BACKGROUND Patients with chronic pain face significant barriers in finding clinicians to manage long-term opioid therapy (LTOT). For patients on LTOT, it is increasingly common to have them sign opioid treatment agreements (OTAs). OTAs enumerate the risks of opioids, as informed consent documents would, but also the requirements that patients must meet to receive LTOT. While there has been an ongoing scholarly discussion about the practical and ethical implications of OTA use in the abstract, little is known about how clinicians (...) use them and if OTAs themselves modify clinician prescribing practices. OBJECTIVE To determine how clinicians use OTAs and the potential impacts of OTAs on opioid prescribing. DESIGN We conducted qualitative analysis of four focus groups of clinicians from a large Midwestern academic medical center. Groups were organized according to self-identified prescribing patterns: two groups for clinicians who identified as prescribers of LTOT, and two who did not. PARTICIPANTS 17 clinicians from General Internal Medicine, Family Medicine, and Palliative Care were recruited using purposive, convenience sampling. APPROACH Discussions were recorded, transcribed, and analyzed for themes using reflexive thematic analysis by a multidisciplinary team. KEY RESULTS Our analysis identified three main themes: (1) OTAs did not influence clinicians’ decisions whether to use LTOT generally but did shape clinical decision-making for individual patients; (2) clinicians feel OTAs intensify the power they have over patients, though this was not uniformly judged as harmful; (3) there is a potential misalignment between the intended purposes of OTAs and their implementation. CONCLUSION This study reveals a complicated relationship between OTAs and access to pain management. While OTAs seem not to impact the clinicians’ decisions about whether to use LTOT generally, they do sometimes influence prescribing decisions for individual patients. Clinicians shared complex views about OTAs’ purposes, which shows the need for more clarity about how OTAs could be used to promote shared decision-making, joint accountability, informed consent, and patient education. (shrink)

Context Opioid treatment agreements (OTAs) are documents that clinicians present to patients when prescribing opioids that describe the risks of opioids and specify requirements that patients must meet to receive their medication. Notwithstanding a lack of evidence that OTAs effectively mitigate opioids’ risks, professional organizations recommend that they be implemented, and jurisdictions increasingly require them. We sought to identify the jurisdictions that require OTAs, how OTAs might affect the outcomes of lawsuits that arise when things go wrong, and instances in (...) which the law permits flexibility for clinicians and health care institutions to adopt best practices. -/- Methods We surveyed the laws and regulations of all 50 states and the District of Columbia to identify which jurisdictions require the use of OTAs, the circumstances in which OTA use is mandatory, and the terms OTAs must include (if any). We also surveyed criminal and civil judicial decisions in which OTAs were discussed as evidence on which a court relied to make its decision to determine how OTA use influences litigation outcomes. -/- Findings Results show that a slight majority (27) of jurisdictions now require OTAs. With one exception, the jurisdictions’ requirements for OTA use are triggered at least in part by long-term prescribing. There is otherwise substantial variation and flexibility within OTA requirements. Results also show that even in jurisdictions where OTA use is not required by statute or regulation, OTA use can inform courts’ reasoning in lawsuits involving patients or clinicians. Sometimes, but not always, OTA use legally protects clinicians from liability. -/- Conclusions -/- Our results show that OTA use is entwined with legal obligations in various ways. Clinicians and health care institutions should identify ways for OTAs to enhance clinician–patient relationships and patient care within the bounds of relevant legal requirements and risks. (shrink)

Ideal for a two-to-three week introduction to the Presocratics and Sophists, this volume offers a selection of the extant remains of early Greek philosophical thought on cosmology, metaphysics, epistemology, and ethics, together with unobtrusive, minimally interpretive editorial material: an introduction, brief headnotes, maps, and a concordance.

