Between 1907 and 1915 Albert Francis Blakeslee transformed both himself and the Connecticut Agricultural College at Storrs into things neither had been at the beginning of the century. Using the varied commitments of the agricultural college and experiment station at which he worked as resources with which to build his career, Blakeslee began as a botanist and instructor in botany and ended as a geneticist and teacher of genetics. Moreover, he left behind at Storrs a legacy of genetic research and (...) instruction in the form of an autonomous department of Botany and Genetics. The story of Blakeslee's career at the Connecticut Agricultural College reveals the multifold ways in which agricultural researchers identified unique institutional resources and built unexpected careers and unanticipated institutional structures, a process which had a significant impact on the disciplinary growth of genetics in the United States. (shrink)

How does thinking affect doing? There is a widely held view that thinking about what you are doing, as you are doing it, hinders performance. Once you have acquired the ability to putt a golf ball, play an arpeggio on the piano, or parallel-park, reflecting on your actions leads to inaccuracies, blunders, and sometimes even utter paralysis--that's what is widely believed. But is it true? After exploring some of the contemporary and historical manifestations of the idea, Barbara Gail Montero (...) develops a theory of expertise which emphasizes the role of the conscious mind in expert action. She aims to dispel various myths about experts who proceed without any understanding of what guides their action, and she analyzes research in both philosophy and psychology that is taken to show that conscious control and explicit monitoring of one's movements impedes well practiced skills. Montero explores a wide range of real-life examples of optimal performance, in sports, the performing arts, healthcare, the military, and other fields, and draws from psychology, neuroscience, and literature to offer a refreshing and persuasive view of expertise, according to which expert action generally is and ought to be thoughtful, effortful, and reflective. (shrink)

This book examines the birth of the scientific understanding of motion. It investigates which logical tools and methodological principles had to be in place to give a consistent account of motion, and which mathematical notions were introduced to gain control over conceptual problems of motion. It shows how the idea of motion raised two fundamental problems in the 5th and 4th century BCE: bringing together being and non-being, and bringing together time and space. The first problem leads to the exclusion (...) of motion from the realm of rational investigation in Parmenides, the second to Zeno's paradoxes of motion. Methodological and logical developments reacting to these puzzles are shown to be present implicitly in the atomists, and explicitly in Plato who also employs mathematical structures to make motion intelligible. With Aristotle we finally see the first outline of the fundamental framework with which we conceptualise motion today. (shrink)

In a highly original rereading of the writings and seminars of Jacques Lacan, together with works of Freud and others, Cassin shows how psychoanalysis, like the sophists, challenges the very foundations of scientific rationality. In taking seriously equivocations, jokes, and unfinishable projects of interpretation, the analyst, like the sophist, allows performance, signifier, and inconsistency to reshape truth.

Developments in the last several years have sparked renewed interest in the ethics of research involving humans. Issues relating to the global extent of research and its guiding principles are of particular importance to researchers, health officials, and individual ethics committees who want a deeper and more encompassing inquire regarding the foundation and evolution of human research. This department of CQ launches a long overdue effort to explore these wider issues. Readers are invited to submit papers to Charles MacKay, 5011 (...) Worthington Drive, Bethesda, MD 20816, USA. E-mail: [email protected]. a. (shrink)

This book presents the most important problems of reference and considers their solution. It presupposes no technical knowledge, presents analyses from first principles, illustrates every stage with examples, and is written with verve and clarity. This is the ideal introduction to reference for students of linguistics and philosophy of language.

Background: “Therapeutic misconception” arises when human subjects interpret a clinical trial as aimed primarily at therapy rather than producing knowledge. Therapeutic misconceptions may be more prevalent in trials enrolling gravely ill subjects or involving novel and well publicised investigational agents.Objective: To examine the extent to which investigators express therapeutic optimism in phase 1 human gene transfer consent documents, whether highly active gene transfer researchers are more prone to expressing therapeutic optimism, and whether consent forms have grown more optimistic in their (...) descriptions of personal benefit over the last decade.Design: Content analysis was performed on 277 consent documents to measure the number of sentences describing possibility of benefit, terminology used for experimental agents, the proportion of statements describing personal versus societal benefits, and whether investigators attempted to thwart therapeutic misconceptions.Results: Consent forms generally used therapeutic terminology to describe study agents, devoted more sentences to describing possible personal benefits than to describing benefits to society, and infrequently explained that a particular benefit was unlikely. Consent documents used by highly active gene transfer researchers tended to portray significantly greater optimism about personal benefit than less active investigators, though they were also significantly more cautious with agent terminology. Finally, therapeutic optimism expressed in consent forms has declined over the past decade.Conclusions: Consent documents used in phase 1 gene transfer trials, although increasingly attentive to possible therapeutic misconceptions, are inappropriately optimistic about direct benefits of trial participation. Such optimism is expressed more emphatically in trials involving highly active gene transfer researchers as principal investigators. (shrink)

