Πόλεμος πάντων μὲν πατήρ ἐστι War is the father of all. New : Publication of my book : Histoire du libéralisme in Editions Ellipses, on Fnac or Amazon.1) HERACLITUS : 139 Fragments.a) Heraclitus (PDF) Original Greek text : Diels; English translation : John Burnet (1912), French translation of the English translation (1919), in PDFb) Heraclitus (unicode) : Parallel version or Interlinear version (Work in Progress) Original Greek text : Diels; English translation : John Burnet (1912), French translation (...) of the English translation (1919)c) Heraclitus : Original greek text : original pages of Hermann Diels edition (1912)2) The Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition (1910–1911) : HERACLITUS (Ἡράκλειτος; c. 540-475 B.C.), Greek philosopher, was born at Ephesus of distinguished parentage. Of his early life and education we know nothing; from the contempt with which he spoke of all his fellow-philosophers and of his fellow-citizens as a whole we may gather that he regarded himself as self-taught and a pioneer of wisdom. So intensely aristocratic (hence his nickname ὀχλολοίδορος, "he who rails at the people") was his temperament that he declined to exercise the regal-hieratic office of βασιλεύς which was hereditary in his family, and presented it to his brother. It is probable, however, that he did occasionally intervene in the affairs of the city at the period when the rule of Persia had given place to autonomy; it is said that he compelled the usurper Melancomas to abdicate. From the lonely life he led, and still more from the extreme profundity of his philosophy and his contempt for mankind in general, he was called the "Dark Philosopher" (ὁ σκοτεινός), or the "Weeping Philosopher," in contrast to Democritus, the "Laughing Philosopher." κακοὶ μάρτυρες Heraclitus is in a real sense the founder of metaphysics. Starting from the physical standpoint of the Ionian physicists, he accepted their general idea of the unity of nature, but entirely denied their theory of being. The fundamental uniform fact in nature is constant change (πάντα χωρεῖ καὶ οὐδὲν μένει); everything both is and is not at the same time. He thus arrives at the principle of Relativity; harmony and unity consist in diversity and multiplicity. The senses are "bad witnesses" (κακοὶ μάρτυρες); only the wise man can obtain knowledge. To appreciate the significance of the doctrines of Heraclitus, it must be borne in mind that to Greek philosophy the sharp distinction between subject and object which pervades modern thought was foreign, a consideration which suggests the conclusion that, while it is a great mistake to reckon Heraclitus with the materialistic cosmologists of the Ionic schools, it is, on the other hand, going too far to treat his theory, with Hegel and Lassalle, as one of pure Panlogism. Accordingly, when he denies the reality of Being, and declares Becoming, or eternal flux and change, to be the sole actuality, Heraclitus must be understood to enunciate not only the unreality of the abstract notion of being, except as the correlative of that of not-being, but also the physical doctrine that all phenomena are in a state of continuous transition from non-existence to existence, and vice versa, without either distinguishing these propositions or qualifying them by any reference to the relation of thought to experience. " Every thing is and is not'"; all things are, and nothing remains. So far he is in general agreement with Anaximander (q.v.), but he differs from him in the solution of the problem, disliking, as a poet and a mystic, the primary matter which satisfied the patient researcher, and demanding a more vivid and picturesque element. Naturally he selects fire, according to him the most complete embodiment of the process of Becoming, as the principle of empirical existence, out of which all things, including even the soul, grow by way of a quasi condensation, and into which all things must in course of time be again resolved. But this primordial fire is in itself that divine rational process, the harmony of which constitutes the law of the universe (see LOGOS). Real knowledge consists in comprehending this all-pervading harmony as embodied in the manifold of perception, and the senses are "bad-witnesses," because they apprehend phenomena, not as its manifestation, but as "stiff and dead." In like manner real virtue consists in the subordination of the individual to the laws of this harmony as the universal reason wherein alone true freedom is to be found." The law of things is a law of Reason Universal (λόγος), but most men live as though they had a wisdom of their own." Ethics here stands to sociology in a close relation, similar, in many respects, to that which we find in Hegel and in Comte. For Heraclitus the soul approaches most nearly to perfection when it is most akin to the fiery vapour out of which it was originally created, and as this is most so in death, " while we live our souls are dead in us, but when we die our souls are restored to life." The doctrine of immortality comes prominently forward in his ethics, but whether this must not be reckoned with the figurative accommodation to the popular theology of Greece which pervades his ethical teaching, is very doubtful. The school of disciples founded by Heraclitus flourished for long after his death, the chief exponent of his teaching being Cratylus. A good deal of the information in regard to his doctrines has been gathered from the later Greek philosophy, which was deeply influenced by it. BIBLIOGRAPHY.—The only authentic extant work of Heraclitus is the περὶ φύσεως. The best edition (containing also the probably spurious Ἐπιστολαί) is that of I. Bywater, Heracliti Ephesii reliquiae (Oxford, 1877); of the epistles alone by A. Westermann (Leipzig, 1857). See also in A. H. Ritter and L. Preller's Historia philosophiae Graecae (8th ed. by E. Wellmann, 1898); F. W. A. Mullach, Fragm. philos. Graec. (Paris, 1860); A. Fairbanks, The First Philosophers of Greece (1898); H. Diels, Heraklit von Ephesus (2nd ed., 1909), Greek and German. English translation of By water's edition with introduction by G. T. W. Patrick (Baltimore, 1889). For criticism see, in addition to the histories of philosophy, F. Lassalle, Die Philosophie Herakleitos' des Dunklen (Berlin, 1858; 2nd ed., 1892), which, however, is too strongly dominated by modern Hegelianism; Paul Schuster, Heraklit von Ephesus (Leipzig, 1873); J. Bernays, Die heraklitischen Briefe (Berlin, 1869); T. Gomperz, Zu Heraclits Lehre und den Uberresten seines Werkes (Vienna, 1887), and in his Greek Thinkers (English translation, L. Magnus, vol. i. 1901); J. Burnet, Early Greek Philosophy (1892); A. Patin, Heraklits Einheitslehre (Leipzig, 1886); E. Pfleiderer, Die Philosophie des Heraklit us von Ephesus im Lichte der Mysterienidee (Berlin, 1886); G. T. Schäfer, Die Philosophie des Heraklit von Ephesus und die moderne Heraklilforschung (Leipzig, 1902); Wolfgang Schultz, Studien zur antiken Kultur, i.; Pythagoras und Heraklit (Leipzig, 1905); O. Spengler, Heraklit. Eine Studie ilber den energetischen Grundgedanken seiner Philosophie (Halle, 1904); A. Brieger, "Die Grundzüge der heraklitischen Physik " in Hermes, xxxix. (1904) 182-223, and "Heraklit der Dunkle" in Neue Jahrb. f. das klass. Altertum (1904), p. 687. For his place in the development of early philosophy see also articles IONIAN SCHOOL OF PHILOSOPHY and LOGOS. Ancient authorities: Diog. Laert. ix.; Sext. Empiric, Adv. mathem. vii. 126, 127, 133; Plato, Cratylus, 402 A and Theaetetus, 152 E; Plutarch, Isis and Osiris, 45, 48; Arist. Nic. Eth. vii. 3, 4; Clement of Alexandria, Stromata, v. 599, 603 (ed. Paris). (J. M. M.) Copyright. (shrink)

