I want now to argue that just as no intentional representations of retinal images intervene between physical objects and the seeing of those objects, no representations of speaker intentions in speaking need intervene between world affairs spoken of by speakers and hearers' understandings of those words.1 When conventional signs are true or satisfied and when this has come about in the normal way, conventional signs are locally recurrent natural signs. True, tokens of the same conventional sign may have diverse etiologies, (...) through different people's perceptual systems and cognitive systems. They differ from more ordinary recurrent natural signs in that there will usually be numerous different kinds of causal paths to their production, depending on the ways that different speakers have managed to translate diverse prior natural signs into a uniform medium of thought and expression. But there are reasons why the same linguistic form continues to coincide with the same kind of represented affair over a certain domain --it is no accident-- and we have decided to take that as the primary criterion for a locally recurrent sign. Assuming that this step in the production of a conventional sign has been accomplished through normal mechanisms --the speaker is not confused, does not lie, and so forth-- then reading a conventional sign is mainly a matter of tracking its natural domain, that is, determining what reproducing family it has been copied from. Compare tracking the. (shrink)

The growth of knowledge and its effects on the practice of medicine have been issues of philosophical and ethical interest for several decades and will remain so for many years to come. The outline of the present volume was conceived nearly three years ago. In 1987, a conference on this theme was held in Maastricht, the Netherlands, on the occasion of the founding of the European Society for Philosophy of Medicine and Health Care (ESPMH). Most of the chapters of this (...) book are derived from papers presented at that meeting, and for the purpose of editing the book Stuart Spicker, Ph. D., joined two founding members of ESPMH, Henk ten Have and Gerrit Kimsma. The three of them successfully brought together a number of interesting contribu tions to the theme, and ESPMH is grateful and proud to have initiated the production of this volume. The Society intends that annual meetings be held in different European countries on a rotating basis and to publish volumes related to these meetings whenever feasible. In 1988, the second conference was held in Aarhus, Denmark on "Values in Medical Decision Making and Resource Allocation in Health Care". In 1989, a meeting was held in Czestochowa, Poland, on "European Traditions in Philosophy of Medicine. From Brentano to Bieganski". It is hoped that these conferences and the books to be derived from them, will initiate a new European tradition, lasting well into the 21 st century! P. J. (shrink)

Mill was a progressive thinker whose views on gender and race were well in advance of his times. But although he rejected both the natural or innate superiority of men over women and of whites over blacks, and attributed their differences to their different circumstances, his proposals for social and political changes seem be contrast sharply in the two cases. He argued for “perfect equality” between men and women, including the extension of the suffrage to women and the elimination of (...) the near absolute power of husbands over their wives. On the other hand, Mill justified British imperial rule in India, maintaining that despotism was an appropriate form of government for “barbarians”, provided it was the most effective means of raising them to a higher stage of development where they were capable of ruling themselves. This chapter discusses the complexities of Mill's views on gender and race. (shrink)

This volume in the Routledge History of Philosophy series discusses the philosophers belonging to both the `analytical' and `continental' traditions, as well as the now influential American pragmatists. Each chapter is written by a different author who presents the issues in the context of the period when they arose, while also keeping an eye on their relevance to current philosophical interests. A few philosophers are discussed in multiple chapters in different but mutually illuminating contexts.

Constitutionalism and the Rule of Law are related ideas about how the powers of government and of state officials are to be limited. The two ideas are sometimes equated. But constitutionalism, generally understood, usually refers to various constitutional devices and procedures, such as the separation of powers between the legislature, the executive and the judiciary, the independence of the judiciary, due process or fair hearings for those charged with criminal offences, and respect for individual rights, which are partly constitutive of (...) a liberal democratic system of government. The Rule of Law, on the other hand, embodies certain standards that define the characteristic virtues of a legal system as such. (shrink)

In this book, developed by a group of collaborating scholars in bioethics from different European countries, an overview is given of the most salient themes in present-day bioethics. The themes are discussed in order to enable the reader to have an in-depth overview of the state of the art in bioethics. Introductory chapters will guide the reader through the relevant dimensions of a particular area, while subsequent case discussions will help the reader to apply the ethical theories to specific clinical (...) problems and health policy queries. The book focuses on perspectives typical for the European context. This highlights not only particular bioethical themes such as social justice, choices in health care, and health policy (e.g., in post-communist countries), it also emphasizes specific approaches in ethical theory, in relation to Continental philosophies such as phenomenology and hermeneutics. Because of its articulation of what is typical for the European health care setting as well as for bioethical debate, this book is unique in comparison to existing textbooks in bioethics. The book is an introductory textbook acquainting the reader with the major issues in present-day health care as well as the various theoretical and practical approaches to clarify these issues. (shrink)

Future robots should have common sense about the world in order to handle the problems they will encounter. A large part of this commonsense knowledge must be naive physics knowledge, since carrying out even the simplest everyday chores requires familiarity with physics laws. But how should one start codifying this knowledge? What kind of skills should be elicited from the experts (each and every one of us)? This paper will attempt to provide some hints by studying the mental models of (...) force and motion. (shrink)

In diesem Beitrag diskutieren drei interdisziplinär ausgebildete Akademiker, die als klinisch tätige Ethiker auch viele Jahre Erfahrungen mit Gesundheitssystemen in verschiedenen Ländern haben, die Frage nach dem Kern klinisch-ethischer Expertise: der niederländische Mediziner und Philosoph Henk ten Have, Direktor des Center for Healthcare Ethics in Pittsburgh, USA, der deutsche Theologe und Philosoph Norbert Steinkamp, Professor für theologisch-ethische Grundlagen sozialprofessionellen Handelns an der katholischen Hochschule für Sozialwesen in Berlin, der 12 Jahre die klinische Ethik der Universitätsklinik Nijmegen, Niederlande, geleitet hat, sowie (...) der niederländische Philosoph und Historiker Bert Gordijn, Direktor des Institute of Ethics der Dublin City University, Irland, Präsident der International Association of Education in Ethics und u. a. Herausgeber von Medicine, Health Care and Philosophy. (shrink)

This chapter contains section titled: A Story of Aisling — Part Four.