bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Musical Remediation of Disability
Authors: Howe Blake
Published: July 2018

Music, in its capacity to represent motion and in the supposed capacity of those motions to affect a listener’s character, has frequently assumed a recuperative function in the remediation of disability. This tradition may be sourced to ancient and medieval doctrines, in which proportions of the human body possess an innate musicality, tuning to and sympathetically vibrating with surrounding sounds. These principles have provided the basis for many extraordinary tales of musical cures, which invoke an abstractly idealized musical body as an antidote to physical impairment. Further, within these tales, disability often allegorizes some other theme or subject, functioning as a “narrative prosthetic” that defines by counterexample a desirable state.
Embodied Representation in Staged Opera
Authors: Hutcheon Linda , Hutcheon Michael
Published: July 2018

The singing and acting performer in staged opera has and also performs a body that is both a biological entity and an ideological construct: its race, sex, physique, and age are all given meaning by directors—and audiences. Within the contexts of feminist, queer, and disability studies, this chapter reads the “marked” body of the protagonist of David Alden’s 2008 production of Gaetano Donizetti’s 1835 Lucia di Lammermoor as the literal embodiment of the excruciating vulnerability of Lucia as subject through the medium of her youthfulness and her mixed race: a Down syndrome child sexually abused by her brother on stage. Just as the opera’s use of coloratura is a marked musical gesture of madness in dramaturgical terms for the “voice in performance,” so the specifically marked corporeal body of Lucia was crucial to this production’s dramatic power, as well as the ethical and political issues it raised.
“The Fall of the House of Usher” and the Architecture of Unreliability
Authors: Monnet Agnieska Soltysik
Published: July 2018

This chapter examines what many scholars consider the most accomplished and representative of Poe’s tales, “The Fall of the House of Usher” (1839). After a brief overview of the main axes of interpretation in the story’s reception history, it proposes an analysis of the tale’s main narrative strategy, the unreliable narrator, which is typical of Poe’s short fiction in general. Linking this device to the unstable architectonics of the house in the story, the chapter shows how the unreliability of the narrator lies at the heart of the text’s ability to choreograph active reader participation. It also historicizes the specific kind of unreliable narrators that Poe favors—those lacking a moral conscience or ethically informed perception—in the context of antebellum debates about slavery.
The Legislative Branch in Israel
Authors: Friedberg Chen , Hazan Reuven Y.
Published: July 2018

The Knesset is the legislative body of Israel, which has been a parliamentary, unitary democracy since its foundation. It is a unicameral parliament, elected through a proportional election system that to a great extent reflects Israeli society. Because there is no written constitution, the Knesset alone delineates the three branches of government. On top of its legislative role, the Knesset also oversees the executive branch, handles political conflicts, and is in charge of decision-making. Although it is the main source of all political power in Israel and appears strong on paper, it operates under structural, legal, procedural, and historical constraints. The result is a relatively weak legislative branch in practice, in some roles more so than in others.
Baroque Opera
Authors: Thomas Downing A.
Published: July 2018

The fundamental assumption of commentators from the early modern period is that tasteful music functions simultaneously to express sentiment and to move listener-spectators. The three core elements of the baroque operatic spectacle—poetry, music, and dance—are defined by their ability to express and convey passion. Commentators point to the particular ability of musical language—and its combination with poetry and movement—to represent that which is out of reach of spoken language, or below the threshold of linguistic representation. Although both dramma per musica and the tragédie en musique arose and were fundamentally grounded in monarchical cultural worlds, both also endured successfully as public art forms. Aesthetically, baroque opera exhibits and revels in nested structures, manifested in plays within plays and in references that place the operatic moment within a social world outside the opera. Opera left this aesthetic behind as it moved into the second half of the eighteenth century, influenced by the views of Jean-Jacques Rousseau and the works of Christoph Willibald Ritter von Gluck among others.
Husserl’s Early Period
Authors: Andras Varga Peter
Published: July 2018

In order to provide a balanced original exposition of the early period of Husserl’s philosophy, first his biography is surveyed, including the historiographical trends that influenced the scholarly views of the origins of Husserl’s phenomenological philosophy. Husserl’s development prior to the Logical Investigations is reconstructed by virtue of both his published juvenilia and the transformations of his underlying project of explaining (mathematical) inauthenticity. Husserl’s phenomenological breakthrough in the Logical Investigations is presented in a historical-genetic way, considering its influence on the Munich and Göttingen phenomenologists and the idealism–realism debate. Besides relying on a wide and modern textual basis, special attention is paid to the obvious or inconspicuous elements that connect the beginnings of Husserl’s philosophy to his mature transcendental phenomenology, as well as to those roots of his philosophy that extend beyond the confines of the School of Brentano.
Edith Stein’s Challenge to Sense-Making
Authors: Calcagno Antonio
Published: July 2018

