2. Thesis 2 I accept insofar as it asserts the relation of possibility to actuality to be a fundamental aspect of things. This relation is sui generis.

BackgroundIn the Canadian Alliance for Healthy Hearts and Minds (CAHHM) cohort, participants underwent magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) of the brain, heart, and abdomen, that generated incidental findings (IFs). The approach to managing these unexpected results remain a complex issue. Our objectives were to describe the CAHHM policy for the management of IFs, to understand the impact of disclosing IFs to healthy research participants, and to reflect on the ethical obligations of researchers in future MRI studies.MethodsBetween 2013 and 2019, 8252 participants (...) (mean age 58 ± 9 years, 54% women) were recruited with a follow-up questionnaire administered to 909 participants (40% response rate) at 1-year. The CAHHM policy followed a restricted approach, whereby routine feedback on IFs was not provided. Only IFs of severe structural abnormalities were reported.ResultsSevere structural abnormalities occurred in 8.3% (95% confidence interval 7.7–8.9%) of participants, with the highest proportions found in the brain (4.2%) and abdomen (3.1%). The majority of participants (97%) informed of an IF reported no change in quality of life, with 3% of participants reporting that the knowledge of an IF negatively impacted their quality of life. Furthermore, 50% reported increased stress in learning about an IF, and in 95%, the discovery of an IF did not adversely impact his/her life insurance policy. Most participants (90%) would enrol in the study again and perceived the MRI scan to be beneficial, regardless of whether they were informed of IFs. While the implications of a restricted approach to IF management was perceived to be mostly positive, a degree of diagnostic misconception was present amongst participants, indicating the importance of a more thorough consent process to support participant autonomy.ConclusionThe management of IFs from research MRI scans remain a challenging issue, as participants may experience stress and a reduced quality of life when IFs are disclosed. The restricted approach to IF management in CAHHM demonstrated a fair fulfillment of the overarching ethical principles of respect for autonomy, concern for wellbeing, and justice. The approach outlined in the CAHHM policy may serve as a framework for future research studies.Clinical trial registrationhttps://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/nct02220582. (shrink)

The theses maintained in Professor Martin's work are of two quite different types: theses about the natures and interrelations of the various kinds of knowledge and theses about the true philosophy and the false ones. The true philosophy is classical realism, the philosophy of "the Aristotelian-Aquinas tradi- tion". What is the relation between these two kinds of theses, between Mr. Martin's theory of the order and integration of knowledge, on the one hand, and his classical realism, on the other? Although (...) Mr. Martin's view on this question is not entirely clear, it seems to be the following: "Moderate realism is the most adequate metaphysical position to account for the nature and kinds of knowledge"; but "this adequacy, in itself, is not sufficient for demonstrating the truth of realism. Rather it is one sign, among others, of its truth." We shall return to this question of the relation between these two kinds of theses after considering them separately. Since my own philosophical background and orientation tend to be similar to Mr. Martin's, the following discussion may present only an insider's view, though one more positively influenced by outsiders than is Mr. Martin's. (shrink)

Of the philosophers in recent times who have striven to heal this rupture between head and heart perhaps none has caught the fancy or stirred the hopes of the American philosophical community as Alfred North Whitehead has. But since the master started this task too late in life, it was left to his disciples to complete his work. And of those disciples who have continued the master's healing in theology, perhaps none has been so energetic or resourceful as Professor Charles (...) Hartshorne. While Professor Hartshorne has usually practised this therapy alone and unaided, he has on one notable occasion enlisted the aid both of another contemporary theological therapist, Professor William L. Reese, and also of most of the great philosophers in history. The fruit of this collaboration, Philosophers Speak of God, while not adding anything essentially novel to Professor Hartshorne's earlier work, presents the physician not only as an isolated laboratory researcher but also, with Professor Reese's help, in the process of actually confronting and healing his patients. Hence this book is an especially interesting and valuable case study of one type of contemporary attempt to cure theological schizophrenia. Theological therapists are to be found among scientists as well as among philosophers, moreover, for even in science the intellect does not- succeed in quieting the restless heart until it finds the God for which that restless heart seeks. Going "through the world with a reverent attitude yet an almost total absence of doctrine or belief--with a religious heart and a skeptical head... is," as we are told in a recent book representing this theological therapy from the point of view of a scientist--a biologist and natural historian--Alexander F. Skutch's The Quest of the Divine, "a most unsatisfactory way to live.". (shrink)

