This article presents an overview for clinician investigators on the concepts of decision-making capacity and vulnerability as related to human subjects research. Tools for capacity assessment and unacknowledged sources of vulnerability are discussed, and the practical gaps in current informed consent requirements related to impaired capacity and potential vulnerability are described. Options are suggested for research discussions when full regulatory consent is not possible and an exception from informed consent does not apply.

The ethical concept of Informed Consent provides individuals with the right and the opportunity to approve of events that will occur regarding his or her own person. In medicine, informed consent is obtained for treatment and for research participation. However, under some circumstances, prospective informed consent cannot be obtained because of the devastating clinical condition of the patient. In emergency circumstances, treatment is never withheld if obtaining informed consent from a critically ill person is not possible or if a delay (...) while seeking surrogates would further endanger life. In emergency research circumstances, waiving informed consent for study participation is fraught with additional ethical considerations. This article will review a presentation given at the June 2, 2006 conference entitled “The Ethics of Research in Emergency Medicine”. (shrink)

... PREFACE Paul Gochet (Liege) "[...] une entite physique ne peut etre envisagee que comme une sorte de concretisation, de consolidation locale dans un ...

Schopenhauer’s invective is legendary among philosophers, and is unmatched in the historical canon. But these complaints are themselves worthy of careful consideration: they are rooted in Schopenhauer’s philosophy of language, which itself reflects the structure of his metaphysics. This short chapter argues that Schopenhauer’s vitriol rewards philosophical attention; not because it expresses his critical take on Fichte, Hegel, Herbart, Schelling, and Schleiermacher, but because it neatly illustrates his philosophy of language. Schopenhauer’s epithets are not merely spiteful slurs; instead, they reflect (...) deep-seated theoretical and methodological commitments to transparency of exposition. (shrink)

‘Philosophical dialogue’ indicates both a form of philosophical inquiry and its corresponding literary genre. In its written form, it typically features two or more characters who engage in a discussion concerning morals, knowledge, as well as a variety of topics that can be widely labelled as ‘philosophical’. Our philosophical dialogue takes place in Krakow, Poland. It is a rainy morning and two strangers are waiting at a tram stop. One of them is dressed neatly, and cannot stop fidgeting with his (...) closed umbrella. The other was caught unprepared by the morning downpour and water is dripping from his worn, soaked jacket. (shrink)

Michel Weber, Éléments de routine ayurvédique. Autonomie, rituel et ascèse, Les Éditions Chromatika, 2021. (978-2-930517-82-7 ; pdf 978-2-930517-83-4 ; 104 pp., 14€) -/- L’Ayurvéda propose une philosophie de vie qui articule un vaste système métaphysique (une cosmologie théorique) avec une visée thérapeutique profonde (une anthropologie pratique). -/- À la croisée de la théorie et de la pratique, on trouve la routine (« dinacharya ») dont le but est de susciter l’individuation et la solidarité, c’est-à-dire l’autonomie (de chacun) respectueuse de la (...) communauté (de tous). Ce faisant, elle constitue une ascèse dont l’efficacité a été longuement éprouvée et rarement égalée. (shrink)

In Biro and Siegel we argued that a theory of argumentation mustfully engage the normativity of judgments about arguments, and we developedsuch a theory. In this paper we further develop and defend our theory.

Two experiments investigated whether infants represent goal‐directed actions of others in a way that allows them to draw inferences to unobserved states of affairs (such as unseen goal states or occluded obstacles). We measured looking times to assess violation of infants' expectations upon perceiving either a change in the actions of computer‐animated figures or in the context of such actions. The first experiment tested whether infants would attribute a goal to an action that they had not seen completed. The second (...) experiment tested whether infants would infer from an observed action the presence of an occluded object that functions as an obstacle. The looking time patterns of 12‐month‐olds indicated that they were able to make both types of inferences, while 9‐month‐olds failed in both tasks. These results demonstrate that, by the end of the first year of life, infants use the principle of rational action not only for the interpretation and prediction of goal‐directed actions, but also for making productive inferences about unseen aspects of their context. We discuss the underlying mechanisms that may be involved in the developmental change from 9 to 12 months of age in the ability to infer hypothetical (unseen) states of affairs in teleological action representations. (shrink)

Garssen and van Laar in effect concede our main criticism of the pragma-dialectical approach. The criticism is that the conclusions of arguments can be ‘P-D reasonable’ yet patently unreasonable, epistemically speaking. The concession consists in the claim that the theory “remains restricted to the investigation of standpoints in the light of particular sets of starting points” which are “up to individual disputants to create” and the admission that all the relevant terms of normative appraisal have been redefined. We also discuss (...) their criticisms of the epistemic account of argumentation and argument evaluation and raise some new questions about the approach they defend. (shrink)

