Biomedical ontologies not only capture a wealth of biological knowledge but also provide a representational system to support the integration and retrieval of biological information that shed light...

The Christian and Islamic doctrine of the VIRGIN BIRTH claim God asexually impregnated the Virgin Mary with Jesus, Mary’s impregnation was fully consensual (VIRGIN CONSENT), and God never acts immorally (DIVINE GOODNESS). First, I show that God’s actions and Mary’s background beliefs undermine her consent by virtue of coercive incentives, Mary’s comparative powerlessness, and the generation of moral conflicts. Second, I show that God’s nondisclosure of certain reasonably relevant facts undermines Mary’s informed consent. Third, I show that a recent attempt (...) by Jack Mulder to rescue VIRGIN CONSENT fails. As DIVINE GOODNESS and VIRGIN CONSENT are more central to orthodoxy, Christians and Muslims have powerful reason to reject VIRGIN BIRTH. (shrink)

In a recent article, Jack Mulder, Jr., gives a Plantinga-style defense of the Virgin Mary’s free consent to bear Jesus at the Annunciation. Against Mulder, I argue that a theodicy (rather than a defense) is necessary to undermine my arguments, that Mulder’s Catholic appeal to Mary’s Immaculate Conception amounts to a kind of freedom-undermining metaphysical grooming, and therefore Marian consent remains invalid.

The current debate over systematicity concerns the formal conditions a scheme of mental representation must satisfy in order to explain the systematicity of thought.1 The systematicity of thought is assumed to be a pervasive property of minds, and can be characterized (roughly) as follows: anyone who can think T can think systematic variants of T, where the systematic variants of T are found by permuting T’s constituents. So, for example, it is an alleged fact that anyone who can think the (...) thought that John loves Mary can think the thought that Mary loves John, where the latter thought is a systematic variant of the former. (shrink)

We report the identification of a recurrent, 520-kb 16p12.1 microdeletion associated with childhood developmental delay. The microdeletion was detected in 20 of 11,873 cases compared with 2 of 8,540 controls and replicated in a second series of 22 of 9,254 cases compared with 6 of 6,299 controls. Most deletions were inherited, with carrier parents likely to manifest neuropsychiatric phenotypes compared to non-carrier parents. Probands were more likely to carry an additional large copy-number variant when compared to matched controls. The clinical (...) features of individuals with two mutations were distinct from and/or more severe than those of individuals carrying only the co-occurring mutation. Our data support a two-hit model in which the 16p12.1 microdeletion both predisposes to neuropsychiatric phenotypes as a single event and exacerbates neurodevelopmental phenotypes in association with other large deletions or duplications. Analysis of other microdeletions with variable expressivity indicates that this two-hit model might be more generally applicable to neuropsychiatric disease. © 2010 Nature America, Inc. All rights reserved. (shrink)

Throughout Mary Shelley’s early life, she was exposed to numerous well-known and influential people regarding cultural, political, and socio-economic matters. As she began writing, these influences undoubtedly played a role in her narrative. Her novel, _Frankenstein_, written during the time of the first Industrial Revolution in Britain, was one such novel that exhibited her political and economic influences through science fiction. This article addresses many of those influences, including the introduction of the machine into manufacturing. It further addresses how Frankenstein’s (...) Monster may have been one of the first created forms of artificial intelligence (AI). We further expound upon many economic concepts that have persisted through time and are relevant today given the faciliatory aspects, as well as the uncertainty, of AI. We relate these through the literary piece _Frankenstein_ to explore how a two-century-year-old tale provides a blueprint for understanding the conflict among humans and machines and provides a roadmap for harmonization in the past, present, and future. (shrink)