Edith Stein viewed her work with Husserl as a project of collaboration aimed at developing and promoting phenomenology, but rather than conceiving of constitution or sense-bestowal as belonging to the elements of logic and language, as it does in Husserl’s Logical Investigations and his transcendental structures of noesis and noema or in Reinach’s early work in phenomenology (1951), Stein argued that meaning-making must be grounded in both material nature and spiritual realities. Her early work in phenomenology was not only a critique of the perceived shortcomings of her teachers but also a constructive attempt to expand the account of how phenomenology can seize the objectivity of things themselves by showing how consciousness itself is embodied in a psycho-spiritual unity, which Stein called a person.
Schutz and Gurwitsch on Agency
Authors: Barber Michael D.
Published: July 2018

Aron Gurwitsch and Alfred Schutz differ over the paramount reality, with Schutz stressing the importance of meaningful action in everyday life and Gurwitsch the perception of objects in objective time. On the ego, Schutz and Husserl rightly argue for its epistemological accessibility, while Gurwitsch defends a non-egological consciousness that seems counterpoised to the self-appropriating, agential ego of Husserl and Schutz. However, Gurwitsch’s endorsement of Sartre’s non-egological consciousness might have facilitated a rapprochement with the agency to be found in Schutz’s and Husserl’s egological accounts. John Drummond’s criticisms of Gurwitsch’s phenomenalist account of the object suggest an object less appropriate for interaction with the bodily agency that Schutz highlights. Gurwitsch pays less attention to agency insofar as he extends his noematic focus to the ultimate ontological suppositions of various orders of being. The differences between Schutz and Gurwitsch on agency result from their diverging overarching strategies within a common phenomenological framework.
Rereading the Later Merleau-Ponty in the Light of his Unpublished Work
Authors: de Saint Aubert Emmanuel
Published: July 2018

Access to a large number of unpublished manuscripts allows us to follow the continuity of Merleau-Ponty’s thought from his first to his last writings, to uncover its double critical constitution, anti-Cartesian and anti-Sartrean, and to understand the status of this philosophy of the flesh as it establishes itself as ontology. This philosophy is geared toward a never-abandoned methodological challenge to grasp humanity first as another manner of being a body, the challenge of thinking a corporeity which is always already, in the very principle of its animation, intercorporeity. Through his continual pursuit of a phenomenology of perception, its insistence on the motifs of depth, the inexhaustible, the invisible, and incompletion, Merleau-Ponty’s carnal ontology proceeds in the discovery of the common negativity of human beings and the world, of myself and others, which affects its conception of being.
Jan Patočka’s Philosophical Legacy
Authors: Dodd James
Published: July 2018

This chapter sketches the trajectory of Jan Patočka’s philosophical development against the background of the conflicts and crises that marked the history of the twentieth century, and which profoundly affected the Czech philosopher. The relevant period spans from the 1930s, when Patočka studied under Edmund Husserl in Freiburg, to the philosopher’s activities as a dissident in 1970s Czechoslovakia. Particular attention is paid to Patočka’s deep reading of the history of philosophy; the complexities of his appropriation of the phenomenological philosophies of Husserl and Heidegger; and the philosophy of history developed late in his career. The chapter ends with a consideration of Patočka’s influence on contemporary phenomenological philosophy, suggesting that his most promising contribution lies in his challenging engagement with the problem of Europe, above all his call for a post-European philosophical perspective.
Historicity and the Hermeneutic Predicament
Authors: Ruin Hans
Published: July 2018

The chapter presents the topic of “historicity” (Geschichtlichkeit) as a core concern for phenomenological thinking in the intersection with hermeneutics. It is first coined as a philosophical term by Dilthey and Yorck von Wartenburg as a way to capture the unique way in which humans exist historically and belong to history. Through their correspondence published posthumously in 1923 it enters the orbit of Heidegger’s existential phenomenology, as he quotes extensively from these letters in Being in Time. For Heidegger, historicity was the key to transforming Husserlian phenomenology into hermeneutical ontology. In his reappraisal of hermeneutic thinking, Gadamer also locates historicity at the center of his magnum opus Truth and Method. The chapter also shows how Husserl was a thinker of historicity. This is brought out in particular in Derrida’s early interpretations of Husserl, where the deconstructive approach emerges literally from the problem of the historicity of ideal objects.
Intersubjectivity, Sociality, Community
Authors: Zahavi Dan
Published: July 2018

The chapter discusses how various early phenomenologists by starting from an examination of empathy and other forms of dyadic interpersonal relations went on to develop analyses of larger social units in order to address questions concerning the nature of our communal being-together. More specifically, it shows how an investigation of dyadic empathic encounters figures prominently in not only Husserl’s, but also Scheler’s and Walther’s subsequent analyses of experiential sharing and we-intentionality. Not all phenomenologists, however, agreed with this prioritization of second-person engagement and face-to-face relationships. The chapter concludes with a brief discussion of Gurwitsch’s and Heidegger’s criticisms and alternative approaches.
Embodiment and Bodily Becoming
Authors: Heinämaa Sara
Published: July 2018

