The Man of Wiles in Popular Arabic Literature: A Study of a Medieval Arab Hero. By Malcolm C. Lyons. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2012. Pp. x + 254. $105.

This is the diary of an observant mathematician who documented the drama of the resolution of Fermat's Last Theorem as it unfolded around him from 1993 to 1995. Pierre Fermat claimed around 1637, in the most famous marginalia in the history of mathematics, to have a proof of the theorem that xn + yn = zn has no whole number solutions for n greater than 2. The other principal figure is the British mathematician Andrew Wiles, who emigrated to Princeton (...) University in the 1980s and who in 1993, at what for mathematicians is the relatively advanced age of forty, announced a proof of FLT. In the course of Wiles's initial exposition to mathematicians, before a full‐fledged proof could be published, a gap was discovered. This was too late to forestall announcements in the world press of an imminent proof. What had been an almost secretive devotion to the task by Wiles now became a rather more public and pressurized effort over the course of nearly a year. Wiles wondered at times if success could be achieved, but with the help of other mathematicians the gap was filled in and the full formal proof published in 1995.The statement of the theorem is likely to be the only part of the 1990s story that a nonspecialist can immediately appreciate, and the author has not especially addressed his book to the nonspecialist. Rather, this account is analogous to a well‐illustrated exhibition guidebook that serves as a memento and record to those who visited in person but that is not intended fully to inform those who did not experience it. For a broader account of the historical and mathematical background a reader can consult the three principal books published previously on the same topic by Amir Aczel, Simon Singh, and Alfred J. van der Poorten. The author knew many of the main players, attended most of the key talks, took notes, made recordings, and photographed. A major part of the book is a selection of sixty‐two photographs from the total of three thousand made by the author. He asked questions of Wiles and others and recorded both formal and informal reactions that he observed around him during the many public and nonpublic presentations that were made. Also, in keeping with the journal nature of his work, he has recorded his own reactions. Appendixes include an excerpt from Wiles's 1995 Annals of Mathematics publication and a synopsis by Ram Murty of the key results by Gerhard Frey, Jean‐Pierre Serre, and Kenneth Ribet that formed a basis for Wiles's work.It may interest historians and archivists to learn of the extent to which the primary sources for this story include e‐mail, web pages, photographs, and newspaper and television interviews. Though we recognize this reality of contemporary science, a diary account probably brings the issue home more directly than would studies by professional historians, who might feel obligated to do more of their own interviews, for example, rather than rely on the media. Mathematics has rarely had such a public spotlight turned on it—the proof of the four‐color theorem in 1976 is the only comparable event that comes to mind. Consequently, it has opened an unusual window into how mathematicians do mathematics. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:The Stagecraft and Performance of Roman ComedyAmy RichlinC. W. Marshall. The Stagecraft and Performance of Roman Comedy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006. xiv + 320 pp. 2 black-and-white figs. Cloth, $90.C. W. Marshall's new book forms part of the productive trend towards treating ancient theater as performance. In 1991 David Wiles began The Masks of Menander (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, xi) by commenting on the institutional divide (...) between classics and drama studies. Marshall, as a writer, occupies the unusual position of being able to speak both as a classicist and a professional actor, with substantial credits in both improv and Shakespeare. His work is influenced by writers in theater studies, particularly Susan Bennett on audiences, Keith Johnstone on improv, and Jacques Lecoq on masking and physical movement. Among writers on ancient comedy, he shares with David Wiles a commitment to the serious study of masking, and with Timothy Moore a focus on the interaction between actors and audience. As a performer and director, he has often worked with Mark Damen and Mary-Kay Gamel towards an understanding of ancient drama through hands-on production. Above all, this book is based in Marshall's experience as an actor; having had the privilege of working with him on a production of Persa, I can attest that the physicality of his acting pops his sense of what happened on the stage of Plautus into vivid 3-D.Marshall throughout prefers complex to simple models: the audience was not monolithic (no "Romans" here), venues differed in nature, the actors did not share a single status, literary influences on the plays were multiple (no tyranny of the "Greek original"). The introduction begins with a satisfyingly spiderwebby chart (2) laying out a stemma of influences on Plautus and, separately, Terence. As Marshall observes, audience members bring along their own performance codes, and "For Rome such codes are unlikely even to include knowledge of the play which the playwright claims as his source for the present entertainment" (109). (That is, to get a laugh out of Strange Brew, it is not necessary to know much [End Page 131] about Hamlet.) Venues for production would have been "found spaces" (47), often (following Sander Goldberg) a flat space in front of a temple, with the audience sitting on the steps, but generally any public space capable of holding a simple stage, backdrop, and seats. Marshall envisions the troupe as a mix of free and slave actors, some of whom owned others, opening up "convoluted situations" in the assignment of roles (87–88). Masks, as he demonstrates, could not have followed any rigid typology, especially (151) when they had to put a face on slaves who turned out to be free men (Captivi), whores who turned out to be virgins, and, I would add, Calydonians who turned out to be Carthaginians (Poenulus). The content of plays was determined by a simple bottom line: "the troupe sells an audience to the magistrates for a price" (83). Audiences were "heterogeneous" (186), and, while performance works to create a "consolidated audience," the "economic and social diversity of the audience itself exists in tension with this" (185); if the magistrates wanted to emphasize "Roman social stratigraphy," the plays worked to question divisions (77).The theme throughout is "flexibility," in keeping with what for me is the book's most important hypothesis: the plays of Plautus were collaborative creations (186–87): they "contain lines that did not originate with the playwright" but from "the collective of the theatrical troupe" (268–69). Here, Marshall persuasively draws on his own experience with improv groups, invoking the lazzi of commedia dell'arte and the shtick of vaudeville (165, n. 10) to suggest how Plautus's plays were put together by what he felicitously dubs "shtickomythia" (193). Speaking here as a translator of Plautus, I would vigorously agree: the register often slips into jokes that are corny (e.g., Poenulus 279), and what is corn but a shtick-on plaster? Even the inventiveness of slave-torture insults feels a lot like "yo mama" jokes, the kind of call-and-response humor that young men in agonistic cultures perfect in verbal dueling. Most... (shrink)

