An interesting but brief sketch of the teachings of some Christian and Jewish mystics. Baumgardt believes that mysticism adds an important, but presently neglected, dimension to human experience.--G. A.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:A Bibliography of Bertrand Russell. Volume I: Separate Publications, 1896–1990 by Kenneth Blackwell, Harry RujaG. A. Wedeking and A. D. IrvineKenneth Blackwell and Harry Ruja. A Bibliography of Bertrand Russell. Volume I: Separate Publications, 1896–1990. Pp. lvi + 611. Volume II: Serial Publications, 1890–1990. Pp. xiv + 575. Volume III: Indexes. Pp. xi + 305. London: Routledge, 1994. Cloth, $455.00 the set.As Russell remarked: “It is a curious (...) fact that the most indubitably useful books are those most devoid of literary merit; for example, railway timetables and the telephone [End Page 146] book” (Vol. I, p. xlviii). Even so, since it will be agreed immediately that, for anyone interested in learning more about Russell’s writings, this beautifully crafted bibliography will be extremely useful, it would be a disservice to the authors to imply that it has no more literary merit than a railway timetable. The entire project simply has too much style.When Russell’s bibliographers began their task, fewer than 600 publications by Russell were known. By the time of publication they were able to record 181 of Russell’s books, pamphlets and leaflets, 629 contributions to books, pamphlets, and leaflets primarily authored by others, and approximately 3,550 serial publications of various types. Not being content merely to record the details of these publications, the authors follow each publication through its various editions, impressions, reprints, and translations. This is no mean task, given that Russell’s work has been translated into some 47 languages. In addition, the authors cite related pre-publication materials, give sources for rare and difficult-to-find books and documents, and include a comprehensive index. In short, they do nothing less than provide an authoritative, detailed record of Russell’s published work from 1890 to 1990.As the authors also point out, this is “a bibliography not only of Russell’s writings submitted and actually published, but also of certain other texts. Together they can be regarded as his published thoughts” (I: xix). Thus the bibliography mentions not only Russell’s books, articles, and published letters, but published accounts of his speeches, addresses, press conferences, and interviews; book reviews and recommendations (what Russell called “puffs”) for other people’s books; multiple-signatory letters to the editor and other similar documents; published extracts from Russell’s private correspondence and originally unpublished manuscripts; and audio recordings and films. A mark of the bibliography’s completeness is its catalogue of works that have been spuriously attributed to Russell, including two posthumous “spirit communications” (II: 573–74).The authors candidly describe Russell’s reaction when in 1966 he was shown slips of accumulated new entries: “ ‘I am impressed’, he said, ‘but I don’t think it’s worth it’ “ (I: li). Now, after several decades, we are finally in a position to evaluate Russell’s opinion. To do so, users of the bibliography will want to know the answer to three questions: Is the bibliography complete? Is it accurate? Is it easy to use?With regard to the first two of these three questions, the authors have made a commendable effort to balance comprehensiveness with accuracy (see their discussion of some problem cases, “Introduction,” I: xxvi ff.), rightly preferring accuracy to other desiderata. Concerning ease of use, one issue which comes to mind is whether the inclusion of such minor items as political pamphlets, letters to the editor, and statements made at news conferences, are always worth recording, or whether these items simply make the project so large as to be unmanageable. Once again, upon seeing the completed work, the reader will have little doubt that the correct decision has been made. Researchers interested in Russell’s political involvements and their relation to his more theoretical works, for example, will find this an invaluable resource. All in all, we believe that the bibliography will surpass the requirements of even the most demanding of users. It was, pace Russell, definitely worth it. [End Page 147]As with other volumes associated with the Collected Papers of Bertrand Russell project, these three volumes are beautifully typeset and bound. They will be a pleasure to use for both students and scholars alike for generations to... (shrink)

The quality of the products coming from different lines of production requires some tests called comparative life tests. For lines having the same facility, the lifetime of the product is distributed by Burr XII, the lifetime distribution, and units are tested under type-I generalized hybrid censoring scheme. The observed censoring data are used under maximum likelihood and the Bayes method to estimate the model parameters. The theoretical results are discussed and assessed through data analysis and Monte Carlo simulation study. Finally, (...) we reported some brief comments obtained from numerical computation. (shrink)

This is an introductory survey of the emerging theory of two new classes of (discrete, countable) groups, called hyperlinear and sofic groups. They can be characterized as subgroups of metric ultraproducts of families of, respectively, unitary groups U (n) and symmetric groups $S_{n},\ n\in {\Bbb N}$ . Hyperlinear groups come from theory of operator algebras (Connes' Embedding Problem), while sofic groups, introduced by Gromov, are motivated by a problem of symbolic dynamics (Gottschalk's Surjunctivity Conjecture). Open questions are numerous, in particular (...) it is still unknown if every group is hyperlinear and/or sofic. (shrink)

This is the first full-length commentary on De Motu Animalium since Albertus Magnus's thirteenth century treatise, De Principiis Motus Progresivi. Several paraphrases, and numerous editions, have appeared over the years, but a general belief, particularly in the nineteenth century, that MA was not an authentic work of Aristotle's, and doubt about the overall importance of this brief and cryptic work, had served to discourage more ambitious projects. Scholarly opinion changed in this century, and the authenticity of MA is now generally (...) accepted. Nussbaum relates this history, establishes MA's authenticity beyond a doubt, and finds ample philosophical reason for bringing her--and our--attention to a full-length commentary. For MA, as she shows, is a treatise not only in biology, but also in cosmology, philosophy of science, philosophy of mind, theory of action, and practical reasoning. (shrink)

Different approaches have been proposed in order to achieve knowledge integration for coronary care monitoring applications, usually in the form of expert systems. The clinical impact of these expert systems, which are based only on "shallow" knowledge, has not been remarkable due to the difficulties associated with the construction and maintenance of a complete knowledge base. Model-based systems represent an alternative to these problems because they allow efficient integration of the "deep" knowledge on the underlying physiological phenomena being monitored. In (...) this work, a brief review of existing model-based systems for cardiac rhythm interpretation is presented, followed by the description of a new system forCardiac Arrhythmia Recognition by Model-Based ECG Matching (CARMEM). Fundamental characteristics of CARMEM are presented; in particular, its ability to provide on-line parameter adaptation to simulate complex rhythms and to match observed ECG signals. The proposed model can be useful for the explanation of the origin of cardiac arrhythmias and contribute towards their robust characterization in the context of coronary care units. (shrink)

Experimental Phenomena of Consciousness is the definitive collection of consciousness phenomena in which awareness emerges as an experimental variable.

