The handling of cases under the Coal Health Compensation Schemes, set up in 1999 to compensate miners suffering from workplace medical conditions, resulted in over 100 solicitors from more than 30 firms facing disciplinary proceedings. Three were struck off, three suspended and over forty fined following the largest investigation ever mounted by the regulator. This article examines the political and regulatory context of the scandal, describes one of the cases presented to the Solicitors' Disciplinary Tribunal and examines the relevance of (...) theories of transgression to professional disciplinary matters. It concludes by considering the regulatory impacts and implications of the scandal. (shrink)

On the classical account of evolution by natural selection found in Lewontin and many subsequent authors, ENS is conceived as involving three key ingredients: phenotypic variation, fitness differences, and heredity. Through the analysis of three problem cases involving heredity, I argue that the classical conception is substantially flawed, showing that heredity is not required for selection. I consider further problems with the classical account of ENS arising from conflations between three distinct senses of the central concept of ‘fitness’ and offer (...) an alternative to the classical conception of ENS involving the interaction of distinct evolutionary mechanisms. (shrink)

This paper reviews the social scientific literature on biometric surveillance, with particular attention to its potential harms. It maps the harms caused by biometric surveillance, traces their theoretical origins, and brings these harms together in one integrative framework to elucidate their cumulative power. Demonstrating these harms with examples from the United States, the European Union, and Israel, I propose that biometric surveillance be addressed, evaluated and reframed as a new form of control rather than simply another means of inspection. I (...) conclude by delineating three features of biometric technologies—complexity, objectivity, and agency—that demonstrate their social power and draw attention to the importance of studying biometric surveillance. (shrink)

Logical Philosophy: A Compendium brings together five works by Avi Sion published in 2002-06, namely: Phenomenology (2003), Volition and Allied Causal Concepts (2004), Meditations (2006), Ruminations (2005), and Buddhist Illogic (2002). These works together define what may be termed 'Logical Philosophy', i.e. philosophical discourse distinguished by its steadfast reliance on inductive and deductive logic to resolve epistemological and ontological issues. This collection does not include work done on The Logic of Causation in the same period (published in 2003, 2005).

This book re-theorizes the relationship between pedagogy and play. The authors suggest that pedagogical play is characterized by conceptual reciprocity (a pedagogical approach for supporting children's academic learning through joint play) and agentic imagination (a concept that when present in play, affords the child's motives and imagination a critical role in learning and development). These new concepts are brought to life using a cultural-historical approach to the analysis of play, supported in each chapter by visual narratives used as a research (...) method for re-theorising play as a pedagogical activity. Whenever a cultural-historical approach is applied to understanding pedagogical play, the whole context of the playful event is always included. Further, the child's cultural environment is taken into account in order to better understand their play. Children from different countries play differently for many reasons, which may include their resources, local cultural beliefs about play and specific pedagogical practices. The inclusion and acknowledgement of social, cultural and historical contexts gives credence and value to understanding play from both child and adult perspectives, which the authors believe is important for the child's learning and development. As such, the relationships that children and adults have with human and non-human others, as well as any connections with artefacts and the material environment, are included in all considerations of pedagogical play. (shrink)

Meditations. A meditation is a voluntary exercise intended to increase awareness, sustained over some time. The main purpose of the present Meditations is to inspire and assist readers to practice meditation of some sort, and in particular ‘sitting meditation’. This includes practices such as: observing the mechanisms of one’s thinking, stopping unnecessary thought, forgetting things about one’s self and one’s life that are irrelevant to the current effort of meditation, dealing with distractions, becoming aware of one’s breath, being here and (...) now. After such practice for some time, one gets to realize the value of meditation, and one’s commitment to it grows. The need for behavioral improvement becomes more and more obvious, and one finds it easy and natural to put more discipline into one’s life. Various recommendations are given in this regard. Prior to such practical guidance, so as to prepare the reader for it, the book reviews the theoretical teachings relating to meditation in the main traditions of mankind. The ultimate goals of meditation, the various methods or techniques used to achieve them, the experiential results of meditation, and the interpretations given to them, are topics treated here. (shrink)

