Despite prevalent concerns about the ethical conduct of clinical trials, little is known about the day-to-day work of trials and the ethical challenges arising in them. This paper reports on a study designed to fill this gap and demonstrates a need to refine the oversight system for trials to reflect an understanding of this day-to-day work. It also illuminates ethical challenges that cannot be addressed by the oversight system and so necessitate a rethinking of the ethics of clinical trials.

Clinical trials are a central mechanism in the production of medical knowledge. They are the gold standard by which such knowledge is evaluated. They are widespread both in the United States and internationally; a National Institute of Health database reports over 106,000 active industry and government-sponsored trials (National Institutes of Health n.d.). They are an engine of the economy. The work of trials is complex; multiple people with diverse interests working across multiple settings simultaneously participate in them, and they are (...) underwritten by multiple organizational structures and diverse funding mechanisms. In the past several years, concern about the ethics of clinical trials has spiked dramatically .. (shrink)

Trope theory is a leading metaphysical theory in analytic ontology. One of its classic statements is found in the work of Donald C. Williams who argued that tropes qua abstract particulars are the very alphabet of being. The concept of an abstract particular has been repeatedly attacked in the literature. Opponents and proponents of trope theory alike have levelled their criticisms at the abstractness of tropes and the associated act of abstraction. In this paper I defend the concept of a (...) trope qua abstract particular by rejecting arguments that purport to show that tropes should not be understood as abstract and by arguing that the abstractness of tropes plays an indispensable role in one of our more promising trope-theoretic analyses of universals and of concrete objects. (shrink)

Even a morally good practical agent does not act solely from the recog- nition of the abstract demands of moral duty. Often, she acts to satisfy desires for particular ends that are not intrinsically moral. But if freedom, as Kant claims, consists in acting from universal principles one adopts from respect for the moral law, how can agents freely act to satisfy desires for particular ends? The standard answer to this question, the so-called Incorporation Thesis, is, I argue, unsatisfactory both (...) as an interpretation of Kant and on philosophical grounds. I propose instead that, for Kant, the capacity to act freely for the sake of a particular, non-intrinsically moral end is not exhausted by the ability to step back, reflect and decide whether a desire is or can provide a reason to act. Rather, Kant shows, the place for the pursuit of particular ends is determined by practically rational agents’ spontaneous constitution of their moral character, whereby they subordi- nate the pursuit of material, particular ends to the pursuit of formal, moral ones or vice versa. (shrink)

