BackgroundAn increasing number of studies utilize intracranial electrophysiology in human subjects to advance basic neuroscience knowledge. However, the use of neurosurgical patients as human research subjects raises important ethical considerations, particularly regarding informed consent and undue influence, as well as subjects’ motivations for participation. Yet a thorough empirical examination of these issues in a participant population has been lacking. The present study therefore aimed to empirically investigate ethical concerns regarding informed consent and voluntariness in Parkinson’s disease patients undergoing deep brain (...) stimulator (DBS) placement who participated in an intraoperative neuroscience study.MethodsTwo semi-structured 30-minute interviews were conducted preoperatively and postoperatively via telephone. Interviews assessed participants’ motivations for participation in the parent intraoperative study, recall of information presented during the informed consent process, and participants’ postoperative reflections on the research study.ResultsTwenty-two participants (mean age = 60.9) completed preoperative interviews at a mean of 7.8 days following informed consent and a mean of 5.2 days prior to DBS surgery. Twenty participants completed postoperative interviews at a mean of 5 weeks following surgery. All participants cited altruism or advancing medical science as “very important” or “important” in their decision to participate in the study. Only 22.7% (n = 5) correctly recalled one of the two risks of the study. Correct recall of other aspects of the informed consent was poor (36.4% for study purpose; 50.0% for study protocol; 36.4% for study benefits). All correctly understood that the study would not confer a direct therapeutic benefit to them.ConclusionEven though research coordinators were properly trained and the informed consent was administered according to protocol, participants demonstrated poor retention of study information. While intraoperative studies that aim to advance neuroscience knowledge represent a unique opportunity to gain fundamental scientific knowledge, improved standards for the informed consent process can help facilitate their ethical implementation. (shrink)

This textbook, which is completely self-contained and can be read by anyone with a secondary school education, is the result of the author's material prepared over the past 15 years of teaching introductory natural language semantics to graduate and undergraduate students at McGill University. The intended audience comprises undergraduate and graduate students in linguistics as well as those in philosophy, computer science and psychology with an interest in natural language semantics. The aim of the textbook is to teach the fundamentals (...) of natural language semantics, with English as the principal, though not the exclusive, target language. The principal aim of the textbook is to provide the student with all the basics necessary to be able him or her read research in natural language semantics, regardless of the theory assumed by the author of the research. In contrast to other textbooks in the field, which aim to introduce students to a particular theory of natural language semantics, this textbook seeks to give to its reader a clear overview of the kind of natural language phenomena which, at least prima facie, fall within the ambit of an investigation of natural language semantics; to assist the reader in developing a mastery of the mathematical tools used to formulate hypotheses about the natural language phenomena studied; and to impart to the reader an appreciation of the interplay between hypothesis and data. As a result, the textbook is rich in its presentation of the patterns of English, drawing extensively on the best and most contemporary descriptive grammars of English. The textbook also has more than 500 exercises, with answers to half of them. (shrink)

In the context of transgender health, most people are not comfortable with allowing a twelve‐year‐old child with gender dysphoria to elect to undergo gender reassignment surgery. The likelihood is too high that the child would be unable to fully comprehend the scope of a decision that carries significant, permanent consequences, particularly because the decision to surgically change gender is based upon a conception of gender that can fluctuate during adolescent years. Conversely, however, most people would not contend that this fluidity (...) is reason to wholly deny certain medical care such as hormonal treatments to transgender youth, a demographic with extremely high rates of violent behavior, self‐harm, and suicide. This paper will explore ethical considerations to this emerging debate of what therapeutic options should be offered to transgender children and adolescents.Pediatric endocrinologists have been treating gender dysphoric adolescents with puberty‐suppressing drugs and, to a lesser extent, with cross‐sex hormone therapies for more than twenty years. Clinicians and thought leaders have mentioned ethical components of this emerging practice in the few cohort studies and clinical review articles about the subject. However, ethics have generally been a secondary consideration in the medical academic literature. In this paper, I will provide a brief overview of the practice, summarize the current research on hormone treatment for transgender minors, and provide an ethical analysis of the practice. (shrink)

English mass noun phrases & count noun phrases differ only minimally grammatically. The basis for the difference is ascribed to a difference in the features +/-CT. These features serve the morphosyntactic function of determining the available options for the assigment of grammatical number, itself determined by the features +/-PL: +CT places no restriction on the available options, while -CT, in the unmarked case, restricts the available options to -PL. They also serve the semantic function of determining the sort of denotation (...) associated with demonstrative & quantified noun phrases. The feature -CT requires that the associated denotation be the set whose sole member is the greatest aggregate of which the noun phrase or noun is true; the feature +CT requires that the associated denotation be the set whose members are all & only those minimal aggregates of which the noun phrase or noun is true. At the same time, neither mass NPs nor count NPs that are arguments of a predicate have their predicate evaluated with respect to their denotations. Rather, the predicate is evaluated with respect to an aggregation, a set of aggregates constructed from the denotation of the noun phrase that is an argument of the predicate. 3 Tables, 4 Figures, 74 References. AA. (shrink)

English common nouns, like nouns in many other languages, can be distinguished into count nouns and mass nouns. This article sets out the basic morpho‐syntactic and semantic facts pertaining to these two classes of English nouns. In addition, it summarizes and critically discusses the various theories of the semantics of such nouns.

