I argue here that in the end Bourdieu's theory of practice fails to overcome the problem on which it expressly centers, namely, subject-object dualism. The failure is registered in his avowed materialism, which, though significantly "generalized," remains what it says: a materialism. In order to substantiate my criticism, I examine for their ontological presuppositions three areas of his theoretical framework pertaining to the questions of (1) human agency (as seen through the conceptual glass of the habitus), (2) otherness, and (3) (...) the gift. By scrutinizing Bourdieu's powerful and progressive social theory, with an eye to finding fault, I hope to show the need to take a certain theoretical action, one that is patently out of keeping with the usual self-presentation and self-understanding of social science. The action I have in mind is this: because the problem of subject-object dualism is in the first place a matter of ontology, in order successfully to address it there must take place a direct shift of ontological starting point, from the received starting point in Western thought to one that projects reality in terms of ambiguity that is basic. With this shift the dualism of subject and object dissolves by definition, leaving a social reality that, for reasons of its basic ambiguity, is best approached as a question of ethics before power. (shrink)

Nondualism, ontology, and anthropology -- Anthropology and the synthetic a priori: Wittgenstein and Merleau-Ponty -- Blind faith and the binding of Isaac: the Akedah -- Excursus I: sacrifice as human existence -- Counter-sacrifice and instrumental reason: the Holocaust -- Bourdieu's anti-dualism and "generalized materialism" -- Habermas's anti-dualism and "communicative rationality" -- Technological efficacy, mythic rationality, and non-contradiction -- Epistemic efficacy, mythic rationality, and non-contradiction -- Contradiction and choice among the Dinka and in Genesis -- Contradiction in Azande oracular practice and (...) in psychotherapeutic interaction -- Epistemic and ethical gain -- Transcending dualism and amplifying choice -- Excursus II: what good, ethics? -- Anthropology and the generative primacy of moral order -- Conclusion: Emancipatory selfhood and value-rationality. (shrink)

[T. M. Scanlon] It is clearly impermissible to kill one person because his organs can be used to save five others who are in need of transplants. It has seemed to many that the explanation for this lies in the fact that in such cases we would be intending the death of the person whom we killed, or failed to save. What makes these actions impermissible, however, is not the agent's intention but rather the fact that the benefit envisaged does (...) not justify an exception to the prohibition against killing or the requirement to give aid. The difference between this explanation and one appealing to intention is easily overlooked if one fails to distinguish between the prospective use of a moral principle to guide action and its retrospective use to appraise the way an agent governed him or herself. Even if this explanation is accepted, however, it remains an open question whether and how an agent's intention may be relevant to the permissibility of actions in other cases. \\\ [Jonathan Dancy] My first four sections concentrate on the second section of Professor Scanlon's contribution, where he lays out his conception of moral principles and of the role they play in theory and practice. I will raise questions on the following issues: 1. Scanlon's initial introduction of the notion of a principle. 2. His rejection of the standard view that principles are concerned with the forbidding, permitting and requiring of actions. 3. His rejection of pro tanto conceptions of principles in favour of a conception of them as conclusive. 4. The resulting account of what it is for a principle to face and survive exceptions. Scanlon's discussion of these matters here both appeals to and is in some respects more detailed than the relevant section of his recent What We Owe to Each Other. The topic is interesting both for the role played by principles in Scanlon's present discussion of intention and permissibility, and more generally because of his account of wrongness: an act is wrong iff it is ruled out by principles that nobody could reasonably reject. The remainder of my contribution is concerned with the ostensible focus of IP, namely the relevance of agent-intentions to the permissibility of what is done. (shrink)

[T. M. Scanlon] It is clearly impermissible to kill one person because his organs can be used to save five others who are in need of transplants. It has seemed to many that the explanation for this lies in the fact that in such cases we would be intending the death of the person whom we killed, or failed to save. What makes these actions impermissible, however, is not the agent's intention but rather the fact that the benefit envisaged does (...) not justify an exception to the prohibition against killing or the requirement to give aid. The difference between this explanation and one appealing to intention is easily overlooked if one fails to distinguish between the prospective use of a moral principle to guide action and its retrospective use to appraise the way an agent governed him or herself. Even if this explanation is accepted, however, it remains an open question whether and how an agent's intention may be relevant to the permissibility of actions in other cases. \\\ [Jonathan Dancy] My first four sections concentrate on the second section of Professor Scanlon's contribution, where he lays out his conception of moral principles and of the role they play in theory and practice. I will raise questions on the following issues: 1. Scanlon's initial introduction of the notion of a principle. 2. His rejection of the standard view that principles are concerned with the forbidding, permitting and requiring of actions. 3. His rejection of pro tanto conceptions of principles in favour of a conception of them as conclusive. 4. The resulting account of what it is for a principle to face and survive exceptions. Scanlon's discussion of these matters here both appeals to and is in some respects more detailed than the relevant section of his recent What We Owe to Each Other. The topic is interesting both for the role played by principles in Scanlon's present discussion of intention and permissibility, and more generally because of his account of wrongness: an act is wrong iff it is ruled out by principles that nobody could reasonably reject. The remainder of my contribution is concerned with the ostensible focus of IP, namely the relevance of agent-intentions to the permissibility of what is done. (shrink)