Corporate governance is increasingly becoming an issue of global concern, not least because we are more and more living in a corporate world that transcends international boundaries. The main purpose and motivation of this study is to determine how the international community should motivate businesses in fostering exemplary corporate governance, therefore eliminating obstacles to ethically exemplary behavior. The empirical approach utilized here has been applied to 161 businesses, both listed and over-the-counter (OTC) companies, with the results indicating that ethical considerations, (...) corporate governance and organizational performance are inextricably linked and, to an extent, demonstrably proportional. This study also indicates a major finding that family management is a significant mediating variable of the ethical considerations of corporate governance and organizational performance. Finally, this study has developed an operational model of ethical considerations of corporate governance as a consultancy aid for businesses that wish to implement and/or boost their performance in respect to corporate governance. (shrink)

Books Reviewed in this Article: Theological Investigations, Vol. XVIII: God and Revelation. By Karl Rahner. Pp.vi, 304, London, Darton, Longman and Todd, 1984, £18.50. Theological Investigations, Volume XIX: Faith and Ministry. By Karl Rahner. Pp.vi, 282, London, Darton, Longman & Todd, 1984, £18.50. Theological Investigations: Volume XX: Concern for the Church. By Karl Rahner. Pp.vi, 191, London, Darton, Longman & Todd, 1981, £14.50. Concise Theological Dictionary. Edited by Karl Rahner and Herbert Vorgrimler. Pp.541, London, Burns & Oates, 1983, £12.50. A (...) New Dictionary of Christian Theology. Edited by Alan Richardson and John Bowden. Pp.xvii, 614, London, SCM Press, 1983, £19.50. The God of Forgiveness and Healing in the Theology of Karl Rahner. By J.N. King, Pp.93, Washington, University Press of America, 1982, $17.50, $6.75. In Search of Humanity, A Theological and Philosophical Approach. By John Macquarrie. Pp.vii, 280, London, SCM Press, 1982, £8.50. Faith and the Mystery of God. By Maurice Wiles. Pp.viii, 146, London, SCM Press, 1982, £4.50. Trinity and Temporality: The Christian Doctrine of God in the Light of Process Theology and the Theology of Hope. By John J. O'Donnell. Pp.xii, 215, Oxford University Press, 1983, £15.00. The Cosmic Christ in Origen and Teilhard de Chardin: A comparative Study. By James A. Lyons and edited by Maurice Wiles. Pp.xii, 236, Oxford University Press, 1982, £13.50. Grounded in Love: Sacramental Theology in an Ecumenical Perspective. By Frans Josef van Beeck. Pp.x, 151, Washington, University Press of America, 1982, $19.50, $9.25. Justification: The Author's First Book reissued with a New Introductory Chapter and the Original Response of Karl Barth. By Hans Küng. Pp.xlvi, 332, London, Burns and Oates, 1982, no price given. Reality and Evangelical Theology. By T.F. Torrance. Pp.174, Philadelphia, Westminster Press, 1982, $8.95. The Quest for the Historical Israel: Reconstructing Israel's Early History. By George W. Ramsey. Pp.xiv, 193, London, SCM Press, 1982, £5.50. Cantico