Background Coping with end-of-life issues is a major challenge for governments and health systems. Despite progress in legislation, many barriers exist to its full implementation. This study is aimed at identifying these end-of-life barriers in relation to Israel. Methods Qualitative in-depth interviews using professionals and decision makers in the health-care and related systems were carried out, along with two focus groups based on brainstorming techniques consisting of nurses and social workers. Data was managed and analyzed using Naralyzer software. Results Qualitative (...) analysis showed identification of six primary barriers: 1) law, procedures, and forms; 2) clinical aspects; 3) human aspects; 4) knowledge and skills of medical teams; 5) communication; and 6) resource allocation. These were further divided into 44 sub area barriers. Conclusions This study highlights the role of the family doctor in end-of-life by training physicians in decision-making workshops and increasing their knowledge in the field of palliative medicine. Effectively channeling resources, knowledge, and support for medical teams, by accounting for the structure and response of the units for home treatment will improve patient’s access to information on and support for end-of-life laws, as well as reduce legislative barriers in other countries that face the same issues. (shrink)

This article studies the monotonicity behavior of plural determinersthat quantify over collections. Following previous work, we describe thecollective interpretation of determiners such as all, some andmost using generalized quantifiers of a higher type that areobtained systematically by applying a type shifting operator to thestandard meanings of determiners in Generalized Quantifier Theory. Twoprocesses of counting and existential quantification thatappear with plural quantifiers are unified into a single determinerfitting operator, which, unlike previous proposals, both capturesexistential quantification with plural determiners and respects theirmonotonicity (...) properties. However, some previously unnoticed factsindicate that monotonicity of plural determiners is not always preservedwhen they apply to collective predicates. We show that the proposedoperator describes this behavior correctly, and characterize themonotonicity of the collective determiners it derives. It is proved thatdeterminer fitting always preserves monotonicity properties ofdeterminers in their second argument, but monotonicity in the firstargument of a determiner is preserved if and only if it is monotonic inthe same direction in the second argument. We argue that this asymmetryfollows from the conservativity of generalized quantifiers innatural language. (shrink)

In this paper, we study the impact of CEO and board gender diversity on the risk management decisions of 179 U.S. Real Estate Investment Trusts (REITs) during the 2001–2018 period. Using a bottom-up analysis on the properties in REIT portfolios, we find significant risk reduction associated with gender-diverse REIT leadership. We document that REITs with a woman CEO, in combination with more women on the board, display less active trading and a longer hold period for assets. In addition, REITs with (...) more gender-diverse leadership are more geographically focused, which for REITs is considered a lower risk investment strategy. Finally, REITs with more gender-diverse leadership are more actively investing in environmentally sustainable real estate. We conclude that gender diversity in real estate firms carries real-life implications for U.S. cities, given their key role as developers, owners, and operators of the built world. (shrink)

_NeuroAnalysis _investigates using the neural network and neural computation models to bridge the divide between psychology, psychoanalysis, and neuroscience when diagnosing mental health disorders and prescribing treatment. Avi Peled builds on Freud's early attempts to explain the neural basis of mental health by introducing neural computation as a bridging science to explain psychiatric disorders. Peled describes the brain as a complex system of interconnected units and goes on to suggest that conscious experience, feelings, and mood are emergent properties arising from (...) these complex organisations. This model describes mental health disorders in terms of perturbation to the optimal brain organisation, and demonstrates how particular disorders can be identified through a specific breakdown pattern of the brain’s organisation. This fresh approach to the diagnosis of psychiatric disorders will interest students, professors, and researchers of psychoanalysis, neuroscience, and their related fields. (shrink)

Abuse, when committed by spiritual authority figures, can have far-reaching consequences for church communities well after perpetrators have been removed and held accountable. In attending to survivors, a host of issues may come to light, including but not limited to, organizational complicity in abuse, institutional marginalization of the vulnerable, and the revelation that worship spaces can be traumatically triggering. The work of scholars like Michelle Panchuk, Elaine Heath, and Katharina von Kellenbach all point to the challenging reality that ecclesial repentance­ (...) may demand dramatic changes to restore a safe environment and righteous expressions of worship that honour God's intentions for all. Glen Kinoshita's ‘ministry of reconciliation’ and Dietrich Bonhoeffer's ‘preparing the way’ and ‘religionless Christianity’ are texts that on the surface address this type of process; however, it is not clear that either scholar fully reckons with the issue of a worshipping community or space that has been so marred by abuse as to become an impediment to a survivor's participation in liturgy. In this article, I modify Bonhoeffer's work to move beyond his claims and make recommendations for further steps towards repentance. (shrink)