In a well known British case, the relatives of a dead man consented to the use of his organs for transplant on the condition that they were transplanted only into white people. The British government condemned the acceptance of racist offers and the panel they set up to report on the case condemned all conditional offers of donation. The panel appealed to a principle of altruism and meeting the greatest need. This paper criticises their reasoning. The panel’s argument does not (...) show that conditional donation is always wrong and anyway overlooks a crucial distinction between making an offer and accepting it. But even the most charitable reinterpretation of the panel’s argument does not reject selective acceptance of conditional offers. The panel’s reasoning has no merit. (shrink)

It is clearly impermissible to kill one person because his organs can be used to save five others who are in need of transplants. It has seemed to many that the explanation for this lies in the fact that in such cases we would be intending the death of the person whom we killed, or failed to save. What makes these actions impermissible, however, is not the agent's intention but rather the fact that the benefit envisaged does not justify an (...) exception to the prohibition against killing or the requirement to give aid. The difference between this explanation and one appealing to intention is easily overlooked if one fails to distinguish between the prospective use of a moral principle to guide action and its retrospective use to appraise the way an agent governed him or herself. Even if this explanation is accepted, however, it remains an open question whether and how an agent's intention may be relevant to the permissibility of actions in other cases. \\\ [Jonathan Dancy] My first four sections concentrate on the second section of Professor Scanlon's contribution, where he lays out his conception of moral principles and of the role they play in theory and practice. I will raise questions on the following issues: 1. Scanlon's initial introduction of the notion of a principle. 2. His rejection of the standard view that principles are concerned with the forbidding, permitting and requiring of actions. 3. His rejection of pro tanto conceptions of principles in favour of a conception of them as conclusive. 4. The resulting account of what it is for a principle to face and survive exceptions. Scanlon's discussion of these matters here both appeals to and is in some respects more detailed than the relevant section of his recent What We Owe to Each Other. The topic is interesting both for the role played by principles in Scanlon's present discussion of intention and permissibility, and more generally because of his account of wrongness: an act is wrong iff it is ruled out by principles that nobody could reasonably reject. The remainder of my contribution is concerned with the ostensible focus of IP, namely the relevance of agent-intentions to the permissibility of what is done. (shrink)

This powerful, original, and tendentious book was written in 1940, published in Russia in 1965, and is now available in English. It suffers from many shortcomings--repetitiousness, oversimplification, the exclusion of material which fails to fit the author's thesis. It also inevitably reflects ignorance of scholarship since the thirties, which has tended to deny Rabelais' alleged agnosticism and nudged him closer to orthodoxy. But it represents nonetheless an important advance in the understanding of Rabelais' book, and defends provocatively an unfashionable theory (...) of the Renaissance. Bakhtin lays heaviest stress on his author's freedom to play with authorized symbols and solemn institutions in the spirit of the carnival, a spirit deriving from folk humor. The common folk of town and country delighted in improprieties, turned all serious values and structures upside down, dwelt subversively and coarsely on the "bodily lower stratum." Just as food enters the body and is eliminated, so all authorized solemnity enters Pantagruel and is turned into fun. This peasant laughter remains unafraid before age and death because it recognizes the simultaneous destruction and creation in all experience. The medieval hierarchical conception of the universe is replaced in Rabelais and in the entire Renaissance by a new horizontal perspective upon the individual in history. This new perspective fastens particularly upon the body and renders it good-humoredly grotesque. Bakhtin seriously underestimates the breadth of both Renaissance religious feeling and neo-Platonic speculation as well as the strength of medieval survivals. But specific readings of Rabelais' text are genuinely enlightening even when they distort or simplify his meaning.--T. M. G. (shrink)

There are many ways of enhancing human performance. For military aviation in general, and for spaceflight in particular, the most important tools are selection, training, equipment, pharmacology, and surgery. In the future, genetic manipulation may be feasible. For each of these tools, the specific modalities available range from the ethically acceptable to the ethically unacceptable. Even when someone consents to a particular procedure to enhance performance, the action may be ethically unacceptable to society as a whole and the burden of (...) risk for the individual may be too great. In addition, there are several characteristics that define the quality and the acceptability of the consent. Each method of enhancing performance will be examined in the context of the principles of medical ethics in a western society: autonomy, non-maleficence, beneficence, and justice. The aim is to draw the attention of aeromedical practitioners to the complexities of ethical dilemmas such as this particular one in order to help them to develop a morally justifiable code of practice that balances society’s needs against individual ambitions and corporate goals. (shrink)

