Singapore's Human Organ Transplant Act presumes that competent adults consent to donate their kidneys in the event of a fatal accident, unless they have refused in writing. No family consent is required. What can other countries wishing to implement a presumed‐consent model of organ donation learn from Singapore's experience?

We compare Carnap's and Kuhn's views on science. Although there are important differences between them, the similarities are striking. The basis for the latter is a pragmatically oriented semantic conventionalist picture of science, which suggests that the view that post-positivist philosophy of science constitutes a radical revolution which has no interesting affinities with logical positivism must be seriously mistaken.

Conscious experience is one of the most difficult and thorny problems in psychological science. Its study has been neglected for many years, either because it was thought to be too difficult, or because the relevant evidence was thought to be poor. Bernard Baars suggests a way to specify empirical constraints on a theory of consciousness by contrasting well-established conscious phenomena - such as stimulus representations known to be attended, perceptual, and informative - with closely comparable unconscious ones - such (...) as stimulus representations known to be preperceptual, unattended, or habituated. Adducing data to show that consciousness is associated with a kind of global workplace in the nervous system, and that several brain structures are known to behave in accordance with his theory, Baars helps to clarify many difficult problems. (shrink)

Our aim is to illuminate the interconnected notions of meaning and truth. For this purpose, we investigate the relationship between meaning theories based on commonsensical ‘means that’ and interpretive truth theories. The latter are Tarski–Davidson-style truth theories serving as meaning theories. We consider analytically true semantic principles containing ‘means’ and ‘means that’ side to side with ‘denotes’, ‘satisfies’, and ‘true’, which constitute the extensional semantic constants of interpretive truth theories. We show that these semantic constants are definable in terms of (...) ‘means’ and ‘means that’ operators. The definitions themselves are semantic principles in the role of meaning postulates. We extend a meaning theory based on ‘means that’ by adjoining semantic principles to the axioms of the theory. Then, all axioms, hence all theorems, of a corresponding interpretive truth theory are provable in the extension of the meaning theory. Furthermore, every interpretive truth theory can be included in the extension of a corresponding meaning theory. Therefore, the extension of a meaning theory resulting from the adjunction of semantic principles constitutes a unified meaning-and-truth theory since it includes both a meaning theory and an interpretive truth theory. (shrink)

The basic principles of scientific research from the great French physiologist whose contributions in the 19th century included the discovery of vasomotor nerves; nature of curare and other poisons in human body; more.

This article focuses on the global phenomenon of the marketization of higher education and how it has shaped the discourses of China’s top universities. By analyzing the university presidents’ messages published in the websites of 36 top-ranked universities in China, the aim is to ascertain the extent to which this institutionalized genre imbricates a marketizing role with other ideological imperatives. Informed by the theoretical principles of Critical Discourse Analysis and adopting a genre analysis methodological approach, we first examined the macro-level (...) rhetorical structure followed by a micro-level analysis of the discursive strategies used in the presidents’ messages. The findings reveal a dynamic interweaving of three distinct discursive strands – bureaucratic, conversational and advertising – constructed in and around the move structure of the presidents’ messages. This interdiscursive analysis reveals competing imperatives and contestations that reflect the dual role of the presidents’ messages to project a globalized, international outlook while maintaining an allegiance to political ideologies and national interests that top-ranked universities in China have to simultaneously negotiate. (shrink)

Modernism is often implicitly known and understood from the “Western modernist” perspective and history. The wide recognition of the Western modernist canon as centre and universal displaces the contribution and significance of the non-Western world in the modern movement. Within Asia, the modernisms that arose from various nations in the region had subtly different notions of culture, identity, nationhood, and modernity, although almost every Asian country was related in one way or another to the history of Western imperialism. Using a (...) comparative analysis, this article examines modernism in twentieth-century Asia from a multicultural viewpoint, and bringing into picture the place of Asia in the history of modernism. (shrink)

We compare Carnap's and Kuhn's views on science. Although there are important differences between them, the similarities are striking. The basis for the latter is a pragmatically oriented semantic conventionalist picture of science, which suggests that the view that post-positivist philosophy of science constitutes a radical revolution which has no interesting affinities with logical positivism must be seriously mistaken.

Teo describes two centuries of challenges to mainstream psychological thinking along with the mainstream's reactions.

A bold new interpretation of Aristotelian thought is central to Bernard Yack's provocative new book. He shows that for Aristotle, community is a conflict-ridden fact of everyday life, as well as an ideal of social harmony and integration. From political justice and the rule of law to class struggle and moral conflict, Yack maintains that Aristotle intended to explain the conditions of everyday political life, not just, as most commentators assume, to represent the hypothetical achievements of an idealistic "best (...) regime." By showing how Aristotelian ideas can provide new insight into our own political life, Yack makes a valuable contribution to contemporary discourse and debate. His work will excite interest among a wide range of social, moral, and political theorists. (shrink)

Thomas Kuhn's post-1980 writings have increasingly emphasized the role played by language in the characterization of scientific revolutions and incommensurability. We argue that Kuhn's `linguistic turn' can be understood best against the background of a Whorfian conception of language and certain neo-Kantian themes. While this enables Kuhn to refine and unify his earlier views, it also creates some difficulties.

