Discusses the work of G.I. Gurdjieff and his establishment of the Institute for the Harmonious Development of man, and examines the contributions of Gurdjieff's two major disciples, P.D. Ouspensky and A.R. Orage.

Pre-existing medical conditions and co-infections are common to all human populations, although the natures of the pre-existing conditions and the types of co-infections vary. For these reasons, among others, the arrival of a highly infectious pathogenic agent may differentially affect the disease burden in different sub-populations, as a function of varying combinations of endemic disease, chronic disease, genetic or epigenetic vulnerabilities, compromised immunological status, and socially determined risk exposure. The disease burden may also vary considerably by age cohort and socio-economic (...) status. The social consequences of infection, the medical sequelae, and the paths of recovery from infection may also vary, according to these variables. As a result, different sub-populations may have different experiences of a disease process, including when and how an epidemic comes to an end. This essay suggests that historians' engagement with path-breaking biological and medical anthropological research will allow new approaches to understanding disease processes that will enrich the study of epidemics and their endings. It is organized in three sections. The first discusses some general approaches to and assumptions about epidemics that are used by many historians. The second introduces new perspectives on the study of historical epidemics opened up by the medical anthropological concept of syndemic disease interactions and by an engagement with biological scientific perspectives. It briefly discusses two rural epidemics-one of anemia caused by the syndemic interaction of hookworm and malaria co-infections in early 20th-century British Malaya, and the other of rebound infections caused by the loss of acquired immunity to falciparum malaria in mid-20th-century Liberia-that illustrate, respectively, the utility of the concept of syndemic disease interactions and the centrality of immunological status in understanding epidemic outbreaks in these discrete populations. The third section addresses some of the research considerations involved in moving beyond the single pathogen model of epidemic disease. (shrink)

Human clinical research has become a huge economic enterprise (Morin et al. 2002; Noah 2002). Because the human subject at the center can be so easily marginalized, many commentators recommend spec...

Ibn Qutaybah. The Excellence of the Arabs. Edited by James E. Montgomery and Peter Webb, translated by Sarah Bowen Savant and Peter Webb. Library of Arabic Literature. New York: New York University Press, 2017. Pp. xxxiii + 297. $40.

Various exploration in astrophysics has revealed many breakthroughs nowadays, not only with respect to James Webb Telescope, but also recent finding related to water and ice deposits in the Moon surface. Those new findings seem to bring us to new questions related to origin of Earth, Moon and the entire Universe.

This paper conducts a Bayesian analysis of the Hubble tension, which addresses the discrepancy between local measurements of the Hubble Constant $$H_0$$ and the value predicted by the $$\Lambda$$ CDM model based on Cosmic Microwave Background data. By incorporating new, independent data from the James Webb Space Telescope released in August 2024, the analysis shows that, unlike before, there is no longer strong evidence to suggest that the $$\Lambda$$ CDM model is incorrect. As a result, the (...) Hubble tension appears to ease somewhat, indicating that the previously perceived crisis in cosmology may have been overstated, and the standard model remains robust. (shrink)

The standard model of cosmology is acclaimed in physics as accurate, robust, well-tested, our best scientific theory of the cosmos, but it has had serious anomalies for a while, including the Hubble tension, anomalous galaxies, and the completely unexplained nature of dark energy and dark matter. And lurking behind it all is the lack of a unified theory: General Relativity (GR) and quantum mechanics (QM) are inconsistent. Now startling new observations by the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) in (...) 2022 of the early universe present the strongest challenge yet to the standard model, and whispers have started that this shows there is something wrong with the fundamental theory, General Relativity itself. This would be a crisis for cosmology. But haven’t they tested this theory already, and shown it is correct? How could it turn out wrong at this late stage? Here we compare the standard cosmology with an alternative fundamental theory, that has a strikingly different overall cosmological behavior: a simple cyclic expansion function. It is simple and deterministic. There are only two or three general parameters. The interesting result is that this alternative cosmology: (A) closely matches the expansion observed and modelled through the CDM standard model, now going back to red-shifts of 5-15; and (B) it also predicts unexpected early galaxy formation now being reported by the JWST. The point here is not to try to prove this alternative theory however, but rather show how it compares to the conventional cosmology. This show us clearly how weak the empirical evidence for the standard model really is against a counterfactual fundamental theory. Some results established in science are robust against theory change, but we find the standard cosmological model and the implications drawn from it are not robust at all. (shrink)

