After accounting for the festival as a philosophical theme across Heidegger’s early to later writings, this article summarizes the 1943 “Andenken” essay on Hölderlin’s “wedding festival” and 1959 “Hölderlin’s Earth and Heaven” essay on the “round dance.” It then explores how these motifs of the wedding festival and its round dance are in play in the 1936–1937 Contributions to Philosophy: Of the Event manuscript, especially in its philosophy of attunement, and notion of the “celebration of the last god.”.

The early warning of financial risk is to identify and analyze existing financial risk factors, determine the possibility and severity of occurring risks, and provide scientific basis for risk prevention and management. The fragility of financial system and the destructiveness of financial crisis make it extremely important to build a good financial risk early-warning mechanism. The main idea of the K-means clustering algorithm is to gradually optimize clustering results and constantly redistribute target dataset to each clustering (...) center to obtain optimal solution; its biggest advantage lies in its simplicity, speed, and objectivity, being widely used in many research fields such as data processing, image recognition, market analysis, and risk evaluation. On the basis of summarizing and analyzing previous research works, this paper expounded the current research status and significance of financial risk early-warning, elaborated the development background, current status and future challenges of the K-means clustering algorithm, introduced the related works of similarity measure and item clustering, proposed a financial risk indicator system based on the K-means clustering algorithm, performed indicator selection and data processing, constructed a financial risk early-warning model based on the K-means clustering algorithm, conducted the classification of financial risk types and optimization of financial risk control, and finally carried out an empirical experiments and its result analysis. The study results show that the K-means clustering method can effectively avoid the subjective negative impact caused by artificial division thresholds, continuously optimize the prediction process of financial risk and redistribute target dataset to each cluster center for obtaining optimized solution, so the algorithm can more accurately and objectively distinguish the state interval of different financial risks, determine risk occurrence possibility and its severity, and provide a scientific basis for risk prevention and management. The study results of this paper provide a reference for further researches on financial risk early-warning based on K-means clustering algorithm. (shrink)

Critical phenomena in stock exchange are regularly occurring and difficult to predict events, often leading to disastrous consequences. The presented paper is devoted to the search and research of early warning signals of critical transitions in stock exchange based on the results of a multifractal analysis of a series of transactions in shares of public companies. We have proposed and justified the use of certain features of behavior of multifractal spectrum shape parameters such as signals. As model time (...) series, on which methods of multifractal analysis were tested, we used a series of the number of unstable sites of the sandpile automaton on the random Erdős–Rényi graph, self-organizing into critical and bistable states. It was found that the early warning signals for both cellular automata and stock exchanges are an increase in the magnitude of the maximum position, a decrease in the width, and a decrease, followed by a sharp increase, in the value of the spectrum asymmetry parameter. (shrink)

The purpose is to minimize the substantial losses caused by public health emergencies to people’s health and daily life and the national economy. The tuberculosis data from June 2017 to 2019 in a city are collected. The Structural Equation Model is constructed to determine the relationship between hidden and explicit variables by determining the relevant indicators and parameter estimation. The prediction model based on Artificial Neural Network and Convolutional Neural Network is constructed. The method’s effectiveness is verified by comparing the (...) prediction model’s loss value and accuracy in training and testing. Meanwhile, 50 pieces of actual cases are tested, and the warning level is determined according to the T-value. The results show that comparing and analyzing ANN, CNN, and the hybrid network of ANN and CNN, the hybrid network’s accuracy is higher than the other two algorithms, 89.1 and 90.1%. Also, the hybrid network has sound prediction effects and accuracy when predicting actual cases. Therefore, the early warning method based on ANN in deep learning has better performance in public health emergencies’ early warning, which is significant for improving early warning capabilities. (shrink)

Sports injury is a common problem in athletes’ training. The sports injury assessment model is a physical method to determine the sports injury attributes of specific parts by predicting and evaluating the risk of sports injury. In this paper, we use a neural network to realize big data analysis of sports injury data. Big data network is a method of capturing Internet information by means of cloud computing, which is usually used in the construction of Wan and LAN. This paper (...) analyzes the source of sports risk and the main injury factors, designs the sports injury estimation model based on big data analysis, establishes a new assessment model based on RBF neural network, and builds the big data network environment required for the model operation by improving the topological structure, combining big data and deep neural network. In the built environment, the risk assessment of sports injury can be completed by determining the risk source and identifying the risk factors. The realization of the model can be constrained by the uncertainty conditions so that it can achieve a good operation state. (shrink)