In the second book of his Epitoma rei militaris Vegetius sets himself the task of describing the organization of the antiqua legio of the Roman Army, the units into which it was divided, its officers, the arms of its soldiers, and its tactical employment on the field of battle. Interspersed in this account are frequent references to changes that had been subsequently effected and were in operation in the author's lifetime. But although these annotations destroy the synthesis of the book, (...) and the transition from past to present is not always clearly indicated, the disentanglement of Vegetius' own additions from the material provided by his source or sources is not the chief difficulty that confronts the modern historian. For with few exceptions in chapters 4–14 Vegetius describes the antiqua legio in the imperfect, the legion of his own time in the present indicative, with the not infrequent addition of the word ‘nunc’ or ‘hodie.’ The great problem is to discover whether in his account of the antiqua legio the author is referring to any one period of Roman History, and, if so, whether its limits can be exactly defined. Many solutions have been attempted. Some scholars have thought that the period is earlier than Hadrian; the more generally accepted theory is that the antiqua legio can be identified with the legion as it was constituted in the reign of Diocletian. Recently two German historians have subjected the evidence to fresh consideration, and, while one of them agrees with the majority in selecting the age of Diocletian for his answer to the problem, the other believes that he can date the period to which Vegetius is referring to the late second century A.D. (shrink)

In the second book of his Epitoma rei militaris Vegetius sets himself the task of describing the organization of the antiqua legio of the Roman Army, the units into which it was divided, its officers, the arms of its soldiers, and its tactical employment on the field of battle. Interspersed in this account are frequent references to changes that had been subsequently effected and were in operation in the author's lifetime. But although these annotations destroy the synthesis of the book, (...) and the transition from past to present is not always clearly indicated, the disentanglement of Vegetius' own additions from the material provided by his source or sources is not the chief difficulty that confronts the modern historian. For with few exceptions in chapters 4–14 Vegetius describes the antiqua legio in the imperfect, the legion of his own time in the present indicative, with the not infrequent addition of the word ‘nunc’ or ‘hodie.’ The great problem is to discover whether in his account of the antiqua legio the author is referring to any one period of Roman History, and, if so, whether its limits can be exactly defined. Many solutions have been attempted. Some scholars have thought that the period is earlier than Hadrian; the more generally accepted theory is that the antiqua legio can be identified with the legion as it was constituted in the reign of Diocletian. Recently two German historians have subjected the evidence to fresh consideration, and, while one of them agrees with the majority in selecting the age of Diocletian for his answer to the problem, the other believes that he can date the period to which Vegetius is referring to the late second century A.D. (shrink)

These essays emerged from papers presented under the auspices of the American Academy of Religion. This volume contributes to scholarship that explores Christianity's role in modernity, the ongoing implications of historical controversies, and the importance of history in Christian theology.

We know that all natural beings have evolved from simpler to more complex states; and we also know that man himself has evolved physically, even within the comparatively short time of his recorded history. It would therefore be strange indeed if man had not also evolved psychically or spiritually. Such psychic evolution may, I think, be discovered in many of man's cultural works; and I believe that it may also be revealed through the history of western philosophy, and, indeed, even (...) more sharply and clearly there. If philosophy is the most general and abstract reflection of human existence, as I think it is, then the history of philosophy should be the most general and abstract expression of the history of human existence. As such it should display most purely, essentially, and definitively that evolution of western man which is manifested less clearly, essentially, and definitively in the history of any other aspect of human life. I do not mean that later stages are necessarily better than earlier ones; ancient man may very well have been better off than modern man is—and in one sense he indeed was, as my remarks may show. Better off or not, however, ancient man is still ancient and modern man modern; and the later stage is a more evolved or developed form than the earlier one in the sense that the later presupposes the earlier genetically and even logically, whereas the earlier does not presuppose the later. (shrink)

Insight, by F. H. Parker.--Why be uncritical about the life-world? By H. B. Veatch.--Homage to Saint Anselm, by R. Jordan.--Art and philosophy, by J. M. Anderson.--The phenomenon of world, by R. R. Ehman.--The life-world and its historical horizon, by C. O. Schrag.--The Lebenswelt as ground and as Leib in Husserl: somatology, psychology, sociology, by E. Paci.--Life-world and structures, by C. A. van Peursen.--The miser, by E. W. Straus.--Monetary value and personal value, by G. Schrader.--Individualisms, by W. L. McBride.--Sartre the (...) individualist, by W. Desan.--The nature of social man, by M. Natanson.--The problem of the will and philosophical discourse, by P. Ricoeur.--Structuralism and humanism, by M. Dufrenne.--The illusion of monolinear time, by N. Lawrence.--Can grammar be thought? By J. M. Edie.--The existentialist critique of objectivity, by S. J. Todes and H. L. Dreyfus.--Bibliography (p. 391-400). (shrink)

