Truth, proof and evidence

Homeopathy ◽  
2008 ◽  
Vol 97 (02) ◽  
pp. 89-95 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jeremy Swayne

The study and practice of medicine, in its most personal and intimate functions, its most sophisticated scientific and technological manifestations, and its philosophical and ethical ramifications, are central to our understanding of the human condition. Homeopathic medicine: its insights, the questions that it begs, and the scientific and philosophical challenges it presents, has a significant contribution to make to this process.To be actively and seriously engaged with homeopathy is an adventurous undertaking. It is to be engaged in exploring both human nature and the nature of the world we inhabit. And in that process we are also engaged in the pursuit of truth and the exploration of reality.This paper deals first with the layout of the playing field on which homeopathy has to compete to be taken seriously. It then discusses three concepts: reality, truth and knowledge, which are objectives for which we strive and principles that guide us in that striving. In the third part it introduces the concept of ‘personal knowledge’ as an essential ingredient of scientific discovery and the pursuit of truth. And finally it proposes that the homeopathic community in general, and the Faculty of Homeopathy in particular, must expand its vision with a definition of a new paradigm, the new model of healthcare and medical science to which the vision aspires.

2019 ◽  
Vol 29 (5) ◽  
pp. 135-150

The springboard for this essay is the author’s encounter with the feeling of horror and her attempts to understand what place horror has in philosophy. The inquiry relies upon Leonid Lipavsky’s “Investigation of Horror” and on various textual plunges into the fanged and clawed (and possibly noumenal) abyss of Nick Land’s work. Various experiences of horror are examined in order to build something of a typology, while also distilling the elements characteristic of the experience of horror in general. The essay’s overall hypothesis is that horror arises from a disruption of the usual ways of determining the boundaries between external things and the self, and this leads to a distinction between three subtypes of horror. In the first subtype, horror begins with the indeterminacy at the boundaries of things, a confrontation with something that defeats attempts to define it and thereby calls into question the definition of the self. In the second subtype, horror springs from the inability to determine one’s own boundaries, a process opposed by the crushing determinacy of the world. In the third subtype, horror unfolds by means of a substitution of one determinacy by another which is unexpected and ungrounded. In all three subtypes of horror, the disturbance of determinacy deprives the subject, the thinking entity, of its customary foundation for thought, and even of an explanation of how that foundation was lost; at times this can lead to impairment of the perception of time and space. Understood this way, horror comes within a hair’s breadth of madness - and may well cross over into it.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ryan Harris Parker

The press is a constitutive part of our society. It helps create national identities and formulates society's understanding of itself and its place in the world. Moreover, a free press is indispensable for ensuring the vibrancy of a democracy. For these reasons, a close inspection of news, and an evaluation of its performance, is crucial. We must look to the development of the mass press at the turn of the twentieth century to locate the beginnings of journalistic objectivity and the type of news we are familiar with today. The first section of this paper offers a review of accounts of this transformational period, placing opposing theories within the larger framework of the frictions between cultural studies and political economy, and underscores the need for a holistic understanding of the period. The second section chronicles the press's articulation of its new professional tenets, offers a definition of journalistic objectivity, and reveals its intrinsic limitations. The third section details how the modern press's ideal democratic mandate has been compromised, with the influence of the press being used instead to ensconce powerful interests. And the fourth section outlines the calls for a redefinition of journalism in light of the failures covered in the preceding section. Finally, The Daily Show with Jon Stewart is offered as an alternative journalistic form that transcends the dangerous dogma of traditional news outlets, allowing it to fulfill the democratic responsibility of the press by encouraging a critical and astute citizenry.


Author(s):  
James Haire

United and uniting churches have made a very significant contribution to the ecumenical movement. In seeking to assess that contribution, the chapter first defines what these churches are, considers the different types of union that have been created, examines the characteristics of these churches, and looks at the theological rationale for them. It goes on to trace the history of their formation from the beginning of the nineteenth century, and particularly during the years leading up to and following the Third Assembly of the World Council of Churches at New Delhi in 1961, under the influence of Lesslie Newbigin. Giving a theological assessment, it emphasizes that the existence of these churches, despite difficulties, provides places where the final unity of Christ’s one body is most clearly foreshadowed. They will always present proleptic visions of that goal.


2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 1
Author(s):  
Ya Fen Huang

In many literary works, a character’s physical disease or illness also metaphorically references various universal characteristics of the human condition—death, religion, politics and relationships—as they are interworked amidst healthy and unhealthy bodies. In the case of Albert Camus’ The Plague, the epidemic of bubonic plague in the Algerian port city of Oran is considered an allegory for the German occupation of France from 1940 to 1944. The highly infectious disease disrupts citizens’ lives in real time, with consequences that further manifest throughout the world to varying degrees and in varying timeframes thereafter. This paper attempts to explore Camus’s metaphoric connotations of “the plague” within these social, cultural and historical narratives. This interdisciplinary study will also bring together analyses of literary and non-literary texts about the disease narrative, while also addressing literary theories related to medical science in order to better understand the allegorical definitions of illness, death, disability and exile in The Plague.


This handbook offers an extensive cross-linguistic and cross-theoretical survey of polysynthetic languages, in which single multi-morpheme verb forms can express what would be whole sentences in English. These languages and the problems they raise for linguistic analyses have long featured prominently in language descriptions, and yet the essence of polysynthesis remains under discussion, right down to whether it delineates a distinct, coherent type, rather than an assortment of frequently co-occurring traits. Chapters in the first part of the handbook relate polysynthesis to other issues central to linguistics, such as complexity, the definition of the word, the nature of the lexicon, idiomaticity, and to typological features such as argument structure and head marking. Part II contains areal studies of those geographical regions of the world where polysynthesis is particularly common, such as the Arctic and Sub-Arctic and northern Australia. The third part examines diachronic topics such as language contact and language obsolence, while Part IV looks at acquisition issues in different polysynthetic languages. Finally, Part V contains detailed grammatical descriptions of over twenty languages which have been characterized as polysynthetic, with special attention given to the presence or absence of potentially criterial features.


