Riverside Park is an illustrated tribute to Frederick Law Olmsted's "other" New York City sanctuary. Since its conception in the 1870s, the park has undergone a number of transformations and suffered from periods of misuse and neglect, but in 1984, much-needed renovations turned this city oasis into what is today one of Manhattan's most beautiful attractions. "If the West Side does not stir you, you are a clod, past redemption."-Robert Moses Millions visit the Upper West Side landmark annually, and despite (...) the heavy use, thousands of volunteers keep the grounds pristine. The park is now being extended southward as part of Manhattan's plan to reclaim the island's six hundred miles of waterfront, and Riverside Drive-Olmsted's curving thoroughfare flanking the park-has long been one of Manhattan's premier addresses. "I often feel drawn to the Hudson River.... I never get tired of looking at it; it hypnotizes me."-Joseph Mitchell, from The Rivermen From the time it was carved out of an unpromising landscape, Riverside Park has continued to reinvent itself. Using photographs, illustrations, poems, and original and excerpted narrative, Edward Grimm and E. Peter Schroeder tell the intriguing story of a symbol of the modern revitalization of New York City. "Riverside Park will be a genuine riverside reservation, dedicated forever to the use of the people, beautiful in the highest sense."-The New York World, April 24, 1892 *Includes the official Riverside Park Fund Map of 2007*. (shrink)

This essay describes the ambitious claim of modern constitutionalism and distinguishes it from mere juridification of public power. It shows the challenges of constitutionalism that follow from the loss of identity between state power and public power. The essay asserts that the necessity to regulate public power persists, regardless of whether it is exercised by state authorities or international organizations. However, it raises doubts that the fragmented public power on the international level can be regulated in a way that would (...) satisfy the demands of constitutionalism. What can be observed is an ongoing juridification which, however, lacks basic features of constitutionalism. How a full compensation could look like is an open question. Translation by Matteo Bozzon – Università di Padova – [email protected]. (shrink)

This paper offers and analysis of Ernest Sosa's Virtue Perspectivism. Although Sosa has been credited with fathering the influential contemporary movement known as Virtue Epistemology, I argue that Sosa imprudently abandons the reliabilist-based insights of Virtue Epistemology in favor of a reflection-based, "perspectival"' view. Sosa's mixed allegiance to reliabilist-based and reflection-based views of knowledge, in fact, leads to an unwelcome tension in his thought which can be relieved by recognizing that his reflection-based view is in fact an account of the (...) cognitive state of understanding, rather than an account of knowledge. Sosa makes matters difficult for himself because he expects too much, as it were, from the concept of knowledge, and in the process burdens his view with elements of reflection it does not require. To solve the problem, I suggest that Sosa needs to develop a two-tiered epistemology which recognizes that knowledge, on the one hand, and understanding, on the other, both have necessary and sufficient conditions unique to themselves. (shrink)

In this paper I consider what it is that makes certain topics or questions epistemically interesting. Getting clear about this issue, I argue, is not only interesting in its own right, but also helps to shed light on increasingly important and perplexing questions in the epistemological literature: e.g., questions concerning how to think about ‘the epistemic point of view,’ as well as questions concerning what is most worthy of our intellectual attention and why.

The representational distortion (RD) approach to similarity (e.g., Hahn, Chater, & Richardson, 2003) proposes that similarity is computed using the transformation distance between two entities. We argue that researchers who adopt this approach need to be concerned with how representational transformations can be determined a priori. We discuss several roadblocks to using this approach. Specifically we demonstrate the difficulties inherent in determining what transformations are psychologically salient and the importance of considering the directionality of transformations.

