The expressivist account of knowledge attributions, while claiming that these attributions are nonfactual, also typically holds that they retain a factual component. This factual component involves the attribution of a belief. The aim of this work is to show that considerations analogous to those motivating an expressivist account of knowledge attributions can be applied to belief attributions. As a consequence, we claim that expressivists should not treat the so-called factual component as such. The phenomenon we focus on to claim that (...) belief attributions are non-factual is that of normative doxastic disagreement. We show through several examples that this kind of disagreement is analogous to that of the epistemic kind. The result will be a doxastic expressivism. Finally, we answer some objections that our doxastic expressivism could seem to face. (shrink)

An expanded conceptualization of the dialogal research methodology was used to gain a deeper understanding of the dyadic experience of Being a couple. Twenty-two committed couples from a variety of backgrounds were interviewed, responding to the question: “What does it mean to ‘Be’ a couple?” The interviews were videotaped, allowing the researchers to engage with both verbal and nonverbal interpersonal expression. The authors describe the dialogal process used, and identify and discuss three core themes expressed by the couples regarding the (...) meaning of being a couple: commitment, morphogenesis, and transcending paradox through witness. (shrink)

This volume is intended for professional philosophers and laymen with an interest in East-West studies and comparative philosophy and religion. The central focus is the concept of comparing perspectives from both the Eastern and the Western philosophical traditions on harmony and strife. The unique and happy result is an East-West anthology which is directed at analyzing a single philosophical problem which is of importance to both traditions. Unlike many anthologies which tend to be collections of isolated and unrelated essays, the (...) Editors' focus on a single theme has resulted in a unified volume which maintains a high continuity of interest throughout. The Editors have carefully culled and organized essays from a select group of philosophers from the United States, West Germany, Japan, Australia, Beijing, Taipei and Hong Kong. Harmony and strife are analyzed as systematic concepts in Western philosophy, as parts of classical Chinese thought, as central concepts in Buddhism, as metaphysical concepts, as dialectical concepts and even as null concepts. The Editors have taken great care so that a continuity and a coherence of presentation is achieved despite the striking variety of perspectives from which harmony and strife are analyzed. It is both unusual and important to have such a systematic and thorough investigation of a topic of paramount social and philosophical significance by some of the leading minds of the day. Besides, the essays included are eminently readable. The volume is likely to become a standard work in this area for some years to come. (shrink)

We are printing in its entirety the discussion document which sets out a code of professional conduct for nurses published by the Royal College of Nursing in November 1976 together with commentaries by the Assistant Secretary of the British Medical Association, a professor of nursing studies, student nurses and a lawyer. The image of the nurse is still that of one of Florence Nightingale's young ladies or of a member of a religious order who is wholly dedicated to caring (...) for the sick. Today, as this document and the comments upon it show, 'dedication' is still part of the motive which leads a man or woman to become a nurse but in addition, and this is where the public may be ignorant or choose to be ignorant, nursing offers a career where intellectual achievement and the satisfaction of a demanding job bring their proper financial reward and place in the professional community. We are grateful to the Royal College of Nursing for permission to publish this document. (shrink)

Epidemiology is a core science of public health, focusing on research related to the distribution and determinants of both positive and adverse health states and events and on application of knowledge gained to improve public health. The American College of Epidemiology (ACE) is a professional organization devoted to the professional practice of epidemiology. As part of that commitment, and in response to concerns for more explicit attention to core values and duties of epidemiologists in light of emerging issues and (...) increased scrutiny of epidemiology, the College developed, adopted, and published a set of Ethics Guidelines. The structure of the ACE ethics guidelines is in four parts: (1) a brief statement of core values and duties of epidemiologists, coupled with the virtues important to professional practice; (2) concise statements of key duties and obligations; (3) exposition of the duties and obligations with more applications; and (4) a brief summary and conclusion. The Guidelines have been published on the ACE website and in the official College journal Annals of Epidemiology. The guidelines contain (and maintain) core elements that define the discipline of epidemiology and its fundamental duties, but they are also intended to be dynamic and evolving, responsive to a changing professional and social environment. (shrink)

