This book provides an exploration of the clinical practice of psychoanalysis and analytical psychology. It explores the ways psychoanalysts and other clinicians are taught to evade direct emotional connections with their patients. Sullivan, suggesting that relatedness is the basis of emotional health, examines the universal struggle between socially oriented energies that struggle toward truth and narcissistic impulses that push us to take refuge in lies. She maintains that, rather than making interpretations, it is the clinician’s capacity to bring relatedness (...) to the clinical encounter which is the crucial factor. Examining the work of both Jung and Bion, Sullivan draws on the overlap between their ideas on the psyche and the nature of the unconscious. The book uses clinical examples to examine the implications that these perspectives have for the practising therapist. Specific areas of discussion include: the creative unconscious the structure of narcissism transformation in analytic work. New modes of listening and relating that deepen analytic work and greatly facilitate transformative changes are described in easy-to-follow language that will help the therapist to find new approaches to a wide range of patients. _The Mystery of Analytical Work_ will be of interest to Jungians, psychoanalysts and all those with an interest in analytic work. (shrink)

"[A] lucid discussion of race that does not sell out the black experience." —Tommy Lott, author of The Invention of Race Revealing Whiteness explores how white privilege operates as an unseen, invisible, and unquestioned norm in society today. In this personal and selfsearching book, Shannon Sullivan interrogates her own whiteness and how being white has affected her. By looking closely at the subtleties of white domination, she issues a call for other white people to own up to their unspoken (...) privilege and confront environments that condone or perpetuate it. Sullivan’s theorizing about race and privilege draws on American pragmatism, psychology, race theory, and feminist thought. As it articulates a way to live beyond the barriers that white privilege has created, this book offers readers a clear and honest confrontation with a trenchant and vexing concern. (shrink)

While gender and race often are considered socially constructed, this book argues that they are physiologically constituted through the biopsychosocial effects of sexism and racism. This means that to be fully successful, critical philosophy of race and feminist philosophy need to examine not only the financial, legal, political and other forms of racist and sexism oppression, but also their physiological operations. Examining a complex tangle of affects, emotions, knowledge, and privilege, The Physiology of Sexist and Racist Oppression develops an understanding (...) of the human body whose unconscious habits are biological. On this account, affect and emotion are thoroughly somatic, not something "mental" or extra-biological layered on top of the body. They also are interpersonal, social, and can be transactionally transmitted between people.Ranging from the stomach and the gut to the hips and the heart, from autoimmune diseases to epigenetic markers, Sullivan demonstrates the gastrointestinal effects of sexual abuse that disproportionately affect women, often manifesting as IBS, Crohn's disease, or similar functional disorders. She also explores the transgenerational effects of racism via epigenetic changes in African American women, who experience much higher pre-term birth rates than white women do, and she reveals the unjust benefits for heart health experienced by white people as a result of their racial privilege. Finally, developing the notion of a physiological therapy that doesn't prioritize bringing unconscious habits to conscious awareness, Sullivan closes with a double-barreled approach for both working for institutional change and transforming biologically unconscious habits. The Physiology of Sexist and Racist Oppression skillfully combines feminist and critical philosophy of race with the biological and health sciences. The result is a critical physiology of race and gender that offers new strategies for fighting male and white privilege. (shrink)

This chapter explores some of the ways that mechanisms are invoked in neuroscience and looks at a selection of the philosophical problems that arise when trying to understand mechanistic explanations. It introduces a series of historical case studies that illustrate how neuroscientists have depended on mechanistic metaphors in their efforts to understand the mind and brain, and how their mechanistic explanations have developed over time. The chapter highlights what contemporary philosophers have identified as the fundamental features of mechanisms and mechanistic (...) explanation. It considers some of the methodological issues that arise in neuroscience including how to integrate psychological with neural models, how to generalize findings in model organisms like the sea slug Aplysia to human learning and memory, and whether to favor top-down or bottom-up methods. Constructing multi-level mechanistic explanations involves intensive collaboration across different branches of science, and involves many challenges, both pragmatic and methodological. (shrink)