A brief review of the conceptual difficulties met by the quantum formalism is presented. The main attempts to overcome these difficulties are considered and their limitations are pointed out. A recent proposal based on the assumption of the occurrence of a specific type of wave function collapse is discussed and its consequences for the above-mentioned problems are analyzed.

A brief history of Neutron Interferometry is presented, from a personal perspective. Comments and a message from Professor Sam Werner are included.

In 1932, Wolfgang Pauli was a world-renowned physicist and had already done the work that would win him the 1945 Nobel Prize. He was also in pain. His mother had poisoned herself after his father's involvement in an affair. Emerging from a brief marriage with a cabaret performer, Pauli drank heavily, quarreled frequently and sometimes publicly, and was disturbed by powerful dreams. He turned for help to C. G. Jung, setting a standing appointment for Mondays at noon. Thus bloomed an (...) extraordinary intellectual conjunction not just between a physicist and a psychologist but between physics and psychology. Eighty letters, written over twenty-six years, record that friendship. This artful translation presents them in English for the first time. Though Jung never analyzed Pauli formally, he interpreted more than 400 of his dreams--work that bore fruit later in Psychology and Alchemy and The Analysis of Dreams. As their acquaintance developed, Jung and Pauli exchanged views on the content of their work and the ideas of the day. They discussed the nature of dreams and their relation to reality, finding surprising common ground between depth psychology and quantum physics. Their collaboration resulted in the combined publication of Jung's treatise on synchronicity and Pauli's essay on archetypal ideas influencing Kepler's writings in The Interpretation of Nature and the Psyche. Over time, their correspondence shaped and reshaped their understanding of the principle they called synchronicity, a term Jung had suggested earlier. Through the association of these two pioneering thinkers, developments in physics profoundly influenced the evolution of Jungian psychology. And many of Jung's abiding themes shaped how Pauli--and, through him, other physicists--understood the physical world. Of clear appeal to historians of science and anyone investigating the life and work of Pauli or Jung, this portrait of an incredible friendship will also draw readers interested in human creativity as well as those who merely like to be present when great minds meet. (shrink)

Der hier erstmals ver]ffentlichte Briefwechsel zwischen dem Psychiater C.G. Jung und dem Nobelpreistr{ger der Physik Wolfgang Pauli ist ein geistesgeschichtliches Dokument ersten Ranges. Ein privates Schicksal hat sie zusammengef}hrt, und daraus ist ein vorwissenschaftlicher Dialog erwachsen, in dem versucht wird, naturwissenschaftliches und psychologischesDenken zu vereinheitlichen. Die Briefe verdeutlichen, da~ es weder f}r den Psychologen zul{ssig ist, die methodischen Einsichten der Physik, noch f}r den Physiker, die Erfahrungen im Umgang mit dem Psychischenzu vernachl{ssigen.

The King Report on Corporate Governance (1994) evoked unprecedented interest in corporate governance in South Africa. This does not mean that corporate governance was not an issue of concern before the release of this historical report. To the contrary, corporate governance in its broader sense has been at stake since the inception of the first publicly owned companies in South Africa. This article intends to give an overview of corporate governance in South Africa. It starts by making a distinction between (...) broad and narrow conceptions of corporate governance. Before applying this distinction to the practice of corporate governance in South Africa, a brief overview of the corporate landscape in South Africa is provided. Then the South African situation with regard to broad and narrow corporate governance respectively is analysed. The article ends with a discussion of the review of corporate governance that currently is in the making in South Africa. Throughout the article both the financial and ethical dimensions of corporate governance is attended to. (shrink)

The King Report on Corporate Governance (1994) evoked unprecedented interest in corporate governance in South Africa. This does not mean that corporate governance was not an issue of concern before the release of this historical report. To the contrary, corporate governance in its broader sense has been at stake since the inception of the first publicly owned companies in South Africa. This article intends to give an overview of corporate governance in South Africa. It starts by making a distinction between (...) broad and narrow conceptions of corporate governance. Before applying this distinction to the practice of corporate governance in South Africa, a brief overview of the corporate landscape in South Africa is provided. Then the South African situation with regard to broad and narrow corporate governance respectively is analysed. The article ends with a discussion of the review of corporate governance that currently is in the making in South Africa. Throughout the article both the financial and ethical dimensions of corporate governance is attended to. (shrink)

This large anthology offers a well-chosen selection of writings on defining the good, the free-will problem, ethical method, and political and social implications of ethics. Of special interest is the inclusion of four relevant articles by social scientists. Editorial material is brief but useful and the selections are of ample length, several complete works being included.—A. F. G.

_A Brief History of Analytic Philosophy: From Russell to Rawls_ presents a comprehensive overview of the historical development of all major aspects of analytic philosophy, the dominant Anglo-American philosophical tradition in the twentieth century. Features coverage of all the major subject areas and figures in analytic philosophy - including Wittgenstein, Bertrand Russell, G.E. Moore, Gottlob Frege, Carnap, Quine, Davidson, Kripke, Putnam, and many others Contains explanatory background material to help make clear technical philosophical concepts Includes listings of suggested further readings (...) Written in a clear, direct style that presupposes little previous knowledge of philosophy. (shrink)

A Brief History of Analytic Philosophy: From Russell to Rawls presents a comprehensive overview of the historical development of all major aspects of analytic philosophy, the dominant Anglo-American philosophical tradition in the twentieth century. Features coverage of all the major subject areas and figures in analytic philosophy - including Wittgenstein, Bertrand Russell, G.E. Moore, Gottlob Frege, Carnap, Quine, Davidson, Kripke, Putnam, and many others Contains explanatory background material to help make clear technical philosophical concepts Includes listings of suggested further readings (...) Written in a clear, direct style that presupposes little previous knowledge of philosophy. (shrink)

This is a brief, clear, and vigorous reinterpretation of Bergson's philosophy. The author attempts to prove that, far from being an irrationalist, Bergson is a systematic metaphysician firmly committed to the concept of final cause.