Amajor shift in critical attitudes toward the arts took place in the eighteenth century. The fine arts were now looked upon as a group, divorced from the sciences and governed by their own rules. The century abounded with treatises that sought to establish the overriding principles that differentiate art from other walks of life as well as the principles that differentiate them from each other. This burst of scholarly activity resulted in the incorporation of aesthetics among the classic branches of (...) philosophy, heralding the cognitive turn in epistemology. Among the writings that initiated this turn, none were more important than the British contribution. The Arts in Mind brings together an annotated selection of these key texts. A companion volume to the editors' Tuning the Mind, which analyzed this major shift in world view and its historical context, The Arts in Mind is the first representative sampling of what constitutes an important school of British thought. The texts are neither obscure nor forgotten, although most histories of eighteenth-century thought treat them in a partial or incomplete way. Here they are made available complete or through representative extracts together with an editor's introduction to each selection providing essential biographical and intellectual background. The treatises included are representative of the changed climate of opinion which entailed new issues such as those of perception, symbolic function, and the role of history and culture in shaping the world. Contents include: Anthony Ashley Cooper, Third Earl of Shaftesbury, "Characteristics"; Francis Hutcheson, "Inquiry Concerning Beauty, Harmony and Design"; Hildebrand Jacob, "Of the Sister Arts: An Essay"; James Harris, "On Music, Painting and Poetry"; Charles Avison, "An Essay on Musical Expression"; James Beattie, "Essay on Poetry and Music as They Affect the Mind"; Daniel Webb, "Observations on the Correspondence between Poetry and Music"; Thomas Twining, "On Poetry Considered as an Imitative Art," "On the Different Senses of the Word Imitative as Applied to Music by the Ancients and by the Moderns"; Adam Smith, "Of the Nature of that Imitation which Takes Place in What are Called the Imaginative Arts." Ruth Katz is Emanuel Alexandre Professor of Musicology at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. She is co-editor with Carl Dahlhaus of Contemplating Music, a four-volume study of the philosophy of music. Ruth HaCohen is Clarica and Fred Davidson Senior Lecturer of Musicology at the Hebrew University. (shrink)

From the beginning, the implications of quantum theory for our most general understanding of the world have been a matter of intense debate. Einstein argues that the theory had to be regarded as fundamentally incomplete. Its inability, for example, to predict the exact time of decay of a single radioactive atom had to be due to a failure of the theory and not due to a permanent inability on our part or a fundamental indeterminism in nature itself. In 1964, John (...) Bell derived a theorem which showed that any deterministic theory which preserved locality would have certain consequences for measurements performed at a distance from one another. An experimental check seems to show that these consequences are not, in fact, realized. The correlation between the sets of events is much stronger than any local deterministic theory could allow. What is more, this stronger correlation is precisely that which is predicted by quantum theory. The astonishing result is that local deterministic theories of the classical sort seem to be permanently excluded. Not only can the individual decay not be predicted, but no future theory can ever predict it. The contributors in this volume wrestle with this conclusion. Some welcome it; others leave open a return to at lease some kind of deterministic world, one which must however allow something like action-at-a distance. How much lit it? And how can one avoid violating relativity theory, which excludes action-at-a-distance? How can a clash between the two fundamental theories of modern physics, relativity and quantum theory, be avoided? What are the consequences for the traditional philosophic issue of causality explanation and objectivity? One thing is certain; we can never return to the comfortable Newtonian world where everything that happened was, in principle, predictable and where what happened at one measurement site could not affect another set of measurements being performed light-years away, at a distance that a light-signal could not bridge. Contributors: James T. Cushing, Abner Shimony, N. David Mermin, Jon P. Jarrett, Linda Wessels, Bas C. van Fraassen, Jeremy Butterfield, Michael L. G. Redhead, Henry P. Stapp, Arthur Fine, R. I. G. Hughes, Paul Teller, Don Howard, Henry J. Folse, and Ernan McMullin. (shrink)

Review of Why Music Moves Us by Jeanette Bicknell.

(2000). Federal world government at the dawn of the third millennium: Old challenges and new opportunities. World Futures: Vol. 56, No. 1, pp. 41-106.

(1994). The rhetoric of science and the challenge of post‐liberal democracy. Social Epistemology: Vol. 8, Public Indifference to Population Issues, pp. 261-271.