Peter Abelard (1079–1142 ce) was the most wide‐ranging philosopher of the twelfth century. He quickly established himself as a leading teacher of logic in and near Paris shortly after 1100. After his affair with Heloise, and his subsequent castration, Abelard became a monk, but he returned to teaching in the Paris schools until 1140, when his work was condemned by a Church Council at Sens. His logical writings were based around discussion of the “Old Logic”: Porphyry's Isagoge, aristotle'S Categories and (...) On Interpretation and boethius'S textbook on topical inference. They comprise a freestanding Dialectica (“Logic”; probably c.1116), a set of commentaries (known as the Logica [Ingredientibus], c. 1119) and a later (c. 1125) commentary on the Isagoge (Logica Nostrorum Petititoni Sociorum or Glossulae). In a work Abelard called his Theologia, issued in three main versions (between 1120 and c.1134), he attempted a logical analysis of trinitarian relations and explored the philosophical problems surrounding God's claims to omnipotence and omniscience. The Collationes (“Debates,” also known as “Dialogue between a Christian, a Philosopher and a Jew”; probably c.1130) present a rational investigation into the nature of the highest good, in which the Christian and the Philosopher (who seems to be modeled on a philosopher of pagan antiquity) are remarkably in agreement. The unfinished Scito teipsum (“Know thyself,” also known as the “Ethics”; c.1138) analyses moral action. (shrink)

Logic; Islamic philosophy; Islam--doctrines.

