(1980). Joseph LeConte and the development of the physiology and psychology of vision in the United States. Annals of Science: Vol. 37, No. 3, pp. 303-321.

This essay argues that film deserves a place within the medical humanities curriculum and demonstrates effective strategies for employing it within medical ethics and humanities classrooms. Part One of the article emphasizes how and why medical ethics teachers can utilize documentary and fictional films, such as “Thomas Szasz and the Myth of Mental Illness,” “The Deadly Deception,”Whose Life Is It Anyway? and “Voices From the Front” in their courses. Such films encourage students to move beyond abstract debates and confront the (...) human pain inherent in all ethical dilemmas. Part Two focuses on documentary and fiction film in the medical humanities classroom. In this section, the author details how to incorporates films, such asThe Doctor, The Waterdance andHospital, into the humanities classroom, juxtaposing them with various literary works, such asOther Women's Children, Borrowed Time, andCeremony. Part Three of the essay presents a detailed discussion ofThe Elephant Man andFrankenstein, illustrating how visual and literary texts compliment each other within the humanities classroom. Overall, the author demonstrates how films function as engaging and complex visual texts providing unique insights in the particularities of American health care and, as such, can become valuable components within medical ethics and humanities classrooms. (shrink)

El presente artículo presenta las grandes líneas de la hermenéutica agustiniana de Is 10,23 LXX en sermones ad populum de Agustín de Hipona. En su predicación aparece este locus exegético de la Patrística que se remonta a autores como Ireneo de Lyon y Orígenes de Alejandría. Brevemente veremos cómo aparece la mención y exégesis del texto de Isaías a lo largo de la producción agustiniana, para luego detenernos en la utilización del texto por parte de Agustín en contexto homilético. Nociones (...) de retórica clásica y elementos teológicos mostrarán la finalidad y la riqueza de la ratio interpretandi agustiniana. (shrink)

The article presents the main aspects of the art of accompaniment inspired by the augustinian exegesis of Lk 24:13-35, not without resorting, when necessary, to other relevant texts of the Bishop of Hippo. For this purpose, after a brief introduction which shows the actuality of the theme in the ecclesial sphere, it is briefly presented how Augustine interprets the life of the human being based on the metaphor of the journey and the pilgrimage, and how he conceives them to be (...) a time and a path of harmonious growth. This serves as a framework to offer Augustinian orientations for the art of accompaniment based on his interpretation of Lk 24:13-35. It is shown that Augustine has been little explored as a relevant figure for the Christian tradition of accompaniment. (shrink)

The quality of working conditions have a direct impact on the individuals’ quality of life and level of well-being. Attention to well-being in work environments has become a matter of great interest for legislators. However, the well-being concept has not yet found a legal definition. The first commitment to achieve a global well-being strategy was made by the World Health Organisation. The European Union claims that a positive relationship between work and well-being is a necessary factor to reach greater economic (...) and social progress, since full and quality employment is one of the main elements of economic stability and social cohesion in a country. The Italian regulatory framework consists of various legislative provisions: the importance of the workers’ good health and quality of life has generated a complex regulatory system. In the digital society the potential health risks associated with the use of IT tools and the risk of an increased overlapping between work and personal life should not be overlooked. (shrink)

En la controversia donatista la exégesis de algunos textos bíblicos constituyó el corazón de las discusiones. Los salmos, en particular, no dejaron de ser invocados para defender posiciones teológicas, especialmente las eclesiológicas. El artículo ofrece un estudio sobre el uso polémico del salmo 49 en escritos de Optato de Milevi y de Agustín de Hipona, no sin antes aludir brevemente a los antecedentes que encontramos en Cipriano de Cartago. El artículo presenta una visión panorámica de la exégesis católica del salmo (...) 49 durante la controversia para mostrar las constantes temáticas que se presentan, así como una evolución en los acentos teológicos de dicha exégesis a partir de la producción antidonatista agustiniana. (shrink)

Besides indicating the fundamental themes of the various contributions that come together in this monographic section, the purpose of this introduction is to recall the main features of the Hobbesian concept of power, starting from the belief that Hobbes’ philosophy is above all a phi-losophy of power. Based on a radical materialistic ontology, the Hobbesian semantics of power takes on different variations in the particular discursive fields it crosses, which in turn significantly influence its movement. The double dependence on the (...) authority of the sovereign and on the opinion of the people ultimately highlights the aporetic character of the Hobbesian notion of power. (shrink)

Taking cues from Michel Foucault’s late work on ancient cultures of self-care, this article argues that the success of neoliberalism is bound up with an epistemological critique of modernity forged by the movement’s founding theorists. This critique takes aim at three distinct intellectual currents – the socialist, the rationalist, and the pastoral – and thus marks a tripartite break from modern techniques of power and subjectivation. I contend that a Hellenistic model of self-cultivation – exemplified especially in Epicurean, Cynic, and (...) Stoic discourses and scrutinized meticulously by Foucault in his late lectures – becomes reactivated in late twentieth-century American economic and social thought. The second half of the article considers modes of digital writing as “technologies of the self.” Taking the case of “fake news” as my central reference point, I argue that common practices of social media “sharing” constitute an emerging practice of curatorial self-writing that makes one an especially favorable target for neoliberal strategies of social control. (shrink)

