Archaeological excavations carried out at Pentridge Prison discovered the ruins and foundations of three panopticon exercise yards. This paper details the scope and observations of the excavation program and discusses the influence of Jeremy Bentham’s panopticon model on penal reform and prison design in Australia in the middle of the 19th Century.

PURPOSE: To evaluate the effects of social support on comprehension and recall of consent form information in a study of Parkinson disease patients and their caregivers.DESIGN and METHODS: Comparison of comprehension and recall outcomes among participants who read and signed the consent form accompanied by a family member/friend versus those of participants who read and signed the consent form unaccompanied. Comprehension and recall of consent form information were measured at one week and one month respectively, using Part A of the (...) Quality of Informed Consent Questionnaire .RESULTS: The mean age of the sample of 143 participants was 71 years . Analysis of covariance was used to compare QuIC scores between the intervention group and control group . In the 1-week model, no statistically significant intervention effect was found . However, the intervention status by patient status interaction was statistically significant . In the 1-month model, no statistically significant intervention effect was found . Again, however, the intervention status by patient status interaction was statistically significant . At both time periods, intervention group patients scored higher on the QuIC than did intervention group caregivers, and control group patients scored lower on the QuIC than did control group caregivers.IMPLICATIONS: Social support played a significant role in enhancing comprehension and recall of consent form information among patients. (shrink)

Our world is not simply religious or simply secular but complexly both. A wide range of issues for universities arise from this, such as the need to have such issues widely discussed and also to develop the field of theology and religious studies. Five key responsibilities are: towards future generations; for the formation of people in wisdom as well as through information, knowledge, practices and skills; for uniting teaching and research; for contributing to religious and secular society; and for the (...) fostering of collegiality and good governance. If these are to be fulfilled well the best of religious and secular wisdom is needed. The final sections of the paper outline a Christian wisdom theology with reference to the responsibilities of universities, concluding with a case study of the relevance of Scriptural Reasoning (the mutual study of their scriptures by a group of Jewish, Christian and Muslim text scholars, philosophers and theologians) to the responsibilities of universities towards the flourishing of our religious and secular world. (shrink)

Objective: To develop an approach for seeking informed consent to examine tissues retained from a previous study of sudden infant death syndrome as part of a study on asthma, and to document responses and participation rate.Design: Pilot open-ended approach to 10 volunteer SIDS parents, followed by staged approach to seek consent from the target SIDS families for the asthma study.Participants: Parents of SIDS infants known to SIDS and Kids Victoria and parents of SIDS infants from the 1991–2 SIDS in Victoria (...) case–control study.Main outcomes: Qualitative responses of the piloted parents and study parents, and participation rates.Results: The pilot group responses were used to refine the written material to be provided. Of the 72 families for which contact details were available, 45 gave verbal consent for contact by the Victorian Institute of Forensic Medicine regarding the asthma study, three refused and 24 did not respond to two letters. Thirty-three completed consent forms, all positive for participation in the asthma study, giving a positive response rate of 73% .Conclusions: The use of postmortem tissue for research is acceptable to the next of kin when an approach is sensitive to their concerns and needs and is made by experienced counsellors from a familiar organisation. Despite the painful memories evoked by the approach of the research group, the acceptance rate among those who could be contacted was high. (shrink)

Western societies today are coming unmoored in the face of an earth-shaking ethical and cultural paradigm shift. At its core is the question of what it means to be human and how we are meant to live. The old answers are no longer accepted; a dizzying array of options are offered in their stead. Underpinning this smorgasbord of lifestyles is a thicket of unquestioned assumptions, such as the separation of gender from biological sex, which not so long ago would have (...) been universally rejected as radical notions. In the spring of 2019, a group of Orthodox Christian scholars drawn from a wide variety of academic disciplines met together to offer responses to the moral crisis our generation faces, elaborating upon its various forms and facilitating a fuller understanding of some of its theological and philosophical foundations. In doing so they offer support to all those who question the claims that are so forcefully insisted upon today--a clarity that will aid them in standing up and resisting trends that have already shown to be the cause of great suffering and unhappiness. (shrink)

It is argued that language plays an active role in the development of scientific thought. A research project is outlined which will investigate this hypothesis and, in addition, focus on such questions as the role of mathematics in science and the status of the genetic code. “Nothing is more usual than for philosophers to encroach on the province of grammarians, and to engage in disputes of words, while they imagine they are handling controversies of the deepest importance and concern.”—David Hume.