In this book, Naomi Fisher provides a cohesive interpretation of Schelling's philosophical work from 1792-1802 as a mystical Platonism. According to this interpretation, Schelling is guided by two overarching commitments during this time. First, Schelling is committed to mysticism regarding the absolute. That is, the absolute is ineffable; it cannot be described in conceptual terms. For this reason, it remains inferentially external to any given philosophical system. Second, Schelling is committed to a priority monism: All things are grounded in (...) the absolute, but finite things possess an integral unity all their own, and so have a distinct and relatively independent existence. This book shows how these two commitments cohere in a project that fulfils the distinctive aims of post-Kantian philosophy, and it traces their inspiration to Schelling's early engagement with Plato's dialogues and to his education, which was Neoplatonic in orientation. In presenting Schelling's philosophy of this decade as guided by these two fundamental commitments, this book poses a challenge to those readings of Schelling's philosophy according to which it shifts frequently in its basic commitments during this time. According to the interpretation presented in this book, Schelling's appropriations of various strands of Platonism distinguish him from his contemporaries and give rise to his idiosyncratic approach to the projects of post-Kantian philosophy. Mysticism, Platonism, monism, Schelling, Neoplatonism, philosophy of nature, identity philosophy, German Idealism, Romanticism In this book, Naomi Fisher provides a cohesive interpretation of Schelling's philosophical work from 1792-1802 as a mystical Platonism. According to this interpretation, Schelling is guided by two overarching commitments during this time. First, Schelling is committed to mysticism regarding the absolute. That is, the absolute is ineffable; it cannot be described in conceptual terms. For this reason, it remains inferentially external to any given philosophical system. Second, Schelling is committed to a priority monism: All things are grounded in the absolute, but finite things possess an integral unity all their own, and so have a distinct and relatively independent existence. This book shows how these two commitments cohere in a project that fulfils the distinctive aims of post-Kantian philosophy, and it traces their inspiration to Schelling's early engagement with Plato's dialogues and to his education, which was Neoplatonic in orientation. In presenting Schelling's philosophy of this decade as guided by these two fundamental commitments, this book poses a challenge to those readings of Schelling's philosophy according to which it shifts frequently in its basic commitments during this time. According to the interpretation presented in this book, Schelling's appropriations of various strands of Platonism distinguish him from his contemporaries and give rise to his idiosyncratic approach to the projects of post-Kantian philosophy. Mysticism, Platonism, monism, Schelling, Neoplatonism, philosophy of nature, identity philosophy, German Idealism, Romanticism In this book, Naomi Fisher provides a cohesive interpretation of Schelling's philosophical work from 1792-1802 as a mystical Platonism. According to this interpretation, Schelling is guided by two overarching commitments during this time. First, Schelling is committed to mysticism regarding the absolute. That is, the absolute is ineffable; it cannot be described in conceptual terms. For this reason, it remains inferentially external to any given philosophical system. Second, Schelling is committed to a priority monism: All things are grounded in the absolute, but finite things possess an integral unity all their own, and so have a distinct and relatively independent existence. This book shows how these two commitments cohere in a project that fulfils the distinctive aims of post-Kantian philosophy, and it traces their inspiration to Schelling's early engagement with Plato's dialogues and to his education, which was Neoplatonic in orientation. In presenting Schelling's philosophy of this decade as guided by these two fundamental commitments, this book poses a challenge to those readings of Schelling's philosophy according to which it shifts frequently in its basic commitments during this time. According to the interpretation presented in this book, Schelling's appropriations of various strands of Platonism distinguish him from his contemporaries and give rise to his idiosyncratic approach to the projects of post-Kantian philosophy. Mysticism, Platonism, monism, Schelling, Neoplatonism, philosophy of nature, identity philosophy, German Idealism, Romanticism. (shrink)

Can language directly access what is true, or is the truth judgment affected by the subjective, perhaps even solipsistic, constructs of reality built by the speakers of that language? The construction of such subjective representations is known as veridicality, and in this book Anastasia Giannakidou and Alda Mari deftly address the interaction between truth and veridicality in the grammatical phenomena of mood choice: the indicative and subjunctive choice in the complements of modal expressions (words like must, may, can, and (...) possible) and propositional attitude verbs (such as know, believe, remember, dream, and persuade). Combining several strands of analysis-formal linguistic semantics, syntactic theory, modal logic, and philosophy of language- Giannakidou and Mari's theory not only enriches the analysis of linguistic modality, but also offers a unified perspective of modals and propositional attitudes. Their synthesis covers mood, modality, and attitude verbs in Greek and Romance languages including Italian and French, while also offering broader applications for languages lacking systematic mood distinction, such as English, and explaining interactions between modality, time, and evidentiality. (shrink)

Nudging is considered a promising approach for behavioural change. At the same time, nudging has raised ethical concerns, specifically in relation to the impact of nudges on autonomous choice. A complexity is that in this debate authors may appeal to different understandings or dimensions of autonomy. Clarifying the different conceptualisations of autonomy in ethical debates around nudging would help to advance our understanding of the ethics of nudging. A literature review of these considerations was conducted in order to identify and (...) differentiate between the conceptualisations of autonomy. In 33 articles on the ethics of nudging, we identified 280 autonomy considerations, which we labelled with 790 unique autonomy codes and grouped under 61 unique super-codes. Finally, we formulated three general conceptualisations of autonomy. Freedom of choice refers to the availability of options and the environment in which individuals have to make choices. Agency involves an individual's capacity to deliberate and determine what to choose. Self-constitution relates to someone's identity and self-chosen goals. In the debate about the ethics of nudging, authors refer to different senses of autonomy. Clarifying these conceptualisations contributes to a better understanding of how nudges can undermine or, on the other hand, strengthen autonomy. (shrink)

