ABSTRACT Psychological or political criticism of the parent‐child relation presupposes a normative account of that relation. Such an account is here provided. The normative account can shed most light when the parent‐child relation is presented recognizably, not in Utopian disguise. The purposes of reasonable people partly depend on their interpretations of those of their parents. This is so whether such people accept or reject any particular parental purposes. The filial art sticks to the project of working out the enacted interpretation—until (...) it gets it approximately right. There is a corresponding parental art, neither compensatory nor sacrificial. (shrink)

Conversions: A Philosophic Memoir belongs to the tradition of Augustine and Rousseau: the "confession" of a life that is a quest for truth. It is in large part the story of two major episodes from Abigail Rosenthal's early adulthood, bought putting personal identity dramatically at risk. As a young Fulbright scholar in Paris, Rosenthal met and entered reluctantly into a love affair with a young Greek communist philosopher who believed (along with many Parisian intellectuals of that era) that force (...) and deception were justified by a utopian vision of world history. In the inevitable collision of values—between Jew and Greek, liberal and revolutionary, theist and atheist, woman and man in unequal truggle—they separated. Suffering in the aftermath, she at last turned for help to a young African American woman graduate student whom she met in London. This woman's Gnostic Christian rejection of personal and cultural history eventually left Rosenthal without defense against her new mentor's remarkable use of charisma, ridicule, and moralistic reproach to usurp the author's life story. These stratagems of mind control reached a climactic phase in Portugal, where the two went—Rosenthal to paint the other woman to write—in what would turn out to be the terrifying reverse of a summer idyll. With the U.S. State Department, the Portuguese Policía Internacional devised an extraordinary rescue. This arresting narrative, which deals with relations between blacks and whites, Christians and Jews, and men and women, delivers its own philosophic theory of the individual in history. Author note: Abigail L. Rosenthal is Professor of Philosophy at Brooklyn College of The City University of New York and the author of A Good Look at Evil (Temple). (shrink)

Typically, the quantification and management of population as a reason of state is associated with modernity. As scholars, we tend to take this for granted, especially in our post-Foucauldian theor...

This book provides actionable steps for educators to commit to inclusion of diversity immediately, working toward culturally responsive teaching.

Control stimuli are key for understanding the extent to which face processing relies on holistic processing, and affective evaluation versus the encoding of low-level image properties. Luminance polarity reversal combined with face inversion is a popular tool for severely disrupting the recognition of face controls. However, recent findings demonstrate visibility-recognition trade-offs for LP-reversed faces, where these face controls sometimes appear more salient despite being harder to recognize. The present report brings together findings from image analysis, simple stimuli, and behavioral data (...) for facial recognition and visibility, in an attempt to disentangle instances where LP-reversed control faces are associated with a performance bias in terms of their perceived salience. These findings have important implications for studies of subjective face appearance, and highlight that future research must be aware of behavioral artifacts due to the possibility of trade-off effects. (shrink)

A philosophical study of the ethics of good and evil. Ch. 6 (pp. 163-207), "Banality and Originality, " takes issue with Hannah Arendt's thesis of the banality of evil. Contends that no legally sane Nazi was free of evil. The individual has free choice in regard to doing good and evil, and is responsible for his evil acts. Takes issue, also, with Raul Hilberg's view that the Jews did not resist the Nazi terror, and asks "What is the right way (...) to act during one's Holocaust?" Ch. 7 (pp. 209-220), "Thinking Like a Nazi, " analyzes the Nazi mentality, again showing that the individual cannot claim to have been led astray or to have been controlled by his subconscious - at every stage he was a free agent deliberately choosing evil. (shrink)

More than twenty years ago the late Bernard Williams published a paper under the oxymoronic title of ‘Moral Luck’, which claimed that chance shapes moral standing, and that moral standing, like social or professional standing, has its winners and losers, successes and failures. Williams’ final book, Truth and Truthfulness: An Essay in Genealogy, offered as a ‘fiction’ a sociobiological genealogy of moral standing, and worked to free some of the virtues associated with it—such as integrity, Accuracy, and Sincerity—from the taint (...) of these presumed primitive origins. Whatever the proceeds of this exercise in saving reductionism from itself, it seemed that ‘moral luck’—the earlier category—had come through it essentially undamaged. (shrink)

Arendt claims that evil is banal and its perpetrators merely shallow. Deliberate evil she takes to be extremely rare. However, nonrare examples of deliberate evil, whose aim is to spoil one's story, abound in everyday life. Arendt also makes forgiveness personal, not requiring repentance. This prompts a consideration of certain personal relations among philosophers. Heidegger's relation to Husserl shows a betrayal of teacher by student. His seductive and philosophic power over Arendt, a betrayal of student by teacher, should not be (...) dismissed in terms of reductive Freudian notions. Faced with a real feminine predicament, Arendt made the wrong choices: in her exoneration of Heidegger, her report on the Eichmann trial, and her exculpatory doctrine of evil. (shrink)

