Barsalou's interesting model might benefit from defining simulation and clarifying the implications of prior critiques for simulations (and not just for perceptual symbols). Contrary to claims, simulators (or frames) appear, in the limit, to be amodal. In addition, the account of abstract terms seems extremely limited.

A very slight reading of Clement of Alexandria is enough to prove how deeply he is indebted to Plato both in respect of language and of thought. Quotations from Plato are to be found throughout Clement's works, and in many cases acknowledgment is made of their origin. In addition there are frequent allusions, which for the most part the student of Plato can easily recognize. Clement invariably shows a profound respect for the Greek philosopher, whom he looks upon as a (...) seeker after truth and as an authority, we may almost say, second only to the Scriptures. A careful comparison of the Protrepticus with the Phaedrus, results of which are given below, will furnish a striking illustration of the close dependence of Clement upon Plato. The Protrepticus is a short work, occupying in space not more than one–twelfth of Clement's extant writings, while the Phaedrus is even smaller in proportion to the whole of Plato. It is remarkable that so much inter-connexion should be found in so small a field, especially when we remember that the references to the Phaedrus represent by no means the whole of Clement's drawing upon Plato in the Protrepticus. There are allusions also to the Theaetetus, Republic, Charmides, Laws and Epistles, and possibly to the Politicus, Cratylus, Philebus, Symposium and Apology. (shrink)

Nick Zangwill has done more than any person recently to resuscitate aesthetic formalism. I say "resuscitate" because formalism has not been in favor for several decades. Zangwill writes that "Aesthetic Formalism has fallen on hard times. At best it receives unsympathetic discussion and swift rejection. At worse it is the object of abuse and derision." The reasons many today believe aesthetic formalism is not viable have been the subject of discussion since the pendulum swing away from New Criticism, via the (...) work of William Wimsatt, Cleanth Brooks, Clement Greenberg, André Levinson, and Heinrich Wolfflin. Most of these reasons have been discussed thoroughly, and those that I will review here that have been discussed I will spend little time reconsidering. I believe, though, that there are a few more reasons why formalism has fallen on hard times, reasons that have not been much discussed, or at least not directly. They are the subject of this article. (shrink)

A contribution at the intersection between Freudian psychoanalysis and Christian thought, Eros Crucified argues for the need of a Christian revision of the Freudian account of desire. Psychoanalysi...

The article discusses the sophistic method of “antilogic” (“double arguments”, “contrasting arguments”, “opposed speeches”, “two-fold arguments”). The main goal is to show that it is a method that, in the light of the doctrine presented in Plato’s Theaetetus, is based on philosophical foundations. The work of G.B. Kerferd was crucial for the research on the art of antilogic, as it broke with the unequivocally negative understanding of this method adopted by the earlier research tradition. Late testimonies of Diogenes Laertius, Clement (...) of Alexandria, Seneca and Eudoxus point to Protagoras of Abdera as the creator and promoter of the antilogic. These testimonies are confirmed by references to the method of “opposed speeches” contained in the comedies of Aristophanes, in the tragedies of Euripides and in the anonymous treatise Dialexeis. Plato’s report on the doctrine attributed to Protagoras in the Theaetetus reveals the philosophical context of the antilogic. The so- -called “secret doctrine”, based on the acceptance of appearances and of the privacy of perceptions (man-measure doctrine), the rejection of truth and falsehood, and acceptance of the contradictory judgments results from the new vision of reality in flux. Therefore, the “secret doctrine” presents a consistent and coherent project leading to a new concept of logic and language and lays the foundations for the method of “double arguments”. (shrink)

L’oeuvre de Theodor W. Adorno, et plus particulièrement sa Théorie esthétique, témoigne de sa défense soutenue de l’art moderne. Toutefois, dans le cadre de ses réflexions, on ne doit pas oublier qu’elle comporte également une dimension critique. Sa polémique à propos du jazz, par exemple, est devenue célèbre. Par contraste, sa critique de la peinture monochrome demeure relativement inconnue. Ce texte propose d’abord d’esquisser les éléments de celle-ci afin de tester ensuite ses limites en analysant une oeuvre monochrome d’Yves Klein: (...) IKB 79.Theodor W. Adorno’s defence of modern art in Aesthetic Theory and other writings is well known, as is his scathing attack on jazz. Less well known is his critique of monochromatic painting. This article first sketches the stakes and terms of this critique in relation to Clement Greenberg’s dismissal of much monochromatic or near-monochromatic painting, before moving on to an analysis of Adorno’s position. For the purposes of this analysis, Yves Klein’s IKB 79 serves as a test case. (shrink)

In the times preceding the emergence of Neo-Platonism, the philosophers now known as Middle Platonists elaborated an extensive reflection on the possibility of knowing God, and the ways that could lead to acquiring knowledge about the transcendent. According to Plato, “To discover the Maker and Father of this Universe were a task indeed; and having discovered Him, to declare Him unto all men were a thing impossible” ​​. The Middle Platonists believed that God, whom they sometimes identified with the Platonic (...) One and Good, is possible to know but not possible to express. Even though the knowledge of God is accompanied by all the difficulties associated with the process of intellectual and ethical improvement, and although what one comes to know in this process is ultimately impossible to express in human language, gaining knowledge of God and becoming like Him is nevertheless the goal of all Platonic philosophy. Jewish and Christian thinkers working at this time came to similar conclusions. These include Philo of Alexandria, Clement of Alexandria, and Origen, who are themselves sometimes deemed Middle-Platonic philosophers. Unlike their pagan colleagues, they believed that man’s process of coming to know God would go on forever. They thought that the finite human mind would never be able to contain the infinite, and they held that the essence and power of God are indeed infinite. The goal of this article is to expose the relationship between the infinity and the unknowability of God, and at the same time to point out the differences in the theses put forward on this question by pagan Middle Platonists and those who accepted Judeo-Christian revelation. (shrink)

