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This work is the first to demonstrate the differences and similarities between Plato's myths and the traditional kind of which he was critical. It also actively demonstrates the extent to which his own myths support or undermine the philosophical ideas of the dialogues in which they are set. It offers new arguments and criticism on point of detail concerning modern interpretations.

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Essays honoring the work of Catholic ethicist James F. Keenan.

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Johns and Johnson analyze the invasion of Panama in order to explore the ways in which the War on Drugs has been used as an ideological justification for a projection of U.S. state power into Latin America. They characterize the Bush Administration's reasons for the invasion as cynical ideological rhetoric which covered up strategic interests the United States had in deposing Noriega and replacing him with a more cooperative regime. The authors particularly discuss the role of media coverage, including the (...) demonization of Noriega and the immediate adoption by the corporate media of the name Operation Just Cause, in legitimating the invasion and transforming it in popular ideology as a law enforcement operation. Finally, they examine the aftermath of the invasion in the United States--Bush's popularity ratings, the distortion of civilian casualty information, the macho celebration of the war--and in Panama--the destruction of the labor and independence movements, the puppet Endara government, and the increased drug trafficking through Panama. (shrink)

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© 2017. The American Astronomical Society. All rights reserved.We present new observations of the low-mass companion to HD 984 taken with the Gemini Planet Imager as a part of the GPI Exoplanet Survey campaign. Images of HD 984 B were obtained in the J and H bands. Combined with archival epochs from 2012 and 2014, we fit the first orbit to the companion to find an 18 au orbit with a 68% confidence interval between 14 and 28 au, an eccentricity (...) of 0.18 with a 68% confidence interval between 0.05 and 0.47, and an inclination of 119°with a 68% confidence interval between 114°and 125°. To address the considerable spectral covariance in both spectra, we present a method of splitting the spectra into low and high frequencies to analyze the spectral structure at different spatial frequencies with the proper spectral noise correlation. Using the split spectra, we compare them to known spectral types using field brown dwarf and low-mass star spectra and find a best-fit match of a field gravity M6.5 ±1.5 spectral type with a corresponding temperature of K. Photometry of the companion yields a luminosity of log=2.88 ± 0.07 dex with DUSTY models. Mass estimates, again from DUSTY models, find an age-dependent mass of 34 ±1 to 95 ±4 M Jup. These results are consistent with previous measurements of the object. (shrink)

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Children’s exposure to the marketing of energy-dense nutrient-poor (EDNP) foods is a public health concern and marketing investment is known to be shifting to non-broadcast media, such as the Internet. This paper examines the perceptions of parents and children on ethical aspects of food marketing to which children are exposed. The research used qualitative methods with parent-child (aged between 8–13 years), from South Australia. Thirteen parent-child pairs participated in this research. Ethical concerns raised by parents and children included, the marketing (...) of EDNP foods, pester power and family conflict and the use of powerful techniques via the Internet. Their views on rights and responsibilities represented a complex mixture of idealistic and pragmatic positions. They appeared to be caught within the tensions of problematizing unhealthy food marketing to children, both as a social problem and as an individual problem. Their dilemmas are not dissimilar to the broader policy debate in Australia on the matter of food marketing to children. The stale-mate on statutory regulations to protect children from exposure to EDNP food marketing could be advanced by stronger use of ethical arguments to protect children from harmful exploitation and to protect parents from forces that undermine their authority. (shrink)

