The writings published here are not so much an epitome as episodes. But most do not digress. They mark the turns and turning points of a human style, the tropes of an expressive life embodying the changing tempos of an age. Until we fall silent, all of us are trying to say. These fragmentary efforts to speak to, rejoin, and help create a new community of liberated human beings constitute the epigraphs of Sartre's historical inscription.

Sartre’s scattered commentaries and remarks on theater, published in a variety of media outlets, as well as in the most unlikely of essays, were finally assembled late in Sartre’s career and published in one volume, Un Théâtre de situations, put together by Michel Contat and Michel Rybalka in 1973. Inevitably, a number of later or missing theatrical documents then came to light, and an updated edition of Un Théâtre de situations appeared in 1992. There still remained, however, other documents (...) on theater which for one reason or another were not included in the later volume. Two of these documents are published interviews that Sartre gave to the Russian theater journal, Teatr, in 1956 and 1962. It is those virtually unknown interviews by Sartre on theater that we are pleased to publish here for the first time in English translation. (shrink)

C.H. Waddington is today remembered chiefly as a Drosophila developmental geneticist who developed the concepts of “canalization” and “the epigenetic landscape.” In his lifetime, however, he was widely perceived primarily as a critic of Neo-Darwinian evolutionary theory. His criticisms of Neo-Darwinian evolutionary theory were focused on what he saw as unrealistic, “atomistic” models of both gene selection and trait evolution. In particular, he felt that the Neo-Darwinians badly neglected the phenomenon of extensive gene interactions and that the “randomness” of mutational (...) effects, posited in the theory, was a false postulate. This last criticism dealt with the phenomenon known today as “developmental constraints.” Although population genetics itself has evolved considerably from its form at mid-20th century, much of Waddington’s critique, it is argued here, retains cogency. Yet, he did not attempt to develop a full-fledged alternative theory himself. Perhaps most surprisingly, in retrospect, is that he did not try to marry his work on gene interactions in development with his evolutionary interests, to create a theory of “genetic networks” and their evolution. Whether evolutionary genetics today will incorporate “network thinking” as a central element or whether there will be a general retreat to the more atomistic approach offered by genomics, remains an open question. (shrink)

Predstavlenie ob "obraze Bozhiem" v svi︠a︡shchennom Pisanii -- Poni︠a︡tie "obraz Bozhiĭ" v svi︠a︡shchennom Predanii -- Lichnye svoĭstva Boga i cheloveka v svi︠a︡shchennom Pisanii -- Poni︠a︡tie "obraz Bozhiĭ" i lichnye svoĭstva -- Analiz sootnoshenii︠a︡ poni︠a︡tiĭ "lichnostʹ" i "obraz Bozhiĭ" v pravoslavii -- "Idei︠a︡ lichnostnogo bytii︠a︡ v russkoĭ bogoslovskoĭ mysli XIX veka".

Chronological explanation of physics from early history through current studies geared to lay readers with limited mathematical training.

On the life and works of Maṇḍanamiśra, philosopher of Saṅkarācārya tradition.

ch. 1. Istorii︠a︡ sot︠s︡iologicheskikh ucheniĭ -- ch. 2. Nauchnai︠a︡ teorii︠a︡ obshchestva.

The history of the Russian Old Believers who lived in Ukraine, as well as the question of the main methods and features of the power struggle with representatives of this peculiar ethno-confessional group and the ways of their adaptation to the conditions that existed in the Russian Empire in the middle of the XIX century remain a little researched topic. So, we can talk about the scientific relevance of a particular problem.

This thesis is neither e page to page commentary nor en assessment of Hume's place in the history of Philosophy. It mainly consists in an attempt at justifying a certain approach to the Interpretation of his theory of value with special reference to morals.

A version of nonstandard analysis, Internal Set Theory, has been used to provide a resolution of Zeno's paradoxes of motion. This resolution is inadequate because the application of Internal Set Theory to the paradoxes requires a model of the world that is not in accordance with either experience or intuition. A model of standard mathematics in which the ordinary real numbers are defined in terms of rational intervals does provide a formalism for understanding the paradoxes. This model suggests that in (...) discussing motion, only intervals, rather than instants, of time are meaningful. The approach presented here reconciles resolutions of the paradoxes based on considering a finite number of acts with those based on analysis of the full infinite set Zeno seems to require. The paper concludes with a brief discussion of the classical and quantum mechanics of performing an infinite number of acts in a finite time. (shrink)

Several recent papers dealing with Plato's position on the imperfection of the phenomenal world draw heavily on the differences between two kinds of predicates in order to show the following: In the middle dialogues, Plato posits Forms only as referents of what the writers call incomplete predicates. He does not posit Forms as referents for complete predicates. When interpreters ignore the differences between these kinds of predicates, they ascribe too radical a view regarding the imperfection of the phenomenal world to (...) the middle dialogues. The ontology of these dialogues includes sensible particulars which retain their identity over time even though they are continually changing in some respect or other. (shrink)