Five essays concerned primarily with Dewey's philosophy of education and its influence. Taking up half of the volume is Williams Brickman's thoroughly documented study of the rise and decline of Dewey's sympathies with the Soviet Union and the varying treatment his educational theories received there. George Axtelle surveys Dewey's philosophy, which he sees as expressing "the genius of American civilization" and showing directions for its future development. Dewey's reliance on the "civilizational functions" of education as the major tool for developing (...) a sound democratic society is emphasized by John Childs. Brief essays on Dewey's influence on American educators and an early proposal to teach psychology in high school fill out the collection.—A. F. G. (shrink)

Six individuals with experience of psychosis were interviewed about their psychotic experiences. The material was analyzed using the empirical phenomenological psychological method. The results consist of a whole meaning structure, a gestalt, entailing the following characteristics: The feeling of estrangement in relationship to the world; the dissolution of time; the loss of intuitive social knowledge; the alienation of oneself, and finally; the loss of intentionality/loss of agency. In brief, the results show that an altered perception of the self and the (...) world was an essential part of the psychotic experience where subjects described themselves as changed; something was sensed as being wrong as psychosis is perceptible but hard to communicate. The normal life-world experience was altered and reality seemed strange. Time perception seemed to be changed as temporality appeared dissolved and the experience of time was focused on the current moment excluding the future. The subjects described loss of intentionality, they were no longer agents in their actions but partly steered by others and they could feel as if their experiences were not theirs. The patients also describe problems regarding their ability to socialize and communicate with others. They seem to lose their intuitive social capacity and were prone to suspiciousness. (shrink)

The shortage of organs for transplantation by its nature prompts ethical dilemmas. For example, although there is an imperative to save human life and reduce suffering by maximising the supply of vital organs, there is an equally important obligation to ensure that the process by which we increase the supply respects the rights of all stakeholders. In a relatively unexamined practice in the USA, organs are procured from unrepresented decedents without their express consent. Unrepresented decedents have no known healthcare wishes (...) or advance care planning document; they also lack a surrogate. The Revised Uniform Anatomical Gift Act (RUAGA) of 2006 sends a mixed message about the procurement of organs from this patient population and there are hospitals that authorise donation. In addition, in adopting the RUAGA, some states included provisions that clearly allow organ procurement from unrepresented decedents. An important unanswered question is whether this practice meets the canons of ethical permissibility. The current Brief Report presents two principled approaches to the topic as a way of highlighting some of the complexities involved. Concluding remarks offer suggestions for future research and discussion. (shrink)

This very short and less than solemn volume deals with approximately fifty aspects of eleven broad philosophical problems. The questions chosen are believed by the author to be capable of further resolution and among these we find: "What is Philosophy?," "What do we know?," and also, "What is God like?," "How does God Operate?," "Who is my neighbor?," and "What is life?" Little attention is paid to the questions themselves, that is to their understanding or clarification, but Mr. Keleher directly (...) proceeds to answer them, a move which at times, as in his discussion of natural law, leaves much wanting. On the whole, the issues are handled in a glib and oversimplified fashion which is perhaps all that can be expected of an edition which devotes two pages to the question "What is logic?," one and a half pages to the refutation of the theory of evolution, one to the categorical imperative and one-half to "The market... of Western Civilization." Where there is insightful comment—as in some of the epistemological discussions—it is all too brief in a way that is neither introductory nor satisfying.—D. A. G. (shrink)

This study aims to the role of emergency paramedics in transporting cases to hospitals, the rate of completion of emergency paramedics in transporting cases to hospitals in record time, the role of emergency paramedics in saving people’s lives, a questionnaire was prepared via Google Drive and distributed to the population aged 25-55 years, men and women, in the city of Mecca. As for the questionnaire, it was distributed via the social networking program (WhatsApp) for the purpose of distancing for fear (...) of the presence of the Corona virus. 400 questionnaires were distributed, and 380 responses were obtained via email to the principal researcher. The paramedic writes a brief report and sends it with the injured person when he is transported to the doctor or to the hospital? Yes 91.1%. From the participants’ opinions, we it concluded that the role of the emergency paramedic is extremely important in saving people’s lives. (shrink)

This article provides ethical guidance on using race in health research as a variable or in defining the study population. To this end, a plain, non-exhaustive checklist is provided for researchers and research ethics committees, preceded by a brief introduction on the need for justification when using race as a variable or in defining a study population, the problem of exoticism, that distinctions pertain between race, ethnicity and ancestry, the problematic naming of races, and that race does not serve well (...) as a presumed biological construct in genetic research. (shrink)

The literature of the past century produced an historical reconstruction of statics theory applied to mechanical structures coinciding–starting with Le Mecaniche (1634) and Discorsi e dimostrazioni matematiche sopra a due nuove scienze (1638) by Galileo Galilei (1564–1642). Based on previous research (RP) and our historical and historiographical line of research [37], in this paper we briefly analyse Buonaiuto Lorini (1540–1611) Le Fortificationi ([1596] 1609) as a bridge between the science of weights and early mechanical science, including the graphical scale and (...) machines. This is a fundamental and advanced military fortification–engineering treatise with an evident important relationship between theory & practice, including designs–projects of both fortresses and machines, understood as tools, to manufacture them. Lorini also presents an excursus on how fortifications developed according to the advent of new artillery/weapons, comprising the crucial passage from the use of square to circular towers up to the description of modern fortresses in all their details, e.g., bulwarks and cavaliers, curtains, orillons, star–shaped plans. Basing on Archimedes’ (fl. 287–212 BCE) techniques (law of the lever) and Guidobaldo del Monte's (1545–1607; Le Mecaniche (1577–1581) he successfully engaged in advanced mechanical considerations. His position (at the end of the first chapter) on the distinction between the mathematician (scientist) and the mechanician (architect–engineer or even machine expert) is historiographically very interesting within the difference between abstract Euclidean geometry and the application of its contents to imperfect and heterogeneous reality. The translations are ours. (shrink)

In this paper we formulate Einstein's gravitational theory with the Clifford bundle formalism. The formalism suggests interpreting the gravitational field in the sense of Faraday, i.e., with the field residing in Minkowski spacetime. We succeeded in discovering the condition for this interpretation to hold. For the variables that play the role of the gravitational field in our theory, the Lagrangian density turns out to be of the Yang-Mills type (with an auto-interaction plus gauge-fixing terms). We give a brief comparison of (...) our theory with other field theories of the gravitational field in the flat Minkowski spacetime. (shrink)

