“Much as I dislike the idea of ages, I think a good case can be made that science has now moved from an Age of Reductionism to an Age of Emergence, a time when the search for ultimate causes of things shifts from the behavior of parts to the behavior of the collective” (Laughlin 2005 , p. 208). This quotation by Nobel laureate in physics, Robert B. Laughlin, in his recent book, A Different Universe , raises interesting scientific and philosophical (...) issues. Bench chemists continue successfully to synthesize new compounds and report results through quantitative and structural analyses of constitutive elements. The whole continues to be understood by analysis of the parts. The relatively recent science of emergence comes with a different perspective: how to explain novel, irreducible, and unpredictable appearances in cosmic evolution? New wholes seem to be more that the sum of their parts. How do these wholes come to exist? Do classical concepts of matter satisfy the science of emergence? Descriptions of nature’s phenomena that challenge classical interpretations of the “Age of Reductionism” are presented to stimulate possible new scientific and philosophical concepts for an age of reductionism and emergence. (shrink)

THE LIFE Of FRANCIS BACON, LORD HIGH CHANCELLOR OF ENGLAND. THE ancient Egyptians had a law, which ordained that the actions and characters of their dead ...

Fierce debates surround the conceptualization and measurement of job-related distress in occupational health science. The use of burnout as an index of job-related distress, though commonplace, has increasingly been called into question. In this paper, we first highlight foundational problems that undermine the burnout construct and its legacy measure, the Maslach Burnout Inventory. Next, we report on advances in research on job-related distress that depart from the use of the burnout construct. Tracing the genesis of the burnout construct, we observe (...) that burnout’s definition was preestablished rather than derived from a rigorous research process and the MBI has little in the way of a theoretical or empirical foundation. Historical analysis suggests that the burnout construct was cobbled together from unchallenged personal impressions and anecdotal evidence before getting reified by the MBI. This state of affairs may account for many of the disconcerting problems encountered in burnout research. We close our paper by presenting the Occupational Depression Inventory, a recently developed instrument reflective of a renewed approach to job-related distress. The ODI has demonstrated robust psychometric and structural properties across countries, sexes, age groups, occupations, and languages. The instrument addresses job-related distress both dimensionally and categorically. A dimensional approach can be useful, for instance, in examining the dynamics of etiological processes and symptom development. A categorical approach can serve screening and diagnostic purposes and help clinicians and public health professionals in their decision-making. It is concluded that the ODI offers occupational health specialists a promising way forward. (shrink)

This anthology contains essays by a distinguished group of British and American scholars prominent in the field of medieval philosophy. Setting high standards of clarity and exactness, the papers reflect current analytic, formalistic, and traditional methods of philosophy applied to topics such as logic, linguistics, and the philosophy of the mind.

James Moore states that "some of the most distinctive and central arguments of Hutcheson's philosophy - the importance of ideas brought to mind by the internal senses, the presence in human nature of calm desires, of generous and benevolent instincts - will be found to emerge in the course of these writings.""--Jacket.

The Novum Organum, (or Novum Organum Scientiarum - "New Instrument of Science"), is a philosophical work by Francis Bacon, originally published in 1620. The title is a reference to Aristotle's work Organon, which was his treatise on logic and syllogism. In Novum Organum, Bacon details a new system of logic he believes to be superior to the old ways of syllogism. This is now known as the Baconian method.

We investigate the notion of relevance as it pertains to ‘commonsense’, subjunctive conditionals. Relevance is taken here as a relation between a property (such as having a broken wing) and a conditional (such as birds typically fly). Specifically, we explore a notion of ‘causative’ relevance, distinct from ‘evidential’ relevance found, for example, in probabilistic approaches. A series of postulates characterising a minimal, parsimonious concept of relevance is developed. Along the way we argue that no purely logical account of relevance (even (...) at the metalevel) is possible. Finally, and with minimal restrictions, an explicit definition that agrees with the postulates is given. (shrink)

This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work was reproduced from the original artifact, and remains as true to the original work as possible. Therefore, you will see the original copyright references, library stamps (as most of these works have been housed in our most important libraries around the world), and other notations in the work. This work is in the public domain (...) in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. As a reproduction of a historical artifact, this work may contain missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant. (shrink)

This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work was reproduced from the original artifact, and remains as true to the original work as possible. Therefore, you will see the original copyright references, library stamps (as most of these works have been housed in our most important libraries around the world), and other notations in the work.This work is in the public domain in (...) the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work.As a reproduction of a historical artifact, this work may contain missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant. (shrink)

