This chapter focuses on a potential application of Buddhist Madhyamaka thought to a recurrent problem in philosophy, East and West: the mind-body problem. The usual Buddhist defenses of mind are based on the work of a philosopher of the sixth and seventh centuries, Dharmakīrti. This philosophy advocates a very strong mind–body dualism based on a three-step argument. The chapter argues that this defense of mind will fare badly against modern eliminative materialism, which privileges a physical level of description as having (...) a convention-independent reality that denies a personal level of description. A Madhyamaka approach would hold more promise, demonstrating as it does that these levels of analysis are interdependent and equally necessary. Buddhist thought is shown to provide resources to resist an influential Western position. (shrink)

BACKGROUND -/- The need for detailed description and modeling of cells drives the continuous generation of large and diverse datasets. Unfortunately, there exists no systematic and comprehensive way to organize these datasets and their information. CELDA (Cell: Expression, Localization, Development, Anatomy) is a novel ontology for the association of primary experimental data and derived knowledge to various types of cells of organisms. -/- RESULTS -/- CELDA is a structure that can help to categorize cell types based on species, anatomical localization, (...) subcellular structures, developmental stages and origin. It targets cells in vitro as well as in vivo. Instead of developing a novel ontology from scratch, we carefully designed CELDA in such a way that existing ontologies were integrated as much as possible, and only minimal extensions were performed to cover those classes and areas not present in any existing model. Currently, ten existing ontologies and models are linked to CELDA through the top-level ontology BioTop. Together with 15.439 newly created classes, CELDA contains more than 196.000 classes and 233.670 relationship axioms. CELDA is primarily used as a representational framework for modeling, analyzing and comparing cells within and across species in CellFinder, a web based data repository on cells (http://cellfinder.org). -/- CONCLUSIONS -/- CELDA can semantically link diverse types of information about cell types. It has been integrated within the research platform CellFinder, where it exemplarily relates cell types from liver and kidney during development on the one hand and anatomical locations in humans on the other, integrating information on all spatial and temporal stages. CELDA is available from the CellFinder website: http://cellfinder.org/about/ontology. (shrink)

Many traditional Mahayana, and modern Tibetan, Buddhist texts relate meditation attainment to psychic ability. This teaching served as the hypothesis—that more advanced meditators would choose a psi target correctly, significantly more often than beginners. A basic free-response design was used in which a computer programme (PreCOG) chose a target picture at random from a 4-picture set. There were 25 sets, all pictures of Tibet. PreCOG guided the participants through the procedure, in which they aimed to become aware of the target. (...) 18 participants, Tibetan monks, nuns and Western Buddhist meditators, completed 8 sessions each. Half the sessions used a clairvoyance, and half a precognition, protocol. Age and years of meditation practice correlated significantly with the psi scores (Pearson r = 0.52, p < 0.05). This suggests that, as one practices meditation, psychic awareness begins to manifest more reliably. This result was confounded by a non-significant psi-missing trend. There was no significant difference between the clairvoyance and precognition trials (t-diff (142) = 0.800). There was, however, significant psi-missing from the group of Rinpoches (t = -2.09, 2tail p < 0.05). The three participants who scored most strongly in the psi-missing direction all reported childhood memories of previous lives as monks in Tibet. Keywords: psychic awareness—Tibetan Buddhists—meditation. (shrink)

This collection of essays, addresses, and one interview come from the years 1966-73 and cover a wide spectrum of interest, dealing with such general topics as 'The Absence of God in Modern Culture' and 'The Future of Christianity.'.

_The Budapest School: Beyond Marxism_ develops a systematic reconstruction of the post-Marxist projects of the Budapest School. It charts the evolution of these thinkers from their beginnings in the ‘renaissance of Marxism’ through to their contemporary critical theories of modernity.

