and cross-referencing in the notes and in the index of names make the volume a usable source of information, even though it cannot be recommended as stimulating debate or lively narrative. The topics discussed by Chapelain range over a considerable area, without becoming controversial. There is one exceptional letter in which he instructs Heinsius in adapting his integrity to the role of a diplomat; he must acquire "un peu de dissimulation" to oppose to "l'ing~nuit~ du Parnasse." There are references to civil strife, to foreign affairs, to the rivalry of Dutch and English navies, to the sympathy of the French for the Swedish Lutheran dynasty as opposed to the Catholic ttapsburgs and the ecclesiastical electors of Mainz, Cologne, and Trier. Queen Christina of Sweden plays a continually less attractive part as the letters proceed to their end; and Christiaan Huygens, the Duc de Montausier, Ismael Boulliau, Guez de Balzac, and Gilles M4nage figure more or less regularly in these pages. Of philosophers there is little mention, and of discussion of ideas for their own sake still less. The letters are, like many another collection deriving from the age before the learned and scientific journals, a source of valuable information about certain persons and certain books; they are hardly a serious contribution to the history of ideas. H~covaT BROWN Brown University Pascal. By J. H. Broome. (New York: Barnes & Noble, Inc., 1966. pp. x + 250. $6.00.) The most remarkable feature of this work is that it locates and forcefully interprets philosophical themes common to all of Pascal's widely=diversified writing. In his works on the vacuum, the computer, geometry, hydrostatics, Grace, freedom and the art of persuasion as well as the Pens~es, Broome locates five regular features of Pascal's thought: 1) the three orders (pp. 103-4, inter alia); 2) the deux infinis (p. 146); 3) a theory of knowl- 178 HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY edge; 4) a dialecticalmethod; and 5) a theory of communication. The former two themes are commonly discussed by students of... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:BOOK REVIEWS 125 to such a future contingent event, not only does such an event not exist now, it does not even exist in its causes now, and this for the reason that no sufficient causes of the event exist now. Accordingly, if someone were merely to make a guess to the effect that the sea-fight will occur tomorrow, and the fight actually does occur, it still could not (...) be maintained that the original guess at the time it was made was therefore true. It simply could not have been true, because at the time of its assertion there literally was no evidence of any kind that could have rendered it true. Nevertheless, modern logicians have generally been so dead set against the notion that the truth or falsity of a proposition could ever be relative to the time when the proposition was uttered that they seem scarcely to have taken account of a consideration such as the foregoing. Nor is it likely that with the publication of this excellent translation of St. Thomas's commentary, such critics will begin to take account of this Thomistic argument even now. Somehow, one is reminded of Dr. Johnson's purported remark, "Sir, I can only give a man a reason, not an intelligence!" HENRY VEATCtt Northwestern University Pascal e Nietzsche. Scritti di E. Castelli, H. Gouhier, A. del Noce, H. Birault, K. Takeno, K. LSwith, J. D~lhomme, G. Vattimo, R. Boehm, G. Morra. (Padova: Cedam; Casa Editrice Dott. Antonio Milani, 1962. Pp. 218. = Archivio di Filosofia. Organo dell'Istituto di Studi Filosofici. Anno 1962. No 3. L. 2000.) This issue of the Archivio di Filosofia offers essays by the various authors indicated in the title above. Pascal and Nietzsche are here brought together because of what they have in common, that is, suffering, restlessness, dissatisfaction with the human condition, the historical sorrow of post-Copernican man, a paradoxical and chaotic thought. Both Pascal and Nietzsche urge man to measure the real by the possible and not the possible by the real and to risk the present certainties for the uncertainty of the future. They dislodge man from his ordinary seat and launch him on the risky adventure and great experiment of real existence. PA~L T. FUHRMANN Columbia Theological Seminary Pierre Bayle and Voltaire. By H. T. Mason. (Cambridge: Oxford University Press, 1963. Pp. xv -k 163.) Pierre Bayle and Voltaire confronts the ideas of the two philosophers and formulates some prudent conclusions about their relationship. Since Bayle's works run to nine long folio volumes and Voltaire's come to fifty quartos in the Moland edition, one cannot help but be impressed by the magnitude of Professor Mason's undertaking and by his ability to reduce his findings to a book of just over one hundred and fifty pages. In the case of Bayle and Voltaire, the basic facts concerning influence are readily available. We know what works of Bayle's were in the library at Ferney; we can see the pages the Enlightenment philosopher marked as he read; we have almost two hundred references to Bayle in Voltaire's works and letters (listed chronologically by Mason in an appendix); and critical editions, such as Morize's Candide and Lanson's Lettres philosophiques, have disclosed