It has been shown that, when observing an action, infants can rely on either outcome selection information (i.e., actions that express a choice between potential outcomes) or means selection information (i.e., actions that are causally efficient toward the outcome) in their goal attribution. However, no research has investigated the relationship between these two types of information when they are present simultaneously. In an experiment that addressed this question directly, we found that when outcome selection information could disambiguate the goal of (...) the action (e.g., the action is directed toward one of two potential targets), but means selection information could not (i.e., the action is not efficiently adjusted to the situational constraints), 7- and 9-month-old infants did not attribute a goal to an observed action. This finding suggests that means selection information takes primacy over outcome selection information. The early presence of this bias sheds light on the nature of the notion of goal in action understanding. (shrink)

Richard Feldman’s well-known principle about disagreement and evidence – usually encapsulated in the slogan, ‘evidence of evidence is evidence’, (EEE) – invites the question, what should a rational believer do when faced by such evidence, especially when the disagreement is with an epistemic peer? The question has been the subject of much controversy. However, it has been recently suggested both that the principle is subject to counterexamples and that it is trivial. If either is the case, the question of what (...) to do in the face of evidence of evi- dence becomes less pressing. We contend that even if one or the other of these suggestions is right about (EEE) as a general principle about evidence, they leave it untouched insofar as it plays a role in the debates about the rational way to respond to disagreement and, in particular, to disagreement by an epistemic peer. This is because in such cases the evidence about which one has evidence and which is supposed to provide evidence against one's belief is the mere fact of someone’s disagreeing, rather than something that is related to the content of the proposition about which the parties disagree. We go on to argue that, so understood, the principle is false. (shrink)

In this paper we defend a particular version of the epistemic approach to argumentation. We advance some general considerations in favor of the approach and then examine the ways in which different versions of it play out with respect to the theory of fallacies, which we see as central to an understanding of argumentation. Epistemic theories divide into objective and subjective versions. We argue in favor of the objective version, showing that it provides a better account than its subjectivist rival (...) of the central fallacy of begging the question. We suggest that the strengths of the objective epistemic theory of fallacies provide support for the epistemic approach to argumentation more generally. (shrink)

This collection of previously unpublished essays on Spinoza provides a representative sample of new and interesting research on the philosopher. Spinoza's philosophy still has an underserved reputation for being obscure and incomprehensible. In these chapters, Spinoza is seen mostly as a metaphysician who tried to pave the way for the new science. The essays investigate several themes, notably Spinoza's monism, the nature of the individual, the relation between mind and body, and his place in 17th century philosophy including his relation (...) to Descartes and Leibniz. The top scholars working on Spinoza today are all represented, including John Carriero, Michael Della Rocca, and Don Garrett. (shrink)

This volume is a wonderful introduction to Foucault and a testimony to the deep humanity of the man himself.

First published: 2010; Previous edition: 2012..

Il y a des questions concernant le droit auxquelles il n'est pas possible de répondre par la simple analyse du droit en vigueur et que pourtant ni les juristes, ni les philosophes ne peuvent éviter. Ce sont celles qui font l'objet de la philosophie du droit. Elles concernent notamment la définition du droit et d'abord celle du droit en vigueur lui-même, des rapports que le droit entretien avec d'autres phénomènes, comme le pouvoir, la force ou la morale, la possibilité d'une (...) science du droit, la structure du système juridique ou encore la spécificité du raisonnement juridique et des concepts employés par les juristes. (shrink)

A widely held view has it that sometimes there is more than one thing in exactly the same place, as is the case, allegedly, with a clay statue. There is the statue, but there also is a piece of clay—both obviously in the same place yet distinct in virtue of their differing properties, if only modal ones. Those holding this view—pluralists—often describe the relation between such objects as one of constitution, with the piece of clay being said to constitute the (...) statue. In the first part of this paper I consider ways in which the supposed relation of constitution may be understood. I conclude that the only coherent interpretation of ‘x constitutes y’ is one on which it is presupposed that x and y are identical. While this does not, by itself, show that pluralism is false, it is something that should make us suspicious of it. In the second part of the paper I propose a simple way with the temporal and modal facts the pluralist appeals to, showing that they do not force us into accepting his puzzling doctrine. (shrink)

A Political Economy of Power is a comprehensive and contextualized account of ordoliberalism in English. It eliminates a long-standing deficit in the historiography of economics. The book has five...