What is the significance of the wicked problems framework for environmental philosophy? In response to wicked problems, environmental scientists are starting to welcome the participation of social scientists, humanists, and the creative arts. We argue that the need for interdisciplinary approaches to wicked problems opens up a number of tasks that environmental philosophers have every right to undertake. The first task is for philosophers to explore new and promising ways of initiating philosophical research through conducting collaborative learning processes on environmental (...) issues. The second task is for philosophers to recognize the value of philosophical skills in their engagements with members of other disciplines and walks of life in addressing wicked problems. The wicked problems framework should be seen as an important guide for facilitating philosophical research that is of relevance to problems like climate change and sustainable agriculture. Content Type Journal Article Category Articles Pages 1-14 DOI 10.1007/s10806-011-9344-0 Authors Paul B. Thompson, Department of Philosophy, Michigan State University, 503 S. Kedzie Hall, East Lansing, MI 48824, USA Kyle Powys Whyte, Department of Philosophy, Michigan State University, 503 S. Kedzie Hall, East Lansing, MI 48824, USA Journal Journal of Agricultural and Environmental Ethics Online ISSN 1573-322X Print ISSN 1187-7863. (shrink)

We characterize pairs of monotone generalized quantifiers Q1 and Q2 over finite domains that give rise to an entailment relation between their two relative scope construals. This relation between quantifiers, which is referred to as scope dominance, is used for identifying entailment relations between the two scopal interpretations of simple sentences of the form NP1–V–NP2. Simple numerical or set-theoretical considerations that follow from our main result are used for characterizing such relations. The variety of examples in which they hold are (...) shown to go far beyond the familiar existential-universal type. (shrink)

What is the role of language in human cognition? Could we attain self-consciousness and construct our civilisation without language? Such were the questions at the basis of eighteenth-century debates on the joint evolution of language, mind, and culture. Language and Enlightenment highlights the importance of language in the social theory, epistemology, and aesthetics of the Enlightenment. While focusing on the Berlin Academy under Frederick the Great, Avi Lifschitz situates the Berlin debates within a larger temporal and geographical framework. He argues (...) that awareness of the historicity and linguistic rootedness of all forms of life was a mainstream Enlightenment notion rather than a feature of the so-called 'Counter-Enlightenment'. -/- Enlightenment authors of different persuasions investigated whether speechless human beings could have developed their language and society on their own. Such inquiries usually pondered the difficult shift from natural signs like cries and gestures to the artificial, articulate words of human language. This transition from nature to artifice was mirrored in other domains of inquiry, such as the origins of social relations, inequality, the arts and the sciences. By examining a wide variety of authors - Leibniz, Wolff, Condillac, Rousseau, Michaelis, and Herder, among others - Language and Enlightenment emphasises the open and malleable character of the eighteenth-century Republic of Letters. The language debates demonstrate that German theories of culture and language were not merely a rejection of French ideas. New notions of the genius of language and its role in cognition were constructed through a complex interaction with cross-European currents, especially via the prize contests at the Berlin Academy. (shrink)

Abstract:In the spirit of green cultural criminology, which considers the way(s) in which environmental crime, harm, and disaster are constructed, represented, and envisioned by the news media and in popular cultural forms, and narrative criminology, which explores how stories can influence (promote, curb, prevent, or resist) action, including harmful action, this provisional article seeks to intercede (although, perhaps, “intervene,” in the McGregorian sense, is more accurate) in the debate, of sorts, between the Indian writer Amitav Ghosh and the British critic, (...) editor, and theorist Mark Bould. Whereas Ghosh, in The Great Derangement: Climate Change and the Unthinkable (2016), laments the failure of contemporary literature to engage with climate change, Bould, in The Anthropocene Unconscious: Climate Catastrophe Culture (2021), considers whether all stories might be stories about climate change. Taking Salman Rush-die’s Haroun and the Sea of Stories (1990) as an example, this article argues that this phantasmagorical tale about the problems of censorship could be applied to and analyzed in the context of climate change. The article considers how we might tell (more, better) stories of climate change and concludes by calling for a marshalling of diverse stories to reflect the most pressing issue of our time. (shrink)

