This volume presents and discusses the theory of rights of the British idealist political philosopher, Bernard Bosanquet. The political philosophy of the British idealists in general and of Bernard Bosanquet in particular, has been the subject of much misunderstanding and prejudice. Bosanquet's theory of rights proposes to provide a response to the utilitarianism of Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart Mill and the natural rights-based political philosophy of Herbert. The question addressed in this book then, is whether Bosanquet's theory is a (...) plausible alternative to these 'individualist' views. The author believes that a complete statement of Bosanquet's theory of rights requires an elaboration of his "metaphysical theory of the nature of social reality"--his "social ontology."(publisher,edited). (shrink)

The arbitral world is at a crucial point in its historical development, poised between two conflicting conceptions of its nature, purpose, and political legitimacy. Formally, the arbitrator is an agent of the contracting parties in dispute, a creature of a discrete contract gone wrong. Yet, increasingly, arbitrators are treated as agents of a larger global community, and arbitration houses concern themselves with the general and prospective impact of important awards. In this paper, I address these questions, first, from the standpoint (...) of delegation theory. In Part I, I introduce the basic “Principal-Agent" framework [P-A] used by social scientists to explain why actors create new institutions, and then briefly discuss how P-A has been applied to the study of courts. Part II uses delegation theory to frame discussion of arbitration as a mode of governance for transnational business and investment. In Part III, I argue that the International Center for the Settlement of Investment Disputes is presently in the throes of judicialization, indicators of which include the enhanced use of precedent-based argumentation and justification, the acceptance of third-party briefs, and a flirtation with proportionality balancing. Part IV focuses on the first wave of awards rendered by ICSID tribunals pursuant to Argentina's response to the crushing economic crisis of 2000-02, wherein proportionality emerged, adapted from the jurisprudence of the Appellate Body of the World Trade Organization. (shrink)

Deep Brain Stimulation (DBS) is an effective treatment for advanced Parkinson’s disease. However, identifying stimulation parameters, such as contact and current amplitudes, is time-consuming based on trial and error. Directional leads add more stimulation options and render this process more challenging with a higher workload for neurologists and more discomfort for patients. In this study, a sweet spot-guided algorithm was developed that automatically suggested stimulation parameters. These suggestions were retrospectively compared to clinical monopolar reviews. A cohort of 24 Parkinson’s (...) disease patients underwent bilateral DBS implantation in the subthalamic nucleus at our center. First, the DBS’ leads were reconstructed with the open-source toolbox Lead-DBS. Second, a sweet spot for rigidity reduction was set as the desired stimulation target for programming. This sweet spot and estimations of the volume of tissue activated were used to suggest (i) the best lead level, (ii) the best contact, and (iii) the effect thresholds for full therapeutic effect for each contact. To assess these sweet spot-guided suggestions, the clinical monopolar reviews were considered as ground truth. In addition, the sweet spot-guided suggestions for best lead level and best contact were compared against reconstruction-guided suggestions, which considered the lead location with respect to the subthalamic nucleus. Finally, a graphical user interface was developed as an add-on to Lead-DBS and is publicly available. With the interface, suggestions for all contacts of a lead can be generated in a few seconds. The accuracy for suggesting the best out of four lead levels was 56%. These sweet spot-guided suggestions were not significantly better than reconstruction-guided suggestions (p = 0.3). The accuracy for suggesting the best out of eight contacts was 41%. These sweet spot-guided suggestions were significantly better than reconstruction-guided suggestions (p < 0.001). The sweet spot-guided suggestions of each contact’s effect threshold had a mean error of 1.2 mA. On an individual lead level, the suggestions can vary more with mean errors ranging from 0.3 to 4.8 mA. Further analysis is warranted to improve the sweet spot-guided suggestions and to account for more symptoms and stimulation-induced side effects. (shrink)