Although the universal human rights paradigm has been problematic for women and indigenous peoples, both groups have made advances by framing their demands within a human rights perspective. Indigenous women, however, have frequently found themselves marginalized by women’s movements and indigenous movements alike, particularly when they make demands for rights as indigenous women—not just as members of one group or the other. This article takes the case of Mapuche women in Chile to examine the politics of gender and human rights (...) for indigenous women. Their efforts to articulate their concerns, vis-à-vis Mapuche men, nonindigenous women, and the state, have entailed assertions of their own version of women’s rights, one that responds specifically to their reality as Mapuche women. (shrink)

Background: Despite procedural innovations and increasing numbers of uterus transplant attempts worldwide, the perspectives of uterus transplant (UTx) trial participants are lacking. Methods: We conducted a mixed-methods study with women with absolute uterine factor infertility (AUFI). Participants included women who had previously contacted the Cleveland Clinic regarding the Uterine Transplant Trial and met the initial eligibility criteria for participation. In-depth interviews were conducted in conjunction with FertiQoL, a validated and widely used tool to measure the impact of infertility on the (...) quality of life of infertility patients. Results: All (n = 19) rated their overall health as good; some experienced grief and social isolation. AUFI is a life-framing experience that influences acceptance by family, partners, peers, and one’s self. UTx is a means to gain control of reproductive autonomy. UTx allows family-building and the ability to play an active role in prenatal health and well-being. Establishing and maintaining a supportive relationship is a key issue of AUFI and when considering UTx. Risks of UTx are perceived relative to risks to self/child/family posed by adoption/surrogacy. Participants had no overall preference regarding living or deceased donor. Conclusions: The ways in which women with AUFI conceptualize this condition in their lives and choices around UTx and participating in a study of the procedure are multifaceted and textured. These perspectives are critical to understanding its ethical, legal, and social implications. (shrink)

American leaders in four realms were studied to assess their views on the helpfulness to workers with family obligations of employers' policies and services. The realms were corporate management, labor unions, the pro-family movement, and the feminist movement. The data were analyzed by leadership realm and gender in relation to policies of two types: scheduling and work arrangements and services and benefits. Gender accounted for the respondents' views better than class or social movement did. Except for feminist men, the men (...) held similar views regardless of leadership realm. The pro-family women differed from the other women in failing to view most services and benefits as particularly helpful to employees. Union and corporate women's favorable views on services and benefits suggest that fundamental change in workplace supports for workers' family obligations could develop if more women became leaders in unions and corporations. (shrink)

The author explores how dichotomous representations of women and Indians came into play in Chilean print media representations of Mapuche women from 1997 to 2003, at the height of conflicts between the Mapuche people, the state, and elites in southern Chile. The author finds there were three competing representations of Mapuche women, which reproduce assumptions not just about them but about the people as a whole. Together, they accentuate, and simultaneously complicate, dichotomous views of Indians and women. These media portrayals (...) are significant because they reflect and reinforce the central principles of neoliberal multiculturalism—the prevailing form of governance in contemporary Latin America—which promotes diversity while perpetuating the marginalization of indigenous peoples and many of their rights. This analysis of images in print media contributes to understandings of how race and gender ideologies continue to inform debates over national belonging in contemporary Latin America. (shrink)

Today’s business students are tomorrow’s business leaders. To ensure they have skills in creating profitable, pro-social, ethical organizations, we need to consider alternative methods of teaching CSR. In this proposed symposium, we will present different approaches to international CSR/Service-Learning.

Relationships between men and women can change rapidly, yet simultaneously can resist change. This paradox is addressed by a theory of social organization in the "personality and social structure" tradition, which attempts to explain what aspects of gender relations change most readily and what aspects are most resistant to change, in terms of 1) institutional models of organization and 2) the contrasting ways in which status and role affect identity. Changes in gender relations appear first in the public sphere, but (...) are more likely to persist if they are institutionalized in both public and domestic spheres, and are embodied in identities. (shrink)