The British idealists of the late 19th and early 20th century are best known for their contributions to metaphysics, logic, and political philosophy. Yet they also made important contributions to social and public policy, social and moral philosophy and moral education, as shown by this volume. Their views are not only important in their own right, but also bear on contemporary discussion in public policy and applied ethics. Among the authors discussed are Green, Caird, Ritchie, Bradley, Bosanquet, Jones, McTaggart, Pringle-Pattison, (...) Webb, Ward, Mackenzie, Hetherington, Muirhead, Collingwood and Oakeshott. The writings of idealist philosophers from Canada, South Africa, and India are also examined. Contributors include Avital Simhony, Darin Nesbitt, Carol A. Keene, Stamatoula Panagakou, David Boucher, Leslie Armour, Jan Olof Bengtsson, Thom Brooks, James Connelly, Philip MacEwen, Efraim Podoksik, Elizabeth Trott and William Sweet. (shrink)

James O. Young seeks to explain why we value music so highly. He draws on the latest psychological research to argue that music is expressive of emotion by resembling human expressive behaviour. The representation of emotion in music gives it the capacity to provide psychological insight--and it is this which explains a good deal of its value.

James Robert Ballantyne taught oriental languages in India for sixteen years, producing grammars of Hindi, Sanskrit and Persian, along with translations of Hindu philosophy. In 1859, for the use of Christian missionaries, he prepared a guide to Hinduism, in English and Sanskrit. Published in two volumes in 1852, Synopsis of Science was intended to introduce his Indian pupils to Western science by using the framework of Hindu Nyaya philosophy, which was familiar to them and which Ballantyne greatly respected. Volume (...) 1 proceeds through a series of aphorisms exemplifying Western logic, forms of argument, the workings of the body and the senses, basic astronomy, geography, laws of Newtonian motion, the action of liquids, pneumatics, acoustics and optics. The second part of the volume is a Sanskrit translation. Overall, the work serves as an excellent primary source on the educational aspects of British imperialism. (shrink)

Albert Einstein.--Bertrand Russell.--John Dewey.--R.A. Millikan.--Theodore Dreiser.--H.G. Wells.--Fridtjof Nansen.--Sir James Jeans.--Irving Babbitt.--Sir Arthur Keith.--J.T. Adams.--H.L. Mencken.--Julia Peterkin.--Lewis Mumford.--G.J. Nathan.--Hu Shih.--J.W. Krutch.--Irwin Edman.--Hilaire Belloc.--Beatrice Webb.--W.R. Inge.--J.B.S. Haldane.--Biographical notes. Note: This book was re-published by AMS Press, 1979.

James Mark Baldwin left a legacy that has yet to be fully examined, one with profound implications for science and the humanities. In some sense it paralleled that of his friend Charles Sanders Peirce, whose semiotics became understood only a century later. Baldwin was trying to make sense of complex biological and social processes that only now have come into the limelight as biological sciences have re-emerged in psychology. Baldwin's focus on development, based on the observation of his own (...) children and extrapolated to his general theoretical scheme, is fully in line with where contemporary biological sciences are heading. This is exemplified by the bounded flexibility of the work of the genetic system. The general principle of persistent exploration of the environment with the result of creating novelty, which was the core of Baldwin's theoretical system, has since the 1960s become the guiding idea in genetics. Contemporary developmental science is rooted in Baldwin's thinking. In his new introduction, Jaan Valsiner shows that Baldwin's Genetic Theory of Reality demonstrates how human beings are in their nature social beings, establishes an alternative conceptualization of evolutionary theory, and formulates a system of developmental logic, all of which serve as the foundation for developmental psychology as a whole. This is a work of social science rediscovery long overdue. (shrink)

"Michel Foucault's Force of Light" offers a comprehensive, chronological reading of Foucault's published, and many unpublished, writings. James Bernauer claims that Foucault's achievement was to have fashioned a series of inquiries that makes it possible to question the activity of thought itself as an ethical practice. Foucault's ethic historicizes Kant's great questions on knowledge, obligation, and hope. He asks not "What can I know?" but rather "How have my questions been produced? How has the path of my knowing been (...) determined?" Not "What ought I to know?" or "What may I hope for?" by "How have the parameters of my aspirations been defined?". (shrink)

