Randomised placebo-controlled trials (RPCTs) are the gold standard for evaluating novel treatments. However, this design is rarely used in the context of orthopaedic interventions where participants are assigned to a real or placebo surgery. The present study examines attitudes towards RPCTs for orthopaedic surgery among 687 orthopaedic surgeons across the USA. When presented with a vignette describing an RPCT for orthopaedic surgery, 52.3% of participants viewed it as ‘completely’ or ‘mostly’ unethical. Participants were also asked to rank-order the value of (...) five different types of evidence supporting the efficacy of a surgery, ranging from RPCT to an anecdotal report. Responses regarding RPCTs were polarised with 26.4% viewing it as the least valuable (even less valuable than an anecdote) and 35.7.% viewing it as the most valuable. Where equipoise exists, if we want to subject orthopaedic surgeries to the highest standard of evidence (RPCTs) before they are implemented in clinical practice, it will be necessary to educate physicians on the value and ethics of placebo surgery control conditions. Otherwise, invasive procedures may be performed without any benefits beyond possible placebo effects. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Rhetorical Landscapes in America: Variations on a Theme from Kenneth BurkeLawrence W. RosenfieldRhetorical Landscapes in America: Variations on a Theme from Kenneth Burke. Gregory Clark. Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 2004. Pp. 181. $34.95, hardcover.Once again we are indebted to the University of South Carolina Press for a fine contribution from its Studies in Rhetoric/Communication series. Gregory Clark sets parallel aims: to apply Kenneth Burke's critical vocabulary (...) to cultural history, and to read American tourist sites and literature in the frame of Burke's notion of "identity" (147). Clark sees the American public landscape as "constituting in individual citizens a shared sense of common identity as members of a national public" (148). He claims that such shared experiences are as rhetorical as are more typical instances of public discourse. Thus American tourism has contributed to developing us into a national community.Clark supports his theme of rhetorical influence with six case studies: New York City, Shaker villages, Yellowstone National Park, the Grand Canyon, the Lincoln Highway, and the 1915 San Francisco Panama Exposition. While Burke's vocabulary offers a handy point of departure, the real news is in [End Page 172] Clark's discussion of the meaning and prominence of each of his six exemplars as cultural icons.This may be most evident (and endearing) as Clark recalls his own boyhood visits to Yellowstone, where he stood in the parking lot and was as captivated by the variety of license plates from across the country as by the hot springs and mudpots (69). This too was a celebration of nationhood. Equally fascinating is his consideration of the efforts of Stephan Mather, Mary Colter, and the Fred Harvey Company both to preserve national parklands and to develop a befitting "National Park Service Rustic" architectural style to enhance the natural landscape (this long before Disney's theme parks). Such typical excerpts almost cry out for Ken Burns or the History Channel to recreate the optimistic climate of a Romantic Post-Bellum civic culture depicted by Clark.The book becomes more tedious when its repeated invocation of Burkian terms tilts toward veneration. In his lifetime, Burke was unnerved by uncritical academic worship. He sought understanding, not deification. As he remarked, "They are an evangelical brood, bejeez. So... I [became] an observer at my own funeral."1 His wariness of academic enthusiasm is well taken. It does no disservice to Burke, for example, to recognize that his "identification" is a reworking of Vico's "ingenium" outfitted in creaky 1920s literary machinery.2 Shorn of some of the cumbersome Burkian baggage, the book's exemplars emerge as epideictic celebrations of the American tourist phenomenon and its part in shaping a national Romantic consciousness:And as rhetoric they traffic not in actions but in attitudes. People can encounter them without ever thinking of themselves as anything but spectators. Even in that role they are being educated... in matters of individual and collective identity.(148)Seen thus as reminders of our forebears' vision in pioneering the development of a national landscape trust, Clark's work edifies and opens us to the quiet excitement of meditative discovery. Clark guides us to monuments of cultural memory; his project is remarkably readable and a uniquely American enterprise.Lawrence W. RosenfieldUniversity of New HampshireNotes1. Letter to Malcolm Cowley, dated 11 August, 1955. Newberry Library Collection, Chicago.2. Cf. M. Mooney, Vico in the Tradition of Rhetoric (Princeton: Princeton UP, 1985), 151. [End Page 173]Copyright © 2006 The Pennsylvania State University... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Philosophy and Rhetoric 33.1 (2000) 94-96 [Access article in PDF] Book Review Rhetoric Reclaimed: Aristotle and the Liberal Arts Tradition Rhetoric Reclaimed: Aristotle and the Liberal Arts Tradition. Janet M. Atwill. London: Cornell University Press, 1998. Pp. xvi + 235. $35.00 hard cover. Much like Weimar, Germany, American civil society has been buffeted for a half-century by both the lunatic right, hiding behind the mask of religious freedom, and (...) the lunatic left, sporting "pomo" (postmodern) tribal colors in the garb of academic freedom. In an earlier age, both might be burned at the stake; today, they are granted tax-exempt status. Readers seeking contributions to the life of the mind find their harangues both unpleasant and unrewarding. This book is unfortunately no exception.Atwill's title is deceptive. Her work is only marginally about either Aristotle or his rhetoric. She is more concerned to "reclaim" the liberal arts held hostage by the received tradition of Athenian democratic ideals. Vide: At issue are the character of the social identities of gender, race, and class and the nature of the social ties by which we are bound.... (3) Challenges to the... humanist paradigm... became the subject of... debates over cultural diversity, political correctness, and revisionist literary canons and historical accounts. Just what is at stake... is the type of subjectivity produced by the paideia of a multicultural curriculum (that subjects values, views of reality, and relationships to cultural and political authority. (12-13) So we are in for another salvo of pomo evangelism, with the usual suspects trotted out (Stanley Fish, Jacques Derrida, Pierre Bourdieu, Gilles Deleuze, Michel