In this paper we explore a class of belief update operators, in which the definition of the operator is compositional with respect to the sentence to be added. The goal is to provide an update operator that is intuitive, in that its definition is based on a recursive decomposition of the update sentence’s structure, and that may be reasonably implemented. In addressing update, we first provide a definition phrased in terms of the models of a knowledge base. While this operator (...) satisfies a core group of the benchmark Katsuno Mendelzon update postulates, not all of the postulates are satisfied. Other Katsuno Mendelzon postulates can be obtained by suitably restricting the syntactic form of the sentence for update, as we show. In restricting the syntactic form of the sentence for update, we also obtain a hierarchy of update operators with Winslett’s standard semantics as the most basic interesting approach captured. We subsequently give an algorithm which captures this approach; in the general case the algorithm is exponential, but with some not unreasonable assumptions we obtain an algorithm that is linear in the size of the knowledge base. Hence the resulting approach has much better complexity characteristics than other operators in some situations. We also explore other compositional belief change operators: erasure is developed as a dual operator to update; we show that a forget operator is definable in terms of update; and we give a definition of the compositional revision operator. We obtain that compositional revision, under the most natural definition, yields the Satoh revision operator. (shrink)

This is a response to the letter to the editor “Prioritizing the Prevention of Early Deaths during Covid‐19,” by Govind Persad.

This paper traces the development of a deliberate and intense emphasis on visuality in literary representation of the second through fourth centuries C.E., resulting in a new cultural phenomenon: attributing the characteristics and functions of images to living persons. Calling on a range of sources from Lucian's Eikones to the Life of St. Daniel the Stylite and recent scholarship in art history and critical theory, the paper analyzes a series of interfaces between verbal and visual representation in terms of an (...) active transaction between viewer and viewed to construct meaning and establish and communicate social power. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Truthful Fiction: New Questions to Old Answers on Philostratus’ Life of ApolloniusJames A. FrancisWithin the past twenty years four extensive works have appeared treating Philostratus’ Life of Apollonius of Tyana (VA) from various literary, historical, and cultural perspectives. These include E. L. Bowie’s “Apollonius of Tyana: Tradition and Reality,” Maria Dzielska’s Apollo-nius of Tyana in Legend and History, Graham Anderson’s Philostratus: Biography and Belles Lettres in the Third Century (...) A.D., and my own lengthy chapter in Subversive Virtue: Asceticism and Authority in the Second–Century Pagan World.1 The popularity of what has often been considered an “offbeat” text is striking—and largely explicable given concurrent interest in such subjects as the Second Sophistic, the novel, holy men, and asceticism. At this juncture it is thus appropriate to ask: how far have these studies advanced our appreciation and understanding of this text? In answer to this question, I propose first to critique the assumptions and methods of this body of work on VA and, second, to suggest that new insights into the nature of ancient fiction would provide both a resolution to old scholarly impasses and a more fruitful agenda for research.Little is known about the historical Apollonius. He must have been born early in the first century c.e. in Tyana in Cappadocia and died sometime during or after the reign of Nerva (96–98). So little remains of sources prior to VA that the most that can be said further both with certainty and without fear of “contamination” from posthumous representations is that Apollonius appears to have been a wandering ascetic/philosopher/wonderworker of a type common to the eastern part of the early empire.2 Philostratus’ work, which appeared a century after [End Page 419] the death of its hero, is usually thought to have been published sometime after the death of the empress Julia Domna in 217.3 For a biography VA is extraordinarily long, eight books requiring two Loeb volumes. The work begins with a description of the birth of a “greater than Pythagoras” (1.2) and one who would “approach the gods” (1.5), then follows Apollonius’ prodigious youth through his devotion to piety and learning, especially in regard to the god Asclepius. With his early training perfected, Apollonius sets out to discover the source of piety and wisdom among the Brahmans of India, which allows Philostratus to provide his reader with two and one–half books full of travel, adventure, and esoteric philosophy.4 It is at the very beginning of this journey, while in Nineveh (1.19), that Apollonius first meets his lifelong companion and disciple Damis. Philostratus asserts that Damis kept a record of Apollonius’ ideas, discourses, and prophecies and that a descendant of Damis’ family presented these to Julia Domna (1.3). The empress, in turn, gave these “tablets” (deltoi) to Philostratus with the command that he recast them in more appropriate literary style.5 It is these memoirs which, according to Philostratus, form the authoritative basis of his own work.Upon his return from India, Apollonius is acclaimed by the Greek cultural world and becomes actively involved in the affairs of the cities of Asia Minor and Greece (4.2–33), even journeying to Rome to confront Nero (4.35–47), in an episode which presages Apollonius’ climactic [End Page 420] confrontation with Domitian. He journeys throughout the Mediterranean world, discoursing on true philosophy and religion, preaching Greek cultural ideals, prophesying, and performing the occasional miracle. He visits the gymnosophists of Egypt, and reaches the height of his reputation when Vespasian summons him to Alexandria to solicit his advice and blessing upon accession to imperial dignity (5.27–41). In the final two books, Apollonius is arrested and imprisoned by the unworthy son of Vespasian. Brought before Domitian, he refutes the accusations made against him and, as proof of both his innocence and his superior philosophical nature, simply vanishes from sight and materializes at the coast, where the faithful Damis has booked passage back to Greece. The episode allows Philostratus to deliver a reprise of the entire work and a virtual apologia in the form of a formal defense speech... (shrink)