It may seem reasonable, even inevitable, that architectural practice should be based on an understanding that architects, like lawyers and doctors, should discover their clients' needs and accommodate them to the best of their abilities. But current discussion within the legal and medical professions of the conflict between service to private individuals who can pay, and to the public who cannot, suggest an expanded or altered definition of professional responsibility. Actually, the conflict between public and private interest may be more (...) acute in architecture than in other professions: the kind of buildings architects design are costly and are made possible only by the wealth of a small segment of the population or the state, yet every one raised affects the lives of people other than the one who makes the program and pays the architect for his services. Furthermore, the decisions of architects are embodied in buildings that last for generations, even for millennia, so that the overwhelming majority of people in our culture live and work in places designed not only for other people but for other times and conditions. For this reason, even the "private" practice of architecture involves responsibilities to a widespread constituency. James S. Ackerman is the author of The Architecture of Michelango, Art and Archaeology, The Cortille del Belvedere, Palladio and Palladio's Villas and is professor of fine arts at Harvard University. He has contributed "On Judging Art without Absolutes" to Critical Inquiry. (shrink)

Originally published in in 1893, this book contains the text of the Socratic dialogue Protagoras, which discusses a variety of Sophistic and Socratic tenets, including the teachability of virtue. The dialogue also provides an interesting view on the connection between pederasty and education in ancient Athens. Notable Plato scholars James and Adele Adams present an introduction addressing the purpose and themes of the dialogue; a biography of Protagoras and extant fragments of his works are also included. This book will (...) be of value to anyone with an interest in the Platonic, Socratic or Sophistic philosophies. (shrink)

In conversation with James Ash, Pasi Väliaho discusses the relationship between video games, politics and the turn to affect for thinking about mediated experience. In doing so, both authors consider the promises and problematics of utilizing neuroscientific concepts for understanding modes of power that operate through the knots of image and sensation that make up contemporary media culture.

James Robert Ballantyne taught oriental languages in India for sixteen years, compiling grammars of Hindi, Sanskrit and Persian, along with translations of Hindu philosophy. In 1859, for the use of Christian missionaries, he prepared a guide to Hinduism, in English and Sanskrit. Published in two volumes in 1852, Synopsis of Science was intended to introduce his Indian pupils to Western science by using the framework of Hindu Nyaya philosophy, which was familiar to them and which Ballantyne greatly respected. This (...) second volume proceeds in similar style to the first: through a series of short paragraphs, Ballantyne introduces arithmetic, algebra, calculus, chemistry, botany, zoology, anatomy, physiology, mineralogy and geology. The second part of the volume is a Sanskrit translation. Overall, the work serves as an excellent primary source on the educational aspects of British imperialism. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:SPLUTTERING UP THE BEACH TO NINEVEH... James Alison Rio de Janeiro I. Fleeing from the Word Jonah, ifyou remember, was a most unwilling prophet. The word of God came to him, telling him to go and preach against the great city ofNineveh, for its wickedness had come up before God. Jonah immediately went in the opposite direction. Rather than heading across the fertile crescent to Nineveh, he rushed (...) down to Jaffa and booked passage on a ship. Scripture tells us that he went on board, to go with them to Tarshish, away from the presence of the Lord (Jon 1,3) Not only was Tarshish quite the wrong way to go, it was a serious attempt to get away from the presence of the Living God. Why was Jonah so frightened? What was it about Nineveh that scared him? We get a clue later, when Jonah gets cross with Nineveh for repenting on cue. He hated Nineveh. He wanted it to be destroyed. He knew it to be wicked. Why go somewhere which should be destroyed and shout at its inhabitants to change their ways? They will probably give the messenger a rough time! Jonah did not appreciate that he was being sent to Nineveh for the good ofthe people there, yes, but also for his own good. At the end ofthe story he tells God that he hadn't wanted to go because he knew God was a loving God, and was too 'This talk originated as a presentation for the third annual conference ofthe Roman Catholic Caucus of the Gay and Lesbian Christian Movement held in London in March 1999. James Alison109 angry at the thought that the people ofNineveh would get off so lightly. But we're not told that at this stage. Jonah is the son of Amittai, which is to say son of "My Truth." So the whole story is set up from the beginning as one in which someone who is wedded to their own truth comes to learn God's truth the hard way. He knows what is wrong with the gentile world, but was at first able to hear only half of the word of God. He heard it as he was able to receive it: as a stern word of rebuke that he was to pass on to others. That was the state of his soul. Luckily, God had chosen someone who, invincible as he was in his righteousness, knew perfectly well that it is a terrible thing to fall into the presence ofthe living God, and suspected, at some level ofhis being that if, he, Jonah were to obey God, God would certainly break through the carapace ofordered adhesion to true religion, and come into contact with a much more turbulent, stormy world, the world of shame and fear and hatred that is the underside ofall ordered righteousness. Shame is a compulsion which heeds only one command: flee! And Jonah fled. Thank heaven for Jonah's flight! Think how much more damage is caused by those who are not vulnerable to their own shame, who really do manage to fool themselves that their righteousness and God's are cut from the same cloth. Something in Jonah's being was vulnerable to the suspicion that the word ofthe living God would wreak havoc with his own carefully covered hatred and fear, the suspicion that that hatred ofothers and fear of himselfwere aspects ofthe same as yet unredeemed dimension ofhis own life. In that vulnerability was his flight, and through it, ultimately, he was reached so as to be taught how to be a bearer ofGod's word. Andrew Sullivan has a line which catches this dynamic exactly: "Shame forces you prematurely to run away from yourself; pride forces you prematurely to expose yourself. Most gay lives, I'm afraid, are full of an embarassing abundance ofboth."2 Faced with the prospect ofshouting at an incomprehending Nineveh with the hollow pride of those who love neither themselves nor those whom they must convince, Jonah, who knew at the root ofhis heart that he had been giveln something to say, went, as many of us do, into exile. Shame forced him prematurely to... (shrink)

