Poems of Early Buddhist Nuns. Translations of the Therigatha by Mrs C. A. F. Rhys Davids. Pali Text Society, Oxford 1989. xvi, 233 pp. £4.95.

Aim: This study explores priority dilemmas in dialysis treatment and care offered elderly patients within the Norwegian public healthcare system.Background: Inadequate healthcare due to advanced age is frequently reported in Norway. The Norwegian guidelines for healthcare priorities state that age alone is not a relevant criterion. However, chronological age, if it affects the risk or effect of medical treatment, can be a legitimate criterion.Method: A qualitative approach is used. Data were collected through semistructured interviews and analysed through hermeneutical content analysis. (...) The informants were five physicians and four nurses from dialysis wards.Findings: Pressing priority dilemmas centre around decision-making concerning withholding and withdrawal of dialysis treatment. Advanced age is rarely an absolute or sole priority criterion. It seems, however, that advanced age appears to be a more subtle criterion in relation with, for example, comorbidity, functional status and cognitive impairment. Nurses primarily prioritise specialised dialysis care and not comprehensive nursing care. The complex needs of elderly patients are therefore often not always met.Conclusions: Clinical priorities should be made more transparent in order to secure legitimate and fair resource allocation in dialysis treatment and care. Difficult decisions concerning withholding or withdrawal of dialysis ought to be openly discussed within the healthcare team as well as with patients and significant others. The biomedical focus and limitations on comprehensive care during dialysis should be debated. (shrink)

A crucial debate currently raging in the fields of cognitive and social science centers around general and specific approaches to understanding the actions of others. When we understand the actions of another person, do we do so on the basis of a general theory of psychology, or on the basis of an effort to place ourselves in the particular position of that specific person? Hans Herbert Kögler and Karsten R. Stueber's Empathy and Agency addresses this other issues vital to current (...) social science in an advanced and diverse analysis of the foundations of social-scientific methodology based on recent cognitive psychology. The book serves as both an introduction to the debate for non-academic audiences and as a catalyst for further discussion for serious theorists. Empathy and Agency provides a solid foundation of the fundamental issues in social and cognitive science, but also presents the most influential paradigms in the field at this time. (shrink)

In this paper Popper formulates and discusses a new aspect of the theory of mind. This theory is partly based on his earlier developed interactionistic theory. It takes as its point of departure the observation that mind and physical forces have several properties in common, at least the following six: both are located, unextended, incorporeal, capable of acting on bodies, dependent upon body, capable of being influenced by bodies. Other properties such as intensity and extension in time may be added. (...) It is argued that a fuller understanding of the nature of forces is essential for the analysis of the mind-brain problem. The relative autonomy and indeterministic nature of mind is stressed. Indeterminism is treated in relation to a theorem of Hadamard. The computer theory of mind and the Turing test are criticized. Finally the evolution of mind is discussed. (shrink)