Our understanding of the sense of taste is largely based on research designed and interpreted in terms of the traditional four tastes: sweet, sour, salty, and bitter, and now a few more. This concept of basic tastes has no rational definition to test, and thus it has not been tested. As a demonstration, a preliminary attempt to test one common but arbitrary psychophysical definition of basic tastes is included in this article; that the basic tastes are unique in being (...) able to account for other tastes. This definition was falsified in that other stimuli do about as well as the basic words and stimuli. To the extent that this finding might show analogies with other studies of receptor, neural, and psychophysical phenomena, the validity of the century-long literature of the science of taste based on a few is called into question. The possible origins, meaning, and influence of this concept are discussed. Tests of the model with control studies are suggested in all areas of taste related to basic tastes. As a stronger alternative to the basic tradition, the advantages of the across-fiber pattern model are discussed; it is based on a rational data-based hypothesis, and has survived attempts at falsification. Such has found broad acceptance in many neural systems. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Dharma Bums: The Beat Generation and the Making of Countercultural PilgrimageP. J. JohnstonI believe in the sweetness of Jesus And Buddha— I believe, In St. Francis, Avaloki Tesvara, the Saints Of First Century India A D And Scholars Santidevan And Otherwise Santayanan Everywhere.(Kerouac 1959: 15)Preliminary Polemics“PILGRIM, n. A traveler that is taken seriously.”—Ambrose Bierce, The Devil’s Dictionary 2007: 133As Beat commentator Stephen Prothero describes in his article “On the (...) Holy Road: The Beat Movement as Spiritual Protest” (1991), the Beats and their pilgrimages have most emphatically not been taken seriously. Both critics and scholars have been unkind to members of the Beat generation, and this unkindness has manifested itself in relative neglect of the Beats in all possible aspects of scholarly investigation. But nowhere does this appear more pronounced than in the area of Beat religion. Though some recent scholarship has been picking up from this earlier neglect and it is now [End Page 165] possible to find serious biographies of most of the major Beat writers and some belated attention to the movement as a literary phenomenon, the only book-length treatment of Beat Buddhism I was able to locate (Tonkinson 1995) hardly qualifies as a scholarly work and was published not by an academic press but as a special feature of the Buddhist magazine Tricycle. Prothero hypothesizes that this is because of the movement’s reputation as rebellious and antinomian—in its heyday the movement was characterized in identical unsavory terms by publications representing interests as diverse as Life and Playboy, with the latter describing the Beats as “nihilists” and the former claiming that the Beats were at war with “Mom, Dad, Politics, Marriage, the Savings Bank, Organized Religion, Literary Elegance, Law, the Ivy League Suit and Higher Education, to say nothing of the Automatic Dishwasher, the Cellophane-wrapped Soda Cracker, the Split-Level House and the clean, or peace-provoking H-bomb” (Prothero 1991: 206). Norman Podhoretz of Partisan Review went further still, claiming that the Beats were “hostile to civilization” and that the movement as a whole amounted to “a revolt of the spiritually underprivileged and crippled of soul” and “an affirmation of death” (ibid., 206). One couldn’t ask for a more passionate disavowal of the Beats or a more thorough polemic that the movement was profoundly antireligious.This could not contrast more with the Beats’ representation of their movement and its aims, with Jack Kerouac going so far as to reinterpret the crucial term “Beat” (a term for someone down and out originally borrowed from criminal street jive) as a noun derived from the adjective “beatific,” a specifically religious term familiar from such phrases as “the beatific vision” (ibid., 206–207). Several of the representative Beat writers were practicing Buddhists, influencing the entire movement to such an extent that Buddhist ideas and imagery suffused Beat literature as a whole. Ginsberg and Kerouac especially emphasized the positive and constructive elements of their spiritual vision, arguing that literature such as On the Road and Howl should be understood as religious affirmations of what is good and holy rather than as purely critical undertakings: “For the crucifix I speak out, for the Star of Israel I speak out, for the divinest man who ever lived who was German (Bach) I speak out, for sweet Mohammed I speak out, for Buddha I speak out, for Lao-tse and Chuang-tse I speak out” (ibid., 206–207). Or, as Allen Ginsberg put it less lyrically (and rather more bluntly): “Howl is an ‘Affirmation’ by individual experience of God, sex, drugs, and absurdity... the poems are religious and I meant them to be” (ibid., 207).But for the most part, Beat asseverations in no way diminished scholarly wariness about the Beat movement and its spirituality—as Prothero concludes, “the tendency among literary scholars is to see these [religious] concerns as tangential rather than constitutive” while “historians of American religion who have explored beat spirituality have tended to focus almost exclusively on the beats’ engagement with Zen and then to dismiss that engagement as haphazard” (ibid., 207).It is my contention that the mainstream scholarly neglect of Beat spirituality is in some part... (shrink)