Why Does Inequality Matter?is the long-awaited book-length development of T. M. Scanlon's views on objectionable inequality, and our obligations to eliminate or reduce it. The book presents an impressively nuanced and thoughtful analysis as well as succinct explanations of different objections to various forms of inequality. It is not only set to further cement Scanlon's influence on philosophical debates about equality but also makes a good guide to the problems of inequality for the nonspecialist reader. The book is not without (...) faults, however. Even within a pluralist approach to inequality such as Scanlon's, it is not sufficiently clear what, if anything, his specific objections to status inequality, and to control over other people's lives, have in common with his other egalitarian objections to inequality of political influence, opportunity, and income and wealth—or whether, in the case of control, the objection is egalitarian at all. (shrink)

H.B. Acton, professor successively in South Wales, London, and Edinburgh, died in June 1974 when he was just sixty-six. His loss is deeply lamented by his friends, not least by students of Hegel; and they extend their profound sympathy to his widow. He was much interested in political, economic and social questions, and his publications on these matters are expressive of a humane and liberal outlook. His remarkable short book on Kant’s moral philosophy shed fresh light on a well-worn topic, (...) and his posthumously printed Comte lecture on The Idea of A Spiritual Power must have many readers wish that he could have seen his idea translated into reality. It is sad that his notes for a book on Hegel in Perspective did not reach a stage at which they could be worked up for publication, but his long preface to a translation of Hegel’s essay on Natural Law is to appear in 1975 from the University of Pennsylvania Press. Not even the shortest notice could exclude mention of his effectiveness as a teacher, his untiring devotion to his students, or the respect and admiration which in them and others he inspired. (shrink)

Competency to be executed evaluations are conducted with a clear understanding that no physician-patient relationship exists. Treatment however, is not so neatly re-categorized in large measure because it involves the physician's active provision of the healing arts. A natural tension exists between what practices may be legally permissible and what are ethically acceptable. We present an overview of the existing positions on this matter in the process of framing our argument.

The history of physician involvement in capital proceedings is longstanding and ripe with controversy and conflicts of ethical concerns. Previously one of us has written that the controversy is more appropriately characterized as a conflict of moral position rather than one of ethical dilemma.In hindsight, we believe that analysis, while true, does not capture the depth or complexity of the issue.Forensic psychiatric evaluations, including competency to be executed evaluations, are done with a clear understanding that no physician-patient relationship exists. Treatment, (...) however, is not so neatly re-categorized in large measure because it involves the physician’s active provision of the healing arts. (shrink)

Scanlon’s book aims to offer us a moral theory of right and wrong and of our obligations to one another. The theory is called contractualism and its central claim is that an act is right or wrong if and only if it could or could not be justified to others on grounds that they could not reasonably reject (p. 4). Scanlon recognizes that so stated, his contractualism might seem empty in the sense that one might think that the aim of (...) offering grounds that others could not reasonably reject is an aim to which all plausible moral theories would aspire (p. 4). For example, as Scanlon himself acknowledges, utilitarians, who hold the view that an act is right only if it would produce the greatest happiness, presumably would believe that their view is one that no reasonable person could possibly reject (p. 189). However, Scanlon believes that his contractualism is in fact substantive. According to Scanlon, his contractualism holds the process of justifying to others to be ‘basic’ (p. 5). In other words, Scanlon believes that simply by thinking about what could be justified to others on grounds that they could not reasonably reject, we can ‘determine the shape of more specific moral notions such as murder or betrayal (p. 5).’ As Scanlon explains, even though utilitarians may also accept that an act is right if and only if it can be justified to others, what makes an action right for utilitarians is that the action has the best consequences; ‘justifiability is merely a consequence of this’ (p. 189); whereas for Scanlon’s contractualism, justifiability is what makes an action right or wrong. The aim of Scanlon’s book is to elaborate and explicate this account of contractualism. (shrink)

Early versions of satellite and radiosonde datasets suggested that the tropical surface had warmed more than the troposphere, while climate models consistently showed tropospheric amplification of surface warming in response to human-caused increases in greenhouse gases. We revisit such comparisons here using new observational estimates of surface and tropospheric temperature changes. We find that there is no longer a serious discrepancy between modeled and observed trends in the tropics. Our results contradict a recent claim that all simulated temperature trends in (...) the tropical troposphere are inconsistent with observations. This claim was based on the use of older radiosonde and satellite datasets and on two methodological errors: the neglect of observational trend uncertainties introduced by interannual climate variability and application of an inappropriate statistical “consistency test”.This emerging reconciliation of models and observations has two primary explanations. First, because of changes in the treatment of buoy and satellite information, new surface temperature datasets yield slightly reduced tropical warming relative to earlier versions. Second, recently developed satellite and radiosonde datasets now show larger warming of the tropical lower troposphere. In the case of a new satellite dataset from remote sensing systems, enhancedRSS warming is due to an improved procedure of adjusting for inter-satellite biases. When the RSS-derived tropospheric temperature trend is compared with four different observed estimates of surface temperature change, the surface warming is invariably amplified in the tropical troposphere, consistent with model results. Even if we use data from a second satellite dataset with smaller tropospheric warming than in remote sensing systems RSS, observed tropical lapse rates are not significantly different from those in all model simulations.Our results contradict a recent claim that all simulated temperature trends in the tropical troposphere and in tropical lapse rates are inconsistent with observations. This claim was based on the use of older radiosonde and satellite datasets and on two methodological errors: the neglect of observational trend uncertainties introduced by interannual climate variability and application of an inappropriate statistical “consistency test”. (shrink)

