Background: Advocacy is an important role of psychiatric nurses because their patients are ethically, socially, and legally vulnerable. This study of Japanese expert psychiatric nurses’ judgments of interventions for patient advocacy will show effective strategies for ethical nursing practice and their relationship with Japanese culture. Objectives: This article explores Japanese psychiatric nurses’ decision to intervene as a patient advocate and examine their ethical, cultural, and social implications. Research design: Using semi-structured interviews verbatim, themes of the problems that required interventions were (...) inductively summarized by a qualitative analysis and their contexts and nursing judgments were examined. Participants and research context: The participants were 21 nurses with 5 or more years of experience in psychiatric nursing. Ethical considerations: The research was approved by Institutional Review Board of research site and study facilities. The participants gave written informed consent. Findings: Analysis of 45 cases showed that nurses decided to intervene when surrounding people’s opinions impeded patients’ safety, healthcare professionals’ policies impeded patients’ decision-making, own violent behaviors impeded treatment and welfare services for patients, own or families’ low acceptance of illness impeded patients’ self-actualization, inappropriate treatment or care impeded patients’ liberty, and their families abused patients’ property. Discussion: To solve conflicts between patients and their surrounding people, the nurses sought reconciliation between them, which is in accordance with Japanese cultural norms respecting harmony. When necessary, however, they protected patients’ rights against cultural norms. Therefore, their judgments cannot be explained by cultural norms alone. Conclusion: The findings indicate that the nurses’ judgments were based on respect for patients’ rights apart from cultural norms, and they first sought solutions fitting the cultural norms before other solutions. This seems to be an ethical, effective strategy if advocates know the culture in depth. (shrink)

This paper investigates the effects of group interaction in a storytelling situation for children using two robots: a reader robot and a listener robot as a side-participant. We developed a storytelling system that consists of a reader robot, a listener robot, a display, a gaze model, a depth sensor, and a human operator who responds and provides easily understandable answers to the children’s questions. We experimentally investigated the effects of using a listener robot and either one or two children during (...) a storytelling situation on the children’s preferences and their speech activities. Our experimental results showed that the children preferred storytelling with the listener robot. Although two children obviously produced more speech than one child, the listener robot discouraged the children’s speech regardless of whether one or two were listening. (shrink)

Under certain conditions, the cell cycle can be arrested for a long period of time. Vertebrate oocytes are arrested at G2 phase, while somatic cells arrest at G0 phase. In both cells, nuclei have lost the ability to initiate DNA synthesis. In a pair of recently published papers,1,2 Méchali and colleagues and Coué and colleagues have clarified how frog oocytes prevent untimely DNA synthesis during the long G2 arrest. Intriguingly, they found only Cdc6 is responsible for the inability of immature (...) oocytes to replicate DNA. Cdc6 is a key component for replication licensing, and for G0 cells to re‐enter the proliferative stage. Strikingly similar strategies for preventing the untimely replication in both cells suggest that the suppression of replication licensing is a universal mechanism for securing the prolonged arrest of the cell cycle. BioEssays 25:313–316, 2003. © 2003 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. (shrink)

Research has documented the influence of ALS patients families’ attitudes on patients’ decision to accept or reject TIV, a treatment that in many cases will allow them to live long enough to experience locked-in syndrome ; under Japanese law the use of a ventilator cannot be terminated once it is essential to a patient’s survival, so to choose TIV means to choose the possibility of entering a locked-in state. Previous studies have not, however, elucidated the changes in family members’ attitudes (...) that take place after they receive pertinent information about the social systems and services available to them. This study aims to fill this gap by collecting and analyzing patients’ and family members’ narratives. In Japan, about 30% of ALS patients utilize TIV. This rate is much higher than in most other developed countries. Patients’ narratives illuminate the psychological and especially the contextual factors of their decision-making. Many Japanese patients who currently use a ventilator say that their family members encouraged them to prolong their lives through ventilation. These family members have done so because patients are able to use long-term ventilation for only ¥1000 per month, and can also access the latest communication devices and round the clock caregiver services in their homes at very low cost. Japanese caregivers who are supported by social systems and services including communication assistance, empowering factors such as patients’ associations, care provided by people outside the patient’s family, and a public nursing care system are able to encourage patients to decide to use longterm ventilation. (shrink)