Carl Gillett Department of Philosophy Northern Illinois University Suppose that scientists discover a high level property G that is prima facie multiply realized by two sets of lower level properties, F1, F2, …, Fn, and F*1, F*2, …, F*m. One response would be to take this situation at face value and conclude that G is in fact so multiply realized. A second response, however, would be to eliminate the property G and instead hypothesize subtypes of G, G1 and G2, and (...) say that G1 is uniquely realized by F1, F2, …, Fn, and that G2 is uniquely realized by F*1, F*2, …, F*m. This second response would eliminate a multiply realized property in favor of two uniquely realized properties.[1] Clearly these are two logically possible responses to this type of situation, so when faced with it how do scientists respond in real cases? This is a matter of providing a descriptively adequate account of actual scientific practice. In support of the view that scientists opt for the “eliminate-and-split” strategy, one might propose that it is illustrated by the way scientists responded in the case of memory. Once upon a time, it was thought that there existed a single kind of memory. With the advance of science, however, it was discovered that it is possible to perform certain sorts of brain lesions that would lead to the selective loss of certain memory functions, while certain other sorts of brain lesions would lead to selective loss of certain other memory functions. These neurobiological dissociation experiments, one might say, support the view that, instead of a single overarching type of memory, there are distinct subtypes of memory, procedural memory and declarative memory. Thus, generalizing from this example, it might be suggested that the eliminate-and-split strategy is always the approach of scientists in such cases. We believe that this argument is based upon serious oversimplifications. To begin with, note that there is the assumption that scientists treat all discoveries about differences in realizers in the same way.. (shrink)

Considered an institution mainly devoted to astrology and medicine by Simon de Phares and by some historians who believe that he was reliable, the college founded in 1371 by Charles V’s first physician, Gervais Chrétien, was in fact primarily dedicated to theological students. It was not before 1377 that there were created there two bursaries for scholares regis, specialising in ‘licit mathematical sciences’, and two medical fellowships. Yet the influence of the activity of these fellows seems to have been (...) rather moderate and—as far as we can learn from the material still extant, notably from manuscripts that belonged to Maître Gervais’ College and to some of its members—this institution was devoted much more to theological studies than to medicine and the quadrivium. (shrink)

The plodding rate of change within higher education makes it ill-suited to anticipate the challenges rapidly looming in government and corporate sectors. This prospectus outlines those challenges and describes a bold solution. If implemented, it would signal a less hidebound, more adroit institution of higher education to better serve students, business, and society, while fostering a new future for higher education.

Introspection plays a crucial role in Modern philosophy in two different ways. From the beginnings of Modern philosophy, introspection has been used a tool for philosophical exploration in a variety of thought experiments. But Modern philosophers also tried to characterize the nature of introspection as a psychological phenomenon. In contemporary philosophy, introspection is still frequently used in thought experiments. And in the analytic tradition, philosophers have tried to characterize conceptually necessary features of introspection.2 But over the last several decades, philosophers (...) have devoted relatively little attention to the cognitive characteristics of introspection. This has begun to change, impelled largely by a fascinating body of work on how children and autistic individuals understand the mind.3 In a pair of recent papers, Stephen Stich and I have drawn on this empirical work to develop an account of introspection or self-awareness.4 In this paper, I will elaborate and defend this cognitive theory of introspection further and argue that if the account is right, it may have important ramifications for psychological and philosophical debates over the self. Since the paper will cover a rather diverse set of issues, let me begin by mapping out the structure of what follows. In section II, I will set out the most prominent account of introspection in the recent literature, the Theory Theory of self-awareness, according to which. (shrink)

In the face of a perceived lack of widespread understanding of the theoretical issues underlying the development, dissemination and implementation of clinical guidelines, the Royal College of General Practitioners Guidelines Group developed a 2-day course aimed at teaching the theory in these areas. The course was targeted at potential opinion formers and ran on six occasions. Postal questionnaire assessment of the course revealed high levels of satisfaction with all aspects of the course and high levels of reported use of (...) the knowledge gained. Further developments of the course are discussed. (shrink)

In the paper ‘COVID-19 vaccine boosters for young adults: a risk–benefit assessment and ethical analysis of mandate policies at universities,’ Bardoshet alargued that college mandates of the COVID-19 booster vaccine are unethical. The authors came to this conclusion by performing three different sets of comparisons of benefits versus risks using referenced data and argued that the harm outweighs the risk in all three cases. In this response article, we argue that the authors frame their arguments by comparing values that (...) are not scientifically or reasonably comparable and that the authors used values that represent grossly different risk profiles and grouped them into a set of figures to create an illusion of fair comparisons. We argue that absent the falsely skewed portrayals of a higher level of risk over benefit in their misrepresented figures, the five ethical arguments they presented completely fall apart. (shrink)