Due to the large-scale mining of mineral resources, the surface strata in many areas have collapsed and even developed into deformation and subsidence. Based on the conventional geotechnical deformation monitoring technology, the surface deformation prediction and disaster caused by the conventional geotechnical deformation monitoring technology can be avoided. In this paper, based on GIS, combined with the analysis of surface settlement, the surface settlement, slope value, curvature deformation value, horizontal displacement, and corresponding horizontal deformation formula are comprehensively analyzed and studied. (...) In order to make the surface deformation visualization and realize the high approximation processing with the subsidence area, this paper innovatively introduces the 3D visualization settlement data analysis and realizes the calculation result analysis and corresponding retrieval multiple visualization in the subsidence area depth prediction process. On this basis, the prediction data of subsidence area can be optimized and analyzed so as to master the efficient and accurate law of surface deformation. In the experimental part, a mine is taken as the experimental object, and the 3D visual monitoring processing is carried out. In this paper, the main method to prevent electromagnetic leakage of the computer system is the source suppression method. The source suppression method solves the problem fundamentally by reducing or eliminating the emission of computer electromagnetic leakage source. In the actual experiment, the effect of this method is very effective. The experimental results show that the prediction results and corresponding early warning accuracy of the system are significantly improved compared with the traditional scheme, which provides practical significance for disaster prevention and corresponding environmental impact assessment. (shrink)

With the improvement of citizens’ risk perception ability and environmental protection awareness, social conflicts caused by environmental problems in large-scale construction projects are becoming more and more frequent. Traditional social risk prevention management has some defects in obtaining risk data, such as limited coverage, poor availability, and insufficient timeliness, which makes it impossible to realize effective early warning of social risks in the era of big data. This paper focuses on the three environments of diversification of stakeholders, risk (...) media, and big data era. The evolution characteristics of the social risk of environmental damage of large-scale construction projects are analyzed from the four stages of incubation, outbreak, mitigation, and regression in essence. On this basis, a social risk early warning model is constructed， and the multicenter network governance mode of social risk of environmental damage in large-scale construction projects and practical social risk prevention strategies in different stages are put forward. Experiments show that the long short-term memory neural network model is effective and feasible for predicting the social risk trend of environmental damage of large-scale construction projects. Compared with other classical models, the long short-term memory model has the advantages of strong processing capability and high early warning accuracy for time-sensitive data and will have broad application prospects in the field of risk control research. By using the network governance framework and long short-term memory model, this paper studies the environmental mass events of large-scale construction projects on the risk early warning method, providing reference for the government to effectively prevent and control social risk of environmental damage of large-scale construction project in China. (shrink)

Aiming at the problem of insufficient health monitoring of the elderly in the existing home care system, this paper designs a health information analysis and early warning system based on the Internet of Things technology, which can monitor the physiological data of the elderly in real time. It also can be based on the elderly real-time monitoring data, physical examination data, and other types of health data, which can be used to predict diseases, so as to achieve “ (...) class='Hi'>early detection and early treatment” of diseases. First, analyse and design the architecture and content of the home care monitoring system based on the Internet of Things. Secondly, based on the collected heart rate, blood pressure, and three-axis acceleration information of the elderly, it is analysed to determine whether the elderly are in danger of falling, and the designed system is used for early warning. Finally, this paper analyses the prediction algorithm theory of the disease prediction module in the health monitoring software of the home care system. In order to improve the accuracy of prediction, the DS evidence theory is used to optimize the traditional BP neural network algorithm and conduct experimental tests. The test results show that the health information analysis and early warning software of the home care system meet actual needs and achieve the expected goals. (shrink)

Given the abrupt global disruption caused by SARS-CoV-2, one might think that the COVID pandemic was an unpredictable event. But in the years leading up to the emergence of the COVID pandemic, several documents had already been warning of the increasing occurrences of new disease outbreaks with pandemic potential and lack of corresponding policies to promote pandemic preparedness and response. In this article, we call these documents “early warnings”. We argue that a survey of early warnings can (...) help science communicators to promote the public understanding of evidence-based pandemic preparedness and response policies at local or international level. Our proposal differs from other approaches to pandemic preparedness and response in that it highlights the relevance of documents published before the COVID outbreak. We show that the early warnings did not become outdated after the COVID outbreak, but, rather, that they are even more pressing now. (shrink)

Based on the research of currency crisis pressure index, bank crisis pressure index, and asset bubble crisis pressure index, this paper introduces an external shock pressure index reflecting the impact of global economic changes on economy and synthesizes systemic financial crisis pressure based on the above four pressure indexes; then, all the alternative early warning indicators and the systemic risk pressure index constructed in this paper were tested for Granger causality. We build financial systemic risk pressure indexes, including (...) currency crisis pressure banking crisis pressure index, bubble crisis pressure index, and external shock pressure index to predict financial crises. Finally, four indicators that have a significant impact on the systemic financial crisis pressure index were selected, namely, the stock price index change rate, industrial added value growth rate, domestic and foreign real deposit interest rate differential, and foreign direct investment as a percentage of GDP. A dynamic Logit model with lagging binary variables is constructed, and compared with the traditional static Logit line, the actual dynamic fitting effect is better than the static Logit model. The dynamic Logit model is used to predict the early warning status of systemic financial crisis in 2020, and the forecast of various early warning indicators is realized by the ARIMA model. The final prediction results show that the probability of a systemic financial crisis in China in 2020 is extremely low, almost zero. This is in line with the overall improvement in the international economic situation in 2020 and the steady growth of the domestic economy. (shrink)