From Machiavellian city officials to big-time mobsters, corrupt beat cops, and overzealous G-men, Boardwalk Empire is replete with philosophically compelling characters who find themselves in philosophically interesting situations. This book is directed at thoughtful fans of the show. Here, readers discover parallels between the events in Boardwalk Empire and contemporary political events. Twenty philosophers address issues in political philosophy, ethics, aesthetics, feminism, and metaphysics. Is Nucky Thomson a Machiavellian prince or a Nietzschean superman? Is Jimmy's resentment towards Nucky justified, given (...) that Jimmy would never have come into existence had his parents not met? What can be said about the ethics of lying in the seedy world of bootlegging? Agent Van Alden’s unique religious attitudes bring a warped sense of morality to the Boardwalk universe. One chapter brings to light the moral character of Van Alden’s God. Other chapters explores the roles that storytelling, deception, and gender play in the show. (shrink)

Drawing on data from interviews with 65 masculine-to-feminine transgenderists, the authors examine the coming-out experiences of transgendered individuals. Drawing on the literature that shows gender to be an inherent component of the social infrastructure that at an individual level is accomplished in interaction with others, they demonstrate that interactional challenges to gender are insufficient to challenge the system of gender. Whereas many transgenderists believe that their actions and identities are radical challenges to the binary system of gender, in fact, the (...) majority of such individuals reinforce and reify the system they hope to change. (shrink)

This article presents a response to Richard Rorty's paper "Is Philosophy Relevant to Business Ethics?" The author questions Rorty's views on the depreciation of the role of philosophy in applied ethics, and outlines four reasons why philosophy retains its relevance. The author addresses the role of moral reasoning in the development of the moral imagination. The author also concludes that humans have the means necessary to make moral progress and are capable of moral reasoning, and need only to develop a (...) strong moral imagination. (shrink)

The Ontology for Biomedical Investigations (OBI) is an ontology that provides terms with precisely defined meanings to describe all aspects of how investigations in the biological and medical domains are conducted. OBI re-uses ontologies that provide a representation of biomedical knowledge from the Open Biological and Biomedical Ontologies (OBO) project and adds the ability to describe how this knowledge was derived. We here describe the state of OBI and several applications that are using it, such as adding semantic expressivity to (...) existing databases, building data entry forms, and enabling interoperability between knowledge resources. OBI covers all phases of the investigation process, such as planning, execution and reporting. It represents information and material entities that participate in these processes, as well as roles and functions. Prior to OBI, it was not possible to use a single internally consistent resource that could be applied to multiple types of experiments for these applications. OBI has made this possible by creating terms for entities involved in biological and medical investigations and by importing parts of other biomedical ontologies such as GO, Chemical Entities of Biological Interest (ChEBI) and Phenotype Attribute and Trait Ontology (PATO) without altering their meaning. OBI is being used in a wide range of projects covering genomics, multi-omics, immunology, and catalogs of services. OBI has also spawned other ontologies (Information Artifact Ontology) and methods for importing parts of ontologies (Minimum information to reference an external ontology term (MIREOT)). The OBI project is an open cross-disciplinary collaborative effort, encompassing multiple research communities from around the globe. To date, OBI has created 2366 classes and 40 relations along with textual and formal definitions. The OBI Consortium maintains a web resource providing details on the people, policies, and issues being addressed in association with OBI. (shrink)

The value of any kind of data is greatly enhanced when it exists in a form that allows it to be integrated with other data. One approach to integration is through the annotation of multiple bodies of data using common controlled vocabularies or ‘ontologies’. Unfortunately, the very success of this approach has led to a proliferation of ontologies which itself creates obstacles to integration. The Open Biomedical Ontologies (OBO) consortium has set in train a strategy to overcome this problem. Existing (...) OBO ontologies, including the Gene Ontology, are undergoing a process of coordinated reform and new ontologies being created on the basis of an evolving set of shared principles governing ontology development. The result is an expanding family of ontologies designed to be interoperable, logically well-formed, and to incorporate accurate representations of biological reality. We describe the OBO Foundry initiative, and provide guidelines for those who might wish to become involved. (shrink)