It has been widely accepted that Kant holds the “Opacity Thesis,” the claim that we cannot know the ultimate grounds of our actions. Understood in this way, I shall argue, the Opacity Thesis is at odds with Kant's account of practical self-consciousness, according to which I act from the (always potentially conscious) representation of principles of action and that, in particular, in acting from duty I act in consciousness of the moral law's determination of my will. The Opacity Thesis thus (...) threatens to render acting from duty unintelligible. To diffuse the threat, I argue, first, that we need not attribute the Opacity Thesis to Kant. Kant's concern with the ubiquity of moral self-opacity does not imply the strong skeptical conclusion that knowledge of the grounds of one's action is impossible. Second, I show how moral self-opacity in cases of morally bad action emerges from the intrinsic inability of representing oneself, insofar as one is pursuing the indeterminate end of “happiness.” Thus, moral self-opacity does not undermine the will's self-consciousness but is born of it. (shrink)

Kant’s account of the feeling of moral respect has notoriously puzzled interpreters: on the one hand, moral action is supposed to be autonomous and, in particular, free of the mediation of any feeling on the other hand, the subject’s grasp of the law somehow involves the feeling of moral respect. I argue that moral respect for Kant is not, pace both the ‘intellectualists’ and ‘affectivists,’ an effect of the determination of the will by the law – whether it be a (...) mere effect or the motivating cause of action – but is instead identical to it. Drawing on Kant’s general account of feeling as the awareness of how representations and their objects harm or benefit our own powers, I argue that the identity between moral respect and the determination to action contains two elements. Moral respect is, first, a form of practical self-consciousness which constitutes the subject’s recognition of the moral law and thus of herself as intrinsically bound by it, i. e., as a moral agent. Second, respect is a capacity for receptive awareness of particular features of our environment as well as other persons insofar as they benefit and harm us as moral agents. Thereby moral respect affords us awareness in concreto of particular, morally-conditioned ends. In this way moral respect provides the key for a Kantian account of genuinely free practical receptivity. (shrink)

Although the world of sports has witnessed numerous corruption scandals, the effects of perceived corruption in sports have not been sufficiently investigated in the literature. The aim of this paper is to examine how sports team identification weakens people’s perceptions of corruption in sports, and how it dampens corruption’s negative effects on spectator behavior. The study also examines how prevalent social norms regarding corruption in a country strengthen or weaken these effects. A survey of 1,005 sports spectators from four Sub-Saharan (...) African countries reveals how the interplay between team identification and perceived corruption can encourage or discourage sports attendance under different conditions. Corruption is investigated through the theoretical lenses of the pluralistic nature of morality. Findings indicate that particularistic values linked to moral obligations toward the team collide with the universalistic values that demand fairness in sports. In addition, social norms of corruption moderate the clash between universalistic and particularistic values. (shrink)

The aesthetic exception theorises anew the relation between art and politics. It challenges critical trends that discount the role of aesthetic autonomy, to impulsively reassert art as an effective form of social engagement. But it equally challenges those on the flipside of the efficacy debate, who insist that art's politics is limited to a recondite space of 'autonomous resistance'. The book shows how each side of the efficacy debate overlooks art's exceptional status and its social mediations. Mobilising philosophy and cultural (...) theory, and employing examples from visual art, performance, and theatre, it proposes four alternative tests to 'effect' to offer a nuanced account of art's political character. Those tests examine how art relates to politics as a practice that articulates its historical conjuncture, and how it prefigures the 'new' through simulations capable of activating the political life of the spectator. (shrink)