This essay first draws upon the work of William James and others to propose a nonphysicalistic understanding of the relationship between the brain and consciousness in order to articulate a philosophical perspective that can understand entheogenic visionary/mystical experiences as something other than hallucinations. It then focuses on the Santo Daime tradition, a religious movement that began in Brazil in the early part of the twentieth century, to provide an example of the personal and social ramifications of taking an entheogen (ayahuasca) (...) within a disciplined religious context. The essay claims that the Santo Daime is one example of a contemporary mystery school; gives a brief history of the development of this religion; discusses the key theological assumptions of this movement; investigates the important role played by visionary/mystical experiences within this religion; underscores the centrality of healing and spiritual transformation for members of this tradition; and ends with an examination of the crucial significance of spiritual discipline within this entheogenically based religion. (shrink)

What type of conceptual information about an object do we get at a brief glance? In two experiments, we investigated the nature of conceptual tokening—the moment at which conceptual information about an object is accessed. Using a masked picture-word congruency task with dichoptic presentations at “brief” (50−60 ms) and “long” (190−200 ms) durations, participants judged the relation between a picture (e.g., a banana) and a word representing one of four property types about the object: superordinate (fruit), basic level (banana), a (...) high-salient (yellow), or low-salient feature (peel). In Experiment 1, stimuli were presented in black-and-white; in Experiment 2, they were presented in red and blue, with participants wearing red-blue anaglyph glasses. This manipulation allowed for the independent projection of stimuli to the left- and right-hemisphere visual areas, aiming to probe the early effects of these projections in conceptual tokening. Results showed that superordinate and basic-level properties elicited faster and more accurate responses than high- and low-salient features at both presentation times. This advantage persisted even when the objects were divided into categories (e.g., animals, vegetables, vehicles, tools), and when objects contained high-salient visual features. However, contrasts between categories show that animals, fruits, and vegetables tend to be categorized at the superordinate level, while vehicles tend to be categorized at the basic level. Also, for a restricted class of objects, high-salient features representing diagnostic color information (yellow for the picture of a banana) facilitated congruency judgments to the same extent as that of superordinate and basic-level labels. We suggest that early access to object concepts yields superordinate and basic-level information, with features only yielding effects at a later stage of processing, unless they represent diagnostic color information. We discuss these results advancing a unified theory of conceptual representation, integrating key postulates of atomism and feature-based theories. (shrink)

Proximity and interpersonal contact are prominent components of social connection. Giving affective touch to others is fundamental for human bonding. This brief report presents preliminary results from a pilot study. It explores if exposure to bonding scenes impacts the activity of specific muscles related to physical interaction. Fingers flexion is a very important component when performing most actions of affectionate contact. We explored the visuo-motor affective interplay by priming participants with bonding scenes and assessing the electromyographic activity of the fingers (...) flexor muscle, in the absence of any overt movements. Photographs of dyads in social interaction and of the same dyads not interacting were employed. We examined the effects upon the electromyographical activity: during the passive exposure to pictures, and during picture offset and when expecting the signal to perform a fingers flexion task. Interacting dyads compared to matched non-interacting dyads increased electromyographic activity of the fingers flexor muscle in both contexts. Specific capture of visual bonding cues at the level of visual cortex had been described in the literature. Here we showed that the neural processing of visual bonding cues reaches the fingers flexor muscle. Besides, previous visualization of bonding cues enhanced background electromyographic activity during motor preparation to perform the fingers flexion task, which might reflect a sustained leakage of central motor activity downstream leading to increase in firing of the respective motor neurons. These data suggest, at the effector level, an implicit visuo-motor connection in which social interaction cues evoke intrinsic dispositions toward affectionate social behavior. (shrink)

Lower levels of news use are generally understood to be associated with less political engagement among citizens. But while some people simply have a low preference for news, others avoid the news intentionally. So far little is known about the relationship between active news avoidance and civic engagement in society, a void this study has set out to fill. Based on a four-wave general population panel survey in the Netherlands, conducted between April and July 2020 (N = 1,084) during a (...) crisis situation, this research-in-brief investigates the development of news avoidance and pro-social civic engagement over time. Results suggest that higher news topic avoidance results in higher levels of civic engagement. The study discusses different explanations for why less news can mean more engagement. (shrink)

Current technology has dramatically increased the prevalence of studies to establish the genetic correlates of a wide variety of human characteristics, including not only the physical attributes that determine what we look like and the risk of physiological disease but also the psychological and cognitive characteristics that often define who we are as individuals. Perhaps one of the most deeply personal and often controversial characteristics is the concept of general intelligence, known in the psychological literature as “g.” As with the (...) genetic study of any complex trait, the first step in studying the genetics of g is to carefully define the characteristic of interest. For g, this entails establishing what intelligence means and providing a clear operational definition for how it will be measured. In this paper, we provide a brief historical and theoretical overview of the construct of general intelligence, describe its relationship to the contemporary measurement of intelligence, and discuss these concepts in light of the challenges associated with defining g as a characteristic in the study of genetics. (shrink)