This book celebrates the work of Patricia Werhane, an iconic figure in business ethics. This festschrift is a collection of articles that build on Werhane’s contributions to business ethics in such areas as Employee Rights, the Legacy of Adam Smith, Moral Imagination, Women in Business, the development of the field of business ethics, and her contributions to such fields as Health Care, Education, Teaching, and Philosophy. All papers are new contributions to the management literature written by well-known business ethicists, (...) such as Norman Bowie, Richard De George, Ronald Duska, Edwin Hartman, Michael Hoffman, Mollie Painter-Morland, Mark Schwartz, Andrew Wicks, and others. The volume is comprised of articles that reflect on Werhane’s work as well as build on it as a way to advance further research. At the end of the festschrift, Pat Werhane provides responses to each chapter. The first chapter of the book also includes the overview of Patricia Werhane’s work and her academic career. The book is written to appeal to management scholars and graduate students interested in the areas of Business Ethics, Modern Capitalism, and Human Rights. Patricia Werhane is one of the most distinguished figures in the field of business ethics. She was a founder of the field, she is one of its leading scholars, and she has had a profound impact on the world of business practice. Among her many accomplishments, Pat is known for her original work on moral imagination, she is an acclaimed authority on employee rights in the workplace, and she is one of the leading scholars on Adam Smith. Having been active in Academia for over 50 years, Werhane is a prolific author of over a hundred articles and book chapters, and the author or editor of twenty-seven books, including Adam Smith and his Legacy for Modern Capitalism, Moral Imagination and Management Decision-Making, and co-authored books Organization Ethics in Health Care, Alleviating Poverty Through Profitable Partnerships, Obstacles to Ethical Decision-Making, Corporate Responsibility: The American Experience, and Research Approaches to Business Ethics and Corporate Responsibility. (shrink)

A main objective of this study is to assess the opinions of 50 behavioral health patients on selective control over their behavioral and physical health information. We explored patients' preferences regarding current consent models, what health information should be shared for care and research and whether these preferences vary based on the sensitivity of health information and/or the type of provider involved. The other objective of this study was to solicit opinions of 8 behavioral health providers on patient-driven granular control (...) of health information and potential impact on care.Electronic surveys were implemented at an outpatient Behavioral Health facility that provides care for behavioral health patients with non-serious mental illnesses. The Patient Survey included questions regarding patients' demographics and about their concerns and preferences for data sharing for care and research. The Provider Survey included questions about their view on the current consent process and perceptions on barriers and facilitators to implement patient-controlled granular consent models.This novel study provides valuable preliminary data that can help guide future studies to better understand privacy choices of this underrepresented patient group. (shrink)

Bringing together the expertise of rhetoricians in English and communication as well as media studies scholars, Arguments about Animal Ethics delves into the rhetorical and discursive practices of participants in controversies over the use of nonhuman animals for meat, entertainment, fur, and vivisection. Both sides of the debate are carefully analyzed, as the contributors examine how stakeholders persuade or fail to persuade audiences about the ethics of animal rights or the value of using animals.

This book examines the transition from the perspective of adult attachment theory. It reviews previous studies of the transition to parenthood and of adult attachments, and presents the results of a comprehensive new study of parenthood. In this study, the researchers followed the experiences of approximately 100 couples who were becoming parents for the first time, together with a comparison sample of couples who were not planning to have a child at this stage. Couples were assessed on four occasions: during (...) the second trimester of pregnancy, and 6 weeks, 3 months, and 6 months post-birth. The book addresses such key issues as the division of domestic labor, the changing nature of couples' marital relationships, changes in new parents' attachment networks, postnatal depression, and factors predicting the ease of the transition. (shrink)

Presents a plethora of approaches to developing human potential in areas not conventionally addressed. Organized in two parts, this international collection of essays provides viable educational alternatives to those currently holding sway in an era of high-stakes accountability.