How do we judge whether an action is morally right or wrong? If an action is wrong, what reason does that give us not to do it? Why should we give such reasons priority over our other concerns and values? In this book, T. M. Scanlon offers new answers to these questions, as they apply to the central part of morality that concerns what we owe to each other. According to his contractualist view, thinking about right and wrong is thinking (...) about what we do in terms that could be justified to others and that they could not reasonably reject. He shows how the special authority of conclusions about right and wrong arises from the value of being related to others in this way, and he shows how familiar moral ideas such as fairness and responsibility can be understood through their role in this process of mutual justification and criticism. Scanlon bases his contractualism on a broader account of reasons, value, and individual well-being that challenges standard views about these crucial notions. He argues that desires do not provide us with reasons, that states of affairs are not the primary bearers of value, and that well-being is not as important for rational decision-making as it is commonly held to be. Scanlon is a pluralist about both moral and non-moral values. He argues that, taking this plurality of values into account, contractualism allows for most of the variability in moral requirements that relativists have claimed, while still accounting for the full force of our judgments of right and wrong. (shrink)

Bhattacharyya, K. The Advaita concept of subjectivity.--Deutsch, E. Reflections on some aspects of the theory of rasa.--Nakamura, H. The dawn of modern thought in the East.--Organ, T. Causality, Indian and Greek.--Chatterjee, M. On types of classification.--Lacombe, O. Transcendental imagination.--Bahm, A. J. Standards for comparative philosophy.--Herring, H. Appearance, its significance and meaning in the history of philosophy.--Chang Chung-yuan. Pre-rational harmony in Heidegger's essential thinking and Chʼan thought.--Staal, J. F. Making sense of the Buddhist tetralemma.--Enomiya-Lassalle, H. M. The mysticism of Carl Albrecht (...) and Zen.--Parrinder, G. The nature of mysticism.--Cairns, G. E. Axiological contributions of East and West to the spiritual development of mankind.--Mayeda, S. Śaṇkara's view of ethics.--Mercier, A. On peace.--Barlingay, S. S. A discussion of some aspects of Gaudapāda's philosophy. (shrink)

This is the text of The Lindley Lecture for 1996, given by T.M. Scanlon, an American philosopher.

Transplantation is a medically successful and cost-effective way to treat people whose organs have failed--but not enough organs are available to meet demand. T. M. Wilkinson explores the major ethical problems raised by policies for acquiring organs. Key topics include the rights of the dead, the role of the family, and the sale of organs.

We introduce a simple model for so-called spin-echo experiments. We show that the model is a mincing system. On the basis of this model we study fine-grained entropy and coarse-grained entropy descriptions of these experiments. The coarse-grained description is shown to be unable to provide an explanation of the echo signals, as a result of the way in which it ignores dynamically generated correlations. This conclusion is extended to the general debate on the foundations of statistical mechanics. We emphasize the (...) need for an appropriate mechanism to explain the gradual suppression over time of the correlations in a thermodynamic system. We argue that such a mechanism can only be provided by the interventionist approach, in which the interaction of the system with its environment is taken into account. Irreversible behavior is then seen to arise not as a result of limited measurement accuracy , but as a result of the fact that thermodynamic systems are limited systems which interact with their environment. A detailed discussion is given of recent objections to the interventionist approach in the literature. (shrink)

It is generally wrong to manipulate. One leading reason is because manipulation interferes with autonomy, in particular the component of autonomy called ‘independence’, that is, freedom from intentional control by others. Manipulative health promotion would therefore seem wrong. However, manipulative techniques could be used to counter-manipulation, for example, playing on male fears of impotence to counter ‘smoking is sexy’ advertisements. What difference does it make to the ethics of manipulation when it is counter-manipulation? This article distinguishes two powerful defences of (...) counter-manipulative health promotion: that the counter-manipulation would prevent manipulation occurring, leaving people unmanipulated; and that the counter-manipulation would make people healthier without being any more manipulated than they would otherwise be. The article explains how counter-manipulation might work and the limits to its scope. The upshot is that counter-manipulative health promotion could respect the independence people are owed in virtue of their autonomy. However, autonomy is not the only consideration, and the article discusses further potential problems. Counter-manipulative health promotion might be misapplied, it might undermine trust, it might infringe on some norms for role behaviour and it might encourage a regrettable social practice. These objections are likely to be decisive against the counter-manipulation in some but not all cases. (shrink)

