The conception of the doctor–patient relationship under Australian law has followed British common law tradition whereby the relationship is founded in a contractual exchange. By contrast, this article presents a rationale and framework for an alternative model—a “Trust Model”—for implementation into law to more accurately reflect the contemporary therapeutic dynamic. The framework has four elements: an assumption that professional conflicts with patient safety, motivated by financial or personal interests, should be avoided; an onus on doctors to disclose these conflicts; a (...) proposed mechanism to contend with instances where doctors choose not to disclose; and sanctions for non-compliance with the regime. (shrink)

A crucial design feature of language useful for determining when grammatical language evolved in the human lineage is our ability to combine meaningless units to form a new unit with meaning (combinatoriality) and to further combine these meaningful units into a larger unit with a novel meaning (compositionality). There is overlap between neural bases that underlie hierarchical cognitive functions required for compositionality in both linguistic and nonlinguistic contexts (e.g., tool use). Therefore, evidence of compositional tool use in the archaeological record (...) should signify, at the very least, the cognitive capacity for grammatical language by that point in time. We devise a novel system to evaluate the level of hierarchical nesting of tool components in single tool use activities. In the application of this system, we demonstrate that nonhuman primates, and by extension, the last common ancestor shared by Pan and Homo, are capable of basic combinatoriality; however, their technology does not approach the compositionality observable in modern human tool use. The prehistoric archaeological record supports a continuous evolution of combinatorial tool use into compositional tool use, with evidence for human-like levels of by 0.93 million years ago (Ma), or possibly as early as 1.7 Ma. While compositional language could have lagged behind compositional tool use, if language and technology coevolved according to the Technological Origin for Language hypothesis, which proposes a feedback system between the two, then evidence for hierarchical tool use structures implies a similar level of complexity in linguistic structures. (shrink)

Classical and quantum field theory provide not only realistic examples of extant notions of empirical equivalence, but also new notions of empirical equivalence, both modal and occurrent. A simple but modern gravitational case goes back to the 1890s, but there has been apparently total neglect of the simplest relativistic analog, with the result that an erroneous claim has taken root that Special Relativity could not have accommodated gravity even if there were no bending of light. The fairly recent acceptance (...) of nonzero neutrino masses shows that widely neglected possibilities for nonzero particle masses have sometimes been vindicated. In the electromagnetic case, there is permanent underdetermination at the classical and quantum levels between Maxwell's theory and the one-parameter family of Proca's electromagnetisms with massive photons, which approximate Maxwell's theory in the limit of zero photon mass. While Yang–Mills theories display similar approximate equivalence classically, quantization typically breaks this equivalence. A possible exception, including unified electroweak theory, might permit a mass term for the photons but not the Yang–Mills vector bosons. Underdetermination between massive and massless (Einstein) gravity even at the classical level is subject to contemporary controversy. (shrink)

J Britt Holbrook - Lyotard and Greek Thought: Sophistry - Journal of the History of Philosophy 44:4 Journal of the History of Philosophy 44.4 676-677 Muse Search Journals This Journal Contents Reviewed by J. Britt Holbrook University of North Texas Keith Crome. Lyotard and Greek Thought: Sophistry. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2004. Pp. x + 186. Cloth, $68.00. Caveat lector: this deceptively short work presents an exercise in genre-bending that may leave one's head spinning, particularly if one's acquaintance with (...) the thought of Jean-François Lyotard is not quite up to snuff. One may perhaps take the appearance of such a work—written by a Lyotard scholar for Lyotard scholars—as a sign that Lyotard has finally arrived... (shrink)

A new description of gravitational motion will be proposed. It is part of the proper time formulation of physics as presented on the IARD 2000 conference. According to this formulation the proper time of an object is taken as its fourth coordinate. As a consequence, one obtains a circular space–time diagram where distances are measured with the Euclidean metric. The relativistic factor turns out to be of simple goniometric origin. It further follows that the Lagrangian for gravitational dynamics does not (...) require an interpretation in terms of curvature of space–time. The flat space model for gravitational dynamics leads to the correct predictions for the bending of light, the perihelion shift of Mercury and gravitational red-shift. The new theory is free of singularities. More important, the new formulation of gravitational dynamics restores the validity of the principle of addition of potentials. One therefore can find solutions for static gravitational configurations for which it is difficult to find the solution of the corresponding Einstein equations. The method will be illustrated by means of the orbital precession for non-spherical stellar mass distributions. In case of the bipole mass distribution the agreement with the predictions of the general theory of relativity is very striking. Nevertheless, the new model is far more simple. (shrink)