Building on the virtues that made the first edition of _A Presocratics Reader_ the most widely used sourcebook for the study of the Presocratics and Sophists, the second edition offers even more value and a wider selection of fragments from these philosophical predecessors and contemporaries of Socrates. With revised introductions, annotations, suggestions for further reading, and more, the second edition draws on the wealth of new scholarship published on these fascinating thinkers over the past decade or more, a remarkably rich (...) period in Presocratic studies. At the volume's core, as ever, are the fragments themselves--but now in thoroughly revised and, in some cases, new translations by Richard D. McKirahan and Patricia Curd, among them those of the recently published Derveni Papyrus. (shrink)

All contributions included in the present issue were originally presented at an ‘Author Meets Critics’ session organised by Richard Zach at the Pacific Meeting of the American Philosophical Association in San Diego in the Spring of 2014.

Cartesian Views is a fitting tribute to a man of many parts, to use Alison Wylie’s apt description . Richard A. Watson has provoked, evoked, and invoked new directions in Cartesian scholarship—both methodologically and substantively. Watson’s Downfall of Cartesianism and its sequel, The Breakdown of Metaphysics , have become required reading for students of early modern philosophy and are largely responsible for the revival of many “minor” Cartesians, while serving as sourcebook for methodological attention to history and rational reconstruction. Cartesian (...) Views is an important collection that hearkens a forty-year retrospective of Cartesian studies while simultaneously turning our sights to what lies in the future.Although an eclectic collection, each paper in the volume reflects some counterpoint to, advancement of, or commentary upon some aspect, claim, argument, or theme found in Watson’s philosophical works. The opening paper by Nadler questions Watson’s view that dualism and the problem of mind-body interaction was the central issue that stimulated. (shrink)

Richard C. Atkinson’s eight-year tenure as president of the University of California reflected the major issues facing California itself: the state’s emergence as the world’s leading knowledge-based economy and the rapidly expanding size and diversity of its population. As this selection of President Atkinson’s speeches and papers reveals, his administration was marked by innovative approaches that deliberately shaped U.C.’s role in this changing California. These writings tell the story of the national controversy over the SAT and Atkinson’s successful challenge to (...) the dominance of the seventy-five-year-old college entrance examination. They also highlight other issues with national significance: U.C.’s experiments with race-neutral admissions programs; the challenges facing academic libraries and the University’s pioneering activities with the California Digital Library; and the University’s involvement in new paradigms of industry-university research. Together, these speeches and papers open a window on an eventful period in the history of the nation’s leading public research university and the history of American higher education. (shrink)