This article discusses the role of moment-to-moment affect dynamics in mental disorder and aims to integrate recent literature on this topic in the context of complex dynamical system theory. First, we will review the relevance of temporal and contextual aspects of affect dynamics in relation to psychopathology. Related to this, we will discuss recent insights resulting from a network view on affect dynamics in psychopathology. Next, we explore how we can reconcile literature findings from a perspective of complex dynamical system (...) theory. Finally, future directions with regard to personalized assessment of risk and diagnostic use are discussed. (shrink)

[T. M. Scanlon] It is clearly impermissible to kill one person because his organs can be used to save five others who are in need of transplants. It has seemed to many that the explanation for this lies in the fact that in such cases we would be intending the death of the person whom we killed, or failed to save. What makes these actions impermissible, however, is not the agent's intention but rather the fact that the benefit envisaged does (...) not justify an exception to the prohibition against killing or the requirement to give aid. The difference between this explanation and one appealing to intention is easily overlooked if one fails to distinguish between the prospective use of a moral principle to guide action and its retrospective use to appraise the way an agent governed him or herself. Even if this explanation is accepted, however, it remains an open question whether and how an agent's intention may be relevant to the permissibility of actions in other cases. \\\ [Jonathan Dancy] My first four sections concentrate on the second section of Professor Scanlon's contribution, where he lays out his conception of moral principles and of the role they play in theory and practice. I will raise questions on the following issues: 1. Scanlon's initial introduction of the notion of a principle. 2. His rejection of the standard view that principles are concerned with the forbidding, permitting and requiring of actions. 3. His rejection of pro tanto conceptions of principles in favour of a conception of them as conclusive. 4. The resulting account of what it is for a principle to face and survive exceptions. Scanlon's discussion of these matters here both appeals to and is in some respects more detailed than the relevant section of his recent What We Owe to Each Other. The topic is interesting both for the role played by principles in Scanlon's present discussion of intention and permissibility, and more generally because of his account of wrongness: an act is wrong iff it is ruled out by principles that nobody could reasonably reject. The remainder of my contribution is concerned with the ostensible focus of IP, namely the relevance of agent-intentions to the permissibility of what is done. (shrink)

It is explained on a physical basis how absence of contextuality allows Bell inequalities to be violated, without bringing an implication on locality or realism. Hereto we connect first to the local realistic theory Stochastic Electrodynamics, and then put the argument more broadly. Thus even if Bell Inequality Violation is demonstrated beyond reasonable doubt, it will have no say on local realism, because absence of contextuality prevents the Bell inequalities to be derived from local realistic models.

[T. M. Scanlon] It is clearly impermissible to kill one person because his organs can be used to save five others who are in need of transplants. It has seemed to many that the explanation for this lies in the fact that in such cases we would be intending the death of the person whom we killed, or failed to save. What makes these actions impermissible, however, is not the agent's intention but rather the fact that the benefit envisaged does (...) not justify an exception to the prohibition against killing or the requirement to give aid. The difference between this explanation and one appealing to intention is easily overlooked if one fails to distinguish between the prospective use of a moral principle to guide action and its retrospective use to appraise the way an agent governed him or herself. Even if this explanation is accepted, however, it remains an open question whether and how an agent's intention may be relevant to the permissibility of actions in other cases. \\\ [Jonathan Dancy] My first four sections concentrate on the second section of Professor Scanlon's contribution, where he lays out his conception of moral principles and of the role they play in theory and practice. I will raise questions on the following issues: 1. Scanlon's initial introduction of the notion of a principle. 2. His rejection of the standard view that principles are concerned with the forbidding, permitting and requiring of actions. 3. His rejection of pro tanto conceptions of principles in favour of a conception of them as conclusive. 4. The resulting account of what it is for a principle to face and survive exceptions. Scanlon's discussion of these matters here both appeals to and is in some respects more detailed than the relevant section of his recent What We Owe to Each Other. The topic is interesting both for the role played by principles in Scanlon's present discussion of intention and permissibility, and more generally because of his account of wrongness: an act is wrong iff it is ruled out by principles that nobody could reasonably reject. The remainder of my contribution is concerned with the ostensible focus of IP, namely the relevance of agent-intentions to the permissibility of what is done. (shrink)

Explains how a contractualist moral theory can explain the moral phenomena commonly called rights, although it does not appeal to the notion of a right as a basic element of moral thinking, or explain the difference between rights violations and wrongs of other kinds. Argues that the latter failure is not an important fault.

