Introduction: Variation across research ethics boards in conditions placed on access to medical records for research purposes raises concerns around negative impacts on research quality and on human subject protection, including privacy.Aim: To study variation in REB consent requirements for retrospective chart review and who may have access to the medical record for data abstraction.Methods: Thirty 90-min face-to-face interviews were conducted with REB chairs and administrators affiliated with faculties of medicine in Canadian universities, using structured questions around a case study (...) with open-ended responses. Interviews were recorded, transcribed and coded manually.Results: Fourteen sites required individual patient consent for the study to proceed as proposed. Three indicated that their response would depend on how potentially identifying variables would be managed. Eleven sites did not require consent. Two suggested a notification and opt-out process. Most stated that consent would be required if identifiable information was being abstracted from the record. Among those not requiring consent, there was substantial variation in recognising that the abstracted information could potentially indirectly re-identify individuals. Concern over access to medical records by an outside individual was also associated with requirement for consent. Eighteen sites required full committee review. Sixteen allowed an external research assistant to abstract information from the health record.Conclusions: Large variation was found across sites in the requirement for consent for research involving access to medical records. REBs need training in best practices for protecting privacy and confidentiality in health research. A forum for REB chairs to confidentially share concerns and decisions about specific studies could also reduce variation in decisions. (shrink)

The paper discusses Dr. Floris Tomasini's paper “What Is Bioethics: Notes toward a New Approach?”. Based on Tomasini's account of methodological and ethical pluralism, the paper explores the demarcation problem of bioethics and suggests a full methodological laissez-faire.

Epistemologists are interested in what makes beliefs well justified. Even before considering competing theories of epistemic justification, however, we should ask what sort of valuational structure we are trying to explain. If, as far as epistemic justification is concerned, beliefs are like bank accounts, then all beliefs are comparable: just as in any bank account there must be more, less, or as much money as in any other, one belief must be better, worse, or as good as any other. Contemporary (...) epistemologists take for granted the assumption that beliefs are comparable in the same way that bank accounts are comparable: bank accounts have balances, sprinters have personal bests for the 100-meter dash, and beliefs have degrees of justifiedness. Alternatively, we could understand the justificatory status of a belief to be more like the expensiveness of a restaurant. Consider a concept of restaurant expensiveness on which the expensiveness of a restaurant is determined by the range of prices for meals at that restaurant. If meals at Restaurant A are $25 to $50 and meals at B are $10 to $20, then A is more expensive than B. Restaurant C, however , is neither more nor less expensive than A. Nor is it equally expensive, for there are restaurants that are more expensive than C that are not more expensive than A . Some evaluative concepts, like this concept of restaurant expensiveness, do not reduce values to single numbers. If epistemic justification is like this, then there may be pairs of beliefs such that neither is better justified than the other, but nor are they equally well justified. Such beliefs would be incomparable. While incomparability is familiar in the ethics literature, it has not previously been explored in epistemology. I discuss the implications of allowing for incomparability in epistemology, both for theories of epistemic justification and theories of knowledge. (shrink)

This paper shows that in late seventeenth-century Scotland there existed a sizeable virtuoso community whose leaders were abreast of European developments in philosophy, history and science. Moreover, by c. 1700, Sir Robert Sibbald was attempting to organize a learned society modelled upon those he knew in Europe and upon London's Royal Society. The interests of the virtuosi and their attempts to institutionalize their pursuits laid much of the ground work for the Scottish Enlightenment. The Royal Society of Scotland which Sir (...) Robert hoped to found never became a reality, but the academic ideals which he propounded came to fruition in the Philosophical Society of Edinburgh and later bodies such as the Royal Society of Edinburgh and the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland. The intellectual inquiries and achievements of Sir Robert and his friends, particularly those in medicine and natural history, continued to be of interest to later Scots. They, thanks in part to the influence of the Newtonian physician Archibald Pitcaire, improved upon Sibbald's naïve Baconianism, but to a surprising degree their concerns had also been his. (shrink)