Philosophers have long distinguished between appearance and reality, and the opposition between a supposedly deceptive surface and a more profound truth is deeply rooted in Western culture. At a time of obsession with self-representation, when politics is enmeshed with spectacle and social and economic forces are intensely aestheticized, philosophy remains moored in traditional dichotomies: being versus appearing, interiority versus exteriority, authenticity versus alienation. Might there be more to appearance than meets the eye? In this strikingly original book, Barbara Carnevali (...) offers a philosophical examination of the roles that appearances play in social life. While Western metaphysics and morals have predominantly disdained appearances and expelled them from their domain, Carnevali invites us to look at society, ancient to contemporary, as an aesthetic phenomenon. The ways in which we appear in public and the impressions we make in terms of images, sounds, smells, and sensations are discerned by other people's senses and assessed according to their taste; this helps shape our ways of being and the world around us. Carnevali shows that an understanding of appearances is necessary to grasp the dynamics of interaction, recognition, and power in which we live-and to avoid being dominated by them. Anchored in philosophy and traversing sociology, art history, literature, and popular culture, Social Appearances develops new theoretical and conceptual tools for today's most urgent critical tasks. (shrink)

This volume explores the cross-linguistic diversity, and possibly inconsistency, of the span of linguistic means that signal reported speech and thought. The integration of broad linguistic (viewpoint in conversation and narrative) and cognitive (theory of mind and understanding the inner life and thought of others) strategies for handling mixed points of view will be considered.

In Introduction to a Phenomenology of Life, renowned French philosopher Renaud Barbaras aims to construct the basis for a phenomenology of life. Called an introduction because it has to deal with philosophical limits and presuppositions, it is much more, as Barbaras investigates life in its phenomenological senses, approached through the duality of its intransitive and transitive senses. Originally published in French (Introduction à une phénoménologie de la vie) Introduction to a Phenomenology of Life first defines the problem of life phenomenologically, (...) then studies the failures of the phenomenological movement to adequately think about life, and finally elaborates a new, original, and productive approach to the problem. He engages "object-oriented" philosophies with this approach and concludes that they are far more phenomenological than previously believed. Combining original interpretations and expert readings of philosophers such as Kant and Husserl and contemporary thinkers such as Bergson, Badiou, and Deleuze, Barbaras offers here a powerful and important contribution to phenomenology and continental thought. (shrink)

Barbara Herman argues for a radical shift in the way we perceive Kant's ethics. She convincingly reinterprets the key texts, at once allowing Kant to mean what he says while showing that what Kant says makes good moral sense. She urges us to abandon the tradition that describes Kantian ethics as a deontology, a moral system of rules of duty. She finds the central idea of Kantian ethics not in duty but in practical rationality as a norm of unconditioned (...) goodness. This book both clarifies Kant's own theory and adds programmatic vitality to modern moral philosophy. (shrink)

Accurate estimation of risk and benefit is integral to good clinical research planning, ethical review, and study implementation. Some commentators have argued that various actors in clinical research systems are prone to biased or arbitrary risk/benefit estimation. In this commentary, we suggest the evidence supporting such claims is very limited. Most prior work has imputed risk/benefit beliefs based on past behavior or goals, rather than directly measuring them. We describe an approach – forecast analysis – that would enable direct and (...) effective measure of the quality of risk/benefit estimation. We then consider some objections and limitations to the forecasting approach. (shrink)

The ancient history of flamenco is pure hypothesis, partly owing to the “ Dark Ages “ which shrouded the folk expression of a large portion of Andalusia from soon after the victory of the Catholic Kings at Granada in 1492 until the emancipation laws of Charles III in 1783. Although flamenco as such is a product of the nineteenth century, the hypothesis may be taken right back to pre-Iberian days when there was a flourishing civilization in the south of Spain, (...) with its capital, Tartessos, more or less where Seville—or Cadiz—is now, perhaps the first Empire in the West. The Iberians inhabited the north and the east but the towns along the Andalusian coast were founded by Phoenicians from Tyre (Cadiz) and Phocaeans from Asia Minor (Málaga). During the Celtic invasions the south was held by Carthage until Andalusia finally became Roman as a result of the Punic wars. (shrink)