Taking exception to Gilbert Ryle's influentially ironical remark about introspection, that it would be like peering into a 'windowless chamber illuminated by a very peculiar sort of light, and one to which only he [the one attempting the introspecting] has access', this essay claims that introspective awareness of one's actions and motivations in their chronological sequence is not empty but highly informative, not trivial but inseparable from any significant life, and not hopeless but entirely feasible. It is argued that informative (...) and significant introspective awareness is a practice which ought to be as unbroken as possible, not fetched into consciousness or dismissed therefrom at whim in discrete quanta. Philosophers of mind for whom self-awareness is a surd will, however, naturally be inclined to attend to it reluctantly, thus without the requisite persistence, and without understanding it to be a skilled practice. This essay offers a preliminary map of the territory of introspection, which it defines under the heading of 'inner space and inner time.' It shows what sorts of conceptual clarifications are to be gained by the introspective practice it recommends, what responsibilities grasped, and what missteps avoided. (shrink)

It was news verging on sensational when A. J. Ayer came back from four minutes of heart death with a report of what he saw. Especially since the philosopher, who publicized his near-death experience [NDE] in 1988, in the Telegraph and the Spectator, was known for his lifelong rejection of religion and the supernatural. But, as will be seen, Ayer's beliefs on that head were substantially unchanged, if more ambivalently expressed, and the interest of his NDE lies elsewhere— in what (...) it reveals about his philosophy. (shrink)

In his seminal essay “Two Concepts of Liberty,” Isaiah Berlin categorized freedom into positive or negative liberty: “freedom to” or “freedom from.” He provided a powerful critique against the metaphysical nature of positive liberty, arguing that it is oppressive, in contrast to the conception of negative freedom, defined as lack of interference. Meanwhile, conversations around the concept of freedom in Daoist philosophy often hover around categorizing it as either positive liberty in its spiritual form—what Berlin calls the “retreat to the (...) inner citadel”—or a type of negative liberty, being free from society’s interference. In this work, I argue that it may instead be more fruitful to explore the Chinese commentarial tradition for two reasons: (1) the problem of Berlin’s liberalist framework is problematic due to its inherently Anglo-European context, and concurrently, (2) there have been rich discussions of the sociopolitical aspects of the _Zhuangzi_ 莊子, especially by its leading Chinese commentator G uo Xiang 郭象, which have not been accounted for. Drawing from G uo Xiang, I render a reading of the concept of “free and easy wandering” (_xiaoyao_ 逍遙) in the _Zhuangzi_ as it directly relates to self-realization (_zide_ 自得) and having no heart-mind (_wuxin_ 無心), which makes for a more holistic understanding of freedom as self-determination. In particular, I argue that freedom in the philosophy of the _Zhuangzi_ can be more aptly understood as “freedom in,” which is more viable and just than both “freedom to” and “freedom from.”. (shrink)

Typically, the quantification and management of population as a reason of state is associated with modernity. As scholars, we tend to take this for granted, especially in our post-Foucauldian theor...

Here we present and develop the hypothesis that the derepression of endogenous retrotransposable elements (RTEs) – “genomic parasites” – is an important and hitherto under‐unexplored molecular aging process that can potentially occur in most tissues. We further envision that the activation and continued presence of retrotransposition contribute to age‐associated tissue degeneration and pathology. Chromatin is a complex and dynamic structure that needs to be maintained in a functional state throughout our lifetime. Studies of diverse species have revealed that chromatin undergoes (...) extensive rearrangements during aging. Cellular senescence, an important component of mammalian aging, has recently been associated with decreased heterochromatinization of normally silenced regions of the genome. These changes lead to the expression of RTEs, culminating in their transposition. RTEs are common in all kingdoms of life, and comprise close to 50% of mammalian genomes. They are tightly controlled, as their activity is highly destabilizing and mutagenic to their resident genomes. (shrink)

ABSTRACT BACKGROUND: The objective of this study was to identify factors motivating women to take part in endometriosis research and to determine if these factors differ for women participating in clinical versus basic science studies. METHODS: A consecutive series of 24 women volunteering for participation in endometriosis‐related research were asked to indicate, in their own words, why they chose to volunteer. In addition, the women were asked to rate, on a scale of 0 to 10, sixteen potentially motivating factors. The (...) information was gathered in the form of an anonymous self‐administered questionnaire. RESULTS: Strong motivating factors (mean score >8) included potential benefit to other women's health, improvement to one's own condition, and participation in scientific advancement. Weak motivating factors (mean score <3) included financial compensation, making one's doctor happy, and use of ‘natural’ products. No difference was detected between clinical and basic science study participants. CONCLUSION: This study is the first study to specifically investigate the factors that motivate women to take part in endometriosis research. Understanding why women choose to take part in such research is important to the integrity of the informed consent process. The factors most strongly motivating women to participate in endometriosis research related to improving personal or public health; the weakest, to financial compensation and pleasing the doctor. (shrink)

Scepticism about ought simpliciter is the view that there is no such thing as what one ought simpliciter to do. Instead, practical deliberation is governed by a plurality of normative standpoints, each authoritative from their own perspective but none authoritative simpliciter. This paper aims to resist such scepticism. After setting out the challenge in general terms, I argue that scepticism can be resisted by rejecting a key assumption in the sceptic’s argument. This is the assumption that standpoint-relative ought judgments bring (...) with them a commitment to act in accordance with those judgments. Instead, I propose an alternative account of our normative concepts according to which only ought simpliciter judgments commit one to acting in accordance with those judgments. In addition to answering the sceptical challenge, the proposal offers an independently motivated account of what makes a concept normatively authoritative. (shrink)