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The customary assumption about dying is that one would rather not. The event of death itself should be postponed for as long as possible, and comfort may be gained from doctrines which promise a victory over it. We celebrate those who try to cheat it. The dying Henry James thought he was Napoleon, and there is something in that, over and above the pathos of a wandering mind, that exemplifies, however parodically, the mental set we expect to find and what (...) we relish in those who attempt to press their own strong case against the disintegrative flow of time and change. We assume that one should struggle against death, setting such a stamp on life that even if the body must die, something the mind has done may not. Attitudes that run counter to this stubbornness are thought defeatist or unwholesome. In his own decline, Charles Baudelaire, catching sight of himself in a mirror, bowed, thinking himself a stranger. That confusion is more chilling than Jams’ because it undermines the treasured integrity of the self: it shows that death is not an invader attacking suddenly from outside. We are in one sense always in its keeping. In this essay I shall argue that whatever revolt against death may catalyse the act of writing poetry, poems are intimately tied to death in ways that complicate and even undermine that revolt. Indeed, since the inception of Romanticism , a poem in order to be a poem has had to engage not only with the fact that in the midst of life we are in its negation, but also with death’s analogues: madness, trance, divisions and questionings of the self. The relationship between poetry and the disruption of the customary self may even be celebratory.But before investigating the relationship between poetry and death, we had better be sure that one can indeed die:At first glance, the preoccupation of the writer who writes in order to be able to die is an affront to common sense. It would seem we can be sure of at least one event: it will come without any approach on our part, without our bestirring ourselves at all; yes, it will come. That is true, but at the same time it is not true, and indeed quite possibly it lacks truth altogether. At least it does not have the kind of truth which we feel in the world, which is the measure of our action and of our presence in the world. What makes me disappear from the world cannot finds its guarantee there; and thus, in a way, having no guarantee, it is not certain. This explains why no one is linked to death by real certitude. No one is sure of dying.1No one can think to cheat death, but to contemplate death is to introduce into thought the epitome of doubt. The one thing I can never know in advance or know demonstrably, by my very nature and by its, is the actual instant of my own death. Conventionally, “I will go when my time comes”: the phrase gestures toward the privacy of each human death, and the Protestant tone of “my time”—part predestination, part ownership—barely hides the inaccessibility of death inside that privacy. There are two certainties in life. One is that death will come. The other is that no one can be sure of this. Perhaps no one has truly died yet. 1. Maurice Blanchot, The Space of Literature, trans. Ann Smock , p. 95; all further references to this work, abbreviated SL, will be included in the text. GeoffreyWard is lecturer in English at the University of Liverpool. He is at present completing his first critical book, The Poetry of Estrangement. His published articles include essays on symbolism in John Ashbery, Conrad’s English, metaphor in Shelley’s longer poems, the novels of Henry Green, and Wyndham Lewis. He has also published five volumes of poetry, mot recently Not the Hand Itself. (shrink)

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Objectives: To quantify the use of do-not-resuscitate orders in a tertiary-care children’s hospital and to characterise the circumstances in which such orders are written.Design: Retrospective study conducted in a 500-bed children’s hospital in Taiwan.Patients: The course of 101 patients who died between January 2002 and December 2005 was reviewed. The following data were collected: age at death, gender, disease and its status, place of death and survival. There were 59 males and 42 females with a median age of 103 months (...) . 50 children had leukaemias, and 51 had malignancies other than leukaemia. The t test and the χ2 test were applied as appropriate.Results: The study found that 44% of patient deaths occurred in the paediatric oncologyward; 29% of patient deaths occurred in the intensive care unit; and 28% of patients died in their home or at another hospital. Other findings included the following: 46 of 101 patients died after attempted cardiopulmonary resuscitation and 55 died with a DNR order in effect. The mean age at death was 9.8 years in both groups with or without DNR orders.Conclusions: From the study of patient deaths in this tertiary-care children’s hospital, it was concluded that an explicit DNR order is now the rule rather than the exception, with more DNR orders being written for patients who have been ill longer, who have solid tumours, who are not in remission and who are in theward. (shrink)

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Aims: To assess patient receipt of written information. To ensure patients understand the written information about a resuscitation policy and to determine whether they disapproved of or had concerns about the policy. Methods: All admissions to four wards of the hospital were approached for an interview. A set questionnaire was asked by one of 2 interviewers. Results: 72% of 572 admissions were interviewed. Refusal accounted for only 2 of the people not interviewed. 11% were unable to advocate for themselves by (...) reason of mental incompetence, inability to communicate or impairment secondary to their illness. Of the 401 interviewed only 49% recalled receiving the patient information booklet. Few patients (17%) recalled reading the information in the patient information booklet. They were all then given the paragraph about the hospital’s resuscitation policy. 352 were asked their understanding and only 61% demonstrated that they understood the paragraph. 91% of all 401 patients approved of the hospital having the option of DNR orders. 31% of people however had concerns related to DNR orders. These are discussed. Conclusions: Many acutely unwell patients are unable to advocate for themselves. Written information is a poor method of communicating with patients. There was limited receipt of the information and many misunderstood the paragraph about the hospitals resuscitation policy. There was a wide range of patient thoughts and concerns expressed. (shrink)

