ABSTRACT The rise of social media has correlated with an increase in political polarization, which many perceive as a threat to public discourse and democratic governance. This paper presents a framework, drawing on social epistemology and the economic theory of public goods, to explain how social media can contribute to polarization, making us collectively poorer, even while it provides a preferable media experience for individual consumers. Collective knowledge and consensus is best served by having richly connected networks (...) that are epistemically integrated: individuals with diverse levels of expertise should be relatively well connected to each other. In epistemically segregated networks, by contrast, we have reason to predict collective epistemic failures. Expert knowledge will be isolated from the majority, leading average opinion to be less informed than is socially optimal, and entrenching disagreements. Because social media enables users to very easily adopt homophilous network connections – connections to those with similar opinions, education levels, and social backgrounds – it is likely to have increased epistemic segregation compared to older media platforms. The paper explains the theoretical foundations of these predictions, and sketches regulatory measures – such as taxes – that might be employed to preserve the public good of a well integrated social media network. (shrink)

I respond to the challenging comments of Nico Stehr, Stephen Turner and Raphael Sassower to my own article on the sense in which science can be regarded as a ‘public good’. I agree with Stehr that this conceptualization brings various hazards that are exacerbated with increasing democratization of the knowledge system. Here I elaborate on an astute remark he raises from Georg Simmel. Based on a historically well informed account, Turner takes a more ‘demystified’ view of science (...) as a public good, ultimately seeing it as corresponding to John Ziman’s idea of ‘reliable knowledge’. For his part, Sassower pursues a more ‘transcendental’ approach about knowledge being in the ‘common good’, while admitting that it is an aspiration rather than a reality. (shrink)

There have been many images of experiment. The contemplative narratives of Aristotle served to illustrate hypotheses and arguments. There was no expectation that they be performed. Even in Galileo's dialogues, the distinction between real experiments and imaginary ones is not sharp (see galileo). During the seventeenth century, performance and public description became essential to the probative power of experiment. These made its methods and procedures transparent, allowing any reader of the narrative to be a virtual witness of an active (...) demonstration (Shapin and Schaffer 1985, pp. 22–79). Thus, by the end of the scientific revolution, illustrative narratives were distinguished from public accounts of experiment as the disciplined, systematic study of phenomena. Eventually this made the efficacy of thought experiments problematic (see Kuhn 1977, pp. 241–2, and thought experiments). As a source of experience of realms previously beyond the reach of the senses, real‐world experiment contributed to the rise of objective scientific knowledge. Harvey, Galileo, Hooks, Boyle, Newton, and other proponents of experimental natural philosophy established an important new mode of argumentation. (shrink)

In this article, I address the question of whether science can and should be seen as a common good. For this purpose, the first section focuses on the notion of knowledge and examines its main characteristics. I discuss and assess the core view of analytic epistemology, that knowledge is, basically, justified true belief. On the basis of this analysis, I then develop an alternative, multi-dimensional theory of the nature of knowledge. Section 2 reviews and evaluates several (...) answers to the question of what to understand by the notion of a common good. It discusses both economic and socio-political interpretations of this notion. In Section 3, I develop an alternative account of the common good of scientific knowledge. This knowledge constitutes a common good if it is both non-exhaustible and in the public interest. The two notions are equally important, but in this article, the focus is on the former. For reasons of space, a detailed discussion of the latter is impossible; it will be provided in a forthcoming book. My answer to the question posed in the title of this article builds on the critical discussion of extant views in Sections 1 and 2: some aspects of these views are included in this alternative account, while others are shown to be unhelpful or untenable. The final section discusses some practical implications of this account for the politics of science. The main conclusion is that scientific research should not be privatized through patenting its products. (shrink)

Recent discussions of genomics and international justice have adopted the concept of ‘global public goods’ to support both the view of genomics as a benefit and the sharing of genomics knowledge across nations. Such discussion relies on a particular interpretation of the global public goods argument, facilitated by the ambiguity of the concept itself. Our aim in this article is to demonstrate this by a close examination of the concept of global public goods with particular reference (...) to its use in the context of genomic databases. We contend that the argument for construing genomics as a global public good depends on seeing it as a natural good by focusing on features intrinsic to genomics knowledge. We shall argue that social and political arrangements are relevant and that recognising this opens the door to construing the use of global public goods language as a strategic one. (shrink)

I argue that if science is to be a public good, it must be made one. Neither science nor any other form of knowledge is naturally a public good. And given the history of science policy in the twentieth century, it would be reasonable to conclude that science is in fact what economists call a ‘club good’. I discuss this matter in detail in two contexts: (1) current UK efforts to create a version of (...) the US DARPA that would focus on projects of larger, long-term societal interests – i.e. beyond the interests of the academic specialities represented in, say, the US NSF; (2) what I call the ‘organized hypocrisy’ involved in presenting science as a public good through the so-called ‘peer review’ process. (shrink)

This paper reviews two main historical approaches to creativity: the Romanticist approach, based on the culture of the irrational, and the Enlightenment approach, based on the culture of the objective. It defends a paradigm of creativity as a sum of rich semiotic systems that form the basis of distributed knowledge and learning, reviews historical ideas of the university, and identifies two conflicting mainstream models in regards to understanding of the university as a public good: the ‘Public’ (...) University circa 1960–1980, and the ‘post-historical’ university. Based on practical experiences, and on previous works by Peters and Jandrić, it develops the new model of ‘the creative university as digital public university’, and argues that it provides a useful philosophical goal for directing present and future practices of the contemporary university. (shrink)

Health checks or health screenings identify disease in people without a specific medical indication. So far, the perspective of health check users has remained underexposed in discussions about the ethics and regulation of health checks. In 2017, we conducted a qualitative study with lay people from the Netherlands. We asked what participants consider characteristics of good and bad health checks, and whether they saw a role for the Dutch government. Participants consider a good predictive value the most important (...) characteristic of a good health check. Information before, during and after the test, knowledgeable and reliable providers, tests for treatable disease, respect for privacy, no unnecessary health risks and accessibility are also mentioned as criteria for good health checks. Participants make many assumptions about health check offers. They assume health checks provide certainty about the presence or absence of disease, that health checks offer opportunities for health benefits and that the privacy of health check data is guaranteed. In their choice for provider and test they tend to rely more on heuristics than information. Participants trust physicians to put the interest of potential health check users first and expect the Dutch government to intervene if providers other than physicians failed to do so by offering tests with a low predictive value, or tests that may harm people, or by infringing the privacy of users. Assumptions of participants are not always justified, but they may influence the choice to participate. This is problematic because choices for checks with a low predictive value that do not provide health benefits may create uncertainty and may cause harm to health; an outcome diametrically opposite to the one intended. Also, this may impair the relationship of trust with physicians and the Dutch government. To further and protect autonomous choice and to maintain trust, we recommend the following measures to timely adjust false expectations: advertisements that give an accurate impression of health check offers, and the installation of a quality mark. (shrink)

In the aftermath of the events of September 11, 2001, Stanley Katz (who now chairs the editorial board of this journal) invited the intellectual community to reflect on its own history of involvement in public affairs and to make good on its mistakes. This essay examines a single case of intellectuals involving themselves in public affairs and some of the difficulties in saying and evaluating exactly what happened. Critical attention is given to Anthropological Intelligence, a book by (...) David Price published in 2008, which concerns the involvement of anthropologists in wartime activities during World War II and argues that even that “just war” left an indelible stain on the moral fabric of the discipline. (shrink)

