This study reports the results of a study of Swedish psychiatrists’ responses to moral statements related to decision making in the psychiatric context. Use was made of the Moral Sensitivity Questionnaire, a modified instrument previously constructed from a theory of moral sensitivity. This Likert-type scale contains 30 items constructed from the following categories: interpersonal orientation, structuring moral meaning, benevolence, modifying autonomy, experiencing moral conflict, and trust in medical knowledge and principles of care. The purpose was to identify possible differences in (...) responses rather than to evaluate right or wrong responses. The analysis is based on 754 completed questionnaires. The results of the study showed some significant differences in the item and category levels; for example, male psychiatrists experienced more conflicts than female psychiatrists and agreed to a greater extent that medical knowledge was most important in deciding what was best for the patient. The results also showed that more female than male psychiatrists thought that the relationship with the patient was most important in psychiatric practice. (shrink)

This study reports the results of a study of Swedish psychiatrists’ responses to moral statements related to decision making in the psychiatric context. Use was made of the Moral Sensitivity Questionnaire, a modified instrument previously constructed from a theory of moral sensitivity. This Likert-type scale contains 30 items constructed from the following categories: interpersonal orientation, structuring moral meaning, benevolence, modifying autonomy, experiencing moral conflict, and trust in medical knowledge and principles of care. The purpose was to identify possible differences in (...) responses rather than to evaluate right or wrong responses. The analysis is based on 754 completed questionnaires. The results of the study showed some significant differences in the item and category levels; for example, male psychiatrists experienced more conflicts than female psychiatrists and agreed to a greater extent that medical knowledge was most important in deciding what was best for the patient. The results also showed that more female than male psychiatrists thought that the relationship with the patient was most important in psychiatric practice. (shrink)

According to the alternative semantics for focus, the semantic reflec of intonational focus is a second semantic value, which in the case of a sentence is a set of propositions. We examine a range of semantic and pragmatic applications of the theory, and extract a unitary principle specifying how the focus semantic value interacts with semantic and pragmatic processes. A strong version of the theory has the effect of making lexical or construction-specific stipulation of a focus-related effect in association-with-focus constructions (...) impossible. Furthermore, while focus has a uniform import, the sources of meaning differences in association with focus are various. (shrink)

Reflexive Methodology established itself as a groundbreaking success, providing researchers with an invaluable guide to a central problem in research methodology – how to put field research and interpretations in perspective, paying attention to the interpretive, political, and rhetorical nature of empirical research. Now thoroughly updated, the Second Edition includes a new chapter on positivism, social constructionism, and critical realism, and offers new conclusions on the applications of methodology. It provides further illustrations and updates that build on the acclaimed and (...) successful First Edition. (shrink)

Measures of happiness are increasingly being used throughout the social sciences. While these measures have attracted numerous types of criticisms, a crucial aspect of these measures has been left largely unexplored—their calibration. Using Eran Tal’s recently developed notion of calibration we argue first that the prospect of continued calibration of happiness measures is crucial for the science of happiness, and second, that continued calibration of happiness measures faces a particular problem—The Two Unknowns Problem. The Two Unknowns Problem relies on the (...) claim that individuals are necessarily a part of the measurement apparatus in first person measures of happiness, and the claim that we have no reason to believe that the evaluation standards people employ are invariant across individuals and time. We argue that calibrating happiness measures therefore involves solving an equation with two unknowns—an individual’s degree of happiness, and their evaluation standards—which is, generally, not possible. Third, we consider two possible escape routes from this problem and we suggest that the most promising route requires yet unexplored empirical and theoretical work on linking happiness to behavioral or neural evidence. (shrink)

A social conception of science -- The pursuit of forms -- Beyond the doctrine of signs -- Structures of mediation -- Signs in action -- Prospects of communication -- From a rhetorical point of view.

