Hellenistic medical epistemology

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
R.J. Hankinson
Keyword(s):  
Causal Explanation ◽  
Hellenistic Period ◽  
Medical Epistemology ◽  
Contemporary Debate ◽  
Practical Medicine ◽  
Scientific Inference ◽  
The Status

During the Hellenistic period (323–31 bc), there arose, largely in Alexandria, a profound debate in medical methodology. The main participants were the Empiricists, committed to an anti-theoretical, practical medicine based on observation and experience and the various Rationalists, such as Herophilus, Erasistratus, and Asclepiades, who held that general theories of physiology and pathology were both attainable and essential to proper medical understanding and practice. Dispute about the nature of scientific inference and the status of causal explanation mirrored and to some extent conditioned the contemporary debate between Stoics and sceptics about epistemology.

Politicians of the Sacred Grove: Citizenship and Ethnicity in Southern Senegal

Africa ◽  
2002 ◽  
Vol 72 (2) ◽  
pp. 203-220 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ferdinand de Jong
Keyword(s):  
Public Sphere ◽  
Ethnic Group ◽  
Political Representation ◽  
Socialist Party ◽  
Sacred Grove ◽  
Full Member ◽  
Contemporary Debate ◽  
The People ◽  
The Status

AbstractThis article examines the traditional initiation of the former Senegalese Minister of Agriculture. At the age of fifty-five the Catholic Minister was initiated into the secrets of the sacred grove and thus acquired the status of adult man. The article demonstrates that Jola ethnic discourse, in which male initiation has become an important symbol, forced the Minister to enter the grove. His initiation turned him into a full member of the Jola ethnic group and qualified him as a trustworhty man capable of representing the people. In the campaign of the Socialist Party internal elections the Minister's initiation nevertheless became a major issue. The electorate did not show unswerving loyalty to ‘their’ Minister and nominated a non-initiate. The electorate suddenly changed their standards of apt political representation. The article contributes to the contemporary debate on citizenship and primary patriotism by showing that the Senegalese easily shift their position from subject to citizen, and thus empower themselves vis-à-vis elusive politicians. It also shows that politicians penetrate Jola practices of secrecy and thereby further the Jola's integration into the national public sphere.

Is Hegel’s Theory of Sensation Committed to Metaphysics?

2015 ◽  
Vol 18 (1) ◽  
pp. 179-198 ◽  
Author(s):  
Federico Sanguinetti
Keyword(s):  
Contemporary Debate ◽  
The World ◽  
The Status

The main aim of this paper is to analyse Hegel’s theory of cognitive reference to the world and, in particular, Hegel’s theory of sensation (Empfindung), in order to verify whether it implies metaphysical commitments (and, if so, to what extent). I will pursue my goal by investigating the problem of sensation in Hegel’s philosophy starting from McDowell’s conception of the relation between mind and world and from his theory of perception. In my view, this strategy offers a threefold advantage that will enable us to do the following: i) persuasively interpret the Hegelian theory of sensation; ii) better understand the authenticity and the limits of McDowell’s ‘Hegelianism’; iii) place the Hegelian theory of sensation within the complex contemporary debate on the status of sensible experience.

scholarly journals Reflux-associated respiratory syndrome in children: a survey of algorithms in medical practice

2018 ◽  
Vol 15 (5) ◽  
pp. 64-75
Author(s):  
S I Bardenikova ◽  
N K Shumeyko ◽  
O V Zaitseva ◽  
S Y Snitko ◽  
E A Melnikova ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Disease Control ◽  
Bronchial Asthma ◽  
Medical Practice ◽  
High Frequency ◽  
Clinical Laboratory ◽  
Clinical Analysis ◽  
Practical Medicine ◽  
The Status ◽  
Comprehensive Study

Purpose. Based on the clinical analysis of the course of BOS with GER, rational diagnostic algorithms are available in practical medicine. Materials and methods. The study included BOS children examined in the pulmonology department of the DGKB St. Vladimir in 2010-2017 years: patients with asthma (annually from 850 to 1000) and children with obstructive bronchitis (annually from 122 to 400). General clinical, laboratory, serological, instrumental studies were conducted. In cases of insufficient control of asthma and recurrent (or prolonged) BOS esophagogastroduodenofibroscopy and radiopaque examination of the esophagus was performed for revealing GER. Results. The mutual risks of weighting the symptoms of combined asthma with GERD in children are discussed. Attention is focused on the peculiarities of complaints, history and the status of patients with BOS in combination with comorbid diseases. Pulmonology department statistics data demonstrate the growing need for gastroenterological research. The rational algorithms for examination of BOS patients for the detection of GERD are discussed. Conclusion. Due to the high frequency of GER in patients with bronchial asthma and its influence on disease control, a comprehensive study of its symptoms is necessary. The presence of recurrent BOS, ETN comorbidity, night cough demands to exclude the role of GER in etiology of respiratory disorders.