Good decision-making requires reliable information. In medicine, relevant information comes from clinical trials and other forms of scientific research. In business, one source is in corporate annual financial statements. As for-profit, publicly traded companies whose business is discovering, manufacturing, and marketing drugs, pharmaceutical companies sit at the nexus of these two fields. Determining the safety and efficacy of a pharmaceutical product and determining the profitability of a complex enterprise are similarly difficult tasks: each is fraught with deeply ambiguous information that (...) requires sophisticated judgment to interpret reasonably. (shrink)

The problem of the manipulation of data that arises when there is both opportunity and incentive to mislead is better accepted and studied — though by no means solved — in financial accounting than in medicine. This article analyzes pharmaceutical company manipulation of medical research as part of a broader problem of corporate manipulation of data in the creation of accounting profits. The article explores how our understanding of accounting fraud and misinformation helps us understand the risk of similar information (...) manipulation in the medical sciences. This understanding provides a framework for considering how best to improve the quality of medical research and analysis in light of the current system of medical information production. I offer three possible responses: (1) use of the Dodd-Frank whistleblower provisions to encourage reporting of medical research fraud; (2) a two-step academic journal review process for clinical trials; and (3) publicly subsidized trial-failure insurance. These would improve the release of negative information about drugs, thereby increasing the reliability of positive information. (shrink)

This paper examines the general prospects for conceptual role expressivism, expressivist theories that embrace conceptual role semantics. It has two main aims. The first aim is to provide a general characterisation of the view. The second aim is to raise a challenge for the general view. The challenge is to explain why normative concepts are not a species of defective concepts, where defective concepts are those that cannot meaningfully embed and participate in genuine inference. After rejecting existing attempts to answer (...) the challenge, I propose an alternative solution. However, the solution leaves conceptual role expressivism a far less distinctive and interesting position than its proponents claim. I conclude that we should be sceptical about how much expressivists gain by appealing to conceptual role semantics. (shrink)

(Statement of Responsibility) by Timothy S. Huebner.

It describes and explains the patient-centered model examining and evaluating qualitative and quantitative research. It comprehensively covers the evolution and the six interactive components of the patient-centered clinical method, taking the reader through the relationships between the patient and doctor and the patient and clinician. All the editors are professors in the Department of Family Medicine at the University of Western Ontario, London, Canada.

Critical notice of Guy Fletcher's 'Dear Prudence: The Nature and Normativity of Prudential Discourse' and Dale Dorsey's 'A Theory of Prudence'.

Legal, medical, and public health professionals have been complicit in creating and maintaining systems that drive health inequities. To ameliorate this, current and future leaders in law, medicine, and public health must learn about racism and its impact along the life course trajectory and how to engage in antiracist practice and health equity work.

Legal decision-support systems have the potential to improve access to justice, administrative efficiency, and judicial consistency, but broad adoption of such systems is contingent on development of technologies with low knowledge-engineering, validation, and maintenance costs. This paper describes two approaches to an important form of legal decision support—explainable outcome prediction—that obviate both annotation of an entire decision corpus and manual processing of new cases. The first approach, which uses an attention network for prediction and attention weights to highlight salient case (...) text, was shown to be capable of predicting decisions, but attention-weight-based text highlighting did not demonstrably improve human decision speed or accuracy in an evaluation with 61 human subjects. The second approach, termed semi-supervised case annotation for legal explanations, exploits structural and semantic regularities in case corpora to identify textual patterns that have both predictable relationships to case decisions and explanatory value. (shrink)

Heisenberg'sgendanken experiments in quantum mechanics have given rise to a widespread belief that the indeterminacy relations holding for the variables of a quantal system can be explained quasiclassically in terms of a disturbance suffered by the system in interaction with a quantal measurement, or state preparation, agent. There are a number of criticisms of this doctrine in the literature, which are critically examined in this article and found to be ininconclusive, the chief error being the conflation of this disturbance with (...) the projection postulate. We present a critique of the disturbance theory based on the fact that the required disturbance will in general depend on the interaction time of the system and state-preparer. This point is exploited in the construction of a spin-interaction model which acts as a counterexample to the disturbance doctrine, while remaining faithful to the spirit of Heisenberg'sgedanken experiments. Several consequences of this result are discussed. (shrink)

Internet recruitment methods for research are rapidly evolving as technology and participant preferences do as well. This brings data security concerns, balanced with respect to persons for research participants. Internet recruitment research strategies are still important given the importance of creating private and accessible pathways for potentially marginalized populations or people experiencing stigmatized mental health conditions to participate in research. This manuscript describes the case of social media recruitment for a mental health and racism study in Fall 2022 that was (...) infiltrated by bots. We contextualize it in the context of data quality literature, with considerations for future directions including strategies for study design and management, and further research questions. (shrink)