William Blake and Zadie Smith reached strikingly similar critical positions towards philosophical trends current in their respective eras. Both excoriate those who, for selfish ends, disparage beauty and in so doing sabotage justice, love, joy and genuine freedom. Smith’s On Beauty, like Blake’s America: A Prophecy and Visions of the Daughters of Albion, indicts the reprehensible intellectual discourses of the day that undermine human happiness and corrupt the social order. Whereas Blake critiqued the rights revolutions set in (...) motion by Thomas Paine, William Godwin, Mary Wollstonecraft and others from a more broadly moral and future-oriented angle than has generally been recognized (as Saree Makdisi has shown), Smith wittily dramatizes that same vision through a huge range of up-to-date ideological discourses and antagonisms–many of them descended from Paine et al.–to refurbish Blake’s particular brand of radical antinomianism and to celebrate much the same optimistic spirit that Blake invested in America and Visions. Indeed, Smith’s novel anticipates and critiques ab ovo the sweepingenthusiasms that are animating current uprisings worldwide. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Philosophy of Music Education Review 12.1 (2004) 67-70 [Access article in PDF] Response to Mary J. Reichling, "Intersections: Form, Feeling, and Isomorphism" David Stevenson Vassalboro, Maine Mary J. Reichling's essay regarding the three concepts, form, feeling, and isomorphism, is lucid, well structured, and aptly supported by research of other music education philosophers. She states her purpose in the opening paragraph: "to examine and to elucidate various aspects of these (...) three concepts in her [Susanne Langer's] writing, as they are fundamental to an understanding of her aesthetic theory and to the construction of a philosophy of music and music education."A philosophy of music education must be the focus in all ensuing debate, and must remain of paramount importance. Arguments, especially dialectic arguments, are not won or lost; they merely strip away the outer garments until more and more of the truth is exposed. My thoughts regarding Reichling's essay are offered in this vein.Reichling amply makes the point that music is a dynamic moving form. She asserts that "Langer argues that form is not separable from content," clarifying further by saying that "By content Langer is designating the form's import or meaning." And she offers other examples of dynamic, moving forms, among them, "forms created by movements of clouds or fog through the mist and early light." [End Page 67]At this point, perhaps interjecting the notion of perception is in order. I would suggest that the cloud formations offer no content or meaning outside of the viewer's perceptions or imagination. Music (art), being the nebulous subject that it is, ensconced in subjectivity and steeped in perception, both interpersonal and intrapersonal at the same time, exists to be taken by individuals, each at his or her own level of accomplishment, understanding, and interest. Therefore, does the meaning inhere in the form, as Langer and Reichling assert, or is it assigned by the listener (in the case of music) or by the viewer (in the case of the cloud formation)? "If the doors of perception were cleansed every thing would appear to man as it is: infinite."1 William Blake's observation notwithstanding, the truth is that perception is the only thing that we have with which to view our existence. I believe that there is such a thing as absolute truth, and that reality does exist. However, we mere mortals lack the ability to view the world through anything other than our own perceptions. The knowledge or meaning gained through contemplation of the form is, in all likelihood, quite different for each observer.Likewise, imagination and conceptual ability play a role in interpreting what the senses have perceived. Langer, and by quotation, Reichling, offers the notion of a red dot placed on the rim of a spinning wheel that appears to the viewer as a red circle. "When the spinning stops, the form, the red circle, evaporates. Did it really exist? Does it have ontological status? Is it merely an illusion?" I asked my students to close their eyes and imagine a spinning wheel with a red dot placed on the rim. I asked them, "As the wheel spins, do you see the dot?" The answer was that they saw a red circle. Did they really see a red circle, or even a spinning wheel? Of course not, we were in a music classroom. Yet they were able to conceptualize or imagine the image, and I would suggest that that carries more weight in the realm of art than does actual ontological status.The problem with the experiment of the preceding paragraph is that "Langer argues that form is not separable from content, writing that it is not possible 'to divorce the logical form from its one embodiment or expression.'" In the subsequent paragraph Reichling states, When the music stops, when the ballet is concluded, when the play ends, when the wheel stops spinning, memory may remain but the content (content as meaning-my parenthetical interjection), the feeling, the red circle, the image the dancer created is gone. Is this illogical or has knowledge... (shrink)