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Aim: This study explores priority dilemmas in dialysis treatment and care offered elderly patients within the Norwegian public healthcare system.Background: Inadequate healthcare due to advanced age is frequently reported in Norway. The Norwegian guidelines for healthcare priorities state that age alone is not a relevant criterion. However, chronological age, if it affects the risk or effect of medical treatment, can be a legitimate criterion.Method: A qualitative approach is used. Data were collected through semistructured interviews and analysed through hermeneutical content analysis. (...) The informants were five physicians and four nurses from dialysis wards.Findings: Pressing priority dilemmas centre around decision-making concerning withholding and withdrawal of dialysis treatment. Advanced age is rarely an absolute or sole priority criterion. It seems, however, that advanced age appears to be a more subtle criterion in relation with, for example, comorbidity, functional status and cognitive impairment. Nurses primarily prioritise specialised dialysis care and not comprehensive nursing care. The complex needs of elderly patients are therefore often not always met.Conclusions: Clinical priorities should be made more transparent in order to secure legitimate and fair resource allocation in dialysis treatment and care. Difficult decisions concerning withholding or withdrawal of dialysis ought to be openly discussed within the healthcare team as well as with patients and significant others. The biomedical focus and limitations on comprehensive care during dialysis should be debated. (shrink)

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One of his obituarists describes ColinWard (1924-2010) as ‘as one of the greatest anarchist thinkers of the past half century’, ‘a pioneering social historian’ and a chuckling anarchist.1 In the p...

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Defect detection is a major concern in quality control of various products in industries. This paper presents two different machine-vision based methods for detecting defects on periodically patterned textures. In the first method, input defective image is split into several blocks of size same as the size of the periodic unit of the image and chi-square histogram distances of each periodic block with respect to itself and all other periodic blocks are calculated to get a dissimilarity matrix. This dissimilarity matrix (...) is subjected toWard's hierarchical clustering to automatically identify defective and defect-free blocks. The second method of defect detection is based on Universal Quality Index which is a measure of loss of correlation, luminance distortion and contrast distortion between any two signals. Quality indices of a periodic block with respect to itself and all other periodic blocks are calculated to get a similarity matrix containing quality indices. Specific variances of the periodic blocks are derived from the quality index matrix through orthogonal factor model based on eigen decomposition. These variances are subjected toWard's hierarchical clustering to automatically identify defective and defect-free blocks. Results of experiments on real fabric images with defects show that the defect detection methods based on chi-square histogram distance and universal quality index yield a success rate of 98.6% and 97.8% respectively. (shrink)

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Open peer commentary on the article “Lived Experience and Cognitive Science Reappraising Enactivism’s Jonasian Turn” by Mario Villalobos & DaveWard. Upshot: As a reply to the criticism that anthropomorphism and modern science are incompatible, targeting Jonasian phenomenology and Varelian enactivism, I suggest considering the concept of modern anthropomorphism, which seems prima facie compatible with the pluralistic situation of today’s life sciences. My further claim is that the phenomenological method is intrinsically linked with this sort of anthropomorphism.

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Background: Despite a gradual shift in the focus of medical care among terminally ill patients to a palliative model, studies suggest that many children with life-limiting chronic illnesses continue to die in hospital after prolonged periods of inpatient admission and mechanical ventilation.Objectives: To examine the characteristics and location of death among hospitalised children, investigate yearwise trends in these characteristics and test the hypothesis that professional ethical guidance from the UK Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health would lead to significant (...) changes in the characteristics of death among hospitalised children.Methods: Routine administrative data from one large tertiary-level UK children’s hospital was examined over a 7-year period for children aged 0–18 years. Demographic details, location of deaths, source of admission , length of stay and final diagnoses were studied. Statistical significance was tested by the Kruskal–Wallis analysis of ranks and median test , χ2 test and Cochran–Armitage test .Results: Of the 1127 deaths occurring in hospital over the 7-year period, the majority were among infants. The main diagnoses at death included congenital malformations , perinatal diseases , cardiovascular disorders and neoplasms . Most deaths occurred in an intensive care unit environment , with a significant increase over the years . There was a clear increase in the proportion of admissions from in-hospital among the ICU cohort . Infants with congenital malformations and perinatal conditions were more likely to die in an ICU , and older children with malignancy outside the ICU . Children stayed for a median of 13 days on a hospitalward before being admitted to an ICU where they died.Conclusions: A greater proportion of hospitalised children are dying in an ICU environment. Our experience indicates that professional ethical guidance by itself may be inadequate in reversing the trends observed in this study. (shrink)