As a consequence of the COVID-19 pandemic, the number of decentralized clinical trials, trials conducted in whole or in part at locations other than traditional clinical trial sites, significantly increased. While these trials have the potential advantage of access, participant centricity, convenience, lower costs, and efficiency, they also raise a number of important ethical and practical concerns. Here we focus on a number of those concerns, including participant safety, privacy and confidentiality, remote consent, digital access and proficiency, and trial oversight. (...) Awareness of these ethical complexities will help foster the development of processes and cooperative solutions to promote safe, ethical trials going forward, optimized to decrease burden and increase access for all participants. (shrink)

Trois dates ponctuent le présent volume, composé d'un ensemble d'inédits, d'un dossier, d'études et de lectures critiques, et donnent ainsi à Bergson sa place dans le XXe siècle philosophique. 1902, il y a cent ans exactement : c'est la date du cours inédit au Collège de France dont on lira ici les premières leçons et qui prépare L'introduction à la métaphysique publiée l'année suivante. Dans ce cours intégralement sténographié pour Péguy, on entend Bergson exposer comment le réel se donne et (...) se retire immédiatement à nous, se donne dans un contact absolu, sympathie ou intuition, se retire pour les besoins de l'action et par la force des signes, et doit être reconquis par la métaphysique, dès lors introduite avec sa différence dans le jeu philosophique du siècle. L dossier présenté ici porte ensuite sur Les Deux Sources de la morale et de la religion, publiées trente ans plus tard, en 1932. Il témoigne d'un impressionnant renouveau d'intérêt pour cet ouvrage trop vite et trop exclusivement situé dans l'itinéraire spirituel de son auteur, les querelles religieuses de son époque, les enjeux immédiats des années 1930. Tous ces enjeux sont aussi présents ici, à travers un inédit de Bergson et des articles de chercheurs français et étrangers, mais à travers aussi des perspectives anthropologiques, sociologiques, philosophiques, entièrement nouvelles. 1960 enfin : telle est la date du cours inédit de Victor Goldschsnidt, plus connu comme lecteur de Platon, des stoïciens ou de Rousseau, que nous présentons ici, qui porte sur le premier chapitre de Matière et mémoire et la notion de "champ transcendantal", et qui introduit aussi au dossier sur le livre que ce cours a inspiré en 1964 au philosophe brésilien Bento Prado Jr, récemment traduit. Cet ensemble conduit à réévaluer entièrement la place de Bergson dans le moment philosophique des années 1960 : elle est centrale, aussi bien en elle-même qu'à travers Merleau-Ponty ou Deleuze. Aujourd'hui enfin, à travers les études générales également rassemblées, et l'ensemble de ce volume qui en appelle d'autres, nous pouvons réaccéder à Bergson à la fois pour lui-même, dans le débat avec les moments principaux du siècle, et pour aller plus loin. (shrink)

The present booklet contains ten short philosophical writings, which are not so much intended for a narrow circle of people, by education of philosophers, but by a wider readership. Specifically, they are for the homeless, the (long-term) unemployed, the elderly, people with mental health problems, people with special needs and so on, as well as for the general public in general. So they are for people who are not close to philosophy, especially for those who need the help of others (...) the most. The red thread of the collection is an attempt to answer the question of why philosophy for them. The records collected here were created in the period 2015-2019 and were also published in newspapers or magazines.--Publisher's website. (shrink)

Is the neurophysiology of pain all there is to pain? How do words and mental pictures come to represent things in the world? Do computers think, and if so, are their thought processes significantly similar to our thought processes? Or is there something distinctive about human thought thatprecludes replication in a computer? These are some of the puzzles that motivate the philosophical discipline called "philosophy of mind," a central area of philosophy.This Very Short Introduction introduces the philosophy of mind, and (...) looks at some of the most interesting and important topics in this fascinating field, including the mind-body problem and dualism. Barbara Montero also discusses minds other than our own, and the problems associated with definingconsciousness in animals, aliens and machines. Considering these and other such thorny issues such as physicalism and intentionality, she demonstrates how questions of the philosophy of mind also infiltrate disciplines outside of philosophy, including psychology, neuroscience, economics,evolutionary biology, and linguistics. As she observes, most everyone, at some time or another, has ruminated over the relation between mind and matter.ABOUT THE SERIES: The Very Short Introductions series from Oxford University Press contains hundreds of titles in almost every subject area. These pocket-sized books are the perfect way to get ahead in a new subject quickly. Our expert authors combine facts, analysis, perspective, new ideas, andenthusiasm to make interesting and challenging topics highly readable. (shrink)