Although there has been critical analysis of how the informed consent process functions in relation to participation in research and particular ethical 'dilemmas', there has been little examination of consenting to more routine medical procedures. We report a qualitative study of 25 women who consented to surgery. Of these, nine were ambivalent or opposed to having an operation. When faced with a consent form, women's accounts suggest that they rarely do anything other than obey professionals' requests for a signature. An (...) interactionist analysis suggests that women's capacity to act is reduced by the hospital structure of tacit, socially-imposed rules of conduct. Bourdieu's concepts of habitus, capital and symbolic power/violence show how the practical logic that women apply confers a 'sense of place' relative to professionals. Women experience deficits in capital that constrain their ability to exercise choice. This work demonstrates the weakness of the consent process as a safeguard of autonomy. (shrink)

It is often claimed that irreducibly normative truths would have unacceptable metaphysical implications, and are incompatible with a scientific view of the world. The book argues, on the basis of a general account of the relevance of ontological questions, that this claim is mistaken. It is also a mistake to think that interpreting normative judgments as beliefs would make it impossible to explain their connection with action. An agent’s acceptance of a normative judgment can explain that agent’s subsequent action because (...) it is part of being a rational agent that such an agent’s beliefs about reasons normally, but not invariably, make a difference to the agent’s subsequent behavior. Because facts about reasons are not entities existing apart from us, there is no epistemological problem of how we can “be in touch with” such facts. There are serious worries about normative knowledge, but the problems involved are internal to the normative domain itself. The best solution to these problems would be an overall account of the domain of reasons in normative terms, supported by an argument from reflective equilibrium. But no existing account, constructivist, or based on desires or on an idea of rationality, is plausible, and no alternative is likely to succeed. Conclusions about reasons for action must rest on more piecemeal applications of the method of reflective equilibrium. (shrink)

These essays in political philosophy by T. M. Scanlon, written between 1969 and 1999, examine the standards by which social and political institutions should be justified and appraised. Scanlon explains how the powers of just institutions are limited by rights such as freedom of expression, and considers why these limits should be respected even when it seems that better results could be achieved by violating them. Other topics which are explored include voluntariness and consent, freedom of expression, tolerance, punishment, and (...) human rights. The collection includes the classic essays 'Preference and Urgency', 'A Theory of Freedom of Expression', and 'Contractualism and Utilitarianism', as well as a number of other essays that have hitherto not been easily accessible. It will be essential reading for all those studying these topics from the perspective of political philosophy, politics, and law. (shrink)

From Bohm-Bawerk on, political economists have seemingly blown great holes in Marxism, disproving its key concepts and falsifying Marx's predictions. In this book, Geoffrey Pilling maintains that even the most devastating of such factual analyses are fruitless because they misconstrue the nature of Marx's critique. In Pilling's presentation, Marx's critique of political economy is not "economic" but philosophic. In criticizing political economy, Marx transcends it and in so doing is essentially immune from any analysis which turns on "facts." According to (...) Pilling, "Marx's work cannot be reduced to a series of results, to be tested against the 'facts' of capitalist development". Pilling, following the lead of Lenin, seeks to overturn the "shallow empiricism" which has led to the degeneration of Marxism. It is Pilling's aim to recover the "philosophical method" of Capital, i.e., to re-work Capital in the light of Hegel's Logic, to rehabilitate dialectic over empiricism. Pilling begins by showing how "... Marx's critique of political economy [is] of a philosophic nature, rather than one concerned with the details of economic theory alone". Marx, as we know, rejects the individualism of political economy which derives from Locke. He condemns the uncritical and "ahistorical" character of political economy, i.e., the tendency to treat the categories of economics as natural. According to Pilling's. (shrink)

