A major barrier to recombination between bacterial species lies in the mismatch repair system, a complex of proteins that has evolved to proof‐read freshly replicated DNA. It now appears that a second system, involving an inducible DNA recombination, repair and mutagenesis pathway, also regulates interspecies recombination, but in a positive way, being required for recombination between Escherichia coli and Salmonella typhimurium(1). Thus the rate at which newly emerging species of bacteria diverge can be seen as a balance between a permissive (...) state associated with inducible repair and recombination, and the proof‐reading of intermediates in the recombination pathway by the mismatch correction system. (shrink)

Post-foundational politics and democracy -- Agonism and democracy -- A typology of agonistic democracy -- Agonistic democracy and the question of institutions -- Agonistic democracy and the limits of popular participation -- Populism, representation, and the popular will -- Political liberalism, contingency and agonistic pluralism -- Liberalism, agonism, and democracy.

Today most of us are awash with choices. The cornucopia of material goods available to those of us in the developed world can turn each of us into a kid in a candy store; but our delight at picking the prize is undercut by our regret at lost opportunities. And what's the criterion for choosing anything -- material, spiritual, the path taken or not taken -- when we have lost our faith in everything? In The Era of Choice Edward (...) Rosenthal argues that choice, and having to make choices, has become the most important influence in both our personal lives and our cultural expression. Choice, he claims, has transformed how we live, how we think, and who we are.This transformation began in the nineteenth century, catalyzed by the growing prosperity of the Industrial Age and a diminishing faith in moral and scientific absolutes. The multiplicity of choices forces us to form oppositions; this, says Rosenthal, has spawned a keen interest in dualism, dilemmas, contradictions, and paradoxes. In response, we have developed mechanisms to hedge, compromise, and to synthesize. Rosenthal looks at the scientific and philosophical theories and cultural movements that choice has influenced -- from physics to postmodernism, from Disney trailers to multiculturalism. He also reveals the effect of choice on the personal level, where we grapple with decisions that range from which wine to have with dinner to whether to marry or divorce, as we hurtle through lives of instant gratification, accelerated consumption, trend, change, and speed. But we have discovered, writes Rosenthal, that sometimes, we can have our cake and eat it, too. (shrink)

This book is part of a larger study of the problem of the one and the many in Aristotle's Metaphysics. Although this portion can be read and understood on its own, some remarks about the contents of the two sister volumes will be helpful.

Mendler contends that many of the beliefs, tenets, conclusions, and understandings that are widely accepted as “truths” are, in fact, not valid at all. He asserts that we should challenge them all — from Plato on to contemporary theorists in all of those fields — and analyze every element of their conclusions.

In the majority of academic institutions nursing and medical students receive a traditional education, the content of which tends to be specific to their future roles as health care professionals. In essence, each curriculum design is independent of each course. Over the last decade, however, interest has been accumulating in relation to interprofessional and multiprofessional learning at student level. With the view that learning together during their student training would not only encourage and strengthen future collaboration in practice settings but (...) also enhance patient care, the University of Dundee decided to run a pilot study to explore shared teaching in ethics between medical and nursing students. This article presents a report on the reasons for selecting health care ethics as a precursor for shared teaching, the educational tool used for the sessions, and the results of student and facilitator evaluation of the short course. Overall, despite problems such as poor attendance by some students, and facilitation and timetable difficulties, most of the feedback from students and facilitators has been positive. In essence the ‘idea’ has gone from strength to strength and there are now three levels of shared teaching in ethics between nursing and medical students, with plans to include further sessions with students from other disciplines. Within the text, ‘health care ethics’ will be referred to as ‘ethics’; nursing students/nurses encompasses midwifery students/midwives. (shrink)

Policy making is not only about the cut and thrust of politics. It is also a bureaucratic activity. In this ground-breaking work, two leading authorities come together to examine the world of the policy bureaucrat for the first time. The volume draws in crucial debates over accountability and democratic ideology, hierarchy and expertise, and should establish itself as a central point of reference for scholars and practitioners alike.

Heraclitus is famous for affirming contradictions, though most readers do not regard the content of his fragments as contradictory. Examining fragments 1 and 50, this article argues that Heraclitus aims to assert a special class of contradictions, the intrinsic conflict between the content of any universal metaphysical claim and the assertion or reception of that claim. Such contradictions undermine the possibility of metaphysics as a science that knows all things. Second, the article argues that Heraclitus himself embraces this sort of (...) contradiction by making it, as it were, the content of his Logos. Third, the article examines three other solutions to the problem that have been advanced, mostly tacitly, by other philosophers. The article concludes with some steps towards a different way of preserving the possibility of metaphysics. (shrink)

A discussion of American pragmatism through the writings of its three major advocates: Charles S. Peirce, William James, and John Dewey. Examines how each applied pragmatism to, respectively, the theory of reality, the notion of truth, and the concept of the good.