BackgroundHuman embryonic stem cells as a source for the development of advanced therapy medicinal products are considered for treatment of Parkinson’s disease. Research has shown promising results and opened an avenue of great importance for patients who currently lack a disease modifying therapy. The use of hESC has given rise to moral concerns and been the focus of often heated debates on the moral status of human embryos. Approval for marketing is still pending.ObjectiveTo Investigate the perspectives and concerns of patients (...) with PD, patients being the directly concerned stakeholders in the ethical discussion.MethodsQualitative semi-structured interviews related to this new therapy in seventeen patients from two Swedish cities.ResultsThe participants expressed various interests related to the use of human embryos for development of medicinal therapies; however, overall, they were positive towards the use of hESC for treatment of PD. It was deemed important that the donating woman or couple made the choice to donate embryos voluntarily. Furthermore, there were concerns that the industry does not always prioritise the patient over profit; thus, transparency was seen as important. (shrink)

Evolutionary theodicies are attempts to explain how the enormous amounts of suffering, premature death and extinction inherent in the evolutionary process can be reconciled with belief in a loving and almighty God. A common strategy in this area is to argue that certain very valuable creaturely attributes could only be exemplified by creatures that are produced by a partly random and uncontrolled process of evolution. Evolution, in other words, was the only possible way for God to create these kinds of (...) creatures. This article presents and examines two versions of the “only way”-argument. The anthropocentric version tries to justify God’s use of evolution by reference to the value of human freedom, and argues that freedom presupposes that God lets go of full control over the process of creation . The non-anthropocentric version presents a similar argument with respect to more inclusive creaturely properties, such as that of being “truly other” than God, or of being a “creaturely self” with a certain degree of autonomy in relation to God . With the help of a number of thought-experiments of the “Twin-Earth”-type, the author argues that both the anthropocentric and the non-anthropocentric only way-arguments fail. (shrink)

ABSTRACT Drawing upon a distinction between epistemically and metaphysically motivated notions of a concept, I consider the insurmountable problems of theories that appeal to our epistemic capacities to address the problem of the nature of concepts satisfactorily. Prominent theories of concepts hold that primitive concepts must have internal structure if they are to account for the explanatory functions that cognitive scientists have attributed to such constructs as prototypes, exemplars, and theories. Vindicating the role of non-experimental philosophy in the critical examination (...) of empirical theories, I argue that the explanatory effectiveness of those constructs is orthogonal to an argument concerning the structure of primitive concepts. Conceptual atomism provides an alternative approach to individuating primitive concepts the precise formulation of which has yet to be worked out. Despite its unpopularity, the atomist alternative is still in a better position to face the question of what concepts are than its competitors. RESUMEN Haciendo una distinción entre nociones de concepto epistémica y metafísicamente motivadas, considero las dificultades insuperables que enfrentan las teorías que apelan a nuestras capacidades epistémicas para abordar el problema de la naturaleza de los conceptos. Las teorías de conceptos más importantes sostienen que los conceptos primitivos deben poseer una estructura interna para cumplir aquellas funciones explicativas que científicas y científicos cognitivos les han atribuido a constructos tales como prototipos, ejemplares y teorías. Reivindicando el aporte de la filosofía no experimental en la evaluación de teorías empíricas, planteo que un argumento a favor de la estructura de los conceptos primitivos es independiente del poder explicativo de dichos constructos. El atomismo conceptual proporciona un enfoque alternativo para individualizar conceptos primitivos cuya formulación precisa aún no se ha elaborado. Pese a su impopularidad, la alternativa atomista está en una mejor posición que sus rivales para enfrentar la pregunta acerca de qué tipo de cosas son los conceptos. (shrink)

This paper examines a dilemma in reproductive and population ethics that can illuminate broader questions in axiology and normative ethics. This dilemma emerges because most people have conflicting intuitions concerning whether the interests of non-existent beings can outweigh the interests of existing beings when those merely potential beings are expected to have overall net-good or overall net-bad lives. The paper claims that the standard approach to this issue, in terms of exemplifying the conflict between Narrow Person-Affecting Views and Impersonal Views, (...) is not correct. It argues that, instead, we can approach the issue through the distinction between Symmetrical and Asymmetrical Views about the relative importance of positive and negative value. The paper also claims that Asymmetrical Views provide the most intuitively satisfactory solution to the dilemma and can in addition be defended independently on further grounds. Keywords: person-affecting views, impersonal views, symmetry, asymmetry. (shrink)