Book reviewed in this article: Ezekiel 2: A Commentary on the Book of the Prophet Ezekiel, Chapters 25–48. By Walther Zimmerli. The Prophets, Vol. II: The Babylonian and Persian Periods. By Klaus Koch. Intertestamental Literature by Martin McNamara. Palestinian Judaism and the New Testament by Martin McNamara. Jesus and the World of Judaism. By Geza Vermes. The Rediscovery of Jesus's Eschatological Discourse. By David Wenham. Sexism and God Talk: Towards a Feminist Theology. By Rosemary Ruether. In Memory of Her: A (...) Feminíst Theological Reconstruction of Christian Origins. By Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza. Equal Woman: A Christian Feminist Perspective. By Myrtle Langley. Sexual Desire and Love, Origins and History of the Christian Ethic of Sexuality and Marriage. By Eric Fuchs. What Are They Saying about Peace and War? By Thomas A. Shannon. The Dangers of Deterrence: Philosophers on Nuclear Strategy Edited by Nigel Blake and K. Pole. The Cross and the Bomb: Christian Ethics and the Nuclear Debate. Edited by Francis Bridger. Foundations of Ethics. Edited by Leroy S. Rouner. Freud and Human Nature. By Ilham Dilman. What is a Law of Nature By D.M. Armstrong. Bentham. By Ross Harrison. Locke. By John Dunn. Leibniz. By G. Macdonald Ross. Berkeley. By J.O. Urmson. Kant. By Roger Scruton. Marx's Social Critique of Culture. By Louis Dupré. The Hermeneutical Theory of Paul Ricoeur: A Constructive Analysis. By David E. Klemm. Science, Folklore and Ideology: Studies in the Life Sciences in Ancient Greece. By G.E.R. Lloyd. Averroes' Middle Commentaries on Aristotle's ‘Categories’ and ‘De Interpretatione’. Translated, with Notes and Introductions, by Charles E. Butterworth. Miracle in the Early Christian World: A Study in Sociohistorical Method. By Howard Clark Kee. Pagan‐Christian Conflict over Miracle in the 2nd Century. By Harold Remus. Frame of the Universe: A History of Physical Cosmology. By Frank Durham and Robert D. Purrington. The Changing of the Gods. By Frank E. Manuel. English Romanticism: The Grounds of Belief. By John Clubbe and Ernest J. Lovell, Jr. A Short History of the Catholic Church. By J. Derek Holmes and Bernard W, Bickers. The Life and Writings of the Historical Saint Patrick. By R.P.C. Hanson. Rupert of Deutz. By John H. Van Engen. Thomas More. By Anthony Kenny. Luther in Mid‐Career 1521–30. By Heinrich Bornkamm. The Night Battles: Witchcraft and Agrarian Cults in the 16th & 17th Century. By Carlo Ginzburg. Piety and Politics: Religion and the Rise of Absolutism in England, Württemberg, and Prussia. By Mary Fulbrook. Doctor Russell of Maynooth. By Ambrose Macaulay. Paul Cardinal Cullen and the Shape of Modern Irish Catholicism. By Desmond Bowen. The 1980 Synod of Bishops ‘On the Role of the Family’. By Jan Grootaers and Joseph Selling. The Godly Order: Texts and Studies relating to the Book of Common Prayer. By Geoffrey Cuming. (shrink)

Patient self-disclosure is essential to the work of health professionals, and this is even more critical in mental health where speech is a reflection of the content of thought. Self-disclosure is then about invisible symptoms that are associated with health problems where discrimination and stigmatization are still very prevalent. This article explores the ethical issues of this phenomenon which has received very little study. Disclosure as a decision-making, interpersonal, dynamic and complex process will be defined and deepened with the help (...) of examples from research. Subsequently, the vulnerability of the person who discloses will be addressed, followed by issues of quality of care and related to the standards of professional practice associated with patient disclosure and their associated responsibility. These elements highlight many ethical issues and ultimately lead us to a proposal to situate the professionals involved. (shrink)

La correspondance de Pline le Jeune, publiée au II e siècle de notre ère, regorge de références à la mission de l’avocat. Bien que l’activité d’avocat ne soit pas la seule exercée par l’auteur, elle occupe une partie très importante de son temps, comme il le reconnaît lui-même, et remplit une fonction essentielle au sein de la société romaine. En assurant la défense des droits des femmes et des hommes qui le sollicitent, l’avocat s’assure de placer la justice et le (...) droit au cœur de la société et participe ainsi au renforcement du lien social. Une telle mission ne peut, selon Pline le Jeune, être confiée qu’à des hommes dont les qualités humaines sont supérieures et qui appartiennent de facto à la noblesse romaine. L’avocat plinien s’illustre par une noblesse de rang et d’âme. (shrink)