Parker obviously has a warm fondness and a deep empathetic understanding of this period of history, and they are offered to the reader in every carefully worked sentence. In a narrative style that presents the human dimension as well as the central ideas of the Presocratics, Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle, Parker imaginatively reconstructs the phenomenological, empirical, and the homely rationale for their theories. He depicts the Presocratics as organized around the question "What is the universe made of?" and (...) Socrates around "What is Truth, Justice, Goodness?" There is a chapter giving a profile of Athens and Sparta. The three chapters on Plato cover the theory of forms, the Republic, and the Laws. The four chapters on Aristotle, besides the biographical inclusions, cover a scheme of his works, his view of nature, The Ethics, The Politics, and his lasting impact on the rest of intellectual history. The book ends with a brief treatment of Hellenism and a conclusion that takes its cue from the awe and excitement of Keats in On First Looking into Chapman's Homer. Altogether it is a simplified yet sympathetic, thoughtful, and sensitive introduction.--S. O. H. (shrink)

This paper examines Boltzmann’s responses to the Loschmidt reversibility objection to the H-theorem, as presented in his Lectures on Gas Theory. I describe and evaluate two distinct conceptions of the assumption of molecular disorder found in this work, and contrast these notions with the Stosszahlansatz, as well as with the predominant contemporary conception of molecular disorder. Both these conceptions are assessed with respect to the reversibility objection. Finally, I interpret Boltzmann as claiming that a state of molecular disorder serves as (...) a necessary condition for the application of probabilistic arguments. This in turn offers a way to bridge the conceptual gap between the H-theorem and his combinatorial argument. (shrink)

In After God: Morality and Bioethics in a Secular Age, H. Tristram Engelhardt, Jr. explores the broad implications for moral reasoning once a culture has lost a God’s-eye perspective. In this paper, I focus on the implications of Engelhardt’s views for clinical ethics consultation. I begin by examining the question of whether clinical ethics consultants should advocate a particular viewpoint and/or process during consultations or adopt a neutral stance. I then examine the implications of Engelhardt’s views for this question. Finally, (...) I discuss some of Engelhardt’s foundational ontological, metaphysical, meta-ethical, and epistemological commitments and how these commitments connect to his views on clinical ethics consultation. (shrink)

Bradley’s philosophy of history, which was mostly embodied in his first published work, The Presuppositions of Critical History, has been the subject of a number of explanatory and critical pieces, several of them in the pages of this journal. In outlining the fundamentals of his approach to historical knowledge, therefore, I can be brief. He begins, ‘There is no history which in some respects is not more or less critical’, because selection of information is essential and the historian needs some (...) principle of selection. It is clear that Bradley includes selecting information not just from primary sources but from previous historians. And, ‘if we exclude or alter or rationalise to the very smallest extent then we have criticism at once.’ The criterion, or canon of selection has to be the historian himself. This has sometimes been dismissed as dangerously relativist, but such criticism misses the point that although the actual historian is the real criterion, ‘the historian as he ought to be’ is the ideal criterion; and ‘the historian who is true to the present is the historian as he ought to be.’ It is crucial to Bradley’s position and to the development of my argument in this paper to note that it is the historian who is true to the present, not to the past, who is the historian as he ought to be. For, as Bradley explained, ‘every man’s present standpoint ought to determine his belief in respect to all past events; but to no man do I dictate what his present standpoint ought to be. Consistency is the one word that I have emphasised.’ Bradley denied a correspondence theory of truth in favour of a coherence theory. Truth had to be constructed by the knower who was not a mere passive observer of reality.. (shrink)

Josiah Royce (1855-1916) was the leading American proponent of absolute idealism, the metaphysical view (also maintained by G. W. F. Hegel and F. H. Bradley) that all aspects of reality, including those we experience as disconnected or contradictory, are ultimately unified in the thought of a single all-encompassing consciousness. Royce also made original contributions in ethics, philosophy of community, philosophy of religion and logic. His major works include The Religious Aspect of Philosophy (1885), The World and the Individual (1899-1901), The (...) Philosophy of Loyalty (1908), and The Problem of Christianity (1913). Royce's friendly but longstanding dispute with William James, known as "The Battle of the Absolute," deeply influenced both philosophers' thought. In his later works, Royce reconceived his metaphysics as an "absolute pragmatism" grounded in semiotics. This view dispenses with the Absolute Mind of previous idealism and instead characterizes reality as a universe of ideas or signs which occur in a process of being interpreted by an infinite community of minds. These minds, and the community they constitute, may themselves be understood as signs. Royce's ethics, philosophy of community, philosophy of religion, and logic reflect this metaphysical position. (shrink)