Human resource management risks are due to the failure of employer organization to use relevant human resources reasonably and can result in tangible or intangible waste of human resources and even risks; therefore, constructing a practical early warning model of human resource management risk is extremely important for early risk prediction. The back propagation neural network is an information analysis and processing system formed by using the error back propagation algorithm to simulate the neural function and structure (...) of the human brain, which can handle complex and changeable things that do not have an obvious linear relationship between output results and input factors, so as to find the objective connection between the two. Based on the summary and analysis of previous research works, this article expounded the research status and significance of early warning for human resource management risks, elaborated the development background, current status, and future challenges of the BP neural network, introduced the method and principle of the BP neural network’s connection weight calculation and learning training, performed the risk inducement analysis, index system establishment, and network node selection of human resource management, constructed an early warning model of human resource management risk based on the BP neural network, conducted the risk warning model training and detection based on the BP neural network, and finally carried out a simulation and its result analysis. The study results show that the early warning model of human resource management risk based on the BP network is effective, and this trained and tested BP network risk warning model can be used to conduct early warning empirical research on human resource risks to prevent human resource risks, ensure enterprise’s benign operation, and at the same time play a role in supervision and promotion of market order rectification. (shrink)

Understanding the regional food security situation is of great importance to maintaining China’s food security. To provide targeted information to help regional policymakers monitor food security status, based on the differentiated foci during the phased development of food security, this paper was conceived from the perspective of the need for early warnings and proposes a framework for regional integrated food security that incorporates food quantity security, food quality security, and sustainable food security. In this framework, an indicator system is (...) proposed, and the calculation of these indicators, as well as their warning thresholds and warning ranges, is discussed. To test this approach, a case study was conducted in one of China’s major grain-producing areas, the Dongting Lake area. The results showed that the overall integrated food security situation in this area was generally in the low-alarm range between 1986 and 2011; the primary causes of this status were food quality security, generally in the low- or medium-alarm range, and sustainable food security, which in 14 of the 26 years was in the low-alarm range. The government should establish a more robust system for monitoring the quality of agricultural products, controlling waste discharge, and guaranteeing poor individuals access to sufficient, safe, and nutritious food to meet their dietary needs. Policies on pesticide and fertilizer application should shift from actively encouraging more use to controlling excess application. (shrink)

The Safe by Design conceptual initiative being developed for nanomaterials offers a template for a new sustainable innovation approach for advanced materials with four important sustainability characteristics. Firstly, it requires potential toxicity risks to be evaluated earlier in the innovation cycle simultaneously with its chemical functionality and possible commercial applications. Secondly, it offers future options for reducing animal laboratory testing by early assessment using in silico predictive toxicological approaches, minimizing the number that reaches in vitro and in vivo trials. (...) Thirdly, it promotes a culture of shared responsibility for ethical and sustainable outcomes in the innovation process by promoting early dialogue between groups with vested interests. Finally, it offers the prospect of a more democratized innovation process by including civil society actors in decisions on product safety, commercial applications, and social utility. Collectively, these four characteristics offer the prospect for a new social contract between science, technology, and society for the societal alignment and sustainable innovation of advanced materials. (shrink)

In his renowned collection Philosophy as a Way of Life, Pierre Hadot suggests that the original trait of philosophy as a method by which one exercises themselves to achieve a new way of living and seeing the world fails with the rise of modernity. In that time, philosophy increasingly takes on a merely theoretical aspect, tending toward a system. However, Hadot himself glimpses at the dawn of modernity some instances of the original trait of philosophy still very much present, and (...) in his wake, Michel Foucault warns that between the late 16th and early 17th centuries the philosophical question of the reform of the mind attests to a still very close link between asceticism and truth. This book aims to develop just such an idea by thoroughly analyzing the most representative works of the reform of the mind in the early modern period: Francis Bacon's New Organon (1620), René Descartes' Discourse on the Method (1637), and Baruch Spinoza's Treatise on the Emendation of the Intellect (1677). From this analysis it will emerge that these modern works fully deserve to be counted among the tradition of philosophy as way of life. On closer inspection, the inquiries about method elaborated in these works are fully understandable only when read in the light of a broader and more complex philosophical need: to establish the spiritual conditions for accessing truth and aspiring to full self-realization. (shrink)

Monsters as a category seem omnipresent in early modern natural philosophy, in what one might call a “long” early modern period stretching from the Renaissance to the late eighteenth century, when the science of teratology emerges. We no longer use this term to refer to developmental anomalies (whether a two-headed calf, an individual suffering from microcephaly or Proteus syndrome) or to “freak occurrences” like Mary Toft’s supposedly giving birth to a litter of rabbits, in Surrey in the (...) class='Hi'>early eighteenth-century (Todd 1995). But the term itself has a rich semantic history, coming from the Latin verb monstrare (itself deriving from monere, to remind, warn, advise), “to show,” from which we also get words like “monitor,” “admonish,” “monument” and “premonition”; hence there are proverbs like, in French, le monstre est ce qui montre, difficult to render in English: “the monsters is that which shows.” Scholars have discussed how this “monstrative” dimension of the monster is in fact twofold: on the one hand, and most awkwardly, the monster is an individual who is “pointed at,” who is shown; on the other hand, the monster is a sign, a portent, an omen, and in that sense “shows us” something (on the complex semantic history of the term across Indo-European languages see Ochsner 2005). The latter dimension persists in naturalized form in the early modern period when authors like Bacon, Fontenelle or William Hunter insist that monsters (or anomalies) can show us something of the workings of Nature. (shrink)