This study focuses on a series of videos aimed at teacher recruitment in Singapore and how they are used as an ideological tool for persuasion. By adopting a multimodal critical discourse analysis approach to focus on affect, it examines how these videos create and promulgate the ideology of an ideal teacher as one who is caring, encouraging and supportive of students. The analysis shows how affect is not only embodied in and performed by the primary protagonists in the video narratives (...) through their action, facial expression, posture and speech. It is also evoked through various secondary meaning-making modes, such as focus, angle, lighting, background music and setting, through which the narratives unfold. More importantly, it demonstrates how affect is used not only as a means to arouse and engage viewers’ sensibilities but also as a persuasive strategy to manufacture and manage particular social and economic realities in contemporary society. (shrink)

Can we make progress exploring consciousness? Or is it forever beyond human reach? In science we never know the ultimate outcome of the journey. We can only take whatever steps our current knowledge affords. This paper explores today's evidence from the viewpoint of Global Workspace theory. First, we ask what kind of evidence has the most direct bearing on the question. The answer given here is ‘contrastive analysis’ -- a set of paired comparisons between similar conscious and unconscious processes. This (...) body of evidence is already quite large, and constrains any possible theory . Because it involves both conscious and unconscious events, it deals directly with our own subjective experience, as anyone can tell by trying the demonstrations in this article. (shrink)

The present research examined relationships between parental autonomy support, parental psychological control, and Chinese emerging adults’ autonomous regulation in their university studies as well as dysregulation in social media engagement. A total of 287 Chinese university students reported on their perceived parenting styles, psychological needs, and behavior regulation. Results showed that basic psychological need satisfaction was positively associated with parental autonomy support and autonomous regulation of learning; need frustration was positively correlated with parental psychological control and dysregulation in social media (...) engagement. More importantly, psychological need frustration was a mediator of the relation between parental psychological control and dysregulation in social media engagement. Our findings suggest that students living in an autonomy-supportive familial environment tend to have satisfied psychological needs as well as autonomous learning behavior. Impairment of psychological needs could be one of the mechanisms through which psychologically controlling parenting was linked to dysregulation of social media use in Chinese culture. (shrink)

Treatment-resistant depression (TRD) holds centrality in many debates regarding psychiatric euthanasia. Among the strongest reasons cited by opponents of psychiatric euthanasia is the uncertainty behind the irremediability of psychiatric illnesses. According to this argument, conditions that cannot be considered irremediable imply that there are possible remedies that remain for the condition. If there are possible remedies that remain for the condition, then patients with that condition cannot be considered for access to euthanasia. I call this the irremediability requirement (IR). I (...) argue that patients with TRD can, indeed, meet the operationalisation of irremediability in the IR. This is because the irremediability it asks for is not some global or absolute irremediability, but rather a present irremediability based on the current state of medical science. I show this by considering irremediability relating to (1) possible future treatments and (2) not trying presently available alternative treatments. I extend Schuklenk nd van de Vathorst’s argument from parity to terminal malignancies, to show that (1) is an unreasonable expectation for all cases of euthanasia. Taking (2) as a more serious opponent to psychiatric euthanasia, I show how the IR, based on how it is presently operationalised, can be realistically applied to cases of TRD. I do this by further developing Tully’s argument on broad-sense treatment resistance with the robust empirical data from the STAR*D trials. If my argument from Tully’s is valid, then we have reasons to, again, seek parity between the operationalisations of irremediability in terminal malignancies and TRD. (shrink)

This study examines the associations of constructivist beliefs and classroom climate on teachers' self-efficacy in instruction, classroom management, and student engagement among Australian secondary mathematics teachers. To do this, it uses the integrated model of teachers' self-efficacy with the concept of analysis of teaching tasks. The study uses structural equation modeling to analyze data from 495 mathematics teachers in the Teaching and Learning International Survey 2013. The results reveal the integrated model is a valid theoretical framework to explain Australian secondary (...) mathematics teachers' self-efficacy. Teachers' constructivist beliefs and classroom climate are positively and statistically significantly related to teachers' self-efficacy in instruction, classroom management and student engagement. In contrast, constructivist beliefs have no significant correlation with classroom climate. (shrink)

PurposeThis paper examines the influence of leader humility on knowledge sharing intention. Drawing on social exchange theory, we test the direct and indirect mechanisms to explain the influence leader humility has on knowledge sharing intention.Design/Methodology/ApproachA two-wave, time-lagged field study was conducted. We surveyed 252 professional employees from Australia.FindingsResults show a significant direct, positive association between leader humility and knowledge sharing intention. While leader humility had a direct, positive association with affective trust in supervisor and work engagement, it did not directly (...) impact on organizational citizenship behaviors directed toward the individual. There were three SET-related, serial mediators in the relationship between leader humility and knowledge sharing intention. These were affective trust, work engagement, and OCB-I.Research Limitations/ImplicationsFuture studies should collect multi-source data such as peers’ or supervisors’ ratings of the focal respondents’ work engagement, OCB-I, and knowledge sharing behaviors to augment single-source data. Future studies could adopt an affect theory of social exchange to further explore the relationships tested in this study.Originality/ValueThis study contributes to the affect SET and knowledge management literature on how leadership behaviors impact the intention to share knowledge. Our study highlights the preference of the willingness to share knowledge with their co-workers is mediated by affective trust in their immediate supervisors, work engagement, and OCB-I that are equally important as treating their subordinates with humility. (shrink)

This study focuses on the phenomenon of private supplementary tutoring, otherwise known as ‘shadow education’, which has proliferated around the world. By casting the spotlight on one parti...

The author, seeing science as a social activity, directs our attention to the problems of the social control of science. He discusses the sense in which science as a social activity is planned and unplanned.

It used to be that everyone read the "notorious" Bernard Mandeville (1670-1733). He was a great satirist and come to have a profound impact on economics, ethics and social philosophy. "The Fable of the Bees" begins with a poem and continues with a number of essays and dialogues. It is all tied together by the startling and original idea that "private vices" (self-interest) lead to "publick benefits" (the development and operation of society).

A survey of democratic institutions and republics reveals the aristocratic origins of democracy.

Joan Mellen In the Realm of the Senses London: British Film Institute ISBN: 1 8445 7034 7.