Objectives To conduct an independent evaluation of the first phase of the Health Foundation’s Safer Patients Initiative (SPI), and to identify the net additional effect of SPI and any differences in changes in participating and non-participating NHS hospitals. Design Mixed method evaluation involving five substudies, before and after design. Setting NHS hospitals in the United Kingdom. Participants Four hospitals (one in each country in the UK) participating in the first phase of the SPI (SPI1); 18 control hospitals. Intervention The SPI1 (...) was a compound (multi-component) organisational intervention delivered over 18 months that focused on improving the reliability of specific frontline care processes in designated clinical specialties and promoting organisational and cultural change. Results Senior staff members were knowledgeable and enthusiastic about SPI1. There was a small (0.08 points on a 5 point scale) but significant (P<0.01) effect in favour of the SPI1 hospitals in one of 11 dimensions of the staff questionnaire (organisational climate). Qualitative evidence showed only modest penetration of SPI1 at medical ward level. Although SPI1 was designed to engage staff from the bottom up, it did not usually feel like this to those working on the wards, and questions about legitimacy of some aspects of SPI1 were raised. Of the five components to identify patients at risk of deterioration—monitoring of vital signs (14 items); routine tests (three items); evidence based standards specific to certain diseases (three items); prescribing errors (multiple items from the British National Formulary); and medical history taking (11 items)—there was little net difference between control and SPI1 hospitals, except in relation to quality of monitoring of acute medical patients, which improved on average over time across all hospitals. Recording of respiratory rate increased to a greater degree in SPI1 than in control hospitals; in the second six hours after admission recording increased from 40% (93) to 69% (165) in control hospitals and from 37% (141) to 78% (296) in SPI1 hospitals (odds ratio for “difference in difference” 2.1, 99% confidence interval 1.0 to 4.3; P=0.008). Use of a formal scoring system for patients with pneumonia also increased over time (from 2% (102) to 23% (111) in control hospitals and from 2% (170) to 9% (189) in SPI1 hospitals), which favoured controls and was not significant (0.3, 0.02 to 3.4; P=0.173). There were no improvements in the proportion of prescription errors and no effects that could be attributed to SPI1 in non-targeted generic areas (such as enhanced safety culture). On some measures, the lack of effect could be because compliance was already high at baseline (such as use of steroids in over 85% of cases where indicated), but even when there was more room for improvement (such as in quality of medical history taking), there was no significant additional net effect of SPI1. There were no changes over time or between control and SPI1 hospitals in errors or rates of adverse events in patients in medical wards. Mortality increased from 11% (27) to 16% (39) among controls and decreased from 17% (63) to 13% (49) among SPI1 hospitals, but the risk adjusted difference was not significant (0.5, 0.2 to 1.4; P=0.085). Poor care was a contributing factor in four of the 178 deaths identified by review of case notes. The survey of patients showed no significant differences apart from an increase in perception of cleanliness in favour of SPI1 hospitals. Conclusions The introduction of SPI1 was associated with improvements in one of the types of clinical process studied (monitoring of vital signs) and one measure of staff perceptions of organisational climate. There was no additional effect of SPI1 on other targeted issues nor on other measures of generic organisational strengthening. (shrink)

Ronald Dworkin argues on the basis of a theory of well-being that critical paternalism is self-defeating. People must endorse their lives if they are to benefit. This is the endorsement constraint and this paper rejects it. For certain kinds of important mistakes that people can make in their lives, the endorsement constraint is either incredible or too narrow to rule out as much paternalism as Dworkin wants. The endorsement constraint cannot be interpreted to give sensible judgements when people change their (...) minds about the value of their lives. And the main argument for the endorsement constraint, which is based on the value of integrity, does not support Dworkin's anti-paternalism. (shrink)

Background: More and more quantitative information is becoming available about the risks of complications arising from medical treatment. In everyday practice, this raises the question whether each and every risk, however low, should be disclosed to patients. What could be good reasons for doing or not doing so? This will increasingly become a dilemma for practitioners.Objective: To report doctors’ views on whether to disclose or withhold information on low risks of complications.Methods: In a qualitative study design, 37 respondents were included. (...) Focus group interviews were held with 22 respondents and individual in-depth interviews with 15.Results: Doctors have doubts about disclosing or withholding information on complication risk, especially in a risk range of 1 in 200 to 1 in 10 000. Their considerations on whether to disclose or to withhold information depend on a complicated mix of patient and doctor-associated reasons; on medical and personal considerations; and on the kind and purpose of intervention.Discussion: Even though the degree of a risk is important in a doctor’s considerations, the severity of the possible complications and patients’ wishes and competencies have an important role as well. Respondents said that low risks should always be communicated when there are alternatives for the intervention or when the patient may prevent or mitigate the risk. When the appropriateness of disclosing risks is doubtful, doctors should always tell their patients that no intervention is without risk, give them the opportunity to gather all the information they need or want, and enable them to detect a complication at an early stage. (shrink)

Transoral laser microsurgery applies to the piecemeal removal of malignant tumours of the upper aerodigestive tract using the CO2 laser under the operating microscope. This method of surgery is being increasingly popularised as a single modality treatment of choice in early laryngeal cancers (T1 and T2) and occasionally in the more advanced forms of the disease (T3 and T4), predomi- nantly within the supraglottis. Thomas Kuhn, the American physicist turned philosopher and historian of science, coined the phrase ‘paradigm shift’ in (...) his groundbreaking book The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. He argued that the arrival of the new and often incompatible idea forms the core of a new paradigm, the birth of an entirely new way of thinking. This article discusses whether Steiner and col- leagues truly brought about a paradigm shift in oncological surgery. By rejecting the principle of en block resection and by replacing it with the belief that not only is it oncologically safe to cut through the substance of the tumour but in doing so one can actually achieve better results, Steiner was able to truly revolutionise the man- agement of laryngeal cancer. Even though within this article the repercussions of his insight are limited to the upper aerodigestive tract oncological surgery, his willingness to question other peoples’ dogma makes his contribution truly a genuine paradigm shift. (shrink)