Mass-marketing frauds are on the increase. Given the amount of monies lost and the psychological impact of MMFs there is an urgent need to develop new and effective methods to prevent more of these crimes. This paper reports the early planning of automated methods our interdisciplinary team are developing to prevent and detect MMF. Importantly, the paper presents the ethical and social constraints involved in such a model and suggests concerns others might also consider when developing automated systems.

The legal risks associated with health research involving human subjects have been highlighted recently by a number of lawsuits launched against those involved in conducting and evaluating the research. Some of these cases have been fully addressed by the legal system, resulting in judgments that provide some guidance. The vast majority of cases have either settled before going to trial, or have not yet been addressed by the courts, leaving us to wonder what might have been and what guidance future (...) cases may bring. What is striking about the lawsuits that have been commenced is the broad range of individuals/institutions that are named as defendants and the broad range of allegations that are made. The research community should take this early experience as a warning and should reflect carefully on practices where research involving human subjects is concerned. (shrink)

This book examines how the early Christian elite articulated and cultivated the affective dimensions of compassion in a Roman world that promoted emotional tranquillity as the path to human flourishing. Drawing upon a wide range of early Christians from both east and west, Wessel situates each author in the broader cultural and intellectual context. The reader is introduced to the diverse conditions in which Christians felt and were urged to feel compassion in exemplary ways, and in which warnings (...) were sounded against the possibilities for distortion and exploitation. Wessel argues that the early Christians developed literary methods and rhetorical techniques to bring about appropriate emotional responses to human suffering. Their success in this regard marks the beginning of affective compassion as a Christian virtue. Comparison with early modern and contemporary philosophers and ethicists further demonstrates the intrinsic worth of the early Christian understanding of compassion. (shrink)