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Open peer commentary on the article “Lived Experience and Cognitive Science Reappraising Enactivism’s Jonasian Turn” by Mario Villalobos & DaveWard. Upshot: Villalobos andWard reappraise enactivism’s “Jonasian turn” and discover an untenable anthropomorphism at its core. As a corrective to this, the authors propose a Maturanian-inspired account of experience that could accommodate central enactive insights while avoiding anthropomorphism. In this commentary, I will delve a bit deeper into Villalobos andWard’s treatment of anthropomorphism. In so doing, (...) I will show that the notion of anthropomorphism trades on an ambiguity that leaves the authors’ own position open to accusations of anthropomorphism and that it needs further justification for why it is at odds with science. I conclude with a few words on why the authors’ assessment of a similar proposal by myself is unfounded. (shrink)

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Thirteen essays, both appreciative and informative, on the man and his philosophy. Simon, Collins, Anderson,Ward, and other leading Thomists are represented. They give us a comprehensive picture of Maritain's interests, his importance and his influence.--B. P. H.

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"Dialectic" is a fulcrum word. Aristotle attacked this belief, saying that the dialectic was only suitable for some purpose- to enquire into men's beliefs, to arrive at truths about eternal forms of things, known as Ideas, which were fixed and un changing and constituted reality for Plato. Aristotle said there is also the method of science, or "physical" method, which observes physical facts and arrives at truths about substances, which undergo change. This duality ofform and substance and the scientific method (...) of arriving at facts about substances were central to Aristotle's philosophy. Thus the dethronement of dialectic from what Socrates and Plato held it to be was ab solutely essential for Aristotle, and "dialectic" was and still is a fulcrum word . . . I think it was Coleridge who said everyone is either a Plato nist or an Aristotelian . . . Plato is the essential Buddha-seeker who appears again and again in each generation, moving onward and upward toward the "one. " Aristotle is the eternal motorcycle mechanic who prefers the "many. " R. (shrink)

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In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Technology and Our Relationship with GodAnselm Ramelow O.P.God's Original Plan and the FallTechnology may appear to be a very secular thing, but to assume that technology can be understood without God would be a mistake. Technology is deeply involved in our relationship with God. This involvement is, moreover, profoundly ambivalent.1To begin with the positive side of this ambivalence: the growing awareness of the dangers of technology should not lead (...) Christians to think that technology is necessarily a bad thing. It is, in fact, not even merely a "necessary evil." Rather, we can find in the use of technology an unfolding of our God-given rational nature. If we believe that God "made us in his image and likeness," then this quite directly implies two things: (1) God is a maker (he made us), and (2) since he made us in his image and likeness, we are makers as well. The making of technology thus reflects our dignity as made in the image and likeness of God.2 Accordingly, the Church has been more positive towards the development of technology than one might expect, and some of our technologies (e.g., agricultural, architectural, and time-keeping technologies) have their roots in medieval monasteries.3 [End Page 159]We should therefore expect that Adam and Eve, had they not fallen, nevertheless would have become makers of technology in some form or other. They would have exhibited inventiveness and tool use, though perhaps not a tool use focused on warding off evil (which did not exist in Eden), but concerned with promoting positive forms life, such as tools of art and communication. Art and communication technologies are, like all tools, means to an end; but these in particular contain their ends in themselves. In Aristotelian terms, their making (poiesis) concerns a praxis (such as "making conversation"). That is why we sometimes forget to list such technologies among our typical examples of technologies. We forget, for example, that, among the technologies of communication, language as a physical tool (sounds or written marks) is an obvious example. And it is a prelapsarian feature: the book of Genesis has Adam naming things before the Fall. In doing so, Adam echoes God's own creative "technique" of speaking or calling things into being.4 Even in its oral form, language is a matter of human making and a technology of communication. In paradise, communication would not have been merely instrumental, not merely a means, but an intrinsic good, embodying knowledge and intersubjective communion.Other forms of prelapsarian technology, however, are a matter of speculation. And whether or not one agrees with Jacques Ellul's thesis that there was no such prelapsarian technology,5 the ambivalence of technology is clear from the very beginning as well. This is at least what we see in the book of Genesis. For, as a matter of biblical record, it was Cain and his descendants who founded cities and developed technology (e.g., Tubal-Cain as the "forger of all instruments of bronze and iron" in Gen 4:22). And the history [End Page 160] of these urban civilizations does not display the best part of human behavior. But if, as we have said, technology is not necessarily a bad thing, then this must be a corruption of technology. What might this corruption consist in?I want to suggest that it consists precisely in the corruption of our relationship with God, from which technology can never abstract and in which it is, for better or for worse, embedded. Unsurprisingly, therefore, as technology progresses, this relationship becomes more and more explicit, and it does so in a paradoxical way: initially, it is an attempt to put humanity in charge and control, to replace our need for reliance on God by allowing us to play God ourselves. But in our current situation, particularly with the emergence of artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning, the roles appear reversed: rather than putting humanity in charge, technology in turn is increasingly in control—to the point of becoming itself a god or idol that rules human life. As a result, we only end up having replaced one God with another... (shrink)