Two views of scientific theories dominated the philosophy of science during the twentieth century, the syntactic view of the logical empiricists and the semantic view of their successors. I show that neither view is adequate to provide a proper understanding of the connections that exist between theories at different times. I outline a new approach, a hybrid of the two, that provides the right structural connection between earlier and later theories, and that takes due account of the importance of the (...) mathematical models of a theory and of the various distinct formulations that pick out these models. (shrink)

This panel discussion took place on June 26, 2021, as part of the programming for an exhibition by critical art collaborative Cesar & Lois at experimental art and research project space Yes We Cannibal (Baton Rouge, LA). The exhibition was entitled Eat the Anthropocene with Cesar & Lois, mycelia and friend entities and ran for six weeks. The panel discussion collected scholars from art, anthropology, literature, landscape architecture, and amateur Mycology to elucidate themes relevant to the artwork, which features a (...) variety of experimental collaborations between codices and fungal life. (shrink)

1 This article examines Peirce's semiotic philosophy and its development in the light of his characterisations of "representationism" and "presentationism". In his definitions of these positions, Peirce overtly pits the representationists, who treat percepts as representatives, against the presentationists, according to whom percepts do not stand for hidden realities. The article shows that Peirce's early writings—in particular the essay "On the Doctrine of Immediate Perception" and certain key texts from the period 1868–9—advocate an inferentialist approach clearly associated with representationism. However, (...) although Peirce continues to deny the cognitive import of first impressions throughout his philosophical career, the new view of perception that emerges in the early 1900s indicates a significant move in the direction of a presentationist point of view, a development partly corresponding to changes in his theory of categories. The strongest evidence for this reading is found in Peirce's contention that the percept is not a sign. The discussion concludes with considerations of possible objections and alternatives to the proposed interpretation in addition to some reflections on the consequences and relevance of Peirce's turn toward presentationism. (shrink)

Previous accounts of psychiatry within Communist Europe have emphasized the dominance of biological approaches to mental health treatment. Psychotherapy was thus framed as a taboo or marginal component of East European psychiatric care. In more recent years, this interpretation has been re-examined as historians are beginning to delve deeper into the diversity of mental healthcare within the Communist world, noting many instances in which psychotherapeutic techniques and theory entered into clinical practice. Despite their excellent work uncovering these hitherto neglected histories, (...) however, historians of the psy-disciplines in Eastern Europe have neglected to fully consider the ways that post-World War II psychotherapeutic developments were not simply continuations of pre-war psychoanalytic traditions, but rather products of emerging transnational networks and knowledge exchanges in the post-war period. This article highlights how psychotherapy became a leading form of treatment within Communist Yugoslavia. Inspired by theorists in France and the United Kingdom, among other places, Yugoslav practitioners became well versed in a number of psychotherapeutic techniques, especially ‘brief psychotherapy’ and group-based treatment. These developments were not accidents of ideology, whereby group psychotherapy might be accepted by authorities as a nod to some idea of ‘the collective’, but were rather products of economic limitations and strong links with international networks of practitioners, especially in the domains of social psychiatry and group analysis. The Yugoslav example underscores the need for more historical attention to transnational connections among psychotherapists and within the psy-disciplines more broadly. (shrink)

SummaryHow can the immense amount of suffering and waste inherent in the evolutionary process be reconciled with the existence of a perfectly good and omnipotent God? A widely embraced proposal in the area of “evolutionary theodicy” is the so-called “Only Way”-argument. This argument contends that certain valuable goods – in particular, creaturely independence and human freedom – can only come about through a genuinely indeterministic and partly uncontrolled process of evolution. In a previous article, I have argued that the “Only (...) Way”-argument can be defeated by a “Twin Earth”-thought experiment: If God is omnipotent, he could have created – directly, without evolution – creatures that are molecule-for-molecule identical to those that he actually created through evolution. If the creatures that he actually created have freedom and independence, there is no valid reason to deny that the non-evolved “twin creatures” would also be free and independent. Recently, Eikrem and Søvik have suggested a way of blocking my Twin Earth-argument by appealing to the distinction between type-values and token-values. While ES admit that the Twin Earth-argument shows the non-necessity of evolution for the existence of certain type-goods, they argue that an evolutionary creation can be justified by appeal to valuable token-goods that could not have existed without evolution. In this article, I respond to ES’s token-goods argument by showing that it is incompatible with a basic presupposition of “Only Way” evolutionary theodicies, namely the claim that the evolutionary process is genuinely indeterministic and partly uncontrolled. (shrink)

