At least a third of the women giving birth in the United States receive intravenous oxytocin for the induction and augmentation of labor. The problem of inactive or ineffective labor remains a major challenge for birth attendants, midwives, and physicians who practice obstetrics. Before the discovery of oxytocin, traditional approaches to augmentation ranged from magical and folk interventions to extensive bloodletting. Despite its wide use the effectiveness of oxytocin augmentation has not been well studied, and current research raises new questions (...) about its effect on the brain. (shrink)

Peter Redpath is a distinguished historian of philosophy. He believes that the best way to acquire a philosophical education is through the study of philosophy’s history. Because he is convinced that ideas have consequences, he holds that the history of philosophy illuminates important events in history. Philosophy is a necessary condition for sound education, which, in turn, is a necessary condition for cultural and political leadership. Hence, the way educators and leaders shape culture reflects the effects of philosophy on (...) culture. In light of this background, it is possible to discern in Redpath’s account of the history of philosophy a corresponding philosophy of history. This emerges as he explains how philosophers have produced changes in thinking that have profound consequences for the culture at large. Some of these changes, many of them significant, have been positive, but others have been disastrous. Much of Redpath’s philosophy of history diagnoses what went wrong in the history of philosophy so as to indicate why modern culture suffers considerable disorder. The good news is that Redpath’s philosophy of history prescribes ways to correct Western Civilization’s current malaise. (shrink)

In the 1960s, there were efforts to move broadcast television in the direction of the experimental video art by altering television's conventional format. Fred Barzyk, in his role as a producer and director at WGBH-TV in Boston, was uniquely positioned to act as a link between television and experimental video artists who normally would not have had access to the technology available at a major broadcast facility. As the leading innovator in the beginnings of video art, the Korean American Nam (...) June Paik (1932-2006) deserves special mention. His work bridges the worlds of art, video technology, and television. The video works of Nan June Paik, Amy Greenfield, Peter Campus, Feng Meng Bo, Elizabeth Sussman and other video artists are considered in this essay as key contributors to the development of video art. The selection is based on my experience with the artists cited. Despite video art's growing popularity among contemporary artists in the 1970s and beyond, the museums were slow to acknowledge this development. One of the problems was deciding where, among the existing museum collections, to locate video art. In its 50 some years of history, video art has enjoyed a remarkable success in its artistic innovations while undergoing changes in formats virtually at the speed of rapid advances in electronic visual technology. Ironically, the legacy of creative television set in motion by Barzyk and his generation has been largely coopted by the television broadcasting industry, which mainly serves as a platform for mass media advertising. (shrink)

This article explores three different comics by creators with brain tumors: _Rick_, written and drawn by Gordon Shaw; _Going Remote_, written by Adam Bessie and drawn by Peter Glanting; and _Parenthesis_, written and drawn by Élodie Durand. It examines how the affordances of the comics medium enables the creators to present an experience of subjective time that is multiple, diffuse, and contradictory, in contrast to the regular apportioning of time via calendars, schedules, and pathways essential to institutional neuro-oncology. The (...) question of time here is significant because the side effects of brain tumors can include blackouts, seizures, and periods of extreme fatigue, during which the experience of time can be significantly disrupted. The title of the article therefore evokes a temporal duality: on the one hand, it refers to the common phrase used to describe what clocks do, as well as our ability to read them; on the other hand, it speaks to one of the most important qualities of graphic medicine, which is that it allows patients dealing with medical or health issues to tell time differently. The article explores the representation of personal time in _Rick_, social time in _Going Remote_, and lost time in _Parenthesis_. (shrink)