A recent organ distribution scandal in Germany raises questions of general importance on which many thousands of lives may well depend. The scandal in Germany has produced reactions that are likely to occur whenever and wherever distribution irregularities occur and become public knowledge. After it had become known that physicians in three German hospitals were in the habit of manipulating records in order to fast-track their patients’ cases, the country experienced a decrease of available organs by a staggering (...) 40% in October 2012. Even though this loss of trust by donors and their families is understandable, and potentially a legitimate form of protest against wrongful distribution, the withdrawal of agreement to serve as a posthumous donor in response to irregularities also inevitably results in avoidable poor outcomes for highly vulnerable individuals. In this paper, we provide a moral analysis of such dilemmas and make recommendations as to the way forward. (shrink)

“Neutrosophics Knowledge” has been created for publications on advanced studies in neutrosophy, neutrosophic set, neutrosophic logic, neutrosophic probability, neutrosophic statistics that started in 1995 and their applications in any field, such as the neutrosophic structures developed in algebra, geometry, topology, etc. The submitted papers should be professional, in good English and Arabic, containing a brief review of a problem and obtained results. Neutrosophy is a new branch of philosophy that studies the origin, nature, and scope of neutralities, as (...) well as their interactions with different ideational spectra. (shrink)

Due to their role as a centre of knowledge and character development,public higher education institutions serve as the best platform for emphasisinghealth communication messages and promoting a healthy lifestyle. Highereducational institutions’ employees should have good physical and mentalhealth to enable them to demonstrate good values to the students. Thus,the social cognitive theory was specifically selected to take a closelook at how a conducive environment and knowledge influence employees’intention towards the tobacco-free policy. This study used the (...) partial leastsquares and structural equation modelling software to examinefactors influencing the adoption of tobacco-free policy among employeesin a Malaysian higher education institution. It also measured the impact ofworkplace health promotion on employees’ intention to comply with tobaccocessation regulations. Statistical results confirmed that all three constructsof employees’ environment, self-efficacy, and knowledge have a significant influence on employees’ intention to adopt the tobacco-free policy. The resultsof the study contribute to a better understanding of the effectiveness of highereducation institutions’ tobacco-free policy in Malaysia. The findings are usefulfor policymakers, higher education institutions, and practitioners in enhancingtobacco cessation policy in Malaysia. Limitations and suggestions for futureresearch are also included in this paper. (shrink)

The Zaydī-Muʿtazilī interaction, which dates back to the early periods, increased when The Būyid vizier al-Ṣāḥib b. ʿAbbād invited Qāḍī ʿAbd al-Jabbār to Rayy and many Caspian Zaydī scholars studied with Qāḍī. Ibn Sharwīn, who is mentioned among the students of Qāḍī ʿAbd al-Jabbār and accepted as one of the Zaydī- Muʿtazilī scholars, is one of these names. The works of Ibn Sharwīn, who had writings in the field of kalām and fiqh, did not remain within the borders of the (...) Caspian and reached the Zaydīs of Yemen; one of these works is Ḥaqāʾiq al-ashyāʾ. Considering that, unlike other theological schools, there are not many works on the definitions of theological concepts in Muʿtazilī literature and -as far as is known- did not reach today, this treatise helps to understand better especially the terms in Zaydī- Muʿtazilī theology and the effects of Bahshamiyya on Zaydī thought. This work, edited and translated based on the only extant manuscript only manuscript found in Yemen and a previous publication, on the one hand, is important in understanding the point of view of Zaydī- Muʿtazilī thought on the disciplines of theology, jurisprudence, debate, history of Islamic sects, on the other hand, it is a helpful resource for understanding the terms used in the theory of aḥwāl, which is still an intricate issue. Ibn Sharwīn in his Ḥaqāʾiq al-ashyāʾ; explains over 150 terms in relation to cosmology such as substance, accident, line, surface, space; to ontology such as existing, non-existence, originated (muḥdath); to epistemology such as knowledge, creed, ignorance, doubt, skepticism, obligatory and acquired knowledge; to methodology such as evidence, madlūl, debate, and disputation; to fiqh such as sunnah, farḍ, mandūb, cause, command-prohibition, general-particular (ʿumūm-ḫuṣūṣ); to the history of sects such as ʿadliyya, compulsionists (mujbira) and qadarī; to divinity such as the oneness of God (tawhīd); to justice such as promise and threat (al-waʿd wa-l-waʿīd), good and evil, necessary and acquired, grace, compensation, repentance, major and minor sins; to the theory of al-aḥwāl such as attribute of the essence, determinant (muḳtaḍī), entail (muḳtaḍā), muṣaḥḥiḥ, cause. Describing ḥadd that corresponds to “definition” and ḥaḳīḳat that he used together with it as collectively exhaustive, mutually exclusive, Ibn Sharwīn defines knowledge, power, living (ḥayy), speech (kalām), speaker (mutakallim), permanent (bāqī) etc. in a way that is true for both God and human beings. While making these definitions, he draws on poems, linguistic usages and verses and divides the nouns into three parts at the end of his work, namely linguistic, religious and conventional (sharʿī and waḍʿī); in particular, he gives detailed information about metaphors and parts of truth. Another striking aspect of the work is the explanation of the meanings of the imperative mood which is included in the subjects of the Methodology of Fiqh. (shrink)

In this issue we include contributions from the individuals presiding at the panel All in a Jurnal's Work: A BABEL Wayzgoose, convened at the second Biennial Meeting of the BABEL Working Group. Sadly, the contributions of Daniel Remein, chief rogue at the Organism for Poetic Research as well as editor at Whiskey & Fox , were not able to appear in this version of the proceedings. -/- From the program : 2ND BIENNUAL MEETING OF THE BABEL WORKING GROUP CONFERENCE “CRUISING (...) IN THE RUINS: THE QUESTION OF DISCIPLINARITY IN THE POST/MEDIEVAL UNIVERSITY” SEPTEMBER 21ST, 2012: SESSION 13 MCLEOD C.322, CURRY STUDENT CENTER NORTHEASTERN UNIVERSITY, BOSTON, MA. -/- Traditionally, a wayzgoose was a celebration at the end of a printer’s year, a night off in the late fall before the work began of printing by candlelight. According to the OED, the Master Printer would make for the journeymen “a good Feast, and not only entertains them at his own House, but besides, gives them Money to spend at the Ale-house or Tavern at Night.” Following in this line, continent. proposes in its publication(s) a night out and a good Feast, away from the noxious fumes of the Academy and into a night of revelry which begins, but does not end, at the alehouse or Tavern. continent. proposes that the thinking of the Academy be freed to be thought elsewhere, in the alleys and doorways of the village and cities, encountered not in the strictly defined spaces of the classroom and blackboard (now white) but anticipated and found where thinking occurs. Historically, academic journals have served a different purpose than the Academy itself. Journals (from the Anglo-Fr. jurnal , "a day," from O.Fr. jornel , "day, time; day's work," hence the journalist as writer of the news of the day ) have served as privileged sites for the articulation and concretization of specific modes of knowledge and control (insemination of those ideas has been formalized in the classroom, in seminar). In contrast, the academic journal is post-partum and has been an old-boys club, an insider trading network in which truths are (re)circulated against themselves, forming a Maginot Line against whatever is new, or the distinctly challenging. All in a Jurnal’s Work will discuss (in part) the ramifications of cheap start-up publications that are challenging the traditional ensconced-in-ivory academic journals and their supporting infrastructures. The panel will be seeking a questioning (as a challenging) towards the discipline of knowledge production/fabrication (of truth[s]) and the event of the Academy (and its publications) as it has evolved and continues to (d)evolve. Issues to be discussed will revolve around the power of academic publishing and its origins, hierarchical versus horizontal academic modules (is there a place for the General Assembly in academia?) and the evolving idea of the Multiversity as a site(s) of a (BABELing) multivocality in the wake of the University of Disaster. (shrink)