Any study of the 'Scientific Revolution' and particularly Descartes' role in the debates surrounding the conception of nature (atoms and the void v. plenum theory, the role of mathematics and experiment in natural knowledge, the status and derivation of the laws of nature, the eternality and necessity of eternal truths, etc.) should be placed in the philosophical, scientific, theological, and sociological context of its time. Seventeenth-century debates concerning the nature of the eternal truths such as '2 + 2 = 4' (...) or the law of inertia turn on the question of whether these truths were created along with nature, or were uncreated and subsisting in God's mind. One's answer to that question has direct consequences for conceptions of the necessity/contingency of mathematical and natural knowledge, how knowledge of such truths is accomplished by humans, and what grounds these truths. In this paper, I review the positions of four successors to Descartes' philosophy on the question of the eternal truths to illustrate how in specific ways that question with its theological, metaphysical, modal, and epistemological dimensions concerned the objectivity and certainty of the discoveries of the new science. Author Recommends: Clarke, Desmond. Descartes' Philosophy of Science . University Park, Penn State Press, 1982. This work provides an account of Descartes as a practicing scientist whose rationalism is mitigated by reliance on experiment and experience. Author re-examines Descartes' philosophical and scientific works in this new light. Dear, Peter. Revolutionizing the Sciences: European Knowledge and its Ambitions, 1500–1700 . Princeton, Princeton University Press, 2001. This work provides a useful overview of the issues and thinkers of the Scientific Revolution. Of particular relevance is chapter 8 on Cartesian and Newtonian science. Funkenstein, Amos. Theology and the Scientific Imagination from the Middle Ages to the Seventeenth Century . Princeton, Princeton University Press, 1986. This work is an advanced study of the theological and metaphysical foundations of early modern science. Discussions include questions of God's nature, God's knowledge in relation to human knowledge, providence, the laws of nature, and the truths of mathematics. In particular, chapter 3 discusses Descartes' account of the eternal truths and divine omnipotence. Garber, Daniel. Descartes' Metaphysical Physics . Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 1992. This work examines how Descartes' metaphysical doctrines of God, soul, and body set the groundwork for his physics. It includes a study of God and the grounds for the laws of physics (chapter 9). Henry, John. The Scientific Revolution and the Origins of Modern Science . 3rd ed. New York, Palgrave, Macmillan Press, 2008. This work provides a brief, general, and informative overview of the Scientific Revolution, including the themes of method, magic, religion, and culture. Osler, Margaret J. Divine Will and the Mechanical Philosophy: Gassendi and Descartes on Contingency and Necessity in the Created World . Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1994. This work is an examination and comparison of the mechanical philosophies of Gassendi and Descartes. It offers in-depth discussion of the issue of voluntarism and intellectualism in the period and how that related to conceptions of laws of nature and the eternal truths. Shapin, Steven. The Scientific Revolution . Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 1996. This work provides a critical synthesis of as well as a guide to recent scholarship in the history of science for a general readership. Online Materials Dr. Robert A. Hatch's Scientific Revolution Website: http://web.clas.ufl.edu/users/rhatch/pages/03-Sci-Rev/SCI-REV-Home/ A compendium of resources for the study of Scientific Revolution. Early English Books Online: http://eebo.chadwyck.com/home Early English Books Online (EEBO) contains digital facsimile page images of virtually every work printed in England, Ireland, Scotland, Wales and British North America and works in English printed elsewhere from 1473 to 1700. Early Modern Resources: http://www.earlymodernweb.org.uk/emr/ Early Modern Resources is a gateway for all those interested in finding electronic resources relating to the early modern period in history. Gallica, the Digital Library of the Bibliothèque Nationale de France: http://gallica.bnf.fr/ An ever-growing digital library which includes numerous primary and secondary texts of relevance to Descartes and his role in Scientific Revolution. Hatfield, Gary, 'René Descartes', The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Spring 2009 ed. Ed. Edward N. Zalta; URL: http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/spr2009/entries/descartes/ Slowik, Edward, 'Descartes' Physics', The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Winter 2008 ed. Ed. Edward N. Zalta; URL: http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/win2008/entries/descartes-physics/ Syllabus Sample Syllabus: Cartesian Science The following is five weeks covering Cartesian Science in a course on Descartes or the Scientific Revolution, or 17th-century theories of matter, or related themes on early modern truth and method, especially on the