En este artículo se explica en qué consisten las éticas centradas en el sufrimiento, presenta algunas de las principales razones a su favor y expone cuáles son sus implicaciones con respecto a la consideración moral de los animales. Se argumenta que conforme a estas éticas los usos como recursos de los animales lesivos para estos deberán ser rechazados. A continuación, se examinan las posiciones que aceptan el uso de los animales siempre que este tenga lugar reduciendo los daños infligidos a (...) estos. Se presentarán una serie de razones por las que tales posiciones resultan cuestionables y por las que van a entrar en conflicto con las implicaciones de las éticas centradas en el sufrimiento. (shrink)

En teoría del valor y en teoría normativa, es común considerar que lo positivo y lo negativo tienen la misma importancia. Algunas rechazan esta idea y consideran que lo negativo tiene mayor importancia. Aquí se presentarán algunos de los argumentos en favor de la asimetría. Tras esto, daré cuenta de los diferentes tipos de posiciones asimétricas defendibles. Explicaré cuáles son las características de cada teoría y qué puntos a favor y en contra de estas posiciones se pueden postular. Por último, (...) consideraré que no hay razones para creer que haya una posición asimétrica claramente superior a las demás. (shrink)

A path model of organizational creativity was presented; it conceptualized the influences of information sharing, learning culture, motivation, and networking on creative climate. A structural equation model was fitted to data from the pharmaceutical industry to test the proposed model. The model accounted for 86% of the variance in the creative climate dependent variable. Information sharing had a positive effect on learning culture, which in turn had a positive effect on creative climate, while there were negative direct effects of information (...) sharing on creative climate and on intrinsic motivation. This study suggests that information sharing and intrinsic motivation are important drivers for organizational creativity in a complex R&D environment in the pharmaceutical industry. Implications of the model are discussed. (shrink)

This article examines the contention that the central concepts of C. S. Peirce’s semeiotic are inherently communicational. It is argued that the Peircean approach avoids the pitfalls of objectivism and constructivism, rendering the sign-user neither a passive recipient nor an omnipotent creator of meaning. Consequently, semeiotic may serve as a useful general framework for studies of learning processes.

En ética de poblaciones, se apela a ciertas perspectivas léxicas y de nivel crítico totalistas para evitar la conclusión repugnante. Dado que la conclusión muy repugnante es una condición de adecuación más débil, podría pensarse que estas perspectivas también nos permitirán evitar esta conclusión. En este artículo argumento que no es así. Primero, muestro que estas perspectivas léxicas no evitan la conclusión muy repugnante. Después, muestro que las perspectivas de rango crítico totalistas tampoco la evitan. Finalmente, aclaro qué perspectivas nos (...) permiten evitar esta conclusión. (shrink)

This paper examines how different forms of performance evaluation relate to aspects of the creative climate in a major pharmaceutical company. The study was based on a large employee-attitude survey that was distributed to all company employees. The study analyses survey results from 5,333 employees at five R&D sites. The results indicate that management’s evaluation of employees (either dialogue-based or control-based) relates to the type of motivation (intrinsic or extrinsic) that drives employees, to their style of thinking (value-focused thinking) and (...) on their attitudes to organizational creativity. The paper then discusses implications of these findings for HRM. (shrink)

In the debate about human bio-sampling the interests of patients and other sample donors are believed to stand against the interests of scientists and of their freedom of research. Scientists want efficient access to and use of human biological samples. Patients and other donors of blood or tissue materials want protection of their integrity. This dichotomy is reflected in the Swedish law on biobanks, which came into effect 1 January 2003. In this article I argue that if the basic interest (...) of scientists using human biological samples is in increasing knowledge and developing better treatments, and if the concept ‘integrity’ is properly understood, then sample donors should also be interested in promotion of efficiency as well as in the protection of their integrity. The basic premise of this argument is that donors of samples have interests related to the donation and use of samples as well as to the use of the results of the research, that is, new medical products and treatments. They have a role both as donors or participants in research and as end users of the research. I conclude that if access to information acquired through biobank research is strictly limited to researchers, the information is protected by secrecy safeguards through coding and the procedures governing the research are open to public and democratic control, then most research using human biobanks may be carried out on the basis of making general information available when collecting biological samples, without further contact with participants. (shrink)