In Book One of the Treatise of Human Nature, Hume seems to acknowledge the existence of both internal and external worlds, in which perceptions, objects, and bodies, exist. In particular, Hume seems directly to affirm the existence of extra-mental bodies, when he says at the beginning of the section "Of scepticism with regard to the senses," "We may well ask, What causes induce us to believe in theexistence of body? but 'tis in vain to ask, whether there be body or (...) not? That is a point, which we must take for granted in all our reasonings" (T 1.4.2.1; SBN 187).1 Furthermore, he thinks that the existence of body must be taken for granted because it is "an affair of too great importance to be trusted to our .. (shrink)

William James criticizes Hume for failing to adhere to the strictly empiricist method when he postulates discrete constituents of experience—which Hume calls perceptions—thereby making our experience a train of disconnected pieces. James argues that the discontinuity of experience in Hume results in part from his failure to recognize the immediate presence of relations in experience.1 Emphasizing a continuity and unity of experience, James thus differentiates his empiricism from Hume's as being radical in the sense that it recognizes relations as 'real' (...) parts of experience just as are things that are experienced to be so related.2 This raises a question concerning the experiential status of relations in Hume: is .. (shrink)

In A Treatise of Human Nature, Hume seems to use the term "object" to refer to different things in different contexts, including impressions, ideas, perceptions, and bodies. Does he ever use the term "external bodies" to refer to things in the extra-mental world? I argue that what Hume means by external bodies when he affirms their existence is not externally existing, material objects that are somehow presented to the mind or presented in impressions. Rather, the bodies that Hume affirms are, (...) at bottom, no different from perceptions, but they can be distinguished from merely internal perceptions like pain or pleasure in terms of their "different relations, connexions, and durations" (T 1.2.6.9; SBN 68). I conclude that in order to be consistent, given the various statements he makes throughout Book One of the Treatise, Hume must reject the philosopher's doctrine of double existence of perceptions and objects and affirm only the existence of perceptions, sometimes conceived as internally existing and mind-dependent and sometimes conceived as existing outside and independent of the mind. (shrink)

William James criticizes Hume for failing to adhere to the strictly empiricist method when he postulates discrete constituents of experience — which Hume calls perceptions — thereby making our experience a train of disconnected pieces. James argues that the discontinuity of experience in Hume results in part from his failure to recognize the immediate presence of relations in experience. Emphasizing a continuity and unity of experience, James thus differentiates his empiricism from Hume's as being radical in the sense that it (...) recognizes relations as ‘real’ parts of experience just as are things that are experienced to be so related. This raises a question concerning the experiential status of relations in Hume: is James correct in accusing Hume of failing to notice the experiential reality of relations? Does Hume deny the experiential reality of relations entirely? Or does Hume downplay the experiential reality of relations and come to take them merely as products of the imagination, hence not ‘real,’ for certain theoretical reasons? (shrink)

In this paper I want to do the following things. First I want to show that in the part of the Theaetetus where the relationship between knowledge and perception is examined, the concept of knowledge that is in question is very clearly characterized. We are left in no doubt as to what is to count as knowing. Secondly I want to unravel in some detail the case that Socrates puts on Protagoras’ behalf where he draws on what Protagoras actually wrote (...) (151 E-152C); as opposed to what he may have taught secretly to his pupils (152C-160D). Thirdly I wish to argue that if we let the dialogue speak for itself, it is manifest that this case put up on Protagoras’ behalf at 151 E-152C is not overthrown; it is not even shaken. (shrink)