According to this paper, respect for informed consent implies that subjects should often be told a good deal more than ethical guidelines explicitly or implicitly require. Unless subjects are informed of the researchers’ personal characteristics, views, and sponsors whenever they would be likely to consider them significant, their autonomy is being overridden. However, overriding subjects’ autonomy is sometimes required by the interests of researchers in not being discriminated against or suffering intrusions into their privacy. This paper resolves the conflict between (...) informed consent and the interests of researchers by recommending that (i) subjects generally should be told of the personal characteristics of researchers when relevant as part of the researchers’ job and (ii) that subjects should be told of researchers’ views when conceptually connected to the research and (iii) that subjects should almost always be told about sponsorship. While the paper explicitly limits the role of informed consent, these recommendations go significantly beyond most guidelines in their requirements about what information should be disclosed. (shrink)

T. M. Rudavsky tells the story of the development of Jewish philosophy from the 10th century to Spinoza in the 17th, as part of a dialogue with medieval Christian and Islamic thought. She gives a broad historical survey of major figures and schools within the medieval Jewish tradition, focusing on the tensions between Judaism and rational thought.

There is general acknowledgement that both the anterior cingulate and orbitofrontal cortex are implicated in reinforcement-guided decision making, and emotion and social behaviour. Despite the interest that these areas generate in both the cognitive neuroscience laboratory and the psychiatric clinic, ideas about the distinctive contributions made by each have only recently begun to emerge. This reflects an increasing understanding of the component processes that underlie reinforcement- guided decision making, such as the representation of reinforcement expectations, the exploration, updating and representation (...) of action values, and the appreciation that choices are guided not just by the prospect of reward but also by the costs that action entails. Evidence is emerging to suggest that the anterior cingulate and orbitofrontal cortex make distinct contributions to each of these aspects of decision making. (shrink)

According to much modern social psychology, behavioural economics and common sense, people's actions and beliefs are frequently the result of rapid intuitive thought rather than careful deliberation. Richard Thaler and Cass Sunstein, in their influential book, Nudge, synthesised the literature and used it as the basis for numerous policy ideas.1 Not least, they gave the word ‘nudge’ as a handy term to apply to all sorts of ways of taking advantage of people's psychological quirks without coercing or bribing them. But (...) while Nudge was long on ideas and enthusiasm, it was short on conceptual clarity. The idea of a nudge was inconsistent with some of the policies Thaler and Sunstein endorsed and their account of nudging's relation to freedom and paternalism was flawed.In Salvaging the concept of nudge, Yashar Saghai acts as a friendly critic who thinks nudging has plenty to offer the policy world but sees that it needs both conceptual clarity and ethical defence.2 He wants to show how some of ways of taking advantage of people's psychology could leave them as free as before and he is especially concerned with what I would describe as a question of manipulation: …. (shrink)

A unifying theory of general anesthetic-induced unconsciousness must explain the common mechanism through which various anesthetic agents produce unconsciousness. Functional-brain-imaging data obtained from 11 volunteers during general anesthesia showed specific suppression of regional thalamic and midbrain reticular formation activity across two different commonly used volatile agents. These findings are discussed in relation to findings from sleep neurophysiology and the implications of this work for consciousness research. It is hypothesized that the essential common neurophysiologic mechanism underlying anesthetic-induced unconsciousness is, as with (...) sleep-induced unconsciousness, a hyperpolarization block of thalamocortical neurons. A model of anesthetic-induced unconsciousness is introduced to explain how the plethora of effects anesthetics have on cellular functioning ultimately all converge on a single neuroanatomic/neurophysiologic system, thus providing for a unitary physiologic theory of narcosis related to consciousness. (shrink)

Purpose. The purpose of this paper is to study the behaviour of women in extreme conditions, to establish various social roles of women, ways of their adaptation to extreme conditions on the example of Ukrainian anti-Nazi underground during Second World War. Theoretical basis. The authors derive from the fact that historical anhropology is a leading and promising area of historical research. Originality. For the first time, the authors have shown that in conditions of constant stress state and direct threat to (...) life and health, the behaviour of underground women was determined by adequate survival strategies, i.e. by the life circumstances and personal qualities of the underground members. Conclusions. Permanent existence on the verge of life and death often led women to emotional actions, deviant forms of behaviour. Their actions could be controversial, and the motives – confusing. At the same time, the majority of women left in the Soviet underground chose as a strategy of survival the path of confrontation with occupiers, held true to their choices, often showed courage, ingenuity and self-sacrifice. (shrink)