After 1989, capitalism has successfully presented itself as the only realistic political-economic system - a situation that the bank crisis of 2008, far from ending, actually compounded. The book analyses the development and principal features of this capitalist realism as a lived ideological framework. Using examples from politics, films, fiction, work and education, it argues that capitalist realism colours all areas of contemporary experience. But it will also show that, because of a number of inconsistencies and glitches internal to the (...) capitalist reality program capitalism in fact is anything but realistic. (shrink)

The evidence on gender discrimination in lending remains controversial. To capture gender biases in banks’ loan allocations, we observe the impact on the applicants of a microfinance institution and exploit the natural experiment of a regulatory change imposing a strict EUR 10,000 loan ceiling on microcredit. Descriptive statistics indicate that the presence of the ceiling is associated both with bank-MFI co-financing and with harsher treatment of female borrowers. To investigate causal links, we develop an econometric approach that addresses the concerns (...) of selection biases, multicollinearity, and endogeneity. Our empirical findings suggest that the change in the MFI’s gender-related attitude was triggered by banks through co-financing. Hence, we speculate that co-financing pushes ceiling-constrained MFIs to import whatever biases in loan granting that the banks are prone to. Overall, this paper stresses that apparently benign regulations such as loan ceilings can significantly harm the women’s empowerment efforts made by MFIs. (shrink)

The book investigates childbearing ambivalence and the philosophical resources available to overcome it by analyzing the nuances of the contemporary anxiety about having children while focusing on the moral and intellectual shifts that have occurred in how we think of the value and goodness of human life. Peeling back the layers of resistance, What Are Children For? argues that when we make the individual decision whether or not to have children we confront a profound philosophical question, that of the goodness (...) of our form life itself. How can we justify perpetuating human life given the catastrophic harm and suffering of which we are always at once both victims and perpetrators? If we wish to meet this challenge without succumbing to naivete about our predicament, we must, it argues, uncover a capacity to grasp the fundamental goodness of human life—not only theoretically but practically in the actual lives we lead today. (shrink)

This paper critically examines our relationship with justice in contemporary western liberal settings, with a particular focus on why our pursuit of justice is intimately entangled with punitive logics. It does so by defining this approach to justice as predominantly pathological, in the sense that it follows a logic that is akin to that displayed in our contemporary sensibilities regarding bodily pain. We deploy the concept of ‘dys-appearance’ used by Drew Leder in the context of his theory of embodiment to (...) discuss how, in western liberal societies, justice is primarily experienced and paid attention to when it appears negatively as a phenomenon; that is, we only become conscious of justice in our lived experiences through the painful and episodic experience of injustice. This phenomenological quality of justice, we argue, is intrinsically linked to how the pursuit of justice in these settings predominantly takes a hostile, punitive aspect. (shrink)

A comprehensive collection of the writings of Mark Fisher (1968-2017), whose work defined critical writing for a generation. This comprehensive collection brings together the work of acclaimed blogger, writer, political activist and lecturer Mark Fisher (aka k-punk). Covering the period 2004 - 2016, the collection will include some of the best writings from his seminal blog k-punk; a selection of his brilliantly insightful film, television and music reviews; his key writings on politics, activism, precarity, hauntology, mental health and (...) popular modernism for numerous websites and magazines; his final unfinished introduction to his planned work on "Acid Communism"; and a number of important interviews from the last decade. Edited by Darren Ambrose and with a foreword by Simon Reynolds. (shrink)

This book examines recent debates on the political dynamics of cosmopolitanism, particularly in its connection with European civil society and the public sphere. Its aim is to trace to what extent cosmopolitanism defines the «second modernity» and to analyse what cosmopolitanism can offer to modern socially and politically diverse societies.