This study aims to unveil the process of whistleblowing. Two nursing staff members who worked in a psychiatric hospital convicted of large-scale wrongdoing were interviewed. Data were analyzed using a modified grounded theory approach. Analysis of the interviews demonstrated that they did not decide to whistleblow when they were suspicious or had an awareness of wrongdoing. They continued to work, driven by appreciation, affection, and a sense of duty. Their decision to whistleblow was ultimately motivated by firm conviction. Shortly after (...) whistleblowing, wavering emotions were observed, consisting of a guilty conscience, fear of retribution, and pride, which subsequently transformed to stable emotions containing a sense of relief and regret for delayed action. It is necessary for nurses to recognize that their professional responsibility is primarily to patients, not to organizations. Nurses should also have professional judgment about appropriate allegiance and actions. (shrink)

In the Appendix to A Treatise of Human Nature, Hume famously retracts his account of personal identity by confessing that it involves a profound problem he cannot solve, which I have elsewhere identified and called the Bundling Problem. Neither of the two possible solutions that Hume himself considers in the Appendix is a viable option for him by his own lights, which might suggest that any successful account of a unified self must go beyond the empirical framework. In this paper, (...) I argue that we can find a strictly empiricist solution to Hume's problem in William James. I attempt to show that James's descriptions of our experience are phenomenologically more detailed and faithful to how experience is undergone from the first-person perspective, which allows him to explain our belief in an identical, unified self solely on empirical grounds. James finds unity and continuity right in the content of the stream of experience itself. A detailed investigation of James's accounts reveals that Hume's fundamental problem does not stem merely from his lack of empirical resources but, more importantly, from his tacit abandonment of the professed empiricist methodology. (shrink)

There are remarkable parallels between Hume and Nagarjuna in their denial of substantiality and independence in objects and their subsequent attitude toward our ordinary world. Acknowledging a deep-rooted human tendency to take objects as independent entities, they both argue that there is nothing intrinsic in those objects that make them unitary and independent, and that those characters are, strictly speaking, merely fictitious, mental constructs. They nonetheless affirm the existence of our ordinary world as real. Although their main purposes of the (...) philosophical inquiry are different (epistemological for Hume, and soteriological for Nagarjuna), their accounts of the nature of our world allow us to accept it in the way we ordinarily believe with the deeper understanding of it. It is only in this world where we think, act, and interact with others that an epistemology grounded in human sentiment and experience (for Hume) or humans liberation (for Nagarjuna) is possible. (shrink)

In 1997, the Japanese Diet revised the Bank of Japan law thereby granting the central bank greater independence in monetary policy making. The revision was an attempt by Japan's political class to weaken the authority of the powerful Ministry of Finance over the central bank and augment its own influence. The Bank of Japan, however, gained more autonomy than politicians ever intended, leading to frequent confrontations between the government and the central bank over monetary policy. This paper explores the new (...) strategic relationship that emerged between the Bank of Japan and government and the nature of monetary policy implemented in the post-reform period. We demonstrate that several factors contributed to the Bank's unexpected ability to enhance its independence: the astute leadership of the first post-reform governor Hayami Masaru; the Bank's ability to turn politicization of monetary policy to its advantage; and its pursuit of a strategy achieved by augmenting its own research capacity. On a theoretical level, our findings show that the passage of a new legal framework only marks the completion of one stage of institutional change and the start of the next; post-enactment politics have as much importance as pre-enactment politics in shaping outcomes. In the post-enactment phase, various factors, including the state of the economy and informal institutions or processes, matter greatly and may shift the direction of institutional change away from the intended path. (shrink)

In this paper I want to do the following things. First I want to show that in the part of the Theaetetus where the relationship between knowledge and perception is examined, the concept of knowledge that is in question is very clearly characterized. We are left in no doubt as to what is to count as knowing. Secondly I want to unravel in some detail the case that Socrates puts on Protagoras’ behalf where he draws on what Protagoras actually wrote (...) ; as opposed to what he may have taught secretly to his pupils. Thirdly I wish to argue that if we let the dialogue speak for itself, it is manifest that this case put up on Protagoras’ behalf at 151 E-152C is not overthrown; it is not even shaken.In that part of the dialogue where the question is under examination whether or not knowledge and perception are the same, Socrates uses an idealized concept of knowledge. That is, he restricts the use of the word by setting down what he will consider to be the essential characteristics of knowledge, the sufficient and necessary conditions of its being instantiated. An excellent piece of philosophical procedure. (shrink)