Much of the debate about identity in recent decades has been about personal identity, and specifically about personal identity over time, but identity generally, and the identity of things of other kinds, have also attracted attention. Various interrelated problems have been at the centre of discussion, but it is fair to say that recent work has focussed particularly on the following areas: the notion of a criterion of identity; the correct analysis of identity over time, and, in particular, the disagreement (...) between advocates of perdurance and advocates of endurance as analyses of identity over time; the notion of identity across possible worlds and the question of its relevance to the correct analysis of de re modal discourse; the notion of contingent identity; the question of whether the identity relation is, or is similar to, the composition relation; and the notion of vague identity. A radical position, advocated by Peter Geach, is that these debates, as usually conducted, are void for lack of a subject matter: the notion of absolute identity they presuppose has no application; there is only relative identity. Another increasingly popular view is the one advocated by Lewis: although the debates make sense they cannot genuinely be debates about identity, since there are no philosophical problems about identity. Identity is an utterly unproblematic notion. What there are, are genuine problems which can be stated using the language of identity. But since these can be restated without the language of identity they are not problems about identity. (For example, it is a puzzle, an aspect of the so-called “problem of personal identity”, whether the same person can have different bodies at different times. But this is just the puzzle whether a person can have different bodies at different times. So since it can be stated without the language of personal “identity”, it is not a problem about identity, but about personhood.) This article provides an overview of the topics indicated above, some assessment of the debates and suggestions for further reading. (shrink)

Something has gone seriously wrong with contemporary philosophy. Philosophy today has become a catalogue of competing alternative theories, each striving for internal consistency, but unable to accomplish anything more. Somehow, however, philosophy matters. When philosophy ails, so do all the other disciplines. They all depend on philosophy to demarcate and justify the various orders of knowledge. If philosophy can offer no justification for truth claims, there are only the words of those who enjoy status, credentials and power. In Cartesian Nightmare, (...) Peter Redpath explains how culture has reached this stage of crisis. In the opening chapter, he presents, in chilling…. (shrink)

This chapter describes the Danish church, with the focus centered primarily on its life during the years 1835 to 1855 when Søren Kierkegaard was productive. The beginnings of the church up to 1835 are briskly examined, and then contributions of Jacob Peter Mynster, Nicolai Frederik Severin Grundtvig, and Hans Lassen Martensen are delineated. These three figures have been chosen because of their importance both for the Danish church and for Kierkegaard. The chapter ends with a few comments on some (...) creative thinkers who find in Kierkegaard's critique a resource for critically reforming the church so that it might more appropriately serve its intended purpose. At points in the chapter, the analysis utilizes the Kierkegaardian categories of the objective and the subjective. (shrink)

Both David Lewis and Roderick Chisholm have proposed that beliefs are best understood, not as relations between people and the propositions they believe, but as relations between people and the properties they "directly attribute" to themselves or "self-ascribe." If this account is correct for belief, it seems that it ought to be possible to extend it to other "propositional attitudes" such as considering and wishing. But the most straightforward way of extending the account to such other attitudes faces difficulties, some (...) of which are discussed in a paper by Peter J. Markie. In this paper I will show how to apply the account to considering and wishing in a way that avoids such difficulties. (shrink)

Review Articles : Cornelius Castoriadis, Political and Social Writ ings. Volume One: 1946-1955. From the Critique of Bu reaucracy to the Positive Content of Socialism. Volume Two: 1955-1960. From the Workers Struggle Against Bureaucracy to Revolution in the Age of Modern Capitalism, trans. and ed. by David Ames Curtis.

TO THE LOGICAL INVESTIGATIONS A DRAFT OF A PREFACE TO THE LOGICAL INVESTIGATIONS ( 1913) Edited by EUGEN FINK Translated with Introductions by PHILIP J. BOSSERT and CURTIS H. PETERS • MARTINUS NIJHOFF THE HAGUE 1975 © I975 by Martinus Nijhoff. The Hague. Netherlands All rights reserved. including the right to translate or to reproduce this book or parts thereof in any form ISBN-I3: 978-90-247-1711-8 e-ISBN-I3: 978-94-010-1655-1 DOl: 10. 1007/978-94-010-1655-1 TO HERBERT SPIEGELBERG ESTEEMED SCHOLAR, MENTOR, FRIEND ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS We would (...) like to express our thanks to H. L. Van Breda, director of the Husserl-Archiv (Louvain), for his approval and encouragement of this project, and to Professor Dr. Gerhart Husserl, Professor Dr. Eugen Fink and the editors of Tijdschrift voor Philosophie for their permission to undertake it. We also owe a debt of appreciation to Dr. Karl Schuhmann of the Catholic University of Louvain and to Dr. Elmar Holenstein, Dr. Edi Marbach and Mr. Rudolf Bernet of the Husserl-Archiv (Louvain) for their help in reading the original manuscripts and for putting their excellent knowledge of the Husserl "Nachlass" preserved at the Archives at our disposal. We especially wish to thank Professor Herbert Spiegelberg whose careful and critical reading of our manuscript at an earlier stage resulted in numerous suggestions for its improvement; and, last but not least, our wives, Jane and Pam, for their help in preparing the typescripts. TABLE OF CONTENTS Translator's Introductions XI I. HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION XI II. THEMATIC INTRODUCTION XX III. (shrink)

