Globally, chronic disease and conditions such as diabetes, cardiovascular disease, depression and cancer are the leading causes of morbidity and mortality. Why, then, are public health efforts and programs aimed at preventing chronic disease so difficult to implement and maintain? Also, why is primary care—the key medical specialty for helping persons with chronic disease manage their illnesses—in decline? Public health suffers from its often being socially controversial, personally intrusive, irritating to many powerful corporate interests, and structurally designed to be largely (...) invisible and, as a result, taken for granted. Primary care struggles from low reimbursements, relative to specialists, excessive paperwork and time demands that are unattractive to medical students. Our paper concludes with a discussion of why the need for more aggressive public health and redesigned primary care is great, will grow substantially in the near future, and yet will continue to struggle with funding and public popularity. (shrink)

This paper discusses the treatment of "infinity" in philosophy of religion, including its use in discussions of divine attributes, and its use in various arguments about the existence of God (including the kalam cosmological argument and Pascal's wager). The aim of the paper is to set out -- and where possible, to resolve -- various foundational problems about infinity.

The essay reflects in an elegiac mode on a now largely forgotten (or effaced) body of literature from precolonial India regarding the art and business of politics. This body, known as nīti, has classical roots in Sanskrit but came in particular to be popular in peninsular India between the thirteenth and the eighteenth centuries in vernacular languages such as Telugu, Kannada, and Marathi. Secular and this-worldly in orientation, it can be broadly contrasted to the far better known body of texts (...) on dharma, which are concerned to preserve a normative, ritually and religiously sanctioned, order based on strict adherence to caste and gender roles. We first trace the classical roots of the tension between dharma and nīti and then set out how these two bodies of texts came to play distinct and evolving roles in medieval and early modern south India. We argue further that under the early phase of colonial rule, East India Company officials misunderstood the nature of nīti texts and that this has led to a persistently erroneous view of their role and content. We conclude by noting, however, that some astute modern observers of and participants in Indian politics, such as B. R. Ambedkar, have understood the part that nīti might play for the development of a secular language of politics in modern India. (shrink)

I am a theoretical physicist, and, following Aristotles' injunction (Aristotle, Physics III, 202b 34), I do consider it my responsibility to discuss the problem of the notion of infinity in the world--in particular, to "inquire whether there is such a thing or not." I will do so here by illustrating some aspects of the notion of infinity in the natural sciences.

SpinozaÂ’s God is a being with infinite attributes, each of which expresses infinite essence. Does this mean that God has infinitely many attributes, each of which expresses infinite essence, or does God simply have attributes, each of which is infinite and expresses infinite essence? SpinozaÂ’s argumentation in Letter 9 and the Scholium to Prop. I.10 clearly indicates that it is not just each individual attribute that is infinite, but there are in some sense infinitely many of them. This would seem (...) to settle the issue, except that Spinoza never talks of more than two attributes, Extension.. (shrink)

As a contribution to the critical appreciation of a central thesis in Russell’s philosophical logic, I consider the Third Man objection to Platonic realism in the philosophy of mathematics, and argue that the Third Man infinite regress, for those who accept its assumptions, provides a worthy substitute for Whitehead and Russell’s Axiom of Infinity in positing a denumerably infinite set or series onto which other sets, series, and formal operations in the foundations of mathematics can be mapped.

In the …rst part of this paper, the origins of modal-structuralism are traced from Hilary Putnam’s seminal article, "Mathematics without Foundations" (1967) to its transformation and development into the author’s modal-structural approach. The addition of a logic of plurals is highlighted for its recovery (in combination with the resources of mereology) of full, second-order logic, essential for articulating a good theory of mathematical structures. The second part concentrates on the motivation of large trans…nite cardinal numbers, arising naturally from the second-order (...) machinery combined with an extendability principle on structures for set theories due independently to Zermelo (1930) and Putnam (in the paper just cited). The power of this is enhanced by a novel modal re‡ection principle recently introduced by the author. This is illustrated in detail with the …rst axiom of in…nity: After reviewing some of the trouble this basic classical axiom has caused for previous foundational programs, we show how it is derived easily using the re‡ection principle and a weak form of extendability for …nite structures. We conclude with some comparative remarks on how this improves on the closest set-theoretic analogue to the present proposal. (shrink)

On ethics and conduct of life according to Buddhism.