This thoughtful, learned, well-written, extensively illustrated, and heavily documented study deserves to be regarded as a landmark in art history. Traditional art history has dealt for the most part with the “fine arts” (chiefly painting, drawing, sculpture, and architecture), whereas other human creations that take physical form (such as furniture, ceramics, textiles, and metal and glass items), whether utilitarian or decorative (or both at once), are considered “craft” or “applied art” and are studied by folklorists, anthropologists, and archaeologists and often (...) displayed in different museums. Cooke wishes to break down this “hierarchical taxonomy,” this “fragmented, hierarchical field,” that emerged from Western Europe's “misunderstanding of art,” which valued “the cerebral over the manual.” His goal, in other words, is to outline “a more inclusive human history of art”— “a connected art history.” This phrase from his subtitle refers not simply to connecting “fine art” with “applied art” but also to crossing temporal and regional boundaries. Still another act of connecting is to examine all parts of an object's life history, and thus the three main divisions of the book deal with the making of objects, their circulation from one person and place to another (and “their ability to transmit ideas” in the process), and their meaning for the persons who possessed or encountered them.Over the years I have repeatedly said that all objects made by human beings are worthy of preservation and study because they bring us into direct contact with the past and, as part of our surroundings, affect our thoughts in the present. Every object, I have argued, including copies of a single printed edition of a book (so-called duplicates), is an independent witness to the past. I am particularly pleased, therefore, to welcome a major book that explores in detail, with a wealth of examples from many centuries and cultures, the place of objects in human history. Cooke's pursuit is “object-driven,” beginning with the nature of the materials and finally coming to “the inherent power of the object itself to influence human thought and action.” (Compare the subtitle of Sherry Turkle's 2007 anthology Evocative Objects: Things We Think With.) Cooke's refusal to separate “materials” from “people,” or “technologies” from “values,” reminds me of John Szarkowski's approach to photographs. In Photography until Now (1989), Szarkowski points out that histories of photography generally treat technical matters separately from artistic ones—a split between the “empirical” and the “intuitive” that he finds indefensible, for “these two ways of knowing meet in the process of making things.” He adds, “The meeting can be cordially symbiotic or aggressively competitive, but its resolution defines the character and meaning of the thing that is made.” This statement has been a favorite of mine as an elegant characterization of the nature of art, and it is one that Cooke would clearly agree with.Cooke does not discuss photography, but he makes clear that he is not attempting a “comprehensive history that charts the complete ebb and flow of objects over time.” Rather, his book is meant to be a “suggestive guide” to the “principles of material literacy,” a “kit of tools for future complex constructions of history.” Even so, I find some of the omissions puzzling. Why, for example, are glass objects not taken up, when he so thoroughly deals with other common materials? More serious, in my opinion, is the exclusion of the fine arts. (Of the 215 illustrations, five are of oil paintings and one is of a Japanese print, but they are present only as the sources for information drawn from their pictorial content; one Hogarth engraving is shown because its image was often reproduced on punch bowls; and there is a very brief passage on the “uneasy relationship” between sculpture and material culture, but no sculptures are illustrated or used as examples for discussion.) Presumably Cooke felt it was unnecessary for his book to encompass the fine arts after demonstrating that functional objects are just as sophisticated artistically and culturally as products of the fine arts are. Yet those products also belong to the universe of “entangled objects” (How could they not?), and it would have been illuminating to see them adduced among the examples Cooke cites. One could argue that by excluding them—and by referring to the makers of the objects he does discuss as “artisans” and “craftspeople”—he comes close to reinforcing the division he wishes to eliminate.Less easy to explain is Cooke's omission of books, for they have been one of the largest and most widely circulated classes of utilitarian objects. Most people never think about books as objects, treating them only as disposable receptacles for transmitting verbal texts in tangible form (which is why so many books are destroyed when their texts supposedly become available in another form). Such people do not realize that texts have connections with their physical embodiments. (For example, books, whether manuscript or printed, often contain clues revealing how their texts were affected by the production process; and readers’ attitudes toward texts can be influenced by their presentation.) Cooke, however, with his deep understanding of the way objects function and his impressive knowledge of the scholarship, cannot be one of these uninformed people. He would obviously be aware of the vast literature devoted to leather and cloth bookbindings and their decoration, as well as to the myriad styles of letters and the varieties of paper and parchment; he would also know how letterforms and binding designs reflect a complex interplay of social, political, and artistic forces. Bibliographers have long studied books as Cooke advocates studying other objects: “working from the inside out,” beginning with the evidence in books themselves for reconstructing the routines that were followed in their creation. And book historians are recognizing the necessity for an international approach like Cooke's, since many of the books circulating in one country originated in other countries. Books would have been a prolific additional source for illustrating Cooke's analyses.My admiration for Cooke's book is not altered by these few disappointments. Even without discussions of paintings, sculptures, and books, it is still exhilarating in its scope and depth. One hopes that art and material-culture historians will pay attention to it. But it ought to have a wider audience, for the daily lives of all of us would be enriched by a greater appreciation of the objects that make up a significant part of our environment. (shrink)

Quantum theory is highly successful in explaining properties of classes of systems: e.g. chemistry --- molecular binding energies optics --- frequency-dependent susceptibilities superconductivity --- energy gaps nuclear magnetic resonance --- chemical shifts particle physics --- scattering cross-sections cosmology --- helium abundance but many questions arise: What does quantum theory tell us about the nature of reality? Is quantum theory universally valid? Can quantum theory describe individual events? Can quantum theory be applied consistently at the macroscopic level? Is an algorithmic treatment (...) of measurement theory possible? Is it possible to provide an interpretation of quantum theory which is compatible with special relativity/ general relativity/ quantum field theory/ this week's theory of everything? (shrink)

In book 3 of On Abstinence from Animal Food, Porphyry is traditionally taken to argue that animals are rational and that it is, therefore, unjust to kill them for food. Since the vast majority of scholars endorse this interpretation, I call it ‘the consensus interpretation’. Yet, strangely enough, elsewhere in his corpus Porphyry claims that the non-human animals are irrational. Jonathan Barnes notices this discrepancy and suggests that an appeal to the distinction between specific and non-specific predication can resolve the (...) problem. This paper explains Barnes’ solution, but argues that it must ultimately be rejected. It concludes with a brief survey of other approaches to the problem, and with an outline of the proposed solution, in which the consensus interpretation of On Abstinence is rejected in favour of a dialectical reading of Book 3. Porphyry, this piece suggests, may not have believed that animals were rational after all. (shrink)