_Purpose._ The purpose is to justify the validity of interpreting Descartes’ teachings as an enquiry into the search for forms and means of improving human nature, which implies a focus on the way he understands the openness of knowledge and education. The problem is considered from the perspective of representatives of university communities (teachers and librarians), historically included in the communication structure and system of the institution, including through the creation, management, use, preservation and dissemination of knowledge. _Theoretical (...) basis._ One of the tenets of Descartes’ teachings is his desire to improve the human being. For our consideration, it is fundamentally important that Descartes uses "knowledge" not only in a narrow sense – as natural scientific knowledge, but also in a broader sense. In the context of the theme of the study, the most important case is when the thinker recalls the knowledge that every person experiences without referring to philosophy. It is this knowledge that, for Descartes, is key in resolving the central problem of his ethics – how can human nature be perfected? For our consideration of Descartes’ key points, it is fair to focus on the manifestation of the phenomenon of altruism in Descartes’ philosophy and on the representative fact of his inner openness – his willingness to engage in dialogue. He appreciates and encourages his interlocutors to turn to books, which are a form of representation of the vivid personalities of their authors. _Originality._ For the first time in the research literature, the thesis of René Descartes as one of the forerunners of the open knowledge system is substantiated. The arguments are given for the validity of Descartes’ interpretation of the demand of his own epoch for the search of effective forms of human improvement. _Conclusions._ The idea of justification of Descartes’ philosophical legacy as a predictor of open knowledge became possible under the condition of paying attention to the anthropological turn he made and finding substantive analogues of openness, including open education. Drawing on Christianity as the basis for altruism, Descartes demonstrates a caring attitude towards the achievements of previous generations on the path of personal self-development. His attention is rightly drawn to education and books as representations of vibrant personalities. Their authentic and productive assimilation is possible only under the condition of a caring attitude towards the public good, which involves the intellectual volunteering of teachers and librarians. It is about self-realization through altruistic self-improvement, i.e. intellectual charity, which is especially evident today during martial law in Ukraine and is voluntary, conscious and free work for the benefit of others. (shrink)

While he rejects the paradigmatic method in its historic intent, Mr. Weiss has a good deal to say about "nonassociated man" as a model for the understanding of human association and its aims. It seems fair to say that it is really this paradigmatic element which enables Mr. Weiss to support comments on the inadequacies of the analytic and empirical procedures. If the process of analysis itself gives no clue to the elements to be discovered in analysis, and if (...) the empirical investigation of social life does not provide any key to the distinction between the essential and the irrelevant, then the clue or key must lie in some concept of man. For clearly the "socially habituated ways of acting" from which this dialectical procedure sets out do not themselves provide any infallible guide to what is essential and what is irrelevant, to what is beneficial and what is inimical, in human existence. To know what society, state, culture, and civilization are in essence is to have more than a knowledge of existing social forms themselves. The features of prevailing social patterns cannot alone suggest what is normative or ideal, unless ultimately what is is to be taken for what ought to be. (shrink)

This article deals with nurses’ ethical concerns raised by the consequences of changes in governmental and institutional policies on nursing practice and patient care. The aims of this project were to explore perspectives of registered nurses who provide or manage direct patient care on policies that affect nursing and patient care, and to provide input to policy makers for the development of more patient-centred policies. Four focus groups were conducted with a total of 36 registered nurse participants. The project team (...) identified major themes that emerged in the analysis of transcripts of the focus group discussions. The four major themes were: effects of policy focused on cost containment, effects on quality of care, effects on patient education and access to needed services, and effects on nurses and nursing. The participants identified primarily negative effects of changes in national health policy and legislation that influence institutional policies on patient care and nursing practice. The effects of identified policy changes raised concerns about meeting nurses’ ethical obligations to patients and families. Participants specified key points for consideration by legislators and other policy makers. They viewed nurses who are involved in direct patient care as a critical resource for legislators and other policy makers in the development of public and institutional policies that affect nursing and patient care. (shrink)

[EN]In recent decades, problems related to the accessibility and sustainability of science have increased, both in terms of the acquisition and dissemination of knowledge and its generation. Policymakers, academics, and, increasingly, citizens themselves have developed various approaches to this issue. Among them, citizen science is distinguished by making possible the generation of scientific knowledge by anyone with an interest in doing so. However, participation alone does not guarantee knowledge generation, which represents an epistemological challenge for citizen science. (...) Simultaneously, economic and socio-institutional difficulties in science governance and maintenance have grown. To solve those problems, several market elements have been introduced, a solution rejected by those who consider science as a public good that states must guarantee. Alternatively, research and work on the commons are growing worldwide, the concept being extended from natural resources to knowledge resources. In this chapter, we propose science as a commons, underlining the essential role of citizen science. Difficulties also apply to citizen science itself, but the increasing development of a multitude of projects based on cooperation favours the conditions required for its sustainability and quality. Our philosophical proposal is based on empirical knowledge about citizen science coupled with socio-economic concepts, according to a sociopolitical epistemology. (shrink)

Various writers in the Western liberal and libertarian tradition have challenged the argument that enforcement of law and protection of property rights are public goods that must be provided by governments. Many of these writers argue explicitly for the provision of law enforcement services through private market relations.