ABSTRACTIs lying in a different language easier or more difficult? The Emotional Distance and the Cognitive Load hypothesis give competing answers. Suchotzki and Gamer measured the time native German speakers needed to initiate honest and deceptive answers to German and English questions. Lie-truth differences in RTs were much smaller for the foreign compared to the native language. In our preregistered replication study in native Dutch speakers, we found that lie-truth differences in RTs were moderately smaller when participants were tested in (...) English than when tested in Dutch. These findings indicate that people struggle with quickly retrieving the truth in another language, and that foreign language use may diminish lie-truth differences. (shrink)

Participatory approaches to environmental decision making and assessment continue to grow in academic and policy circles. Improving how we understand the structure of deliberative activities is especially important for addressing problems in natural resources, climate change, and food systems that have wicked dimensions, such as deep value disagreements, high degrees of uncertainty, catastrophic risks, and high costs associated with errors. Yet getting the structure right is not the only important task at hand. Indeed, participatory activities can break down and fail (...) to achieve their specific goals when some of the deliberators lack what we will call participatory virtues. We will argue for the importance of future research on how environmental education can incorporate participatory virtues to equip future citizens with the virtues they will need to deliberate about wicked, environmental problems. What is the role of education for deliberative skills and virtues relative to other aspects of environmental education, such as facts and values education? How important is it relative to careful design of the deliberative process? What virtues really matter? (shrink)

_ Source: _Volume 26, Issue 2, pp 174 - 211 This article explores the metaphysical, epistemological, and mystical aspects of happiness in the Judeo-Arabic _Treatise on Ultimate Happiness_, of which only two chapters have survived from what is thought to have been a more comprehensive text. Although the treatise is attributed to Moses Maimonides, the conception of happiness it presents is clearly that of the Pietists, the Jewish-Sufi circle of thirteenth-century Egypt. The discussion of happiness in this short treatise constitutes (...) an important chapter in the philosophical and mystical discourse about happiness in medieval Jewish-Islamic thought, especially within the Jewish-Sufi mystical stream led by Maimonides’s descendants. (shrink)

Environmental justice seeks fairness in how environmental burdens and risks are visited on poor people, women, communities of color, Indigenous peoples, minorities, and citizens of developing countries. It also concerns whether members of these same groups have fair access to environmental goods such as urban green spaces, forested areas, and clean water. Environmental goods extend, also, to opportunities to benefit from enterprises such as tourism and green infrastructure (Shrader-Frechette 2002; Bullard 2000; Taylor 2000; Whyte 2010). The moral wrongs characteristic (...) of environmental injustices often do not resonate with members of dominant societies. In some cases, those injustices are unknowable. To say that .. (shrink)

From the late seventeenth century to the middle of the eighteenth, an important shift occurred in attitudes to the arbitrariness of the first human words. While authors such as Locke and Pufendorf emphasized linguistic arbitrariness and human liberty, mid-eighteenth-century thinkers highlighted the natural aspects of language and the limited scope of freedom and reason. This change is linked to the contemporary view of the cultural world as a natural artifice, strongly molded by social and environmental factors. The article highlights hitherto (...) neglected similarities between Leibniz’s ideas on language and mid-eighteenth-century theories, by contrast to the usual focus on Locke. (shrink)

A belief in a firm correspondence between objects, ideas, and their representation in language pervaded the works of Anne Robert Jacques Turgot

(1727–1781) in 1750. This conviction is particularly manifest in Turgot’s sharp critique of Berkeley’s philosophical system and his remarks on Maupertuis’s reconstruction of the origin of language. During the 1750s Turgot’s epistemological views underwent a change, apparent in two of his contributions to the Encyclopédie: the entries Existence and Étymologie (1756). These articles included a reassessment of Berkeleyan immaterialism, facing (...) an ultimate crisis of definition and representation. A similar development may be traced in contemporary works by Condillac and Diderot. Turgot’s Encyclopédie entries also envisaged a new science, an archeology of the human mind aided by the examination of linguistic development and change. This entailed the scientific verification of conjectures in any historical account of ideas, turning etymological

and psychological inquiries into what Turgot termed ‘experimental metaphysics’. (shrink)