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In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:MARITAIN AS AN INTERPRETER OF AQUINAS ON THE PROBLEM OF INDIVIDUATION }UDE P. DOUGHERTY The Catholic University ofAmerica Washington, D.C. I T HE MEDIEVAL problem of individuation is not the contemporary problem of "individuals" or "particulars" discussed by P. F. Strawson, J. W. Meiland, and others.1 In a certain sense the problem of individuation originates with Parmenides, but it is Plato's philosophy of science that bequeaths the problem to (...) Aristotle and to his medieval commentators. Its solution in Aquinas is not that of Aristotle, nor is it that of Scotus or Suarez. Aquinas will distinguish between the problem of individuation and what we may call the problem of "individuality" or the problem of "subsistence." The solution to both will draw upon many Aristotelian distinctions but will incorporate key elements of St. Thomas's own metaphysics, including the real distinction between essence and existence and his doctrine of participation. It is Maritain's appropriation of St. Thomas's metaphysics that enables him to produce a realistic philosophy of science, one that he offers as compatible with contemporary scientific enquiry. It also enables him to develop a theory of person and personality. But the story begins with Plato. Although Plato's theory of knowledge may appear fanciful to the modern reader, his analysis of scientific knowledge contains a basic set of observations whose truth remains uncontested even 1 Cf. P.F. Strawson, Individuals: An Essay in Descriptive Metaphysics (London: Methuen and Co., 1959); J.W. Meiland, Talking About Particulars (New York: Humanities Press, 1970); P. Butchvarov, Resemblance and Identity (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1966). 19 20 JUDE P. DOUGHERTY though his explanation be faulty. Plato saw clearly that science is of the universal. Things may be particular, but when we consider them as objects of enquiry, the intellect focuses upon the form taken as an exemplar. In Plato's explanation things belong to their various kinds by participating in incorporeal, eternal, and unchangeable archetypes. From a realist's vantage point the problem may be stated simply: Since things are singular, how is it that we intellectually apprehend them as universal? Aristotle's solution is well known and it is one adopted and amplified by St. Thomas. Universals are abstracted from singular things. No one would present Maritain as a medievalist, but, as an interpreter of Aquinas, he has wielded considerable influence in the United States and in Latin America. Many have come to St. Thomas under his tutelage. His knowledge of Aquinas is extensive and is drawn upon throughout his lifelong work, but perhaps nowhere more than in his philosophy of science and in his discussions of the person. The primary text for Thomas's doctrine of individuation is his commentary on Boethius's De Trinitate, where he discusses the division and methods of the sciences. Maritain's philosophy is indebted mainly to his reading of Thomistic texts, but he draws heavily, as well, on the works of his contemporaries, Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange and Louis Geiger, and on those of the classic commentators on Thomas, Cajetan, Sylvester of Ferrara, and John of St. Thomas. Though employing St. Thomas, Maritain is always a man of the twentieth century. In books such as the Degrees of Knowledge, Science and Wisdom, Existence and the Existent, and A Preface to Metaphysics, his foe is always some contemporary exponent of a nominalist position.2 "Nominalists,'' he will say, "have a taste for the real, but no sense of being."3 Timeless 2 Degrees ofKnowledge [Les Degres du Savoir(l 932)], trans. G.B. Phelan, 4th ed. (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1959); Science and Wisdom [Science et Sagesse (1935)], trans. B. Wall (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1940); Existence and the Existent [Court Traite de L:Existence et de L:Existant (1947)], trans. L. Galantiere and G.B. Phelan (New York: Pantheon Books, 1948); A Preface to Metaphysics [Sept Le~ons sur L'Etre et les Premieres Principes de la Raison Speculative (1934)], trans. B. Wall (New York: Sheed andWard, 1939). 3 Degrees of Knowledge, 3. AN INTERPRETER OF AQUINAS 21 metaphysics, he will lament, no longer suits the modern intellect. "Three centuries of empirico-mathematics have so warped the intellect... (shrink)