Warne's original study provides an insightful analysis of the role of contemplation and creation in the thought of Josef Pieper, illustrating the importance of this practice to earthly happiness and human flourishing. What is the relationship between creation, contemplation, human flourishing, and moral development? Nathaniel Warne's Josef Pieper on the Spiritual Life offers a sophisticated answer to this question through a systematic analysis of philosopher Josef Pieper's (1904-1997) thought. Warne's examination centers on the role of contemplation and creation in Pieper's (...) thinking, arguing that contemplation of the created order is a key feature of earthly happiness. By emphasizing the importance of contemplation, Pieper illustrates the deep interconnections between ethics, creation, and spirituality. For Warne, to posit a binary between the contemplative life and active life creates a false dichotomy. Following Pieper, Warne claims that theology and spirituality cannot be bracketed from ethics and social action--indeed, our lived experience in the world blurs the lines between these practices. Contemplation and action are closer together than are typically assumed, and both have important implications for both our spiritual development and our engagement with the world around us. Ultimately, Warne's emphasis on creation and contemplation represents an attempt to resist a view of ethics and the spiritual life that is divorced from our environment. In response to this view, Warne argues that we need a renewed sense that creation and place are important for self-understanding. Contemplation of creation is, at bottom, a form of communion with God--we thus need a more robust sense of how ethics and politics are rooted in God's creative action. Taking Pieper as a guide, Warne's study helps to deepen our thinking about these connections. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Philosophy and Literature 25.1 (2001) 166-169 [Access article in PDF] Book Review Cross-Examining Socrates: A Defense of the Interlocutors in Plato's Early Dialogues Cross-Examining Socrates: A Defense of the Interlocutors in Plato's Early Dialogues, by John Beversluis; xii & 416 pp. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000, $69.95. This book is more than a cross-examination of Socrates: it is a carefully wrought indictment. Beversluis, unlike Socrates' historical adversaries (...) Anytus and Meletus, brings philosophically serious charges against Socrates by offering a rigorous defense of the interlocutors in Plato's early dialogues, the so-called Socratic dialogues. In so doing, he charts new territory in the vast area of recent analytic scholarship on Plato.According to traditional readings, Socrates deploys his elenchus to defeat his interlocutors, leaving them "either to retreat in anger or to submit to his power." Allegedly, Plato, guided by his Socratic intellectualism, draws them as distinctive, complex characters, though intellectually and thus ethically flawed. Beversluis argues against this standard view, providing sympathetic reassessment of Socrates' interlocutors. Although some previous scholars have defended some of the interlocutors, Beversluis widens the scope of the argument, leveling a scathing attack on Socratic intellectualism and its correlative method of moral education.He deals not only with Socrates' interlocutors and their logical defeats, but also with the idea of an interlocutor, and in so doing casts light on the philosophical dialogue as a genre. This emerges in the first and perhaps most original chapter, entitled "The Socratic Interlocutor," which may be of value to readers interested in philosophical writing or the philosophy of literature more generally. Here he illuminates Plato's use of the interlocutor, in part, by contrasting it with that of other philosophers who wrote in dialogue form, such as Augustine, Anselm, Hume, and Berkeley. The Socratic interlocutors are not, he says, "embodiments of error." Socrates, unlike the protagonists drawn by these other authors, does not subject them to his scrutiny in order to make them accept his beliefs, but rather to reject theirs. Beversluis claims that Plato's portrayal expresses his Socratic belief in the good life as one of bewilderment and uncertainty, a view, Beversluis rightly says, Plato will come to repudiate in his middle dialogues. Beversluis is clearly aware of the disparity between the [End Page 166] discomfort Socrates visits on his interlocutors and that which he is willing to endure himself.While many interpreters forgive Socrates' lapses of logic, Beversluis is unsparing. There is no reason, he thinks, to judge Socrates' arguments by any other criterion than their logical merits, and he therefore rejects the idea that Socrates' most fallacious arguments are valuable for psychological illumination. He also rejects Vlastos's view that only those of Socrates' arguments that are offered "seriously" should be criticized seriously. If they appear to be logical arguments, Beversluis contends, they must be assessed on their logical merits, not their rhetorical or therapeutic virtues. Some might find this approach rather arid until they see that Beversluis is warning the reader not to be dazzled by Socrates as the interlocutors are.It is widely believed that the aim of Socratic elenchus is to uncover the structure of a person's beliefs and to show that it is either internally inconsistent or at best unreflectively constructed. Beversluis's account, however, portrays Socrates as a Svengali who makes people assent to claims they would not otherwise accept. If this is right, Socrates is not actually elucidating the interlocutor's real beliefs. Beversluis challenges the notion of sincere assent, both as an interpretative guide to the early dialogues and as an epistemic concept. He points out that sincere belief is not simply an occurrent interior state accompanying, and indicated by, a verbal act of assent; rather, it emerges from the totality of a person's lived character, from the relation between word and act.Some readers will object to his axiom that a character in a literary work, and thus in a Platonic dialogue, has a life subject to scrutiny outside of the literary work. In his brief... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Rhetoric, Grief, and the Imagination in Early Modern EnglandStephen PenderIn 1633, the Northampton physician James Hart warned that excessive grief "will to some procure irrecoverable Consumptions," dry the brain and bone marrow, hinder digestion, interrupt rest, and "by consequent prove a cause of many dangerous diseases." The risk was grave: "Galen himself maketh answer that one may dye of these passions, and to this doe all Physicians assent; (...) and experience maketh it so appeare" (1633, 393–95).1 In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, physicians routinely treated grief and its effects, since it was commonly held that the passions were realized in matter.2 They applied an ensemble of remedies—bleeding, emetics, laxatives—predicated on sympathetic connection between bodies and souls, for disturbance "in the emotional climate of the body alters its inner temperature and causes in turn dangerous mutations in the balance and composition of the humours" (MacDonald 1981, 182).3 The spirits, too, were enlisted: for "the spirit being either withdrawne from the outwarde parts by vehement passio[n] of griefe," the "outward partes not only faile in their sense and motion, but even nourishment & growth thereby are hindered" (Bright 1586, 60; see also 47, 51–52). But grief also "besieged" the mind, weakened reason, hampered discourse, and impugned the will (Reynolds 1640, 229–30). By affecting mental faculties, passions