Chaotic dynamics has been hailed as the third great scientific revolution in physics this century, comparable to relativity and quantum mechanics. In this book, Peter Smith takes a cool, critical look at such claims. He cuts through the hype and rhetoric by explaining some of the basic mathematical ideas in a clear and accessible way, and by carefully discussing the methodological issues which arise. In particular, he explores the new kinds of explanation of empirical phenomena which modern dynamics can (...) deliver. Explaining Chaos will be compulsory reading for philosophers of science and for anyone who has wondered about the conceptual foundations of chaos theory. (shrink)

In the Western world it is usually taken as given that we all want happiness, and our educational arrangements tacitly acknowledge this. Happiness, Hope, and Despair argues, however, that education has an important role to play in deepening our understanding of suffering and despair as well as happiness and joy. Education can be uncomfortable, unpredictable, and unsettling; it can lead to greater uncertainty and unhappiness. Drawing on the work of Søren Kierkegaard, Miguel de Unamuno, Fyodor Dostoevsky, Simone Weil, Paulo Freire, (...) and others, Peter Roberts shows why these features of educational life need not be feared; to the contrary, they can be seen as a source of hope and human fulfilment. After years of negotiating an education system dominated by the language of competition, performance, and economic advancement, students and teachers often long for something different; they seek not just measurable success but also opportunities to ask searching questions of themselves and the world they encounter. Happiness, Hope, and Despair makes an important contribution toward meeting this need. It fosters a rethinking of the nature, purpose, and value of education, and opens up possibilities for further scholarly and professional inquiry. (shrink)

While ancient civilizations worshipped strong, active emotions, modern societies have favored more peaceful attitudes, especially within the democratic process. We have largely forgotten the struggle to make use of _thymos_, the part of the soul that, following Plato, contains spirit, pride, and indignation. Rather, Christianity and psychoanalysis have promoted mutual understanding to overcome conflict. Through unique examples, Peter Sloterdijk, the preeminent posthumanist, argues exactly the opposite, showing how the history of Western civilization can be read as a suppression and (...) return of rage. By way of reinterpreting the _Iliad_, Alexandre Dumas's _Count of Monte Cristo_, and recent Islamic political riots in Paris, Sloterdijk proves the fallacy that rage is an emotion capable of control. Global terrorism and economic frustrations have rendered strong emotions visibly resurgent, and the consequences of violent outbursts will determine international relations for decades to come. To better respond to rage and its complexity, Sloterdijk daringly breaks with entrenched dogma and contructs a new theory for confronting conflict. His approach acknowledges and respects the proper place of rage and channels it into productive political struggle. (shrink)

In this remarkably clear and original study of the Tractatus Peter Carruthers has two principal aims. He seeks to make sense of Wittgenstein's metaphysical doctrines, showing how powerful arguments may be deployed in their support. He also aims to locate the crux of the conflict between Wittgenstein's early and late philosophies. This is shown to arise from his earlier commitment to the objectivity of logic and logical relations, which is the true target of attack of his later discussion of (...) rule-following. Within this general framework Dr Carruthers explores a number of themes, including the early Wittgenstein's doctrine of the priority of logic over metaphysics, the nature and purpose of his programme of analysis for ordinary language and the various possible arguments supporting the existence of Simples. He offers many original interpretations and defends them with considerable attention to textual detail, yet the book's clarity and directness will make it accessible to anyone acquainted with the Tractatus. It will be required reading for all serious students of Wittgenstein's philosophy. (shrink)