It is not quite as easy to see that there is in fact no formula of this modal language having the same truth conditions (in terms of S5 Kripke semantics) as (1). This was rst conjectured by Allen Hazen2 and later proved by Harold Hodes3. We present a simple direct proof of this result and discuss some consequences for the logical analysis of ordinary modal discourse.

Because anticipated and retrospective regret play important roles in practical deliberation and motivation, better understanding them can illuminate the contours of human agency. However, the possibility of self-ignorance and the fact that we change over time can make regret—especially anticipatory regret—not only a poor predictor of where the agent will be in the future but also an unreliable indicator of where the agent stands. Granting these, this paper examines the way in which prospective and, particularly, retrospective regret can nevertheless yield (...) important insight into the sorts of creatures we are, both generally and individually. The experience of retrospective regret can show a person she values something in a way she did not know or that she is (or was) a different person than she had thought, insights which can factor into forward-looking, or prospective, deliberation. Such instances of revelatory regret reveal something to the agent about herself as agent. I examine two cases of agential self-ignorance. In the first, the experience of regret reveals what the agent values, not only to others but even to the agent himself. In the second, the agent anticipates experiencing regret for an action but does not experience the regret, suggesting that the agent did not value the rejected alternative in the way she thought. Anticipatory regret is forward-looking and can play an important role in practical deliberation. But insofar as anticipatory regret flows from one’s imperfect judgment and prospection about oneself, retrospective regret can be an important corrective in helping the agent understand her own standpoint. (shrink)

The present book is intended to help students overcome difficulties by presenting Jaspers' thoughts in comparatively clear and straightforward fashion. While it denies that philosophy is "practical" in any cheap and obvious sense, it follows Jaspers in attempting to avoid the otiose and emphasize the relevance of philosophy to matters of ultimate concern. Those who wish a more theoretical and systematic presentation may well call to mind that, as Heidegger's followers express it, Jaspers, like Kierkegaard- and to some extent Sartre- (...) quite deliberately spurned the "ontological" in favor of the "ontic.". (shrink)

In his newly updated version of The Anatomy of a Constitutional Law Case, Alan F. Westin provides a documentary portrait of historically important constitutional law case, 'Youngstown Sheet & Tube Co. v. Sawyer, ' from its rise in a bargaining dispute in the steel industry during 1952 to the aftermath of its decision by the United States Supreme Court. Westin has added to his classic book additional materials and personal commentaries collected since the work was first published. The new information (...) covers what went on within the Truman administration, what went on within the Supreme Court when analyzing and resolving issues that come before it. Westin includes selections from transcripts, briefs and other official proceedings, adds notes describing each phase of the constitutional process, and a section of commentary and questions relating this case to others. (shrink)

What does social justice require in contemporary societies? What are the requirements of social democracy? Who and where are the individuals and groups that can carry forward agendas for progressive social transformation? What are we to make of the so-called new social movements of the last thirty years? Is identity politics compatible with egalitarianism? Can cultural misrecognition and economic maldistribution be fought simultaneously? What of the heritage of Western Marxism is alive and dead? And how is current critical social theory (...) to approach these and other questions? Much of the most productive work done in recent social theory has revolved around such issues, in particular, around those concerning the relationship between the politics of recognition and the politics of distribution. After the intense theoretical focus over the last fifteen years or so on the issues of recognition politics—multiculturalism, multi-nationalism, identity politics, group-differentiated rights, the accommodation of difference, and so on—some social theorists have worried that attention has been diverted from important issues of distributive equality—systematic impoverishment, increasing material inequality, ‘structural’ unemployment, the growth of oligarchic power, global economic segmentation, and so on. While some critics seem to have adopted a blunt ‘it’s the economy, stupid’ line of criticism,1 others have attempted to develop an overarching, integrative theoretical framework adequate to the diverse issues concerning both economic and cultural justice. For example, Axel Honneth proposes that a suitably developed and normatively robust theory of intersubjective recognition can adequately integrate an analysis of apparently diverse contemporary struggles: those for a just division of labor and hence, a fair distribution of resources and opportunities, as well as those for a culture free of identity-deforming disrespect and denigration. (shrink)