In this monograph the author presents the special and general theories of relativity from a geochronometrical viewpoint. The amount of mathematics demanded is not too great, and one can get quite far along on the material on vectors presented early in the book. The first three chapters especially derive from the work of A. A. Robb several decades ago: they treat foundations of geochronometry, one-plus-one geochronometry and its generalization to a one-plus-three system. Later chapters cover such staples as the Lorentz (...) transformation, the metric and dynamical tensors, dynamical relationships of particles, accelerating and curving events, geodesics, and applications to the red-shift of spectral lines and bending of light-rays. The best introduction to the study of the foundation of physics is physics itself; so those philosophers interested in the foundations of relativity theory will find here a lucid and logically respectable exposition of that theory, and in that way an understanding of its fundamentals and problems will be reached.—P. J. M. (shrink)

Principles of justice, David Estlund argues, cannot be falsified by people’s unwillingness to satisfy them. In his Utopophobia, Estlund rejects the view that justice must bend to human motivation to deliver practical implications for how institutions ought to function. In this paper, I argue that a substantive argument against such bending of justice principles must challenge the reasons for making these principles sensitive to motivational limitations. Estlund, however, provides no such challenge. His dispute with benders of justice is therefore (...) a verbal one over the true meaning of justice, which need not worry those with the intuition that justice should perform a function that requires bending. By focusing on John Rawls’s reasons for bending his justice principles, I point towards a substantive critique of bent justice. (shrink)

The dead donor rule—that persons must be dead before their organs are taken—is a central part of the moral framework underlying organ procurement. Efforts to increase the pool of transplantable organs have been forced either to redefine death (e.g., anencephaly) or take advantage of ambiguities in the current definition of death (e.g., the Pittsburgh protocol). Society's growing acceptance of circumstances in which health care professionals can hasten a patient's death also may weaken the symbolic importance of the dead donor rule. (...) We consider the implications of these efforts to continually revise the line between life and death and ask whether it would be preferable to abandon the dead donor rule and rely entirely on informed consent as a safeguard against abuse. (shrink)

Law bends the past of a community's common life towards its future. Precedent is one of law's favored tools for doing the bending, and legal systems that assign precedent a starring role seem especially mindful of time. Yet, mindfulness of time goes far deeper into law's DNA. It is not limited to the doctrine of precedent or unique to common‐law jurisdictions. Recognizing that time is an elemental dimension of human experience and basic ordering principle of practical agency, law utilizes (...) and orders time. Temporality is essential to law's distinctive mode of governance and guidance. (shrink)

This essay addresses two growing edges of the just war tradition. First, theorists have been accused of focusing narrowly on justifying war and governing its conduct, neglecting wider considerations that encompass justice during the years prior to and after war. Second, calling a war "just" allegedly makes it seem "good" so that it is easier to fight a war and to bend or set aside the rules. Based on "imperfect justice," we argue for a "justified" war theory, taking all criteria (...) and categories seriously, including jus ante bellum and jus post bellum. (shrink)