The object of this paper is to argue that the relationship between intentions and meaning has been misconstrued by some influential recent theories of meaning. The theories I have in mind derive from earlier work by H. P. Grice, but have undergone extensive development and modification in the hands of Grice himself,, Stephen Schiffer, Jonathan Bennett and others. There have been, during much the same period, developments of Austin’s work on speech acts in which the same Gricean influence is unmistakable; (...) indeed, such influence has affected interpretations of Austin’s work itself, by such writers as Strawson, Searle, and Vendler. (shrink)

ABSTRACT: While we applaud several aspects of Lilian Bermejo-Luque's novel theory of argumentation and especially welcome its epistemological dimensions, in this discussion we raise doubts about her conception of argumentation, her account of argumentative goodness, and her treatments of the notion of “giving reasons” and of justification.RESUMEN: Aunque aprobamos varios aspectos de la nueva teoría de la argumentación propuesta por Lilian Bermejo Luque y, en particular, su dimensión epistemológica, en este debate planteamos algunas dudas sobre su concepción de la argumentación, (...) su análisis de la bondad argumentativa y su tratamiento de la noción de “dar razones” y de justificación. (shrink)

In this essay we develop a theory of discourse reports. The theory provides a common set of structural and interpretive principles that together account for the truth conditions of direct, indirect and mixed reports. A distinguishing feature of our view is the assumption that the complement sentence of a report divides exclusively and exhaustively into regions that characterize the content of the reported utterance and regions that characterize the form of the utterance. This assumption implies that mixed reports do not (...) imply full direct or indirect reports. We discuss a classical David‐sonian proposal by Herman Cappelen and Ernest Lepore which conflicts with our theory on this latter point and show that it is unable to account for many of the phenomena we discuss. (shrink)

In defending the startling claim that that there are no artifacts, indeed, no inanimate material objects of the familiar sort, Peter van Inwagen has argued that truths about such putative objects can be paraphrased as truths that do not make essential reference to them and that we should endorse only the ontological commitments of the paraphrase. In this note I argue that the paraphrases van Inwagen recommends cannot meet his condition. Read one way, they lose us some truths. Read another, (...) they entail the existence of the very objects they are supposed to rid us of. However, we need not share van Inwagen's distaste for the latter: to say that they exist is not to say that anything exists in addition to the simples composing them. (shrink)

In an age of internet scrolling and skimming, where concentration and attention are fast becoming endangered skills, it is timely to think about the act of reading and the many forms that it can take. Slow Philosophy: Reading Against the Institution makes the case for thinking about reading in philosophical terms. Boulous Walker argues that philosophy involves the patient work of thought; in this it resembles the work of art, which invites and implores us to take our time and to (...) engage with the world. At its best, philosophy teaches us to read slowly; in fact, philosophy is the art of reading slowly – and this inevitably clashes with many of our current institutional practices and demands. Slow reading shares something in common with contemporary social movements, such as that devoted to slow food; it offers us ways to engage the complexity of the world. With the help of writers as diverse as Nietzsche, Wittgenstein, Woolf, Adorno, Levinas, Critchley, Beauvoir, Le Dœuff, Irigaray, Cixous, Weil, and others, Boulous Walker offers a foundational text in the emerging field of slow philosophy, one that explores the importance of unhurried time in establishing our institutional encounters with complex and demanding works. (shrink)

A major virtue of the Pragma-Dialectical theory of argumentation is its commitment to reasonableness and rationality as central criteria of argumentative quality. However, the account of these key notions offered by the originators of this theory, Frans van Eemeren and Rob Grootendorst, seems to us problematic in several respects. In what follows we criticize that account and suggest an alternative, offered elsewhere, that seems to us to be both independently preferable and more in keeping with the epistemic approach to arguments (...) and argumentation we favor. (shrink)

Language and the birth of "literature." A preface to transgression. Language to infinity. The father's "no." Fantasia of the library.--Counter-memory: the philosophy of difference. What is an author? Nietzsche, genealogy, history. Theatrum philosophicum.--Practice: knowledge and power. History of systems of thought. Intellectuals and power. Revolutionary action: "until now.".

A number of writers have deployed the notion of a point of view as a key to the allegedly theory-resistant subjective aspect of experience. I examine that notion more closely than is usually done and find that it cannot support the anti-objectivist's case. Experience may indeed have an irreducibly subjective aspect, but the notion of a point of view cannot be used to show that it does.

This paper explores what happens when artists fail to execute their goals. I argue that taxonomies of failure in general, and of failed-art in particular, should focus on the attempts which generate the failed-entity, and that to do this they must be sensitive to an attempt’s orientation. This account of failed-attempts delivers three important new insights into artistic practice: there can be no accidental art, only deliberate and incidental art; art’s intention-dependence entails the possibility of performative failure, but not of (...) failed-art; and art’s intention-dependence is perfectly compatible with the role that luck plays in artistic creation. (shrink)