The chapter clarifies Husserl’s phenomenological approach to embodiment by explicating his analytical concepts and his transcendental arguments concerning the constitution of living bodiliness (Leiblichkeit). The chapter argues that Husserlian phenomenology does not establish any simple opposition between naturalistic and phenomenological inquiries but instead offers a comprehensive account of the many senses of the body operative in human practices, including the practices of the sciences. The human body is given, not just as a material thing, but also as an instrument, as an agent, and an expressive stylistic whole. The second part of the chapter discusses recent applications of Husserlian philosophy of embodiment in the investigation of human plurality. By analyzing the exemplary phenomena of sexuality and sexual difference, the chapter demonstrates that the phenomenological concepts of style and stylistic unity can serve investigations into the diversity of human embodiment in its many forms.
Turn to Excess
Authors: Gschwandtner Christina
Published: July 2018

This chapter examines the development of phenomenology in France in the last part of the twentieth century, especially the “radical” or “excessive” turn of phenomenology in such thinkers as Michel Henry, Jean-Luc Marion, Jean-Louis Chrétien, Jean-Yves Lacoste, and Emmanuel Falque (with special focus on Henry and Marion as the foremost representatives of this movement). The first part of the chapter introduces the kinds of phenomena on which this phenomenology focuses. The second part of the chapter investigates its particular approach to phenomenological methodology. The final part of the chapter shows the contribution these phenomenological projects make to two specific areas of phenomenology, namely to the examination of aesthetic and of religious phenomena, respectively.
Baptist Concepts of the Church and their Antecedents
Authors: Fiddes Paul S.
Published: July 2018

Baptist ecclesiology shows a substantial heritage from the English Separatist tradition, while its debt to the continental Anabaptist tradition is contested. Both sources are antecedents to a Baptist ecclesiology that has played a prominent part in dissent and nonconformity in England and Wales since the early seventeenth century. This chapter thus aims to bring Anabaptist, Separatist, and Baptist ecclesiologies into conversation with each other. A covenant ecclesiology envisages the local congregation as existing under the direct rule of Christ who gathers its members together, so that covenant is made simultaneously with each other and God. Two tensions are consequently typical of such an ecclesiology: first, a fluidity of oversight between congregation and officers within the local church; and second, a sharing of authority between local and wider manifestations of the church.
Feminist Critiques, Visions, and Models of the Church
Authors: Graham Elaine
Published: July 2018

Women have been vastly under-represented within the church’s ministries. Feminist ecclesiologies invariably begin from this situation of invisibility and discrimination, whilst arguing for the historic and contemporary legitimacy of women’s full participation alongside men. Feminist critiques and reconstructions have drawn on biblical and historical evidence in order to refute patterns of hierarchy and exclusion in favour of more egalitarian traditions of the church as a community of equals. The various strands of the ‘Women-Church’ movement have also been central to a practical feminist ecclesiology, in which women have sought new ways to name their everyday experience as sacred and to exercise new patterns of ministry and leadership. Institutionally-led initiatives, such as the World Council of Churches’ programme on The Community of Women and Men in the Church, have met with mixed success, although worship has been one of the most creative well-springs of feminist activity and renewal.
Anglican Ecclesiology
Authors: Avis Paul
Published: July 2018

This chapter begins by exploring the question of the distinctiveness of Anglican ecclesiology within the spectrum of the major Christian traditions. It continues by asking to what extent Anglican ecclesiology can be identified as (a) Protestant; (b) Catholic; (c) catholic and reformed; (d) a ‘middle way’. The chapter then examines the origin and meaning of the terms ‘Anglican’ and ‘Anglicanism’ and goes on to explain what is meant by the Anglican Communion as ‘a communion of churches’ in the sense of the New Testament terms koinōnia/communio and whether this ideal is sustainable in the present global context of radical differences in theology and ethics. The chapter concludes with an account of the origins of episcopacy and of the valuations that Anglicans place on it in the context of their total ecclesiology.
Introduction
Authors: Star Daniel
Published: July 2018

The purpose and plan of the Handbook is described herein. Key concepts in the contemporary literature on reasons and normativity are introduced, and the forty-four chapters that make up the main body of the Handbook are each summarized. In the process, important connections between the chapters are highlighted. A distinctive feature of the Handbook is said to be the way in which it surveys work on normative reasons in both ethics and epistemology, focusing, when appropriate, on issues concerning unity or lack of it in different domains. It is noted that discussions of reasons and normativity in philosophy of language, philosophy of mind, and aesthetics are also surveyed in the Handbook.
Reasons, Evidence, and Explanations
Authors: Brunero John
Published: July 2018