scholarly journals Retheorising national assessment of the narrative mode for historical causal explanation in England

2021 ◽  
Vol 18 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
James Edward Carroll
Keyword(s):  
Curriculum Design ◽  
Causal Explanation ◽  
Historical Narrative ◽  
History Teachers ◽  
Academic Field ◽  
Academic Knowledge ◽  
History Curriculum ◽  
Salem Witch Trials ◽  
The Status ◽  
Narrative Mode

In history curriculum design in England, currently at least two loci of authority – the history teachers’ ‘extended writing movement’ and the national awarding body Pearson Edexcel – present somewhat contrasting portrayals of the narrative mode for the purposes of historical causal explanation. Nonetheless, both loci suggest they are reappropriating academic knowledge for the purposes of secondary schooling in a fashion similar to what Basil Bernstein (1986) dubs ‘recontextualisation’. As a practising history teacher, I provide a phenomenological critique of Pearson Edexcel’s specifications for the national GCSE and A-level examinations from the perspective of the extended writing movement’s realisation of the Bernsteinian model, with a specific focus on the narrative mode for the purposes of historical causal explanation. In order to characterise the status of historical narrative in the academic field of production, I draw on analytic philosophies of history, theories of history by practising historians and historical explanations from one historiography: the Salem witch trials. Finally, I make recommendations for future reforms in national history examinations in England: constant revaluation with reference to academic knowledge; the avoidance of specific yet unsustainable claims about the discipline of history generally; and the abandonment of a genre-led assessment in favour of an epistemology-led alternative.

Lectures Du Cratyle, 1960–1990

1992 ◽  
Vol 19 (2-3) ◽  
pp. 333-359 ◽  
Author(s):  
Geneviève Clerico
Keyword(s):  
Levels Of Analysis ◽  
Contemporary Debate ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Status ◽  
Development Of Language ◽  
To Come ◽  
Scholarly Production ◽  
To Receive

Summary This study constitutes an attempt to come to grips with the vast scholarly production of the past thirty or so years concerning Plato’s Cratylus. It is noted that the analyses of this text either diverge from or complete each other, depending on whether the commentators subscribe to a dialectic and philosophical or a linguistic and language-oriented interpretation. It is maintained that it is the status accorded by Plato to language in this dialogue that is at the centre of the discussion. The contemporary debate deals with the role of the alphabet in the text, particular levels of analysis (etymology, relative motivation, onomatopoetics), the origin and development of language, and the clash between two theses: conventionalism vs naturalism. It is shown that the valuation of ‘Cratylism’, especially in the form currently found in French scholarship (e.g., Genette), extends an old tradition which tends to retain nothing but attempts at etymological or phonic interpretation. In fact, important developments according to which Socrates supports the conventionalist thesis and notes the impossibility to prove the ‘appropriateness of names’ deserve to receive their full significance.

RAZÃO E INTERPRETAÇÃO: DONALD DAVIDSON E A CONCEPÇÃO PÓS-ÉTICA DA AÇÃO E RACIONALIDADE

2015 ◽  
Vol 32 (103) ◽  
pp. 219
Author(s):  
Waldomiro José Da Silva Filho
Keyword(s):  
Causal Explanation ◽  
Donald Davidson ◽  
Analytical Philosophy ◽  
Human Actions ◽  
Contemporary Debate