del Cantici: Interpretatio Ludica. By Enrica Salvaneschi. Pp.140. Genoa, II Melangolo, 1982, 15, 000 Lire. Love Lyrics from the Bible: A Translation and Literary Study of the Song of Songs. By Marcia Falk. Pp.142, Sheffield, Almond Press, 1982, £14.95, £5.95. Old Testament Wisdom: An Introduction. By James L. Crenshaw. Pp.286, London, SCM Press, 1982, £5.95. The Sciences and Theology. Edited by A.R. Peacocke. Pp.xviii, 309, Stocksfield, Oriel Press, 1982, £14.00. Vision and Character: A Christian Educator's Alternative to Kohlberg. By C.R. Dykstra. Pp.viii, 160, Leominster, Fowler Wright Books, 1981, £4.45. Aristotle's Eudemian Ethics, Books I, II & III. Translated with a commentary by Michael Woods. Pp.xii, 234, Oxford, Clarendon Press: Oxford University Press, 1982, £11.50. Kant's Theory of Mind: An Analysis of the Paralogisms of Pure Reason. By Karl Ameriks. Pp.ix, 314, Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1982, £15.00. Heidegger's‘Being and Time’and the Possibility of Political Philosophy. By Mark Blitz. Pp.260, Ithaca, Cornell University Press, 1981, £13.75. Symbol as Sense: New Approaches to the Analysis of Meaning. Edited by Mary Le Cron Foster and Stanley H. Brandes. Pp.xvi, 416, New York, Academic Press, 1980, £19.60. The God Within. By Harry R. Klocker. Pp.x, 147, Washington, University Press of America, 1982, $19.00, $9.25. The Philosophical Frontiers of Christian Theology: Essays Presented to D.M. MacKinnon. Edited by Brian Hebblethwaite and Stewart Sutherland. Pp.ix, 252, Cambridge University Press, 1982, £17.50. Jews, Pagans and Christians in Conflict. By David Rokeah. Pp.232, Jerusalem, The Magnes Press, The Hebrew University, Leiden; E.J. Brill, 1982, 94 gld. Religion, Law, and the Growth of Constitutional Thought 1150–1650. By Brian Tierney. Pp.xi, 114, Cambridge University Press, 1982, £12.50. St John of the Cross: The Life and Thought of a Christian Mystic. By Alain Cugno. Pp.vi, 153, London, Burns & Oates, 1982, £6.95. Meister Eckhart: The Essential Sermons, Commentaries, Treatises and Defense. Translated by Edmund Colledge and Bernard McGinn. Pp.xviii, 360, London, SPCK, 1981, £8.50. Francisco de Osuna: the Third Spiritual Alphabet. Translated by May E. Giles. Pp.xvi, 624, London, SPCK, 1981, £12.50. Rome and the Anglicans. Edited with a Postscript by Wolfgang Haase. Pp.301, Berlin, Walter de Gruyter, 1982, 138 DM. The Westminster Confession in the Church today: Papers Prepared for the Church of Scotland Panel on Doctrine. Edited by Alasdair I.C. Heron. Pp.vii, 154, Edinburgh, Saint Andrew Press, 1982, £4.00. Essaying Montaigne: A Study of the Renaissance Institution of Writing and Reading. By John O'Neill, Pp.ix, 244, London, Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1982, £12.50. Rousseau after 200 years: Proceedings of the Cambridge Bicentennial Colloquium. Edited by R.A. Leigh. Pp.xv, 299, Cambridge University Press, 1982, £30.00 An American Experience of God: The Spirituality of Isaac Hecker. By John Farina. Pp.xii, 217, New York, Paulist Press, 1981, $11.95. Hecker Studies: Essays on the Thought of Isaac Hecker. Edited by John Farina. Pp.vii, 243, New York, Paulist Press, 1983, $6.95. (shrink)