According to the prevailing paradigm in social-cognitive neuroscience, the mental states of individuals become shared when they adapt to each other in the pursuit of a shared goal. We challenge this view by proposing an alternative approach to the cognitive foundations of social interactions. The central claim of this paper is that social cognition concerns the graded and dynamic process of alignment of individual minds, even in the absence of a shared goal. When individuals reciprocally exchange information about each other's (...) minds processes of alignment unfold over time and across space, creating a social interaction. Not all cases of joint action involve such reciprocal exchange of information. To understand the nature of social interactions, then, we propose that attention should be focused on the manner in which people align words and thoughts, bodily postures and movements, in order to take one another into account and to make full use of socially relevant information. (shrink)

© 2015, Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg.Genetic studies have identified single nucleotide polymorphisms associated with the risk of prostate cancer. It remains unclear whether such genetic variants are associated with disease aggressiveness. The NCI-SPORE Genetics Working Group retrospectively collected clinicopathologic information and genotype data for 36 SNPs which at the time had been validated to be associated with PC risk from 25,674 cases with PC. Cases were grouped according to race, Gleason score and aggressiveness. Statistical analyses were used to compare the frequency (...) of the SNPs between different disease cohorts. After adjusting for multiple testing, only PC-risk SNP rs2735839 was significantly and inversely associated with aggressive and high-grade disease in European men. Similar associations with aggressive and high-grade disease were documented in African-American subjects. The G allele of rs2735839 was associated with disease aggressiveness even at low PSA levels in both European and African-American men. Our results provide further support that a PC-risk SNP rs2735839 near the KLK3 gene on chromosome 19q13 may be associated with aggressive and high-grade PC. Future prospectively designed, case-case GWAS are needed to identify additional SNPs associated with PC aggressiveness. (shrink)

We provide the results of a systematic key-informant review of medical humanities curricula at fourteen of Canada’s seventeen medical schools. This survey was the first of its kind. We found a wide diversity of views among medical educators as to what constitutes the medical humanities, and a lack of consensus on how best to train medical students in the field. In fact, it is not clear that consensus has been attempted – or is even desirable – given that Canadian medical (...) humanities programs are largely shaped by individual educators’ interests, experience and passions. This anarchic approach to teaching the medical humanities contrasts sharply with teaching in the clinical sciences where national accreditation processes attempt to ensure that doctors graduating from different schools have roughly the same knowledge (or at least have passed the same exams). We argue that medical humanities are marginalized in Canadian curricula because they are considered to be at odds philosophically with the current dominant culture of evidence-based medicine (EBM). In such a culture where adhering to a consensual standard is a measure of worth, the medical humanities – which defy easy metrical appraisal – are vulnerable. We close with a plea for medical education to become more comfortable in the borderlands between EBM and humanities approaches. (shrink)

A t first glance you might not noorder, which afflicts about 0.5 percent of tice anything odd on meeting a American children. Neither researcher young boy with autism. But if had any knowledge of the other’s work, you try to talk to him, it will and yet by an uncanny coincidence each quickly become obvious that gave the syndrome the same name: autism, something is seriously wrong. He may not which derives from the Greek word autos, make eye contact with (...) you; instead he may meaning “self.” The name is apt, because avoid your gaze and fidget, rock his body the most conspicuous feature of the disorto and fro, or bang his head against the der is a withdrawal from social interacwall. More disconcerting, he may not be tion. More recently, doctors have adopted able to conduct anything remotely resemthe term “autism spectrum disorder” to bling a normal conversation. Even though make it clear that the illness has many rehe can experience emotions such as fear, lated variants that range widely in severity rage and pleasure, he may lack genuine but share some characteristic symptoms. empathy for other people and be oblivious Ever since autism was identified, reto subtle social cues that most children searchers have struggled to determine would pick up effortlessly. what causes it. Scientists know that sus- In the 1940s two physicians—Americeptibility to autism is inherited, although.. (shrink)

Bhattacharyya, K. The Advaita concept of subjectivity.--Deutsch, E. Reflections on some aspects of the theory of rasa.--Nakamura, H. The dawn of modern thought in the East.--Organ, T. Causality, Indian and Greek.--Chatterjee, M. On types of classification.--Lacombe, O. Transcendental imagination.--Bahm, A. J. Standards for comparative philosophy.--Herring, H. Appearance, its significance and meaning in the history of philosophy.--Chang Chung-yuan. Pre-rational harmony in Heidegger's essential thinking and Chʼan thought.--Staal, J. F. Making sense of the Buddhist tetralemma.--Enomiya-Lassalle, H. M. The mysticism of Carl Albrecht (...) and Zen.--Parrinder, G. The nature of mysticism.--Cairns, G. E. Axiological contributions of East and West to the spiritual development of mankind.--Mayeda, S. Śaṇkara's view of ethics.--Mercier, A. On peace.--Barlingay, S. S. A discussion of some aspects of Gaudapāda's philosophy. (shrink)