how consistently Voltaire turned to the Dictionnaire historique et critique or other works from Bayle's pen for information. Yet, when dealing with passages that seem to rely on Bayle for factual content, a scholar runs into many hazards. Voltaire may draw his data from Bayle, from Bayle's source, from an intermediary, or from an outside source. We know that he consulted Richard Simon, Spinoza, Dora Calmet, and Dr. Astruc as well as Bayle for his Biblical criticism. Therefore, it is very frequently impossible to be sure just how much Bayle's thinking 126 HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY contributed to the philosophe'~. Professor Mason, while continually aware of this Uncertainty, lists the numerous cases he has found where Voltaire's source may be Bayle. More significant, of course, are Bayle's seminal ideas and their role in the formation of Voltaire's intellect. The bulk of this book is devoted to chapters on "the... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:BOOK REVIEWS 177 Amsterdam, appears in the series of the International Archives of the History of Ideas, published under the direction of P. Dibon of Nijmegen and R. Popkin of the University of California at San Diego and a distinguished international editorial committee. Other volumes demonstrate the philosophical respectability of the collection: three on Descartes and Cartesianism, one on Berkeley's immaterialism, three on Pierre Bayle, the rest on philosophical (...) topics from the Renaissance to the 19th century. In this gallery, these letters by a not very good French poet---who was yet an acute and rather individualistic judge of men and books, already one of the arbiters of intellectual and artistic life in France--may seem a little out of place. Yet, to many historians of intellectual affairs, the firm establishment of dates and personal relationships is a matter of much importance, and documents such as these, largely devoted as they are to the communication of news about books and writers, the activities of rulers and ambassadors, printers and curious travelers, can be a substantial aid in determining the structure of an historical moment, the succession and interrelationship of events. One is willing to grant that much of what Chapelain wrote to Heinsius is trivial and concerns books and literary news of slight importance, that a delicate irony makes less of some of his comments than they were worth at the time. The triviality itself is a clue to the temper of Paris during the Fronde and in the late years of the regency of Mazarin. Great ideas were not being discussed in public when Pascal was writing his Pensdes; the irony is a mode of defense against involvement, and fashionable at the time. Bray's elaborate introduction is more concerned with the artistic and subjective aspect of the letters than with their contribution to intellectual history. In about a hundred pages, he discusses his author's method of writing, the genre which this kind of letter represents, the artistry it exhibits, from basic structure to stylistic ornamentation, and finally the human and even ethical implications of this collection. His notes are full and informative; identifications are well documented and cross-referencing in the notes and in the index of names make the volume a usable source of information, even though it cannot be recommended as stimulating debate or lively narrative. The topics discussed by Chapelain range over a considerable area, without becoming controversial. There is one exceptional letter in which he instructs Heinsius in adapting his integrity to the role of a diplomat; he must acquire "un peu de dissimulation" to oppose to "l'ing~nuit~ du Parnasse." There are references to civil strife, to foreign affairs, to the rivalry of Dutch and English navies, to the sympathy of the French for the Swedish Lutheran dynasty as opposed to the Catholic ttapsburgs and the ecclesiastical electors of Mainz, Cologne, and Trier. Queen Christina of Sweden plays a continually less attractive part as the letters proceed to their end; and Christiaan Huygens, the Duc de Montausier, Ismael Boulliau, Guez de Balzac, and Gilles M4nage figure more or less regularly in these pages. Of philosophers there is little mention, and of discussion of ideas for their own sake still less. The letters are, like many another collection deriving from the age before the learned and scientific journals, a source of valuable information about certain persons and certain books; they are hardly a serious contribution to the history of ideas. H~covaT BROWN Brown University Pascal. By J. H. Broome. (New York: Barnes & Noble, Inc., 1966. pp. x + 250. $6.00.) The most remarkable feature of this work is that it locates and forcefully interprets philosophical themes common to all of Pascal's widely=diversified writing. In his works on the vacuum, the computer, geometry, hydrostatics, Grace, freedom and the art of persuasion as well as the Pens~es, Broome locates five regular features of Pascal's thought: 1) the three orders (pp. 103-4, inter alia); 2) the deux infinis (p. 146); 3) a theory of knowl- 178 HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY edge; 4) a dialecticalmethod; and 5) a theory of communication. The former two themes are commonly discussed by students of... (shrink)