subvented affliction, and thus physicians offered various prophylactics against fulminant emotion in the sick, most [End Page 54] of which focused on the imagination as potentially harmful faculty that prolonged or intensified suffering. A sufferer, Hart writes, "by reason of his sicknesse, hath sorrow enough, especially, if the party be of a feeble, fearfull and pusillanimous spirit, the phansie still framing unto it selfe new fears of some bad and sinistrous event." As wards against excessive passion, Hart recommends vigilance and circumspection, accommodation and distraction. First, physicians must guard against visitors who "prove the causes of infinite evills to the sicke" by occasioning overweening feeling. Drawing on Paul's distinction between worldly and "godly" sorrow in his second letter to the Corinthians, Hart recognizes that sufferers have just cause for fear, and physicians should not interrupt or retard "true sorrow for sinne," which offers comfort to a "drouping and sorrowfull soule." But the effects of any lenitive passion are endangered by "indiscreetly" compounding fear and grief "at an unseasonable time" (1633, 400). To avoid odium, a counselor's efforts must conform to "time, place, and person" (Wilson 1994, 120). Second, a physician should "accommodate himselfe to the severall dispositions of his patients, and to many particular circumstances concerning them," adjusting therapies and practices to individual sufferers. Finally, if not too fragile, the sick should be distracted with mirth (1633, 400).Those expressing "true sorrow for sinne" should read. Hart recommends one of the "many volumes written by our learned Divines, concerning this subject," Robert Bolton's 1631 Instructions for a Right Comforting Afflicted Consciences with Speciall Antidotes Against Some Grievous Temptations. Bolton, who was rector of Broughton, Northamptonshire, and a popular conformist preacher, insists that divines sometimes held even "godly sorrow" unseasonable, "when it unfitteth the body or minde to good duties" (1641, 587). Excessive grief is particularly foul: of "all other passions of the Soule," he writes, "sadnesse, and grief grates most upon the vitall spirits; dries up soonest the freshest marrow in the bones; and most sensibly suckes out the purest, and refinedst bloud in the heart" (1641, 21). Bolton's remedies are to avoid idleness and solitude, for both render the soul susceptible to disquiet (1641, 582), and to read: the sorrowful and the melancholy find succor in scripture. Although both forms of suffering may be treated medically, one remedy for an afflicted conscience is "Gods blessed Booke" (1641, 211–15). One early seventeenth-century Sussex physician turned to Burton's Anatomy of Melancholy (1621) for assistance.4Like most physicians in the period, both Hart and Bolton differentiate grief occasioned by humoral imbalance from sorrow born of a repentant conscience, and both confirm that the "phantasie" is central to physical and [End Page 55] moral therapy.5 For Bolton, grief, melancholy, and "terror of conscience" dwell chiefly in the imagination (1641, 212... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Rhetoric, Grief, and the Imagination in Early Modern EnglandStephen PenderIn 1633, the Northampton physician James Hart warned that excessive grief "will to some procure irrecoverable Consumptions," dry the brain and bone marrow, hinder digestion, interrupt rest, and "by consequent prove a cause of many dangerous diseases." The risk was grave: "Galen himself maketh answer that one may dye of these passions, and to this doe all Physicians assent; (...) and experience maketh it so appeare" (1633, 393–95).1 In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, physicians routinely treated grief and its effects, since it was commonly held that the passions were realized in matter.2 They applied an ensemble of remedies—bleeding, emetics, laxatives—predicated on sympathetic connection between bodies and souls, for disturbance "in the emotional climate of the body alters its inner temperature and causes in turn dangerous mutations in the balance and composition of the humours" (MacDonald 1981, 182).3 The spirits, too, were enlisted: for "the spirit being either withdrawne from the outwarde parts by vehement passio[n] of griefe," the "outward partes not only faile in their sense and motion, but even nourishment & growth thereby are hindered" (Bright 1586, 60; see also 47, 51–52). But grief also "besieged" the mind, weakened reason, hampered discourse, and impugned the will (Reynolds 1640, 229–30). By affecting mental faculties, passions subvented affliction, and thus physicians offered various prophylactics against fulminant emotion in the sick, most [End Page 54] of which focused on the imagination as potentially harmful faculty that prolonged or intensified suffering. A sufferer, Hart writes, "by reason of his sicknesse, hath sorrow enough, especially, if the party be of a feeble, fearfull and pusillanimous spirit, the phansie still framing unto it selfe new fears of some bad and sinistrous event." As wards against excessive passion, Hart recommends vigilance and circumspection, accommodation and distraction. First, physicians must guard against visitors who "prove the causes of infinite evills to the sicke" by occasioning overweening feeling. Drawing on Paul's distinction between worldly and "godly" sorrow in his second letter to the Corinthians, Hart recognizes that sufferers have just cause for fear, and physicians should not interrupt or retard "true sorrow for sinne," which offers comfort to a "drouping and sorrowfull soule." But the effects of any lenitive passion are endangered by "indiscreetly" compounding fear and grief "at an unseasonable time" (1633, 400). To avoid odium, a counselor's efforts must conform to "time, place, and person" (Wilson 1994, 120). Second, a physician should "accommodate himselfe to the severall dispositions of his patients, and to many particular circumstances concerning them," adjusting therapies and practices to individual sufferers. Finally, if not too fragile, the sick should be distracted with mirth (1633, 400).Those expressing "true sorrow for sinne" should read. Hart recommends one of the "many volumes written by our learned Divines, concerning this subject," Robert Bolton's 1631 Instructions for a Right Comforting Afflicted Consciences with Speciall Antidotes Against Some Grievous Temptations. Bolton, who was rector of Broughton, Northamptonshire, and a popular conformist preacher, insists that divines sometimes held even "godly sorrow" unseasonable, "when it unfitteth the body or minde to good duties" (1641, 587). Excessive grief is particularly foul: of "all other passions of the Soule," he writes, "sadnesse, and grief grates most upon the vitall spirits; dries up soonest the freshest marrow in the bones; and most sensibly suckes out the purest, and refinedst bloud in the heart" (1641, 21). Bolton's remedies are to avoid idleness and solitude, for both render the soul susceptible to disquiet (1641, 582), and to read: the sorrowful and the melancholy find succor in scripture. Although both forms of suffering may be treated medically, one remedy for an afflicted conscience is "Gods blessed Booke" (1641, 211–15). One early seventeenth-century Sussex physician turned to Burton's Anatomy of Melancholy (1621) for assistance.4Like most physicians in the period, both Hart and Bolton differentiate grief occasioned by humoral imbalance from sorrow born of a repentant conscience, and both confirm that the "phantasie" is central to physical and [End Page 55] moral therapy.5 For Bolton, grief, melancholy, and "terror of conscience" dwell chiefly in the imagination (1641, 212... (shrink)