Confidence ratings have often been integrated into reasoning and intelligence tasks as a means for assessing meta-reasoning processes. Although it is often assumed that eliciting these judgements throughout reasoning tasks has no effect on the underlying performance outcomes, this is yet to be established empirically. The current study examines whether eliciting CR from participants during a fluid-reasoning task influences their performance and how this effect is moderated by their initial self-confidence in their own reasoning abilities. In a first experiment, we (...) found that participants performing CR during Raven's Progressive Matrices significantly outperformed a control group who did not provide ratings. Additionally, a second experiment demonstrated that CR only facilitated performance in participants who have a high level of initial self-confidence in their reasoning ability, whereas they were detrimental to participants low in self-confidence. (shrink)

: Dr. Smith is an internist in private practice who works at an inner city clinic affiliated with a university hospital. He is also a member of the university faculty. Many of Dr. Smith’s patients have type 2 diabetes mellitus and struggle with health care and other costs. Thinking about opportunities to better serve his patients and advance his career, Dr. Smith considers conducting clinical research in his office. ACME is a respected pharmaceutical company that for decades has engaged in (...) research, development, and production of widely used drugs. Several of ACME’s oral agents for type 2 diabetes will soon go off patent. In an effort to retain its market share in this class of drugs, ACME wants to complete clinical trials expeditiously and obtain approval for its new oral hypoglycemic medicine. The company approaches Dr. Smith to be a coinvestigator in its multicenter clinical trial. (shrink)

Frank Jackson has abandoned his famous knowledge argument, and has explained why in a brief "Postscript on Qualia" . This explanation consists of a direct argument, and an attempt to explain away the intuition that lies at the heart of the knowledge argument. The direct argument is clarified and found to be subtly question-begging. The attempt to explain away the key intuition is reviewed and found to be inadequate. False memory traces, which Jackson mentions at the beginning of the direct (...) argument, are discussed and found not to materially affect the force of the knowledge argument. (shrink)

Collingwood’s “Libellus de Generatione: An Essay in Absolute Empiricism” was a tract of strenuous philosophical revisionism; never published, perhaps unpublishable, supposedly destroyed, it survived. He begins by stressing his obligations to David Hume; he offers his thematic: “absolute denial of any such concept as substance and the resolution of all reality into the reality of experience.” “The reality of mind is the process of its experience, its life, and nothing else”. Or, “the mind is a mirror... whose being is solely (...) the activity of reflecting”; it has no “substance of its own of which this activity is only a reflection”. Collingwood’s entire career as student and teacher... (shrink)

Ayn Rand's first novel, We the Living, offers an early form of the author's nascent philosophy—the philosophy Rand later called Objectivism. Robert Mayhew's collection of entirely new essays brings together pre-eminent scholars of Rand's writing. In part a history of We the Living, from its earliest drafts to the Italian film later based upon it, Mayhew's collection goes on to explore the enduring significance of Rand's first novel as a work both of philosophy and of literature.

Aim To study the views on the acceptability of physician-assisted-suicide of lay people and health professionals in an African country, Togo.Method In February–June 2012, 312 lay people and 198 health professionals in Togo judged the acceptability of PAS in 36 concrete scenarios composed of all combinations of four factors: the patient's age, the level of incurability of the illness, the type of suffering and the patient's request for PAS. In all scenarios, the patients were women receiving the best possible care. (...) The ratings were subjected to cluster analysis and analyses of variance.Results Most lay people were not systematically opposed to PAS, whereas most health professionals were systematically opposed to it. The most important factors in increasing acceptability among people not systematically opposed were advanced age of the patient and incurability of the illness. Additional acceptability was provided by the patient's request to have her life ended, although much less so than in studies in Western countries, and by suffering characterised by complete dependence rather than by extreme physical pain.Conclusions These empirical findings—the first ones gathered in the African continent—suggest that most Togolese lay people are not categorically for or against PAS, but judge its degree of acceptability as a function of concrete circumstances. (shrink)

With the publication of The God Delusion Richard Dawkins became enthroned as the unofficial ‘Emperor’ for a cadre of writers advancing a rhetorically robust form of anti-theism dubbed ‘The New Atheism’ by Wired Magazine contributing editor Gary Wolf. Many have cheered Dawkins and his court, seeing in their writings just what they long to see. For, after the fashion of the fairy-tale Emperor's fabled new clothes, the ‘new atheism’ has seen naturalism wrapping itself in a fake finery of counterfeit meaning (...) and purpose. (shrink)