This chapter assesses analyses of normative reasons that appeal to the concepts of evidence or explanation along with some other normative concept. One influential analysis holds that some fact is a reason for an agent to ϕ if and only if that fact is evidence she ought to ϕ. I argue that, despite the many advantages of this proposal, there are cases of facts which are reasons to ϕ but aren’t evidence one ought to ϕ, and cases of facts which are evidence one ought to ϕ but aren’t reasons to ϕ. Others have analyzed reasons in terms of explanations: perhaps a reason for an agent to ϕ is a fact which explains why she ought to ϕ, or a fact which figures in a “weighing explanation,” or a fact which explains why her ϕ-ing would be good in some respect. There are difficulties facing all three of these proposals.
Teleological Reasons
Authors: Portmore Douglas W.
Published: July 2018

A teleological reason to φ is a reason to φ in virtue of the fact that φ-ing would either itself promote a certain end or is appropriately related to something else that would promote that end. And teleological reasons divide into direct and the indirect kinds, depending on whether the first or second of these two disjuncts applies. Thus, supposing that our end is to maximize utility, the fact that my killing one to save two would maximize utility is a direct teleological reason for me to do so, whereas the fact that my killing one to save two is prohibited by the code of rules whose universal acceptance would maximize utility is an indirect teleological reason for me to refrain from doing so. This chapter discusses various types of reasons, such as epistemic reasons (that is, reasons to believe), and whether all, some, or none of them are teleological. The chapter pays particularly close attention to the issue of whether all practical reasons (that is, reasons for action) are teleological.
Reasons and Moral Principles
Authors: Väyrynen Pekka
Published: July 2018

Moral particularism and generalism are families of views united by their denial or affirmation (respectively) that general moral principles play some fundamental role in morality. In this survey of the generalism/particularism debate, I distinguish between contributory and overall moral principles and between two distinct roles, standards and guides, which either sort of principles might be claimed to play. Next I describe three different forms which particularist opposition to any of these kinds of principles can take. I then survey debates about whether moral principles play a fundamental role either as standards or as guides. Throughout I pay particular attention to issues and arguments which involve claims about normative reasons that favor or justify things or explanatory reasons that explain their moral features. I also note some broader implications of these arguments for both moral theory and the theory of reasons, and point to questions that merit further work.
The Evolutionary Challenge to Knowing Moral Reasons
Authors: Cuneo Terence
Published: July 2018

The “debunker’s puzzle” asks how it could be that (i) moral non-naturalism is true, (ii) we have moral knowledge, and (iii) evolutionary forces have heavily shaped the workings of our moral faculty. This chapter begins by exploring a prominent attempt to dissolve the puzzle, so-called third-factor views, arguing that they are subject to a variety of objections. This discussion highlights a pivotal claim in the dialectic between debunkers and non-naturalists: the debunker’s puzzle has force against moral non-naturalism only if it incorporates an ambitious claim about how far evolutionary forces have operated on the workings of the moral faculty. Non-naturalists can plausibly reject such a strong claim. Still, debunkers can rightly reply that non-naturalists nonetheless lack an explanation regarding how our moral judgments are linked to normative reality. The chapter argues that, by appealing to constitutive explanations, non-naturalists have helpful things to say about what the link might be.
Normativity and Intentionality
Authors: Hattiangadi Anandi
Published: July 2018

The hard problem of intentionality is to explain what makes it the case that an arbitrary sentence or thought has the semantic properties that it does rather than some other semantic properties or none at all. Some hold that intentionality is normative, and that this has a crucial bearing on the hard problem of intentionality. This chapter investigates whether this is so. It is possible to distinguish four versions of the thesis that intentionality is normative: grasp of a concept or meaning involves following a rule or making a normative judgment of some kind; the concepts of meaning and content are normative; meaning and content are sources of normativity; the semantic facts are in some sense reducible to the normative (and natural) facts. I discuss all four versions of the thesis, and argue that the normativity of intentionality has little bearing on the hard problem of intentionality.
Psychologism and Anti-Psychologism about Motivating Reasons
Authors: Wiland Eric
Published: July 2018

People do things for various reasons. Are these motivating reasons psychological? This question is the focus of this chapter. I argue here that such reasons are typically not purely psychological. Yet there is an important psychological element or aspect of these reasons. I proceed by first reviewing some arguments for and against psychologism about (motivating) reasons. Next, I do the same for the view that reasons are typically non-psychological facts. I then explore some additional alternatives: (a) disjunctivist views, (b) the appositional account, and finally (c) naïve action theory, which I favour. Naïve action theory transcends and preserves the best features of both standard psychologism and standard anti-psychologism.
The Northern Black Sea and North Caucasus
Authors: Reinhold Sabine , Mordvintseva Valentina I.
Published: July 2018

This chapter surveys the Iron Age in the region extending from the western Black Sea to the North Caucasus. As in many parts of Europe, this was the first period in which written sources named peoples, places, and historical events. The Black Sea saw Greek colonization from the seventh century BC and its northern shore later became the homeland of the important Bosporan kingdom. For a long time, researchers sought to identify tribes named by authors such as Herodotus by archaeological means, but this ethno-deterministic perspective has come under critique. Publication of important new data from across the region now permits us to draw a more coherent picture of successive cultures and of interactions between different parts of this vast area, shedding new light both on local histories and on the role ‘The East’ played in the history of Iron Age Europe.
Early Greek Geography
Authors: Kaplan Phillip G.
Published: July 2018