Study of Nyayabindu of Dharmakirti, 7th cent. and its commentary Nyayabindutika of Dharmottara.

This paper addresses two questions: what is the distinction between semantics and pragmatics? And why is this distinction important? These questions are discussed in light of the central explanatory goal of linguistics and in relation to the phenomenon of context sensitivity, as illustrated by relational words with implicit arguments and by so-called quantifier domain restriction. It is concluded that context sensitivity is, in the former case, grammatical or lexical and, in the latter case, neither.

The study of human reasoning and the study of human language have been closely connected in European philosophical thought. Except for the Buddhist thinker Dignāga, these two areas of study have not been connected in classical India. The connection which Dignāga made between inference and meaning in his theory of exclusion is a distinguishing feature of Buddhist philosophical thought in classical India and, for that reason, it is useful to treat the Indian Buddhist views of reasoning and meaning together. Logic, (...) seeks to distinguish good reasoning from bad. Since reasoning is often communicated and, to that extent, expressed in a language, it is natural to use the forms of language to identify the forms of reasoning. (shrink)

In the svārthānumāna chapter of his Pramāṇavārttika, the Buddhist philosopher Dharmakīrti presented a defense of his claim that legitimate inference must rest on a metaphysical basis if it is to be immune from the risks ordinarily involved in inducing general principles from a finite number of observations. Even if one repeatedly observes that x occurs with y and never observes y in the absence of x, there is no guarantee, on the basis of observation alone, that one will never observe (...) y in the absence of x at some point in the future. To provide such a guarantee, claims Dharmakīrti, one must know that there is a causal connection between x and y such that there is no possibility of y occurring in the absence of x. In the course of defending this central claim, Dharmakīrti ponders how one can know that there is a causal relationship of the kind necessary to guarantee a proposition of the form “Every y occurs with an x.” He also dismisses an interpretation of his predecessor Dignāga whereby Dignāga would be claiming non-observation of y in the absence of x is sufficient to warrant to the claim that no y occurs without x. The present article consists of a translation of kārikās 11–38 of Pramānavārttikam, svārthānumānaparicchedaḥ along with Dharmakīrti’s own prose commentary. The translators have also provided an English commentary, which includes a detailed introduction to the central issues in the translated text and their history in the literature before Dharmakīrti. (shrink)

RésuméCet article démontre qu'un exemple cité par Ernest Adams pour montrer que l'implication matérielle n'est pas l'interprétation correcte de la sémantique de la conjonction de subordination si, n'est rien d'autre qu'un corollaire d'une observation d'jà faite par Lewis Carroll, il y a cent ans, dans l'exposition de son paradoxe du salon de coiffure.

The paper shows that contextuals, words such as those discussed by Richard Vallée in his paper, “On local bars and imported beer”, include not only adjectives and nouns but also verbs, prepositions and adverbs. It shows, moreover, contextuals form just one subclass of words whose complements are optional, that is, words analogous to polyadic predicates of predicate logic. Just as different words, when their complements are omitted, give rise to reflexive (to wash), reciprocal (to meet) and indefinite (to eat) construals, (...) so contextuals give rise to an indexical construal. The paper sets out how such optional complements, or polyadic predicates, as it were, can be handled completely with the syntax and semantics of English, without recourse to special pragmatic principles, lexical ambiguity or phonetically null elements. Though not discussed here, the approach nonetheless applies, it seems, to other languages, such as Chinese. (shrink)

In this paper, I address the problem wherein the same English word permits one of its complement positions to be satisfied by phrases of different categories. A well-known example of such an English word is the copula to be, whose complements include adjective phrases, noun phrases, prepositional phrases and adverbial phrases. I provide a way to treat such words, in particular verbs, as single lexical items through a conservative extension of the usual treatment of word classification as a pair comprising (...) a part of speech category and a complement list. I then show how a further conservative extension of complement lists permits a satisfactory formalization of doubly complemented English verbs which are synonymous under a permutation of their complements. These verbs include, but are not limited to, so-called double object constructions. (shrink)

The problem addressed is that of finding a sound characterization of ambiguity. Two kinds of characterizations are distinguished: tests and definitions. Various definitions of ambiguity are critically examined and contrasted with definitions of generality and indeterminacy, concepts with which ambiguity is sometimes confused. One definition of ambiguity is defended as being more theoretically adequate than others which have been suggested by both philosophers and linguists. It is also shown how this definition of ambiguity obviates a problem thought to be posed (...) by ambiguity for truth theoretical semantics. In addition, the best known test for ambiguity, namely the test by contradiction, is set out, its limitations discussed, and its connection with ambiguity's definition explained. The test is contrasted with a test for vagueness first proposed by Peirce and a test for generality propounded by Margalit. (shrink)