This article brings together the Rules for Discernment of Spirits from the Spiritual Exercises of Ignatius of Loyola and the avuncular, if diabolical, advice given by C. S Lewis' shrewd and experienced devil, Screwtape, to his fledgling nephew, Wormwood, who is still learning his satanic craft. The juxtaposition of Ignatius' cautions regarding the wiles of the evil spirit with the counterpoise of the recommendations of the crafty old Screwtape for the temptation, beguilement and conquest of souls and the triumph (...) of his evil satanic empire, may serve to deepen if not enrich our appreciation of the factors that draw good souls away from the paths of virtue. To mediate the discussion I have chosen to recast some of these reposts in terms of more contemporary psychoanalytic concepts in an effort to extend the borders of reflection between psychoanalysis and religious perspectives. (shrink)

The 65th year of a scholar who has devoted 40 years to editing and elucidating Robert Grosseteste provides us with a collection of essays. Not surprisingly, they emanate from colleagues and former students of Richard Dales and reflect his interest, among other concerns, in Grosseteste's aspectus et affectus - range of vision and disposition of mind - those twin peaks with which the 13th century thinker helped to get Christian thought through Aristotle without mutual destruction.

Education is so strongly emphasized in the Chinese culture that academic success is widely regarded as the only indicator of success, while too much physical activity is often discouraged because it drains energy and affects academic concentration. This study investigated the relations among academic achievement, self?esteem, school conduct and physical activity level. The participants were 333 Chinese pre?adolescents (aged 8?12) in Hong Kong. Examination results and conduct grades were obtained from the school records. Global self?esteem was measured with the Physical (...) self?description questionnaire (PSDQ), while physical activity patterns of the children were assessed with the Physical activity questionnaire for children (PAQ?C). Results showed that high academic achievers consistently attained better school conduct marks. However, physical activity level was quite an independent entity that was related neither to academic achievement nor school conduct. Furthermore, regression analyses showed that only academically high?achieving boys and physically active boys had higher self?esteem. (shrink)

The Holocaust marks a decisive moment in modern suffering in which it becomes almost impossible to find meaning or redemption in the experience. In this study, C. Fred Alford offers a new and thoughtful examination of the experience of suffering. Moving from the Book of Job, an account of meaningful suffering in a God-drenched world, to the work of Primo Levi, who attempted to find meaning in the Holocaust through absolute clarity of insight, he concludes that neither strategy works well (...) in today's world. More effective are the day-to-day coping practices of some survivors. Drawing on testimonies of survivors from the Fortunoff Video Archives, Alford also applies the work of Julia Kristeva and the psychoanalyst Donald Winnicot to his examination of a topic that has been and continues to be central to human experience. (shrink)

Background More than one in 10 of all prisoners in England and Wales are Foreign Nationals. This article discusses whether the research applications to one London prison are aimed at understanding a prisoner population characterised by significant multinational and multilingual complexity. Methods We studied all accessible documents relating to research undertaken at a women's prison between 2005 and 2009 to assess the involvement of Foreign National prisoners and women with limited English. The source of information was prison research applications and (...) protocols. We also looked at available final research reports and journal articles. Results Two key findings emerged from this study. First, studies at this prison frequently excluded Foreign National prisoners and women with limited English. Second, Foreign National prisoners were often clustered as a homogeneous category in the research reports reviewed. This is despite their diverse cultural backgrounds, their variable immigration status and their differing competence in English, all of which affect their lives. Conclusions The failure to include and/or identify social subgroups of the population can undermine the value of research, including, in the case of the study prison, funded health research. This can compromise associated needs assessments and service delivery, particularly important in already disadvantaged populations; this may encourage and/or perpetuate a range of health inequalities. There is a pressing need to examine cultural exclusion in other health and criminal justice settings, to assess the ways in which—and the extent to which—such exclusion may compromise the merit of proposed and completed health and social research. (shrink)