In this article, I compare recent literature on theology of institutions with the ethics of philosopher Avishai Margalit. This article has two tasks. First, it shows that Margalit's understanding of a decent society provides helpful categories for moral and political theology. The second task, by putting theology and Margalit in dialogue, and focusing on the topic of labor and economic institutions, highlights where moral and political theology exposes potential weaknesses within Margalit's thought. Though his account of humiliation and the ‘decent (...) society’ draws upon a rich theological and philosophical tradition, his rejection of a doctrine of creation weakens his claims. (shrink)

Ranging from the Symposium to the Apology, this is a concise but authoritative guide to the most important and widely studied of Plato's Socratic dialogues. Taking each of the major dialogues in turn, Arguing with Socrates encourages students to engage directly with the questions that Socrates raises and with their relevance to 21st century life. Along the way, the book draws on Socrates' thought to explore such questions as: • What is virtue and can it be taught? • Should we (...) obey the law if we don't agree with it? • Do brave people feel fear? • Can we find truth in poetry? Arguing with Socrates also includes an extensive introduction, providing an overview of the key themes of the dialogues, their political and cultural context and Socrates' philosophical method. Guides to further reading are also provided to help students take their studies further, making this an essential one-volume reference for anyone studying these foundational philosophical works. (shrink)

Perhaps the most significant law affecting the provision of health services to the American Indian and Alaska Native population is the Indian Self-Determination and Education Assistance Act of 1975. This Act allows tribes to assume the management and control of health care programs from Indian Health Service and to increase flexibility in health care program development. Under ISDEAA, tribes have the option to contract or compact with IHS to deliver health services using pre-existing IHS resources, third party reimbursements, grants, and (...) other sources. Typically, tribes develop their own non-profit health care corporations to provide services to their community, and as a result are eligible for grants and other types of funding not available to federal agencies like IHS. (shrink)

Perhaps the most significant law affecting the provision of health services to the American Indian and Alaska Native population is the Indian Self-Determination and Education Assistance Act of 1975. This Act allows tribes to assume the management and control of health care programs from Indian Health Service and to increase flexibility in health care program development. Under ISDEAA, tribes have the option to contract or compact with IHS to deliver health services using pre-existing IHS resources, third party reimbursements, grants, and (...) other sources. Typically, tribes develop their own non-profit health care corporations to provide services to their community, and as a result are eligible for grants and other types of funding not available to federal agencies like IHS. (shrink)

This article argues that we live in a highly technical world in which people are disappearing. Religion does not have the tools to help us resist this extinction since it has itself diminished humanity by positing a perfect Other Being, which controls our lives. The author argues that we need to reclaim a sense of ourselves as essentialising animals. We need to have a more body-based sense of humanity, which will lead to a fuller awareness and acceptance of difference and (...) combat hierarchical and alienating thinking. (shrink)

The article considers the interpretation of the culture and philosophy of Ancient Egypt and Babylon in the texts of writers of the late nineteenth–early twentieth centuries. This topic was highly important and widely discussed in connection with the outstanding discoveries of archaeological expeditions in the 1900–1920s in the Valley of the Kings on the Nile. In his treatise “Tajna trekh: Egipet i Vavilon”, Dmitry Merezhkovsky, referring to religious views of the previous eras, attempted to find an ideological synthesis that (...) could unite and reconcile people in the hard times of wars and revolutions. Alexander Chayanov in his story “Puteshestvie moego brata Alekseia v stranu krest’ianskoj utopii” turned to the biblical symbolism of the Tower of Babel which sought to overcome, as it were, the chaos that engulfed society—to give a warning against rash prometheistic ideas. He examined the ability of man to fight against the power of fate, to remain true to himself and to his ideas. In his mystical stories there can be traced allusions to the mysteries of the goddess Isis. Their heroines bear chthonic features. Chayanov examined how the feeling of love can destroy or revive the hero depending on his integrity and readiness to undergo evolution in order to find harmony. (shrink)