Foucault, Julia Kristeva, and Edward Said) all with a view to rectifying the hegemonic white male biases of E. M. Cope, and rhetoric's four B's (Baldwin, Burnet, Burkhardt, and Hans Baron).Were Atwill offering a New Age update of Cope's commentary, her project might hold promise. Embers of such potential glow throughout the [End Page 94] book. Thus, her passing remarks on the relation of techne and theoria to Greek medicine (74-79) and to the cultural demands of what amounts to a plantation society (107-8) bear consideration. And her deconstruction of Cope's work as a managerial art grounded in associationist psychology (192-200) is especially insightful.Where the book disappoints is its clumsiness: it is simultaneously pedantic and superficial. On the first count, the author shows wide acquaintance with the standard commentaries on classical culture, but she seems often to be adrift in an ocean of secondary sources. For example, she is more likely to discuss Kennedy's treatment of Aristotle than Aristotle himself (58). And so it goes: Wright on Empedocles (90), Crane on Cicero (31), Woods on Cope (200). Indeed, it is difficult to tell from the book if the author's command of classical Greek extends much beyond Liddell and Scott.In addition to her overdependency on secondary sources, Atwill disregards historical contexts in pushing her quirky pomo readings to the fore. To cite only a few of these: For Plato, expertise is equivalent to function, and function determines one's place in the hierarchical order of the state. (30)... Physis (nature) or faculty equals function equals place in the social order. (141) [For Aristotle,] private property is the means of both self-expression and self-knowledge; knowledge of the self would be impossible without the procurement of private property. The subject and object distinction, usually made in the context of epistemology, is relocated at the center of the notion of private property. (184-85) If Protagoras, Isocrates, and Cicero were appointed deans... today, I doubt that they would institute a curriculum based on principles of radical democracy. (209) Perhaps Atwill would prefer to pick her dean from among Che, Mao, Pol Pot, or Lenin. While such eccentric inferences may fit the bill for cultural studies, they flunk the test of impartiality. This is a commodification of pedantry--recycling fragments of academic publications to advocate a partisan position. But advocacy resting on innuendo, resentment, and polite sneering can never meet the standards of serious scholarship... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:468 HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY explanation of this in terms of "Aristotelian" categories is not Plotinus at his most convincing. Certainly Aristotle could not possibly have accepted the use of the categories of potentiality and actuality that O'Daly finds at VI. 2.20.20ff., and it is difficult to see how anyone could regard as seriously illuminatinga solution in which there is a "reciprocal" relationship between part (or particular) and whole such (...) that the whole is potentially the part, which is, actually, while simultaneously the part is potentially the whole, which is, actually. Throughout, O'Daly strives to avoid obscurantistic appeals in explicating Plotinus's thought. As typical of his approach I would cite his philological solution of the puzzling passage at V. 1.7.4-6 where Plotinus seems either to claim that the One produces intelligence by intelligence's acting in a certain way, or uncharacteristicallyto attribute thought to the One. Plotinus is not asking, O'Daly claims, how the One produces nous, but rather how it is that what is produced is nous. The solution is both neat and clear. I was disappointed, for this reason, with the concluding lines of the book. O'Daly is determined, as we have seen, to find the self preserved in the mystical union with the One. Unable to find this in Plotinus's characterization of the self in terms of nous orpsych~ he turns to the One itself to find a clue, for the One is an egregious instance of self. The move renders "selfhood, for Plotinus... in strict contrast to individuality" (p. 91), which is perplexing enough in view of O'Daly's previous stress on the identity of the self at its various levels. But it also provides him with the concept of epibol~, the "simple intuitive approach to Itself" (p. 93) that characterizes the One at VI. 7. 38. 10-39ff. and is used to characterize the approach to the One at III. 8.9. 20ff. O'Daly seizes on this concept to provide a perfectly obscure solution to his problem in these mysterious concluding words: "The term epibol~ links the two passages [III. 8.9 and VI. 7. 38]: both seem to corroborate the assertions that, on the one hand, the One is a Self, and, on the other, that, of the faculty experiencing unio, we can say no more than that it is--'the self'"(p. 94). O'Daly is forced to this pass, 1 believe, by his taking the mystical experience as too central in Plotinus's thought, as the cornerstone of his system, while, in reality, the heart of this system lies in the intelligible realm and its ties to the phenomenal. The union with the super-real, I suggest, serves only to indicate to the individual that he has overreached himself and needs, in good Platonic fashion, to return to the realm of intelligibility,that realm of nous and soul that O'Daly has spent the bulk of his time usefully examining. JEROME P. SCHILLER Washington University Descartes. By Jonathon R6e. (New YOrk: Pica Press, 1975. Pp. 204) Like the Discours de la m~thode, this is an "elegant essay," clear, condensed, and orderly. It analyzes in brief the Cartesian system of philosophy, pointing out that Descartes's approach to science was philosophical, although his philosophy was an attempt to discover the most scientific forms of description. And science for this "nouveau philosophe" was not qualitative but quantitative. The book furnishes an antidote to the myth popularized by Voltaire that misrepresents Descartes as an unscientific rationalizer whose fantastic physics was entirely superseded by Newton's. "The habit of classifying thinkers into warring schools," warns the author, "has resulted in a completely mistaken image of Descartes" (p. 13). Newtonian physics R6e sees as in the Cartesian tradition. After an analytical table of contents, ~t la Descartes, the book starts with a one-page chronological table, from which one regrettably misses the Cogitationes privatae, the Recherche de la v~rit~ par la lumi~re naturelle, the Primae cogitationes circa generationem animalium, and the Trait6 des passions de l'ame. A brief introduction is followed by sixteen short chapters and two appendices. The first appendix... (shrink)

