This book develops a theory of existential security. It demonstrates that the publics of virtually all advanced industrial societies have been moving toward more secular orientations during the past half century, but also that the world as a whole now has more people with traditional religious views than ever before. This second edition expands the theory and provides new and updated evidence from a broad perspective and in a wide range of countries. This confirms that religiosity persists most strongly among (...) vulnerable populations, especially in poorer nations and in failed states. Conversely, a systematic erosion of religious practices, values and beliefs has occurred among the more prosperous strata in rich nations. (shrink)

Background In April 2019, our hospital transitioned to an electronic patient record system and patient portal. MyGOSH enables young people aged 12 years or older and their parents to access results, documentation, appointments, and to communicate with their care team. Aims A focus group was conducted to explore the ethical and legal considerations of young people and their parents using a patient portal from the perspective of hospital Ethics Committee members. Participants and research context Members of the hospital Paediatric Bioethics (...) Centre were recruited. Written informed consent was provided by all participants. Research design The focus group discussion was recorded, transcribed verbatim and analysed using thematic analysis. Ethical considerations Health Research Authority Research Ethics Committee Approval was granted by London Southeast REC. Results Four themes, and sub-themes, were identified: granting access – complexities of assessing competence/capacity, exclusion from MyGOSH due to non-disclosure of diagnosis, and truth-telling; inequalities resulting in inequities – complexities of inequity in access; responding to change – providing support and managing expectations; engagement, empowerment and understanding – data safety, empowering young people to take ownership of their health data, a one-size fits all system may not meet the needs of all families, and early engagement with young people/parents. Discussion Giving families portal access can increase engagement, empowering them to be more involved in care, yet poses challenges for all. Complexities exist in the assessment for portal access, and supporting and managing user expectations whilst providing an equitable service. Conclusions Ongoing support is required for all stakeholders following patient portal implementation to navigate the ethical and legal complexities, and to promote equity and portal utility for patient benefit. (shrink)

This thesis argues that the concept of contingency plays a central role in Althusser's recasting of Marxist philosophy and in his attempt to free the Marxist conception of history from concepts such as teleology, necessity and origin. It is critically placed both against those readings that see the emergence of the problematic of contingency only in the late Althusserm and to the most recent attempts to establish a straightforward continuity in Althusser's work. Drawing on published and unplublished material and covering (...) the entirety of Althusser's philosophical itinerary, the thesis seeks both to unearth the latent presence of this problematic, and its various implications, at each stage in the development of his work. It seeks to clarify, in a systematic way, the conceptual consequences of Althusser's commitment to contingency to the received understanding of his conceptions of structural change, ideology and political action. In particular, it argues that the standpoint of contingency allows us to locate in Althusser's 'Structural Marxism' the emergence of a 'logic of irruption' and structurally under-determined development of becoming. By emphasising this logic of contingency, it then seeks to produce a more nuanced assessment of his theory of ideology through the introduction of the concept of 'overinterpellation'. It finally attempts to distinguish two moments in the emergence of a materialism of contingency, first political and then philosophical; the problematic coexistence of these two aspects helps to account for the unstable charactoer of Althusser's late philosophical project. (shrink)

There is widespread concern that the nature of mass politics changed during the late twentieth century, and indeed changed largely for the worse, in most post-industrial societies. The standard arguments are familiar and widely rehearsed. You can hear them echoed everyday, whether in simple or sophisticated versions, in the press, scattered in political speeches, and published in academe. Some arguments are cast in strictly empirical terms, but many popular accounts have strongly normative overtones.The intellectual roots lie in the classics of (...) political sociology from the late 1950s and mid-1960s, captured perhaps just as the era of traditional party campaigns was passing, notably the work of Maurice Duverger on mass-branch political parties and Stein Rokkan and Seymour Martin Lipset on social cleavages and electoral behaviour.The standard view emphasizes the consequences of the significant shift from direct party-oriented linkages between citizens and the state towards indirect media-oriented linkages in representative democracies. In the traditional model of election campaigns that characterized the ‘golden age’ of West European party politics, running from the expansion of the mass franchise in the late nineteenth century until at least the mid-twentieth century, party loyalists characteristically selected parliamentary representatives based on long-standing social cleavages and stable ideological cues.The core cleavages of class, religion, region, and language gave a collective meaning to party support and united people with shared identities and social roots who strived for broadly similar political ideals. As illustrated in Figure 1, in traditional campaigns political leaders communicated with grass-roots party loyalists via elected representatives and core party activists, using direct face-to-face channels of persuasion, organization and mobilization, such as local meetings, party newsletters, candidate pamphlets, doorstep canvassing, and town-hall speeches, supplemented by partisan newspapers.Collective organizations and traditional interest groups such as unions and churches, local cooperatives, community groups, and workers’ clubs, mobilized many citizens at the margins of political power and linked their interests to political parties. Support by party loyalists was regarded as a sign of trust in the ability of elected leaders to translate their programmatic principles into concrete policy actions. (shrink)