At Universitat Politècnica de València, Meridies, an internship programme that places engineering students in countries of Latin America, is one of the few opportunities the students have to explore the implications of being a professional in society in a different cultural and social context. This programme was analyzed using the capabilities approach as a frame of reference for examining the effects of the programme on eight student participants. The eight pro-public-good capabilities proposed by Melanie Walker were investigated through (...) semi-structured interviews. The internship is an environment in which students can put into practice the knowledge they have acquired in undergraduate studies and to find practical relevance in what they studied. Occasionally, this also entails a critical questioning of what they have learned, a greater awareness of the limits of the contents of their studies and of the way things were taught, and interest in less explored issues that are closely linked to social justice. However, tensions can arise between the pro-public-good oriented perspectives of this programme, and a more instrumental vision. One way to overcome these tensions is to foster consideration of reflexivity, that is, the dynamic relationship between technology and society. To do so, the programme must create space before and during the internship, and upon the return of the students, to discuss and collectively reflect upon their lived experience. Additionally, it ought to engage supervisors in this educational journey, both at the university and in the host institutions, and also involve socially committed organisations in this task. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:The Journal of Aesthetic Education 37.2 (2003) 1-18 [Access article in PDF] Aesthetic Inquiry in Education:Community,Transcendence, and the Meaning of Pedagogy Hanan A. Alexander What does it mean to understand education as an art, to conceive inquiry in education aesthetically, or to assess pedagogy artistically? Answers to these queries are often grounded in Deweyan instrumentalism, neo-Marxist critical theory, or postmodern skepticism that tend to fall prey to the paradoxes (...) of radical relativism and extreme subjectivism. 1 This essay offers an alternative, communitarian account of education as an art and a neo-Kantian approach to aesthetic inquiry in education that avoids these difficulties.I begin by examining the emergence of aesthetic inquiry in education in the context of the larger qualitative revolution in educational research. The struggle to justify the qualitative turn in educational thought was initially framed in terms of two influential doctrines: that cognition and affect on the one hand, and truth, beauty, and goodness on the other, can be clearly distinguished from one another. Qualitative methods were conceived as an alternative research paradigm — a new epistemology — in keeping with Thomas Kuhn's influential book The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. 2 Qualitative research, on this account, is a cognitive endeavor aimed at discovering a form of knowledge no less valid and reliable than that produced by quantitative methodologies. This way of framing the discussion led to the dichotomizing of positivist and postpositivist epistemologies, one embracing absolutism, objectivism, and rationalism, the other relativism, subjectivism, and romanticism. 3 This approach succeeded in pointing to some serious flaws in the prevailing positivist account of social research, yet it left qualitative inquiry dependent on versions of epistemological relativism and subjectivism that philosophers of knowledge have shown to be self-contradictory and incoherent. 4 [End Page 1]Conceiving of pedagogy in aesthetic terms challenges the prevailing positivist epistemology on a deeper level because it questions the accepted distinctions between thinking and feeling, and between truth, beauty, and goodness. If art can be conceived as a form of cognitive inquiry in addition to affective expression, then the appreciation and assessment of education as art requires not merely a new research paradigm or an alternative epistemology. Rather, it entails a reshuffling of our very conception of the relations between science, art, and ethics.These concepts can be reconceived to avoid the paradoxes of radical relativism and extreme subjectivism if we recognize with Iris Murdoch that sovereignty belongs to communal conceptions of a transcendent good. Educational arts empower people to express, appreciate, and critique collective conceptions of goodness, and artistic criticism of pedagogy celebrates a sacred dimension in educational thought and practice. 5 This approach occasions a fresh look not only at the practice, appreciation, and assessment of pedagogy, but also at the very meaning of the concept of education and the sorts of inquiry that can fruitfully inform its practice. Two Dogmas of Educational Research Two dogmas have dominated educational research for most of this century: the idea that there exists a clear disjunction between the cognitive and affective domains; and the supposed radical independence from one another of truth, beauty, and goodness. 6 According to a popular view rooted in these doctrines, the search for truth is a cognitive affair governed by science, while ethics and the arts are tied to the emotions and the humanities. Inquiry into the former is objective — reliability depends on method not researcher — and into the latter, subjective — results can vary according to interpreter. In this attitude, the cognitive domain dominates the public arena through the influence and prestige of science and measurement. 7Until the middle 1970s, behavioral and social research in education expressed these dichotomies in the distinction made between quantitative and qualitative research. The former was thought to be scientific and objective, the latter, humanistic and subjective. As qualitative inquiry came into its own in the 1980s, its proponents sought justification and legitimization in accord with cognitive dominance. 8 First, they argued that qualitative research methods had checks against error as rigorous as its quantitative counterparts. 9 Later, the cognitive domain... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Response to Eva Alerby and Cecilia Ferm, “Learning Music: Embodied Experience in the Life-World”Christine A. BrownI was recently asked to settle a friendly debate between two college graduates. The first, my daughter's boyfriend, argued that someone with talent and motivation could become as creative a composer without formal musical training as with it. The other, my daughter, vigorously countered that while someone might compose well on one's own, the (...) result would not be as versatile or thoughtfully developed as it could be with good formal instruction. I saw the musical educations of the debaters reflected in their arguments. My daughter had accumulated fourteen years of formal instruction in violin, cello, voice, and dance and took part in high school choral, theatrical, and orchestral performances. Her studies continued into college and from time to time she performs in community theater. Her boyfriend was the only musically trained member of his family. At his own request he studied piano for five years, later channeling his musical energies into a rock group. Though he did not study music in college, he continues to play keyboard and guitar. Both agree that the ongoing debate between them illustrates the strong connection between musical training and musical valuing. The life-world of their experiences shaped their judgments of musical quality and left imprints on their views of what matters more, talent or training. I will return to this scenario later.I find solid points of agreement with Eva Alerby and Cecilia Ferm starting with their premise that music learning is most effective when taught within a context. While some students prefer learning in a linear, rule-oriented setting, more often than not a musical concept will be comprehended best if it is first experienced within a variety of works. Regarding extra-musical contexts, furthermore, recent evidence supporting the integration of subject areas at the elementary level appears to extend the boundaries of musical learning in a positive direction. Additionally, the authors' description of embodied musical learning holds great interest. Their argument that musical learning must be appropriated within the body resonates strongly within me as I reflect upon performing and teaching piano. Experience with beginning level adult pianists suggests to me that once the awkwardness of newly-learned movements fades with time and effort, students often discover a close interaction between their physical and conceptual knowledge of music. Of related interest is the authors' definition of musicality as taking embodied musical knowledge and making it one's own. This surpasses physical mastery of an instrument and describes a personal [End Page 208] and emotional investment in music. It is at this point in the essay that the recognizable link between mind, body, and emotion in music is most clear.Alongside these engaging ideas, however, are statements throughout the essay that invite further questions or comments. First among these is the statement that the knowledge resulting from learning is not always what was intended or planned. While this is often the case, elaboration upon modes of knowledge in question would help clarify the authors' ideas. Since knowledge takes a variety of forms, as the authors imply, these forms should be explored, defined, and applied to the process of teaching and learning music.Related to that suggestion is my response to the statement that the aim of music education is to produce musical knowledge. I am assuming that musical knowledge includes an age-appropriate blend of performance skill, reading ability, ear training, historical and cultural connections, basic theoretical and stylistic understanding, and acquaintance with creative processes. In many regions of our country, public arts education has been de-valued to the extent that we must convince administrators, parents, and sometimes students, of its importance. Until this situation improves, I must personally consider the aim of music education as producing, alongside musical knowledge, the desire for music as a lifelong pursuit, be it active or passive. Without this desire, musical knowledge gained often goes unused. Referring to my opening anecdote, my daughter is not participating in music while her less extensively trained boyfriend is. I know of several students like her who gained expertise on an instrument and who have now stopped playing for... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Response to Eva Alerby and Cecilia Ferm, “Learning Music: Embodied Experience in the Life-World”Christine A. BrownI was recently asked to settle a friendly debate between two college graduates. The first, my daughter's boyfriend, argued that someone with talent and motivation could become as creative a composer without formal musical training as with it. The other, my daughter, vigorously countered that while someone might compose well on one's own, the (...) result would not be as versatile or thoughtfully developed as it could be with good formal instruction. I saw the musical educations of the debaters reflected in their arguments. My daughter had accumulated fourteen years of formal instruction in violin, cello, voice, and dance and took part in high school choral, theatrical, and orchestral performances. Her studies continued into college and from time to time she performs in community theater. Her boyfriend was the only musically trained member of his family. At his own request he studied piano for five years, later channeling his musical energies into a rock group. Though he did not study music in college, he continues to play keyboard and guitar. Both agree that the ongoing debate between them illustrates the strong connection between musical training and musical valuing. The life-world of their experiences shaped their judgments of musical quality and left imprints on their views of what matters more, talent or training. I will return to this scenario later.I find solid points of agreement with Eva Alerby and Cecilia Ferm starting with their premise that music learning is most effective when taught within a context. While some students prefer learning in a linear, rule-oriented setting, more often than not a musical concept will be comprehended best if it is first experienced within a variety of works. Regarding extra-musical contexts, furthermore, recent evidence supporting the integration of subject areas at the elementary level appears to extend the boundaries of musical learning in a positive direction. Additionally, the authors' description of embodied musical learning holds great interest. Their argument that musical learning must be appropriated within the body resonates strongly within me as I reflect upon performing and teaching piano. Experience with beginning level adult pianists suggests to me that once the awkwardness of newly-learned movements fades with time and effort, students often discover a close interaction between their physical and conceptual knowledge of music. Of related interest is the authors' definition of musicality as taking embodied musical knowledge and making it one's own. This surpasses physical mastery of an instrument and describes a personal [End Page 208] and emotional investment in music. It is at this point in the essay that the recognizable link between mind, body, and emotion in music is most clear.Alongside these engaging ideas, however, are statements throughout the essay that invite further questions or comments. First among these is the statement that the knowledge resulting from learning is not always what was intended or planned. While this is often the case, elaboration upon modes of knowledge in question would help clarify the authors' ideas. Since knowledge takes a variety of forms, as the authors imply, these forms should be explored, defined, and applied to the process of teaching and learning music.Related to that suggestion is my response to the statement that the aim of music education is to produce musical knowledge. I am assuming that musical knowledge includes an age-appropriate blend of performance skill, reading ability, ear training, historical and cultural connections, basic theoretical and stylistic understanding, and acquaintance with creative processes. In many regions of our country, public arts education has been de-valued to the extent that we must convince administrators, parents, and sometimes students, of its importance. Until this situation improves, I must personally consider the aim of music education as producing, alongside musical knowledge, the desire for music as a lifelong pursuit, be it active or passive. Without this desire, musical knowledge gained often goes unused. Referring to my opening anecdote, my daughter is not participating in music while her less extensively trained boyfriend is. I know of several students like her who gained expertise on an instrument and who have now stopped playing for... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:The Life and Writings of Edmond Pezet (1923–2008)Pierre Gillet and Jonathan A. SeitzIn the context of Buddhist-Christian dialogue in Thailand, the life and writings of Fr. Edmond Pezet (1923–2008) are remarkable. He lived among the poor and in a Buddhist monastery, and he also experienced the eremitic life in the forest. According to the Indian Zen master Ama Samy, “Pezet gained an intimate experience and knowledge of Buddhism (...) by living with Thai monks.” Here I introduce a recent Society of the Auxiliaries of the Mission (SAM)1 work that offers a biography and some writings of Edmond Pezet, Edmond Pezet, a Priest among Buddhist Monks in Thailand.2This publication is a collection of various writings of Edmond Pezet: correspondence and nine articles published in various magazines in French, Thai, and English. It has been edited by Henri Huysegoms, a Zen practitioner in Japan for the last forty-five years, and Pierre Liesse, an activist who worked for a couple of years in Thailand. These authors have been impressed by two characteristics of Pezet. First, because he was born in a very poor family in rural France, Pezet identified himself with poor people working hard to earn their living. Second, he was a very committed scholar who successfully learned to speak English, Thai, Lao, Sanskrit, and Pali.Edmond Pezet did his military service in Vietnam, where he was the helpless wit was the helpless witness of torture committed by his regiment fellows on Vietminh suspects. This led him to return there in the future as a missionary, to compensate for the harm he saw caused to the Vietnamese people. Back in France, he completed his study of theology. In 1947, his father was crushed by a truck in front of his eyes. He managed to combine his study and work on the land to provide for his family’s needs. He served as a priest in the diocese of Cahors (France) for a few years. Afterwards, he joined SAM in Belgium.At the end of 1956, he was sent in the northeastern part of Thailand. Faithful to the objectives of SAM, he wanted to serve the local bishop unconditionally, but he quickly noticed a painful reality. Christians and clergy alike followed “a religion, with a dreamlike heaven, rose-water-scented, as its goal, and, in order to get there without fail, certain ‘tricks,’ recipes, ceremonies and representations accompanied by a goodly number of rags and trimmings, where one cannot very easily see the connection between the two things.”3 He wrote that he was stunned to see the way religion was taught to catechumens. They were asked to assimilate, by memorizing [End Page 195] questions and answers, dogmatic assertions expressed with words borrowed from Sanskrit that nobody understood. This inadequate education went hand in hand with a lack of knowledge of Buddhism, sometimes accompanied by scorn. “The Christians were deliberately uprooted from the spiritual richness and religious experience of their race … especially the clergy! (kept apart from their people from the age of 10 to 27). They were taught to administer on the model of the French parish priest of last century.”4His Thai bishop, to whom he opened his heart, did not see any problem in that situation and advised him to get used to it, but for Pezet it soon became unbearable. In 1970, Pezet’s life took a decisive turn. He went to Bangkok. There, he learned Sanskrit and Buddhism at the university level, and for three years lived in the house of a Buddhist monk, helping him to write introductions to Buddhism for foreigners. It made him discover a world of spiritual wealth he had not suspected.What he learned was not a new doctrine presented as absolute truth, because Buddhism does not present its core teaching that way, but a “doctrine” that is expressed exclusively in existential values, something not to be taught, but experienced. Buddhism, he discovered, does not deal with transcendence, because it does not engage in speculative discussion. In Buddhism, this transcendence can only be perceived in the depth of immanence.In a letter of that time, he noted that his bishop had warned him not... (shrink)