Mo der nity´s analy ti cal and re duc tio nist thin king of fe red us a uni vo cal and uni ver sa list re pre sen ta tion of the World. Scien ti fic ob jec ti - vity clo sed the ac cess to the di ver sity and plu ra - lity of ot her pos si ble know led ges. The epis te mo - lo gi cal cri ti cis..

The paper aims at sculpting out the practice of ethics by comparing and contrasting it with morals, religion, metaphysics, among others in turn highlighting the praxis of ethics in India. It also aims to differentiate between the western concept of morals and ethics while drawing out an argument in favour of Indian ethics or Niti. Though ancient, Nitishastra is still as relevant as ever and teaches righteousness by balancing Karma with Dharma where Dharma is the cosmic order that upholds (...) the world. Nitishastra inclines more in favour of ethics which are intuitive than morals which are law-bound. Furthermore, Indian ethics come close to values that are innate, inherent and inclusive; thus, possessing spiritual affinity which one attains only by exploring one’s self or the Self. The awareness of the Self fortifies one by empowering against the vulnerability of emotions and impulses adding further to the tenets of Indian ethics. The value of the paper lies in the use of Indian Folktales to highlight the uniqueness of Indian Ethics. (shrink)

Postmodernity is a move ment that arose as a re sult of the cri sis of the dom i nant mo der nity, con front ing many of the great pro jects which ex - alted the do min ion and the power of man, and re - plac ing them with small ness, what is lo cal, and other al ter na tives. One of the most o..

The periodic table of the elements is one of the most powerful icons in science: a single document that captures the essence of chemistry in an elegant pattern. Indeed, nothing quite like it exists in biology or physics, or any other branch of science, for that matter. One sees periodic tables everywhere: in industrial labs, workshops, academic labs, and of course, lecture halls. It is sometimes said that chemistry has no deep ideas, unlike physics, which can boast quantum mechanics and (...) relativity, and biology, which has produced the theory of evolution. This view is mistaken, however, since there are in fact two big ideas in chemistry. They are chemical periodicity and chemical bonding, and they are deeply interconnected. The observation that certain elements prefer to combine with specific kinds of elements prompted early chemists to classify the elements in tables of chemical affinity. Later these tables would lead, somewhat indirectly, to the discovery of the periodic system, perhaps the biggest idea in the whole of chemistry. Indeed, periodic tables arose partly through the attempts by Dimitri Mendeleev and numerous others to make sense of the way in which particular elements enter into chemical bonding. (shrink)

This article provides an intellectual history of the status of wage earners as conceptualized within the natural law paradigm by European writers both on the Continent and in Britain. Historians of political discourse have mostly investigated the consequences of such a status for the political rights of labourers. This article shows that the crucial moves were made by different authors analysing the relation of servant to master either in the domestic sphere or in private contracts. The article further contends that (...) that resulting deeply ambiguous analyses implied a far from complete personal freedom for wage earners. This had a decisive impact on different visions of commercial society in early modern times, and left a significant legacy for moderns. ☆ Apart from a few changes and some abridgment, this essay is the first chapter of my forthcoming book Vite da servi. Figure del lavoro salariato dalla giurisprudenza naturale all’economia politica (Servants’ Lives: Figures of Paid Labour from Natural Law to Political Economy). I am much indebted to Matthew Armistead for translating it, and to Marco Geuna and Gabriella Silvestrini for commenting on an earlier draft. (shrink)

Study of the Niti philosophy of Buddhism.

From 1931 until late in his life (at least 1970) Godel called for the pursuit of new axioms for mathematics to settle both undecided number-theoretical propositions (of the form obtained in his incompleteness results) and undecided set-theoretical propositions (in particular CH). As to the nature of these, Godel made a variety of suggestions, but most frequently he emphasized the route of introducing ever higher axioms of in nity. In particular, he speculated (in his 1946 Princeton remarks) that there might be (...) a uniform (though non-decidable) rationale for the choice of the latter. Despite the intense exploration of the \higher in nite" in the last 30-odd years, no single rationale of that character has emerged. Moreover, CH still remains undecided by such axioms, though they have been demonstrated to have many other interesting set-theoretical consequences. (shrink)