Peter Byrne tells the story of Hugh Everett III (1930-1982), whose "many worlds" theory of multiple universes has had a profound impact on physics and philosophy. Using Everett's unpublished papers (recently discovered in his son's basement) and dozens of interviews with his friends, colleagues, and surviving family members, Byrne paints, for the general reader, a detailed portrait of the genius who invented an astonishing way of describing our complex universe from the inside. Everett's mathematical model (called the "universal wave (...) function") treats all possible events as "equally real", and concludes that countless copies of every person and thing exist in all possible configurations spread over an infinity of universes: many worlds. Afflicted by depression and addictions, Everett strove to bring rational order to the professional realms in which he played historically significant roles. In addition to his famous interpretation of quantum mechanics, Everett wrote a classic paper in game theory; created computer algorithms that revolutionized military operations research; and performed pioneering work in artificial intelligence for top secret government projects. He wrote the original software for targeting cities in a nuclear hot war; and he was one of the first scientists to recognize the danger of nuclear winter. As a Cold Warrior, he designed logical systems that modeled "rational" human and machine behaviors, and yet he was largely oblivious to the emotional damage his irrational personal behavior inflicted upon his family, lovers, and business partners. He died young, but left behind a fascinating record of his life, including correspondence with such philosophically inclined physicists as Niels Bohr, Norbert Wiener, and John Wheeler. These remarkable letters illuminate the long and often bitter struggle to explain the paradox of measurement at the heart of quantum physics. In recent years, Everett's solution to this mysterious problem - the existence of a universe of universes - has gained considerable traction in scientific circles, not as science fiction, but as an explanation of physical reality. (shrink)

Philosophers have not taken the evolution of human beings seriously enough. If they did, argues Peter Munz, many long standing philosophical problems would be resolved. One of philosophical concequences of biology is that all the knowledge produced in evolution is a priori, i.e., established hypothetically by chance mutation and selective retention, not by observation and intelligent induction. For organisms as embodied theories, selection is natural and for theories as disembodied organisms, it is artificial. Following Popper, the growth of knowledge (...) is seen to be continuous from the amoeba to Einstein'. Philosophical Darwinism throws a whole new light on many contemporary debates. It has damaging implications for cognitive science and artificial intelligence, and questions attempts from within biology to reduce mental events to neural processes. More importantly, it provides a rational postmodern alternative to what the author argues are the unreasonable postmodern fashions of Kuhn, Lyotard and Rorty. (shrink)

First published in 1876, this classic work of philosophy by William Curtis Swabey provides a detailed analysis of the ideas and theories of the French philosopher Nicolas Malebranche. Drawing on the latest scholarship of the time, Swabey examines Malebranche's ideas on the nature of knowledge, the relationship between the mind and body, and more. 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 (...) 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. 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)

Peter Achinstein has gathered some prominent philosophers and historians of science for critical and lively discussions of both general questions about the ...

This volume is a collection of some of the most important philosophical papers by Peter Gärdenfors. Spanning a period of more than 20 years of his research, they cover a wide ground of topics, from early works on decision theory, belief revision and nonmonotonic logic to more recent work on conceptual spaces, inductive reasoning, semantics and the evolutions of thinking. Many of the papers have only been published in places that are difficult to access. The common theme of all (...) the papers is the dynamics of thought. Several of the papers have become minor classics and the volume bears witness of the wide scope of Gärdenfors’ research and of his crisp and often witty style of writing. The volume will be of interest to researchers in philosophy and other cognitive sciences. (shrink)

Newton deplored speculation in science, Einstein reveled in it. What exactly are scientific speculations? Are they ever legitimate? Are they subject to constraints? This book defends a pragmatic approach to these issues and applies it to speculations within science and to speculations about science.

Peter Winch's translation of Wittgenstein's remarks on culture and value presents all entries chronologically, with the German text alongside the English and a subject index for reference. "It was Wittgenstein's habit to record his thoughts in sequences of more or less closely related 'remarks' which he kept in notebooks throughout his life. The editor of this collection has gone through these notebooks in order to select those 'remarks' which deal with Wittgenstein's views abou the less technical issues in his (...) philosophy. So here we have Wittgenstein's thoughts about religion, music, architecture, the nature of philosophy, the spirit of our times, genius, being Jewish, and so on. The work is a masterpiece by a mastermind."—Leonard Linsky. (shrink)