In both continental and analytical philosophy, social ontology has emerged as a particularly lively and increasingly sophisticated area of debate. This essay explores the potential contribution that social-ontological thinking can make to the continued development of critical theory via a critical reading of Georg Lukács and the Possibility of Critical Social Ontology – a collection of essays edited by Michael J. Thompson and published by Brill as part of the Studies in Critical Social Sciences series. The essay argues that whilst (...) social ontology as such no doubt offers a fruitful avenue for contemporary critical theory, the later philosophy of Georg Lukács represents an untenable and antiquated theoretical resource for such endeavours. The conceptual and systematic barriers to the revitalisation of the late Lukács are explored with specific reference to Lukács’ specific interpretation of the paradigm of labour and, closely related to this, his philosophy of history. (shrink)

Christian physicians are in danger of losing the right of conscientious objection in situations they deem immoral. The erosion of this right is bolstered by the doctrine of "physician value neutrality" (PVN) which may be an impetus for the push to require physicians to refer for procedures they find immoral. It is only a small step from referral to compelling performance of these same procedures. If no one particular value is more morally correct than any other (a foundational PVN premise) (...) and a physician ought to be value neutral, than conscientious objection to morally objectionable actions becomes a thing of the past. However, the argument for PVN fails. Therefore, Christian physicians should state their values openly, which would allow patients the ability to choose like-minded physicians. Some possible responses to this erosion of conscientious objection include, disengagement from non-Christian institutions, the formation of distinctly Christian medical institutions and political action. However, for the Christian the initial focus should be on a life of holiness which requires each of us to avoid evil. (shrink)

Originally published in 1954, this is the first full-length account of the history of the Working Men’s College in St.Pancras, London. One hundred and fifty years on from its foundation in 1854, it is the oldest adult educational institute in the country. Self-governing and self-financing, it is a rich part of London’s social history. The college stands out as a distinctive monument of the voluntary social service founded by the Victorians, unchanged in all its essentials yet adapting itself to the (...) demands of each generation of students and finding voluntary and unpaid teachers to continue its tradition. (shrink)

This essay aims to continue to develop the thesis that the welter of political-economic, social, technological, and subjective transformations that characterized the final decades of the 20th century and the first decades of the 21st necessitate a re-thinking of the relationship between social criticism and the critique of political economy. Herein the focus is directed towards the critique of reification and industrial rationalization as developed in the works of Georg Lukács and Cornelius Castoriadis. Drawing on recent phenomenological and psychological analyses (...) of work within contemporary capitalism, I argue for both the historical obsolescence of the critique of reification as it has been traditionally understood and, consequently, the need for novel conceptual responses to the pressing needs of our time. (shrink)

ABSTRACT On 19 July 2019, Agnes Heller died whilst swimming in Lake Balaton outside Budapest. With her passing, the culture of humanity lost one of its most remarkable representatives. So too, contemporary critique lost a philosophical sensibility that is, today, within the neoliberal university, increasingly rare. It is this philosophical sensibility with which this essay is concerned. Through a critical reconstruction of Heller’s reading of three key figures from the philosophical tradition (Marx, Pascal and Kierkegaard), this essay both charts the (...) changes and continuities in Heller’s philosophy of concrete subjectivity and makes a case for its continuing relevance to the cultural project of philosophy. (shrink)

Nos três problemas preambulares e nas primeiras lições do Commentarium in De anima atribuído a Pedro Hispano, o autor: 1) discute a possibilidade de urna ciência da alma; 2) compara a ciência da alma com as outras ciências naturais; 3) identifica o método da ciência da alma. Daí emerge uma fundamentação da "ciência da alma" como "ciência do homem" e um modelo de organização das ciências, tendencialmente coincidente com a organização do corpus aristotélico, mas com a reivindicação da superioridade da (...) Ciência da alma por razões gnosiológicas. (shrink)

The only explicit indication in the text of Ammianus Marcellinus as to the historian's origin comes in the famous epilogue to the Res Gestae, that he had written ‘as once a soldier, and a Greek’ , supported by various passages in which he refers to the Greek language as his own. The evidence that, through the length and breadth of the Greek-speaking world, we should look to Syrian Antioch for his place of origin, is provided by the orator of that (...) city, Libanius, in a letter written late in 392 ‘to Marcellinus’. The purpose of this article is to set out explicitly the arguments for the identification of Libanius' correspondent as Ammianus Marcellinus in the light of the recent challenges to the accepted view offered by G. W. Bowersock, C. W. Fornara, and T. D. Barnes. Since the discussion requires that the letter be considered in detail, it is given here, in Foerster's Teubner text followed by a translation of Libanius' often very allusive language. (shrink)

Gabbay has gathered an enormous amount of results; some of them important and novel, others important but already known, many rather routine, however. The organization of this material shows grave defects, both in the exposition and in its logical structure. Intensional logic appears as a vast collection of (often duplicated) loosely connected results. This may be a true reflection of the present state of the subject, but it does not contribute to a better understanding of it, let alone advance it.