The author of this paper aimed to understand the early Buddhism community in its entirety by examining the individual episodes in the "Mahavagga". There is a remarkable experience of the psychic power between the Buddha and the Brahmins. They are both aware of coming across of psychic forces that entered the way to the Buddhist Community. Using the brahmins mythology as a instrument for missionary work, the early Buddhism brings people close to Buddha's community. The Buddha visited Uruvela-Kassapa (...) and took lodging for the night where the sacred fire was kept, in spite of Kassapa's warning that the spot was inhabited by a fierce Naga. The Buddha, by his magical powers, overcame, first this N ganad then another, both of whom vomited fire and smoke. Kassapabeing pleased with this exhibition of iddhi-power, undertook to provide the Buddha with his daily food. The Buddha spent the whole rainy season there, performing, in all, three thousand five hundred miracles of various kinds, reading the thoughts of kassapa, splitting firewood for the ascetic sacrifices, heating stoves for them to use after bathing in the cold weather, etc. Still Kassapa persisted in the thought, "The great ascetic is of great magic power, but he is not anarahant like me." Finally the Buddha decided to startle him by declaring that he was not an arahant, neither did the way he followed lead to arahantship. Thereon kassapa owned defeat and reverently asked for ordination. The Buddha asked him to consult with his pupils, and they cut off their hair and threw it with their sacrificial utensils into the river and were all ordained. Nadi Kassapa and Gaya Kassapa were ordained with their pupils. At Gay sisa the Buddha preached to them the Fire Sermon, and they all attained arahantship for the early Buddhist Community. The episode of Uruvela Kassaps in the Mahavagga text ultimately idealizes the power of psychic and the start of the community. It is probable, even at the time when the episode were written, that as a matter of fact every one, in ordinary daily life, spoke imply the vernaculars in a much more simple and natural state of society. It is the Mahavagga authors, when addressing a cultured public at a date when the vernaculars had become the paramount literary language. Another point is that though brahmins take part in the religious and philosophical conversations of those early tims, and in the accounts of them are always referred to with respect, and threaten with the same courtesythat they always themselves extended also to others, yet they hold no predominant position. The majority of the ascetic, and the most influential individuals among them, are not brahmins. That is only a matter of course will be the obvious subjection. The Mahavagga texts I quotes, if not the work of bitter opponents, were at least composed under India bramins influence, and are prejudiced against the brahmins. (shrink)

In recent years there have been major shifts in how the role of science—and scientists—are understood. The critical examination of scientific expertise within the field of Science and Technology Studies are increasingly eroding notions of the “otherness” of scientists. It would seem to suggest that anyone can be a scientist—when provided with the appropriate training and access to data. In contrast, however, ethnographic evidence from the scientific community tells a different story. Scientists are quick to recognize that not everyone can—or (...) should—be a scientist. Appealing to notions such as “good hands” or “gut feelings”, scientists narrate a distinction between good and bad scientists that cannot be reduced to education, access, or opportunity. The key to good science requires scientists to express an intuitive feeling for their discipline, but also that individuals derive considerable personal satisfaction from their work. Discussing this personal joy in—and “fittingness” of—scientific occupations using the fields of STS, ethics and science policy is highly problematic. In this paper we turn to theology discourse to analyze the notion of “callings” as a means of understanding this issue. Callings highlight the identification and examination of individual talents to determine fit occupations for specific persons. Framing science as a calling represents a novel view of research that places the talents and dispositions of individuals and their relationship to the community at the center of flourishing practices. (shrink)

There is considerable discussion about the nature of the health metaphor as applied to ecosystems. One does not need to accept the analogy of ecosystem as 'organism' to reap insight into the diagnosis of ecosystem ills by applications of approaches pioneered in the health sciences. Ecosystem health can be assessed by the presence or absence of signs ecosystem distress, by direct measures of ecosystem resilience or counteractive capacity, and by evaluation of risks or threats from human activity and natural forces (...) which may decrease the supply of ecological services. The focus of this essay is on what is and what is not implied by the ecosystem health metaphor. It also elaborates a research agenda for this emerging transdiciplinary science. One can argue that beyond the metaphor is the potential for systematic diagnosis of ecosystem ills, development of indicators of ecosystem health, development of early warning indicators of ecosystem dysfunction, development of diagnostic protocols and preventive strategies for maintaining ecological services. (shrink)

ABSTRACT The manuscript of Algernon Sidney’s Discourses Concerning Government was used in evidence against him in the 1683 treason trial which cost the republican his life. The work’s attack on absolute monarchy and its justification of rebellion against tyrannical rulers were considered so inflammatory that it could not be published with impunity in England until after the Glorious Revolution and the lapse of the Licensing Act. It was eventually prepared for the press in 1698 by the Commonwealthman John Toland in (...) collaboration with the printer and bookseller John Darby who were jointly responsible for establishing a whole canon of republican and Commonwealth works around this time. While a French edition of the Discourses was published in the Netherlands shortly afterwards, the first German edition of Sidney’s most famous work did not appear until almost a century later. Amidst the constitutional debates in the wake of the French Revolution, Sidney’s work was now employed in a new context to criticise tyrannical rule, while warning against violent excesses. (shrink)

This volume contains 17 articles on various aspects of Islamic thought in the Middle East and in Southeast Asia. The first 9 articles concentrate especially on the Qur’ān and its exegesis, Kalām and Sufism; the second 8 articles deal with Javanese Islam, and with Islam and modernity in Southeast Asia.