This letter responds to letters by Garson Leder and by Harrison Lee in the same issue, September‐October 2024, of the Hastings Center Report.

In transplant medicine, the use of normothermic regional perfusion (NRP) in donation after circulatory determination of death raises ethical difficulties. NRP is objectionable because it restores the donor's circulation, thus invalidating a death declaration based on the permanent cessation of circulation. NRP's defenders respond with arguments that are tortuous and factually inaccurate and depend on introducing extraneous concepts into the law. However, results comparable to NRP's—more and higher‐quality organs and more efficient allocation—can be achieved by removing organs from deceased donors (...) and using normothermic machine perfusion (NMP) to support the organs outside the body, without jeopardizing confidence in transplantation's legal and ethical foundations. Given the controversy that NRP generates and the convoluted justifications made for it, we recommend a prudential approach we call “ethical parsimony,” which holds that, in the choice between competing means of achieving a result, the ethically simpler one is to be preferred. This approach makes clear that policy‐makers should favor NMP over NRP. (shrink)

It is an old idea, lately out of fashion but now experiencing a revival, that quantum mechanics may best be understood, not as a physical theory with a problematic probabilistic interpretation, but as something closer to a probability calculus per se. However, from this angle, the rather special C *-algebraic apparatus of quantum probability theory stands in need of further motivation. One would like to find additional principles, having clear physical and/or probabilistic content, on the basis of which this apparatus (...) can be reconstructed. In this paper, I explore one route to such a derivation of finite-dimensional quantum mechanics, by means of a set of strong, but probabilistically intelligible, axioms. Stated very informally, these require that systems appear completely classical as restricted to a single measurement, that different measurements, and likewise different pure states, be equivalent (up to the action of a compact group of symmetries), and that every state be the marginal of a bipartite non-signaling state perfectly correlating two measurements. This much yields a mathematical representation of (basic, discrete) measurements as orthonormal subsets of, and states, by vectors in, an ordered real Hilbert space – in the quantum case, the space of Hermitian operators, with its usual tracial inner product. One final postulate (a simple minimization principle, still in need of a clear interpretation) forces the positive cone of this space to be homogeneous and self-dual and hence, to be the state space of a formally real Jordan algebra. From here, the route to the standard framework of finite-dimensional quantum mechanics is quite short. (shrink)

' But, although such a being (a purely intellectual being) might perhaps be conceived to exist, and although, in studying our internal frame, ...

How do words mean? What is the nature of meaning? How can we grasp a word's meaning? The frame-semantic approach developed in this book offers some well-founded answers to such long-standing, but still controversial issues. Following Charles Fillmore's definition of frames as both organizers of experience and tools for understanding, the monograph attempts to examine one of the most important concepts of Cognitive Linguistics in more detail. The point of departure is Fillmore's conception of "frames of understanding" - an approach (...) to (cognitive) semantics that Fillmore developed from 1975 to 1985. The envisaged Understanding Semantics ("U-Semantics") is a semantic theory sui generis whose significance for linguistic research cannot be overestimated. In addition to its crucial role in the development of the theoretical foundations of U-semantics, corpus-based frame semantics can be applied fruitfully in the investigation of knowledge-building processes in text and discourse. (shrink)

I ponder what the rapid progress of AI means for education in the 21st century. Is it feasible to expect embodied autonomous tools that, through participatory sense-making, can construct knowledge ready to be taught to students?

Contemporary architecture is increasingly grounded in science and mathematics. Architectural discourse has shifted radically from the sometimes disorienting Derridean deconstruction, to engaging scientific terms such as fractals, chaos, complexity, nonlinearity, and evolving systems. That's where the architectural action is -- at least for cutting-edge architects and thinkers -- and every practicing architect and student needs to become conversant with these terms and know what they mean. Unfortunately, the vast majority of architecture faculty are unprepared to explain them to students, not (...) having had a scientific education themselves. Here is an architecture book by an architect/scientist, just in time to help architects in the new millennium. Alexander discusses many of the scientific terms arising in cutting-edge architecture, and explains them to those who don't have scientific training or advanced mathematical knowledge. We find discussions of the evolution of forms; the importance of process in design; iteration; genetic algorithms; sequences of transformations; different levels of scale (i.e. fractals); etc. They are explained here by an architect who is also a scientist, because he wants to change the way architects think and build. Alexander is not merely popularizing other scientists' results and making them accessible to architects: he is in fact presenting new and original scientific work that ties many of these concepts together in a way that will be useful to architects. (shrink)

Fractal versus fragment -- From proto-modernity to pseudo-modernity. Kant and his descendants -- The politics of re-presentation. a collection of fractals -- Epilogue or after the end -- From sophisticated meaninglessness to sophisticated primitivism -- The state of mindlessness. the rise of the pseudo-modern world -- Ideologies of the non-world. the post-colonial and the subaltern.

James Mill - A Biography is an unchanged, high-quality reprint of the original edition of 1882. Hansebooks is editor of the literature on different topic areas such as research and science, travel and expeditions, cooking and nutrition, medicine, and other genres. As a publisher we focus on the preservation of historical literature. Many works of historical writers and scientists are available today as antiques only. Hansebooks newly publishes these books and contributes to the preservation of literature which has become rare (...) and historical knowledge for the future. (shrink)

The current interest in bioregionalism, stimulated in part by Kirkpatrick Sale’s Dwellers in the Land, shows that people are looking for a form of political praxis which addresses the importance of region. In this paper, I argue that much of the bioregional literature written to date mystifies the concept of region, discounting the role of subjectivity and culture in shaping regional boundaries and veers toward asimplistic view of “nature knows best.” Bioregionalism can be rehabilitated, provided we treat it not as (...) a “revealed wisdom” for the reconstruction of human society, but as a sensibility and environmental ethic that can infuse our work even as we make use of the functional regionalisms that increasingly shape people’s consciousness. I conclude by citing Lewis Mumford’s concept of a region as capturing the dialectical interplay of natural and cultural elements. (shrink)