Dados da tradução brasileira de HEGEL, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich. Linhas Fundamentais da Filosofia do Direito ou Direito Natural e Ciência do Estado em Compêndio. Tradução, notas, glossário e bibliografia de Paulo Meneses et alli. Apresentações de Denis Lerrer Rosenfield e de Paulo Roberto Konzen. São Paulo: Loyola; São Leopoldo: UNISINOS, 2010.

On peut dégager chez Schelling deux types ou deux manières de penser le conflit. Le premier de ces types se trouve modélisé dans la tragédie grecque : c’est le type d’une lutte sans vainqueur ni vaincu, d’un combat qui débouche sur l’égale victoire et l’égale défaite de la nécessité et de la liberté. Schelling le thématise dès ses premiers écrits et le développe ensuite dans ses leçons sur l’art. La deuxième manière de penser le conflit consiste à le placer dans (...) la substance divine pour le situer ensuite dans la conscience humaine : c’est le type d’une lutte dont l’aiguillon aveugle est contraint au retrait par son propre opposé. Ce type est développé à partir des Recherches de 1809 et permet de comprendre le processus complexe de la mythologie. Mais, s’il y a un vainqueur, c’est bien à la faveur d’une loi d’équité qui, à chacune des forces, et d’abord au fondement finalement surmonté, reconnaît un droit propre qui est inaliénable. (shrink)