The chapter surveys Greek geographical thought to ca 350 bce. Early Greek geographical conceptions, influenced by Near Eastern traditions, were expressed first as genealogical relationships between places and as itineraries. The Ionian natural philosophers speculated about the shape of the earth and its geophysical features, and developed a cartographical conception of the world. The itinerary developed into the genre of the “periplous,” describing coastal journeys, from which came the “periegesis” of Hecataeus, which provided the names of cities around the Mediterranean and some ethnographical data. Herodotus, the first historian, united geographical and ethnographical interests with historical narrative, further developing the cartographic model of the earth, while also incorporating detailed itineraries and approximations of distances. Later historians continued the application of geography and topography to historical understanding. Aristotle’s summation of the speculative tradition of the shape and the size of the earth laid the groundwork for the establishment of scientific geography.
Paradoxography
Authors: Geus Klaus , King Colin Guthrie
Published: July 2018

The chapter explores the ancient Greek and Roman literature on wonders, “paradoxical” objects and events in the natural (and human) worlds, things that are strange but true. The main source for this literature was not observation or experience, but other literature. The chapter describes the genesis and development of the genre and defines its common characteristics; introduces its main authors; and explains its importance for the history of ancient science. Paradoxographical texts have been characterized variously as: (1) lists of facts which are considered wondrous, or (2) a sensationalist and consumer-oriented type of writing, or (3) the second-rate extracts from proper historical and scientific authors. Paradoxography was a thriving literary field from Early Hellenistic times, throughout the Greco-Roman era, and into Byzantine times.
Ancient Agronomy as a Literature of Best Practices
Authors: Thibodeau Philip
Published: July 2018

This chapter offers a historical overview of Greek and Roman agronomy as a literary phenomenon, touching on major sources such as Hesiod, Xenophon, Cato, and Columella together with numerous minor authors. It tracks the ever-expanding boundaries of what was considered agronomy during the Classical era, plus trends towards specialization and encyclopedism in writers from Hellenistic and Roman times. The most common feature of this heterogeneous body of writings is a concern to communicate what the authors believe to be best practices in agriculture—which may not always be the same as standard or widespread practices. Interest in agricultural paradoxography is shown to be an enduring and essential feature of the genre. Agronomists did not attempt to take into account the methods of the ancient natural sciences, save for astronomy, which was productively assimilated by the authors of farmers’ calendars.
Galen and His System of Medicine
Authors: Johnston Ian
Published: July 2018

The chapter treats the life and work of the physician Galen; his own works are the primary source for his life. He established a comprehensive system of medical practice based on a systematic theoretical foundation, which included all the basic medical sciences, as well as the relevant areas of philosophy, and endured with minor alterations until the mid-nineteenth century. He made important anatomical discoveries and carried out illuminating physiological experiments. He insisted that doctors must have a solid grounding in philosophy, and intervened in the debate between the contending medical sects of his era. Galen valued the works of Hippocrates and Plato and attempted to ground his work in their ideas. Galen adhered to the theory that four qualities (hot/cold and wet/dry) composed the body; he advocated teleology as an explanatory principle for all phenomena, and he understood the soul to have three parts as in Plato’s Timaeus.
Mathematics in India until 650 CE
Authors: Knudsen Toke Lindegaard
Published: July 2018

The chapter studies the mathematics of ancient India, from the Vedic (Indo-European) period, ca1500–500 bce, and later. They used a decimal system to express numbers, often of great size. The texts called Śulba-sūtras (Rules of the Cord, ca 800–200 bce) prescribe detailed rituals involving geometrical arrangements of bricks forming altars, using pegs and ropes. These texts present a system of mathematics involving the full application of the Pythagorean theorem, a rather precise approximation to the square root of 2, and approximate methods for squaring the circle and circling the square. Around 500 bce, the place-value decimal system was created, including the zero. Moreover, the bhūta-saṃkhyā system allowed place-value numbers to be represented using a sequence of fixed words, e.g., “eyes” always meant “two.” The analysis of possible metrical forms led to the development of simple combinatorics, including a form of what we would call Pascal’s triangle. Jain mathematics speculated about types of infinity. Mathematical astronomy, from ca 400 ce, included computation of mean and true planetary positions, and computation of lunar and solar eclipses. The chapter concludes with brief surveys of notable Indian mathematicians.
Optics and Vision
Authors: Webster Colin
Published: July 2018