The notion of autonomy commonly employed in medical ethics literature and practices is inadequate on three fronts: it fails to properly identify nonautonomous actions and choices, it gives a false account of which features of actions and choices makes them autonomous or nonautonomous, and it provides no grounds for the moral requirement to respect autonomy. In this paper I offer a more adequate framework for how to think about autonomy, but this framework does not lend itself to the kinds of (...) practical application assumed in medical ethics. A general problem then arises: the notion of autonomy used in medical ethics is conceptually inadequate, but conceptually adequate notions of autonomy do not have the practical applications that are the central concern of medical ethics. Thus, a revision both of the view of autonomy and the practice of “respect for autonomy” are in order. (shrink)

I propose to begin with some fairly unexciting and uncontroversial remarks about possibility-statements, and then in their light to examine two problems philosophers have raised about certain statements of this kind which might be made in Christian theology where it touches on the doctrine of the Incarnation.

Mr D. H. Mellor, in his article of this title in Religious Studies , Vol. 5 , distinguishes three senses of words such as ‘probable’ which might be used in a religious context, especially in that of attempted theistic proofs: statistical, subjective, and inductive probability. In each case he concludes that it is misleading to use these words in such contexts at all. With his discussion of the second I do not wish to quarrel; but there seem to me to (...) be serious defects in his discussions of the first and third. (shrink)

When philosophers approach philosophy of religion, they typically ask two questions: are there any sound arguments to prove the existence of God; and is talk about God even rationally intelligible? Theologians, for their part, primarily expound the meaning and relevance of Christianity. I am by profession a philosopher, but apart from Secs. VI and VII I am here writing as a puzzled twentieth-century man. My prime worry is whether we philosophers and theologians are beginning with the right questions.

A description and analysis of attitudes to non-human animals in classical and late antique Mediterranean thought.

Table of Contents: Politics, morality, and pluralism -- Liberal morality and political legitimacy -- Political legitimacy and social justice -- Williams's concept of the political -- Legitimacy, stability, and morality -- The politics of morality -- A moral point of view -- Manners and morality -- Morality and conflict -- Moral conflict and political theory -- The morality of politics -- Feminism and multiculturalism -- A defense of culture -- Politics and normative conflict -- The political as moral viewpoint -- (...) Morality and politics: a review -- Political unity and pluralism -- The liberal archipelago -- Loose linkage and political legitimacy -- Political unity and the body politic -- Social justice and political unity -- The bonds of civility -- Nationhood and the liberal polity -- The nature of nationhood -- Pluralism and nationalism -- Nationalism and social justice -- Deliberative democracy and the liberal polity -- Liberalism and democracy -- Democracy and deliberative discourse -- The terms of deliberative discourse -- Normative discourse and political legitimacy -- Deliberative democracy and intragroup politics -- Group autonomy and intergroup discourse -- Politics, history, and reason -- Principle and justice in the liberal polity -- Liberal institutions and liberal ideals -- Stopping history -- Rationalism and politics. (shrink)