continent. This material is best suited to a graduate level audience, but it could be modified to suit an upper-division undergraduate course, as the readings are basically primary texts whose context and background can be explained in lectures. Week 1: Cartesian Revolution in France • Scientific method • Role of mathematics and experiment • Certainty of scientific knowledge Readings: Hatfield, Gary, 'René Descartes', The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Spring 2009 ed. Ed. Edward N. Zalta; URL: http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/spr2009/entries/descartes/ Descartes, Discourse on Method , Parts 1–3 Descartes, Meditations on First Philosophy , First Meditation. Week 2: Descartes' Scientific Treatises • Mechanization and mathematization of nature • Primary–secondary quality distinction Readings: Discourse on Method, Parts 4–6 Selections from Descartes' Scientific Essays: The World or Treatise on Light (ATXI 3–48); Treatise on Man (ATXI 119–202); Optics (ATVI 82–147). Slowik, Edward, 'Descartes' Physics', The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Winter 2008 ed. Ed. Edward N. Zalta; URL: http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/win2008/entries/descartes-physics/ Henry, John, 'The Mechanical Philosophy,' chapter 5. The Scientific Revolution and the Origins of Modern Science . 3rd ed. Macmillan, 2008. Week 3: Descartes' Theory of Nature • Descartes' derivation of the law of conservation and the three laws of motion • God's role in the metaphysics and physics of nature Readings: Selections from Principles of Philosophy, Preface (all); Letter to Elizabeth; Part I: 1–8; Part II: 1–45, 55, 64; Part III: 1–4, 15–19, 45–47; Part IV: 187–207. John Henry, 'Religion and Science,' chapter 6. The Scientific Revolution and the Origins of Modern Science . 3rd ed. Macmillan, 2008. Week 4: Post-1650 Cartesian Science: Necessity and Contingency in Nature • Debates on God, Creation, and Causes Readings: Easton, Patricia, 'What is at Stake in the Cartesian Debates on the Eternal Truths?' Philosophy Compass 4.2 (2009): 348–62. Malebranche, Nicolas, 'Elucidation 10', from The Search after Truth (1674). Note: All selections available in Nicolas Malebranche (1992). Philosophical Selections , edited by S. Nadler, Hackett. Gottfried Leibniz (1714) Monadology . Week 5: Causes in Nature and Morals • Theodicy as an explanation of defect and evil in a lawful universe: Malebranche v. Leibniz Readings: Nicolas Malebranche, Elucidation XVI (on occasionalism), and Treatise on Nature and Grace, Discourse One, Part 1. Gottfried Leibniz (1706), Theodicy. Focus Questions Weekly questions can be used to focus the readings. This can be done in a web or e-mail discussion thread, as a weekly assignment, or for in class discussion. I require students to post a short paragraph in response to the question or some posting by a classmate on the question. Students are required to post by 10 a.m. the day before we meet for class on a course website. Week 1: According to Descartes, what role does skepticism play in scientific reasoning? Week 2: Comment on the following: 'But I am supposing this machine to be made by the hands of God, and so I think you may reasonably think it capable of a greater variety of movements than I could possibly imagine in it, and of exhibiting more artistry than I could possibly ascribe to it' [ Treatise on Man ; ATXI 120]. Week 3: What is Descartes' conception of the relation between the metaphysics and physics of nature? Week 4: Critically discuss the positions of Descartes, Malebranche, and Leibniz on what provides the foundation for the certitude of natural knowledge? Week 5: Explain why both Malebranche and Leibniz consider moral sin to be analogous to natural defect? Seminar/Project Idea Hold a debate on the question of the status of the eternal truths. The proposition will be Descartes' position: 'Eternal truths must be both created and necessary if certainty in science is to be possible'. Format: 1. At the beginning of the 5-week module, students will be assigned to one of three roles: Team A, Team B, and judge's panel. Students will be given the debate proposition, but will not be told which team will take the affirmative and which team the negative until the time of the debate. 2. Recommend a variation on the Classic Debate Format to encourage the development of argument: sequence begins with affirmative construction (8 minutes), negative construction (8 minutes), second affirmative construction (8 minutes), second negative construction (8 minutes), first negative rebuttal (4 minutes), first affirmative rebuttal (4 minutes), final negative rebuttal (4 minutes) and final affirmative rebuttal (4 minutes). 3. Judges Panel: will consist of 3–4 judges who will assess the performance of Teams A and B. Judgment should be based on the persuasiveness of the team position. 4. Debate will be held at the end of the fifth week, or semester, whichever makes most sense given the course length and structure. Acknowledgements The author gratefully acknowledges the immensely helpful comments and suggestions by the participants in her graduate seminar on the Scientific Revolution: Benjamin Chicka, Sarah Jacques-Ross, Richard Ross, Marcella Stockstill, and Zohra Wolters. (shrink)