Books reviewed in this article: The Anchor Bible Dictionary. Edited by David Noel Freedman with Gary A. Herion, David F. Graf, John David Pleins. The Gospel of Matthew. By Daniel J. Harrington. Paul: An Introduction to his Thought. By C. K. Barrett. A Radical Jew: Paul and the Politics of Identiy. By Daniel Boyarin. New Testament Theology. By G. B. Caird, completed and edited by L. D. Hurst. The Fatherhood of God from Origen to Athanasius. By Peter Widdicombe. Dieu et (...) le Christ selon Grégoire de Nysse. By Bernard Pottier. Eucharistic Presence: A Study in the Theology of Disclosure. By Robert Sokolowski. Theological Hermeneutics: Development and Significance. By Werner Jeanrond. Theologie aus Efahrung der Gnade. Annäherungen an Karl Rahner: Edited by Mariano Delgado and Mathias‐Lutz Bachmann. Bernhard Welte's Fundamental Theological Approach to Christology.. By Anthony J. Godzieba. Sacred Identity: Exploring a Theology of the Person. By Jane Kopas. A Salvation Audit. By Colin Grant. Medical Ezhics: Sources Of Catholic Teachings, Second Edition. Edited by Kevin O'Rourke and Philip Boyle. Mission and Conversion: Proselytizing in the Religious History of the Roman Empire. By Martin Goodman. Literacy and Power in the Ancient World. Edited by Alan K. Bowman and Greg Woolf. St Cyril of Alexandria: The Christological Controversy. Its History, Theology and Texts. By John A. McGuckin. Ambrose of Milan: Church and Court in a Christian Capital. By Neil B. McLynn. Basil of Cuesareu. By Philip Rousseau. Augustine. By Mary T. Clark. Irenaeus. By Dennis Minns. Divine Heiress: The Virgin Mary and the Creation of Christian Constantinople. By Vasiliki Limberis. The Irish Tradition in Old English Literature. By Charles D. Wright. Relics, Apocalypse and the Deceils of History: Ademar of Chabannes, 989–1034. By Richard Landes. Huguccio: The Life, Works, and Thought of a Twelfth‐Centuy Jurist. By Wolfgang P. Müller. The Presence of God: A History of Western Christian Mysticism, Volume II: The Growth of Mysticism. By Bernard McGinn. Preaching the Crusades: Mendicant Friars and the Cross in the Thirteenth Century. By Christoph T. Maier. Mary Ward: A World in Contemplation. By Henriette Peters. The Letters of Teilhard de Chardin and Lucile Swan. Edited by Thomas M. King and Mary Wood Gilbert. Pseudo‐Marry: By John Donne. Edited, with an Introduction and Commentary, by Anthony Raspa. Donne and the Politics of Conscience in Early Modern England. By M. L. Brown. The Caroline Captivity of the Church: Charles 1 and the Remoulding of Anglicanism. By Julian Davies. Érudition et religion aux XVIIe et XVIIIe siécles. By Bruno Neveu. Cardinal Lavigerie: Churchman, Prophet and Missionary. By François Renault. Dom Columba Marmion: A Biography By Mark Tierney. Christian Mission in the Twentieth Century. By Timothy Yates. Religion in Africa: Experience and Expression. Edited by Thomas D. Blakely, Walter E. A. van Beek and Dennis Thomson. (shrink)

Collection of previously published material, 1975-1993.

This paper aims to confront two notions that have acquired a particular importance in contemporary reflections on the law: the notion of “un-law” (“Unrecht” or “non-droit”), that was constructed after the second WW in order to think about the specific nature of “Nazi law”; and the notion of “state of exception” (“Ausnahmezustand” or “état d’exception”), which is now commonly tied up with the idea of juridical anomie. This confrontation extends the analysis that is especially exposed by the very concept of (...) “un-law”, in order to think about the possibility of a “monstrous law” in a functional way, and not in a substantial one. In return, this new light will help to think of the discontinuities between a “state of exception” and a “state of un-law”. (shrink)

Maurice Blondel’s philosophy has had a decisive influence on the theology of Henri de Lubac, but more than an influence, it goes of an encounter and a dialogue between two great Catholic thinkers. This article proposes, over the course of successive encounters and collaborations between Blondel and Lubac, a presentation of Lubac’s reflection in that it extends Blondel’s critique of extrinsicity to the field of theology. This friendship between Lubac and Blondel testifies to the inherent character of the mystical question (...) to both philosophy and theology. This anchoring signifies the Mystery of Christ at work in the gesture of reason and in the understanding of faith. At the same time, Lubac promotes, in philosophy itself, an intelligence through faith. Friendship has not been an empty word with Lubac who openly defended Maurice Blondel on several occasions, and even after Blondel’s death, when Lubac continued to make the philosopher’s thought known by publishing and annotating a large part of his correspondence. (shrink)

S’inscrivant dans un courant qui reconsidère aujourd’hui la place des femmes dans l’histoire, Mélanie Fabre publie une édifiante biographie de Dick May, une intellectuelle largement oubliée de la Belle Époque, fondatrice notamment du Collège libre des sciences sociales en 1895, de la première École supérieure de journalisme française en 1899 et de l’École libre des hautes études sociales en 1900. Elle a été aussi active dans la fondation du Musée social en 1894, dans la formation de l’univers...