A publicação, em 1963, de “Action, Reason, and Causes” foi uma das mais radicais e profícuas contribuições ao debate contemporâneo sobre razão, racionalidade e explicação da ação humana. O seu argumento era que a explicação da ação mediante razões ou pressupondo racionalidade constitui uma explicação causal, sendo as razões causas da ação. Ao defender esta tese que se opunha tanto ao racionalismo clássico e ao empirismo quanto às correntes hegemônicas da Filosofia Analítica na década de 60, Davidson abriu novos caminhos para a investigação sobre a racionalidade de crenças e ações. Ele deslocou o foco de perguntas como “O que faz com que uma ação ou crença seja racional ou irracional?” para a pergunta “O que há na ação, no pensamento e na linguagem que os torna interpretáveis?”.ABSTRACT: The 1963 publication of “Action, Reason, and Causes” was one of the most radical contributions to the contemporary debate about reason, rationality, and explanation for human actions. The argument put forward by the author was that since the reasons are the causes of the action, explaining actions through reasons or presupposing rationality constitutes a causal explanation. In defending the thesis that objects to classic rationalism, empirism and, at the same time, to the 1960’s hegemonic current of Analytical Philosophy, Davidson opened new ways for the enquiry about the rationality of beliefs and actions. He did change the focus of questions like “what makes an action or beliefs be rational or irrational?” to “ what is it that makes action, thought, and language intelligible?”

God and the Issue of Being

1984 ◽  
Vol 20 (1) ◽  
pp. 63-78
Author(s):  
Ivor Leclerc
Keyword(s):  
Religious Tradition ◽  
Philosophical Theology ◽  
Critical Examination ◽  
Christian Tradition ◽  
Philosophical Argument ◽  
Hellenistic Period ◽  
Greek Philosophy ◽  
Concept Of God ◽  
The Status ◽  
The Absolute

There is a long tradition in Western philosophical theology of conceiving God as ‘a being’. It dates back to the Hellenistic period, more particularly to the conjunction of Greek philosophy and the Hebrew religion in Alexandria with Philo, and it became orthodox in the Christian tradition through Augustine. In our time most aspects of this religious tradition have been subjected to a salutary re-examination, but in this the concept of God as ‘a being’ has been relatively neglected. After such a long acceptance of so fundamental a doctrine, it is liable largely to have sunk to the status of a presupposition, entailing a loss of intellectual awareness of what precisely it implies. Even where the Augustinian philosophical argument upon which this concept is based is recognized, as it has been in the long Neoplatonic tradition, it has come to appear as essentially self-evident and thus has not been subjected to fundamental critical examination. Significant of this is that even where the personalistic conception of God has been abandoned, e.g. by the idealist philosophy of the Absolute, the conception nevertheless persists of God as ‘a being’.

scholarly journals Status of the class in the critque of political economy and politics.

Soft Power ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 138-154
Author(s):  
Luca Basso
Keyword(s):  
Political Economy ◽  
Open Problems ◽  
Contemporary Debate ◽  
Critical Potential ◽  
The Third ◽  
Conceptual Status ◽  
The Status ◽  
The Relationship

This essay is centered on the element of the class, often removed in these years, focusing on its conceptual status, its relationship with reality and its critical potential. To address this theoretical plexus, the reference to Marx remains crucial. My essay, which tries to make reflection of Marx (and some Marxist theorists) interact with the contemporary debate, is divided into three parts. The first deals with the relationship between the critique of political economy and politics. The second focuses on the consequences of this approach on the status of the class. In the third part I try to highlight strengths and open problems in the investigated approach. What is at stake is to understand how we can relaunch this question in today’s scenario, changed with respect to the Marxian context, and on the basis of an interaction between the lines of class and race.

Dialectical Method in Alexander of Aphrodisias’ Treatises on Fate and Providence

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter Adamson
Keyword(s):  
Hellenistic Period ◽  
Dialectical Method ◽  
Arabic Translation ◽  
Alexander Of Aphrodisias ◽  
The Status

This article offers an analysis of the argumentative method of two treatises by Alexander of Aphrodisias, On Fate and On Providence, the latter of which is preserved only in Arabic translation. It is argued that both texts use techniques from Aristotelian dialectic, albeit in different ways, with On Fate adhering to methods outlined in Aristotle's Topics whereas On Providence uses the ‘aporetic’ method familiar from texts such as MetaphysicsΒ‎. This represents a revision of a previous study of Alexander's method in On Fate by Jaap Mansfeld, which emphasized parallels between that method and the techniques of ancient scepticism. It is, however, suggested that Alexander does reflect developments in epistemology during the Hellenistic period, especially in so far as he ‘upgrades’ the status of endoxa to play something like the role of common conceptions in the dogmatic Hellenistic schools.

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