Notwithstanding requirements for scientific/social value and risk/benefit proportionality in major research ethics policies, there are no widely accepted standards for these judgments in Phase 1 trials. This paper examines whether the principle of clinical equipoise can be used as a standard for assessing the ratio of risk to direct-benefit presented by drugs administered in one category of Phase 1 study—first-in-human trials involving patients. On the basis of the supporting evidence for, and architecture of, Phase 1 studies, the articles offers two (...) provisional conclusions: (1) the risks of drug administration in such trials cannot generally be justified on therapeutic grounds but by appeal to the social value of the research; and (2) a framework for adjudicating the ratio of risk/social-value must be developed. (shrink)

This volume is dedicated to Barbara Skarga -- her works, profile and biography. It is a unique character in the Polish intellectual life, but also virtually unknown abroad, except a meager milieu of her reeadership in France. Dubbed 'the first lady of Polish philosophy' for a good reason, she contributed not only to [the] shape of Polish philosophy but to the style of public debate too. The problem areas initiating her philosophy stemmed from the group of scholars called the (...) Warsaw school of history of ideas' with its flagship names such as Leszek Kolakowski, Brinisław Baczko, or Andrzej Walicki. On the other hand, her output originates from the extraordinary and dramatic events of her life. The philosophical outpout of Barbara Skarga is thus a proof of continuity and longevity of an important tradition of the 20th century Polish Philosophy. (shrink)

Regulators rely on clinical trials for drug approval and labeling decisions. Health systems and clinicians rely on the evidence from trials to determine treatment, and patients rely on it to decide which courses of care to undertake. Many of these stakeholders presume that the careful review of individual studies is enough to address the ethical and scientific questions that arise in clinical trials. In what follows, however, we demonstrate that explicit consideration of trial portfolios—series of trials that are interrelated by (...) a common set of objectives—is crucial. the ethical acceptability and evidentiary probity of individual trials can change depending on the characteristics of the portfolios in which they are embedded. Second, how trial portfolios are composed, how well they are coordinated, and how efficiently they use information determines the balance of risks and benefits they present as well as their different prospects for generating socially valuable information; these three factors also raise distinct questions of justice. (shrink)

Launch of clinical investigation represents a substantial escalation in commitment to a particular clinical translation trajectory; it also exposes human subjects to poorly understood interventions. Despite these high stakes, there is little to guide decision-makers on the scientific and ethical evaluation of early phase trials. In this article, we review policies and consensus statements on human protections, drug regulation, and research design surrounding trial launch, and conclude that decision-making is largely left to the discretion of research teams and sponsors. We (...) then review what is currently understood about how research teams exercise this discretion, and close by laying out a research agenda for characterizing the way investigators, sponsors, and reviewers approach decision-making in early phase research. (shrink)

Should first-in-human trials be designed to maximize the prospect of therapeutic benefit for volunteers, prioritize avoidance of unintended harms, or aim for some happy medium between the two? Perennial controversies surrounding initiation and design of early-phase trials hinge on how this question is resolved. In this paper, we build on the premise that the task of early-phase testing is to optimize various components of a potential therapy so that later, confirmatory trials have the maximal probability of informing drug development and (...) clinical care. We then explore three strategies that investigators might use to manage trial risks while optimizing a therapy, using cell therapy for Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS) as an example. We argue that an iterative application of maximin strategies over successive cohorts and trials, which we call the “risk-escalation model,” establishes a moral principle that should guide decision-making in early-phase trials. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: Mark's Story: ‘It was like Line Dancing for the First Time’ Carl's Story: ‘Everyone Avoids the Front and Center in Class’ Jake's Story: ‘The only Judging going on is in my Own Head’ Competing against their own Bodies (but is it More than a Workout?) Competing against other People (perhaps the Real Competition is within Yourself) Competing against their Own Egos (Playing Nice with your Ego).