I conceive of Spinoza’s substance monism as a response to Aristotle’s prohibition against actual infinity for one key reason: nature, being all things, is necessarily infi nite. Spinoza encapsulates his substance monism with the phrase, “Deus sive Natura,” implying that there is only one infinite substance, which also possesses an infi nity of attributes, of which we are but modes. These logical delineations of substance never actually break up God’s reality. Aristotle’s well-known argument against the reality of an actual infinity (...) in his Physics prohibits the existence of an actually infinite bodily substance because it would necessarily “destroy” (Physics 204b26-27) all other elements or bodies. On Aristotle’s view, there is a fundamental and concrete distinction between things: each substance is primarily a this (Categories 3b10). I maintain that Spinoza’s rationalism and radicalization of the principle of sufficient reason lends him greater explanatory potential than Aristotle to justify the (non) existence of actual infinity. (shrink)

Starting from Wilhelm Dilthey?s concept of understanding, the article inquires into modes of forming competencies within the experience of reflexive education. In line with moder?nity?s understanding of science, the text designates the role of sciences as instances of po?ssible real values, whereby the spiritual sciences are ascribed the role of giving meaning by broadening horizons. The article questions the ground that allows for spiritual and pedagogical sciences within the commercialization of university teaching and research activities. In all this, functionalization conducts (...) a process leading to the weakening of the constructive role of these sciences in the formation of competencies. (shrink)

Fenomenološka tradicija dugo je smatrala da prirodna percepcija nije ni konceptualno artikulirana niti upravljana determinističkim zakonima, već je radije organizirana prema praktično artikuliranoj strukturi tjelesnog bitka-u-svijetu. Ali to ostavlja problem objašnjavanja kako percepcija može omogućiti opravdavajuću podršku mišljenju. Odgovor fenomenologa jest taj da nam značenjska struktura prirodne percepcije omogućuje da mislimo o objektima motivirajući pojedinačne misli o objektima kakvima se oni predstavljaju u percepciji. Pokazujem kako takvo gledište omogućuje izlaz iz briga koje more suvremenu filozofiju uma.The phenomenological tradition has (...) long contended that natural perception is neither conceptually articulatednor governed by deterministic laws, but rather organized according to the practically articulatedstructure of bodily being-in-the-world. But this leaves the problem of explaining how perceptioncan provide justificatory support to thought. The phenomenologists’ answer is to say thatthe meaningful structure of natural perception makes it possible for us tothink about objects by motivating particular thoughts about the objects as they present themselvesin perception. I show how this view provides a way out of worries that plague contemporary philosophyof mind. (shrink)

In this paper we maintain that abductive inferential processes should be embedded to a more general outlook on human cognition. Abduction has clear a.nities to the so-called interrogative model of inquiry in which inquiry and reasoning are conceptualized as a dialogue. We think, in addition, that dialogicality must be broadened to a “trialogical” framework which means a threefold relationship with mediating artefacts where the inquirer, other inquirers , and the object of knowledge are inextricably bound up with each other in (...) long term processes of inquiry. Seen from this perspective Peirce's semeiotic pragmatism has close connections to modern ideas about distributed cognition; also to Pera's dialectical model of science, and Davidson's theory of triangulation concerning human mind, cognition, and knowledge. (shrink)

The paper is concerned with the idea that the world is the totality of facts, not of things – with what is involved in thinking of the world in that way, and why one might do so. It approaches this issue through a comparison between Wittgenstein’s Tractatus and the identity theory of truth proposed by Hornsby and McDowell.The paper’s positive conclusion is that there is a genuine affinity between these two. A negative contention is that the modern identity theory is (...) vulnerable to a complaint of idealism that the Tractatus can deflect. (shrink)

There have been many claims that quantum mechanics plays a key role in the origin and/or operation of biological organisms, beyond merely providing the basis for the shapes and sizes of biological molecules and their chemical affinities. These range from Schr¨odinger’s suggestion that quantum fluctuations produce mutations, to Hameroff and Penrose’s conjecture that quantum coherence in microtubules is linked to consciousness. I review some of these claims in this paper, and discuss the serious problem of decoherence. I advance some further (...) conjectures about quantum information processing in bio-systems. Some possible experiments are suggested. © 2004 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved. (shrink)

