All is not Vanity: William James versus Ernest Renan

Ernest William Hey Groves

Academic nepotism – all that glitters is not gold

Dear Editor With increasing emphasis on publications forfaculty recruitment, career advancementand obtaining research grants, the issues relatedto author kinship and academic nepotism havegrown significantly and these probably reflectthe inflationary growth rather than the optimalgrowth warranted due to increasing researchcomplexity. Allesina S (1) measured the fullmagnitude of nepotism in the ...

William James on the Self

In the late nineteenth century William James pieced together a theory of self that is remarkably modern, some might say 'post-modern.' In Chapter X of his magnum opus, The Principles of Psychology (1890), entitled "The Consciousness of Self," James discusses the manifold nature of the self treating it in its native complexity. Among other things, he proposes a notion of identity and experience ...

William James as American Plato ?

Alfred North Whitehead wrote a letter to Charles Hartshorne in 1936 in which he referred to William James as the American Plato. Especially given Whitehead’s admiration of Plato, this was a high compliment to James. What was the basis for this compliment and analogy? In responding to that question beyond the partial and scattered references provided by Whitehead, this article briefly explores t...

James William Kitching (1922-2003)

James William Kitching collected and studied fossils of dinosaurs and early humans [3] in the twentieth century. He worked at the Bernard Price Institute for Paleontological Research in South Africa. During the fifty-three years he worked at the institute, Kitching spent eighteen of those in the field uncovering fossils. Kitching recovered fossils of early human ancestors, later called Australo...