Starting from a distinction between global and globalised and a definition of the concept of global threat for future generations, this paper aims to identify cognitive, moral and emotional phenomena that hinder to the adoption of effective policies against global warming. The main thesis of this paper is that it is difficult to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases mainly because the unlimited economic growth is the imperative of our company and the continuous increase of material goods and personal consumption is (...) what is closest to our idea of happiness and wellbeing. (shrink)

According to Marr, a computational-level theory consists of two elements, the what and the why. This article highlights the distinct role of the Why element in the computational analysis of vision. Three theses are advanced: that the Why element plays an explanatory role in computational-level theories, that its goal is to explain why the computed function is appropriate for a given visual task, and that the explanation consists in showing that the functional relations between the representing cells are similar to (...) the “external” mathematical relations between the entities that these cells represent. (shrink)

Over the past forty years, the health humanities, previously called the medical humanities, has emerged as one of the most exciting fields for interdisciplinary scholarship, advancing humanistic inquiry into bioethics, human rights, health care, and the uses of technology. It has also helped inspire medical practitioners to engage in deeper reflection about the human elements of their practice. In _Health Humanities Reader_, editors Therese Jones, Delese Wear, and Lester D. Friedman have assembled fifty-four leading scholars, educators, artists, and clinicians (...) to survey the rich body of work that has already emerged from the field—and to imagine fresh approaches to the health humanities in these original essays. The collection’s contributors reflect the extraordinary diversity of the field, including scholars from the disciplines of disability studies, history, literature, nursing, religion, narrative medicine, philosophy, bioethics, medicine, and the social sciences. With warmth and humor, critical acumen and ethical insight, _Health Humanities Reader_ truly humanizes the field of medicine. Its accessible language and broad scope offers something for everyone from the experienced medical professional to a reader interested in health and illness. (shrink)

Biomarkers can be powerful tools to guide diagnosis, treatment, and research. However, prudent use of biomarkers requires formal validation efforts. Although the data needed for biomarker validation has traditionally been hard to access, new research initiatives can ease this process.

Even though theistic philosophers and scientists agree that God created, sustains, and providentially governs the physical universe and even though much has been published in general regarding divine action, what is needed is a fine-grained, conceptually coherent account of divine action, causation, dispositions, and laws of nature consistent with divine aseity, satisfying the widely recognized adequacy conditions for any account of dispositions.1 Such an account would be a basic part of a more comprehensive theory of divine action in relation to (...) the fundamental concepts of science and of mathematics. Our aim in this article is simply to present such a theory. (shrink)

Perhaps the greatest challenge faced by Thomistic thinkers today is to approach the contemporary intellectual scene in a way they could anticipate their master approaching it. With the enormous growth of empirical knowledge since the thirteenth century, and the multiplication of diverse and often rival conceptual schemes to understand and explain the reality disclosed by our increasingly broad experience of the world, this is indeed a daunting task.

This volume presents a collection of about 80 very brief, accessible essays written by international experts from medicine, social sciences, and the humanities, ...

Digital Pills are an innovative drug-device technology that permits to combine traditional medications with a monitoring system that automatically records data about medication adherence as well as patients’ physiological data. Although DP are a promising innovation in the field of digital medicine, their use has also raised a number of ethical concerns. These ethical concerns, however, have been expressed principally from a theoretical perspective, whereas an ethical analysis with a more empirically oriented approach is lacking. There is also a lack (...) of clarity about the empirical evidence available concerning the application of this innovative digital medicine. To map the studies where DP have been tested on patients and discuss the ethically relevant issues evident therein, we performed a scoping review of the empirical literature concerning DP. Our search allowed us to identify 18 papers reporting on studies where DP were tested on patients. These included studies with different designs and involving patients with a variety of conditions. In the empirical literature, a number of issues with ethical relevance were evident. At the patient level, the ethical issues include users’ interaction with DP, personal sphere, health-related risks and patients’ benefits. At the provider level, ethically relevant issues touch upon the doctor-patient relationship and the question of data access. At the societal level, they concern the benefits to society, the quality of evidence and the dichotomy device-medicine. We conclude that evidence concerning DP is not robust and that more research should be performed and study results made available to evaluate this digital medicine. Moreover, our analysis of the ethically relevant aspects within empirical literature underscores that there are concrete and specific open questions that should be tackled in the ethical discussion about this new technological solution. (shrink)

The FDA's new table of surrogate endpoints used for drug approvals is an important step forward for overseeing the use of biomarkers in clinical trials. Nevertheless, we present several ways in which the table can be improved.

_Addresses not only the basic theme of phenomenology, but its aesthetic, social, psychological, scientific, and technological aspects as well._.