Fox, Patricia Review(s) of: Hope: Promise, possibility, and fulfillment, by ed. Richard Lennan and Nancy Pineda-Madrid, (Mahwah, NJ: Paulist, 2013), pp. 261, $39.95.

This article reviews four papers presented at the 33rd Annual Richard R. Baker Colloquium in Philosophy that was held at the University of Dayton on March 6-8, 2008. The second section reflects on the current form of these papers from a pedagogical perspective that emphasizes the importance of continual reflection on the conceptualization of intersectionality, the importance of reflecting on practices which may prevent us from the practice of intersectional understanding and action, and the theoretical and pedagogical need to continue (...) to be attentive to the discourse of the dominant and how this discourse constructs our social and political realities as well as our individual identities. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:The Cambridge Companion to Early Greek PhilosophyPatricia CurdA. A. Long, editor. The Cambridge Companion to Early Greek Philosophy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999. Pp. xxxii + 427. Cloth, $54.95. Paper, $19.95.The Cambridge Companions are designed both to introduce and to survey, aims that anyone who teaches introductory courses knows are not fully compatible. The Cambridge Companion to Early Greek Philosophy is successful because its contributors have kept to (...) a uniform tone of mostly introduction, with some reference to recent developments and controversies in the field. There are sixteen essays, with a judicious mix of chapters on particular figures and on general topics.A. A. Long provides a helpful introduction, discussing the problems of dealing with the fragmentary evidence for these philosophers, and giving an account of the nature and scope of early Greek thought. (He also argues—not entirely persuasively—that we should give up the nineteenth century name "Presocratics" for these thinkers.) Jaap Mansfeld explains the problems of sources and doxography (the chapter is quite compressed and could be rather overwhelming for the newcomer to the area), while Keimpe Algra surveys Ionian cosmology. Carl Huffman provides a masterful discussion of early Pythagoreanism, attempting to sort out what we can and cannot be justified in claiming about Pre-Platonic Pythagoreanism. The chapters on individual thinkers mostly provide systematic overviews. Edward Hussey contributes an exemplary chapter on Heraclitus, and David Sedley one on Parmenides and Melissus (it is good to see Melissus treated seriously), with Richard McKirahan weighing in on Zeno (mostly on the paradoxes of motion but with some attention to the arguments against plurality). The discussions of individual Presocratics are rounded out with Daniel Graham's treatment of Empedocles' and Anaxagoras' responses to Parmenides, and C. C. W. Taylor on the Atomists. Sarah Broadie considers rational theology and James Lesher early Greek epistemology, while André Laks surveys ancient theories of soul, sensation, and thought. Paul Woodruff and Fernanda Decleva Caizzi provide chapters on the Sophists, the former discussing Protagoras and Gorgias, the latter, Protagoras and Antiphon. Mario Vegetti undertakes an examination of the notion of causation in early Greek thought, and Diskin Clay explores the poetics of the Presocratic philosophers. The book opens with short discussions—three paragraphs devoted to life, sources, and works for each of the thinkers who figure in the period (in alphabetical rather than even roughly chronological order), a chronological chart, and a map. There is a large and useful—though necessarily selective— bibliography (supplemented in the notes to some chapters by references to articles that are not included in the main bibliography), an index locorum, and an index of names and subjects that [End Page 429] includes modern scholars "only if their views are cited in the main text or discussed in footnotes" (which makes it difficult to use in tracking down references). Unfortunately, as in all the Cambridge Companions, notes are at the end of articles rather than at the foot of the page, making necessary a fair bit of flipping while reading.How well do the contributors succeed in meeting the needs of the intended readers of the series? For the most part, very well; the novice reader will find this an accessible guide to Early Greek philosophy. The various discussions are solid and well-informed, and the authors have indicated issues and interpretations that are controversial (for example, Taylor takes time to consider objections to his earlier criticism of Vlastos on the connection between atomistic metaphysics and ethics, and Hussey is careful to note the traditional flashpoints of disagreement in Heraclitus interpretation). It is also good that some of the Sophists are included (it is worth considering how viable the traditional distinction between the Sophists and the Philosophers really is), and inclusion of both the medical tradition and the issue of poetics is very welcome. Further chapters considering in more detail the cosmologies of post-Milesians (including Parmenides) and on the philosophical uses made of the early Greek thinkers by Plato and Aristotle would have rounded things out, but these would have made an already big book bigger. As perhaps befits an introductory survey, most of the interpretations lean to the traditional - someone looking for... (shrink)