In philosophy of science two questions become central in the discussion of the nature of empirical science: 1) What is a theory, i.e. how is it built up, how does it work? And: 2) How does a theory relate to its corresponding experiential basis? To deal with these two questions modern philosophy of science has devised various ‘models’ on the nature and working of scientific theories. Some aspects of these models are widely held within the community of philosophers of science, (...) but others are still being discussed quite controversially. In this paper, we will consider both kinds of aspects. Particularly, we will analyze how the meaning of scientific concepts is determined; the axiomatic construction of a scientific theory; the idea of model building views as a bridge between theory and experience; the holistic semantic thesis of science; the question about the true of scientific theories; and, finally, the hierarchic structure of theories.En filosofía de la ciencia, dos cuestiones resultan centrales en la discusión acerca de la naturalezade la ciencia empírica: 1) ¿qué es una teoría ?, es decir, ¿cómo estáconstituida y cómo funciona? y 2) ¿cómo se relaciona una teoría con su correspondientebase experiencial? Para tratar estas dos cuestiones, la moderna filosofía de la ciencia ha desarrolladovarios “modelos” sobre la naturaleza y el funcionamiento de lasteorías científicas. Algunos aspectos de estos modelos son ampliamente aceptados por lacomunidad de filósofos de la ciencia, mientras que otros son todavía discutidos de manerabastante controvertida. En este trabajo, consideraremos ambos tipos de aspectos. En particular,analizaremos cómo se determina el significado de los conceptos teóricos, la construcción axiomática de una teoría científica, la idea de las concepciones sobre la construcción de modelos como puente entre la teoría y la experiencia, la tesis semántica holista de la ciencia, la cuestión acerca de la verdad de las teorías científicas y, finalmente, la estructura jerárquica de las teorías. (shrink)

La traduction de l'epistrophe grecque en conversio latine a pu laisser entendre une continuite entre le retour des philosophies grecques neoplatoniciennes et l'evenement religieux proprement chretien de la conversion. Le paradigme en serait le passage de Plotin a Augustin. Mais peut-on oublier que les grecques classiques n'ont pas d'ethique du repentir et que, sans ce rapport au temps de la faute, la constitution de soi n'a ni le meme sens ni le meme lieu? C'est le travail du Centre A.J. Festugiere (...) de Paris X-Nanterre sur les entrecroisements et reprises entre philosophie et religion qui est a l'origine des etudes rassemblees en cet ouvrage. Que nous voyions apparaitre aujourd'hui une nouvelle forme de repentir publique convie a mieux distinguer deux modeles de constitution de soi qui se reconnaissent en ce que l'accent porte tantot sur l'etre et tantot sur le temps. (shrink)

Chalmers' (2018) meta-problem of consciousness emphasizes unexpected common ground between otherwise incompatible positions. We argue that the materialist should welcome discussion of the meta-problem. We suggest that the core of the metaproblem is the seeming arbitrariness of subjective experience. This has an unexpected resolution when one moves to an interventionist account of scientific explanation: the same interventions that resolve the hard problem should also resolve the meta-problem.

Philosopher Kings? The Adjudication of Conflicting Human Rights and Social Values, by George C. Christie, examines the attempts by courts to sort out conflicts involving freedom of expression, including religious expression, on the one hand, and rights to privacy and other important social values on the other. It approaches the subject from a comparative perspective, using principally cases decided by European and United States courts. A significant part of this book analyzes conflicts between freedom of expression and the right to (...) privacy. In a world in which, freedom of expression and privacy are said to be of equal value, the book explores whether it is possible to develop, through case-by-case adjudication, a legal regime which can give clear direction as to what expression is or is not permitted. Otherwise, if such a regime proves impossible, in the guise of recognizing the equal value of expression and privacy, privacy may become de facto the preferred value. (shrink)