SOPHIA – GOD’S WISDOM. QUALITY, ENERGY OR SEPARATE DIVINE PERSON IN THE THEOLOGY OF THE EASTERN CHURCH (TO THE 15th CENTURY) The representation of Sophia – personified God’s Wisdom, based on the text of old-testament Sapiental Books, took quite an important place in the spiritual culture of Byzantium. What should be noted is the Empire inhabitants’ striving to identify Wisdom with one of the persons of Trinity. A vast majority of the Church Fathers and later East Christian thinkers inclined towards (...) christological interpretation of Sophian images. The Second Hypostasis – the Word Incarnate, was identified with Sophia by Justin Martyr, Athenagoras of Athens, Clement of Alexandria, Origen, Methodius of Olympus, Eusebius of Caesarea, Cyril of Jerusalem, Athanasius of Alexandria, Gregory of Nazianzus, Gregory of Nyssa, Cyril of Alexandria, Theodoret of Cyrus, Anastasius of Sinai, Patriarch Germanus of Constantinople, St. Theodore of Stoudios, Symeon the Metaphrast, St. Simeon the New Theologian, and Philotheos Kokkinos – author of three extensive educational works devoted to Sapiental metaphors, presented in the Book of Proverbs. Several other apologists preferred to identify God’s Wisdom with the Holy Spirit (Theophilus of Antioch, Irenaeus of Lyons, Paul of Samosata). At the same time in the Byzantine theology emerged a completely abstract interpretation of Sophia, based on the views of Saint Basil the Great, Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite and Maximus the Confessor. Its highlight was to be a theory, proposed by Gregory Palamas in the fourteenth century, according to which Sophia should be understood primarily as one of the uncreated energies of God. (shrink)

Modern aesthetic Minimalism is neither a flight to abstract spirituality, nor an extracting process of a primordial essence. It is concerned, rather, with the aesthetic object as pure refiguration and the production of “concrete universality”, of form as content and possibility of itself. This becomes especially apparent in the Minimalism of the 1960s. The main focus of this paper will be on Dan Flavin’s luminous minimalism. The latter is characterised by a style that, though simple in appearance, introduced a higher (...) level of complexity with regard to the relation between form and matter, concept and thing, in artistic production. Neither sculptures nor paintings, Flavin’s works fall right under Donald Judd’s category of “specific objects”. Nevertheless, his luminous creations are not particularly specific, just as they are not strictly speaking objects. Their main material – colour-light – is as intangible and diffuse, as its origin – the fluorescent lamp – is commonplace and artificial. Drawing on such influential theorists of art as Theodor W. Adorno, Peter Bürger, Clement Greenberg and Jacques Rancière, this paper studies the lessons that philosophy can learn from Flavin's light minimalism, most notably in relation to the notions of aesthetic materiality and sublimation. (shrink)

Background 300 million operations and procedures are performed annually across the world, all of which require a patient’s informed consent. No standardised measure of the consent process exists in current clinical practice. We aimed to define a core outcome set for informed consent for therapy. Methods The core outcome set was developed in accordance with a predefined research protocol and the Core OutcoMes in Effectiveness Trials methodology comprising systematic review, qualitative semi structured interviews, a modified Delphi process and consensus webinars (...) to ratify outcomes for inclusion in the final core outcome set.. Participants from all key stakeholder groups took part in the process, including patients and the public, healthcare practitioners and consent researchers. Results 36 outcome domains were synthesised through systematic review and organised into a consent taxonomy. 41 semi-structured interviews were performed with all consent stakeholders groups. 164 participants from all stakeholder groups across 8 countries completed Delphi Round 1 and 125 completed Round 2. 11 outcomes met the ‘consensus in’ criteria. 6 met ‘consensus in’ all stakeholder groups and were included directly in the final core outcome set. 5 remaining outcomes meeting ‘consensus in’ were ratified over two consensus webinars. 9 core outcomes were included in the final core outcome set: Satisfaction with the quality and amount of information, Patient feeling that there was a choice, Patient feeling that the decision to consent was their own, Confidence in the decision made, Satisfaction with communication, Trust in the clinician, Patient satisfaction with the consent process, Patient rated adequacy of time and opportunity to ask questions. Conclusion This international mixed-methods qualitative study is the first of its kind to define a core outcome set for informed consent for intervention. It defines what outcomes are of importance to key stakeholders in the consent process and is a forward step towards standardising future consent research. (shrink)

Privacy is defined within a symbolic interaction framework in terms of identity definition and maintenance processes. It is argued that defining privacy within a symbolic interaction framework both generates a number of hypotheses involving the concept of privacy and allows the theorist to draw together several social psychological concepts within the one conceptual schema.

The traditional doctrine of God's universal causality holds that God directly causes all entities distinct from himself, including all creaturely actions. But can our actions be free in the strong, libertarian sense if they are directly caused by God? W. Matthews Grant argues that free creaturely acts have dual sources, God and the free creaturely agent, and are ultimately up to both in a way that leaves all the standard conditions for libertarian freedom satisfied. Offering a comprehensive alternative to existing (...) approaches for combining theism and libertarian freedom, he proposes new solutions for reconciling libertarian freedom with robust accounts of God's providence, grace, and predestination. He also addresses the problem of moral evil without the commonly employed Free Will Defense. Written for analytic philosophers and theologians, Grant's approach can be characterized as “neo-scholastic” as well as “analytic,” since many of the positions defended are inspired by, consonant with, and develop resources drawn from the scholastic tradition, especially Aquinas. (shrink)