On 25 May 2020, Officer Derek Chauvin asphyxiated George Floyd in Minneapolis — a murder that was captured in a confronting nine-minute bystander video that set off a firestorm of activity on online social networks, in the streets of the United States, and even worldwide. These protests captured the collective rage, dissatisfaction, and resentment personally and vicariously experienced towards the widespread systematic injustice and mistreatment of African Americans by police and vigilantes. The scale of these protests, both online and in (...) the streets, has been estimated to have far exceeded the civil rights marches of the 1960s (Buchanan et al. 2020). Considering the widespread extent of these protests, our research aims to analyse conflictual intergroup moral dynamics in terms of the reactive attitudes expressed by distinct online communities on Twitter. This paper examines the extent to which the Strawsonian (1962) reactive attitudes framework is applicable to the Twitter discourse around the Black Lives Matter protests reignited by the murder of George Floyd. In particular, we argue that the Strawsonian framework is inadequate to understand a range of prevalent attitudes expressed in this discourse — attitudes that we call reactionary as opposed to merely reactive. Reactionary attitudes include counter-indignation on behalf of the accused rather than Strawsonian indignation on behalf of the victim of a moral wrong. We document the expression of such attitudes among the right-wing participants in the online discourse about the Black Lives Matter movement. (shrink)

The article aims to concretize the phenomenological account concerning the problem of an auditory image. The author considers auditory imagery as a scientific object and compares different treatments of the problem to fix the potential and advantages of its phenomenological interpretation. In the first stage of the study, the author distinguishes the key characteristics of the image by means the lexical analysis. This is the perceptual (predominantly visual) nature of an image, integrality, and essentiality (image as an idea). In the (...) second stage, the understandings of the mental and auditory imagery in physiology, experimental psychology, music psychology, musicology, and interdisciplinary studies are described. In the third stage, the peculiar phenomenological ways of the comprehension of an auditory image are revealed. The phenomenological interest is to pick out consciousness which perceiving of an image equally from the process of perceiving and from entailing in an image. The specific phenomenological stance is placing an auditory image on the bound of transcendent (the process of perceiving) and immanent (an image that is already perceived). The auditory image is conceived as the unity of Modi of its givenness. Most fecks of this Modi are original, they cannot be transferred into other science scopes: they are the interconnection of all moments of the temporal unfolding, self-organization in the time, self-referentiality, non-semanticity, periodicity/randomness, eventuality, quasi-embodiment (physicality). Solely phenomenological problems are problems of the constitution of an auditory image, its life-horizon, intersubjectivity, and regional matching. The author infers that phenomenology does not conceive auditory image as sustained auditory representation, associated with acoustic memory. Its perceptual nature does not play a key role here. Moreover, the perceptual-semantic duality of the image is not fixed by the phenomenological description. The phenomenological approach is unique because it researches auditory data exhaustively but does not use semantic and referential analysis of them. The main feature of phenomenological description is the focus on the unity of auditory image: All the elements of auditory data are interpreted in their synthesis as the different levels of the unity of hearing image. Thus, the phenomenological approach as a whole is the most promising for comprehending such a dominant quality of the auditory image as integrality. (shrink)

Going beyond ordinary readings of Aquinas and building a foundation for further insights into the works of both theologians, this book draws out the implications of the thought of Eckhart and Aquinas for contemporary issues, including ecumenical and inter-religious dialogue, liturgy and prayer, and religious inclusivity. Reading Aquinas and Eckhart in light of each other reveals the profound depth and orthodoxy of both of these scholars and provides a novel approach to many theological and practical religious issues.

Despite the ubiquity of uncertainty, scientific attention has focused primarily on probabilistic approaches, which predominantly rely on the assumption that uncertainty can be measured and expressed numerically. At the same time, the increasing amount of research from a range of areas including psychology, economics, and sociology testify that in the real world, people’s understanding of risky and uncertain situations cannot be satisfactorily explained in probabilistic and decision-theoretical terms. In this article, we offer a theoretical overview of an alternative approach to (...) uncertainty developed in the framework of the ecological rationality research program. We first trace the origins of the ecological approach to uncertainty in Simon’s bounded rationality and Brunswik’s lens model framework and then proceed by outlining a theoretical view of uncertainty that ensues from the ecological rationality approach. We argue that the ecological concept of uncertainty relies on a systemic view of uncertainty that features it as a property of the organism–environment system. We also show how simple heuristics can deal with unmeasurable uncertainty and in what cases ignoring probabilities emerges as a proper response to uncertainty. (shrink)