In the first two volumes of On What Matters Derek Parfit argues that there are objective moral truths, and other normative truths about what we have reasons to believe, and to want, and to do. In defending his view, Parfit argues that if there are no objective normative truths, nihilism follows, and nothing matters. He criticizes many leading contemporary philosophers working on ethics, including Simon Blackburn, Stephen Darwall, Allen Gibbard, Frank Jackson, Peter Railton, Mark Schroeder, Michael Smith, and Sharon (...) Street. Does Anything Really Matter? gives these philosophers an opportunity to respond to Parfit, and includes essays by Richard Chappell, Andrew Huddleston, Katarzyna de Lazari-Radek and Peter Singer, Bruce Russell, and Larry Temkin. A third volume of On What Matters, in which Parfit engages with his critics and breaks new ground in finding significant agreement between his own views and theirs, is appearing as a separate companion volume. (shrink)

Ellerton, Peter So what is the scientific method, and why do so many people, sometimes including those trained in science, get it so wrong? The first thing to understand is that there is no one method in science, no one way of doing things. This is intimately connected with how we reason in general.

ABSTRACT Tensism is the view that tense is not merely a property of language and the mind, but of the world itself. Perspectivalism extends this idea to all perspectival properties be they person or locational. One challenge that perspectivalism faces is the problem of expressing the contents of the beliefs and utterances of persons that are in other perspectival positions. One proposed solution to this problem is to allow for semantic theories that "realign" the expression of contents so that the (...) contents expressed by persons in other perspectival positions can be re-expressed from one's own perspectival position. In this paper I argue that a similar semantic realignment strategy could be deployed in helping perspectivalists generally come to grips with a puzzle raised by the Special Theory of Relativity. In short, the strategy is to realign the expression of contents in another inertial frame so that they are expressed from within your inertial frame. As we will see, the strategy is not puzzle free. (shrink)

This article replies to the main objections raised by the commentators on Carruthers . It discusses the question of what evidence is relevant to the assessment of dispositional higher-order thought theory; it explains how the actual properties of phenomenal consciousness can be dispositionally constituted; it discusses the case of pains and other bodily sensations in non-human animals and young children; it sketches the case for preferring higher-order to first-order theories of phenomenal consciousness; and it replies to some miscellaneous points and (...) objections. (shrink)

Fabienne Peter on whether difficult political decisions should be made by experts.

MONTAIGNE criou um novo gênero literário – o ensaio -, seus próprios Ensaios tiveram uma vasta influência sobre o pensamento e a literatura do Renascimento e dos séculos posteriores. Observador sereno e irônico da comédia humana, era notavelmente muito consciente do etnocentrismo de outros povos. Atraído pela diversidade humana, estava preparado para tomar a vida privada tão seriamente quanto a vida pública. MONTAIGNE tem sido muito freqüentemente tratado como um “moderno” nascido fora de sua época. Peter Burke apresenta-o como (...) um cavalheiro do campo, um homem do Renascimento e um membro da geração dos anos 1530 que floresceu numa sociedade dividida pela guerra civil, descreve as reações da posteridade aos Ensaios e pergunta se MONTAIGNE pode, em algum sentido, ser considerado nosso contemporâneo. (shrink)

Peter Elbow's widely acclaimed and original theories on the writing process, set forth in Writing without Teachers and Writing with Power, have earned him a reputation as a leading educational innovator. For this book Elbow has drawn together twelve of his essays on the nature of learning and teaching to suggest a comprehensive philosophy of education.

Peter Anstey rejects the widespread view that all knowledge for Locke is propositional. He argues, instead, that Locke accepts a form of non-propositional knowledge. The perception of the agreement and disagreement of ideas, according to Anstey's interpretation, is akin to what Bertrand Russell called “knowledge by acquaintance.” He presents a careful, four-step analysis of Locke’s view of the acquisition of knowledge, which is designed to show how the mind proceeds from perceiving to affirming, then to assenting, and finally to (...) verbalizing propositions. This comprehensive account takes into account a variety of remarks Locke makes about perception, knowledge and true or false propositions, and Anstey claims that overall this interpretation is a better fit than the orthodox view that Locke held all knowledge to be propositional. (shrink)