The exchange between the Borg and Captain Jean‐Luc Picard illustrates what's truly horrifying about the Borg. In philosophical terms, the Borg strips the assimilated of their autonomy. Choice is essential to autonomy, but autonomy means more than the freedom to act on whims. Autonomous can be applied to two different sorts of things: there are autonomous beings and autonomous actions. Beings that can rationally deliberate in the face of amoral choice are called autonomous, and many of their actions display autonomy. (...) Autonomous actions are done intentionally, with understanding, and without controlling influences that determine. As crucial as the idea of autonomy seems to be to the moral life, it is also been criticized for relying on a highly individualistic and overly rationalistic notion of humanity. Autonomy is a good thing that we can encourage in others by helping them develop deliberative skills and by interacting with them during decision making. (shrink)

A one-of-a-kind reference to the international vocabulary of the humanities This is an encyclopedic dictionary of close to 400 important philosophical, literary, and political terms and concepts that defy easy—or any—translation from one language and culture to another. Drawn from more than a dozen languages, terms such as Dasein (German), pravda (Russian), saudade (Portuguese), and stato (Italian) are thoroughly examined in all their cross-linguistic and cross-cultural complexities. Spanning the classical, medieval, early modern, modern, and contemporary periods, these are terms that (...) influence thinking across the humanities. The entries, written by more than 150 distinguished scholars, describe the origins and meanings of each term, the history and context of its usage, its translations into other languages, and its use in notable texts. The dictionary also includes essays on the special characteristics of particular languages—English, French, German, Greek, Italian, Portuguese, Russian, and Spanish. Originally published in French, this one-of-a-kind reference work is now available in English for the first time, with new contributions from Judith Butler, Daniel Heller-Roazen, Ben Kafka, Kevin McLaughlin, Kenneth Reinhard, Stella Sandford, Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, Jane Tylus, Anthony Vidler, Susan Wolfson, Robert J. C. Young, and many more.The result is an invaluable reference for students, scholars, and general readers interested in the multilingual lives of some of our most influential words and ideas. Covers close to 400 important philosophical, literary, and political terms that defy easy translation between languages and cultures Includes terms from more than a dozen languages Entries written by more than 150 distinguished thinkers Available in English for the first time, with new contributions by Judith Butler, Daniel Heller-Roazen, Ben Kafka, Kevin McLaughlin, Kenneth Reinhard, Stella Sandford, Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, Jane Tylus, Anthony Vidler, Susan Wolfson, Robert J. C. Young, and many more Contains extensive cross-references and bibliographies An invaluable resource for students and scholars across the humanities. (shrink)

Clinical researchers are commonly accused of being overconfident and overly optimistic. They are charged with overestimating their ability to recruit patients to trials and to end trials on time. They are also accused of overestimating effect sizes in power calculations, of overestimating the promise of new interventions, and of conveying this pronounced optimism to human research subjects. More broadly, medical scientists are accused of underestimating timelines for the maturation of research programs, or overstating the potential of their research to deliver (...) clinical applications.However... (shrink)

: "Therapeutic misconception" has been misconstrued, and some of the newer, mistaken interpretations are troublesome. They exaggerate the distinction between research and treatment, revealing problems in the foundations of research ethics and possibly weakening informed consent.

Originally presented as the author's thesis (doctoral)--Tèubingen, 2012 under the title: Weisheit der Befreiung im Dialog: engagierter Buddhismus und Befreiungstheologie im Vergleich ihrer wirtschaftsethischen Perspektiven und praktisch-theologischen Konsequenzen.

First-in-human clinical trials represent a critical juncture in the translation of laboratory discoveries. However, because they involve the greatest degree of uncertainty at any point in the drug development process, their initiation is beset by a series of nettlesome ethical questions [1]: has clinical promise been sufficiently demonstrated in animals? Should trial access be restricted to patients with refractory disease? Should trials be viewed as therapeutic? Have researchers adequately minimized risks? The resolution of such ethical questions inevitably turns on claims (...) about future events like harms, therapeutic response, and clinical translation. Recurrent failures in clinical translation, like Eli Lilly's Alzheimer candidate semagacestat, highlight the severe limitations of current methods of prediction. In this case, patients in the active arm of the placebo-controlled trial had earlier onset of dementia and elevated rates of skin cancer [2]. Various authoritative accounts of human research ethics state that decision-making about risk and benefit should be careful, systematic, and non-arbitrary [3]–[5]. Yet, these sources provide little guidance about what kinds of evidence stakeholders should use to ensure their estimates of such events ground responsible ethical decisions. In this article, we suggest that investigators, oversight bodies, and sponsors often base their predictions on a flawed and inappropriately narrow preclinical evidence base. (shrink)