Timothy Scheie’s book on the importance of the theatre in Roland Barthes’ oeuvre begins with what Scheie poses as an enigma: Barthes wrote frequently of the theatre at the beginning of his career and then ceased to do so, without comment, after 1960. Scheie argues that Barthes’ abandonment of the theatre reveals something important about the development of his thoughts and even about his life. Scheie also considers Barthes’ early theatrical criticism and later use of theatrical metaphors to be an (...) under-considered aspect of the critic’s work. Performance Degree Zero is an ambitious work not so much because of what it argues, but because of its attempt to trace the theatre’s presence (or absence) during Barthes’ .. (shrink)

In a recent paper, “Incompatiblism, Sin, and Free Will in Heaven,” Timothy Pawl and Kevin Timpe discuss and propose a novel solution to a problem posed for traditional Christian theism that they call the Problem of Heavenly Freedom. In short, Christian tradition contains what seems to be a contradiction, namely, the redeemed in heaven are free but nonetheless can’t sin. Pawl and Timpe’s solution to the Problem of Heavenly Freedom is particularly attractive for two reasons: it shows great respect for (...) the Christian tradition’s teaching on heaven, and it entails that the redeemed in heaven act with morally weighty libertarian free will. Nonetheless, I think their solution can be improved upon. By drawing on some of the teachings of the Catholic tradition on heaven, particularly those of St. Thomas Aquinas, I raise three objections to Pawl and Timpe’s solution and introduce a modified version of their solution. In doing so, I have attempted to make their “best” solution to the Problem of Heavenly Freedom even better. (shrink)

Plato's Euthyrphro, Apology, andCrito portray Socrates' words and deeds during his trial for disbelieving in the Gods of Athens and corrupting the Athenian youth, and constitute a defense of the man Socrates and of his way of life, the philosophic life. The twelve essays in the volume, written by leading classical philosophers, investigate various aspects of these works of Plato, including the significance of Plato's characters, Socrates's revolutionary religious ideas, and the relationship between historical events and Plato's texts.

Mental timing studies may be influenced by powerful cognitive illusions that can produce an asymmetry in their rate of progress relative to neuronal timing studies. Both types of timing research are also governed by a temporal asymmetry, expressed by the fact that the direction of causation must follow time's arrow. Here we refresh our earlier suggestion that the temporal asymmetry offers promise as a means of timing mental activities. We update our earlier analysis of Libet's data within this framework. Then (...) we consider the surprises which often occur on those rare occasions when neural timing experiments parallel mental timing work exactly. Together, these surprises and asymmetries prescribe a relentlessly meticulous and fully transparent exposition of timing methods, terms, and concepts which shuns plausible narratives, even when buttressed by rigorous formal models, unless guided by apposite empirical evidence. (shrink)

In this paper we argue that predictive processing (PP) theory cannot account for the phenomenon of affect-biased attention prioritized attention to stimuli that are affectively salient because of their associations with reward or punishment. Specifically, the PP hypothesis that selective attention can be analyzed in terms of the optimization of precision expectations cannot accommodate affect-biased attention; affectively salient stimuli can capture our attention even when precision expectations are low. We review the prospects of three recent attempts to accommodate affect with (...) tools internal to PP theory: Miller and Clark’s (2018) embodied inference; Seth’s (2013) interoceptive inference; and Joffily and Coricelli’s (2013) rate of change of free energy. In each case we argue that the account does not resolve the challenge from affect-biased attention. For this reason, we conclude that prediction error minimization is not sufficient to explain all mental phenomena, contrary to the claim that the PP framework provides a unified theory of all mental phenomena or the brain ‘s cognitive functioning. Nevertheless, we suggest that empirical investigation of the interaction between affective salience and precision expectations should prove helpful in understanding the limits of PP theory, and may provide new directions for the application of a Bayesian perspective to perception. (shrink)

Singer's study of the technical problems of Santayana's systematic thought will not satisfy his friends nor his detractors. Her reduction of Santayana's Lucretian materialism to epiphenomenalism will seem inadequate to the former. The latter may see Santayana as merely technically inept. While Singer does not claim to offer a comprehensive study of Santayana's thought, her theses " that Santayana was a naturalist and a materialist in the same sense and on the same grounds throughout; that despite even radical changes in (...) terminology his 'later' ontology is a development of, and not inconsistent with, his 'earlier' philosophy; and that, nevertheless, from the start his materialism was touched with ambiguity", do need a comprehensive understanding of Santayana's materialism. The "ambiguities" of his materialism and his social theory in Dominations and Powers derive from the ontological complexities of his realms of Being. Santayana plays with the perspectives possible from each realm and Singer sometimes misses his viewpoint. Santayana's challenge to the liberalism of democracy is indeed based on his a-teleological materialism. Singer's study does draw attention to the analogy of the individual to the state implicit in Santayana's philosophy; she offers refutations of M. K. Munitz's theory of "early and "late" Santayana and W. K. Dennes' interpretation of Santayana's materialism.--A. T. (shrink)