The story of the end of the Philosophical Society of Edinburgh in 1783, is linked with that of the founding of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland and the Royal Society of Edinburgh , both of which were given Royal Charters sealed on 6 May 1783. It is a story which has been admirably told by Steven Shapin. He persuasively argued that the P.S.E. was a casualty of bitter quarrels rooted in local Edinburgh politics, in personal animosities and in disputes (...) about the control of cultural property and intellectual leadership. In all this he was surely correct just as he was in finding the principal actors in this controversy to be: David Erskine, 11th Earl of Buchan; the Reverend Dr John Walker, Professor of Natural History in Edinburgh University; Dr William Cullen, Professor of the Theory and Practice of Medicine and Vice-President of the P.S.E.; Mr William Smellie, Printer to the Society of Antiquaries; Henry Home, Lord Kames, S.C.J. and President of the P.S.E.; Sir George Clerk-Maxwell, Vice-President of the P.S.E.; John Robison, Professor of Natural Philosophy and Secretary to the P.S.E.; Edinburgh University's Principal, William Robertson; the Curators of the Advocates Library: Ilay Campbell, Robert Blair, Alexander Abercromby, Alexander Fraser Tytler, Professor of Public Law; Henry Dundas, Lord Advocate and M.P. for Midlothian. In a peripheral way, the Royal Colleges of Physicians and Surgeons were probably also involved; so too were Lord Buchan's brothers, Henry and Thomas Erskine, Foxite Whigs who opposed Dundas politically. Henry Erskine displaced Dundas as Lord Advocate in August 1783. After the change of ministry on 18 December 1783 he was ousted, but became Dean of the Faculty of Advocates in 1785. National as well as burgh politics touched these disputes and gave the parties of the Erskines and Dundas and his friends some leverage in London. (shrink)

Some of the human relations of doctor and patient, by D.L. Edsall.--The care of patients. Its psychological aspects, by C.F. Martin.--The medical education of Jones, by Smith, by W.S. Thayer.--The significance of illness, by A.F. Riggs.--Some psychological observations by the surgeon, by F. G. Balch.--Human nature and its reaction to suffering, by L.K. Lunt.--The care of the aged, by A. Worcester.--The care of the dying, by A. Worcester.--Attention to personality in sex hygiene, by A. Worcester.

Was W. E. B. Du Bois a pragmatist? Does it matter? This essay argues that reading Du Bois as a pragmatist highlights aspects of his work and life that might otherwise go unnoticed, while also highlighting aspects of pragmatism that often go unappreciated. In addition, this double revelation may help restore to us some important resources for dealing with current social problems.

Beginning with Emerson and the Transcendentalists, Americans have tended to view the unconscious as the psychological faculty through which individuals might come to experience a higher spiritual realm. On the whole, American psychologists see the unconscious as a symbol of harmony, restoration and revitalization, imbuing it with the capacity to restore peace between the individual and an immanent spiritual power. Americans and the Unconscious studies the symbolic dimensions of American psychology, tracing the historical development of the concept of the (...) unconscious from its early formulations in nineteenth-century theology through its elaboration by the major schools of contemporary academic psychology. In the process, it provides portraits of William James, early American "Freudians" and the "Neo-Freudians," New Psychology, and humanistic psychologies. Fuller draws attention to the ways in which the concept of the unconscious--while originating in the world of scientific discourse--symbolizes philosophical and religious interpretations of human nature, and shows how the "American unconscious" helps locate the development of psychological ideas within the broader contexts of American religious and intellectual history. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: Overview Ralph Waldo Emerson John Dewey Richard Rorty Martha Nussbaum Conclusion.

John Muir can be interpreted to have employed a similar strategy in his earliest conservation advocacy writings as the strategy Ralph Waldo Emerson employed to overcome the public futility of his personal ideals. Like Emerson, Muir came to offset the despair he felt at the political impotence of his conscience with a positive outlook on his potential to embody his subjective ideals both in his personal character and in his contributions to concrete forms of social practice. Muir thus (...) can be shown to have standing in the environmental virtue ethics tradition by dint of his appreciation for the necessity of virtuous political participation in movements for social reform. (shrink)

as de michelis has argued, americans have been fascinated by the psychosomatic discipline of yoga since the turn of the twentieth century.1 The transcendentalists Thoreau and Emerson were influenced by Vedantic philosophy, and William James was intrigued by neo-Vedantic yogic practices as promulgated by Swami Vivekananda.2 Since then, yoga has become a global phenomenon with approximately 20.4 million Americans regularly practicing the discipline.3 In this essay, I will consider the implications of yoga practice for pragmatist philosophy and, more specifically, (...) for the discipline of somaesthetics as developed by Richard Shusterman. (shrink)