What's not to like about shared decision‐making? These programs employ specially crafted decision aids to educate patients about their treatment options and then merge the newly informed patient preferences, both general and treatment‐specific, with guidance from physicians to optimize medical decisions. Sounds great, right? Even better, recent evidence indicates that shared decision‐making programs may also help bend the proverbial cost curve by reducing the use of medical interventions that patients, now properly educated about their options, often say they do not (...) want. The notion that programs to inform and elicit patient choice might also help to align health care delivery with patient preferences for less invasive and therefore less costly treatment options seems the rarest of mutual wins in health care, in which what is best for the individual might also benefit the whole. Yet there has been scant attention to how the goals of patient care and cost‐containment, and perhaps even profitability, coincide or conflict. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Lyotard and Greek Thought: SophistryJ. Britt HolbrookKeith Crome. Lyotard and Greek Thought: Sophistry. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2004. Pp. x + 186. Cloth, $68.00.Caveat lector: this deceptively short work presents an exercise in genre-bending (the sophistical retorsion of the philosophical determination of sophistry) that may leave one's head spinning, particularly if one's acquaintance with the thought of Jean-François Lyotard is not quite up to snuff. One may (...) perhaps take the appearance of such a work—written by a Lyotard scholar for Lyotard scholars—as a sign that Lyotard has finally arrived. (Arrive-t-il? But, Lyotard has already arrived! Didn't you read Keith Crome's book?) Be forewarned: unless you "got" that parenthetical joke, wait to read this book until after you have read (or re-read) at the very least Lyotard's Just Gaming and The Differend.More "sophisticated" readers of Lyotard, however, will warmly welcome this book. Along with a helpful review of secondary literature on Lyotard, the Introduction offers a compelling case for the need for an extended treatment of Lyotard's relation to Greek thought—sophistry in particular. The work sets for itself two goals: (1) to show that Lyotard's engagement with sophistry plays a key role in the development of his notion of the differend; and (2) to show that Lyotard attempts to define the limits of philosophy qua philosophy in terms of its relation to sophistry.It is this second, larger, goal that presents the main problem for the work. Because the argument "attempts to show that Lyotard wrests sophistry from the traditional philosophical understanding it has enjoyed and that by way of this effects a delimitation of philosophy [End Page 676] itself" (10), Part I ("The Place of Sophistry in Philosophy") offers accounts of traditional philosophical interpretations of sophistry from Plato, Hegel, and Heidegger. Essential to the success of Crome's argument is the idea that what all traditional philosophical interpretations of sophistry share is both a refusal to allow sophistry to define itself and a tendency to define philosophy around and against sophistry (83). The "radicality" of Lyotard's interpretation of sophistry, according to Part II ("Lyotard and the Sophistication of Philosophy"), consists in Lyotard's refusal to allow philosophy to define sophistry and a retorsion—a turning against philosophy and for sophistry—of the philosophical tendency to define itself around and against sophistry. Crome's point exceeds the claim that, whereas traditional philosophical interpretations of sophistry have invariably given sophistry a bad rap, Lyotard attempts to redress the balance and to restore the reputation of sophistry. According to Crome, Lyotard's "restoration" of sophistry to itself also puts philosophy in its place, by showing that the traditional philosophical tendency to define philosophy around and against sophistry is merely reactive—in particular, insofar as Lyotard shows that the initial move in the traditional philosophical interpretation of sophistry is motivated by a reaction against Gorgias' nihilistic reading of Parmenides' Poem (129–45).Although some may wish to quibble over individual details, overall Crome's argument is quite successful in showing that Lyotard's engagement with sophistry plays a key role in the development of his notion of the differend. It is with his second, larger goal—to show that Lyotard attempts to define the limits of philosophy as philosophy in terms of its relation to sophistry—that most readers will find something of substance with which to quarrel. Crome's interpretation of Lyotard's analysis of the sophistical "technique" —one might prefer 'manner,' in the Kantian sense—of retorsion (95–100) and its role in the development of the notion of the differend borders on brilliant; yet the insertion into that interpretation of the "ontological significance" of Lyotard's analysis (8–9, 147, 161) seems forced. In order to "broaden the significance" of Lyotard's work amongst critics, is it really necessary to attribute an "ontological significance" to The Differend? Does one really "broaden the significance" of the differend by claiming that it is "the name for a sophistical logos" (162)? Is developing a strategy to bear witness to the differend in itself insignificant? Some will balk.Nevertheless, readers of Lyotard... (shrink)

Mary Gerhart and Allan Russell view our world of meanings as a fabric of concepts and relations. Metaphor bends this fabric, superimposing one concept on another. While Gerhart and Russell are right to view metaphor as a cognitive rather than a purely linguistic phenomenon, their model misses the danger inherent in a cognitive restructuring that leaves some features of a concept highlighted and others backgrounded. When the bending of the conceptual fabric becomes permanent, the essential metaphorical insight is lost, (...) leaving a skewed understanding of reality. We have a tendency to retain the metaphorically altered cognitive topography while forgetting its nonliteral genesis. Thus, the metaphoric process is one from which proceeds not only insight but also, necessarily, misconception. (shrink)

This interesting volume approaches Heidegger in a fresh and suggestive way. The author views Heidegger's thought as a confrontation with the history of metaphysics, an assumption which can hardly be contested. After a preliminary characterization of the essence of "metaphysics" as the later Heidegger understands that word, Laffoucreière reconstructs, chronologically, the history of metaphysics as Heidegger conceives it, studying in turn Heidegger's interpretation of: Parmenides, Plato, Aristotle, Descartes, Leibniz, Kant, Schelling, Hegel, and Nietzsche. She approaches Heidegger's thought through the eyes (...) of his Nietzsche-interpretation. Heidegger sees the history of the west in profoundly Nietzschean tones: it is the history of nihilism and of the domination of western thought by Christian-Platonic metaphysics whose pivotal concept, God as the first cause, has deteriorated to the point of meaninglessness. The times are needy and it is only by a new turn, a new sending of Being as Mission, that nihilism can be overcome. Laffoucreière explains clearly and forcefully that Heidegger's Seinsdenken is not atheistic, except in the sense of the theos of western metaphysics. She shows that a major concern of Heidegger's thought is to overcome the God of metaphysics in favor of the divine God to whom man can bend his knee. She argues that Heidegger's attempt to retrieve the original sense of Being and man, far from being atheistic, aims in fact at making possible a renewed sense of the living God. The interpretation is sound and for those who doubt it there is a three sentence endorsement of the work by Heidegger himself in which he welcomes the publication of "a clear and pertinent exposition of my thought."--J. D. C. (shrink)