A good deal of attention has been recently focused on the presumed advertising excesses of the healthcare industry in its promotion techniques to healthcare professionals, whether through offering gratuities such as gifts, honoraria, or travel support2-6 or through deception. Two basic concerns have been expressed: Does the acceptance of gratuities bias the recipient, tainting his or her responsibilities as the patient's agent? Does acceptance of the gratuity by the healthcare professional contribute to the high cost of healthcare products? The California (...) Society of Hospital Pharmacists was recently asked by its members to formulate a policy for an appropriate relationship between the Society and the healthcare industry, addressing these concerns. In formulating its policy, it became clear that the Society depended on healthcare industry support, gathered through journal advertising, fees for booths at its various educational events, and grants for speakers. (shrink)

New agrifood technologies are often difficult to grasp for the public, which may lead to resistance or even rejection. Insight into which technology features determine public acceptability of the technology could offer guidelines for responsible technology development. This paper systematically assesses the relative importance of specific technology features for consumer response in the agrifood domain in two consecutive studies. Prominent technology features were selected from expert judgment and literature. The effects of these features on consumer evaluation were tested in a (...) consumer study. Fictitious technologies were used to avoid any uncontrollable contextual influences that existing new technologies may evoke. Results show that technologies that were seen as more natural and newer were perceived less risky, more beneficial, and were evaluated more positively. Technologies applied to food were judged to be more beneficial, but also more risky than those applied to non-food. Technologies used in the production process were perceived to be less risky and evaluated more positively than those used in the product. Technologies owned by the market leader were perceived to be more beneficial, and evaluated more positively than those that were freely available. In a next study, effects of the technology features on consumer response were tested for existing new agrifood technologies. This study replicated the results for perceived naturalness, perceived newness, and place in the production process where the technology is applied. However, in contrast to the first study, we did not find an effect of application area and technology ownership. (shrink)

Individuals with a balanced time perspective, which includes good thoughts about the past, awareness of present constraints and adaptive planning for a positive future, are more likely to report optimal wellbeing. However, people who have had traumas such as adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) are likely to have less balanced time perspectives and lower overall wellbeing when compared to those with fewer or no ACEs. Time perspective can be improved viatime-travel narrativesthat support people in feeling connected to a wise and loving (...) future version of themselves, an approach that has until now only been provided in counseling contexts. Our team used an iterative inclusive design process to shape a scalable time-travel narrative tool – a responsive and progressive web application calledTime Machine.Among other functionalities, Time Machine allowed people to record and listen to messages as if they were from and to their past and future selves. Using pre-planned as well aspost-hocanalyses, we analyzed quantitative and qualitative data from 96 paid design partners (participants) who were taken through a 26-day pilot study of the technology. Among other effects, the results revealed: (1) high engagement throughout the design process, (2) improvements in self-reported time perspective and overall wellbeing scores that were greater for those using Time Machine during an optional-use period, (3) twice as much improvement in overall wellbeing scores for design partners with high ACEs (16%) versus low ACEs (8%), and (4) feelings of unconditional love apparently mediating the relationship between scores on time perspective and overall wellbeing measures. We discuss the limitations of these results as well as implications for the future role of spiritually informed scalable time-travel narrative technologies in healthcare and wellness. (shrink)

Background This study introduces an empirical approach for studying the role of prudence in physician treatment of end-of-life (EOL) decision making.Methods A mixed-methods analysis of transcripts from 88 simulated patient encounters in a multicenter study on EOL decision making. Physicians in internal medicine, emergency medicine, and critical care medicine were asked to evaluate a decompensating, end-stage cancer patient. Transcripts of the encounters were coded for actor, action, and content to capture the concept of Aristotelian prudence, and then quantitatively and qualitatively (...) analyzed to identify actions associated with preference-concordant treatment.Results Focusing on codes that describe characteristics of physician-patient interaction, the code for physicians restating patient preferences was associated with avoiding intubation. Multiple codes were associated with secondary measures of preference-concordant treatment.Conclusions Prudent actions can be identified empirically, and research focused on the virtue of prudence may provide a new avenue for assessment and training in EOL care. (shrink)

Aristotle bequeathed to us a powerful metaphysical picture, of substances in which properties inhere. The picture has turned out to be highly problematic in many ways; but it is nevertheless a picture not easy to dislodge. Less obvious are the normative tones implicit in the picture and the way these permeate our system of values, especially when thinking of ourselves and our ambitions, hopes and fears. These have proved, if anything, even harder to dislodge than the metaphysical picture which supports (...) them. This paper first draws out the ethics suggested by a conception of being as individual substances, and finds both inner tensions among these values—expressed in divergent characteristics in the history of philosophy—and a neglect of a significant set of values. Substance metaphysics prefers freedom, independence and autonomy over relational and reciprocal values, which can even be regarded as existentially threatening. A prominent attempt to accommodate both sorts of values without eschewing substantialist metaphysics is briefly considered, before turning to examine an alternative metaphysics and the values it implies. A metaphysics which takes being as becoming, it is argued, supports an ethics centred on relational values, and their associated virtues of care. (shrink)