As G. E. Moore famously observed, sentences such as 'It's raining but I don't think it is', though they aren't contradictory, cannot be used to make coherent assertions.' The trouble with such sentences is not a matter of their truth conditions; such sentences can readily be true. Indeed, it happens often enough with each of us that we think, for example, that it isn't raining even though it is. This shows that such sentences are not literally contradictory. But even though (...) such sentences have unproblematic truth conditions, we cannot say the same about their conditions of assertibility. There are no circumstances in which one can use such sentences to perform coherent assertoric speech acts. Situations exist in which these sentences would be true, but none in which anybody could use them to say so. (shrink)

In recent years philosophers have given much attention to the ‘ontological problem’ of events. Donald Davidson puts the matter thus: ‘the assumption, ontological and metaphysical, that there are events is one without which we cannot make sense of much of our common talk; or so, at any rate, I have been arguing. I do not know of any better, or further, way of showing what there is’. It might be thought bizarre to assign to philosophers the task of ‘showing what (...) there is’. They have not distinguished themselves by the discovery of new elements, new species or new continents, nor even of new categories, although there has often been more dreamt of in their philosophies than can be found in heaven or earth. It might appear even stranger to think that one can show what there actually is by arguing that the existence of something needs to be assumed in order for certain sentences to make sense. More than anything, the sober reader will doubtlessly be amazed that we need to assume , after lengthy argument, ‘that there are events’. (shrink)

These essays in political philosophy by T. M. Scanlon, written between 1969 and 1999, examine the standards by which social and political institutions should be justified and appraised. Scanlon explains how the powers of just institutions are limited by rights such as freedom of expression, and considers why these limits should be respected even when it seems that better results could be achieved by violating them. Other topics which are explored include voluntariness and consent, freedom of expression, tolerance, punishment, and (...) human rights. The collection includes the classic essays 'Preference and Urgency', 'A Theory of Freedom of Expression', and 'Contractualism and Utilitarianism', as well as a number of other essays that have hitherto not been easily accessible. It will be essential reading for all those studying these topics from the perspective of political philosophy, politics, and law. (shrink)

Objective To determine the attitudes of Egyptian patients regarding their participation in research and with the collection, storage and future use of blood samples for research purposes. Design Cross-sectional survey. Study population Adult Egyptian patients (n=600) at rural and urban hospitals and clinics. Results Less than half of the study population (44.3%) felt that informed consent forms should provide research participants the option to have their blood samples stored for future research. Of these participants, 39.9% thought that consent forms should (...) include the option that future research be restricted to the illness being studied. A slight majority (66.2%) would donate their samples for future genetic research. Respondents were more favourable towards having their blood samples exported to other Arab countries (62.0%) compared with countries in Europe (41.8%, p<0.001) and to the USA (37.2%, p<0.001). Conclusions This study shows that many individuals do not favour the donation of a blood sample for future research. Of those who do approve of such future research, many favour a consent model that includes an option restricting the future research to the illness being studied. Also, many Egyptians were hesitant to have their blood samples donated for genetic research or exported out of the Arab region to the USA and European countries. Further qualitative research should be performed to determine the underlying reasons for many of our results. (shrink)

Brad Hooker’s rule-consequentialism and T.M. Scanlon’s contractualism have been some of the most debated ethical theories in normative ethics during the last twenty years or so. This article suggests that these theories can be compared at two levels. Firstly, what are the deep, structural differences between the rule-consequentialist and contractualist frameworks in which Hooker and Scanlon formulate their views? Secondly, what are the more superficial differences between Hooker’s and Scanlon’s formulations of these theories? Based on exploring these questions and several (...) purported differences between Hooker’s and Scanlon’s views, this article argues that, at the structural level, the two theories are more similar than previous recognised. It suggests that there is only one candidate for a deeper difference and even it may not be that significant. This insight sheds new light on both contractualism and rule-consequentialism, and it will also help us to formulate better versions of the views. (shrink)

The article focuses on the value of opacity in communication. Jurgen Habermas's and M.M. Bakhtin's attitudes toward transparent or undistorted communication define almost antithetical approaches to the relationship between public discourse and autonomy. Habermas, both in his theory of communicative action and in his discourse ethics, assumes that transparent communication is possible and actually makes transparency a necessary condition for the legitimation of social norms. Yet, there is a sense in which the same kind of transparency that offers the possibility (...) of rational and autonomous selfhood to Habermas signifies vulnerability and tyranny to Bakhtin. In contrast to Habermas, Bakhtin assumes that utterances can never be perfectly transparent because the words that comprise them always carry meanings that exceed the intentions of speakers. This excess semantic value inevitably distorts speakers' intentions, even if only slightly. Bakhtin's suspicion of transparency leads him to develop a model of autonomy that revolves around the individual's ability to resist the emergence of transparency. However, Bakhtin attributes a positive ethical value to certain kinds of opacity because it is in the differences and distortions that Bakhtin situates the process through which individuals construct autonomy. Thus, in a kind of communicative paradox, opacity and ambiguity play the same liberating role in Bakhtin's thought that transparency and clarity play in Habermas's. (shrink)