Frege and Husserl are traditionally regarded as the precursors of the linguistic turn; however, the importance of their ideas for this event still is not fully comprehended. This article contributes to such comprehension: the principles of the linguistic turn in its analytical interpretation provided by Rorty are applied as an indicator revealing the commonality and difference of Frege’s and Husserl’s positions regarding key issues of their concepts. The connection of the philosophers’ ideas with the linguistic turn is viewed in the (...) context of their interpretation of predicativity, propositionality, contextuality of meaning, and ways of categorization. The analysis conducted gives rise to distinguishing between Frege’s and Husserl’s referential schemes. It is based on the differences in the characteristics of the connection between perception and predication. In conclusion, the arguments against Frege’s and Husserl’s involvement in the linguistic turn are emphasized. These arguments stem from the idea of the primacy of sense over language fundamental for both philosophers who proceed from the fact that certain a priori logical relations underlie utterances or other acts. There is a more solid argument which does not allow considering Frege’s and Husserl’s legacies as its source. This argument consists in the fact that they regard sense as an objective, communicable, and universal phenomenon independent of its carriers, not inherently linguistic, and pre-logical which is due to its intentional nature according to Husserl and logical “indecomposability” of concepts according to Frege. (shrink)

The Routledge Handbook of Properties is an outstanding reference source to this perennial topic and is the first major volume of its kind. Essential reading for anyone studying and researching metaphysics, metametaphysics, and ontology.

The article discusses a methodological position that allows interpreting modes and, fist of all, musical modes as cosmographic and ethical objects without losing the approach to them as musical phenomena proper. The study is based on musical theoretical data relating to the period of Classical antiquity and the Middle Ages, as well as on the author's concept of modal ontology and the interpretation of modus as artistic content, developed by E.V. Nazaikinsky. In order to reveal the ontological prerequisites for the (...) unity of the musical modus with a cosmographic or ethical phenomenon, the author analyzes the ancient Chinese system of tones lü, Indian ragas, ancient tetrachords, the voices of the Russian Orthodox znamenny chant. The features of the correspondence of these musical phenomena to the periods of the year or day, elements, archetypal states of the human spirit, social laws are revealed. In the course of the analysis, the question is formulated about the nature of the connection between musical modes and non-musical reality: was it exclusively conventional, established by virtue of tradition, or did it have other, essential reasons? The search for unconventional foundations of the unity of musical modes with natural and socio-ethical phenomena leads to its ontological interpretation. The relevance of this research method is argued in the process of critical analysis of the semiotic approach to musical modes as references or conventional signs of objects. It also demonstrates the unproductiveness of the psychoemotional interpretation of musical modes as stimuli that cause certain emotional states. The result of the research is the development of a specific musical-ontological approach based on the methodology of modal analysis. This analysis aims at a syncretic understanding of unity. In the light of this approach, it was concluded that the concept of musical modus not only clarifies the rhythmic and harmonic laws of the musical language, but also embodies the interconnection of the phenomena of music, human spirit, nature, and space. (shrink)

Phenomenology of music has been a perspective trend of phenomenological aesthetics for more than a hundred years. The topic of the paper is fixation the main problems and vectors of development of phenomenology of music. The authors execute an analysis of Roman Ingarden’s position in the discussions concerning the methodological and ontological problems of phenomenology of music. The paper aims at revealing succession in Roman Ingarden’s solutions to the phenomenology of music problems. The other aim is reflection on the originality (...) of Ingarden’s ideas in the context of phenomenological interpretations of music in 20th and 21st centuries. The solution to these tasks allows the authors to fix key problems and identify the principal positions of phenomenology of music. The main sources of the comparative and historical analysis are the studies carried out by Husserl, Sartre, Merleau-Ponty, Clifton, and Ihde. The most important ontological problems of phenomenology of music are: spatiotemporal constitution of music, reduction of a work of music to its performance, and ontological status of a work of music. The analysis of Ingarden’s position on these problems allows us to characterize it as something different from the existing versions. According to the conception, the time of music is a special type of time, that is, quasi-time. A piece of music is a purely intentional, heteronomous, and intersubjective object. There are a number of methodological specificities of Ingarden’s approach: a refusal of reduction of musical theoretical data, a tendency for independence of a piece of music from conscious and mental processes, and an interpretation of a piece of music as a non-sounding phenomenon. In conclusion, the authors demonstrate how the originality and radical nature of Ingarden’s conclusions made his position defenseless against critique and simultaneously marked the tendency in the contemporary phenomenological studies of music. (shrink)