Following the 2018 Pennsylvania grand jury report, which detailed the sexual abuse of clergy members, many have questioned the value of personal institutional commitment to the Catholic Church, preferring instead more individualistic expressions of faith. Alongside the sex abuse crisis, the age of free information makes the Church’s epistemology appear antiquated. This article explores the individualistic versus community-based practice of Catholicism, drawing a distinction between private conversion versus public conversion. The article offers a defense of public conversion, arguing it explains (...) the rationality of conversion and offers a solution to the problem of divine hiddenness. Using details from her own faith journey, Sullivan explores why God graces us with less perspicuous knowledge, causing subluminous conversions, as opposed to the more glaring, which leads to luminous conversions. Sullivan suggests that we obtain knowledge of God by loving one another, which takes place in the framework of the institutional Church. She subsequently uses this Church-making theodicy to offer five ideas about how we might engage the Church institutionally as Catholic philosophers. (shrink)

Across a wide range of legal contexts, E. Thomas Sullivan and Richard S. Frase identify three basic ways that government measures and private remedies have been ...

Notre Dame Philosophy professors Meghan Sullivan and Paul Blaschko have gone deep with that work in their wildly popular and influential undergraduate course GOD AND THE GOOD LIFE, in which they wrestle with the big questions about how to live and what makes life meaningful. Now they invite us into the classroom to tackle such issues as what justifies your beliefs, whether you should practice a religion, and what sacrifices you should make for others--as well as to investigate what (...) Aristotle, Plato, Descartes, Kant, and Murdoch have to say about how to live well. Sullivan and Blaschko teach us how to reason through real-world case studies by doing the timeless work of philosophy like escaping our own caves, learning to doubt everything, asking strong questions, grasping our own purpose, and wrestling with the problem of evil and the existence of God. For at least the past 2500 years philosophers have taught that goal-seeking is an essential part of what it is to be human--and crucially that we could find our own good life by asking better questions. Their virtue ethics approach resonates profoundly in our own moment. Philosophers know that our "good life plan" is one that we as individuals need to be constantly and actively writing. In that work, we can achieve some meaningful control even if the world keeps throwing surprises our way. THE GOOD LIFE is a winning guide to tackling the big questions of being human with the wisdom of the ages. (shrink)

Step by step, clue by clue, Sullivan decodes the myths of the Incas to reveal that they embody an astoundingly thorough record of astronomical events - a record so precise it can be checked against a modern computer program. And he uncovers the Incas' tragic secret: they knew they were doomed.

In Psychoanalysis as a Subversive Phenomenon, Amber M. Trotter explores processes of social change, highlights the role of ethics, and illuminates ways in which analytic theory and practice can disrupt contemporary American culture.

Infants are sensitive to statistical regularities (i.e., transitional probabilities, or TPs) relevant to segmenting words in fluent speech. However, there is debate about whether tracking TPs results in representations of possible words. Infants show preferential learning of sequences with high TPs (HTPs) as object labels relative to those with low TPs (LTPs). Such findings could mean that only the HTP sequences have a word‐like status, and they are more readily mapped to a referent for that reason. But these findings could (...) also suggest that HTP sequences are easier to encode, just like any other predictable sequence. Here we aimed to distinguish between these explanations. To do so, we built on findings that infants become resistant to learning labels that are not typical of their native language as they approach 2 years of age and add words to their lexicons. If tracking TPs in speech results in identifying candidate words, at this age TPs may have reduced power to confer lexical status when they yield a unit that is very dissimilar to word forms that are typical of infants’ native language. Indeed, we found that at 20 months, English‐learning infants with relatively small vocabularies learned HTP Italian words (but not LTP words) as object labels, while infants with larger vocabularies resisted learning HTP Italian words. These findings suggest that the HTP sequences may be represented as candidate words, and more broadly, that TP statistics are relevant to word learning. (shrink)