Der Autor geht von der Frage nach der Brauchbarkeit der herkömmlichen wissenschaftstheoretischen Konzeptionen zur Lösung der tatsächlichen Pobleme einer rationalen Erkenntnispraxis aus. Er betrachtet unter diesem Gesichtspunkt nicht nur den Verifikationismus des Logischen Empirismus und auch den Falsifikationismus Poppers als unzureichend. Er hält darüber hinaus selbst die jüngeren Versuche einer Neubestim- mung der erkenntnistheoretischen Rationalitätsproblematik, wie sie von T.S. Kuhn, Lakatos, Feyerabend u.a. unternommen wurden, bereits im Ansatz für verfehlt. Grimm entwirft die Skizze einer Erkenntnistheorie in strikt pragmatisch-handlungstheoretischer Perspektive (...) und greift dabei nicht nur auf ein reinterpretiertes Nutzenoptimierungsprinzip der theoretischen Ökonomie, sondern auch auf neuartige Wissensbebegriffe sowie auf zentrale Elemente der Erkenntnismetaphysik Kants zurück. (shrink)

Este artigo analisa oficinas de leitura efetuadas com alunos do primeiro ano do Ensino Médio de uma escola pública e de uma escola particular da cidade de Dourados/MS. Tais oficinas foram constituídas por textos que reconfiguravam a personagem Chapeuzinho Vermelho ao longo do tempo, e a mediação de leitura visava a buscar, nas interpretações dos estudantes, novas leituras acerca dos textos Chapeuzinho Vermelho, nas versões de Charles Perrault e dos irmãos Grimm; além do conto Fita Verde no Cabelo: nova (...) velha estória, de Guimarães Rosa. A expectativa era perceber como o público das distintas realidades tem interpretado textos, tomando como base os Modos de Leitura defendidos pelo teórico Rildo Cosson como mecanismos para interpretar textos literários em suas indagações durante as atividades. Portanto, apresentamos aqui a análise das transcrições de áudios gravados durante as Oficinas de Leitura. A metodologia adotada está baseada nos estudos de Alves e Silva para análises qualitativas. Ao final, concluímos que os estudantes da escola pública e da escola particular se valem dos Modos de Leitura para interpretações de textos literários, entretanto, os primeiros se mostram mais apegados às temáticas dos textos por identificação de suas realidades, tornando assim a leitura mais pessoal, sem recorrer a teorias literárias para suas interpretações, enquanto os outros, mais conhecedores de teorias e conceitos de literatura, tornam suas interpretações menos pessoais e mais práticas. Como referencial teórico, dialogamos com Cosson e com o Referencial Curricular da Educação Básica da Rede de Estadual de Ensino/MS – Ensino Médio, dentre outros. (shrink)

O presente trabalho examina os aspectos históricos da extração do óleo de canela-sassafrás (Ocotea pretiosa Mez), rico em safrol, no Alto e Médio Vale do Itajaí, a partir de 1940, por iniciativa de Otto Grimm, no município de Rio do Sul. Apresenta-se o tema no contexto da memória química em Santa Catarina, e discutem-se os procedimentos utilizados, e principalmente os motivos que levaram tal indústria incipiente a não se converter em uma indústria de química fina. Para tanto, são apresentados (...) alguns dados pertinentes à química do safrol, indicando que tal indústria poderia ter evoluído, bem como os aspectos econômicos e sociais que, ao lado da proibição do corte da canela-sassafrás, levaram em 1990 à extinção definitiva dessa "química fina que poderia ter sido". (shrink)

Diderot avait une foi inebranlable dans le projet des lumieres qu'il incarnait en sa personne de directeur de l'encyclopedie. Mais parallelement a ses propres experiences d'ecrivain, de romancier et de dramaturge, Diderot portait un vif interet a l'art, a sa nature et a ses problemes. Les neuf Salons livres a la revue de son ami Grimm, la confidentielle et elitiste Correspondance litteraire, forment une oeuvre en soi monumentale qui, redigee durant vingt ans, ne temoigne pas seulement de la passion (...) d'un amateur pour l'art, mais de la reflexion esthetique infatigable du philosophe. L'oeuvre de Diderot apparait alors comme une etape decisive du dialogue aujourd'hui renoue entre la philosophie, l'art et l'esthetique. L'auteur parvient ainsi a degager et a interpreter une perspective actuelle a l'evolution des idees esthetiques du jeune Diderot, en s'inspirant par exemple des concepts de corps et de chair chez Merleau-Ponty. (shrink)