In the March 1971 issue of Dialogue Professors E.H. Madden and P.H. Hare attempt with much ingenuity and resource to resuscitate a pre-Humean theory of causal connection. Firmly disowning the “epistemological and metaphysical disasters” that have led to “terrible consequences”,, and making only a mildly favourable gesture in the direction of Michotte, they yet claim that the defence of Hume by modern regularists, even when abetted by the weapons of phenomenology, can be refuted by such indubitable facts as that we (...) observe avalanches destroying villages, waves eating away the shoreline and the “wind-bending-the-trees”. (shrink)

This chapter explores reasons to doubt the defensibility of the “weak theory of sustainability” that informs and justifies the use of cost-benefit analysis by environmental regulators. As the argument reveals, inasmuch as the weak theory equates what is sustainable with what sustains the satisfaction of human preferences, it has the surprising philosophical wherewithal to make climate-changing activities sustainable, at least in principle. This would be so if human ingenuity made possible the replacement of ecosystem services with technological alternatives. And it (...) would be particularly so if the aesthetic goods that derive from nature – goods which are resistant to quantification – are excluded from environmental cost-benefit analyses. But it is also true if those aesthetic goods are reduced to mere human preferences that can be measured through indirect market-based means, for aesthetic preferences are remarkably adaptive.Inasmuch as people can be expected to come to appreciate landscapes degraded by climate change, those who defend a weak theory of sustainability can expect that climate change will not long be at odds with what people find aesthetically pleasing. However, as the growing literature on “nature-deficit disorder” suggests, while aesthetic preferences may be elastic, aesthetic needs are not. As climate change progressively strips us of nature’s goods, we will lose the ability to meet crucial aesthetic needs. The irony is clear: As our aesthetic preferences bend towards the acceptance of ecological loss, we will predictably lose our preferences for meeting our own enduring aesthetic needs. We can thus expect climate change to cause us to prefer what we do not need and to need what we do not prefer. And this implies that climate change is the reductio ad absurdum of the weak theory of sustainability that dominates contemporary environmental regulation. (shrink)

Your God is too small—way too small! What if God is not a human-like personal being but the God Beyond God of the Christian mystical traditions? What if God is the ultimate reality beyond all beings, including beyond all divine beings, indeed beyond all Being? It’s a mind-bending idea. Speaking of God as a human-like personal being is much easier but people who care about the deepest mystical understandings of God within our traditions need to make the effort to (...) speak about the God Beyond God, despite the difficulties. This book makes the attempt to speak of the God Beyond God in the language of the sermon, using metaphor and potent imagery tuned to the existential intensities of human life. The God Beyond God is closer to us than our jugular veins, vividly present in every moment of our lives. These sermons are practical and moving, and they also resonate with the most rigorous theological understandings of ultimate reality. Their deconstruction of our convenient fantasies about a divine being make these sermons emotionally intense and perhaps not suitable for beginners in the journey of faith. But veteran believers can breathe deeply in the air of these meditations, relaxing into the bliss of engaging ultimate reality without delusions, without deflections, and without controlling the object of our worship. (shrink)

It is commonly accepted that former European colonising states ought to make reparations for the many harmful legacies of colonialism. I defend an undertheorised case for migration as reparation for one harmful legacy of colonialism in particular, that of exploitation. Making reparations for the harmful legacy of colonial exploitation requires, among other measures, a redistribution of wealth from former colonising states to their former colonies, and for former colonising states to make symbolic reparations, acknowledging the wrong of exploitation. Often it (...) is assumed that the reparative redistribution can occur through in situ monetary transfers, and that symbolic reparations can involve measures such as apologies. But I highlight an overlooked additional option that should be added to the reparative package: migration rights. Firstly, migration would constitute material reparations, as it is well established that migration from poorer to richer states is an effective mechanism of redistributing wealth, both to the individuals who migrate, but also to those who choose not to migrate through remittances. Secondly, offering postcolonial migrants not only the right to work in their former colonising states, but substantive rights, including immediate access to public funds, would be a powerful means of making symbolic reparations, of former colonising states acknowledging that their key institutions are funded with colonially extracted wealth. (shrink)