Ekphrasis has been a popular topic in recent years among scholars of both classical and later literature. The latter have been particularly interested in the modern definition of ekphrasis as a description of artwork and the development of global definitions and theories. Ancient ekphrasis, however, was much broader in scope. By examining Hephaestus' automaton handmaids and the shield of Achilles in the Iliad, along with the Pandora stories in the works of Hesiod, we can illustrate the nature and character of (...) ancient ekphrasis in ways that call into question modern theories and demonstrate the vibrancy and complexity of even its earliest examples in Greek literature. (shrink)

Volume 20, Issue 7, July 2020, Page 109-111.

When the Covid‐19 pandemic reached the United States in spring 2020, many states and hospitals announced crisis standards of care plans that used age as a categorical exclusion criterion. Such age choosing was quickly flagged as discriminatory, and so some states and hospitals shifted to embedding age as a tiebreaker deeper in their plans. Different rationales were given for using age as a tiebreaker: that younger patients were more likely to survive than older patients, that saving younger patients would save (...) more life years, and that younger patients deserved a chance to live through life's stages. We provide a critical analysis of these three rationales, noting the differences between them, and then questioning the ethical and legal justifications for such age choosing. (shrink)

The study of landscape and place has become an increasingly fertile realm of inquiry in the humanities and social sciences. In this new book of essays, selected from presentations at the first annual meeting of the Society for Philosophy and Geography, scholars investigate the experiences and meanings that inscribe urban and suburban landscapes. Gary Backhaus and John Murungi bring philosophy and geography into a dialogue with a host of other disciplines to explore a fundamental dialectic: while our collective and personal (...) activity modifies the landscape, in turn, the landscape modifies human identities, and social and environmental relations. Whether proposing a peripatetic politics, conducting a sociological analysis of building security systems, or critically examining the formation of New York City's municipal parks, each essay sheds distinctive light on this fascinating and engaging aspect of contemporary environmental studies. (shrink)

Insight, by F. H. Parker.--Why be uncritical about the life-world? By H. B. Veatch.--Homage to Saint Anselm, by R. Jordan.--Art and philosophy, by J. M. Anderson.--The phenomenon of world, by R. R. Ehman.--The life-world and its historical horizon, by C. O. Schrag.--The Lebenswelt as ground and as Leib in Husserl: somatology, psychology, sociology, by E. Paci.--Life-world and structures, by C. A. van Peursen.--The miser, by E. W. Straus.--Monetary value and personal value, by G. Schrader.--Individualisms, by W. L. McBride.--Sartre the individualist, (...) by W. Desan.--The nature of social man, by M. Natanson.--The problem of the will and philosophical discourse, by P. Ricoeur.--Structuralism and humanism, by M. Dufrenne.--The illusion of monolinear time, by N. Lawrence.--Can grammar be thought? By J. M. Edie.--The existentialist critique of objectivity, by S. J. Todes and H. L. Dreyfus.--Bibliography (p. 391-400). (shrink)

In addition to James Mill's Article on Education, this volume includes Extracts from John Stuart Mill's Autobiography and J.S. Mill's Inaugural Address at St Andrews.

Francis Bacon, the English philosopher, statesman and jurist, is best known for developing the empiricist method which forms the basis of modern science. Bacon's writings concentrated on philosophy and judicial reform. His most significant work is the Instauratio Magna comprising two parts - The Advancement of Learning and the Novum Organum. The first part is noteworthy as the first major philosophical work published in English. James Spedding and his co-editors arranged this fourteen-volume edition, published in London between 1857 (...) and 1874, not in chronological order but by subject matter, so that different volumes would appeal to different audiences. The material is divided into three parts: philosophy and general literature; legal works; and letters, speeches and tracts relating to politics. Volume 1, published 1857, contains the biography by Bacon's secretary, William Rawley, and part 1 of the philosophical works included in the Instauratio Magna. (shrink)