Most of the literature on teaching within nursing education presents teaching and learning strategies as unproblematic and widely generalized across contexts, content, learners, and educators. We argue that to be truly effective, teaching strategies must be harmonious with instructor’s beliefs, intentions, and actions. In this paper, we introduce the notion of a plurality of effective teaching based on five different ‘perspectives on teaching’– each composed of different beliefs, intentions, actions, and strategies and illustrated by cases from nursing education. We propose (...) that this foundational conceptualization provides a base from which nurse educators can (1) communicate across differences of philosophical perspective and intent; and (2) critically reflect on their educational practices. (shrink)

A range of positions persist in the proper interpretation of generative linguistics. The paper responds to recent work in this area that either weakly or strongly diverges from the non-contentful, internalist model presented in Collins (2008a). Against the sympathetic criticisms of Matthews (2008) and Smith (2008), it is argued that a crucial role for content in our understanding of linguistic theories remains obscure, although the discussion here will hopefully clarify the divergence between the parties as merely perspectival. Rey (2008) (...) more strongly argues that the non-contentful model is prey to some classic complaints. The charges are rebutted. Finally, the position of Devitt (2008a, b) is considered. It is argued that his most recent presentation of his brand of realism fails to speak to the fundamental complaints levelled against it, especially as regards the putative role of conventions in the explanation of unvoiced syntax. (shrink)

Stephen Law’s evil-god challenge is the argument that since an evil god is just as likely as the God of theism, there is no reason to believe that theism is true over believing there is a god who is omnipotent, omniscient, and omnimalevolent. There have been several attempts to answer the challenge, but recently John Collins has defended the evil-god challenge and also extended the argument past Law’s original formulation. In this article, I defend the classical theism of (...) Thomas Aquinas against the evil-god challenge. In particular, I explain how Aquinas’s theodicy involving God’s goodness and Aquinas’s privation view of evil avoid the challenge. (shrink)

According to QBism, quantum states, unitary evolutions, and measurement operators are all understood as personal judgments of the agent using the formalism. Meanwhile, quantum measurement outcomes are understood as the personal experiences of the same agent. Wigner’s conundrum of the friend, in which two agents ostensibly have different accounts of whether or not there is a measurement outcome, thus poses no paradox for QBism. Indeed the resolution of Wigner’s original thought experiment was central to the development of QBist thinking. The (...) focus of this paper concerns two very instructive modifications to Wigner’s puzzle: One, a recent no-go theorem by Frauchiger and Renner, and the other a thought experiment by Baumann and Brukner. We show that the paradoxical features emphasized in these works disappear once both friend and Wigner are understood as agents on an equal footing with regard to their individual uses of quantum theory. Wigner’s action on his friend then becomes, from the friend’s perspective, an action the friend takes on Wigner. Our analysis rests on a kind of quantum Copernican principle: When two agents take actions on each other, each agent has a dual role as a physical system for the other agent. No user of quantum theory is more privileged than any other. In contrast to the sentiment of Wigner’s original paper, neither agent should be considered as in “suspended animation.” In this light, QBism brings an entirely new perspective to understanding Wigner’s friend thought experiments. (shrink)

Introduction Few areas of social inquiry are more exciting and important, and yet at the same time more marked by controversy and dispute, than the area ...

The introductory essay to this collection correctly observes that there are many “challenges for rapprochement” between anthropology and (the rest of) cognitive science. Still, the possibilities of fruitful interchanges provide some hope for the parties getting back together, at least on an intermittent basis. This response offers some views concerning the “incompatibility” of psychology and anthropology, reviews why cognitive anthropology drifted away from cognitive science, and notes two areas of contemporary interest within cognitive anthropology that may lead to a re-engagement.