Critically analyzes and revitalizes agrarian philosophy by tracing its evolution. Today, most historians, philosophers, political theorists, and scholars of rural America take a dim view of the agrarian ideal that farmers and farming occupy a special moral and political status in society. Agrarian rhetoric is generally seen as special pleading on the part of farmers seeking protection from labor reform and environmental regulation while continuing to receive direct payments and subsidies from the public till. Agrarianism should not be viewed as (...) a set of immutable claims about farming and political order, but as a tradition of moral and political philosophy that has evolved and deepened over the centuries. Agrarian naturalism--the belief that culture and conduct are conditioned by nature because they are of a piece with nature--becomes pragmatic naturalism, giving way to a new set of puzzles about how we are to understand the rural landscape and our responsibilities for its use. The agrarian idea that personality and sociability are integrated with the material transformation of the landscape can serve as the basis for a new, pragmatically grounded ethic of natural resources and rural development. The essays in this volume critically analyze and revitalize agrarian philosophy by tracing its evolution in the classical American philosophy of key figures such as Franklin, Jefferson, Emerson, Thoreau, Dewey, and Royce. Three chapters address the belief that farming peoples develop moral virtue and a taste for democracy as it evolved in the American context, and four examine how a reconstitution of agrarian themes might invigorate our nation's thinking on environment, food, and rural development policy. The Agrarian Roots of Pragmatism will be of broad interest to scholars of American philosophy, rural history, history of ideas, geography, and agricultural or natural resource policy. (shrink)

The essays in this volume critically analyze and revitalize agrarian philosophy by tracing its evolution in the classical American philosophy of key figures such as Franklin, Jefferson, Emerson, Thoreau, Dewey, and Royce.

Peter Abelard (1079–1142 ce) was the most wide‐ranging philosopher of the twelfth century. He quickly established himself as a leading teacher of logic in and near Paris shortly after 1100. After his affair with Heloise, and his subsequent castration, Abelard became a monk, but he returned to teaching in the Paris schools until 1140, when his work was condemned by a Church Council at Sens. His logical writings were based around discussion of the “Old Logic”: Porphyry's Isagoge, aristotle'S Categories and (...) On Interpretation and boethius'S textbook on topical inference. They comprise a freestanding Dialectica (“Logic”; probably c.1116), a set of commentaries (known as the Logica [Ingredientibus], c. 1119) and a later (c. 1125) commentary on the Isagoge (Logica Nostrorum Petititoni Sociorum or Glossulae). In a work Abelard called his Theologia, issued in three main versions (between 1120 and c.1134), he attempted a logical analysis of trinitarian relations and explored the philosophical problems surrounding God's claims to omnipotence and omniscience. The Collationes (“Debates,” also known as “Dialogue between a Christian, a Philosopher and a Jew”; probably c.1130) present a rational investigation into the nature of the highest good, in which the Christian and the Philosopher (who seems to be modeled on a philosopher of pagan antiquity) are remarkably in agreement. The unfinished Scito teipsum (“Know thyself,” also known as the “Ethics”; c.1138) analyses moral action. (shrink)

Lucius Annaeus Seneca was a Roman Stoic philosopher, dramatist, statesman, and adviser to the emperor Nero, all during the Silver Age of Latin literature. The Complete Works of Lucius Annaeus Seneca is a fresh and compelling series of new English-language translations of his works in eight accessible volumes. Edited by world-renowned classicists Elizabeth Asmis, Shadi Bartsch, and Martha C. Nussbaum, this engaging collection restores Seneca—whose works have been highly praised by modern authors from Desiderius Erasmus to Ralph Waldo Emerson—to (...) his rightful place among the classical writers most widely studied in the humanities. _ Anger, Mercy, Revenge _comprises three key writings: the moral essays _On Anger_ and _On Clemency_—which were penned as advice for the then young emperor, Nero—and the _Apocolocyntosis_, a brilliant satire lampooning the end of the reign of Claudius. Friend and tutor, as well as philosopher, Seneca welcomed the age of Nero in tones alternately serious, poetic, and comic—making _Anger, Mercy, Revenge_ a work just as complicated, astute, and ambitious as its author. (shrink)