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In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Taming the Leviathan: The Reception of the Political and Religious Ideas of Thomas Hobbes in England 1640–1700A. P. MartinichJon Parkin. Taming the Leviathan: The Reception of the Political and Religious Ideas of Thomas Hobbes in England 1640–1700. Ideas in Context, 82. Cambridge-New York: Cambridge University Press, 2007. Pp. xi + 449. Cloth, $115.Parkin’s book covers the same period and much of the same material as John Bowle’s Hobbes (...) and his Critics (1951) and Samuel Mintz’s The Hunting of Leviathan (1962), but his scholarship is more extensive and significantly better than that of the earlier books. The scholarship is similar to that of Jeffrey Collins in Hobbes’s Allegiance and belongs to the same school of Cambridge contextualism. Parkin’s book contains good summaries of the books and pamphlets that were published about Hobbes’ political and religious philosophy from 1640 until 1700. While much of this material is known to Hobbes scholars, Parkin has discovered or brought into play a large number of other works. It is good to have all of this material discussed in one place.The book contains, in addition to an Introduction and Conclusion, seven chapters: 1. Reading Hobbes before Leviathan (1640–1651); 2. Leviathan (1651–1654); 3. The Storm (1654–1658); 4. Restoration (1658–1666); 5. Hobbes and Hobbism (1666–1675); [End Page 142] 6. Hobbes and the Restoration Crisis (1675–1685); and 7. Hobbes in the Glorious Revolution (1685–1700).Parkin’s explications of the arguments of Hobbes’ contemporaries, his judgments about their criticisms of Hobbes, and the nature of Hobbes’ own work are too often unsuccessful. He usually does not discuss the structures of the arguments at all, as if narrative is incompatible with analysis, and he often uses tendentious language where argumentation is needed. Parkin uncritically uses “success” words where a hedged phrase is needed. It is quite doubtful that “[Samuel]Ward showed that reason and philosophy” did not subvert “traditional natural ethics” (167; my italics) rather than only trying or purporting to show that. Also, Parkin rarely notices that Hobbes’ critics often misunderstood him. For example, they all think that Hobbes claims that the whole world was in the state of nature at one time. Parkin gives little or no indication that he understands that the state of nature is primarily a concept in a thought experiment (167). The primary lesson of the reception of Hobbes’ philosophy between 1640 and 1700 was that his critics thoroughly misunderstood it, but Parkin ultimately does not appreciate it (e.g., 411; cf. 2, 5, 9). Some critics thought that Hobbes was a republican. There is good evidence that some of his critics never read Hobbes. William Sherlock, for example, writing after the Glorious Revolution, rejects Hobbes’ imagined de facto-ism to embrace a supposedly non-Hobbesian consent theory. In the 1690s, Hobbes the atheist was a convenient bogy. Ironies abound. The nonjurors who railed against Hob-bes, now over a decade dead, and deplored the Toleration Act, were in fact supporting his preference for a strong national church. A good book could be written with the title From Hobbes to Hobbism (cf. 3–4). Parkin does not emphasize that Hobbes’ critics “often absorbed his ideas at the same time as they attacked him” (412).As for his interpretation of Hobbes’ philosophy, Parkin seems uncritically to accept the interpretations of Quentin Skinner, even where they are fairly obviously mistaken. For example, following some of Skinner’s early essays on Hobbes, Parkin says that Leviathan defended de facto theory (193), although later in the book, he seems not to accept this position (e.g., 362, 373). What Skinner ignored is a central feature of Hobbes’ philosophy, namely that no obligation is incurred except through some act of one’s own. This feature is incompatible with a central feature of de facto theory, namely, that a government is legitimate when it has the power to coerce. Parkin thinks that consent theory is a form of de facto theory (387, 412). Even Skinner in his collected essays, Visions of Politics, has backed off somewhat from his earlier view.Parkin writes, “One of the aims of this study has been... (shrink)