From a phenomenological point of view the ‘real’ is neither to be identified with the ‘given’ nor with the ‘withdrawn’. It rather has to be examined in its relatedness to the factual. This in turn requires the reflection of the basic correlation of being and thought. By engaging in this task the author of this essay distinguishes five modalities: 1. the possibility of the accessibility of the world, 2. the actual modes of constitution of appearance 3. the genetic moment of (...) phenomenalization, 4. The eventfulness and singularity of every case, 5. the existence of the world as such. These modalities constitute the realm of the transcendental and they allow us to differentiate how the real ‘exists’. In this sense the essay continues the work of Richir’s “phenomenology of the real”, at the same time it goes beyond Richir’s work. The standpoint of “phenomenological constructivism” allows the integration of skepticist insights into the concept of the transcendental. (shrink)

This paper raises the question – based on the works of Marc Richir and Dominique Pradelle – if and how phenomenology deals with an “anti-Copernican” revolution, considering that the motif of a “Copernican” revolution seems to have gone through some modifications that reflect a certain deposition of the constitutive role of the subject. Its fundamental thesis is that a certain dimension “beyond” the Copernican revolution does not reestablish a “Ptolemaic” realism but rather opens a dimension “beneath”: beneath the subject and (...) the object where can take place a mutual relationship between an a-subjective constitutive power and a pre-empirical foundational being. This dimension “beneath” means that the alternative does not concern a “pre-Copernican” realism on the one hand and an “idealism” leaving in the shadows the relationship between the transcendental method and an ontological perspective on the other, but rather puts forward a constructive circularity between the transcendental constitution and an ontological foundation. It follows that “normativity” is not achieved on the basis of pre-given objectivity – because it would mean a petition principia – but draws upon the “pre-immanent generativity”. (shrink)

We provide some examples showing how game-theoretic arguments can be used in computability theory and algorithmic information theory: unique numbering theorem (Friedberg), the gap between conditional complexity and total conditional complexity, Epstein–Levin theorem and some (yet unpublished) result of Muchnik and Vyugin.

(Extra)Ordinary? edited by Jade Alexander and Katarzyna Bronk engages in research on the ways and means in which celebrity status has been created, controlled, dispersed and received in the past as well as the present.

Death in the Clinic fills a gap in contemporary medical education by explicitly addressing the concrete clinical realities about death with which practitioners, patients, and their families continue to wrestle. Visit our website for sample chapters!

Ethics, in the sense of a recognized branch of inquiry, reputedly began with Socrates and the Sophists, at least for the western world. Ethics, understood as a set of moral standards, traditionalized by maxims and admonitions, has existed in human cultures from so early a time that it would be hazardous indeed to conjecture the date of its probable origin. The "Hopi Ethics" which Mr. Brandt has studied is obviously that of this second sense, whereas his own study, at least (...) insofar as it is a "theoretical analysis" and goes beyond mere description, is "ethics" in the first sense. That the Hopi Indians were somewhat astonished and perplexed by Mr. Brandt's line of inquiry is indicated by some of their quoted remarks, such as their mention of the "hard questions" being put to them, and their amazement at the suggestion of the possibility that "there is no right answer to ethical questions." One gathers, thus, that while the problem of ethical relativism was of high concern to Mr. Brandt, such an idea was nigh unthinkable to the Hopi. (shrink)

This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work is in the public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity has a copyright on the body of the work. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and (...) made generally available to the public. To ensure a quality reading experience, this work has been proofread and republished using a format that seamlessly blends the original graphical elements with text in an easy-to-read typeface. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant. (shrink)

This study defines the relationship between humanism and liberalism by comparing the two Victorian figures who were most concerned with the preservation of humanistic values in a free and democratic society: Matthew Arnold and John Stuart Mill. The book sets apart Arnold and Mill from their contemporaries and points out their similarities to one another in discussions of their theories of history, poetry, their celebration of the contemplative life and their willingness to welcome democracy. At the same time it examines (...) the differences between the two men, which he uses to create a dialogue between humanism and liberalism on the question of how a high cultural ideal can be realized in democratic society. (shrink)

This article attempts to make sense of Oakeshott's enigmatic comment in 'On Human Conduct' that it was perhaps injudicious of Hegel to use the word state in the Philosophy of Right for his conception of a bounded association. But the article does not confine itself to making sense of Oakeshott's meaning: it compares Oakeshott's conception of societas to Hegel's conception of der Staat, Oakeshott's conception of philosophy as an unconditional consideration of conditional objects with Hegel's conception of philosophy as a (...) reflexive consideration of the rationality immanent within unconditional objects, and Oakeshott's avoidance of divinity with Hegel's involvement in it. It is part of the purpose of this article to illustrate the suggestion that conceptions of God and conceptions of the state are closely related in the thought of both philosophers -- and possibly in all philosophy: and that the problem of the state is therefore a problem as much religious as secular. (shrink)

What is the identity of the best regime in Aristotle's Politics? Although there are a few references to the best regime in Book III, the obvious answer is the regime discussed in Books VII and VIII. Aristotle calls it the best regime on numerous occasions and discusses it at great length. Yet, this is not the complete answer. In Book IV Aristotle makes certain curious remarks on the best regime that, on examination, do not fit the best regime of Books (...) VII and VIII. They lead, instead, to the discovery of a systematic, though quiet, teaching on a very different best regime in Book III. The Politics actually contains a complicated yet coherent teaching on two best regimes. Grasping this teaching is key to arriving at a proper understanding of the distinctive character of Aristotle's political thought. (shrink)