In line with recent developments in leadership research which conceptualise leadership as a discursive and collaborative process rather than a set of static attributes and characteristics displayed by individuals, this paper explores some of the discursive processes through which leadership emerges in a sports team. Drawing on over ten hours of naturally occurring interactions among the players of a women’s netball team in the UK, and applying the concepts of deontic and epistemic status and stance, we identify and describe some (...) of the specific processes through which leadership is claimed and assigned, as well as rejected, passed on, and eventually accepted by different team members at different points throughout an interaction. While the processes outlined in our analysis contribute to theoretical discussions regarding the notion of emergent leadership, this paper also demonstrates the benefits of taking a discourse analytical approach to leadership, and outlines how such an approach enables researchers to empirically capture emergent leadership in situ. (shrink)

Glazed pottery from Nauplion and Argos (AD 12th-13th centuries): preliminary observations The regions of Argos and Nauplion were indissolubly connected in the Byzantine period and afterwards. This study attempts to examine, through the study of the glazed wares, whether the close ties between the two cities during the 12th and 13th centuries are also reflected in the pottery. Many categories of glazed wares (pottery with incised decoration, "Measles Ware", "Zeuxippus Ware", slip-painted ware, Brown and Green painted Ware, Glaze Painted Ware, (...) "Proto-Maiolica", Italian polychrome ware of the RMR type, "Archaic Maiolica") are presented, comparing the evidence of Argos and Akronauplia. These comparisons lead to comments indicating that whereas, during the 12th century, the two sites had contacts with other regions of the Peloponnese and the eastern Mediterranean, due to historical changes during the 13th century there developped the importation of pottery from various regions of Italy. (shrink)

This article discusses the main trends of Georgian philosophy: its basic principles and perspectives, the importance of the Western, especially the European cultural heritage, and the Georgian contribution to the history of ideas in a global perspective. Metaphysical questions of cognition, truth, identity, virtue and value, wisdom and power, as well as issues of ethical, social, political and aesthetic values, phenomenological, philosophical-theological and linguistic research are central to Georgian philosophy and exemplify its continuing relevance vis-à-vis the Western tradition in its (...) broadest sense. Although philosophical ideas in Georgia rarely matured into a well-balanced, selfsufficient system, one may distinguish as original conceptions some ideas of Christian Neo-Platonism and Aletheological Realism. (shrink)

In Religion within the Bounds of Mere Reason Kant famously argues that the moral quality of an an agent’s actions depends on the moral quality of their moral character and since their moral character can be either absolutely good or absolutely bad, all of an agent’s actions share the same moral quality: good or evil (R 6: 22). This claim, which implies that any agent who is not wholly good must therefore be wholly evil, has vexed Kant’s readers. Ordinary moral (...) intuitions suggest that differences in moral character come in degrees, and leaving some room for moral variance seems necessary to any account of moral corruption and improvement. What is not often remarked upon is that Kant’s rigorism about moral character stands in apparent tension with his own account, given that in the same work, of the Stufen, levels or grades, of evil: frailty, impurity, and wickedness. I argue that rigorism is grounded in a philosophical insight which we should not give up and show that we can preserve it while making room for the complexity of moral failure if we understand the first two grades of evil, frailty and impurity, as states of moral immaturity, a condition that precedes the acquisition of a stable moral character. To substantiate the claim, I argue that the idea of the acquisition of character must play a wholly different role in Kant’s practical philosophy than that accorded to it on standard readings. Not merely an “empirical” concern, the acquisition of character must be understood as a genuinely rational accomplishment: the development and determination of our uniquely rational capacities for feeling, necessary for the development of stable moral character. (shrink)