Narrative accounts misrepresent discovery by reconstructing worlds ordered by success rather than the world as explored. Such worlds rarely contain the personal knowledge that informed actual exploration and experiment. This article describes an attempt to recover situated learning in a material environment, tracing the discovery of the first electromagnetic motor by Michael Faraday in September 1821 to show how he modeled new experience and invented procedures to communicate that novelty. The author introduces a notation to map experiment as an (...) active process in a real-world environment and to display the human agency written out of most narratives. Comparing maps of accounts shows how knowledge-construction depends on narrative reconstruction. It is argued that invention processes can be interpreted in the same way as discovery, and a study is proposed to compare packaging learned skills into demonstration devices with the innovative strategies of inventors such as Edison. If situational knowledge is as important as is claimed, computationalists need to join science studies scholars in coming to grips with nonverbal and procedural aspects of discovery and invention. (shrink)

If patriotism can thus be seen as an incentive or as an instigation even in such a recondite science as epistemology, how much more readily can it be seen to perform such functions in other studies more immediately or inextricably bound up with communal human life? I pass over instances that occur to me—for instance, the Victorian Jesuit, Father Hopkins, declaring that every good poem written by an Englishman was a blow struck for England--and profit instead, if I may, (...) by the presence among us of Edward Said. I do not know, and it is none of my business to know, what passport Said presents at the international frontier. But it is surely common knowledge among us that he has deep and feelingful and intimate allegiances to the state of Lebanon. Who of us has failed to connect this with his books Orientalism and The Question of Palestine? The point is that, having made this connection, none of us thinks the worse of Said. On the contrary, we recognize that he has a special stake in such topics and therefore speaks on them with a special authority. Unless I am mistaken, that stake and that authority are, in a perhaps extended sense, patriotic. And whatever our speculative objections to the idea and the principle of patriotism, in practice we recognize it and we honour it.What I am questioning, it will now be plain, is the principle of "disinterest." "The disinterested pursuit of knowledge"—it is what in our distinct disciplines all of us have paid lip-service to, and perhaps more than lip-service. But when we come right down to it, is it what we believe? The honest patriot declares an interest; and if we are wise, we take note of the declaration, making allowances and reserving doubts accordingly. But what are we to make of the scholar who declares no interest, who claims implicitly to be truly disinterested. Can we believe him? And if we cannot, what guidance do we have as to what reservations to make, what doubts to entertain? I am of one mind with my Marxist colleagues who, from a political position very far from mine, warn us to be especially suspicious of the scholar who claims to have no axe to grind. We, all of us, have axes to grind; the crucial distinction is between those who know this about themselves and those who don't.Let me make myself clear. When I urge that the terms "patriotism" and "patriotic" be reinstated in our discourse, and particularly in those forms of our discourse that may be called "interpretation," I do not imply that patriotism is a nobler, a more elevated instigation than sundry others, mostly ideological, of which we are more aware. The point is precisely that of these others we are aware because we share a vocabulary which acknowledges them, whereas "patriotic" has been banished from our vocabulary, and so the reality which the word represents is left out of our calculations. Let me admit for the sake of argument what I do not in fact believe-- that patriotism is a concept and a sentiment so besmirched by the unholy uses made of it that, if mankind is to survive, patriotism will have to be eradicated. Even if that were the case, it remains true that patriotic interest and incitement are very far from having been eradicated from the world that we in fact inhabit, and try to interpret, here and now; and if we try to work within a vocabulary that pretends otherwise, we condemn ourselves to producing interpretations that are drastically partial and perhaps disastrously misleading. The point is not whether patriotism is a good thing or a bad thing but simply that it is; it exists, as powerful factor which we all in our hearts acknowledge even as our vocabulary refuses to. And when we speak in this context of "the world," we certainly include in that world ourselves, who offer to interpret it. Every one of our interpretations is coloured by the fact that we, the several interpreters, are British or American, French or Italian or Russian or whatever. If we think otherwise, we deceive ourselves; and yet where, in any of our currently acceptable vocabularies, determined as all of them are by the glib rationalism of the Enlightenment, do we find that momentous fact about ourselves acknowledged? Where is it acknowledged, for instance, in the vocabulary of feminism that "woman," as conceived by an American writing about Italians, cannot help but be significantly different from "woman" as conceived by an Italian looking at Americans? Or again, an Italian woman may well, we must suppose, be an Italian patriot; but where, in the current vocabulary of feminists, is that dimension of her "woman-ness" allowed for? Let it be acknowledged only so as to be deplored; but let it in any event be acknowledged. At the moment, it isn't.Donald A. Davie, the distinguished poet, is Andrew W. Mellon Professor of the Humanities at Vanderbilt University and honorary fellow of Saint Catharine's College, Cambridge and of Trinity College, Dublin. He has edited The New Oxford Book of Christian Verse, and his Collected Poems 1950-1970 appeared in 1972. His latest publications are Dissentient Voice and These the Companions; Recollections. (shrink)

Many health care systems include programs that allow patients in exceptional circumstances to access medical interventions of as yet unproven benefit. In this article we consider the ethical justifications for—and demands on—these special access programs (SAPs). SAPs have a compassionate basis: They give patients with limited options the opportunity to try interventions that are not yet approved by standard regulatory processes. But while they signal that health care systems can and will respond to individual suffering, SAPs have several disadvantages, including (...) the potential to undermine regulatory and knowledge-generation structures that constitute significant public goods. The “balance” between these considerations depends in part on how broadly SAPs are used, but also on whether SAPs can be made to contribute to the generation of knowledge about the effects of health interventions. We argue that patients should usually be required to contribute outcome data while using SAPs. (shrink)

Incomplete information is a commonly cited barrier to the adoption of new innovations. We present a decision-making experiment, conducted with farmers in the field, that explores the extent to which information which reduces ambiguity may be provided as a public good. In the experiment, participants make a series of decisions between a risky gamble and an ambiguous gamble. An initial private decision is followed by second choice in which participants know that their chosen gambles and outcomes will be (...) publicly but anonymously revealed. Selection of the ambiguous option in this decision thus provide public good information which can be used to update beliefs about the ambiguous gamble. After the public revelation, participants make one final choice between the two options which we use to assess learning. We also test communication as a mechanism to increase provision of the public good. We find evidence that people with preference to avoid ambiguity contribute to public good information while risk averse people free ride. Communication does not affect the overall public good provision, either in a positive or negative direction. Finally, we find that people draw appropriate inference from the information that the public good provides. We relate our findings to the issue of new technology adoption in agriculture which is of particular importance for our participants. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:39 HUME'S JUSTICE AS A COLLECTIVE GOOD David Hume would probably regard his 'system of morals' as the most important part of his treatise of human nature. Yet his moral theory, particularly his theory of justice, continues to baffle commentators. Many have found it difficult to follow his line of reasoning to the conclusions that it is an artificial virtue to obey the rules of justice, and that (...) such rules command our respect even though we do not have any natural tendencies to respect them. The most troubling claim seems to be the claim that justice is ultimately based on self-interest, the motive that, on the surface at least, tends to induce people to ignore justice, particularly justice of the kind Hume is talking about. Jonathan Harrison, for instance, goes through a series of examples in an attempt to get close to Hume's meaning. In this paper I wish to argue that by justice Hume has in mind something very much like what modern economists call collective good. In the economic theory of public finance, which was born in the late Fifties, a distinction is made between collective goods and private goods. I wish to argue that this distinction can be employed to elucidate the nature of Hume's concept of justice, as well as to pinpoint the source of the moral force making justice a virtue rather than just a matter of prudence. I Most goods (and services) bought and sold in any economy have the following characteristics. First, as one person purchases (and consumes) a quantity of a particular good, there is less of it available for others to consume (that is, before more is produced). If the market is cleared (i.e. all that is produced is bought and sold), the total production or supply (X_, say) is the sum of individual purchases (X =X +X + etc.). 40 Second, the benefit of consumption is confined largely to the person who consumes the good. The overall benefit is said to be divisible among consumers. Third, the cost of production is also divisible and can be calculated for each unit of the good (which is not to say that such calculation can be easily or accurately carried out). Goods such as bread and butter, shoes and ships and sealing wax, cabbages, and so on, are of this nature. There are also certain goods and services which do not have these characteristics. John Stuart Mill was actually the first to notice the fact that a good such as a lighthouse, once provided, confers benefits equally on all "consumers" (i.e. ships that navigate by it). Unlike the goods in the class above, the amount of service generated by a lighthouse does not diminish as more of it is "consumed." The total X available is actually what is available for each and every consumer, so that X =X =X = etc. Once available, the benefit is not confined to any one user: to make it available to one user is to make it available to other users. The overall benefit is not divisible among consumers. Finally, it is often meaningless to speak of units of the good, hence meaningless to speak of cost per unit. Costs are also not divisible. In this class of goods we can include, in addition to the lighthouse, national defense, clean air, pleasant surroundings, etc. In the economic literature of public finance, these goods are referred to as 2 collective goods (and those above, private goods). The nature of collective goods poses a number of problems. One is that it is difficult to extract payments from consumers, once the good has been provided. Since it is difficult, if not impossible, to exclude those who refuse to pay from consuming the good or service, it is unrealistic to expect any payments, or full payments. This being so, no private entrepreneur would be willing to produce collective goods. Generally, 41 they will not be provided unless there is some collective effort, hence the name collective goods. The second problem, as economists see it, is to work out the optimum level of production. This turns out to be theoretically simple, assuming that potential consumers truly reveal their... (shrink)