The chapter surveys the scope of ancient optics, which varied over time and between authors. No two authors in antiquity agree on precisely which elements should be included in a useful and credible account of visual perception. The chapter adopts a holistic approach that pays attention to how each author functionally defines sight. By the time of Plato, a relatively consistent set of phenomena defined sight, including color, image transfer, reflection, and night vision. Aristotle incorporated sight within a broader metaphysical account of perception and the soul, while the Epicureans fixated on the epistemological consequences of optical illusions. In the Hellenistic period, geometrical optics (and its sibling discipline catoptrics, the study of mirrors) rose to greater prominence, utilizing diagrams to explain and model vision. Ptolemy composed a treatise that systematized and synthesized both the geometrical and philosophical approaches to sight.
Epicurus and His Circle
Authors: Tieleman Teun
Published: July 2018

The chapter gives an account Epicurus’ natural philosophy and his attitude to the sciences. Epicurus’ mission was to liberate people from the fear of death and the gods, and science was subordinate to that project, practiced to show that nature acts without divine intervention. He was skeptical about mathematics, due to his commitment to atomism, and about astronomy, because knowledge should be based on clear foundations unavailable for deciding issues such as the planets’ sizes. Sensation dictates there are two constituents of reality: bodies, directly attested by sense perception; and the void, the space where bodies exist and move. Infinite atoms move through space, forming countless worlds (kosmoi), which at some point will again fall apart into their constituent atoms. Epicurus considers naturalistic explanations of phenomena to show they are not divine. But his philosophy of nature insists upon natural causes (as opposed to geometrical models), is consistently materialist and mechanistic, and is thus anti-teleological.
Stoicism and the Natural World
Authors: Tieleman Teun
Published: July 2018

The chapter discusses the natural philosophy of the ancient Stoics including the attitude they took towards the so-called special and applied sciences (technai). After a historical outline introducing the main facts and personalities (sec. 1), the role and status of natural philosophy within the Stoic system are explained, with special reference to the moral and theological dimension of the study of nature, that is, the Stoic view of the world as a rationally structured and providentially determined whole and what this view implies for our way of living (sec. 2). Two subsequent sections are concerned with Stoic materialist physics on both the universal (macrocosmic) and the individual (microcosmic) level respectively (sec. 3 and sec. 4). The next section is specifically devoted to exploring Stoic views on, and involvement with, applied sciences and arts such as astronomy, mathematics and medicine (sec. 5). The Epilogue sums up the main results from the preceding discussion (sec. 6).
Science in the 2nd and 3rd Centuries CE
Authors: Keyser Paul T.
Published: July 2018

The chapter argues that the 2nd and 3rd centuries ce can be characterized as aporetic—questions were held open, which the science of the era was incapable of resolving. Three trends characterize works of the period, both scientific and not. First among these trends is that Roman culture valorized founders and authoritative leaders, even in scientific works. That promoted archaism in literature, so early authors became canonical. Roman construction of wisdom, foreign and native, valorized “usefulness,” and works produced to that end were “encyclopedias” and compendia. Mathematics was explored in service to meaning. Works of geography regularly reported marvels from remote regions of the earth, and such reports now played a greater role in geographical writing. The formerly dominant schools of philosophy gradually faded or became indistinct from one another.
Introduction
Authors: Keyser Paul T.
Published: July 2018

There was science in antiquity. Science requires only that: the world we observe exists and is knowable; moreover, we can share knowledge about the world; and finally, there is a way that the world is, and it is both meaningful and possible to say that some models of the world, or reports about the world, better represent that way than do others. It is no more anachronistic to employ our term “science” than other modern terms (“book,” “city,” “food,” “school”) for a corresponding ancient category or practice. This volume includes what was validly science for ancient practitioners and theorists: attempts to understand how the natural world worked and to construct models to convey those understandings. Those who accept as scientific a geocentric cosmos populated by living beings constituted of humors must likewise accept stellar influences and material transmutation. This volume humbly takes the ancient ideas for what they are and studies them as a system that changed and grew over time.
Early Mathematics and Astronomy
Authors: Zhmud Leonid
Published: July 2018

The chapter surveys Greek mathematics and astronomy, as far as it can be known from works before circa 300 bce. Key sources are the now-fragmentary histories of astronomy and of geometry composed by Eudemus of Rhodes, a student of Aristotle. Eudemus focused on “first discoverers” of theorems or procedures. The role of deductive mathematical proof in Greek mathematics is central, derives from the agonistic character of Greek culture, and probably largely displaced earlier more practical or procedural mathematics. The main lines of mathematical investigation that survive concerned geometry and also arithmetic and number theory. Many of these early mathematicians were also astronomers. The main lines of astronomical investigation concerned the motions of the sun, moon, and planets, about which a variety of observations were made, and for which a variety of models were constructed.
A Guide to Reproducibility in Preclinical Research
Authors: Samsa Greg , Samsa Leigh
Published: July 2018

Many have raised concerns about the reproducibility of biomedical research. In this Perspective, the authors address this “reproducibility crisis” by distilling discussions around reproducibility into a simple guide to facilitate understanding of the topic.