The most recent commentator on this line, D. R. Shackleton Bailey, states that ‘spiritus is breath rather than odour’ and he has the support of some commentators, Marcilius, for example, who amends notus to motus, and Hertzberg, who takes it as sweet breath, citing Mart. 3. 65. 1. So also most translators : an exception is D. Paganelli who translates ‘aucun souffle, aucune odeur d'adultère’. However, the parallels cited by Shackleton Bailey are irrelevant to this situation: Afranius 243, Ach. (...) Tat. 2. 37. 9, and Claud. Carm. Min. 29. 33 all refer to the period just before, during, or immediately after the sexual act. It is most unlikely that this is the case in Propertius' poem. Propertius has come to see if Cynthia has spent the night alone; it is not a question of catching her inflagrante delicto, but of finding some rival there or the evidence of his stay not yet removed. Cynthia is indignant at her lover's suspicions and lest he should think that his rival had left earlier, she coarsely specifies the evidence that Propertius might expect to find, including spiritus admisso notus adulterio. (shrink)

In saying that sensible things exist "by convention" he does not, of course, mean that the sensible world is something we will or make up. He no doubt was aware of the fact that "sweet, bitter, hot, cold, and color" are given to us, that we do not establish them or enact them the way we establish an institution or enact a law. It is in the logic of his thesis that sensible things are appearances of atoms in configuration. (...) They exist by convention in this sense: we refer to them as if they were individuals, things; as if their character and existence were self-contained and not entirely conditioned and dependent on something else. Strictly speaking, instead of referring to "honey" we should refer to "the constellation of atoms which we experience as something sweet, fluid, etc." The mental attitude which treats animals, plants, houses, tables as ultimate, the attitude which stops with sensation is "obscure knowledge"; the attitude which sees through and beyond these is "genuine knowledge." The thesis is that we never see the world as it is; the nature of things, the reality of the world is something to be apprehended by rational inference, to be seen by a sort of mental vision. For a man who wants to know, the logically correct attitude toward the familiar sensible world is one of going beyond, penetrating beneath, transcending it. (shrink)

In recent years "British" Idealism has been subject to sweeping re-evaluation and rehabilitation. The essays collected here by Will Sweet compare Bernard Bosanquet's ideas and arguments with those of Idealists and non-Idealists alike, and establish that Bosanquet was far more clear-headed and insightful than denunciations of the "Idealist school" by Moore, Russell, C. D. Broad, Harold Prichard, and A. J. Ayer suggest. Sweet observes in his introduction that Bosanquet has long remained in the shadows of T. H. Green (...) and F. H. Bradley, that Bosanquet was a prolific writer who shaped philosophical debates across the English-speaking world for decades, and that estimations of his social theory and political philosophy, and to a lesser extent his metaphysics, have diverted attention from his contributions to logic and aesthetics.Essays by Sandra M. den Otter, Peter Nicholson, and Kevin Sullivan deal directly with Bosanquet's social philosophy. Bosanquet was engaged from the 1880s in work with the Charity Organisation Society, an association that set the tone of late Victorian and Edwardian debates over British poverty. He and his wife served on the Royal Commission on the Poor Laws , against whose majority statement—cautioning against such direct assistance to the poor as. (shrink)

The study's purpose was to estimate the variety of foods consumed within standard and ethnic food categories by three groups of women between 18 and 35 years of age. Foreign-born Chinese women [N = 21], Chinese-American women [N = 20] and white American women [N = 23] kept 4-day food records, after instruction. Analysis of variance showed that the mean number of different foods consumed by the foreign-born Chinese was significantly [p < 0.05] lower than those eaten by the other (...) two groups for breads/cereals, dairy products, ethnic foods, fats, meats, sweets/sugars, and vegetable categories. White American women consumed significantly more dairy products and legumes/nuts than either of the groups of Chinese women. Diets of the Chinese-American women were more nutrient dense than those of the women in the other groups, containing significantly more energy, riboflavin, iron, folacin, and calcium than those of the foreign-born Chinese women. The percentage of kilocalories derived from fat [33–34%] did not differ among groups. 95% of foreign-born and 85% of Chinese-American women affirmed their ethnic identification by consuming foods belonging to Chinese cuisine; whereas, the percentage [30%] of white American women selecting Chinese food was significantly lower. Mexican and Italian foods were selected by significantly more white and Chinese-American women than by foreign-born Chinese women. Approximately 20% of both groups of Chinese women, but 49% of white American subjects, ate Japanese food. Chinese-American women retained a preference for Chinese food, similar to that of the foreign-born Chinese women. However, the Chinese-American women consumed cheeses, legumes, raw vegetables in salads, and foods from Italian and Mexican cuisines, indicating their acceptance of foods commonly consumed by white American women. Dietary acculturation among the Chinese-American women improved their diets over those of the foreign-born Chinese women and these results support the theory that consumption of a greater variety of foods increases nutrient density of diets. (shrink)

The hardest thing in appropriating [a] holistic natural law perspective is to recognise the invisible mean of judgement, which alone contains the limits of all things... The notion of mean and limits - so fundamental to ethics - calls for inner understanding that the nature of the mean cannot be defined 'a priori', because it involves an exercise of judgement, ethical judgement.