This study described the relationships between academic class and student moral sensitivity and reasoning and between curriculum design components for ethics education and student moral sensitivity and reasoning. The data were collected from freshman (n = 506) and senior students (n = 440) in eight baccalaureate nursing programs in South Korea by survey; the survey consisted of the Korean Moral Sensitivity Questionnaire and the Korean Defining Issues Test. The results showed that moral sensitivity scores in patient-oriented care and conflict were (...) higher in senior students than in freshman students. Furthermore, more hours of ethics content were associated with higher principled thinking scores of senior students. Nursing education in South Korea may have an impact on developing student moral sensitivity. Planned ethics content in nursing curricula is necessary to improve moral sensitivity and moral reasoning of students. (shrink)

This paper is an update of the documents we have concerning the Acts of the Christian martyrs, focused on three main aspects: 1) the kind of acts we know of and their classification from the point of view of their historic value; 2) the versions or editions of the texts that are most accepted by scholars; 3) the relevance of the different parts that make up these documents in order to discern the original text from passages that were rewritten or (...) underwent later variations. In this way, the article offers an exhaustive list of the documents for use in researching Christian martyrs in the Roman period. (shrink)

This is a welcome reprint of a book that continues to grow in importance.

In recent literature, panpsychism has been defended by appeal to two main arguments: first, an argument from philosophy of mind, according to which panpsychism is the only view which successfully integrates consciousness into the physical world (Strawson 2006; Chalmers 2013); second, an argument from categorical properties, according to which panpsychism offers the only positive account of the categorical or intrinsic nature of physical reality (Seager 2006; Adams 2007; Alter and Nagasawa 2012). Historically, however, panpsychism has also been defended by appeal (...) to a third argument based on considerations about the nature and observability of causation. This argument has not been much discussed in recent times. Here is a concise version from William James: "… the concrete perceptual flux, taken just as it comes, offers in our own activity-situations perfectly comprehensible instances of causal agency … If we took these experiences as the type of what actual causation is, we should have to ascribe to cases of causation outside of our life, to physical cases also, an inwardly experiential nature. In other words, we should have to espouse a so-called “pan-psychic” philosophy" (James 1911: 218). James here suggests that we have direct experience of causation in our own agency. He thereby directly contradicts David Hume, who famously denied that we have any experience of causation. James goes on to claim that if this experience is representative of causation in general, it follows that all causation is mental, and that panpsychism is true. This kind of argument for panpsychism can be called the argument from (experience of) causation. This chapter offers, first, a history of this argument and arguments closely related to it, and second, an analysis of the argument – is it valid, are its premises in any way defensible, and how does it relate to the other, more popular arguments for panpsychism from philosophy of mind and categorical properties? (shrink)

The author presents and defends three theses: (1) "the first is that it is not profitable for us at present to do moral philosophy; that should be laid aside at any rate until we have an adequate philosophy of psychology." (2) "the second is that the concepts of obligation, And duty... And of what is morally right and wrong, And of the moral sense of 'ought', Ought to be jettisoned if this is psychologically possible...." (3) "the third thesis is that (...) the differences between the well-Known english writers on moral philosophy from sidgwick to the present day are of little importance." (staff). (shrink)

This is the first comprehensive study of Nietzsche's earliest (and extraordinary) book, The Birth of Tragedy (1872). When he wrote it, Nietzsche was a Greek scholar, a friend and champion of Wagner, and a philosopher in the making. His book has been very influential and widely read, but has always posed great difficulties for readers because of the particular way Nietzsche brings his ancient and modern interests together. The proper appreciation of such a work requires access to ideas that cross (...) the boundaries of conventional specialisms. This is now provided by M. S. Silk and J. P. Stern in their joint study of Nietzsche's book. They examine in detail its content, style and form; its strange genesis and hybrid status; its biographical background and the controversy engendered by its publication; its value as an account of ancient Greek culture and as a theory of tragedy and music; its relation to other theories of tragedy; and its place in the history of German ideas and in Nietzsche's own philosophical career. (shrink)

The author explores the role of Boston in the evolution of modern photography, examining the institutions, corporations, and artists who shaped the scene in that city in the last half of the twentieth century.