Reproducibility applies both within and across studies. The following questions address reproducibility within studies: “Within a study, if the investigator repeats the data management and analysis, will she get an identical answer?” and “Within a study, if someone else starts with the same raw data, will she draw a similar conclusion?” Contrastingly, the following questions address reproducibility across studies: “If someone else tries to repeat an experiment as exactly as possible, will she draw a similar conclusion?” and “If someone else tries to perform a similar study, will she draw a similar conclusion?”

Many elements of reproducibility from clinical trials can be applied to preclinical research (e.g., changing the culture of preclinical research to focus more on transparency and rigor). For investigators, steps toward improving reproducibility include specifying data analysis plans ahead of time to decrease selective reporting; more explicit data management and analysis protocols; and increasingly detailed experimental protocols, which allow others to repeat experiments. Additionally, senior investigators should take greater ownership of the details of their research (e.g., implementing active laboratory management practices, such as random audits of raw data [or at least reduced reliance on data summaries], more hands-on time overseeing experiments, and encouraging a healthy skepticism from all contributors). These actions will support a culture where rigor + transparency = reproducibility.
Six-Year Experience in Teaching Pelvic Floor Ultrasonography Using Pelvic Floor Phantoms
Authors: Jalalizadeh Mehrsa , Alshiek Jonia , Santoro Giulio A. , Wieczorek Andrzej Pawel , Shobeiri S. Abbas
Published: July 2018

OBJECTIVE:

To review our 6-year experience (2009–2015) in teaching three-dimensional pelvic floor ultrasonography workshops that utilized pelvic floor phantoms in the setting of an Objective Structured Assessment of Technical Skills methodology.

METHODS:

Four-hour Objective Structured Assessment of Technical Skills workshops were given at several society meetings and involved a didactic session, a hands-on session using the pelvic floor phantoms, and a computer station session reviewing pelvic floor pathologies. We analyzed improvement in participants' diagnostic skills using a test with 60 illustrated questions of normal and pathologic findings in live human models.

RESULTS:

Two hundred forty-three attendees completed the 60-question test before and after attending the workshop. Paired t test showed a significant improvement in attendees' average scores after the workshop in all categories: anatomy, normal, or pathologic endovaginal imaging and normal or pathologic endoanal imaging (P<.001 for all). McNemar test showed a statistically significant increased number of correct answers in 50 of 60 (83%) questions.

CONCLUSION:

Our Objective Structured Assessment of Technical Skills workshops incorporating pelvic floor phantoms enhanced trainees' pelvic floor ultrasound diagnostic skills.
Factors Influencing Young Women's Preparedness for Their First Pelvic Examination
Authors: Bryan Ava Ferguson , Chor Julie
Published: July 2018

OBJECTIVE:

To understand factors contributing to women's level of preparedness for their first pelvic examination.

METHODS:

We conducted semistructured interviews with young women, aged 18–24 years, who had undergone at least one pelvic examination. This analysis explored 1) gynecologic and health care experience before the first pelvic examination, 2) preprocedure expectations and concerns, and 3) preprocedure knowledge about the examination. Interviews were transcribed and computer-assisted content analysis was performed; salient themes are presented.

RESULTS:

Thirty women completed interviews. Thirteen women described feeling poorly prepared for their first pelvic examination and 17 women described feeling prepared for the examination. Factors influencing women's level of preparedness for their first pelvic examination included 1) age at first examination, 2) pre-examination knowledge of the examination, 3) medical trust or mistrust, 4) overall comfort with one's body, and 5) prior sexual experiences and trauma.

CONCLUSION:

Preparedness for the first pelvic examination emerges as a subjective concept shaped and determined by the interplay of many factors. Although some factors such as age and personal sexual and reproductive health history may not be modifiable by clinical practice, other factors, including information that young women receive before experiencing their first pelvic examination, may be modifiable by clinical practice.
Maternal Outcomes by Race for Women Aged 40 Years or Older
Authors: Booker Whitney A. , Gyamfi-Bannerman Cynthia , Sheen Jean-Ju , Wright Jason D. , Siddiq Zainab , D’Alton Mary E. , Friedman Alexander M.
Published: July 2018

OBJECTIVE:

To clarify how race is associated with adverse maternal outcomes and risk for women aged 40 years or older.

METHODS:

This retrospective cohort study used the Nationwide Inpatient Sample for the years 1998–2014. Women aged 40–54 years were included. Race and ethnicity were categorized as non-Hispanic white, non-Hispanic black, Hispanic, Asian or Pacific Islander, Native American, other, and unknown. Temporal trends in severe maternal morbidity and overall comorbid risk by race in women aged 40 years or older were evaluated as were common pregnancy complications including preeclampsia, gestational diabetes, and cesarean delivery. Adjusted models were created to assess factors associated with severe morbidity.