This study analyzes discussions from online language teacher education to understand how conversations between monolingual and bilingual preservice teachers (PSTs) in the US create and delimit structural constraints on teachers’ agency, (re)positioning teachers’ capacity to act in the instruction of emergent bilingual students (EBs). Employing positioning theory within a critical discursive psychology approach, findings demonstrate how bilingual PSTs pushed back on structural constraints introduced as potential barriers to achieving linguistic pluralism in monolingual teachers’ posts, asserting teachers’ agency by simultaneously positioning (...) themselves and others as capable and responsible for education of EBs. These findings inform theoretical understandings of agency as a discursive construct and offer insights for teacher educators as they conceptualize the role of discursive exchanges in developing PSTs’ understanding of structures and agentive possibilities regarding the equitable education of EBs. (shrink)

It is commonly maintained that neuroplastic mechanisms in the brain provide empirical support for the hypothesis of multiple realizability. We show in various case studies that neuroplasticity stems from preexisting mechanisms and processes inherent in the neural structure of the brain. We argue that not only does neuroplasticity fail to provide empirical evidence of multiple realization, its inability to do so strengthens the mind-body identity theory. Finally, we argue that a recently proposed identity theory called Flat Physicalism can be enlisted (...) to explain the current state of the mind-body problem more adequately. (shrink)

Noninvasive prenatal testing promises to enhance women's reproductive autonomy by providing genetic information about the fetus, especially in the detection of genetic impairments like Down syndrome. In practice, however, NIPT provides opportunities for intensified manipulation and control over women's reproductive decisions. Applying Miranda Fricker's concept of epistemic injustice to prenatal screening, this article analyzes how medical professionals impair reproductive decision-making by perpetuating testimonial injustice. They do so by discrediting positive parental testimony about what it is like to raise a child (...) with DS. We argue that this testimonial injustice constitutes a twofold harm: people with DS and their family members who claim that parenting a child with DS may be a rewarding and joyous experience are harmed when they are systematically silenced, disbelieved, and/or denied epistemic credibility by medical professionals, and pregnant women are harmed since they might make poorly informed choices without access to all relevant information. The broader implication of the analysis is that epistemic justice is a precondition of reproductive autonomy. We conclude by calling for federal oversight of the acquisition and dissemination of information that prospective parents receive following a positive diagnosis of DS to ensure that it is comprehensive and up to date. (shrink)

Moral understanding is a species of knowledge. Understanding why an action is wrong, for example, amounts to knowing why the action is wrong. The claim that moral understanding is immune to luck while moral knowledge is not does not withstand scrutiny; nor does the idea that there is something deep about understanding for there are different degrees of understanding. It is also mistaken to suppose that grasping is a distinct psychological state that accompanies understanding. To understand why something is the (...) case is to grasp or see why something is the case and grasping and seeing are ways of knowing. (shrink)

The increasing demand for transparency in AI has recently come under scrutiny. The question is often posted in terms of “epistemic double standards”, and whether the standards for transparency in AI ought to be higher than, or equivalent to, our standards for ordinary human reasoners. I agree that the push for increased transparency in AI deserves closer examination, and that comparing these standards to our standards of transparency for other opaque systems is an appropriate starting point. I suggest that a (...) more fruitful exploration of this question will involve a different comparison class. We routinely treat judgments made by highly trained experts in specialized fields as fair or well-grounded even though—by the nature of expert/layperson division of epistemic labor—an expert will not be able to provide an explanation of the reasoning behind these judgments that makes sense to most other people. Regardless, laypeople are thought to be acting reasonably—and ethically—in deferring to the judgments of experts that concern their areas of specialization. I suggest that we reframe our question regarding the appropriate standards of transparency in AI as one that asks when, why, and to what degree it would be ethical to accept opacity in AI. I argue that our epistemic relation to certain opaque AI technology may be relevantly similar to the layperson’s epistemic relation to the expert in certain respects, such that the successful expert/layperson division of epistemic labor can serve as a blueprint for the ethical use of opaque AI. (shrink)

A-theorists think there is a fundamental difference between the present and other times. This concern shows up in what kinds of properties they take to be instantiated, what objects they think exist and how they formalize their views. Nearly every contemporary A-theorist assumes that her metaphysics requires a tense logic – a logic with operators like and. In this paper, I show that there is at least one viable A-theory that does not require a logic with tense operators. And I (...) will argue that three common indispensability arguments for tense operators are unsound. (shrink)

