Property is a complex sign in semiotics. It is also the source of tension and conflict in law. This paper examines property in triadic terms consisting of what Charles S. Peirce would identify as the icon (firstness), the index (secondness), and the symbol (thirdness). From this perspective the paper explores the ideas of place, space, and time at the iconic level of the sign of property. Discussion addresses the way in which property serves as a coded system for communicating information (...) about a given community’s values and its cultural-interpretive hierarchy. Much like an aboriginal songline, property functions as a way of imprinting the land with impressions of social ordering related to place, space, and time. In the context of global trade we therefore observe property conflicts which are sometimes not so much about the technical language of property as they are about tensions among the embedded values in competing signs of property. (shrink)

This exciting volume brings together the latest work of 26 recognized experts in clinical neuropsychiatry, neuropsychology, neuroscience, and neuroimaging.

Through discourse with international groups of physicians, we conducted a cross-cultural analysis of the types of ethical dilemmas physicians face. Qualitative analysis was used to categorise the dilemmas into seven themes, which we compared among the physicians by country of practice. These themes were a-theoretically-driven and grounded heavily within the text. We then subjected the dilemmas to an analysis of moral intensity, which represents an important theoretical perspective of ethical decision making. These constructs represent salient determinants of ethical behaviour and (...) our cross-cultural sample afforded us the opportunity to consider both the pragmatic aspects of culture, as they are perceived by physicians, as well as the theory-driven concept of moral intensity. By examining both culture and moral intensity, we hope to better elucidate the complexities of ethical decision-making determinants among physicians in their daily practice. Doing so may potentially have practical implications for ethics training of medical students and foreign physicians. (shrink)

While pain is common among seniors, it is not adequately treated or managed. In particular, pain in seniors with dementia is often undertreated and undermanaged. Although the undertreatment of pain among persons with cognitive impairments represents a serious ethical concern for pain clinicians, most writers in the area explain the undertreatment of pain by focusing on issues related to liability, fears of addiction to opioids, and erroneous beliefs that pain is a normal part of the ageing process. We argue that (...) the philosophical notion of personhood must also be given careful attention when considering the problem of pain undermanagement. In this paper, we consider the undertreatment of pain among seniors with dementia, while focusing on the ontology of relationships and on existential philosophy. Moreover, we outline a series of recommendations to help minimize the probability of pain undertreatment in this population and to encourage considerations relating to personhood when treating people with dementia. (shrink)

The options in a decision problem generally have outcomes with common features. Putting aside the common features simplifies deliberations, but the simplification requires a philosophical justification that this book provides.

Within any organization (e.g. a hospital or clinic) the perception of the way things operate may vary dramatically as a function of one’s location in the organizational hierarchy as well as one’s professional discipline. Interorganizational variability depends on organizational coherence, safety, and stability. In this four-nation (Canada, Ireland, Australia, and Korea) qualitative study of 42 nurses, we explored their perception of how ethical decisions are made, the nurses’ hospital role, and the extent to which their voices were heard. These nurses (...) suggested that their voices were silenced (often voluntarily) or were not expressed in terms of ethical decision making. Finally, they perceived that their approach to ethical decision making differed from physicians. (shrink)

Zusammenfassungen der Referate in französischer Sprache.

An agent often does not have precise probabilities or utilities to guide resolution of a decision problem. I advance a principle of rationality for making decisions in such cases. To begin, I represent the doxastic and conative state of an agent with a set of pairs of a probability assignment and a utility assignment. Then I support a decision principle that allows any act that maximizes expected utility according to some pair of assignments in the set. Assuming that computation of (...) an option's expected utility uses comprehensive possible outcomes that include the option's risk, no consideration supports a stricter requirement. (shrink)

Schelling und Hegel benutzen in ihren philosophischen Texten mathematische und naturwissenschaftliche Modelle wie Unendlichkeit oder Gleichgewicht. Die Strukturen dieser Begriffe liefern einen Massstab fur den Vergleich der Positionen Schellings und Hegels, der fur Schellings Identitatsphilosophie und Hegels erste Jenaer Schriften durchgefuhrt wird. Als wichtigstes Resultat kann eine grundlegende Differenz zwischen beiden Positionen bereits um 1801 nachgewiesen und gezeigt werden, dass diese auf einer unterschiedlichen Auffassung der Rolle des Absoluten beruht.