In this article, I first interpret and evaluate the main argument of E. V. R. Kojonen's book, The Compatibility of Evolution and Design. I then address a challenge against this argument (as well as against design arguments in general), namely, the problem of seemingly malevolent and bad designs in nature. Evolutionary theodicists commonly deal with this problem by assuming that the evolutionary process is not fully under God's control. This solution, however, is deeply problematic from the perspective of classical theism. (...) I therefore suggest another approach to the problem, inspired by the thought of Thomas Aquinas. (shrink)

The history of the relationship between philosophy and education has been a long and troubled one. In part, this stemmed from the problematic nature of philosophy itself, but this difficulty was compounded by controversy as to the age at which training in philosophy should begin. Although Socrates seemed indifferent to whether he conversed philosophically with young or old, his pupil, Plato, was inclined to restrict philosophy to mature students, on the grounds that it made the younger ones unduly contentious. Since (...) philosophers in those days had the reputation of being ‘friends of wisdom,’ and since being a friend of wisdom seemed to require extensive experience, it came to be taken for granted, generation after generation, that philosophy was not for the young. It has sometimes been made available, on a limited basis, at the secondary school level, but almost never to students in the lower grades. To the suggestion that this prevented children from having access to ideas, theories and abstract concepts, the stock response was that children were mired in the ‘concrete’ level of experience and had no interest in abstractions. To the report that very young children almost invariably greeted opportunities to discuss philosophy with joy and delight, the standard reply was that this proved that the children could not be doing philosophy, since the study of philosophy is a serious and difficult matter. The recent career of philosophy in elementary and secondary education has been a matter of overcoming precisely these objection and misconceptions. Unfortunately, a listing of the advantages to be derived by the young from the study of philosophy—its strengthening of reasoning and judgment, its fostering of concept-formation skills, its clarification of values and ideals—is likely to obscure the intrinsic satisfactions that children derive from their classroom communities of philosophical inquiry. But even here there are signs of change, and a new appreciation of the educational possibilities of philosophy is at last beginning to surface in the schools. (shrink)

The discovery of Palaeolithic cave art in the late 19th century entails many problems, some of which are perceptual. Presenting doxology as a post-phenomenological way of approaching epistemic and perceptual questions, this article draws on the problematics of cave art and contemporary cognitive science to discuss the process of perception — what it takes to see what one sees — in caves (and elsewhere). The article concludes that in order to see and perceive anything at all, both our physical and (...) our conceptual resources — the light of the sun as well as the light of the mind, as Empedocles might have said — are needed. The light of the mind is always inextricably linked to doxa. Thus, the article argues that a doxological approach to questions of perception and knowledge is required. (shrink)

Together with large biobanks of human samples, medical registries with aggregated data from many clinical centers are vital parts of an infrastructure for maintaining high standards of quality with regard to medical diagnosis and treatment. The rapid development in personalized medicine and pharmaco-genomics only underscores the future need for these infrastructures. However, registries and biobanks have been criticized as constituting great risks to individual privacy. In this article, I suggest that quality with regard to diagnosis and treatment is an inherent, (...) morally normative requirement of health care, and argue that quality concerns in this sense may be balanced with privacy concerns. (shrink)

In this article it is suggested that the discourse entailing the realization of a dystopia of totalitarian surveillance, far from being a grounded fact, on the contrary, works as a screen sheltering us from the fact that we are reaching a point where we are nothing more than depersonalized, emptied forms of interest neither to corporations nor to each other; instead, we are moving towards the liquification of subjectivity as such. When our user data is “taken hostage” we are emptied (...) of personal features, submitted to a process of dissolution rather than prying surveillance. It is tempting to suggest that the various repetitions of the Orwellian theme is a basic fantasy protecting us from the ever increasing gaps in the global virtual order; working to cover up the real of digital capitalism following a desperate logic by which only nightmares suffice. What if the furthering of the digital paradigm, with its potential to add yet another layer of virtuality to experience leads, not to an increase of (Orwellian) control, but on the contrary overturns the house of cards of (symbolic) reality, exposing the core of the illusions of the self and the subject? (shrink)

, Uppsala, Almqvist & Wiksell International, 1991; 158 pp., price not indicated, ISBN 91-554-2807-X.