This timely anthology contains five pieces of republished poetry (and one original poem) and eleven essays of varying length taking mostly contemporary stances on—and thus hoping to spur the on-going reception into the twenty-first century of—the work of Ralph Waldo Emerson. The assortment of the texts is heterogeneous, yet showing a slight philosophical emphasis: among the eleven essays, half a dozen are by authors trained in philosophy, a couple by literary scholars, and another couple by poets. The prose pieces (...) are previously unpublished, excluding the classical essays by Robert C. Pollock (published originally in 1958) and John J. McDermott (1980), as well as John Lysaker's thought-provoking meditation "Taking.. (shrink)

John Greene has dismissed the evolutionary ethics of Simpson as a case in which science was “only a tool, a weapon, in defense of positions that were essentially religious and philosophical.”57 This position adopts an amorphous view of science, in which a scientific theory can be construed to support practically any rhetorical position. The relationship between theory and rhetoric, however, is more complex; it is interactive, with the theory and the rhetoric influencing and supporting one another. It is no coincidence (...) that Allee, Emerson, and Simpson all arrived at a biological basis of democracy and a naturalistic ethics during a period when the future of world politics and man's own morality were in question. Allee's commitment to world peace certainly antedated his theory of sociality, just as Simpson's commitment to democracy undoubtedly preceded his evolutionary views.By adopting a particular theory, however, the biologist necessarily imposes constraints on the corresponding rhetoric. Allee and Emerson could not, for example, have stressed the importance of the individual in democracy, given the orientation and framework of their biological research. There were differences among the social philosophies of Allee, Emerson, and Simpson; these differences depended, in part, on the specific evolutionary metaphors to which they subscribed. Allee's ideas with respect to cooperation were distinct from Emerson's, and both men differed strongly from Simpson on the role of the individual in evolution. The Chicago school was united by a conceptual framework that emphasized the population as the unit of selection, and the importance of cooperation in nature. But cooperation could play many roles: as a unifying principle for a theory of sociality, as an integrating mechanism in physiological functionalism, and as a biological source of hope for a society in the grips of a world war. (shrink)

The paper is the first of two to be published in Cognitio which explore the hypothesis that the thought of Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803- 1882), brilliantly expounded in the generation before Charles Sanders Peirce (1839-1914), anticipated, if not provided the direct provenance of, Peirce’s mature metaphysical ideas. The papers provide running commentaries on Emerson’s later-phase essays, “Poetry and Imagination” (1854, published in 1876) and “The Natural History of Intellect” (1870). “Poetry and Imagination” is shown to contain the seeds (...) of Peirce’s objective idealism — namely, that “matter is effete mind,” or “mind hide-bound with habits,” — set within an evolutionary cosmology that grounds the human mind’s connaturality or affinity with the laws of nature, a doctrine subtending his abductory logic of scientific discovery. Mutatis mutandis, all these components were already present in Emerson’s essay. Peirce spoke of his “buddhisto-christian religion,” which was another name for Emersonian cosmosemiosis. His originality consisted in applying Emerson’s emphasis on the poetic to the scientific imagination, though the seeds of the latter are present in Emerson’s “The Natural History of Intellect” and other essays as well. (shrink)

A plusieurs reprises, Robert Musil confesse l’influence exercée par sa lecture des essais d’Emerson, s’interrogeant : « Que peut-on encore dire après Emerson ? » C’est cette question de l’héritage, telle qu’elle se manifeste dans le recours à la citation, que cet article se propose d’aborder. De l’influence à l’authenticité, il s’agit d’analyser la difficile articulation entre le langage commun, transmis, et le caractère original et personnel de l’expression. Faire entendre sa voix tout en reprenant les mots d’un (...) autre, tel est l’impératif d’un rapport authentique au langage, qui est aussi un rapport moral impliquant la responsabilité à l’égard des mots que nous citons.In his diaries, Robert Musil confessed his being influenced by his reading of Emerson’s essays. As a writer, he should have thought of Emerson, wondering what could be said after him. In fact, this paper focuses on the difficulty to inherit and the way quotation appears as a form of legacy. From influence to authenticity, I shall analyse the articulation between ordinary language, which is a common legacy and expression, which ought to be personal and genuine. We do care that our own voice should be heard through the use of others’ words. This is the condition of a true relationship to language, and moreover, of a moral use of words which implies responsability to the words we quote. (shrink)