The texts collected in this volume, which was originally published in 1969, contain Herder's most original and stimulating ideas on politics, history and language. They had for the most part not been previously available in English. In his introduction, Professor Barnard analyses the basic premises of Herder's political thought against the background of the Enlightenment. He examines Herder's concepts of language, community and culture, his theory of historical interaction, and his approach to the problem of change and progress. Finally, he (...) provides a brief comparative analysis of traditionalist thought following the French Revolution, showing how substantive writers like Burke differed from Herder despite the close similarity of political vocabulary. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Hume Studies Volume 29, Number 1, April 2003, pp. 89-98 Another "Curious Legend" about Hume's An Abstract of a Treatise of Human Nature MARK G. SPENCER I In 1938, J. M. Keynes and P. Sraffa edited and introduced for Cambridge University Press a reprinting of An Abstract of A Treatise of Human Nature.1 The Abstract they claimed in their subtitle was "A Pamphlet hitherto unknown by DAVID HUME." Arguing (...) against a number of nineteenth and early-twentieth -century scholars who attributed authorship of an abstract of the Treatise to Adam Smith, Keynes and Sraffa convincingly documented in their introductory essay many solid reasons for thinking that the pamphlet being reprinted was Hume's.2 Sixty years on, their account dispelling this "curious legend" of Smith's authorship has now become the received opinion. T.E. Jessop accepted Keynes and Sraffa's argument (having seen it in proof before the edition was published) in his bibliography of 1938, and Norman Kemp Smith gave their version an early supportive review.3 E.C. Mossner, in his well-known biography of Hume, accepted wholeheartedly Keynes and Sraffa's findings.4 When in 1978 the Selby-Bigge's edition of Hume's Treatise saw its second edition the text of the Abstract was appended and a note gave P.H. Nidditch's opinion that "Hume's authorship is overwhelmingly likely."5 More recently Mark G. Spencer is Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Department of History, University of Toronto. Sidney Smith Hall, 100 St. George St., Toronto, Ontario MSS 3GS, Canada. spencer@uwo.ca 90 Mark G. Spencer in the pages of this journal, Jeff Broome, David Raynor, and David Fate Norton have all helped buttress the case for Hume's authorship, as did R. W. Connon and M. Pollard elsewhere.6 Despite an occasional dissenting voice,7 the Abstract is now widely, and rightly (or so it seems to this author), thought to have been Hume's. But with all of this scholarly attention focused on confirming Hume's authorship, another much more contentious aspect of Keynes and Sraffa's interpretation has gone largely unnoticed. Keynes and Sraffa's billing of the Abstract as "A Pamphlet hitherto unknown by DAVID HUME," suggested that before 1938 the Abstract had not been attributed publicly to Hume and that the contents of the pamphlet also had been completely unknown. "Students of Hume have known that an abstract of the Treatise was made and intended for publication," wrote a reviewer of Keynes and Sraffa, "[b]ut no copy of this abstract was known to exist: indeed it was usually supposed that the abstract had never been printed at all."8 Relying on Keynes and Sraffa it would be easy to suppose that the Abstract was never publicly ascribed to Hume and even that the contents of the pamphlet had been overlooked entirely until Keynes and Sraffa came along. One of the purposes of the present short essay is to dispel, once and for all, that misunderstanding about the Abstract. Norman Kemp Smith went part of the way toward that end in 1938 when he reviewed Keynes and Sraffa's edition. But in the process Kemp Smith introduced another "curious legend" that has slipped into scholarly acceptance with little comment and no debate. We will see that it is a mistake to argue, as Kemp Smith did, that Hume's authorship of a sixpenny pamphlet was known to readers of An universal biographical and historical dictionary, published in 1800. There is no discussion of Hume's Abstract in that book. However, the Abstract was discussed in print in at least three different publications between 1818 and 1827, long after its initial publication in 1740 and long before Keynes and Sraffa brought it to the attention of their audience in 1938. While pre-1938 Hume scholars had overlooked the Abstract, at least one of Hume's early nineteenth-century critics knew of the Abstract's existence, attributed the work to Hume, and even quoted extensively from Hume's "Preface." Most interesting of all, Hume's authorship of the Abstract was interpreted in ways that are telling of the historical reception of... (shrink)

