This paper reviews the fate of the central ideas behind the complementary learning systems (CLS) framework as originally articulated in McClelland, McNaughton, and O’Reilly (1995). This framework explains why the brain requires two differentially specialized learning and memory systems, and it nicely specifies their central properties (i.e., the hippocampus as a sparse, pattern-separated system for rapidly learning episodic memories, and the neocortex as a distributed, overlapping system for gradually integrating across episodes to extract latent semantic structure). We review the (...) application of the CLS framework to a range of important topics, including the following: the basic neural processes of hippocampal memory encoding and recall, conjunctive encoding, human recognition memory, consolidation of initial hippocampal learning in cortex, dynamic modulation of encoding versus recall, and the synergistic interactions between hippocampus and neocortex. Overall, the CLS framework remains a vital theoretical force in the field, with the empirical data over the past 15 years generally confirming its key principles. (shrink)

This paper comprises three sections. First, we offer a traditional defence of deontology, in the manner of, for example, W.D. Ross (1965). The leading idea of such a defence is that the right is independent of the good. Second, we modify the now standard account of the distinction, in terms of the agent-relative/agentneutral divide, between deontology and consequentialism. (This modification is necessary if indirect consequentialism is to count as a form of consequentialism.) Third, we challenge a value-based defence of deontology (...) proposed by Quinn (1993), Kamm (1989, 1992), and Nagel (1995). (shrink)

Knight has shown how the moral growth of medical students involves a spiritual journey. He may, however, present too sanguine a portrayal of the extent to which the medical education environment promotes this moral and spiritual growth. Medical school may indeed be more abusive than supportive. Admitting more women to medical school and teaching more humanities courses, while worthwhile, will not necessarily promote the goals that Knight appropriately advocates.

In Memories and Portraits: Explorations in American Thought, H. G. Callaway embeds his distinctive contextualism and philosophical pluralism within strands of history and autobiography, spanning three continents. Starting in Philadelphia, and reflecting on the meaning of home in American thought, he offers a philosophically inspired narrative of travel and explorations, in Europe and Africa, illuminating central elements of American thought—partly out of diverse foreign and domestic reactions and fascinating cultural contrasts. -/- This book is of interest for the contemporary interplay (...) of analytic philosophy with American pragmatism and for those focused on the interaction of European and Anglo-American thought and society. In this book, the formalism of analytic philosophy encounters a logically articulate version of the contextualism implicit in the pragmatist tradition; and a deep and abiding interest in natural science is augmented by a more literary account of the social and cultural contexts of inquiry—encountered in many years of travel and life abroad. The final chapter, employing a methodological naturalism, brings the perspectives and lessons, from near and far, back home for renewed reflection. (shrink)

The influence of Kant's philosophy has been, and continues to be, so profound and so widespread as to have become imperceptible. Philosophical inquiry within both the ‘analytic’ and the ‘continental’ traditions is unthinkable without the lexical and conceptual resources bequeathed by Kant. Even outside philosophy, in the humanities, social sciences and natural sciences, Kantian concepts and structures of argument are ubiquitous. Anyone practicing literary or social criticism is contributing to the Kantian tradition; anyone reflecting on the epistemological implications of their (...) work will find themselves doing so within parameters established by Kant. Indeed, many contemporary debates, whether in aesthetics, literary or political theory, show a peculiar tendency to mutate into disputes in Kant exegesis. All in all, in the less than 200 years since the death of its author, Kantian philosophy has established itself as an indispensable point of intellectual orientation. (shrink)

The most famous sentence in Igor Stravinsky’s autobiography reads: “Music is by its very nature powerless to express anything at all.” When it appeared, this sentence surprised his audience. After all, Stravinsky had composed some of the most expressive music of the twentieth century, from the lyrical Petrouchka to the dramatic Le sacre du printemps to the elegaic Symphony of Psalms. But ever the polemicist, Stravinsky was in actuality blasting those whom he regarded as his aesthetic opponents, such as the (...) followers of Richard Wagner; such “impurists” were always marshaling music in the service of extramusical ends, from national solidarity to religious freedom. Seeking to repair a perceived imbalance, Stravinsky portrayed the musician as a craftsman whose materials of pitch and rhythm in themselves harbor no more expression than the carpenter’s beams or the jeweler’s stone. (shrink)

The influence of Kant's philosophy has been, and continues to be, so profound and so widespread as to have become imperceptible. Philosophical inquiry within both the ‘analytic’ and the ‘continental’ traditions is unthinkable without the lexical and conceptual resources bequeathed by Kant. Even outside philosophy, in the humanities, social sciences and natural sciences, Kantian concepts and structures of argument are ubiquitous. Anyone practicing literary or social criticism is contributing to the Kantian tradition; anyone reflecting on the epistemological implications of their (...) work will find themselves doing so within parameters established by Kant. Indeed, many contemporary debates, whether in aesthetics, literary or political theory, show a peculiar tendency to mutate into disputes in Kant exegesis. All in all, in the less than 200 years since the death of its author, Kantian philosophy has established itself as an indispensable point of intellectual orientation. (shrink)

The prelims comprise: Half Title Page Blackwell Philosopher Dictionaries Title Page Copyright Page For everyone at 12 Willow Lane Dedication Table of Contents Preface and acknowledgments.

1. The principal question I want to raise is that of the interpretation of what you call Parmenides' "wildly paradoxical conclusions about the impossibility of plurality and change." An argument that leads to a truly paradoxical conclusion is always open to construction as a reductio ad absurdum. And the biographical tradition represents Parmenides--quite unlike Heraclitus, for instance--as a reasonable and even practically effective man, not at all a fanatic. It therefore seems natural to ask, if he maintained a paradoxical doctrine, (...) whether it did not possess for him an interpretation that made some sense. Further, setting aside this not very weighty prima facie argument, I think the search for plausible interpretations is worthwhile in any case: for to make a rational assessment of the historical evidence one needs the widest possible survey of hypotheses to choose among; since conclusions in such matters are always uncertain, a list of possibilities may retain a kind of permanent value, as the best we can do; and readings which are even dismissed as unsound on adequate critical grounds may still be of interest, both for the understanding of historical influence--I have in mind in the present case especially Parmenides' influence on Plato--and for our own philosophical edification. (shrink)

It has long been known that there is a significant connection between Aphrodite and Semitic goddesses. In Walter Burkert's recent words, ‘Behind the figure of Aphrodite there clearly stands the ancient Semitic goddess of love, Ishtar-Astarte.’ This was already recognized by Herodotus and Philo of Byblos. I want here to note a curious and striking item of connection that has not been noticed.

Cranial measurements and somatotype indices were compared in two groups of patients, one with recurrent depressive illness and the other suffering from a first solitary attack of depression. Certain statistically significant differences in stature, somatotype and cranial measurements emerged; the group with recurrent episodes of depression tended to be shorter and more brachycephalic than those with solitary episodes of depression.

Richard Swinburne (in his "Responsibility and Atonement") argues for a sacrificial version of the Atonement, in which the individual penitent offers the life of Christ to God in (partial) reparation for his sins. I argue that any version of this account is both conceptually incoherent and morally unsatisfying and offer in its place a version of the exemplary theory of the Atonement which, I claim, meets the conditions he lays down for any satisfactory account.