Microbiome science asserts humans are made up of more microbial cells and genes than human ones, and that each person harbors their own unique microbial population. Human microbiome studies gesture toward the post-racial aspirations of personalized medicine—characterizing states of human health and illness microbially. By viewing humans as “supraorganisms” made up of millions of microbial partners, some microbiome science seems to disrupt binding historical categories often grounded in racist biology, allowing interspeciality to supersede race. But inevitably, unexamined categories of race (...) and ethnicity surface in a myriad of studies on microbiota. This paper approaches race as a ghost variable across microbiome research and asks, what is race doing in studies of the microbiome? Why is it there, and how is it functioning? I examine this research to argue that social scientists must work with biological scientists to help put microbial differences into perspective—to investigate how microbiomes and race are entangled embodiments of the social, environmental, and biological. Ultimately, transdisciplinary collaboration is required to address racial health disparities in microbiome research without reifying race as a straightforward biological or social designation. (shrink)

Recent studies of the low abundant signaling lipid, phosphatidylinositol 3,5‐bisphosphate (PI(3,5)P2), reveal an intriguingly diverse list of downstream pathways, the intertwined relationship between PI(3,5)P2 and PI5P, as well as links to neurodegenerative diseases. Derived from the structural lipid phosphatidylinositol, PI(3,5)P2 is dynamically generated on multiple cellular compartments where interactions with an increasing list of effectors regulate many cellular pathways. A complex of proteins that includes Fab1/PIKfyve, Vac14, and Fig4/Sac3 mediates the biosynthesis of PI(3,5)P2, and mutations that disrupt complex function and/or (...) formation cause profound consequences in cells. Surprisingly, mutations in this pathway are linked with neurological diseases, including Charcot‐Marie‐Tooth syndrome and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis. Future studies of PI(3,5)P2 and PI5P are likely to expand the roles of these lipids in regulation of cellular functions, as well as provide new approaches for treatment of some neurological diseases. (shrink)

This article proposes potential strategies to address gun violence in communities of color while identifying the harms associated with a policing-centered, criminal legal approach. In addition to highlighting the dangers associated with the United States' current criminal legal tactics to reduce gun violence in these communities, the authors advocate for community-endorsed strategies that give those impacted by this issue the resources to take on gun violence in their own communities. Specifically, they identify, describe, and endorse a series of violence prevention (...) programs that rely on community relations to detect and prevent incidents of gun violence and that view gun violence as a public health rather than criminal legal issue. (shrink)

Despite advances in feminism, the "law of the father" remains the dominant model of Western psychological and cultural analysis, and the law of the mother continues to exist as an underdeveloped and marginal concept. In her radical rereading of the Greek myth, _Oresteia_, Amber Jacobs hopes to rectify the occlusion of the mother and reinforce her role as an active agent in the laws that determine and reinforce our cultural organization. According to Greek myth, Metis, Athena's mother, was Zeus's (...) first wife. Zeus swallowed Metis to prevent her from bearing children who would overthrow him. Nevertheless, Metis bore Zeus a child-Athena-who sprang forth fully formed from his head. In Aeschylus's _Oresteia_, Athena's motherless status functions as a crucial justification for absolving Orestes of the crime of matricide. In his defense of Orestes, Zeus argues that the father is more important than the mother, using Athena's "motherless" birth as an example. Conducting a close reading of critical works on Aeschylus's text, Jacobs reveals that psychoanalytic theorists have unwittingly reproduced the denial of Metis in their own critiques. This repression, which can be found in the work of Sigmund Freud and Melanie Klein as well as in the work of more contemporary theorists such as André Green and Luce Irigaray, has resulted in both an incomplete analysis of Oresteia and an inability to account for the fantasies and unconscious processes that fall outside the oedipal/patricidal paradigm. By bringing the story of Athena's mother, Metis, to the forefront, Jacobs challenges the primacy of the Oedipus myth in Western culture and psychoanalysis and introduces a bold new theory of matricide and maternal law. She finds that the Metis myth exists in cryptic forms within Aeschylus's text, uncovering what she terms the "latent content of the Oresteian myth," and argues that the occlusion of the law of the mother is proof of the patriarchal structures underlying our contemporary social and psychic realities. Jacobs's work not only provides new insight into the Oresteian trilogy but also advances a postpatriarchal model of the symbolic order that has strong ramifications for psychoanalysis, feminism, and theories of representation, as well as for clinical practice and epistemology. (shrink)