Some see health care as primarily an individual responsibility. Others see it as a public responsibility. Behind these approaches are strong conflicting beliefs about ethical matters, specifically about the kind of good that health care is. On the one side the underlying belief is that health care is no more than an individual good and hence calls for a distributive policy based on the market. On the other side the underlying belief is that it is a (...) class='Hi'>public good and hence calls for a distributive policy based on widespread agreement.' There will be intermediate approaches which try with varying success to justify themselves by piecing together beliefs from both sides. I shall explain what is involved in calling something a public good. Then I shall try to show that, if health care is to satisfy some rather plausible criteria, it must have the character of a public good. (shrink)

This study demonstrates that Dewey did not reject Hegelianism during the 1890s, as scholars maintain, but developed a humanistic/historicist reading that was indebted to an American Hegelian tradition. Scholars have misunderstood the "permanent Hegelian deposit" in Dewey's thought because they have not fully appreciated this American Hegelian tradition and have assumed that his Hegelianism was based primarily on British neo-Hegelianism. ;The study examines the American reception of Hegel in the nineteenth-century by intellectuals as diverse as James Marsh and Frederic Henry (...) Hedge and how it flowered in late nineteenth-century St. Louis. The St. Louis Hegelians read Hegel as a particularly practical and politically liberal philosopher whose social philosophy promoted both social diversity and unity. Led by W. T. Harris, they studied Hegel in German and published their own scholarship, as well as translations of German scholarship, in their Journal of Speculative Philosophy. Their efforts to make "Hegel talk English" and to base the St. Louis public schools on Hegel's philosophy of education won them national, and even, international attention. The St. Louis Hegelians sought to adapt Hegel's thought to their American context by assuaging elitist elements within it; Dewey's intellectual development was profoundly shaped by their appropriation of his philosophy. ;Dewey drew upon Hegel's argument that humans form societies because of their differences, not in spite of them. Hegel's rejection of the self-sufficient, atomistic individual entailed that the individual is dependent upon others for the satisfaction of material needs. Moreover, like Hegel, Dewey rejected the hedonistic basis of the British political tradition by arguing that humans seek recognition from their equals as well as satisfaction of material needs. Dewey believed Hegel's emphasis upon equality and diversity provided a model of society in which there was fertile ground for the individual to conceive and articulate cultural criticism. The study ends by comparing recent Hegel scholarship to Dewey's, demonstrating that American Hegelianism has returned, in important ways, to a Deweyan reading of Hegel. (shrink)

I argue that thought experiments are a form of experimental reasoning similar to real experiments. They require the same ability to participate by following a narrative as real experiments do. Participation depends in turn on using what we already know to visualize, manipulate and understand what is unfamiliar or problematic. I defend the claim that visualization requires embodiment by an example which shows how tacit understanding of the properties of represented objects and relations enables us to work out how such (...) objects might behave in a postulated world. This knowledge is that of embodied agents. That thought experiments require embodied participation is what makes them experiments rather than arguments. Unlike real experiments, from which ordinary perception has been displaced by instrumentation, thought experiments still appeal to relatively unmediated common sense, even when their purpose is to criticize or subvert common sense notions. (shrink)

What kind of science – or, more generally, what kind of academic inquiry – can best contribute to the public good? Two answers are considered: knowledge-inquiry and wisdom-inquiry. The former is what we have at present. It is, however, damagingly irrational. The latter is more rigorous and, potentially, of greater value in human and intellectual terms. It arises as a result of putting the Enlightenment Programme properly into practice. We urgently need to bring about a revolution in (...) academia, so that wisdom-inquiry is put into practice. (shrink)

This volume focuses on the question of whether it is appropriate and inevitable that higher education systems are becoming so large and so diverse that the only realistic way they can be analysed is as aggregates of market-like transactions.

Ethical decision-making in public health rarely involves simply avoiding a bad choice in favor of a good choice. Instead, it requires policymakers to strike a balance among conflicting goals that are all good—goals such as the health of populations and individuals, knowledge gained through scientific research, autonomy, social justice, and the efficient use of limited resources. This balance can be elusive, and perfect examples are the legal instruments governing dual-use research, a term describing scientific endeavors meant (...) to produce beneficial knowledge or technology, but that could also be misapplied. Dual-use research of concern policies were implemented... (shrink)

Universities have flourished in the modern era as central public institutions and bases for critical thought. They are currently challenged by a variety of social forces and undergoing a deep transformation in both their internal structure and their relationship to the rest of society. Critical theorists need to assess this both in order to grasp adequately the social conditions of their own work and because the transformation of universities is central to a more general intensification of social inequality, privatization (...) of public institutions, and reorganization of the relation of access to knowledge. This is also a pivotal instance for asking basic questions about the senses in which the university is or may be ‘public’: (1) where does its money come from? (2) who governs? (3) who benefits? and (4) how is knowledge produced and circulated? (shrink)

This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work is in the "public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough (...) to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:"To make a difference...":Narrative Desire in Global MedicineByron J. Good and Mary-Jo DelVecchio GoodIf, as Arthur Frank (2002) writes, "moral life, for better and worse, takes place in storytelling," this collection of narratives written by physicians working in field settings in global medicine gives us a glimpse of some aspects of moral experience, practice, and dilemmas in settings of poverty and low health care resources. These essays are (...) written from the midst of practice, in diverse settings in Africa, South Asia, Latin America, the Caribbean, and the United States. The majority of the writers are practitioners of contemporary 'global medicine'—physicians from North America or Europe who spend part of their lives flying into settings of poverty or special need to practice medicine and work with on-going collaborative clinical and public health systems—while a smaller number are working in the societies in which they were born. Although a few work for classic humanitarian organizations or have developed their own local NGO's, the great majority are engaged in the 'hybrid life' described by Robert Riviello and noted by Renée Fox, moving between academic medical centers and distant health care systems that are supported by local governments, major international organizations and funding agencies, and international NGO's like Partners in Health. These diverse forms of practice have become a common model for contemporary clinicians engaged in what has emerged as a new discipline of global health or global medicine, and these narratives give us a glimpse of some of the enduring, as well as newly emerging, forms of moral practice and ethical dilemmas characteristic of today's global medicine.Many of these stories are filled with the tension and pathos that makes clinical narratives powerful to read. Physicians are forced to make unfathomable decisions about whether to resuscitate and keep a baby alive, using all means available, or to let the infant die, whether to carry out a procedure that will save an infant in birth but would put the mother at risk, about how to deal with a cancer found in a very advanced state. However, virtually all of the stories transcend these classical stories of the decisions physicians are forced to make by being placed in settings of great scarcity of resources, which stand in particular contrast to the academic medical settings in North America or Europe where many of these global medicine specialists have trained and many continue to practice. The unspeakable inequality of resources emerges throughout these narratives as a kind of master theme, as the underlying moral, as opposed to plot, which gives meaning and sense to the stories. For those who practice medicine in such settings, global inequalities and scarcity of medical resources are deeply felt. They produce the rage that Jeffrey Deal describes. ("I learned to despise American churches during that time, a time when my world encompassed a dying newborn in Sudan, as well as the air conditioned padded seats [End Page 121] of our affluent suburban church.") They produce the distinctive experiences of helplessness and pain felt by clinicians who cannot separate how they would be able to treat such a patient at home from how they have to practice in these settings. For those clinicians working in their own societies, scarcity of resources often produces deep anger at the corrupt governments that fail to support basic human services for the great majority of their population. ("We were temporary actors performing in the cynical play of scarcity on permanent display in Port-au-Prince," writes Haitian physician Paul Pierre about his experience prior to joining Partners in Health.)But for those who regularly travel back and forth across the divide between rich and poor, whether across national boundaries or within their own society, the challenge to live a moral life is unendingly complicated. While becoming a part of a struggle for global justice with colleagues and advocates from both sides of the divide, few of the narrators can avoid personal feelings of ambivalence and guilt at being able to easily move from one side of that divide to the other back home. Many fantasize about giving up their lives in the north to devote themselves... (shrink)