Introduction -- From natural philosophy to theories of method -- Explanations, laws, and theories -- Change and the effect on scientific realism -- Science, society, and values -- Conclusion -- Glossary.

The number of depressed people has been increasing regularly. This increase is clearly aggravated by psycho-pharmacological factors. Psychoanalysts have encountered difficulties with a new type of patient for whom neurotic solutions do not work. For this reason, a new evaluation of the psycho-conception of the subject, melancholy and distress, and the social link is needed: this new evaluation allows us to define the nature of the relation between depression and society, and to plan a more effective clinical response.

Personality disorders: illegitimate subject positions The diagnosis of personality disorder is common in mental health nurse settings and is a term often used without critical consideration. In clinical practice, the term personality disorder has pejorative connotations, which arise out of the way in which these behaviours are constructed as behavioural rather than psychiatric. The discursive construction of categories of personality disorder are inculcated into clinical practice and become taken‐for‐granted by those in practice culture. The construction of some personalities as disordered (...) and, therefore, illegitimate becomes natural. This paper provides a critical analysis of the diagnosis and suggests an approach to mental health nursing care that is more legitimising for those people who receive psychiatric diagnoses. (shrink)

This paper describes a discourse analysis of the process of interpersonal psychotherapy (IPT) in the recovery from depression. It demonstrates how IPT is an effective treatment strategy for mental health nurses to utilise in the treatment of depression. The discourse analysis highlights how the development of more meaningful subject positions enables one woman to recover from her depression. The process of recovery is underpinned by an understanding of women's depression as promoted by contemporary social and cultural expectations for detachment and (...) reflexivity. This paper shows how IPT provides an opportunity for recovery from depression for one woman by facilitating a reconstruction of her subject positions in relation to others. The discourse analysis revealed that the therapist facilitated this through the use of a range of techniques: seeking information, exploring beliefs/values/assumptions, exploring communication patterns, exploring affective responses and exploring alternative subject positions. (shrink)

This paper deals with the 24-line mythological epyllion Progne et Philomela, an anonymous Virgilian cento of presumed North African origin, which is usually dated to the fourth or fifth century and is marked by considerable obscurity. The aim is to shed some light on the most intriguing parts of this elliptical retelling of the given myth, in particular the puzzling network of family relationships and the extended talking-blood metaphor. Offering a new perspective on the text, the author claims that its (...) general ambiguity is, to some extent, a purposefully adopted authorial strategy rather than a by-product of the cento technique. For this reason, it is proposed that the poem might have been written as a sort of mythological riddle to be solved by its readers. (shrink)

Most arguments of Applied Ethics are well analyzed. An exception is the argument 'I do not do this because it is not my duty'. It makes sense to call the argument the 'argument of supererogation' : Since J. Urmson's essay Saints and Heroes of 1958, those actions are called 'supererogations' which are not supposed to be duties. The argument is widely used not only in Applied Ethics, but also in ordinary moral everyday life. Nevertheless, there is a need of investigation (...) because it has an indecency-problem. The argument is convincing if an actor does not want to risk his life. It seems indecent, however, if an actor refuses a simple favor or a service of friendship with the 'argument of super-erogation', although they both constitute no duties. This paper reconstructs the 'argument of supererogation' as a syllogism. It analyzes its formal structure by benefitting from current Anglo-American literature on supererogation. The overall aim of this paper is to solve the problem of indecency. (shrink)

L’objectif de cet ouvrage collectif original est de mettre en lumière les processus d’invisibilisation et de stigmatisation des femmes et des minorités sexuelles, mais aussi leurs résistances et leurs combats. La taxinomie sexuelle binaire fondée sur l’opposition masculin/féminin est ici enrichie d’études novatrices sur les vêtements, les sexualités et les combats contre les discours dominants générateurs de stigmates et d’invisibilité. L’ouvrage, dont la préface de Michel Prum fait office d’...

Aristotle maintains that paideia enables one to judge the method used by a given speaker without judging the conclusions drawn as well. He contends that this "paideia of principles" requires three things: seeing that principles are not derived from one another; seeing that there is nothing before them within reason; and, seeing that they are the source of much knowledge. In order to grasp these principles, one must respectively learn to recognize what distinguishes the subject matters studied in different disciplines, (...) see first principles as coming from experience and acquire the habit of seeking them in one’s experience and, finally, see first principles as being the source of conclusions. While the second and third points might at first seem to pertain to "nous" and science, respectively, rather than to paideia, the case can be made that paideia involves more of a firm grasp of principles than "nous" and a less perfect way of relating conclusion to principles than science. (shrink)