In the Statesman , Plato brings together--only to challenge and displace--his own crowning contributions to philosophical method, political theory, and drama. In his 1980 study, reprinted here, Mitchell Miller employs literary theory and conceptual analysis to expose the philosophical, political, and pedagogical conflict that is the underlying context of the dialogue, revealing that its chaotic variety of movements is actually a carefully harmonized act of realizing the mean. The original study left one question outstanding: what specifically, in the metaphysical order (...) of things, motivated the nameless Visitor from Elea to abandon bifurcation for his consummating non-bifurcatory division of fifteen kinds at the end of the dialogue? Miller addressed in a separate essay, first published in 1999 and reprinted here. In it, he opens the horizon of interpretation to include the new metaphysics of the Parmenides , the Philebus , and the "unwritten teachings." "This study demonstrates how the Statesman is the culminating expression of Plato's lifelong effort, both in Athens and in the Academy, to bring metaphysical insight to the unending political crisis of his times."The Philosopher in Plato's Statesman a trail-blazing work. While not every reader will agree with the lessons Miller himself draws from this approach, none should fail to be impressed by its interpretive power. All this is exciting stuff. The interpretive pathway on which Miller has embarked has the potential for changing the face of scholarship on the late Platonic dialogues. Parmenides [Publishing] is to be commended for making these two important contributions available under a single cover." -- Kenneth Sayre, Professor of Philosophy, University of Notre Dame "Miller casts considerable light on virtually every aspect of the dialogue. . . . All in all, this book is an outstanding contribution to our understanding of the Statesman." -- Stanley Rosen, Borden Parker Bowne Professor of Philosophy, Boston University MITCHELL MILLER is Professor of Philosophy at Vassar College. He is the author of Plato's Parmenides. (shrink)

Richard Janko's acclaimed translation of Aristotle's _Poetics_ is accompanied by the most comprehensive commentary available in English that does not presume knowledge of the original Greek. Two other unique features are Janko's translations with notes of both the _Tractatus Coislinianus_, which is argued to be a summary of the lost second book of the Poetics, and fragments of Aristotle’s dialogue On Poets, including recently discovered texts about catharsis, which appear in English for the first time.

The central claim of this paper is that American states’ use of so-called “triggering conditions” to regulate surrogate decision-making authority in end-of-life care leaves unresolved a number of important ethical and legal considerations regarding the scope of that authority. The paper frames the issue with a case set in a jurisdiction in which surrogate authority to withdraw life-sustaining treatment is triggered by two specific clinical conditions. The case presents a quandary insofar as the clinical facts do not satisfy the triggering (...) conditions, and yet both the appropriate surrogates and the care team agree that withdrawal of life-sustaining treatment is in the best interest of the patient. The paper surveys applicable law across the 50 states and weighs the arguments for and against the inclusion of such triggering conditions in relevant legal regimes. The paper concludes by assessing the various legal and policy options states have for regulating surrogate decision-making authority in light of the moral considerations, and notes the possibility for conflict within ethics teams arising from the potential tension between prudence, risk-aversion, and moral obligation. (shrink)

This inclusive, cross-cultural study rethinks the nexus between engineering, development, and culture. It offers diverse commentary from a range of disciplinary perspectives on how the philosophies of today’s cultural triumvirate—American, European and Chinese—are shaped and given nuance by the cross-fertilization of engineering and development. Scholars from the humanities and social sciences as well as engineers themselves reflect on key questions that arise in this relational context, such as how international development work affects the professional views, identities, practice and ethics of (...) engineers. The first volume to offer a systematic and collaborative study that cuts across continental boundaries, the book delineates the kinds of skills and competences that tomorrow’s engineering success stories will require, and analyzes fascinating aspects of the interplay between engineering and philosophy, such as how traditionally Chinese ways of thinking can influence modern engineering practice in the world’s most populous country. China’s problematic mix of engineering woes and wonders, from the high-profile crash on its high-profile rail network to its ‘bird’s nest’ Olympic stadium, adds to the urgency for reform, while Europe’s Enlightenment-informed legal frameworks are contrasted with Chinese mechanisms in their governance of the field of nanotechnology, a crucial element of future technical evolution. Fascinating and compelling in equal measure, this volume addresses one of the topics at the leading edge of humanity’s quest to survive, and to thrive.​. (shrink)