A woman's right to say no to a proposal of marriage, in defiance of her family and friends, was an essential feature of Victorian middle- and upper-class ideology, as it is represented in novels of the time. This right was based on the assumptions that falling in love is to some degree fortuitous, but that it is a permanent ontological change of selfhood. A good woman is justified in saying no even to an advantageous marriage proposal if she does not (...) love her suitor. Anthony Trollope's novels offer varied dramatizations of these assumptions, while Henry James's novels recount their incipient breakdown. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: I II III IV V.

Supererogation is the theory that some acts go beyond the call of duty. They are praiseworthy, but their omission is not blameworthy. Notice that supererogation has to do with praise and blame as well as with what is a duty or morally obligatory. Moral duty requires a moral system on the basis of which duty or obligation is assigned. Utilitarianism can provide a criterion of moral obligation, and it can also provide a criterion for moral praise and blame. However, there (...) is no necessity that the utilitarian criteria for praise and blame should be precisely correlated with its criteria of the morally obligatory and permissible. (shrink)

The negative consequences of physicians' failure to establish and maintain personal relationships with patients are at the heart of the humanistic crisis in medicine. To resolve this crisis, a new model of doctor-patient interaction is proposed, based on the ideas of Martin Buber's philosophy of dialogue. This model shows how the physican may successfully combine the personal (I-Thou) and impersonal (I-It) aspects of medicine in three stages. These Three Stages of Medical Dialogue include:1. An Initial Personal Meeting stage, which initiates (...) the doctor-patient relationship and involves mutual confirmation; 2. An Examination stage, which requires a shift from a personal to an impersonal style of interaction; 3. An Integration Through Dialogue or Healing Through Meeting Stage, which involves the integration of the impersonal medical data into the ongoing dialogue between doctor and patient, as a basis for shared decision-making. The use of the model, as well as common failures of doctor-patient dialogue are discussed. (shrink)

Journal of Social Philosophy, EarlyView.

AESTHETIC RELATIVITY Among the philosophical disciplines logic has the reputation of rigid and complete finality. It has been pronounced by no lesser..

In his Metrica, Hero provides four procedures for finding the area of a circular segment (with b the base of the segment and h its height): an Ancient method for when the segment is smaller than a semicircle, $$(b + h)/2 \, \cdot \, h$$ ( b + h ) / 2 · h ; a Revision, $$(b + h)/2 \, \cdot \, h + (b/2)^{2} /14$$ ( b + h ) / 2 · h + ( b / 2 (...) ) 2 / 14 ; a quasi-Archimedean method (said to be inspired by the quadrature of the parabola) for cases where b is more than triple h, $${\raise0.5ex\hbox{$\scriptstyle 4$} \kern-0.1em/\kern-0.15em \lower0.25ex\hbox{$\scriptstyle 3$}}(h \, \cdot \, b/2)$$ 4 / 3 ( h · b / 2 ) ; and a method of Subtraction using the Revised method, for when it is larger than a semicircle. He gives superficial arguments that the Ancient method presumes $$\pi = 3$$ π = 3 and the Revision, $$\pi = {\raise0.5ex\hbox{$\scriptstyle {22}$} \kern-0.1em/\kern-0.15em \lower0.25ex\hbox{$\scriptstyle 7$}}$$ π = 22 / 7. We are left with many questions. How ancient is the Ancient? Why did anyone think it worked? Why would anyone revise it in just this way? In addition, why did Hero think the Revised method did not work when $$b > 3\;h$$ b > 3 h? I show that a fifth century BCE Uruk tablet employs the Ancient method, but possibly with very strange consequences, and that a Ptolemaic Egyptian papyrus that checks this method by comparing the area of a circle calculated from the sum of a regular inscribed polygon and the areas of the segments on its sides as determined by the Ancient method with the area of the circle as calculated from its diameter correctly sees that the calculations do not quite gel in the case of a triangle but do in the case of a square. Both traditions probably could also calculate the area of a segment on an inscribed regular polygon by subtracting the area of the polygon from the area of the circle and dividing by the number of sides of the polygon. I then derive two theorems about pairs of segments, that the reviser of the Ancient method should have known, that explain each method, why they work when they do and do not when they do not, and which lead to a curious generalization of the Revised method. Hero’s comment is right, but not for the reasons he gives. I conclude with an exploration of Hero’s restrictions of the Revised method and Hero’s two alternative methods. (shrink)

This work is organized alphabetically and more like a dictionary than an encyclopedia.

Originally published in 1923, this book presents a study regarding the fundamental nature of ethical principles. The text constitutes an attempt to 'return to the Greek tradition in its method of studying ethics, the tradition of considering ethical questions in very close connection with politics'. This book will be of value to anyone with an interest in philosophy and ethics.