We analyze the environmental implications of basic income programs through literature review, government documents, pilot studies, and interviews eliciting expert knowledge. We consider existing knowledge and then use a grounded approach to produce theory on the relationship between a basic income guarantee and environmental protection/damage. We find that very little empirical or theoretical work has been done on this relationship and that theoretical arguments can be made for both positive and negative environmental impacts. Ultimately, this implies, the environmental impact of (...) a basic income program will be dependent on program design. These insights allow us to generate a toolkit of policy proposals to assist in the development of green basic income programs via either conditions, additions, or complements. (shrink)

ABSTRACTThroughout his published work, Michel Henry expresses a deep appreciation for the writings of Kierkegaard, using them as an inspirational foundation for much of his own thought. However, Henry claims to be far more Kierkegaardian than he really is. Henry’s peers have identified several philosophical and theological deficiencies in Henry’s thought. These places of weakness also happen to be his most obvious points of departure from Kierkegaard. A Kierkegaardian confrontation with Henry demands a retrieval of the Infinite Qualitative Difference between (...) God and man as key to exploring the structure of the self. Kierkegaard’s texts correct Henry’s assumption that the ontological difference established in the act of creation would separate the self from God. They suggest instead that the IQD provides the necessary conditions for the truly theological self to emerge. (shrink)

In this article I explore Mary Midgley's meta-philosophy: her view of the purpose of philosophy and its corresponding methodology. After some biographical information and historical context, I consider Midgley's answer to the question ‘why do we need philosophy?’.

The University of Hawai’i at Mānoa’s Uehiro Academy for Philosophy and Ethics in Education (UHM Uehiro Academy) prepares, supports and sustains philosophy for children Hawai‘i (p4cHI) educators, researchers, and students in Hawai‘i and beyond. This paper documents the impact of the Uehiro Academy’s philosophy outreach program at Kailua High School (KHS), a public secondary school on the Hawaiian Island of O’ahu. It describes the twenty year partnership between the University and KHS, which built a foundation for p4cHI to become integrated (...) across the curriculum and within the school culture. To better understand the overall impact of the UHM Uehiro Academy philosophy outreach program on KHS, researchers asked, ‘How has the UHM Uehiro Academy philosophy outreach program impacted the school culture at KHS?’ Qualitative methods were applied to design and conduct a research study, which included interviewing 68 members of the KHS community. Data analysis revealed four main themes: (1) a schoolwide learner-centred pedagogy, (2) a place for learning more than just academics, (3) a community of diverse and connected individuals, (4) a commitment to professional growth for the purpose of a better world. The paper ends with conclusions, implications of the findings, and the researchers reflecting on the findings, including the benefits and challenges of university philosophy outreach programs in the secondary school setting. (shrink)

Gilbert (2015) suggests that predictive and advisory brain implants threaten autonomy. He analyzes these threats in terms of one patient's “sense of autonomy,” reporting that the patient felt more...

Academic dishonesty, including cheating and plagiarism, is on the rise in colleges, particularly among engineering students. While students decide to engage in these behaviors for many different reasons, academic integrity training can help improve their understanding of ethical decision making. The two studies outlined in this paper assess the effectiveness of an online module in increasing academic integrity among first semester engineering students. Study 1 tested the effectiveness of an academic honesty tutorial by using a between groups design with a (...) Time 1- and Time 2-test. An academic honesty quiz assessed participants’ knowledge at both time points. Study 2, which incorporated an improved version of the module and quiz, utilized a between groups design with three assessment time points. The additional Time 3-test allowed researchers to test for retention of information. Results were analyzed using ANCOVA and t tests. In Study 1, the experimental group exhibited significant improvement on the plagiarism items, but not the total score. However, at Time 2 there was no significant difference between groups after controlling for Time 1 scores. In Study 2, between- and within-group analyses suggest there was a significant improvement in total scores, but not plagiarism scores, after exposure to the tutorial. Overall, the academic integrity module impacted participants as evidenced by changes in total score and on specific plagiarism items. Although future implementation of the tutorial and quiz would benefit from modifications to reduce ceiling effects and improve assessment of knowledge, the results suggest such tutorial may be one valuable element in a systems approach to improving the academic integrity of engineering students. (shrink)