Sex change surgery has been practised in Iran under Ayatollah Khomeini’s fatwa in 1982. Therefore, a medical and judicial process of transition has been regulated accordingly. However, this has not resulted in either the legalization of sex change surgery, nor in the recognition of transsexual identity within Iranian substantive law. Sex change surgery is allowed through Islamic law, rather than substantive law, in response to the existing social facts and norms, on the one hand, and structural cooperation with medical system, (...) on the other. In this article, I argue that the Iranian heteronormative law’s understanding of transsexuality has amounted to the misrecognition of trans persons’ status within law and society. Using semi structured interviews, intersectional content analysis, and feminist methodologies, the findings indicate that transsexual bodies have gained meaning through religious and medical discourses within a framework of power relations, and that Iranian transsexual persons have reconstructed and redefined gender and gender relations in a way that informs their understanding of gender and sexuality beyond the existing Islamic legal and social norms. Moreover, intersectional analysis of the interviews demonstrates how the legal misrecognition of transsexuality creates space for a discourse which in itself leads to the misrecognition of other gendered identities, such as homosexuals and transwomen. (shrink)

Zygon®, Volume 56, Issue 4, Page 1110-1129, December 2021.

I argue that political philosopher Charles W. Mills’ twin concepts of ‘the epistemology of ignorance’ and ‘white ignorance’ are useful tools for thinking through racial injustice in the British education system. While anti-racist work in British education has a long history, racism persists in British primary, secondary and tertiary education. For Mills, the production and reproduction of racism relies crucially on cognitive and epistemological processes that produce ignorance, and which promote various ways of ignoring the histories and legacies of European (...) colonialism and imperialism, as well as the testimonies and scholarship of those who experience racism in their everyday lives. I survey these concepts within Mills’ work then marshal evidence in support of my claim that ‘the epistemology of ignorance’ and ‘white ignorance’ provide a useful framework for thinking through problems of racial injustice in British education. (shrink)

The international context of the last fifty years of modern bioethics have been significant in establishing health-care ethics or bioethics as a common parlance - an ideology of our times, achieving near universal acceptance, with little dissent. Most international health organizations have developed important declarations that have become the credo of their daily practice and long-term commitments. However, in the last decade in particular, bioethicists and other health-care practitioners and scholars have worried about the persistence of health-care inequities and the (...) inadequate realization of bioethics, particularly in low-to-middle income countries. Global bioethics, now well into the new millennium, has entered a regulatory crisis: it needs to confront not just global bioethical commitments around major scientific revolutions such as genomics, but further, a regulatory crisis about the persisting national public law silences and health inequities, especially in low-to-middle income countries. (shrink)

The international context of the last fifty years of modern bioethics have been significant in establishing health-care ethics or bioethics as a common parlance - an ideology of our times, achieving near universal acceptance, with little dissent. Most international health organizations have developed important declarations that have become the credo of their daily practice and long-term commitments. However, in the last decade in particular, bioethicists and other health-care practitioners and scholars have worried about the persistence of health-care inequities and the (...) inadequate realization of bioethics, particularly in low-to-middle income countries. Global bioethics, now well into the new millennium, has entered a regulatory crisis: it needs to confront not just global bioethical commitments around major scientific revolutions such as genomics, but further, a regulatory crisis about the persisting national public law silences and health inequities, especially in low-to-middle income countries. (shrink)

First published in 1982, this reissue contains a critical exposition of the views of Frege, Dedekind and Peano on the foundations of arithmetic. The last quarter of the 19th century witnessed a remarkable growth of interest in the foundations of arithmetic. This work analyses both the reasons for this growth of interest within both mathematics and philosophy and the ways in which this study of the foundations of arithmetic led to new insights in philosophy and striking advances in logic. This (...) historical-critical study provides an excellent introduction to the problems of the philosophy of mathematics - problems which have wide implications for philosophy as a whole. This reissue will appeal to students of both mathematics and philosophy who wish to improve their knowledge of logic. (shrink)

This chapter articulates how people understand “microaggression” and offers a clarifying augmentation of that account. It attempts to define disability, and then talk through how analysis connects with the very few discussions of microaggressions within the context of disability. The chapter introduces the case of “Disabled But Not Really.” It leverages previous analysis to show how microaggressions’ mixed legibility is crucial to their role in maintaining an epistemology that polices disability in general and disabled people in particular. The chapter discusses (...) the ramifications this has for future analysis of both microaggressions and disability. It highlights the specific challenges faced by persons at the junction of multiple oppressed identities. Ontologically, the commitment is the rejection of the medical model of disability where “disabilities are just particular kinds of bodily malfunction”. The focus within that ontological analysis is primarily concerned with the social/political consequences of disability. (shrink)