"Cover"--"Dedication"--"Title" -- "Copyright" -- "Contents" -- "Acknowledgements" -- "1 Introduction: Dimensions of Fairness" -- "The Material and Formal Dimension of Concepts" -- "Two Concepts of Fairness" -- "Fairness and Respect for Persons" -- "2 Objectivity, Impartiality, and Fairness" -- "Taking Advantage and Disadvantaging" -- "Impartiality and Bias" -- "Disadvantaging and Personal Interests" -- "3. Fair Shares" -- "The Principle of Fairness" -- "Fairness and Equality" -- "Presumptive Equality" -- "Fairness and Associative Attachments" -- "4 Fairness and Following Rules" -- "Fairness (...) and Formal Justice" -- "Procedural and Background Fairness" -- "Following Rules and Acting Unfairly" -- "Fair Bargains and Bargaining Fairly" -- "5. Fidelity to Social Practice" -- "Social Practices" -- "The Fundamentals of Fairness" -- "Fairness and Distribution" -- "The Limits of Fairness" -- "6 Toward a Moral Theory of Fairness" -- "Traditions of Moral Discourse" -- "The Morality of Happiness" -- "Fairness and Interactive Morality" -- "Fairness and Associative Morality" -- "Fairness and Consent" -- "7. Simple Fairness" -- ""Being Fair To... "" -- "Facilitative Fairness: Simple Accommodation" -- "Facilitative Fairness: Lotteries" -- "Taking Turns and Respect For Others" -- "8 Fair Procedures" -- "Hard Bargains" -- "Fairness and Rational Choice" -- "Perfect and Imperfect Procedural Justice" -- "9 Fairness and Virtue" -- "The Fairness of Social Practices" -- "Fairmindedness" -- "Fairness as an End" -- "Bibliography. (shrink)

This work introduces and defends a radically different type of liberal political theory by severing liberal thought from all underlying moral foundations. Its aim is to present a type of liberalism capable of accommodating the richly diverse differences of worldview and moral theory of the good present in today's pluralist societies. By constructing liberalism as a purely political doctrine, the author develops a theory of toleration, and civil association more generally, capable of meeting liberalism's historic commitment to diversity. While the (...) justification for such a liberalism must be made in prudential terms, rather than the more familiar moral terms used to support competing liberal theories, the liberalism developed here remains faithful to the liberal tradition by defending a theory of equal liberty as the primary political virtue of a just society. (shrink)

This work contains newly translated excerpts from Samuel Pufendor's two major works in political and moral thought, Elements of Universal Jurisprudence and The Law of Nature and Nations. The editor and translator have worked to present a readable and comprehensive introduction to Pufendorf's political philosophy. The new English translation far exceeds what is currently available in terms of sophistication and clarity. A substantive introduction is included to acquaint readers with Pufendorf's ideas.

This book, first published in 1985, presents a key collection of essays on Berkeley's moral and political philosophy. They form an introduction to, and analysis of, Berkeley's immaterialist arguments, part of his consciously adopted strategy to subvert Enlightenment thought, which he saw as a danger to civil society.

The ‘traditional’ view among philosophical theologians, that God is eternal not merely in the sense of being everlasting but in the sense of being outside time altogether, has come under sharp criticism in recent years, both from biblical theologians and from philosophers. It is against the latter form of attack, particularly as represented by the detailed criticisms of Professor Nelson Pike, that I wish to try and defend the notion of a divine timelessness.

Researchers in all management specialties have discussed and investigated the important role values play in personal and organizational phenomena. However, because research on values has been performed in a wide range of social science disciplines and at different levels of analysis, much of thiswork has been uninformed by other work and is neither well integrated nor systematized, resulting in a great deal of confusion concerning the topic. This article attempts to add order and clarity to this area of research by (...) proposing a framework of values research based on level of analysis and by cataloguing and reviewing the vast theoretical and empirical research in light of this framework. It concludes with a critique of the extant literature and recommendations for further research. (shrink)