David Kelsey's Eccentric Existence. A Theological Anthropology is read in the context of the traditions of Christian theology, especially in Europe and North America, and of Kelsey's Yale colleagues. Its theocentric, scriptural and thoughtfully experimental contribution to theological anthropology from the perspectives of creation, consummation and reconciliation is analysed, appreciated and assessed. Implications of Kelsey's identification of three distinct plotlines in the Bible are explored. Questions are raised about the range of his Christian conversations, the limitations of his reliance on (...) narrative, his neglect of significant parts of the Bible and Christian tradition, and his focus on the interaction with secular rather than religious dimensions of the contemporary world. (shrink)

This book is a collection of secondary essays on America's most important philosophic thinkers—statesmen, judges, writers, educators, and activists—from the colonial period to the present. Each essay is a comprehensive introduction to the thought of a noted American on the fundamental meaning of the American regime.

In The Ethics of Food, Gregory E. Pence brings together a collection of voices who share the view that the ethics of genetically modified food is among the most pressing societal questions of our time. This comprehensive collection addresses a broad range of subjects, including the meaning of food, moral analyses of vegetarianism and starvation, the safety and environmental risks of genetically modified food, issues of global food politics and the food industry, and the relationships among food, evolution, and human (...) history. (shrink)

This collection of essays, offered in honor of the distinguished career of prominent political philosophy professor Clifford Orwin, brings together internationally renowned scholars to provide a wide context and discuss various aspects of the virtue of “humanity” through the history of political philosophy.

This collection of essays, offered in honor of the distinguished career of prominent political philosophy professor Clifford Orwin, brings together internationally renowned scholars to provide a wide context and discuss various aspects of the virtue of “humanity” through the history of political philosophy.

This paper describes a study conducted in collaboration with a marketing agency and a nonprofit organization providing regional sexual health services, which included advice on, and testing f...

The autobiography of a medium and investigator of extra-sensory phenomena.--L. F.

In contrast with Ford’s essay, David R. Griffin presents a catalogue of the differences between the two philosophers from a "Hartshornian" perspective. Strangely, perhaps the least helpful contribution comes from Hartshorne himself, whose "Ideas and Theses of Process Philosophers" is simply a highly schematic outline. Completing the volume are essays by William O’Meara on Hartshorne’s methodology, and by Frederic Frost on relativity theory and Hartshorne’s dipolar conception of God. In general, the book suffers from repetition; many of the same (...) issues recur in the essays, at times with significantly different interpretations, but frequently with only the slightest modification of accent. While its flaws cannot be ignored, Two Process Philosophers does possess the virtue of focusing upon the genuine diversity within the tradition of process philosophy.-D.F.D. (shrink)

One rarely encounters a work of such metaphysical breadth and ambition. Ford offers no narrowly focused criticism or proposal, but, as the title claims, a transformation of process theism. This is no maverick project, but one based on careful critical analysis and appropriation of the thought of Whitehead and his major interpreters. Ford’s commitment to Whitehead’s thought, although evident, is not uncritical. He is prepared to make modifications, even radical ones, so long as the general tendency of Whitehead’s (...) thought is not abandoned. Thus, Ford seeks to develop Whitehead’s process theism but holds that Whitehead’s mature notion of God is inadequate and that his successors have not successfully addressed this inadequacy. Ford therefore undertakes the current project. His transformation of process theism involves jettisoning Whitehead’s notion of God’s primordial nature and reconceiving God as pure everlasting concrescence, indeed, as future activity. This last notion constitutes Ford’s most radical development. Fully aware that the notion initially appears perplexing, perhaps unintelligible, Ford devotes much attention to developing it and drawing out its implications. He divides his project into three parts: Whitehead’s thought and the unresolved problem in his notion of God; responses to that problem by Whitehead’s interpreters and followers; and Ford’s own transformative project. (shrink)