By examining Klein’s discussion of the difference between Plato and Aristotle regarding the ontology of number, this article aims to spells out the significanceof that debate both in itself and for the development of the later mathematical sciences. This is accomplished by explicating and expanding Klein’s account of the differences that exist in the understanding of number presented by these two thinkers. It is ultimately argued that Klein’s analysis can be used to show that the transition from the ancient to (...) the modern number concept has some roots in this disagreement between Plato and Aristotle regarding number. This, in turn, sets up that dispute as an essential part of the background to the more general break between ancient and modern conceptuality, the uncovering of whichis Klein’s main concern. (shrink)

Halper's work develops a new approach to one of the most extensively studied philosophical classics. He removes Aristotle's Metaphysics from the medieval and contemporary lenses through which it is typically viewed and places it squarely within the context of Greek metaphysical speculation. As a result many passages become intelligible philosophical arguments.

This paper explores two issues: (1) how our thought about nature could reflect natural processes, and (2) how our thoughts about nature are connected with each other. It argues, first, that the standard ways philosophers try to make sense of the notion that thought is separate from nature cannot be made intelligible and, second, that the conceptual schemes used to grasp nature fall broadly into two groups each of which presupposes the other, even though the two are incompatible. Although these (...) conclusions pose obstacles to the rationality of nature, the paper concludes by arguing for some significant degree of rationality of nature and explaining what this means for science. In brief, our ability to have an experience of nature and, especially, to connect disparate features of that experience with each other presupposes some intrinsic connections within nature itself, even if these are inaccessible to us. (shrink)

This paper addresses a central metaphysical issue that has not been recognized: what kind of entity is a syllogism? I argue that the syllogism cannot be merely a mental entity. Some counterpart must exist in nature. A careful examination of the Posterior Analytics’s distinction between the syllogism of the fact and the syllogism of the reasoned fact shows that we must set aside contemporary logic to appreciate Aristotle’s logic, enables us to understand the validity of the scientific syllogism through its (...) content rather than its form, and explains the priority of the scientific syllogism over other valid syllogisms. The opening chapters of Posterior Analytics II help us to distinguish the entities that scientific syllogism must include as its terms; namely, a genus, an essential nature, and essential attributes of the genus. Often, the attributes are found in closely linked sequences. By exploring why there are such sequences and how they are linked, the paper argues that sequences of genus, nature, and sequential attributes are the basis in nature for the process of reasoning that we call the syllogism: we come to grasp the syllogism over time but the sequences to which it refers exist together in things. So understood, the syllogism, like knowledge of forms and truths, exists in us and in the world. (shrink)

Loux sets the stage with a discussion of ousia in the Categories. There, he claims, Aristotle maintained that "basic subjects" are ontologically fundamental, and the essence of each such subject is its species. Loux thinks that Aristotle was tacitly committed to the "intersection" of these two, which he terms the "unanalyzability principle": An ousia's falling under its species is a "primitive... fact about it... not susceptible of further ontological analysis".

Suffering, alongside the feeling of sanctity of life, pervades human experience, generating primal anxiety, which humans learn to shore up with social solidarity and with the practice of communication in religious rituals. The roots of social belonging spring from the primordial sentiments toward ethnicity, race, language, religion, customs and traditions, and region. Self–identity, mediated by mental formations derived from social relations, is composed of thinking and values. Daily experience reveals that cultural differences produce blind spots in thinking and barriers in (...) values—‐governing areas of activity, social relations, the world, and identity of being—‐that impedes cross—‐cultural understanding. (shrink)

Abstract: In Vacco v. Quill, 521 U.S. 793 (1997), the Supreme Court for the first time in American case law explicitly applied the principle of double effect to reject an equal protection claim to physician-assisted suicide. Double effect, traced historically to Thomas Aquinas, proposes that under certain circumstances it is permissible unintentionally to cause foreseen evil effects that would not be permissible to cause intentionally. The court rejected the constitutional claim on the basis of a distinction marked out by the (...) principle, i.e., between directly intending the death of a terminally ill patient as opposed to merely foreseeing that death as a consequence of medical treatment. The Court held that the distinction comports with fundamental legal principles of causation and intent. Id. at 802. -/- Critics allege that the principle itself is intrinsically flawed and that, in any event, its employment in Vacco is without legal precedent. I argue in response to contemporary objections that double effect is a valid principle of ethical reflection (Part II); claims to the contrary notwithstanding, double effect analysis is a pervasive, albeit generally unacknowledged principle employed regularly in American case law (Part III); and drawing on the preceding two sections, Vacco's application of the principle of double effect is appropriate (Part IV). -/- My conclusion is that [o]peration of some form of the principle, by whatever name, is inevitable. In an imperfect world where duties and interests collide, the possibility of choices of action foreseen to have both good and evil consequences cannot be avoided. In rare circumstances, ethics and the law require that a person refrain from acting altogether. More often, however, they provide that a determination of whether an actor may pursue a good effect although knowing it will or may unintentionally cause an harmful effect requires a more complex analysis - a double effect analysis. -/- Keywords: Equal protection, double effect, intention, physician-assisted suicide, Constitutional Law, Bioethics. (shrink)