The essays in this book - all of them published here for the first time - provide a long-overdue critical discussion of Jürgen Habermas's cascade of ideas. These are topped off by a freshet of original Habermas: in the final essay, he replies to the criticism developed in the preceding contributions and to other recent assessments of his work, provides an important clarification of his earlier views, and reveals the direction of his current thought.Each essay probes a particular theme in (...) Habermas's work, and each presents both an exposition and a critique. Among the subjects covered are Habermas's theory of knowledge-constitutive interests, his account of language and truth, his "overcoming" of hermeneutics, the concept of universal pragmatics, the orientation of his thought relative to the Marxist tradition, and his project of analyzing the crisis tendencies of capitalism within the context of evolutionary theory.The contributors are philosophers and social theorists of international standing, most of them affiliated with German, English, and American universities. They are Agnes Heller, Rudiger Bubner, Thomas McCarthy, Henning Ottmann, Mary Hesse, Steven Lukes, Anthony Giddens, Michael Schmid, Andrew Arato, and the editors. The editors have also contributed a substantial introduction outlining the central contours of Habermas's work and summarizing the main arguments of the essays.John B. Thompson is a Fellow of Jesus College, Cambridge, and David Held is Lecturer in Politics, University of York. (shrink)

This book examines the different conceptions of the individual that have emerged in recent new approaches in economics, including behavioral economics, experimental economics, social preferences approaches, game theory, neuroeconomics, evolutionary and complexity economics, and the capability approach. These conceptions are classified according to whether they seek to revise the traditional atomist individual conception, put new emphasis on interaction and relations between individuals, account for individuals as evolving and self-organizing, and explain individuals in terms of capabilities. The method of analysis uses (...) two identity criteria for distinguishing and re-identifying individuals to determine whether these different individual conceptions successfully identify individuals. Successful individual conceptions account for sub-personal and supra-personal bounds on single individual explanations. The former concerns the fragmentation of individuals into multiple selves; the latter concerns the dissolution of individuals into the social. The book develops an understanding of bounded individuality, seen as central to the defense of human rights. (shrink)

This book was the first single-authored book that covered ecological ethics and theology. It discusses key philosophical, theological, and ecological issues for Christians and other concerned citizens.

In The Media and Modernity, Thompson develops an interactional theory of communication media that distinguishes between three basic types of interaction: face-to-face interaction, mediated interaction, and mediated quasi-interaction. In the light of the digital revolution and the growth of the internet, this paper introduces a fourth type: mediated online interaction. Drawing on Goffman’s distinction between front regions and back regions, Thompson shows how mediated quasi-interaction and mediated online interaction create new opportunities for the leakage of information and symbolic content from (...) back regions into front regions, with consequences that can be embarrassing, damaging and, on occasion, hugely disruptive. The growing role of mediated quasi-interaction and mediated online interaction has reconstituted the political field so that political life now unfolds in an information environment that is much more difficult to control, creating a permanently unstable arena in which leaks, revelations and disclosures are always capable of disrupting the most well-laid plans. (shrink)

This book offers a clear and highly readable introduction to the ethical and social-political philosophy of John Stuart Mill. Dale E. Miller argues for a "utopian" reading of Mill's utilitarianism. He analyses Mill's views on happiness and goes on to show the practical, social and political implications that can be drawn from his utilitarianism, especially in relation to the construction of morality, individual freedom, democratic reform, and economic organization. By highlighting the utopian thinking which lies at the heart of (...) Mill's theories, Miller shows that rather than allowing for well-being for the few, Mill believed that a society must do everything in its power to see to it that each individual can enjoy a genuinely happy life if the happiness of its members is to be maximized. Miller provides a cogent and careful account of the main arguments offered by Mill, considers the critical responses to his work, and assesses its legacy for contemporary philosophy. Lucidly and persuasively written, this book will be a valuable resource for students and scholars seeking to understand the continued importance of Mill's thinking. (shrink)

Although this book contains a facsimile of the second London edition of Collins’ Inquiry, the main author is O’Higgins, for his Introduction and Notes seem more important than the 18th-century pamphlet. Collins was a country squire, friend of John Locke, an Anglican Deist, and a convinced determinist in his explanation of volition. His education was spotty: Eton, a year at Cambridge and unfinished studies in law. A general study of Collins’ life and writings was published by (...) O’Higgins in 1970, yet he does not seem aware of another modern printing of the Inquiry, edited by R. Wellek. The Introduction covers the background very thoroughly. It also sketches the situation in which the Inquiry was produced. The editor’s Notes are scholarly and helpful. Collins’ view was that no act of will is uncaused but the necessity to which man’s will is subject is not physical but moral. Much of Collins’ argument is well constructed but he does not seem fully to understand some of his adversaries, such as Bishop John Bramhall. On the whole this book is a useful introduction to a key controversy in British and continental thought of the 17th and 18th centuries.—V.J.B. (shrink)