Background. The COVID-19 pandemic necessitated drastic changes to undergraduate medical training at the University of Botswana (UB). To save the academic year when campus was locked down, the Department of Medical Education conducted a needs assessment to determine the readiness for emergency remote teaching (ERT) of the Faculty of Medicine, UB. Objectives. To report on the findings of needs assessment surveys to assess learner and teaching staff preparedness for fair and just ERT, as defined by philosopher John Rawls. Methods. Needs (...) assessment surveys were conducted using Office 365 Forms distributed via WhatsApp, targeting medical students and teaching staff during the 5 undergraduate years. Data were analysed quantitatively and qualitatively. Results. Ninety-two percent (266/289) of students and 73.5% (62/84) of teaching staff responded. Surveys revealed a high penetration of smartphones among students, but poor internet accessibility and affordability in homes. Some teaching staff also reported internet and device insufficiencies. Only WhatsApp was accessible to students and teaching staff. Conclusions. For equitable access to ERT in the future, the surveys revealed infrastructural improvement needs, including wider, stronger, affordable WiFi coverage within Botswana and enhanced digital infrastructures in educational institutions, with increased support for students. (shrink)

Greek text, english translation and commentary on the surviving fragments of Empedocles (fragments as known in 1981, does not include more recent finds).

Ce texte a déjà paru dans la revue Philosophique, 11 | 2008, 79-96 et mis en ligne ici. Nous remercions Kathrin H. Rosenfield de nous avoir autorisé à le reproduire sur RHUTHMOS. On sait qu'Hölderlin s'est délibérément opposé à la « conception régnante par rapport au monde Grec » et au classicisme de Weimar qui voit Sophocle comme le modèle de la mesure rationnelle. Déjà Hellingrath et Beissner ont signalé qu'il accentue « l'enthousiasme excentrique », c'est-à-dire, les - XVIIIe (...) siècle – Nouvel article. (shrink)

On sait qu’Hölderlin s’est délibérément opposé à la « conception régnante par rapport au monde Grec » (herrschende Griechenauffassung) et au classicisme de Weimar qui voit Sophocle comme le modèle de la mesure rationnelle. Déjà Hellingrath et Beissner ont signalé qu’il accentue « l’enthousiasme excentrique », c’est-à-dire, les tendances déstabilisantes arrachant le héros au centre de la vie proprement humaine. Ceci exige qu’on développe des remarques comme celle de Beissner qui défend l’idée...

Em 1910, quatro anos depois de publicar O Jovem Törless, Musil terminou, enfim, sua difícil segunda obra. É um período de incertezas, primeiro porque Musil duvida que suas novelas teriam o sucesso do primeiro romance, segundo, porque se preocupa com sua carreira de escritor. Nesse momento de crise ainda sorrateira, ele começa a anotar ideias sobre as relações da moral com a arte. É um assunto antigo que acompanha a reflexão estética desde Platão e Aristóteles, mas ele recebe na reflexão (...) de Musil um novo horizonte que conecta a moral e a estética com o conhecimento científico. (shrink)

A fim de responder à pergunta: "o que pode bem significar conhecer, racionalmente, o Absoluto e quais são os instrumentos de tal empreendimento?", o Autor se propõe a reexaminar a concepção de Deus e do Absoluto em Hegel e suas recepções. Trata-se de responder ainda a questões fundamentais que lhes são correlatas: Como pode a razão, unicamente com os seus meios, alçar-se a um tal empreendimento? O que significa conhecer um tipo de existência que se subtrai aos sentidos e à (...) experiência tal como a compreendemos no sentido filosófico não metafísico? (shrink)

La metaphysique moderne met en oeuvre un nouveau concept de raison, tourne vers la connaissance des objets intelligibles. Comme ces denominations impliquent une conception determinee de la raison, le partage s'opere entre ceux qui peuvent etre tenus pour senses, et les insenses. Dans la tradition augustinienne, sense est celui qui met la raison au service de la foi, insense celui qui doute et se conduit selon la seule raison. L'argument ontologique de Saint Anselme enjoint la raison de s'enquerir des criteres (...) de la connaissance de Dieu, en chevauchant les frontieres de la foi. Descartes, en s'appuyant sur les preuves de l'immaterialite de l'ame et de l'existence de Dieu, rompt avec cette tradition. Ainsi, la metaphysique moderne est le fruit d'une demesure de la raison qui marque de son empreinte l'avenir de la philosophie et annonce l'horizon de ses crises. (shrink)