BackgroundYouth are increasingly aware of the negative effects of climate change on the planet and human health, but this knowledge can often come with significant affective responses, such as psychological distress, anger, or despair. Experiencing major “negative” emotions, like worry, guilt, and hopelessness in anticipation of climate change has been identified with the term eco-anxiety. Emerging literature focuses on adults' experience; however, little is known about the ways in which children and youth experience eco-anxiety.ObjectivesThe aim of this review was (...) to: identify the available evidence on the topic of eco-anxiety in children, clarify the mental health consequences brought by the awareness of climate change in this population, and identify knowledge gaps in the literature and considerations for future research.MethodsGiven that the research on the topic of eco-anxiety in children is limited, that there are very few randomized controlled trials, and that the goal is not to analyze individual studies in-depth, a scoping review was used. Keywords pertaining to the themes of eco-anxiety, climate change and children were used as search terms in five databases. Journal articles using qualitative and quantitative methods, as well as gray literature were examined by two independent reviewers. A descriptive-analytical method was used to chart the data that emerged from the literature. Eighteen articles were considered in the final analysis.ResultsEvidence confirms that children experience affective responses and eco-anxiety in reaction to then awareness of climate change. Mental health outcomes include depression, anxiety, and extreme emotions like sadness, anger, and fear. Youth from vulnerable communities, like indigenous communities, or those who have strong ties to the land are often identified as being emotionally impacted by climate change. The literature analyzed also describes how children and youth are coping with eco-anxiety, including maladaptive and adaptive responses. Preliminary considerations for parents, teachers and educators, mental health care providers, school systems, adults and people of power include adding age-appropriate climate education to the school curriculum, considering youth's emotions, and promoting healthy coping through empowerment. Important gaps exist in the definition of eco-anxiety in youth, as various characterizations of this emerging concept are found across articles. (shrink)

The standard of disinterested objectivity embedded within the US Data Quality Act (2001) has been used by corporate and political interests as a way to limit the dissemination of scientific research results that conflict with their goals. This is an issue that philosophers of science can, and should, publicly address because it involves an evaluation of the strength and adequacy of evidence. Analysis of arguments from a philosophical tradition that defended a concept of useful knowledge (later displaced by Logical (...) Empiricism) is used here to suggest how the legitimacy of scientific findings can be supported in the absence of disinterested objectivity. (shrink)

The emergence of predatory journals is a global threat for scientific integrity, particularly in under-resourced settings such as low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). A bilingual course on predatory publishing using a distance education approach was developed for Moroccan researchers as a response to the imperative need for training on research ethics to implement good scientific practices. A cross-sectional survey-based study was conducted to evaluate outcomes after delivering two education sessions in both French and English. Before this course, 40% of (...) participants indicated that they don’t verify journal quality before manuscript submission and most of them consider Scopus indexing and the impact factor as the best criteria for journal publication. Approximately 50% of surveyees did not have previous information on predatory journals before the webinar. Pressure to publish by supervisors, institutions of affiliation, or funding agencies, was noticed in 43.4% of participants. After the webinar course was delivered, remarkably, the proportion of participants with knowledge on predatory publishing was meaningfully increased from 48.9% to 81%. Importantly, 83.7% of participants indicated that they are motivated to share their new knowledge on predatory publishing with their colleagues. Moreover, the majority of respondents (73.8%) reported that publishing their research in predatory journals may damage their career and professional future. Promisingly, nearly a half or more of participants recommended the use of training based on distance education, surveillance of researchers by their mentors and affiliations, and social networks to increase awareness on predatory publishing. Almost all participants were satisfied with the content of the webinar. Trainers and research institutions in LMICs should benefit from the advent of distance education using webinar platforms to increase awareness on the issue of predatory publishing in their settings. (shrink)

Case studies of diverse scientific fields show how scientists use a range of resources to generate new interpretative models and to establish their plausibility as explanations of a domain. They accomplish this by manipulating imagistic representations in particular ways. I show that scientists in different domains use the same basic transformations. Common features of these transformations indicate that general cognitive strategies of interpretation, simplification, elaboration, and argumentation are at work. Social and historical studies of science emphasize the diversity of local (...) contexts of practice. However, the existence of common strategies shows that this diversity masks an important repertoire of cognitive strategies. Scientists use this repertoire to adapt their representations to meet the cognitive demands of different contexts of practice. This paper considers the implications of this finding for the notion of scientists as cognitive agents in distributed knowledge-producing systems. (shrink)

The paper introduces an approach to privacy enhancing technologies that sees privacy not merely as an individual right, but as a public good. This idea finds its correspondence in our approach to privacy protection through obfuscation, where everybody in a group takes a small privacy risk to protect the anonymity of fellow group members. We show how these ideas can be computationally realised in an Investigative Data Acquisition Platform. IDAP is an efficient symmetric Private Information Retrieval protocol optimised (...) for the specific purpose of facilitating public authorities’ enquiries for evidence. (shrink)

The present work deals with an initiative that aims at creating and promoting rural development through high quality. It is called “Presidia”, it has been started by the Slowfood movement, and it relies on an approach to rural economies different from the standard spreading of industrialization. The phenomenon on focus is based upon the cooperative dynamics of several small producers, and thus some criticalities typical of social dilemmas have emerged in the case-based study on the field: they deal with the (...) role played by cooperation-supporting institutions. Through an empirically grounded agent-based model which allows what-if analysis of some policy suggestions, different mechanisms for promoting cooperation among producers are thus investigated. Simulation results outline how single altruistic actions are not capable of sustaining a positive aggregate while single selfish choices can determine very negative outcomes, and how only the strong commitment of most central actors can protect the system from random fluctuations in cooperation levels. Two main results are finally discussed: informal control mechanisms do not ensure the desired level of cooperation and high quality; interaction structure codetermines the outcome. (shrink)

American higher education rose to fame and fortune during the Cold War, when both student enrollments and funded research shot upward. Prior to World War II, the federal government showed little interest in universities and provided little support. The war spurred a large investment in defence-based scientific research in universities, and the emergence of the Cold War expanded federal investment exponentially. Unlike a hot war, the Cold War offered an extended period of federally funded research public subsidy for expanding (...) student enrollments. The result was the golden age of the American university. The good times continued for about 30 years and then began to go bad. The decline was triggered by the combination of a decline in the perceived Soviet threat and a taxpayer revolt against high public spending; both trends culminating with the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989. With no money and no enemy, the Cold War university fell as quickly as it arose. Instead of seeing the Cold War university as the norm, we need to think of it as the exception. What we are experiencing now in American higher education is a regression to the mean, in which, over the long haul, Americans have understood higher education to be a distinctly private good. (shrink)