Die MISCELLANEA MEDIAEVALIA präsentieren seit ihrer Gründung durch Paul Wilpert im Jahre 1962 Arbeiten des Thomas-Instituts der Universität zu Köln. Das Kernstück der Publikationsreihe bilden die Akten der im zweijährigen Rhythmus stattfindenden Kölner Mediaevistentagungen, die vor über 50 Jahren von Josef Koch, dem Gründungsdirektor des Instituts, ins Leben gerufen wurden. Der interdisziplinäre Charakter dieser Kongresse prägt auch die Tagungsakten: Die MISCELLANEA MEDIAEVALIA versammeln Beiträge aus allen mediävistischen Disziplinen - die mittelalterliche Geschichte, die Philosophie, die Theologie sowie die Kunst- und (...) Literaturwissenschaften sind Teile einer Gesamtbetrachtung des Mittelalters. (shrink)

The first book-length study of a leading tenth-century Ismaili theoretician Abu Ya'qub al-Sijistani.

An important factor that leads governments to engage in public service contracts with nonprofit organizations is the belief that they share similar ethical and value orientations that will allow governments to reduce monitoring costs. However the notion of the existence of similarities in ethical climate has not been systematically examined. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the ethical climate in government and nonprofit sectors and to determine the extent to which similarities (and differences) exist in ethical climate dimensions. (...) Using survey data and structural equation modeling technique, the factor structure equivalence and measurement invariance of the ethical climate in the two sectors are tested. Results indicate that while there is a significant overlap in shared perception of ethical climate dimensions, there are also key differences between the two sectors. The outcome of this research provides important preliminary insights for public policy makers in government to better understand the implications of using the nonprofit sector for service delivery. (shrink)

The centrality of death rituals has in anthropologically informed studies of Buddhism been little documented. The current volume brings together a range of perspectives on Buddhist death rituals including ethnographic, textual, historical and theoretically informed accounts, and presents the diversity of the Buddhist funeral cultures of mainland Southeast Asia and China. It arises out of the University of Bristol's Centre for Buddhist Studies research project Buddhist Death Rituals in Southeast Asia and China, funded by the United Kingdom's Arts and Humanities (...) Research Council. This project involved extensive new research in Thailand, Laos and China. Other items from that project included several public exhibitions, extensive stills photographs, and several video films. The project-team produced two 30 minutes films on the ghost festival in Laos and China, one on urban funerals in Chiang Mai (Thailand) and several shorter clips dealing with funeral cultures in Laos, Thailand and China. Most of this material (and an extensive bibliography on the topic) is available free of charge from the project website located at the webpage of the Department of Theology and Religious Studies (Centre for Buddhist Studies) at the University of Bristol. (shrink)

This article contends that the evolution toward interdisciplinary collaboration that we are witnessing in the sciences must also occur in the humanities to ensure their very survival. That is, humanists must be open to working with scientists and social scientists interested in similar research questions and vice versa. Digital humanities is a positive first step. Complexity science should be the next step. Even though much of the ground-breaking work in complexity science has been done in the natural sciences and mathematics, (...) it can, if critically adapted, provide the needed metaphor for a broad integration of disciplines, humanistic and otherwise. Given its almost a-disciplinary nature, a complexity approach to the research problems in the humanities necessarily breaks down silos. Moreover, it can restore and reframe the seamless intellectual fabric sought by researchers before the atomization of the various disciplines in the nineteenthcentury academy. (shrink)

In Canada, all institutions that conduct publicly funded, animal-based research are expected to comply with the standards of the Canadian Council on Animal Care (CCAC). The CCAC promotes the use of animal alternatives, and uses the “3Rs” principles of Replacement, Reduction, and Refinement as a guiding ethical framework. To ensure these standards are strictly enforced, internal ethics committees at each institution are tasked with creating “Animal Use Protocol” (AUP) forms to be filled out by researchers and evaluated by the committees. (...) In this paper, we assess AUP forms from Canada’s top research universities to identify the extent to which they conform to, or advance, the 3Rs framework. Our results show various deficiencies that call into question the quality of information elicited by these forms. To remedy this, we recommend that the CCAC assume responsibility for creating a standardized 3Rs section to be used on all AUP forms. In addition, proposal forms and experimental results for all research at CCAC-certified institutions should be digitized and uploaded into a national database. We argue that this would offer higher quality information for researchers at the experimental design stage, while strengthening the CCAC’s mandate to be accountable to the Canadian public. (shrink)

In the realm of corporate leadership and organisational theory, the work of the German philosopher, Martin Heidegger, has received little if any attention from scholars and practitioners alike. We argue in this paper that Heidegger’s work has an important message to convey with regard to the ability and perhaps the obligation of leaders to enable the ‘releasement’ and ‘opening up’ of the members of an organisational community to their ‘authentic possibilities’ within the realm of the work environment. We apply the (...) Heideggerian concepts of calculative and reflective thinking, as well as his philosophy of ‘being’ to the role of authentic leaders and their leadership possibilities. And we distinguish this approach to leadership from that which we identify as ‘inauthentic’ in which both leaders and members of organisations are alienated from their possibilities. (shrink)