I show that words with indefinite implicit complements occasion a dilemma for their model theory. There has been only two previous attempts to address this problem, one by Fodor and Fodor (1980) and one by Dowty (1981). Each requires that any word tolerating an implicit complement be treated as ambiguous between two different lexical entries and that a meaning postulate or lexical rule be given to constrain suitably the meanings of the various entries for the word. I show that the (...) positing of such an ambiguity runs counter to the facts and propose an alternative solution which does not appeal to ambiguity, meaning postulates or lexical rules. Indeed, I show that the dilemma posed by indefinite implicit complements is posed by all implicit complements and that a general solution to the problem of implicit complements follows from an independently motivated, single treatment of five other problems, that of subcategorization, that of phrasal projections of words, that of defining a model theoretic structure for phrase structure grammars, that of complement polyvalence and that of complement polyadicity. (shrink)

The Fang Bian Xin Lun is a text on Buddhist logic which is thought to be the earliest one still to be extant. It appears in Chinese only (T1632). The great Italian indologist Giuseppe Tucci, believing that the text was originally a Sanskrit text, translated it into Sanskrit and gave it the title Upāyahṛdaya. The paper provides the historical background of the development of logic in Classical India up to the time of this text, summarizes its content and translates its (...) first section. (shrink)

Research involving recently deceased humans that are physiologically maintained following declaration of death by neurologic criteria—or ‘research involving the recently deceased’—can fill a translational research gap while reducing harm to animals and living human subjects. It also creates new challenges for honouring the donor’s legacy, respecting the rights of donor loved ones, resource allocation and public health. As this research model gains traction, new empirical ethics questions must be answered to preserve public trust in all forms of tissue donation and (...) in the practice of medicine while respecting the legacy of the deceased and the rights of donor loved ones. This article suggests several topics for immediate investigation to understand the attitudes and experiences of researchers, clinical collaborators, donor loved ones and the public to ensure research involving the recently deceased advances ethically. (shrink)

Weiss, Propen, and Reid gather a diverse group of scholars to analyze the growing obsolescence of the human-object dichotomy in today's world. In doing so, Design, Mediation, and the Posthuman brings together diverse disciplines to foster a dialog on significant technological issues pertinent to philosophy, rhetoric, aesthetics, and science.

The doctrine of idols is one of the most famous aspects of Bacon's thought. Yet his claim that the idols lead to madness has gone almost entirely unnoticed. This paper argues that Bacon's theory of idols underlies his diagnosis of the contemporary condition as one of ‘universal madness’. In contrast to interpretations that locate his doctrine of error and recovery within the biblical narrative of the Fall, the present analysis focuses on the material and cultural sources of the mind's tendency (...) towards error. It explains the idols in terms of Bacon's materialist psychology and his exposé of the debilitating effects of language and traditional learning. In so doing, it highlights the truly radical nature of the idols. For Bacon, the first step towards sanity was to alert people to the prevailing madness. The doctrine of idols was intended as a wake-up call, preparing the way for a remedy in the form of his new method of inquiry. The paper concludes by indicating how Bacon's method aimed to treat ‘universal madness’, and it suggests that his diagnosis influenced John Locke. (shrink)

Ender Wiggin spends much of Ender's Game playing games of one sort or another. These range from simple role‐playing games with his siblings (“buggers and astronauts”), to battleroom contests, to the strange free play Giant's Drink video game in which he must kill a giant and confront his deepest fears. This chapter examines the role that games play in Ender's development as both a military commander and as a human being. It considers a number of interrelated questions: What is a (...) game? Is it really appropriate to call Battle School activities “games,” given how serious they are? What is the relationship between a good game and the development of a good person?. (shrink)

In this paper, I offer one example of conceptual change. Specifically, I contend that the discovery that viruses could cause cancer represents an excellent example of branch jumping, one of Thagard’s nine forms of conceptual change. Prior to about 1960, cancer was generally regarded as a degenerative, chronic, non-infectious disease. Cancer causation was therefore usually held to be a gradual process of accumulating cellular damage, caused by relatively non-specific component causes, acting over long periods of time. Viral infections, on the (...) other hand, were generally understood to be acute processes, whereby single, specific and necessary causal agents acted alone to produce disease. However, during the 1960s and 1970s, a number of cancers were discovered to have an infectious aetiology. Of particular note were two—Burkitt’s lymphoma and cervical cancer—which I will discuss in detail later in this piece. Together, these discoveries led, in the short term, to a tentative aetiological reclassification of some types of cancer as infectious diseases and, in the longer term, to a full-blown reclassification of cancer as an aetiological disease branch in its own right. This process of reclassification forms the empirical basis for my concluding remarks on the influence of classification upon causation in medicine. Through this, I aim to demonstrate that conceptual change, far from being a purely abstract concern of the philosopher of science, is of substantial import to scientific practitioners. (shrink)