Epigrams of Lingayat saints of the 16th century espousing the Advaita school in Hindu philosophy; transcribed from a palm-leaf manuscript preserved in the Karnatak University.

In the debate about human bio-sampling the interests of patients and other sample donors are believed to stand against the interests of scientists and of their freedom of research. Scientists want efficient access to and use of human biological samples. Patients and other donors of blood or tissue materials want protection of their integrity. This dichotomy is reflected in the Swedish law on biobanks, which came into effect 1 January 2003. In this article I argue that if the basic interest (...) of scientists using human biological samples is in increasing knowledge and developing better treatments, and if the concept ‘integrity’ is properly understood, then sample donors should also be interested in promotion of efficiency as well as in the protection of their integrity. The basic premise of this argument is that donors of samples have interests related to the donation and use of samples as well as to the use of the results of the research, that is, new medical products and treatments. They have a role both as donors or participants in research and as end users of the research. I conclude that if (i) access to information acquired through biobank research is strictly limited to researchers, (ii) the information is protected by secrecy safeguards through coding and (iii) the procedures governing the research are open to public and democratic control, then most research using human biobanks may be carried out on the basis of making general information available when collecting biological samples, without further contact with participants. (shrink)

It is not contoversial to state that acts of fraud do not belong in the academic world. What is debated is the best way to minimise the risk of fraudulent behaviour. Broadly speaking there are two different approaches to this problem. They differ with regard to whether the main focus is on internal or external control. In this article I argue that the main emphasis should be on internal structures in order to achieve the desired end. Only when the internal (...) structures are in place is it meaningful to adopt external, supportive means to the same end. Invitation to the academic project as such, education and training in research ethics and good research practice, the implementation of good documentation procedures and the implementation of a procedure for investigation of suspicions of fraud which is characterised by efficiency, impartiality and competence are the four primary ingredients in the cure. The first three are suggested to build up the necessary foundation before a structure of investigation procedures are established. (shrink)

The mouthparts of anuran tadpoles are highly derived compared to those of caecilians or salamanders. The suprarostral cartilages support the tadpole's upper beak; the infrarostral cartilages support the lower beak. Both supra‐ and infrarostral cartilages are absent in other vertebrates. These differences reflect the evolutionary origin of a derived feeding mode in anuran tadpoles. We suggest that these unique cartilages stem from the evolution of new articulations within preexisting cartilages, rather than novel cartilage condensations. We propose testing this hypothesis through (...) a search for similarities in the development of the suprarostral and infrarostral cartilage articulations and of the primary jaw joint. In Xenopus, the gene zax is expressed in a region corresponding to the infrarostral cartilage. This gene is related to the bapx1‐gene, which regulates jaw joint development. Further investigation of these genes, as well as other genes with joint‐related functions, in anuran craniofacial development may provide a connection between the morphological diversity seen in the vertebrate head and the corresponding diversity in genetic regulatory processes. We believe that the evolution of larval jaws in anurans may shed light on the general evolutionary mechanisms of how new articulations, not only in the jaw region, could have arisen in the vertebrate skull. BioEssays 27: 526–532, 2005. © 2005 Wiley periodicals, Inc. (shrink)

**A newly revised edition of two seminal works on Imperial Rome** Undeniably one of Rome’s most important historians, Tacitus was also one of its most gifted. *The Agricola* is both a portrait of Julius Agricola-the most famous governor of Roman Britain and Tacitus’s respected father-in-law-and the first known detailed portrayal of the British Isles. In the *Germania*, Tacitus focuses on the warlike German tribes beyond the Rhine, often comparing the behavior of "barbarian" peoples favorably with the decadence and corruption of (...) Imperial Rome. (shrink)

October 13, 2006 This is the handout for an invited commentary on Richmond H. Thomason, Matthew Stone, and David DeVault, “Enlightened Update: A Computational..

This article reviews some of the theoretical notions and empirical phenomena which figure in current formal-semantic theories of focus. It also develops the connection between “alternative semantics” and “givenness” accounts of focus interpretation.