RESULTS:

A total of 1,724,694 deliveries were included in this analysis. Severe maternal morbidity increased over the study period from 1.6% in 1998–2000 to 3.0% from 2013 to 2014. Black women had the highest rates of severe morbidity at both the beginning (2.4% in 1998–2000) and the end (4.9% in 2013–2014) of the study period. During this same period, comorbid risk based on medical conditions and other factors increased overall and individually by race. Black women also experienced the absolute largest increase from 1998–2003 to 2010–2014 in risk for acute renal failure, disseminated intravascular coagulation, transfusion, and hysterectomy. Pregnancy complications including preeclampsia, cesarean delivery, and gestational diabetes were more common at the end compared with the beginning of the study for black, white, and Hispanic women. The adjusted risk ratio for overall severe morbidity for black compared with white race was 1.81 (95% CI 1.76–1.87). Black women had a substantially higher risk of death than white women (risk ratio 4.71, 95% CI 3.36–6.61), and Hispanic women had more than twice the risk of death (risk ratio 2.13, 95% CI 1.48–3.07) as white women.

CONCLUSION:

Although black women older than 40 years were at increased risk for adverse outcomes and severe morbidity, this differential was of smaller magnitude than reported mortality risk.
The Mediterranean Diet and Cardiovascular Disease
Authors: Temple Norman J , Guercio Valentina , Tavani Alessandra
Published: July 2018

In this article, we critically evaluate the evidence relating to the effects of the Mediterranean diet (MD) on the risk of cardiovascular disease (CVD). Strong evidence indicating that the MD prevents CVD has come from prospective cohort studies. However, there is only weak supporting evidence from randomized controlled trials (RCTs) as none have compared subjects who follow an MD and those who do not. Instead, RCTs have tested the effect of 1 or 2 features of the MD. This was the case in the Prevenciόn con Dieta Mediterránea (PREDIMED) study: the major dietary change in the intervention groups was the addition of either extravirgin olive oil or nuts. Meta-analyses generally suggest that the MD causes small favorable changes in risk factors for CVD, including blood pressure, blood glucose, and waist circumference. However, the effect on blood lipids is generally weak. The MD may also decrease several biomarkers of inflammation, including C-reactive protein. The 7 key features of the MD can be divided into 2 groups. Some are clearly protective against CVD (olive oil as the main fat; high in legumes; high in fruits/vegetables/nuts; and low in meat/meat products and increased in fish). However, other features of the MD have a less clear relationship with CVD (low/moderate alcohol use, especially red wine; high in grains/cereals; and low/moderate in milk/dairy). In conclusion, the evidence indicates that the MD prevents CVD. There is a need for RCTs that test the effectiveness of the MD for preventing CVD. Key design features for such a study are proposed.
Acute Kidney Injury in the Age of Enhanced Recovery Protocols
Authors: Hassinger Taryn E. , Turrentine Florence E. , Thiele Robert H. , Sarosiek Bethany M. , McMurry Timothy L. , Friel Charles M. , Hedrick Traci L.
Published: July 2018

BACKGROUND:

Acute kidney injury is a prevalent complication after abdominal surgery. With increasing adoption of enhanced recovery protocols, concern exists for concomitant increase in acute kidney injury.

OBJECTIVE:

This study evaluated effects of enhanced recovery on acute kidney injury through identification of risk factors.

DESIGN:

This was a retrospective cohort study comparing acute kidney injury rates before and after implementation of enhanced recovery protocol.

SETTINGS:

The study was conducted at a large academic medical center.

PATIENTS:

All of the patients undergoing elective colorectal surgery between 2010 and 2016, excluding patients with stage 5 chronic kidney disease, were included.

MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES:

Patients before and after enhanced recovery implementation were compared, with rate of acute kidney injury as the primary outcome. Acute kidney injury was defined as a rise in serum creatinine ≥1.5 times baseline within 30 days of surgery. Multivariable logistic regression identified risk factors for acute kidney injury.

RESULTS:

A total of 900 cases were identified, including 461 before and 439 after enhanced recovery; 114 cases were complicated by acute kidney injury, including 11.93% of patients before and 13.44% after implementation of enhanced recovery (p = 0.50). Five patients required hemodialysis, with 2 cases after protocol implementation. Multivariable logistic regression identified hypertension, functional status, ureteral stents, nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs, operative time >200 minutes, and increased intravenous fluid administration on postoperative day 1 as predictors of acute kidney injury. Laparoscopic surgery decreased the risk of acute kidney injury. The enhanced recovery protocol was not independently associated with acute kidney injury.

LIMITATIONS:

The study was limited by its retrospective and nonrandomized before-and-after design.

CONCLUSIONS:

No difference in rates of acute kidney injury was detected before and after implementation of a colorectal enhanced recovery protocol. Independent predictors of acute kidney injury were identified and could be used to alter the protocol in high-risk patients. Future study is needed to determine whether protocol modifications will further decrease rates of acute kidney injury in this population. See Video Abstract at http://links.lww.com/DCR/A568.