Since Mueller’s 1958 article calling Hegelian dialectics a “legend,” it has been fashionable to deny that Hegel used thesis-antithesis-synthesis dialectics. But in truth, Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit has 28 dialectics hidden on four outline levels, and The Philosophy of History has 10 more on three outline levels. In Phenomenology’s macrodialectic, Hegel’s nonsupernatural Spirit–all reality, everything in the universe, including man and artificial objects–advances from unconscious + union (thesis) to conscious + separation (antithesis) to a synthesis of conscious (from the antithesis) (...) + union (from the thesis). Previous interpretations of Phenomenology have missed this dialectic: they have assumed that Spirit’s journey begins with consciousness, whereas the journey actually begins in the primordial state of nature, before man arrives and provides Spirit with its Mind (the collective mind of man). Mind then misperceives itself as a multitude of separate alien “objects”–things other than itself. The macrodialectic and all other dialectics are based on Christianity’s Johannine separation-and-return mythology; all Hegelian dialectics separate from a concept in the thesis, going to that something’s opposite (antithesis), and then return to the thesis concept. Thus, in Hegel’s master-and-slave dialectic (God = master, man = slave), man advances from potential + freedom to actual + bondage (religiosity) to actual + freedom (atheism). Only Marx and Tillich understood Hegelian dialectics. Marx’s basic dialectic (one of four) saw history separating from and returning to Communism, going from communal ownership + poverty (primitive communism, or gens) to private ownership + wealth (slavery, feudalism, capitalism) to communal ownership + wealth (final communism). Tillich’s basic dialectic (one of many) separates from and returns to God, advancing from Yes to God + Yes to supernaturalism (theism) to No to God + No to supernaturalism (atheism) to Yes to God + No to supernaturalism (humanism: humanity is the nonsupernatural “God above the God of theism”). (shrink)

A key philosophical feature of Peter Jackson’s film interpretation of J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings is its use of fantasy to inspire a “recovery” of the actual or, in other words, a reawakening to the beauty of nature and the many possible ways of living in healthier ecological relation to the world. Though none of these ways is perfectly achieved, this pluralistic view is demonstrated in the various lifeways of Hobbits, Elves, Men, and Ents. All of the positive (...) relationships embodied in the films—to trees, mountains, horses, and vegetable gardens—involve loving care and attention, receiving nourishment and livelihood without instrumentalization, or reducing nature to mere resource. The films also vividly display a variety of ugly and destructive ways of using the land to accrue power and wealth. These noxious ways, specifically because they actively destroy the lands that they use, always need more. They will thus eventually annihilate the beautiful ways of being if they are not actively resisted. Some of those who would rather be tending their own trees, gardens, or horses or even wandering in the wild forests must therefore turn their attention to struggle and resistance instead. This is a struggle full of grief, and at times even verging on despair, but it is marked by the refusal to give up hope. Indeed, what Jackson and Tolkien have to say about hope is as important in responding to the ecological crisis as anything they have to say about nature, inasmuch as they help to remind us that even in our own times, “there is still hope.”. (shrink)

Whiskey Lao -- Fair warning -- Randomness at large -- We the addicted -- The best possible world -- The importance of being doomed -- Moral responsibility -- The upper limit to the value of possible worlds.

"Not only one of the best but also the most comprehensive treatment of Stoicism written in this century." --Times Literary Supplement.