In the realm of corporate leadership and organisational theory, the work of the German philosopher, Martin Heidegger, has received little if any attention from scholars and practitioners alike. We argue in this paper that Heidegger’s work has an important message to convey with regard to the ability and perhaps the obligation of leaders to enable the ‘releasement’ and ‘opening up’ of the members of an organisational community to their ‘authentic possibilities’ within the realm of the work environment. We apply the (...) Heideggerian concepts of calculative and reflective thinking, as well as his philosophy of ‘being’ to the role of authentic leaders and their leadership possibilities. And we distinguish this approach to leadership from that which we identify as ‘inauthentic’ in which both leaders and members of organisations are alienated from their possibilities. (shrink)

Extends the ideas of social constructivism to the philosophy of mathematics, developing a powerful critique of traditional absolutist conceptions of mathematics, and proposing a reconceptualization of the philosophy of mathematics.

Heidegger’s two modes of thinking, calculative and meditative, were used as the thematic basis for this qualitative study of physicians from seven countries . Focus groups were conducted in each country with 69 physicians who cared for the elderly. Results suggest that physicians perceived ethical issues primarily through the lens of calculative thinking with emphasis on economic concerns. Meditative responses represented 24% of the statements and were mostly generated by Canadian physicians whose patients typically were not faced with economic barriers (...) to treatment due to Canada’s universal health care system. (shrink)

Some secrets are fine to keep to ourselves, and others are not. At first glance, Clark’s secret seems to be fine, but it may not be if we look further into it. We all know Clark’s big secret: he is Superman. Secrets always belong to someone. This is one of the things that distinguish secrets from information we simply don’t have. Secrecy is morally neutral and can be used for good or bad ends. One other closely linked concept we must (...) distinguish from secrecy is privacy. Clark Kent is a citizen (sort of), but Superman is purely a public persona. In Superman, vol. 2, #2 (February 1987), Lex Luthor figured out Superman’s secret. Superman has confided his true identity to the Kents and Lana. In Clark’s case, there are several reasons for his secret, but the most compelling one is to protect his loved ones. (shrink)

This chapter examines the concepts of respect, self‐respect, and mastery and servitude to show that Wong does nothing wrong, and in fact something exceedingly noble, in dedicating his life to the service of Doctor Stephen Strange. Manservants and butlers are a notable element of comic book stories. Batman has Alfred, Iron Man and the Avengers have Jarvis, and of course, Doctor Strange has Wong. Wong's servitude leads to a more robust self‐consciousness and awareness of the world, and self‐consciousness is an (...) important foundation for self‐respect, which defeats any accusation of servility. Through his work for Doctor Strange, Wong better understands himself and the role he plays in protecting the world, which in turn makes him more aware of why he is worthy of respect and why the world is worth saving. (shrink)

Genocide results from a complex process of intentions, ideologies, and actions that are put in motion to achieve an outcome that benefits the perpetrators. Genocide is part of the history of the United States and of the Fire Nation in Avatar: The Last Airbender that is typically unquestioned and underplayed. Avatar: The Last Airbender opening refers to the old days, a time of peace when the Avatar kept the balance between the Water Tribes, Earth Kingdom, Fire Nation, and Air Nomads. (...) The United States' intentional extermination of diverse peoples is an inseparable part of the processes used to build its continental empire. Seen as a means to securing the land, destroying Indigenous peoples is understood as a necessity, rather than a tactic of empire building. The foundations of the Fire Nation and the United States were built on unstable grounds, causing one to collapse and the other to wrestle with a reckoning on its origins. (shrink)

In "The Long Bright Dark", Rust Cohle calls human self‐consciousness "a tragic misstep in evolution". This chapter considers the relationship between selfconsciousness and the ability to "deny the programming", or free will. Cohle's programming theory depends on a conception of free will similar to Sartre's. Cohle claims that people are programmed— largely, it seems, by evolution. They are biological puppets. It also seems that, at least for Schopenhauer and Spinoza, overcoming the ignorance is the key to escape, the freedom. In (...) other words, the only way to be free is to become more conscious. On the surface, it seems that they agree with Cohle. If the light is winning, at least in the little corner of the universe, it is because of consciousness. Even if the light isn't winning, it is here, for a while, because of consciousness. (shrink)