CORD ◽  
1996 ◽  
Vol 12 (01) ◽  
pp. 34
Author(s):  
T.I. Mathewkutty ◽  
E. Tajuddin

Coconut is grown in more than 90 countries in the world and India occupies the third position with an area of 1.63 million hectares and a production of 12355 million nuts [Anon(a)1993‑94]. The crop makes a significant contribution to the national economy to the extent of Rs. 4,000 crores with an annual export earning of Rs. 126 crores [Anon (b) 1993‑94] per year which is much below its potential of more than 100 nuts per palm per year. Lack of adequate and proper management of nutrients is one of the reasons for this low productivity.


2020 ◽  
Vol 23 (4) ◽  
pp. 214-220
Author(s):  
Tatiyana V. Yurieva ◽  

The article for the first time gives an analysis of the work of the world famous, but little studied in Russia, Old Believer icon painter and restorer icons Pimen Maksimovich Sofronov in the third, American period. The author systematizes scattered information about his artistic activities in the United States, makes a chronology of the creation of his works during this period, and makes an analysis of them. The description of the temples where P.M. Sofronov worked, and the painting of their interiors, is given for the first time in scientific literature. Analyzing the biographical data and the work of the icon painter in the third, American period, which turned out to be the longest, the author of the article concludes that at this time the quality of the master's work is changing. Since, in Europe, P.M. Sofronov gained the experience of wall painting of churches, now, in North America, he was able to fully realize this side of his talent by making the transition from easel icon painting to monumental painting. Now the researcher's attention has been given to extensive temple complexes, often consisting of both stenographs and iconostases, which have their own specific program. The author interprets the canon in accordance with the architectural space that is provided to him for painting. Each time it is a new theological and artistic task. Having completed such major works as paintings of the interiors of Trinity Cathedral in Brooklyn, the Church of the Three Saints in Ansonia, the Church of Peter and Paul in Syracuse, the Vladimir Church in Trenton, St. Trinity in Weinland, the artist made a significant contribution to the church art of Russian emigration.


Author(s):  
A. A. Izang ◽  
Y. A. Mensah ◽  
O. J. Omotosho ◽  
C. P. Obioma

Cloud computing is an emerging technology paradigm, which enable and facilitate the dynamic and versatile provision of computational solutions and helps. Despite the fact that the advantages provided by cloud computing are several, security and secrecy concern of the cloud services still race question from users. Security stance of organizations and vital infrastructures is being affected with the Use of cloud services, thus it is necessary that new threats and risks introduced by this new paradigm are clearly understood and mitigated. This paper focus on the ethical constraints in cloud computing, placing emphasis on issues that deal with cloud adoption, recent additions to the cloud, ethical issues like The shifting of control, from technology users to the third parties servicing the cloud due to outsourcing and offshoring of ICT functionality to the cloud and as well as many other issues regarding cloud computing. To this end, this paper intimate us with some new ways cloud service providers has been improving this field of study so as to improve its adoption in the world. It was discovered that cloud computing is becoming the world 5th most demanded service after crude oil, water, electricity and Telephony as stipulated by many other researcher’s in this field.


2020 ◽  
pp. 205943642097522
Author(s):  
Marília Duque

This article addresses the centrality of images in the definition of a new paradigm for ageing, when health (measured by autonomy) becomes a condition for freedom (associated with youth). Based on a 16-month ethnography conducted with older people (aged 50–80) in a middle-class district in São Paulo, Brazil, I found that smartphones empower older people to craft a health identity by engaging and producing content that highlights the positive aspects of ageing. In this community, health is a concept deeply associated with productivity, and social media becomes a space for participants to present themselves as busy, giving visibility to all of the activities they engage with. On WhatsApp groups, participants can also work as curators, sharing content that is in the public interest, which improves their collective experience of ageing and restores their sense of utility and dignity. I found that smartphones also allow participants to manipulate the mechanism of social comparison used to classify who is healthy and who is old. Often, when they have a condition or frailty, they confine themselves to online interactions, hiding from view the ageing body that could compromise their performance. By doing that, their declines are kept on the backstage of their social interactions, allowing participants to extend their presence within the third age, which is associated with freedom and autonomy, while the decline related to the fourth age is kept in the shadows.


1968 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 39-51 ◽  
Author(s):  
Roderick W. Home

Most modern analysts of Newton's laws of motion, whether they have approached the subject from a historical or from a philosophical viewpoint, have tended to concentrate on the status of the first two laws; the third law has largely been overlooked, or else it has been dismissed as somehow less interesting. My purpose in this paper is to reverse this approach—I intend to investigate some of the historical aspects of the third law, particularly the empirical background to Newton's statement of it, and in so doing, I intend to skirt most of the questions which have been raised concerning the status of the other two laws. In concentrating on the historical aspects of the third law, I shall also by-pass Mach's controversial re-interpretation of its role in mechanics, for while Mach saw the law as the basis for an operational definition of “mass”, it is quite clear that Newton did not so regard it. On the contrary, Newton seems to have regarded all three of his laws as straightforward statements of fact about the world, so that a knowledge of the factual background to the laws is a fundamental pre-requisite to an understanding of Newton's thought.


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