Can parties such as the Swedish Democrats, the Jobbik Movement for a Better Hungary, the UK Independence Party and the Italian Lega Nord all be classified consistently as part of the same family? Part I of this study summarizes the conceptual framework arguing that the traditional post-war Left-Right cleavage in the electorate and party competition has faded, overlaid by divisions over authoritarian-libertarianism and populism-pluralism. Building on this, part II discusses the pros and cons of alternative methods for gathering evidence useful (...) to classify party positions. Part III describes how these are measured in this study, using Chapel Hill Expert Survey data in 2014 and 2017, and how they are mapped on a multidimensional issue space. Part IV compares European political parties on these scales – including Authoritarian-Populist parties – across a wide range of European countries. The conclusion in part V draws together the main findings and considers their implications. (shrink)

The metaphor of inscription on the body and the constitution of the body through those inscriptions have been widely used in recent attempts to theorize the body. Michel Foucault calls the body the ‘inscribed surface of events’ (Foucault, 1984: 83) and Elizabeth Grosz argues that the ‘female (or male) body can no longer be regarded as a fixed, concrete substance, a pre-cultural given. It has a determinate form only by being socially inscribed’ (Grosz, 1987: 2). The body becomes plastic, inscribed (...) with gender and cultural standards. While Foucault assumes the existence of a pre-inscriptive body, many theorists reject that idea and argue that ‘there is no recourse to a body that has not always already been interpreted by cultural meanings’ (Butler, 1990: 8). The constitution of the body rests in its inscription; the body becomes the text which is written upon it and from which it is indistinguishable. Starting from Catherine Belsey's suggestion that to ‘give the metaphor literal significance … is to … isolate it for contemplation’ (Belsey, 1988: 100), I discuss this metaphor of inscription, using cosmetic surgery as one literal example. While some theorists reject the pre-inscriptive body, the popular discourses advocating changing one's body assume unproblematically the existence of a body prior to these ‘elective’ procedures and reinforce the mind/body dualism which recent theory has sought so insistently to reject. I examine how popular discourses of body modification enforce a disciplinary regime (in Foucault's sense) and impose degrees of both literal and figurative inscription. Juxtaposing these two perspectives, I explore how both discourses efface the materiality of the body and the social contexts within which bodies are experienced and constructed. While the rhetoric surrounding cosmetic surgery denies the physical process and the economic constraints, so theories of the body which stress the body's plasticity also deny the materiality of that process and the cultural and social contexts within which the body is always placed. (shrink)

If there is one question which stands forth pre-eminently from among the many problems with which physical science bristles, it is that of the ontological status of the world which physics is exploring. What is reality in the eyes of science, and what are we to understand the physicist to mean when he refers to the “real world”? Can we agree with him when he assures us that physical science represents a progress towards pure truth? There seems to be a (...) certain reluctance on the part of twentieth-century physicists to face the ontological question which I think their colleagues of the nineteenth century did not share to the same extent. (shrink)