ABSTRACTIn “The Politics of Getting It Right,” Russell Muirhead has contended in this journal that democracy is valuable because of its procedural legitimacy rather than because of the epistemic values of “getting things right.” However, pure procedural theories of legitimacy fail. Thus, if democracy is legitimate, it will have to be due partly to its epistemic advantages. There are two ways of thinking about these advantages. One approach, associated most prominently with David Estlund and Hélène Landemore, equates the epistemic advantages (...) of democracy with its ability to approximate a procedure-independent standard of correctness. The other, associated with Fabienne Peter, explicitly rejects that standard. Peter’s view, however, is incapable of answering challenges against pure procedural theories of legitimacy. (shrink)

The appearance of negative terms in quasiprobability representations of quantum theory is known to be inevitable, and, due to its equivalence with the onset of contextuality, of central interest in quantum computation and information. Until recently, however, nothing has been known about how much negativity is necessary in a quasiprobability representation. Zhu :120404, 2016) proved that the upper and lower bounds with respect to one type of negativity measure are saturated by quasiprobability representations which are in one-to-one correspondence with the (...) elusive symmetric informationally complete quantum measurements. We define a family of negativity measures which includes Zhu’s as a special case and consider another member of the family which we call “sum negativity.” We prove a sufficient condition for local maxima in sum negativity and find exact global maxima in dimensions 3 and 4. Notably, we find that Zhu’s result on the SICs does not generally extend to sum negativity, although the analogous result does hold in dimension 4. Finally, the Hoggar lines in dimension 8 make an appearance in a conjecture on sum negativity. (shrink)

Although organizational commitment continues to interest researchers because of its positive effects on organizations, we know relatively little about the effects of the ethical context on organizational commitment. As such, we contribute to the organizational commitment field by assessing the effects of ethical climates (Victor and Cullen, 1987, 1988) on organizational commitment. We hypothesized that an ethical climate of benevolence has a positive relationship with organizational commitment while egoistic climate is negatively related to commitment. Results supported our propositions for both (...) a benevolent climate and an egoistic climate. We also hypothesized that a principled climate is positively related to organizational commitment for professional workers but has no relationships for nonprofessional workers. Results supported this hypothesis. (shrink)

When the first edition ofA Christian Natural Theologyappeared in 1965, it was a groundbreaking work that incorporated Alfred North Whitehead's metaphysical philosophy as a framework for developing a Christian natural theology. The work was so significant it helped to launch process theology as a leading alternative to neo-orthodox theology and has since become a classic in the literature of process theology. This new edition by one of America's preeminent theologians is an essential work for all those interested in process theology.

A collection of essays by prominent physicists, biologists, geneticists, zoologists, philosophers and other thinkers about the relationship between science and philosophy, particularly the teleological versus the mechanistic explanation of the universe.

Mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) diseases are a group of neuromuscular diseases that often cause suffering and premature death. New mitochondrial replacement techniques (MRTs) may offer women with mtDNA diseases the opportunity to have healthy offspring to whom they are genetically related. MRTs will likely be ready to license for clinical use in the near future and a discussion of the ethics of the clinical introduction ofMRTs is needed. This paper begins by evaluating three concerns about the safety of MRTs for clinical (...) use on humans: (1) Is it ethical to use MRTs if safe alternatives exist? (2) Would persons with three genetic contributors be at risk of suffering? and (3) Can society trust that MRTs will be made available for humans only once adequate safety testing has taken place, and that MRTs will only be licensed for clinical use in a way that minimises risks? It is then argued that the ethics debate about MRTs should be reoriented towards recommendingways to reduce the possible risks of MRT use on humans. Two recommendations are made: (1) licensed clinical access to MRTs should only be granted to prospective parents if they intend to tell their children about their MRT conception by adulthood; and (2) sex selection should be used in conjunction with the clinical use ofMRTs, in order to reduce transgenerational health risks. (shrink)