Ovidij je nedvomno med vsemi avgustejskimi pesniki eden najbolj izrazitih oporečnikov v odnosu do avtokratskega režima cesarja Oktavijana Avgusta. Medtem ko je na primer Vergilij na Avgustov ukaz spremenil zaključni del druge knjige Georgik, tako da je izbrisal iz nje laudes Galli, ki ga je zadela damnatio memoriae, pa se Ovidij niti v svoji mladostni zbirki Amores niti v žalostinkah iz izgnanstva (Tristia) ni bal proslavljati tragično preminulega pesnika, ki velja za začetnika rimske elegije. Zato se ne smemo (...) čuditi, da je tudi Ovidija zadela nekaka damnatio memoriae, saj so morale biti vse njegove pesniške zbirke, ne le spotakljiva Ars amatoria, odstranjene iz rimskih javnih knjižnic (Tristia, 3.1.63–80). Tudi v največjo umetnino, Metamorfoze, je Ovidij zasejal nekaj domiselnih in iskrivih protiavgustovskih bodic. Tako je na primer že v eni prvih epizod, v zgodbi o preobrazbi Likaona, še izraziteje pa v zadnji epizodi, kjer katasterizmu, tj. preobrazbi Julija Cezarja v zvezdo in podobni preobrazbi, ki po smrti čaka Avgusta, dodal za sklep še zaostreno poanto, da bo njegovo ime po smrti povzdignjeno še višje, visoko nad (super!) zvezde (torej še višje kot Cezarjeva in Avgustova zvezda): super alta perennis / astra ferar (Metamorfoze, 15.875–6). (shrink)

We compare our model of unsupervised learning of linguistic structures, ADIOS [1, 2, 3], to some recent work in computational linguistics and in grammar theory. Our approach resembles the Construction Grammar in its general philosophy (e.g., in its reliance on structural generalizations rather than on syntax projected by the lexicon, as in the current generative theories), and the Tree Adjoining Grammar in its computational characteristics (e.g., in its apparent affinity with Mildly Context Sensitive Languages). The representations learned by our algorithm (...) are truly emergent from the (unannotated) corpus data, whereas those found in published works on cognitive and construction grammars and on TAGs are hand-tailored. Thus, our results complement and extend both the computational and the more linguistically oriented research into language acquisition. We conclude by suggesting how empirical and formal study of language can be best integrated. (shrink)

Predmet ovog rada je Vitgenštajnovo razlikovanje i novo razumevanje pojmova znanja i izvesnosti u spisu O izvesnosti iz kojih proističe i njegova inovativna kritika skepticizma. On pokazuje da čitava rasprava o skepticizmu nastaje zato što i tradicionalni epistemolozi poput Mura i skeptik pogrešno shvataju prirodu takozvanih murovskih iskaza koji predstavljaju sadržaj naših osnovnih verovanja kao i naš stav prema njima. Vitgenštajn tvrdi da ovi iskazi nisu ni istiniti ni lažni već da funkcionišu poput pravila te da stoga ne mogu biti (...) ni predmet znanja niti podložni sumnji. Naš stav prema njima nije epistemički već je odraz praktične sposobnosti učešća u jezičkoj praksi. Vitgenštajnov najubedljiviji i najoriginalniji argument protiv skepticizma pokazuje da skeptik, formulišući svoje sumnje, dovodi u pitanje sopstveno razumevanje reči kojima se pritom služi. Na kraju se tvrdi da sam Vitgenštajn zastupa jednu vrstu naturalizma hjumovskog tipa. (shrink)

Individualism is seen as a central component of moder- nity. (Individualism is, in Charles Taylor’s view for ex- ample, the most beautiful achievement of modernity.) From an apologetic perspective, individualism corresponds to an objective, real need of self-achievement; it repre- sents an essential step towards emancipation. This paper does not aim at contending with this description of the concept of individualism, because to do so would mean suggesting an alternative ideology, but instead it aims at understanding the real grounds of (...) the development of individualism in order to correct the “propagandistic” image of modern individualism. The main arguments which are used to correct this image are that individualism is the expression of a certain crisis of the spirit, not of a prosperity of the spirit, and the resources of its vindication are in fact “intellectual fabrications,” myths rather than objective discoveries. (shrink)

The paper aims at the explanation of the author´s personalistic-evolutionary ontology by means of postmodern philosophy. This philosophy brought him to a binary understanding of reality as the reality in the frame of the ontological structure on one hand and the reality transcending this frame on the other hand. The paper also gives an outline of the methodology of the historical transcendence of postmoder_nity, as well as evry postmodern plurality. Every ontological and cultural unit has its own representative personal ground. (...) It is the selftranscendence, which makes the selfidentification of these units possible and by means of which they approach the transcendent, teandric horison. There is a variety of understanding this horison in various cultures. Their convergence to it is of hic et nunc character, the acceptance of this horison being its condition. (shrink)