This work is Emerson's set of essays published in 1860 just before the start of the Civil War: 'Fate,' 'Power,' 'Wealth,' 'Culture,' 'Behavior,' 'Worship,' 'Considerations by the Way,' 'Beauty,' 'Illusions.'.

This is R.W. Emerson's address to the students and faculty of the Harvard Divinity School in the year 1838.

This anthology is a thorough introduction to classic literature for those who have not yet experienced these literary masterworks. For those who have known and loved these works in the past, this is an invitation to reunite with old friends in a fresh new format. From Shakespeare's finesse to Oscar Wilde's wit, this unique collection brings together works as diverse and influential as The Pilgrim's Progress and Othello. As an anthology that invites readers to immerse themselves in the masterpieces of (...) the literary giants, it is must-have addition to any library. (shrink)

In this paper, drawing upon Tosaka Jun’s response to Interwar debates on historicism and his account of everydayness, I offer an explanation for why contemporary secular apocalyptic claims lack convergence by focusing on the historical dimension of such claims. Everydayness, organized the routines of work and rest, is shown to be the basis for a sense of historical time, and theoretical journalism is outlined as the kind of collective epistemic procedure needed to produce a collective sense of a community’s place (...) in historical time. I defend the claim that the cause of starkly opposed responses to apocalyptic claims is due to qualitative differences in the work and rest that organize the everyday temporality. In the absence of a theoretical journalism, whether one subscribes to an apocalyptic claim will be contingent on heterogeneous personal circumstance. I conclude by outlining a limit case of indigenous post-apocalyptic claims under settler-colonialism. (shrink)

Games may seem like a waste of time, where we struggle under artificial rules for arbitrary goals. The author suggests that the rules and goals of games are not arbitrary at all. They are a way of specifying particular modes of agency. This is what make games a distinctive art form. Game designers designate goals and abilities for the player; they shape the agential skeleton which the player will inhabit during the game. Game designers work in the medium of agency. (...) Game-playing, then, illuminates a distinctive human capacity. We can take on ends temporarily for the sake of the experience of pursuing them. Game play shows that our agency is significantly more modular and more fluid than we might have thought. It also demonstrates our capacity to take on an inverted motivational structure. Sometimes we can take on an end for the sake of the activity of pursuing that end. (shrink)

There seems to be a deep tension between two aspects of aesthetic appreciation. On the one hand, we care about getting things right. On the other hand, we demand autonomy. We want appreciators to arrive at their aesthetic judgments through their own cognitive efforts, rather than deferring to experts. These two demands seem to be in tension; after all, if we want to get the right judgments, we should defer to the judgments of experts. The best explanation, I suggest, is (...) that aesthetic appreciation is something like a game. When we play a game, we try to win. But often, winning isn’t the point; playing is. Aesthetic appreciation involves the same flipped motivational structure: we aim at the goal of correctness, but having correct judgments isn’t the point. The point is the engaged process of interpreting, investigating, and exploring the aesthetic object. Deferring to aesthetic testimony, then, makes the same mistake as looking up the answer to a puzzle, rather than solving it for oneself. The shortcut defeats the whole point. This suggests a new account of aesthetic value: the engagement account. The primary value of the activity of aesthetic appreciation lies in the process of trying to generate correct judgments, and not in having correct judgments. -/- *There is an audio version available: look for the Soundcloud link, below.*. (shrink)