This new edition of William James’s 1909 classic, A Pluralistic Universe reproduces the original text, only modernizing the spelling. The books has been annotated throughout to clarify James’s points of reference and discussion. There is a new, fuller index, a brief chronology of James’s life, and a new bibliography—chiefly based on James’s own references. The editor, H.G. Callaway, has included a new Introduction which elucidates the legacy of Jamesian pluralism to survey some related questions of contemporary American society. -/- A (...) Pluralistic Universe was the last major book James published during his life time. It is a substantial philosophical work, devoted to a thorough-going criticism of Hegelian monism and Absolutism—and the exploration of philosophical and social-theological alternatives. Our world of some one hundred years on is much the better for James’s contributions; and understanding James’s pluralism deeply contributes even now to America’s self-understanding. At present, we are more certain that American is, and is best, a pluralistic society, than we are of what particular forms our pluralism should take. Keeping an eye out for social interpretations of Jamesian pluralism, this new philosophical reading casts light on our twenty-first century alternatives by reference to prior American experience and developments. -/- . (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:A Pragmatist Philosophy of History by Marnie BinderPiers H. G. StephensA Pragmatist Philosophy of History Marnie Binder. Lexington Books, 2023.Looking at current scholarship and opinion in American philosophy, one can easily conclude that there has been much more work done on studying the history of pragmatist philosophy than there has been on what pragmatist philosophy can give to the study of history. Ever since the resurrection of interest (...) in pragmatism in the late twentieth century, we have seen a range of publications offering new interpretations for the ideas of the classical pragmatists, as well as important new applications for philosophical pragmatism and the moving to center stage of historically sidelined individuals and groups. What we have seen relatively little of, however, aside from a 2016 symposium in the European Journal of Pragmatism and American Philosophy, is sustained engagement with the question of what a classically pragmatist approach to historical inquiry might contribute, entail, or imply. It is this important niche in the ecosystem of American philosophy that Marnie Binder's A Pragmatist Philosophy of History seeks to partially fill in.Binder, who is perhaps best known for her past writings on José Ortega y Gasset, is at pains from the start to indicate both the humility and the utility of her project. As befits the tradition, there are no grandiose philosophical pretensions here, with the "goal in presenting a pragmatist philosophy of [End Page 112] history" merely being "to add another apparatus to the toolkits of the philosopher and the historian," an extra perspective that is "meant to complement other methodologies" (xi; emphasis in original), as she explains in her introduction. At the same time, pragmatism can offer something distinctive, firstly through asking the pragmatic question of what difference is meant by the accepting of particular presumed facts as being true, and secondly, being able to better understand why certain historical details have relevance, value, and meaning for us as a result of answering the first question. A pragmatist philosophy of history is helpful then, Binder maintains, as it "is in a unique position to bridge the speculative analytic divide" (xiii), and her approach to doing this is to draw upon the resources found in the works of a succession of the familiar classical pragmatists, building toward a synthesis and a cashing out of insights in her concluding reflections.Structurally the work consists of an explanatory introduction followed by six chapters, each dedicated to a particular pragmatist and their insights, leading finally to an extended concluding section drawing the component parts together and answering possible objections to the project. Pragmatism, as Binder recognizes, is seldom thought of as a historically orientated philosophy, but she argues that for each of these thinkers—William James, John Dewey, F. C. S. Schiller, Charles Sanders Peirce, George Herbert Mead, and Jane Addams—there is at least the germ of a philosophy of history that can be unearthed and developed, eventually helping to inform understanding of what is needed to bring a pragmatist ethics into practical reality, the last of which is manifested primarily by Addams. Thus, the treatment of William James in chapter 1 homes in on James's psychological insights into the way that experienced reality forms a temporal continuum; our consciousness necessarily selects from the experiences of the past, ascribing interpretations and assuming levels of facticity and relevance, since no individual can know all the facts or select among them with perfect impartiality. The continuum will be one that speaks to the inquirer's concerns with accuracy, practicality, meaningfulness, and coherence, as all knowledge comes about through temporal processes, and since past events are continuously added to and can be continuously reinterpreted, it can have no real or ultimate beginning or end. Accordingly, for a Jamesian pragmatist account, the "continuum of history is the way in which we construct a meaning for history of the connected past experiences with the present and in view of the future—this is what we call 'history'" (7; emphasis in original), and Binder draws upon José Medina's recent work to further illuminate how such history can and will be continuously critically reconstructed. In addition, she observes, such reconstruction [End Page... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:The Incoherence of Determining Death by Neurological Criteria: A Commentary on Controversies in the Determination of Death, A White Paper by the President’s Council on Bioethics*Franklin G. Miller** (bio) and Robert D. Truog (bio)Traditionally the cessation of breathing and heart beat has marked the passage from life to death. Shortly after death was determined, the body became a cold corpse, suitable for burial or cremation. Two technological changes in (...) the second half of the twentieth century prompted calls for a new, or at least expanded, definition of death: the development of intensive care medicine, especially the use of mechanical ventilators, and the advent of successful transplantation of vital organs. Patients with profound neurological damage, leaving them incapable of breathing on their own and in an irreversible coma, could be maintained for some period of time with the aid of mechanical ventilation. The situation of these patients posed two ethical questions. Is it appropriate to stop life-sustaining treatment? If so, is it acceptable to retrieve vital organs for transplantation to save the lives of others before stopping treatment?In 1968, the Ad Hoc Committee of the Harvard Medical School to Examine the Definition of Brain Death proposed that death could be determined on the basis of neurological criteria, thus providing a positive answer to these two questions (Ad Hoc Committee 1968). According to the position of this committee, patients diagnosed with the cessation of brain function are dead, despite the fact that they breathe and circulate blood with the aid of mechanical ventilation. [End Page 185] Because they are dead, it is appropriate, indeed imperative, to stop mechanical ventilation. And because they are dead, it becomes ethical to procure vital organs for transplantation before stopping what otherwise would be life-sustaining treatment. Remarkably, this innovative neurological determination of death became, with little debate or controversy, the established position in medical ethics and the law throughout the United States.The Harvard Committee articulated the diagnosis of “irreversible coma,” but merely asserted that this condition constituted death. No explanatory rationale was provided. It fell to the President’s Commission for the Study of Ethical Problems in Medicine and Biomedical and Behavioral Research to provide an authoritative rationale in its 1981 report, Defining Death. The second paragraph of the report set the stage as follows: “The question addressed here is not inherently difficult or complicated. Simply, it is whether the law ought to recognize new means for establishing that the death of a human being has occurred” (President’s Commission 1981, p. 3). The Commission claimed that “death is a unitary phenomenon” (p. 7) and that the determination of death by neurological criteria, in terms of the absence of all brain function, is consistent with the traditional conception of death as the cessation of vital functioning of the organism as a whole. The key issue is the integrative functioning of the human organism, which ceases to exist, according to the Commission, when the whole brain, including higher cortical areas and the brain stem, fails to function. Although “brain-dead” patients do not appear to be dead—i.e., the reality of their death is “masked” by the activity of mechanical ventilation—the patient’s body has irreversibly lost all capacity for integrative functioning. In the words of the Commission: “When artificial means of support mask this loss of integration as measured by the old methods [cessation of respiration and heart beat], brain-oriented criteria and tests provide a new window on the same phenomenon” (p. 33). The President’s Commission was instrumental in developing and establishing “The Uniform Definition of Death Act”: “An individual who has sustained either (1) irreversible cessation of circulatory and respiratory functions, or (2) irreversible cessation of all functions of the entire brain, including the brain stem, is dead” (p. 2).Although the question posed by the President’s Commission was easy to articulate, the answer, over time, has proved complicated and controversial. The coherence and cogency of determining death by neurological criteria has been challenged. Various experts have demonstrated that “brain-dead” patients maintained on mechanical ventilation display a range of vital, integrative, functioning, which conflicts with the judgment that they are dead (Truog and... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:A Message from the EditorPiers H.G. Stephens, EditorIt is now six years since this journal’s founding editor Victoria Davion sadly succumbed to premature fatal illness and I took over her editorial duties under the most unfortunate of circumstances. I stated publicly then that Vicky’s vision for the character and purpose of the journal would remain unchanged under my watch, and in keeping with that pledge, I am now pleased (...) to announce a major expansion of our editorial board to further promote that vision.Over the past two decades, the size of our board had declined significantly as a result of retirements and mortality, and so a restoration of the previous scale of editorial support was significantly overdue. In doing this, I have sought to protect and expand our international and interdisciplinary coverage in a way that honors the focus that Vicky gave the journal from the beginning, giving space to voices from the wider communities of concern impacted by ecological destruction and incorporating a broad and inclusive but critically engaged approach to the philosophical issues involved. Our new board includes members from a wider range of nations and disciplines, which should help us expand the journal’s reach while both manifesting and remaining faithful to the original mission that our founding editor set for it. In the process, we are welcoming a combination of new rising stars and well-established respected figures in environmental thought, and aiming to expand our sphere of influence well beyond our main subscriber base in North America. Our hope is that our new scholarly supporters will enable the journal to grow in tackling the newer and ever more complex issues and problems raised by climate change, biodiversity loss, and other ongoing ecological crises, while at the same time still remaining true to the spirit with which Vicky founded it.Readers, please join me in welcoming our new board members, who are listed in the front matter of this issue. We thank them immensely for their service and hope that their efforts will enable and support increased success for Ethics and the Environment. [End Page 1]Copyright © 2023 The Trustees of Indiana University... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:The Gethsemani Encounter: A Dialogue on the Spiritual Life by Buddhist and Christian MonasticsDavid G. HackettThe Gethsemani Encounter: A Dialogue on the Spiritual Life by Buddhist and Christian Monastics. Edited by Donald W. Mitchell and James Wiseman, O.S.B. New York: Continuum, 1997. 306 pp.Ever since the landmark meeting of Thomas Merton and the Dalai Lama in 1968, the Christian and Buddhist contemplative communities have been building toward the kind (...) of deeply spiritual encounter that is so ably narrated in this book. For five days in July of 1996, a pantheon of advanced spiritual practitioners, led by the Dalai Lama, met at Thomas Merton’s monastery in Kentucky to dialogue on the spiritual life. The resulting exchanges provided not only mutual aid on the spiritual journey but were themselves a spiritual path. In recounting this meeting, The Gethsemani Encounter marks a watershed in the spiritual dialogue between Christianity and Buddhism. [End Page 232]A history of interfaith contacts and the deeply spiritual character of intermonastic dialogue prepared the way for the success of this historic encounter. In 1978, ten years after the death of Thomas Merton, two dialogue commissions were created: the “Monastic Interreligious Dialogue” (MID) in North America, and the “Dialogue Inter-Monastic” (DIM) in Europe. These commissions fostered a rapid expansion in the number of nuns and monks engaged in interfaith dialogue. Christian monastics spent time living in Tibetan and Zen monasteries in the East, and Buddhist nuns and monks were guests of Christian monasteries in the West. These encounters gradually evolved into a profound discussion of the spiritual life in all its nuances and its implications for humankind.The inspiration for the Gethsemani Encounter came from the Dalai Lama. At the Parliament of the World’s Religions in 1993, during a morning session on “Emptiness and Kenosis,” the Tibetan leader suggested that the conversation continue in a monastic setting. His idea was to gather a small group of mature Buddhist and Christian monastics who are teachers of spirituality. They would dialogue about the practice of spirituality and its value for the world in a setting where they could also live, meditate, and celebrate together.A variety of Buddhists reflecting the diversity of contemporary Buddhist practices were invited to Gethsemani. These included Theravadin, Zen, and Tibetan monks from Asia and lay leaders from the emerging American Buddhist communities. Efforts were made to include women’s voices from each tradition. Most of the Buddhists who came to Gethsemani were living in Buddhist communities in the United States. The hope was that this meeting would catalyze future local encounters between Buddhist and Christian spiritual communities.The Christian monastics were primarily drawn from Benedictine and Trappist MID board members or advisors from Europe, North America, Asia, and Australia. Invited as well were the abbot general of the Trappist Order, the head of the Vatican’s Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue, and Bishop Joseph Gerry, O.S.B., to represent the National Conference of Catholic Bishops. The MID advisors also included some priests and lay practitioners—Catholic and Protestant—with experience in Buddhist dialogue. In the end, twenty-five Christian and twenty-five Buddhist spiritual leaders were invited to the Gethsemani Encounter by MID and the Dalai Lama.Reading through the talks and dialogues that compose this book provides an opportunity to enter into the spiritual adventure of discovery experienced by the participants. The first part presents the twenty-five short talks that were given during morning, afternoon, and evening sessions over the four full days of the encounter. Each of these talks was intended to provide a short and insightful glimpse into the dynamics of Buddhist and Christian spirituality. For students of the Buddhist-Christian dialogue, much of this material is familiar. But two elements are new: first, the variety of Buddhist and Christian perspectives that are brought to bear on such topics as “prayer and meditation” (where three different Buddhist and two Christian approaches are considered), and second, the organization of this material into six chapters that move outward from prayer to community to spirituality and society. As [End Page 233] the book progresses, there is a palpable movement away from comparative analysis for the sake... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Vanities of the Eye: Vision in Early Modern European CultureDallas G. Denery IIStuart Clark. Vanities of the Eye: Vision in Early Modern European Culture. Oxford-New York: Oxford University Press, 2007. Pp. xi + 415. Cloth, $75.00.A popular and pervasive historical narrative links the Renaissance development of linear perspective with Europe’s transition from a pre-modern to an early modern society. Erwin Panofsky gave this narrative its definitive form early (...) in the twentieth century and William Ivins boiled it down to a simple idea that served as the title of his most famous book. According to Ivins, single-point perspective, the artistic technique championed by Alberti and perfected in the paintings of Masaccio and Piero della Francesca, allowed for “the rationalization of sight.” In other words, it provided a mathematically and geometrically grounded method for accurately representing the external world. It is a powerful and seductive claim, one that has shaped generations of scholarly work. It is also, Stuart Clark contends in this important new book, patently wrong. Far from exhibiting a renewed or reinvigorated confidence in the accuracy and reliability of vision, sixteenth- and seventeenth-century philosophers, artists, theologians, and doctors worried that sight was susceptible, perhaps permanently so, to all sorts of debilitating derangements, displacements, and delusions.Rather than relate a history of progress, Clark offers a history of exhaustion, failure, and, ultimately, of rejection. Early modern intellectuals inherited a comprehensive theory of vision and cognition from their medieval predecessors known as perspectivist optics. This theory sought to secure the accuracy of human sense perception through regularized causal processes that linked things in the world with our various cognitive faculties. While some fourteenth-century intellectuals, most notably Nicolas of Autrecourt and Nicole Oresme, recognized structural deficiencies in this theory, their critiques were mostly ignored or treated as anomalies. Over the course of the next two and a half centuries, Clark argues, the challenges to this theory multiplied until it collapsed under their weight (20).Clark’s argument is straightforward and, as his evidence mounts, thoroughly convincing. Throughout each of the eight engrossing chapters that form the core of the book, Clark outlines a different threat, a different set of challenges that pointed out problems with the assumption that vision is trustworthy. The range and depth of those challenges are truly amazing. Doctors worried that imbalances in our humoral system, and especially in the black bile that causes melancholy, could render our visual perceptions dubious at best (ch. 2). Theologians, wary of the dangers of witchcraft and eager to prosecute its practitioners, obsessed over the cognitive threats that devils and demons posed to good Christians (ch. 4), while Protestant reformers relegated the entire tradition of Catholic miracles to the counterfeit illusions of the antichrist (ch. 5). For their part, artists believed that perspective undermined vision, depending as it does on the assumption that what we see is always relative, dependent upon our point of view (ch. 3).Clark structures much of his argument around George Hakewill’s 1608 book, The vanitie of the eye, an exposition on the natural, artificial, and demonic sources that forever render visual knowledge suspect. He could just as well have organized it around the opening pages of Descartes’s Meditations, and in many ways Clark’s book serves as a superb rumination on the sources of Descartes’s skeptical arguments. Unlike Etienne Gilson and, more recently, Richard Popkin, both of whom have done so much to open up the scholastic and early modern sources of Descartes’s skeptical thought experiments, Clark does not limit himself to philosophical lineages. Rather, he considers sources of visual skepticism that developed across an entire culture—in natural philosophy, medicine, art, religion, and literature (especially in Shakespeare’s Macbeth). Not only does the sheer volume and variety of such [End Page 103] sources help to explain Descartes’s urgent desire to overturn everything he had learned and begin again from the foundations, but it also contextualizes the specific arguments he employs. None of Descartes’s skeptical arguments were new and most were well known in the Middle Ages. What had changed over the intervening centuries, Clark contends, was how these arguments drew from... (shrink)