Plato articulates a deep perplexity about inquiry in ?Meno's Paradox??the claim that one can inquire neither into what one knows, nor into what one does not know. Although some commentators have wrestled with the paradox itself, many suppose that the paradox of inquiry is special to Plato, arising from peculiarities of the Socratic elenchus or of Platonic epistemology. But there is nothing peculiarly Platonic in this puzzle. For it arises, too, in classical Indian philosophical discussions, where it is formulated with (...) great clarity, and analysed in a way that casts it in a new light. We present three treatments of the puzzle in Indian philosophy, as a way of refining and sharpening our understanding of the paradox, before turning to the most radical of the Indian philosophers to tackle it. The Indian philosophers who are optimistic that the paradox can be resolved appeal to the existence of prior beliefs, and to the resources embedded in language to explain how we can investigate, and so move from ignorance to knowledge. Highlighting this structural feature of inquiry, however, allows the pessimist philosopher to demonstrate that the paradox stands. The incoherence of inquiry is rooted in the very idea of aiming our desires at the unknown. Asking questions and giving answers rests on referential intentions targeting objects in a region of epistemic darkness, and so our ?inquiry sceptic? also finds structurally similar forms of incoherence in the pragmatics of interrogative discourse. (shrink)

In this essay, we analyze the Black Mirror episode "Arkangel" alongside Nietzsche’s critique of religion. After providing an overview of his critique, we argue that the episode demonstrates how a world enframed by technology itself ends up being just as decadent, or just as pathological, repressive, corrupt, anti-life, and unredemptive as Nietzsche accuses Christianity of being. Nietzsche thought, at one point, that science and technology might provide a non-metaphysical or non-theological solution to what he calls our “metaphysical need.” However, Arkangel (...) shows how technology does not overcome problems of idolatrous forms of religion and can be just another tool for manipulation that produces the same kinds of pathologies. Nietzsche insists that the only way to overcome religion as an oppressive system is to “philosophize with a hammer,” or to deconstruct its idolatrous strictures and the “all too human” forces behind it. Ultimately, this deconstruction requires declaring “the death of God.”. (shrink)

Point-of-care evidence-based medicine websites allow physicians to answer clinical queries using recent evidence at the bedside. Despite significant research into the function, usability and effectiveness of these programmes, little attention has been paid to their ethical issues. As many of these sites summarise the literature and provide recommendations, we sought to assess the role of conflicts of interest in two widely used websites: UpToDate and Dynamed. We recorded all conflicts of interest for six articles detailing treatment for the following conditions: (...) erectile dysfunction, fibromyalgia, hypogonadism, psoriasis, rheumatoid arthritis and Crohn's disease. These diseases were chosen as their medical management is either controversial, or they are treated using biological drugs which are mostly available by brand name only. Thus, we hypothesised that the role of conflict of interest would be more significant in these conditions than in an illness treated with generic medications or by strict guidelines. All articles from the UpToDate articles demonstrated a conflict of interest. At times, the editor and author would have a financial relationship with a company whose drug was mentioned within the article. This is in contrast with articles on the Dynamed website, in which no author or editor had a documented conflict. We offer recommendations regarding the role of conflict of interest disclosure in these point-of-care evidence-based medicine websites. (shrink)

This book uses Viktor Frankl's Existential Psychology (logotherapy) to explore the ways some professors use unusually personal scholarship to discover meaning in personal adversity. A psychiatrist imprisoned for three years in Nazi concentration camps, Frankl believed the search for meaning is a powerful motivator, and that its discovery can be profoundly therapeutic. Part I begins with four stories of professors finding meaning. Using the case studies as a foundation, Part II investigates issues of epistemology and ethics in unusually personal research (...) from an existential perspective. The book offers advice for graduate students and faculty who want to live and work more meaningfully in the academy. (shrink)

ABSTRACTEffects of metaphorical framing of political issues on opinion have been studied widely by two approaches: a critical-discourse approach and a response-elicitation approach. The current article reports a systematic literature review that examines whether these approaches report converging or diverging effects. We compared CDA and REA on the metaphorical frames that were studied and their reported effects. Results show that the CDA frames are typically more negative, nonfictional, and extreme than REA frames. Reported effects in CDA and REA studies differ (...) in terms of presence, directionality, and strength, with CDA typically reporting strong effects in line with the frame, compared to REA. These differences in effects can be explained by the different frame characteristics. However, differences in the methods applied by CDA and REA could be responsible for these differences as well. In all, we conclude that the research field is fragmented on the impact of metaphors in politics. (shrink)