Open peer commentary on the article “Perception-Action Mutuality Obviates Mental Construction” by Martin Flament Fultot, Lin Nie & Claudia Carello. Upshot: In my view, the clash between ecological psychology, enactivism, and constructivism in general has more to do with irreconcilable metaphysical and theoretical incommensurabilities than disagreements about specific mechanisms or processes of perception. Even with mutual enabling of action and perception, some internal process of self-modification is still needed if novel behavior is to be adequately explained.

Carter has shown that Bosanquet was not the conservative individualist as often supposed, and that he was not hostile to moderate socialism. Bosanquet's logic and metaphysics gives support to this view. But even here he was misunderstood. By over-emphasis on aspects of his philosophical logic, his metaphysics, and practical concerns, we have the most diverse views of what he meant. But taken altogether his whole work has a unity which reconciles collectivist and individualist principles in concrete liberty. The problem of (...) hiatus between Bosanquet's theoretical and practical concerns, which Carter notices, disappears when Bosanquet's philosophical logic is addressed. (shrink)

This study concerns the ideas of one particular philosopher, Henri Bergson, whose views of time, intuition, and creativity have had a significant impact on art, literature, and the humanities, both in his time and in our own. Although it is generally recognized that Bergson's ideas have significantly impacted the arts and the humanities, it has not been recognized how they have also had a creative influence on the sciences as well. Nor has it been realized that this was one of (...) his most basic contentions. Bergson's conception of intuition--his fundamental insight into reality--was not limited to fugitive insights into human existence. By realizing previously unsuspected possibilities for research and discovery, his endeavors were also meant to make possible new advances in the sciences. If it enabled his cousin by marriage, Marcel Proust, to explore human memory in depth, it also inspired psychologists like Daniel Schachter to use Bergson's ideas to make real contributions to contemporary memory science. If his notion of creative evolution brought many thinkers to a belief in human creative freedom, it brought others (notably Alexis Carrel and Pierre Lecomte de Noüy) to a scientific study of biological time. Among his successful speculations was the theory of the Big Bang cosmology. 'Getting Bergson Straight' shows many points at which Bergson's ideas anticipated future developments in the sciences. This was seen clearly by the Nobel Prize-winning physicist Luis de Broglie who viewed Bergson's physics as presaging quantum physics. Thus, the text is well situated for arts, humanities, social science, and natural science classrooms studying creative thinking and/or intellectual history. (shrink)

Integrated information theory (IIT) is a candidate theory of consciousness that highlights the role of complex interactions between parts of a system as the basis of consciousness – and, due to its general information-theoretic formulation, is capable of making statements about consciousness in neural and non-neural systems alike. Here, we argue that a system radically different to a human brain, host to complex physiological and functional structures capable of integrating information, can be found in the meristems and vascular system of (...) higher plants. Following a pragmatic and ontologically innocent approach, neither taking for granted that plants are conscious nor dismissing the possibility that they are, we argue that the time is ripe to apply analysis tools inspired by IIT to plants, taking advantage of recent developments in both plant imaging and information theory. We introduce and discuss the relevant literature, and pro information and integration in plant behaviour, assessing the plausibility of plant sentience. If successful, these experiments could position plants as the next frontier in consciousness science, and urge us to rethink our perspectives on consciousness, how to measure it, and its prevalence amongst living beings. (shrink)

Leaders and managers of today's multinational corporations face a plethora of problems and issues directly attributable to the fact that they are operating in an international context. With work-sites, plants and/or customers based in another country, or even several countries, representing a vast spectrum of cultural differences, international trade and offshore operations, coupled with increased globalisation in respect to political, social and economic realities, contribute to new dilemmas that these leaders must deal with. Not the least of these being a (...) Code of Ethics and ethical decision making.This paper examines the differences in culture between a group of managers from the United States and similar group from Croatia using Hofstede's theory of International Cultures. The study explores how these cultural dimensions may help in our understanding of the differences in reported whistleblowing. The authors then postulate four hypotheses regarding various aspects of whistleblowing. These Hypotheses were than tested using a survey administered to a sample of U.S.A. and Croatian managers. Finally, the paper discusses the findings and practical implications for contemporary managers in the international arena. (shrink)

The view of Deitz and Arrington (1984) that Wittgenstein's ordinary language philosophy allows behaviorism to use cognitive terms with a behavioristic system is disputed and an alternative is suggested.

