Why Ovid? Postmodern Alternative Biographies of the Great Poet

Why the postmodern attitude towards science should be denounced.

After the perhaps naive optimism surrounding science during the post-war period, there has been a clear backlash fuelled by widening scientific illiteracy and fears about nuclear war, environmental degradation and so on. These fears have found fertile ground in the general anti-expert, anti-establishment sentiments that have increased in the past decades, and on which several civic movements ha...

Biographies

Dr. Eric M. Meslin is Director of the Indiana University Center for Bioethics, Professor of Medicine, and of Medical and Molecular Genetics in the Indiana University School of Medicine, and Professor of Philosophy in the School of Liberal Arts. He is also Assistant Dean for Bioethics at the Indiana University School of Medicine. Dr. Meslin received his B.A. in Philosophy from York University (T...

The Cognitive Biographies of Things

In this paper I argue that there is much to gain by constructing “cognitive biographies of things”. These are accounts that detail the history of an artefact and its use, focus on the physical changes undergone by the artefact over time, and draw out the cognitive corollaries of those changes. There are a number of reasons for why we might want to construct such biographies. If we subscribe to ...

The Pathologist as Poet

The role of the humanities (eg, philosophy, bioethics, literature, music, theater, religion, anthropology) in medical education has been argued long and hard for decades. It is argued that the study of subjects included in the humanities can enhance critical thinking skills, foster a deeper level of learning and understanding, and help to enhance one's level of compassion, empathy, and moral/et...

Biographies