This is a study in the philosophy of social science. It takes the form of a comparative critique of three contemporary approaches: ordinary language philosophy, hermeneutics and critical theory, represented here respectively by Ludwig Wittgenstein, Paul Ricoeur and Jürgen Habermas. Part I is devoted to an exposition of these authors' views and of the traditions to which they belong. Its unifying thread is their common concern with language, a concern which nonetheless reveals important differences of approach. For whereas ordinary language (...) philosophers tend to treat linguistic activity as the ultimate object of inquiry, both Ricoeur and Habermas regard it as a medium which betrays more fundamental dimensions of human experience and the social world. Part II complements the exposition with a critical analysis of its central themes: the conceptualisation of action, the methodology of interpretation, and the theory of reference and truth. The author defends many aspects of the work of Ricoeur and Habermas, such as the emphasis on power and ideology, the strategy of depth interpretation, and the link between consensus and truth; but he argues that there are serious deficiencies and obscurities in their work. He proposes solutions to these difficulties and concludes with a sketch of a critical and rationally justified theory for the interpretation of action - a critical hermeneutics. (shrink)

Cosmological ideas influenced every aspect of traditional Chinese culture, from science and medicine to art, philosophy, and religion. Although other premodern societies developed similar conceptions, in no other major civilization were such ideas so pervasive or powerful. In The Development and Decline of Chinese Cosmology, John Henderson traces the evolution of Chinese thought on cosmic order from the classical era to the nineteenth century. Unlike many standard studies of premodern cosmologies, this book analyzes the origins, development, and rejection of (...) these models, not just their structure. Moreover, while historians often limit their studies of cosmic order to specialized fields like the history of science, Henderson examines how the cosmological ideas formulated in late classical times permeated various facets of Chinese life, from high philosophy to popular culture. (shrink)

The General Theory defended Keynes's long‐held belief that capitalism could not achieve full employment without government help. The effects of wage rigidity were well known; Keynes tried to show that even price flexibility—contrary to Say's Law—could not reduce unemployment. Keynes did so by hobbling his decisionmakers with “psychological laws,”; like the consumption function, that linked nominal prices together. These produced a rigidity of relative prices that justified government intervention. Keynes's followers seem to have rejected his psychological theories, emphasizing instead nominal (...) rigidities or uncertainty, either of which is consistent with “classical”; thinking and Say's Law. (shrink)

A fruitful way to approach The Idea of Phenomenology is through Husserl’s claim that consciousness is not a bag, box, or any other kind of container. The bag conception, which dominated much of modern philosophy, is rooted in the idea that philosophy is restricted to investigating only what is really immanent to consciousness, such as acts and sensory contents. On this view, what Husserl called the riddle of transcendence can never be solved. The phenomenological reduction, as Husserl develops it in (...) The Idea of Phenomenology, opened up a new and broader sense of immanence that embraces the transcendent, making it possible both to solve the riddle and to escape the bag conception once and for all. The essay will discuss ways in which this new conception of immanence is tied to the key Husserlian themes of appearance, phenomenon, essence, seeing or intuiting, and constitution. (shrink)

This article offers a comprehensive review of the major theoretical issues and findings of the epistemic approaches to deliberative democracy. Section 2 surveys the norms and ideals of deliberative democracy in relation to deliberation's ability to “track the truth.” Section 3 examines the conditions under which deliberative mini‐publics can “track the truth.” Section 4 discusses how “truth‐tracking” deliberative democracy is possible through the division of epistemic labor in a deliberative system.

A relativistic one-particle, quantum theory for spin-zero particles is constructed uponL 2(x, ct), resulting in a positive definite spacetime probability density. A generalized Schrödinger equation having a Hermitian HamiltonianH onL 2(x, ct) for an arbitrary four-vector potential is derived. In this formalism the rest mass is an observable and a scalar particle is described by a wave packet that is a superposition of mass states. The requirements of macroscopic causality are shown to be satisfied by the most probable trajectory of (...) a free tardyon and a nontrivial framework for charged and neutral particles is provided. The Klein paradox is resolved and a link to the free particle field operators of quantum field theory is established. A charged particle interacting with a static magnetic field is discussed as an example of the formalism. (shrink)