Zeno's so-called proofs of divine existence -- Zeno and the traditional gods: a serious problem -- Cleanthes' proofs -- Cleanthes and the traditional gods -- Chrysippus' contribution -- Chrysippus and the traditional gods -- Other Stoic proofs -- Other (Stoic?) arguments in Sextus -- Polemics against the arguments pro the existence of God(s) -- Abolishing the gods leads to odd consequence: the atopical arguments pro the existence of the gods -- The counter-arguments -- Carneades and the data of Sextus and (...) Cicero -- The sorites arguments as a weapon against the traditional gods -- Epilogue -- Appendix I. Cleanthes' humn on Zeus: a running commentary -- Appendix II. Where is God? -- Appendix III. Alexinus' Parabolai. (shrink)

Audio recording of "a group of Philosophical and Environmental Songs," as described by Gunter.

Amazing as it may be, to this day few commentaries on the treatises of Plotinus' Enneads are written. The classic ninth treatise, for example, has hardly been studied. This treatise, however, is of vital importance, because it is in this work that for the first time in the Enneads, the One in its superform emerges and Plotinus dwells on the remarkable phenomenon of a 'mystical union' of the soul with the One. A thorough analysis of the argument and its development (...) next to philosophical and philo-logical support will be welcome to any reader of this in-triguing but difficult treatise. These aims are pursued in the main part of Meijer's work, the commentary. The first part of the book, preceding the commentary, examines the philosophical history of the concept of the One and its status in the first eight treatises. This new approach to the problem of the One leads to striking conclusions. It appears that while Plotinus was writing these first eight treatises, the concept of the One developed from that of a Supreme Entity of a Mesoplatonian character, viz. the upper part of the mind, to One of a Superone above mind. This casts an entirely new light on the position of the One in Plotinus and that of the ninth treatise itself. The third part not only examines the mystical union as pictured in the ninth treatise, but also provides a full scale discussion of Plotinus' descriptions of this union in his en-tire work. The degree of unification, viz. the question whether a part of the mystic self remains intact during the unification, is a matter of vigorous scholarly debate. Meijer shows that, in spite of some inconsistencies in his doctrine about the union, one must accept that Plotinus basically considered the union as a complete absorption of the soul into the Supreme Entity. (shrink)

Mapping one's ignorance also has affective benefits. Wherever mastery of knowledge and skills creates professional status, especially in practices that give professional power over clients, there arises a natural pride that rests on what one knows, and a regrettable tendency for authority to develop arrogance. We know the effects: failure to listen, premature dismissal of relevant information, overreaching and overbearing professional conduct, mistakes and the denial of them, and so on. An explicit acknowledgement of ignorance may generate a corrective humility, (...) a desire to see rather than presume understanding, alertness to unforeseen consequences, and openness to alternative approaches. (shrink)

This book brings together both new and previously published essays on the Greek political history of the fifth century BC and historiography. It examines the relationship between philosophy and social/political conditions, and includes a new analysis of Aristotle's views on slavery and a discussion of the practicality of Plato's political theories.

Food-specific inhibition training (FSIT) is a computerised task requiring response inhibition to energy-dense foods within a reaction-time game. Previous work indicates that FSIT can increase the number of healthy foods (relative to energy-dense foods) children choose, and decrease calories consumed from sweets and chocolate. Across two studies, we explored the impact of FSIT variations (e.g., different response signals, different delivery modes) on children’s food choices within a time-limited hypothetical food-choice task. In Study 1, we varied the FSIT Go/No-Go signals to (...) be emotive (happy vs. sad faces) or neutral (green vs. red signs). One-hundred-and-fifty-seven children were randomly allocated to emotive-FSIT, neutral-FSIT, or a non-food control task. Children participated in groups of 4–15. No significant FSIT effects were observed on food choices (all values ofp> 0.160). Healthy-food choices decreased over time regardless of condition (p 0.050). Healthy choices decreased over time in the control group (p= 0.001) but did not change in the two FSIT groups (bothp> 0.300) supporting previous evidence that FSIT may have a beneficial effect on children’s food choices. Ensuring that children perform FSIT with high accuracy (e.g., by using FSIT in quiet environments and avoiding group-testing) may be important for impacts on food choices though. Future research should continue to explore methods of optimising FSIT as a healthy-eating intervention for children. (shrink)

В работе рассматриваются некоторые актуальные аспекты творчества великих философов, писателей и поэтов - тех мыслителей, которые наиболее убедительно продемонстрировали генетическую связь философии и литературы.