Congo Style presents a postcolonial approach to discussing the visual culture of two now-notorious regimes: King Leopold II's Congo Colony and the state sites of Mobutu Sese Seko's totalitarian Zaïre. Readers are brought into the living remains of sites once made up of ambitious modernist architecture and art in Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of the Congo. From the total artworks of Art Nouveau to the aggrandizing sites of post-independence Kinshasa, Congo Style investigates the experiential qualities of man-made environments intended to entertain, (...) delight, seduce and impress. In her study of visual culture, Ruth Sacks sets out to reinstate the compelling wonder of nationalist architecture from Kinshasa's post-independence era, such as the Tower of the Exchange (1974), Gécamines Tower (1977), and the artworks and exhibitions that accompanied them. While exploring post-independence nation-building, this book examines how the underlying ideology of Belgian Art Nouveau, a celebrated movement in Belgium, led to the dominating early colonial settler buildings of the ABC Hotels (circa 1908-13). Congo Style combines Sacks's practice as a visual artist and her academic scholarship to provide an original study of early colonial and independence-era modernist sites in their African context. (shrink)

This book contains the material for a first course in pure model theory with applications to differentially closed fields.

In their article “Ethical Issues in Fecal Microbiota Transplantation in Practice,” Ma and colleagues (2017) raise a number of questions related to the development of fecal microbiota transplants (F...

Where we once spoke in military terms, we now often wield the language of the market: health care is a “product” and we are its “providers” and “consumers.” The market metaphor constrains in various ways our vision of the goals we pursue in making health policy, of the options available to us in pursuing them, indeed—because policy implies a certain view of moral agency—of the way we relate to each other.

Preprint of Cole, Sacks, and Waterman. 2000. "On the immunity principle: A view from a robot." Trends in Cognitive Science 4 (5): 167, a response to Shaun Gallagher, S. 2000. "Philosophical conceptions of the self: implications for cognitive science," Trends in Cognitive Science 4 (1):14-21. Also see Shaun Gallagher, Reply to Cole, Sacks, and Waterman Trends in Cognitive Science 4, No. 5 (2000): 167-68.

Neither the George Washington University embryo splitting experiment nor the technique of embryo splitting itself has ethical flaws. The experiment harmed or wronged no one, and the investigators followed intramural review procedures for the experiment, although some might fault them for failing to seek extramural consultation or for not waiting until national guidelines for research on preembryos were developed. Ethical objections to such cloning on the basis of possible loss of individuality, possible lessening of individual worth, and concern about potential (...) harm to the resulting children are discussed and challenged, as are objections to the creation of embryos for the purpose of genetic diagnosis. Many of the ethical questions raised by the George Washington experiment are similar to those posed by existing reproductive technologies that allow the simultaneous production of several embryos. A multidisciplinary group should consider whether regulation of cloning is needed, and laws should be enacted to prohibit a commercial market for all frozen embryos. (shrink)

Jehovah's Witnesses who refuse blood transfusions on religious grounds have long created ethical dilemmas for those in the medical profession trying to serve them. A bioethicist working in a clinical setting explores how one hospital ethics committee grappled with the additional problem of pregnant Jehovah's Witnesses, including the complex interdependence of maternal and fetal rights.

This collection of Marcus's non-technical essays include her earlier ground-breaking axiomatizations of quantified modal logic, and explore such topics as the necessity of identity, the directly referential role of proper names as "tags", the interplay of possibility and existence, and others viewed as iconoclastic when Marcus first addressed them, but now long incorporated into current discussion.

In what follows I will address Kant’s concerns in the First Analogy and in the Refutation of Idealism. Because the two discussions have a similar trajectory, it is of interest to identify some of the differences between them. As we will see, the manifest differences are indicative of more significant underlying differences, regarding two ways of construing transcendental proofs.

What does it mean to say that ethics committees that provide prospective review of research involving human beings should be “independent”? In the United States, IRBs—which are typically located within and review research protocols at the institution for which most of their members work—cannot really be considered independent. Yet separating the IRB from the research institution may in turn mean less independence from a trial’s sponsors, as this kind of IRB is commercially motivated and paid directly by the sponsor. One (...) possible answer is to create independent IRBs that are not for profit, but how this model would attract financial and administrative support is unclear. (shrink)

In this book the chief rabbi addresses some of the major themes of our time: the fragmentation of our common culture, the breakdown of family and community life ...

Contents: Recursive Enumerability and the Jump Operator; On the Degrees Less Than 0'; A Simple Set Which Is Not Effectively Simple; The Recursively Enumerable Degrees Are Dense; Metarecursive Sets (with G Kreisel); Post's Problem, Admissible Ordinals and Regularity; On a Theorem of Lachlan and Marlin; A Minimal Hyperdegree (with R O Gandy); Measure-Theoretic Uniformity in Recursion Theory and Set Theory; Forcing with Perfect Closed Sets; Recursion in Objects of Finite Type; The a-Finite Injury Method (with S G Simpson); Remarks Against (...) Foundational Activity; Countable Admissible Ordinals and Hyperdegrees; The 1-Section of a Type n Object; The k-Section of a Type n Object; Post's Problem, Absoluteness and Recursion in Finite Types; Effective Bounds on Morley Rank; On the Number of Countable Models; Post's Problem in E-Recursion; The Limits of E-Recursive Enumerability; Effective Versus Proper Forcing. (shrink)

