In the beginning of the twentieth century, women had no rights at all. They were not allowed to vote or hold in a political office. Married women had no rights to their property or children since their job was just to look after their ch...

A Game of Freeze-Out There was a time-it was the golden age-when the merchant of films or apparatus did his business directly with the consumer; he knew hint. The business took care of itself because the offering was equal to the demand. Th...

Infinity in Theology and Metaphysics It would be profitless (even if it were possible) to catalog every nuance that the word infinity possesses in minor, as well as major, thinkers. Fortunately, the dominant strands are clear. Among these t...

In psychoanalytic theory, an often unconscious mental process (such as repression) that makes possible compromise solutions to personal problems or conflicts. The compromise generally involves concealing from oneself internal drives or fee...

Nathan Drake keened in 1805 that Joseph Addison for all his literary achievement and "moral dominion" frustrated biographers, who stood helpless before his reticence and distrust of self-revelation. Time and scholarship have not made the p...

Retaining his intellectual roots in Hegel and Marx, the German philosopher Theodor W. Adorno (1903-1969) moved freely across diverse academic disciplines to probe into the nature of contemporary European culture and the predicament of mode...

(born 63 &BC;?—died March, 12 &BC;, Campania) Powerful deputy of Augustus. He helped Octavian (later Augustus) take power after Julius Caesar's murder (44 &BC;), defeating Sextus Pompeius in 36 and Mark Antony at the Battle of Actium...

Abu Hamid Muhammad al-Ghazali (1058-1111) was one of the foremost intellects of medieval Islam. Personal discontent with scholastic orthodoxy led him to mysticism and the writing of a monumental work which harmonized the tendencies of both...

The chief contribution by the French mathematician and physicist Jean le Rond d'Alembert (1717-1783) is D'Alembert's principle, in mechanics. He was also a pioneer in the study of partial differential equations. Jean le Rond d'Alembert was...

hypersensitivity reaction by the body to foreign substances (antigens) that in similar amounts and circumstances are harmless within the bodies of other people. Antigens that provoke an allergic reaction are called allergens. Typical aller...

Lack of menstruation. Signs of primary amenorrhea (failure to start menstruating by age 16) include infantile reproductive organs, lack of breasts and pubic hair, dwarfism, and deficient muscle development. In secondary amenorrhea (abnorma...

The French physicist André Marie Ampère (1775-1836), with his original and penetrating analysis of the magnetic effects of current-carrying wires, was the founder of electrodynamics. Born on Jan. 20, 1775, in Lyons, Andr&eacu...

Analytic Jurisprudence Analytic jurisprudence divides into two related areas: substantive and methodological. Until the late 1980s most analytic jurisprudence had been substantive. It focused on producing theories of the nature of law, the ...

The Greek philosopher Anaxagoras (ca. 500-ca. 428 BC) was the first to formulate a molecular theory of matter and to regard the physical universe as subject to the rule of rationality or reason. Anaxagoras was born on the Ionian coast of A...

Anomalous Monism Originated by Donald Davidson, Philosophical Perspectives 3 (1989). Discusses the problem of mental causation for anomalous monism....

Hypoxia Lack of oxygen to the brain. When the cells of the brain receive little or no oxygen, irreversible damage is often the result. Hypoxia is the term applied to oxygen starvation of the brain; when the lack of oxygen is more generalize...

islands that form an independent state in the Lesser Antilles in the eastern Caribbean Sea, at the southern end of the Leeward Islands chain. There is one dependency, the small island of Redonda. The capital is St. John's, on Antigua. Land...

Antisocial personality disorder (ASP) is particularly germane to alcohol and drug abuse because it co-occurs in a large proportion of those who abuse alcohol or drugs, and it confounds the diagnosis of, influences the course of, and is an ...

Rating procedure to identify newborns needing life-sustaining medical assistance. It was developed in 1952 by Virginia Apgar (1909–1974). Five signs, keyed to Apgar's name—Appearance (color), Pulse, Grimace (reflex irritability...

Archytas of Tarentumwas a Greek mathematician of the Pythagorean school who formulated the harmonic mean and was the first to integrate mathematics and mechanics. He also developed an ingenious geometric solution for the ancient Greek prob...

A Jewish refugee from Germany, Hannah Arendt (1906-1975) analyzed major issues of the 20th century and produced a brilliant and original political philosophy. Hannah Arendt was born in 1906 in Hanover, Germany, the only child of middle-cla...

Aristo of Chios(Third Century Bce) Aristo of Chios was a disciple of Zeno of Citium, the founder of Stoicism. The scant biographical information that exists, from Diogenes Laertius (VII 160 189. Berkeley: University of California Press, 199...

Assessment Centers An assessment center is a process used to make personnel decisions in which participants engage in a variety of exercises and have their performance evaluated by multiple assessors. The goal of an assessment center is to ...

Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder Disorder characterized by attentional deficit and/or hyperactivity Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry 26, 1987, pp. 676-686. Organizations Attention Deficit Disorder A...

Augustinianism , E. A Guide to the Thought of St. Augustine. Chicago: Regnery, 1960. Rist, John M. Augustine: Ancient Thought Baptized. Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press, 1994. Rondet, H. Saint Augustine parmi nous. Paris, 1954. R...