"The discovery of the law of Evolution in the material world has prepared men for a knowledge of the law of cause and effect in the mental world.... In the realm of thought and deed, the good survives, for it is ''fittest;'' the evil ultimately perishes. To know that the ''perfect law'' of Causation is as all-embracing in mind as in matter, is to be relieved from all anxiety concerning the ultimate destiny of individuals and of humanity-''For man is man (...) and master of his fate'' and the will in man which is conquering the knowledge of natural law will conquer the knowledge of spiritual law.... In this volume I have tried to set down some words indicative of this Law and this Destiny, and the manner of its working and its building." - JAMES ALLEN - A Complete and Unabridged edition of James Allen''s book The Mastery of Destiny. Part of The Works of James Allen Series. Other Books by James Allen:- Above Life''s Turmoil All These Things Added As a Man Thinketh Byways of Blessedness Entering the Kingdom (Part of- "All These Things Added") Foundation Stones to Happiness and Success From Passion to Peace From Poverty to Power James Allen''s Book of Meditations for Every Day in the Year Light on Life''s Difficulties Man: King of Mind, Body and Circumstance Men and Systems Morning and Evening Thoughts Out from the Heart (Sequel to "As a Man Thinketh") Poems of Peace The Divine Companion The Eight Pillars of Prosperity The Heavenly Life (Part of-"All These Things Added") The Life Triumphant The Path to Prosperity (Part of-"From Poverty to Power") The Shining Gateway The Way of Peace (Part of-"From Poverty to Power") Through the Gate of Good. (shrink)

This book explores how the Hebraic and classical traditions forming our Western heritage combined from about 300 BCE to 300 CE. James Arieti investigates the principal causes of the merger in the common model of God that developed in the Greek philosophical schools, along with its ethical implications, and the shared portrayal in biblical, rabbinic, and postclassical literature of the compassionate warm character that we recognize as a mentsh.

James Thomas has made yet another valiant attempt to solve the problem in Spinoza of the relation between the infinite attributes of Substance, to which von Tschirnhausen drew attention in Eps. 64 and 65, and to which the answer offered by Spinoza in Ep. 66 seems unsatisfactory. Thomas sets out from an appreciative and fair summary of what I have written on the subject, and then offers an alternative interpretation of Ep. 66 which he says I do not consider. (...) He claims that his interpretation is consistent with my reading of Spinoza as an absolute idealist. I am not sure in what sense he thinks I attribute absolute idealism to Spinoza, but that is a question peripheral to what I wish to discuss here; for whether it is relevant or not, I fear Thomas’s proffered interpretation of Ep. 66 will not serve to resolve Tschirnhausen’s difficulties. (shrink)

Argues that the Holocaust has caused a mutation of the world. Our new world is Planet Auschwitz, an unworld with satellites separate and incommunicable. In this new world, the forces of nihilism are at work - e.g. terrorism, mass murder. Face-to-face with this destruction process, its administrators, and its survivors, we mutations must rewrite everything that has been projectively written about us in the old world. The tendency to repression keeps us from thinking, binding us to cynicism and nostalgia. The (...) response to this new world condition must be to remember the Holocaust - repression leads to indifference and destruction. (shrink)