Objectives During the COVID-19 pandemic, healthcare resources including staff were diverted from paediatric services to support COVID-positive adult patients. Hospital visiting restrictions and reductions in face-to-face paediatric care were also enforced. We investigated the impact of service changes during the first wave of the pandemic on children and young people (CYP), to inform recommendations for maintaining their care during future pandemics. Design A multi-centre service evaluation was performed through a survey of consultant paediatricians working within the North Thames Paediatric Network, (...) a group of paediatric services in London. We investigated six areas: redeployment, visiting restrictions, patient safety, vulnerable children, virtual care and ethical issues. Results Survey responses were received from 47 paediatricians across six National Health Service Trusts. Children's right to health was largely believed to be compromised by the prioritisation of adults during the pandemic (81%; n = 33). Sub-optimal paediatric care due to redeployment (61%; n = 28) and the impact of visiting restrictions on CYP's mental health (79%; n = 37) were reported. Decreased hospital attendances of CYP were associated with parental fear of COVID-19 infection-risks (96%; n = 45) and government ‘stay at home’ advice (89%; n = 42). Reductions in face-to-face care were noted to have disadvantaged those with complex needs, disabilities and safeguarding concerns. Conclusion Consultant paediatricians perceived that paediatric care was compromised during the first wave of the pandemic, resulting in harm to children. This harm must be minimised in subsequent pandemics. Recommendations for future practice which were developed from our findings are provided, including maintaining face-to-face care for vulnerable children. (shrink)

Originally published in 1951, Homo Faberis an examination of the scientific outlook on human mental evolution through the lens of parapsychology. The book aims to undermine what its terms, the 'scientific outlook' examining the human interpretation of the world, and the preconceived scientific concepts that reality does not extend beyond the realm that our senses reveal. The book expands upon this and moves to examine the broader human understanding of the entire cosmos, challenging the scientific conception that this can be (...) grasped in principal by human intellect, arising from the chance combination of material particles. The book argues that the scientific outlook prevents humans from discovering in the Universe the meaning and purpose which are everywhere to be found if sought in the appropriate contemplative states of mind. This book provides a unique take on the examination of human psychology and the evolution of the brain from an alternative scientific stance. It will be of interest to anthropologists, historians and psychologists alike. will be of interest to anthropologists, historians and psychologists alike. (shrink)

BackgroundThe impact of healthcare ethics educational interventions on participants’ ethical development is rarely reported on and assessed; even less attention is paid to educational interventions that focus on end-of-life ethical issues.AimTo evaluate the impact of the Ethical Framework for End-of-Life Care Study Sessions Programme ( EOLCSS) on the moral development of healthcare staff who are delivering end-of-life care.MethodsThe EOLCSS was delivered to 20 multi-disciplinary health care staff in Ireland in May 2013. Effect on moral reasoning was measured pre and post (...) education using the Defining Issues Test 2 (DIT2). Inferential statistics were used to examine the relationships between change in DIT2 scores and demographic variables.ResultsParticipants experienced moral reasoning development following receipt of EOLCSS. Age and previous ethics education contributed to the observed changes in moral reasoning.ConclusionsReceipt of the EOLCSS may contribute to moral reasoning development in practicing healthcare professionals. (shrink)

A field K in a ring language $\mathcal {L}$ is finitely undecidable if $\mbox {Cons}(T)$ is undecidable for every nonempty finite $T \subseteq {\mathtt{Th}}(K; \mathcal {L})$. We extend a construction of Ziegler and (among other results) use a first-order classification of Anscombe and Jahnke to prove every NIP henselian nontrivially valued field is finitely undecidable. We conclude (assuming the NIP Fields Conjecture) that every NIP field is finitely undecidable. This work is drawn from the author’s PhD thesis [48, Chapter 3].

Gaia, the grand idea -- Good citizens or selfish genes? -- Life at the edge : lessons from extremophiles -- Temperature paces life -- Icehouse earth -- Given enough time -- Evolutionary innovations and environmental change -- A stable or an unstable world? -- The puzzle of life's long persistence -- Conclusions.

Mimesis, conflict, and crisis -- Plato's victimary culture -- Aristophanic Socrates: ready victim -- Foundation murder.

Discusses the Laws of Nature from the ecclesiastical view that, ultimately, Mankind must answer to a higher Being. In the Preface, the author refers to Philosophers such as Plato, Aristotle, Socrates, & Tully, as "Heathens".