Eunapius, pagan historian of the fourth century, wrote a history of the contemporary Roman Empire. Scholars have understood Eunapius'animosity toward Christianity as coloring his judgment and supplying him with a purpose for writing. Though his history did reflect contemporary religious tension, it is primarily shaped by traditional approaches to historiography. Eunapius attempts to analogize and explain human behavior in terms of the natural laws which pervade the history. His message is founded on classical values independent of current concerns; Eunapius inculpates (...) an apparently innocent pagan to prove one point. He was not only participant in the sectarian struggle which divided the Empire; he was also part of a thousand-year-old culture that served to unify it. (shrink)

What I take to be the consummation of rhythmic music, which music parlance describes as "being in the groove", is here regarded as an experience that symbolically manifests a "highest good" which is a perennial theme in western metaphysics. This Good is a contemporaneity between terms of fundamental oppositions that constitute the human condition. From Kant's critical project, this ideal is traced from its origins in Socratic dialectic, through Schelling's principle of "Identity", and into Kierkegaard's notion of "resting transparently." Musical (...) performance is successful, I argue, to the degree to which it manages to play this "both-at-once.". (shrink)

Four questions are raised about the semantics of Quantified Modal Logic. Does QML admit possible objects, i.e. possibilia? Is it plausible to admit them? Can sense be made of such objects? Is QML committed to the existence of possibilia?The conclusions are that QML, generalized as in Kripke, would seem to accommodate possibilia, but they are rejected on philosophical and semantical grounds. Things must be encounterable, directly nameable and a part of the actual order before they may plausibly enter into the (...) identity relation. QML is not committed to possibiha in that the range of variables may be restricted to actual objects.Support of the conclusions requires some discussion of substitution puzzles; also, the semantical distinction between proper names which are directly referring, and descriptions even where the latter are "rigid designators".Views of W.V. Quine, B. Russell, K. Donnellan, D. Kaplan as well as S. Kripke are invoked or evaluated in conjunction with these issues. (shrink)

The role of government in assuring population access to affordable and appropriate health care represents a central question for any nation. Of particular concern is access to prescription drug coverage, not only because of the vital role played by drugs in modern medicine, but also because of their high costs. This article examines the sharply contrasting prescription drug coverage and payment policies found in Australia and the U.S. – strong political allies and international trading partners – and describes how key (...) U.S. interests have sought, through an aggressive trade agenda, to expand markets for U.S. goods and services, even when market expansions clash with other nations’ contrasting emphasis on social equity and fairness. Indeed, the nation’s bilateral free trade negotiations have brought the contours of this policy schism into sharp relief. (shrink)

I highlight and amplify three central points that McKay & Dennett (M&D) make about the origin of failures to perform biologically proper functions. I question whether even positive illusions meet criteria for evolved misbelief.

… [T]he question “valuable to what end?” is one of extraordinary complexity. For example, something obviously valuable in terms of the longest possible survival of a race would by no means have the same value if it were a question of developing a more powerful type. The welfare of the many and the welfare of the few are radically opposite ends.There is no question that genetic engineering in many forms… will come about. It is a general rule that whatever is (...) scientifically feasible will be attempted. The application of these technics must, however, be examined from the point of view of ethics, individual freedom and coercion. Both the scientists directly involved and, perhaps more important, the political and social leaders of our civilization must exercise utmost caution in order to prevent genetic, evolutionary and social tragedies. (shrink)

The prelims comprise: Introduction Public Policy Actions Strong Reactions to Human Cloning A Rational Approach to Public Policy.

IT IS A COMMONLY HELD VIEW that a clear distinction can be made between what a person does and what happens to him. This distinction is usually assumed, rather than argued for, and it is made to do some work--a load it seems unable to bear--in contemporary philosophy of action. Minimally, the thesis asserts that a man's actions are those things he does. This thesis is used to support the view that it is a conceptual error or otherwise inappropriate to (...) attempt to provide causal explanations of human actions. It is frequently argued that although what happens to a person is an event subsumable under causal laws, a person's action is not amenable to causal explanations. (shrink)

: The Advisory Committee on Human Radiation Experiments experienced some disagreements among its members in the course of its work. An epistemological controversy over the nature and degree of evidence required to draw ethical conclusions pervaded the committee's deliberations. Other disagreements involved the proper role of a governmental advisory committee and the question of when it is appropriate to notify people that they were unknowing subjects of radiation experiments. In the end, the Committee was able to reach consensus on almost (...) all of its findings and recommendations through a process that preserved the integrity of its members. (shrink)

An examination is made of the dispute between the proponents of rational explanation of actions and of the deductive nomological pattern of explanation. A rapprochement between these two positions is suggested, with the aim of accounting for the normative character of reasons for acting. It is argued that the disputed area is an area of intersection between facts and values, and that far from it being the case that the normative and descriptive components can be separated or isolated, the underlying (...) precepts are to be viewed as both explanatory (descriptive) and normative. The discussion is divided into two general areas: (1) the normative force of reasons for acting; and (2) the normative character of rationality. (shrink)

Any program seeking to provide antiretroviral treatment to the many patients in need is bound to confront ethical dilemmas. Dilemmas, as we know, are situations in which decisionmakers are faced with a choice between equally unsatisfactory alternatives. Yet those in charge must make a decision or establish a policy that takes one pathway to the exclusion of another. Reasonable people may disagree over the choice, arguing that an alternative selection would have been ethically superior.