A comprehensive collection of the writings of Mark Fisher (1968-2017), whose work defined critical writing for a generation. This comprehensive collection brings together the work of acclaimed blogger, writer, political activist and lecturer Mark Fisher (aka k-punk). Covering the period 2004 - 2016, the collection will include some of the best writings from his seminal blog k-punk; a selection of his brilliantly insightful film, television and music reviews; his key writings on politics, activism, precarity, hauntology, mental health and (...) popular modernism for numerous websites and magazines; his final unfinished introduction to his planned work on "Acid Communism"; and a number of important interviews from the last decade. Edited by Darren Ambrose and with a foreword by Simon Reynolds. (shrink)

Davydov’s mathematics curriculum was designed according to the principles of the Cultural Historical Activity Theory. In this study, we analyzed some developmental effects of its realization in Grade 1, in relation to the children’s school readiness level, and their teacher’s experience. We assessed two groups of developmental effects: some general math abilities ; and some abilities, which are very specific to Davydov’s mathematics curriculum. At the beginning of the Grade 1, we divided all participants into three groups according to their (...) level of motivation, voluntary regulation, and logical preservation in terms of J. Piaget. After 1 year we measured general effects again and also measured specific effects. The results showed that all the children became significantly better in all general math abilities. It was also found that progress in math abilities does not depend on the initial level of school readiness of children. Children with different levels of voluntary regulation, motivational readiness, and the level of logical preservation show improvements in general math abilities. As for the mathematical skills specific to the Davydov’ program, the achieved level of their development is also not related to the initial parameters of readiness for school. Also, there were no differences in improvements in general effects and in specific effects between the classes with experienced and not-so-experienced teacher. So, there are some reasons to believe that the level of the child’s actual development does not play a fundamental role for education, which built in accordance with the principles of CHAT. (shrink)

Background In this qualitative analysis we aimed to explore addiction physicians’ perspectives on safer injection education for people who inject drugs, especially: (1) on possible means of introducing safer injection education in the medical environment, (2) on the compatibility of safer injection education with each physician’s core values and goals, and (3) on possible reasons for the ethical dilemma in safer injection education. Methods We conducted semi-structured interviews with eleven physicians practicing addiction medicine in France in clinical and harm reduction (...) settings. Results All participants were in favor of educational interventions for people who inject drugs. Nonetheless, these interventions varied from simple advice to injection supervision and they were seen as less acceptable when they concerned the practical and material aspects of injection. Some participants found that physicians practicing in clinical settings, where patients consult mostly to stop their drug use, should not practice safer injection education. On the contrary, other participants claimed that safer injection education was essential in all settings and was not a choice but rather a duty for addiction physicians. The ethical dilemma of such intervention when delivered by medical staff was viewed as a complex phenomenon, related to the representations of intravenous drug use and to societal expectations from physicians. Conclusion Physicians’ views on safer injection education for people who inject drugs reveal an emotionally charged subject related to the structural organization of addiction management in France. Such education is marked by an arduous history of harm reduction policies in France. IRB registration: #00011928. (shrink)

While the impassibility debate has traditionally been construed in terms of whether God suffers, recent philosophy of religion has interpreted it in terms of whether God has emotions more generally. This article surveys the philosophical literature on divine im/passibility over the last 25 years, outlining major arguments for and against the idea that God has emotions. It argues that questions about the nature and value of emotions are at the heart of the im/passibility debate. More specifically, it suggests that presuppositions (...) about the dichotomy between emotions and reason (or the ‘heart and the head’) have negatively impacted the debate. It contends that the debate can only move forward in response to serious reflection on our affects as we experience them, aided by historical and anthropological as well as contemporary philosophical perspectives. (shrink)