In this article, I argue for the necessary organicism of immanent critique and the resulting limits and applicability of immanent critique as elaborated in Rahel Jaeggi’s account of Lebensformen. Through a historical review of the problem of natural purposiveness between Kant, Schelling and Hegel, I show that the notion of immanent critique that Hegel produced, and Jaeggi adopts, was an intrinsically organic notion. With this conceptual connection, I demonstrate that Jaeggi’s elaboration of Lebensformen is consistent with this organicism, but also (...) explicate how this property limits critique where the criterion is the long-term stability of Lebensformen. Aligning the organicism of immanent critique with similar projects of social criticism citing the organic, namely eco-Marxism and cybernetics, I show that the cases of capitalism and bureaucracy are not practically vulnerable to immanent critique without supplement. I conclude by suggesting further research requires articulating a hybrid external-immanent form of criticism. (shrink)

This research article was championed as a way of providing discourses pertaining to the concept of "Critical Realism (CR)" approach, which is amongst many othe forms of competing postmodern philosophical concepts for the engagement of dialogical discourses in the area of established econonetric methodologies for effective policy prescription in the economic science discipline. On the the whole, there is no doubt surrounding the value of empirical endeavours in econometrics to address real world economic problems, but equally so, the heavy weighted (...) use and reliance on mathematical contents as a way of justifying its scientific base seemed to be loosing traction of the intended focus of economics when it comes to confronting real world problems in the domain of social interaction. In this vein, the construction of mixed methods discourse(s), which favour that of CR philosophy is hereby suggested in this article as a way forward in confronting with issues raised by critics of mainstream economics and other professionals in the postmodern era. (shrink)

In this paper, I seek to clarify, criticize, and expand upon the ambiguous-yet-influential concept of divine violence introduced by Walter Benjamin’s “Zur Kritik der Gewalt”. I proceed in three parts: in the first, I outline Benjamin’s argument about the cycle of mythical violence and divine violence’s special role as an interruption of that cycle. Next, I explicate Spinoza’s key concepts of potentia and potestas, which can be used to more clearly define what ought to instead be translated as “divine force”. (...) In the third part, through Benjamin’s brief discussion of Sorel’s theory of the anarchist general strike, I equate potentia as a determinate power of aggregative individuals to divine force, both as a collective action and as an idea itself. I use this renewed and more sophisticated concept of divine force to oppose several interpretations of Benjamin’s concept, including Benjamin’s own quietist stance toward divine force. (shrink)

I propose to study one problem for epistemic dependence on experts: how to locate experts on what I will call cognitive islands. Cognitive islands are those domains for knowledge in which expertise is required to evaluate other experts. They exist under two conditions: first, that there is no test for expertise available to the inexpert; and second, that the domain is not linked to another domain with such a test. Cognitive islands are the places where we have the fewest resources (...) for evaluating experts, which makes our expert dependences particularly risky. -/- Some have argued that cognitive islands lead to the complete unusability of expert testimony: that anybody who needs expert advice on a cognitive island will be entirely unable to find it. I argue against this radical form of pessimism, but propose a more moderate alternative. I demonstrate that we have some resources for finding experts on cognitive islands, but that cognitive islands leave us vulnerable to an epistemic trap which I will call runaway echo chambers. In a runaway echo chamber, our inexpertise may lead us to pick out bad experts, which will simply reinforce our mistaken beliefs and sensibilities. (shrink)

This research explores the incorporation of narrative perspectives in economics as a social science and its implications for rethinking epistemology. By examining the role of narratives in economic analysis, the study highlights the advantages of narratives in providing contextualized accounts of human experiences, connecting economic concepts to real-world phenomena, and exploring diverse perspectives. It emphasizes the importance of interdisciplinary collaboration between philosophers, economists, and social scientists to gain a comprehensive understanding of narratives' influence on economic decision-making, market dynamics, and consumer (...) behaviour. The research suggests that narratives offer a means to challenge the notion of a single, objective truth and contribute to a more inclusive and robust framework for analyzing economic phenomena. The implications extend beyond economics, urging a broader perspective on epistemology by embracing narrative perspectives and engaging in interdisciplinary collaboration across disciplines. Overall, this research calls for a rethinking of epistemology, recognising the significance of narratives and their role in knowledge production. (shrink)

Tradução para o português do diálogo Menêxeno de Platão, com notas culturais, históricas e algumas de elucidação sobre as escolhas tradutórias. Acrescenta-se uma breve introdução ao texto.