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An edition of the letters of Erasmus, regarded as one of the greatest humanist writers. All 12 volumes of this work have been reissued, complete with their scholarly apparatus of commentary and notes, as well as plates.

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Festschrift in honor of S.P. Dubey, Indian philosopher; contributed articles.

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Objectives To conduct an independent evaluation of the first phase of the Health Foundation’s Safer Patients Initiative (SPI), and to identify the net additional effect of SPI and any differences in changes in participating and non-participating NHS hospitals. Design Mixed method evaluation involving five substudies, before and after design. Setting NHS hospitals in the United Kingdom. Participants Four hospitals (one in each country in the UK) participating in the first phase of the SPI (SPI1); 18 control hospitals. Intervention The SPI1 (...) was a compound (multi-component) organisational intervention delivered over 18 months that focused on improving the reliability of specific frontline care processes in designated clinical specialties and promoting organisational and cultural change. Results Senior staff members were knowledgeable and enthusiastic about SPI1. There was a small (0.08 points on a 5 point scale) but significant (P<0.01) effect in favour of the SPI1 hospitals in one of 11 dimensions of the staff questionnaire (organisational climate). Qualitative evidence showed only modest penetration of SPI1 at medicalward level. Although SPI1 was designed to engage staff from the bottom up, it did not usually feel like this to those working on the wards, and questions about legitimacy of some aspects of SPI1 were raised. Of the five components to identify patients at risk of deterioration—monitoring of vital signs (14 items); routine tests (three items); evidence based standards specific to certain diseases (three items); prescribing errors (multiple items from the British National Formulary); and medical history taking (11 items)—there was little net difference between control and SPI1 hospitals, except in relation to quality of monitoring of acute medical patients, which improved on average over time across all hospitals. Recording of respiratory rate increased to a greater degree in SPI1 than in control hospitals; in the second six hours after admission recording increased from 40% (93) to 69% (165) in control hospitals and from 37% (141) to 78% (296) in SPI1 hospitals (odds ratio for “difference in difference” 2.1, 99% confidence interval 1.0 to 4.3; P=0.008). Use of a formal scoring system for patients with pneumonia also increased over time (from 2% (102) to 23% (111) in control hospitals and from 2% (170) to 9% (189) in SPI1 hospitals), which favoured controls and was not significant (0.3, 0.02 to 3.4; P=0.173). There were no improvements in the proportion of prescription errors and no effects that could be attributed to SPI1 in non-targeted generic areas (such as enhanced safety culture). On some measures, the lack of effect could be because compliance was already high at baseline (such as use of steroids in over 85% of cases where indicated), but even when there was more room for improvement (such as in quality of medical history taking), there was no significant additional net effect of SPI1. There were no changes over time or between control and SPI1 hospitals in errors or rates of adverse events in patients in medical wards. Mortality increased from 11% (27) to 16% (39) among controls and decreased from 17% (63) to 13% (49) among SPI1 hospitals, but the risk adjusted difference was not significant (0.5, 0.2 to 1.4; P=0.085). Poor care was a contributing factor in four of the 178 deaths identified by review of case notes. The survey of patients showed no significant differences apart from an increase in perception of cleanliness in favour of SPI1 hospitals. Conclusions The introduction of SPI1 was associated with improvements in one of the types of clinical process studied (monitoring of vital signs) and one measure of staff perceptions of organisational climate. There was no additional effect of SPI1 on other targeted issues nor on other measures of generic organisational strengthening. (shrink)

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Using covariant derivatives and the operator definitions of quantum mechanics, gauge invariant Proca and Lehnert equations are derived and the Lorenz condition is eliminated in U(1) invariant electrodynamics. It is shown that the structure of the gauge invariant Lehnert equation is the same in an O(3) invariant theory of electrodynamics.

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