Un siècle avant la parution posthume du Cours de linguistique générale de Ferdinand de Saussure, la linguistique moderne a émergé en Allemagne avec les études de Wilhelm von Humboldt pour la linguistique générale et (entre autres) de Franz Bopp, Jacob Grimm, August Schleicher et Karl Brugmann pour la grammaire historico-comparative des langues indo-européennes. Dès les années 1830, les instituts allemands de philologie et de linguistique ont attiré nombre de jeunes chercheurs de Scandinavie, de France, de Suisse, de Pologne, des (...) USA, etc. Et avec la diffusion de la nouvelle "Science allemande" à l'étranger des échanges intenses se sont épanouis tout au long du XIXe siècle. Ce volume collectif, riche de neuf contributions d'historiens de la linguistique de France, d'Allemagne, de Suisse et des Pays-Bas, vise à retracer certains de ces échanges parmi les plus instructifs, notamment entre Franz Bopp et Michel Bréal, Max Müller et William Whitney, le psychologue Wilhelm Wundt et Albert Sechehaye ou Georg von der Gabelentz et Antoine Meillet. Des voies fécondes étaient ainsi ouvertes à la linguistique du XXe siècle en Europe et en Amérique. (shrink)

Some philosophers (e.g., Pritchard, Grimm, and Hills) recently have objected that veritism cannot explain the epistemic value of understanding-why. And they have proposed two anti-veritist accounts. In this paper, I first introduce their objection and argue that it fails. Next, I consider a strengthened version of their objection and argue that it also fails. After that, I suggest a new veritist account: Understanding-why entails believing the truth that what is grasped is accurate (or accurate enough), and it is this (...) true belief, along with many other true beliefs understanding-why entails, that makes understanding-why finally epistemically valuable. Then, I explain why the two anti-veritist accounts are both false. Finally, I briefly discuss the idea that understanding involves a kind of know-how and show how veritism can explain the epistemic value of know-how in general. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:From Bookworms to Enchanted Hunters: Why Children ReadMaria Tatar (bio)Sensation SeekersThe laws governing the conservation of cultural energy are particularly effective when it comes to children’s literature. Peter Pan, Alice in Wonderland, The Chronicles of Narnia, The Yearling, The Wizard of Oz, Pinocchio, The Wind in the Willows, The Secret Garden, The Snow Queen: these are just a few of the volumes that continue to pull and tug on (...) young readers, drawing them into enchanted other worlds. Their propulsive force has moved from one generation to the next, setting minds into motion, renewing senses, and almost rewiring brains. Favoring expressive intensity over intellectual heft, the books of childhood use no-holds-barred melodramatic strategies until we are under their spell. We can all remember the jolts and shimmer of books we read as children, the moments that sent shivers up and down the spine.“Wow” moments saturate children’s stories, exploiting the emotive power of language for maximum effect.1 Think of the multiple evocations of the web created by the spider Charlotte in E. B. White’s book, how it “glistens” in the light and makes a pattern of “loveliness and mystery.” “What a curious feeling,” Alice declares in Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland once she has tasted the contents of a bottle marked “Drink me.” After that, the world she enters only becomes “curiouser and curiouser.” Dorothy lands in Oz and her eyes grow “bigger and bigger” at the “wonderful sights” she sees. They continue widening as she follows the Yellow Brick Road to Oz with her three companions. “A million golden arrows” point the way to Neverland, as the Darling children begin to experience the first in a series of bursts of beauty and rumbles of violence. Those rumbles create similar wow effects. Who can forget the moment when Iorek Byrnison, one [End Page 19]Maria Tatar Maria Tatar is the John L. Loeb Professor of Germanic Languages and Literatures at Harvard University, where she chairs the Program in Folklore and Mythology. She is the author of Classic Fairy Tales, The Annotated Brothers Grimm, The Annotated Hans Christian Andersen, and The Hard Facts of the Grimms’ Fairy Tales and has written for the New York Times, the New Republic, and Slate.com.Copyright © 2009 Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois... (shrink)

Es ist bekannt, daß Husserl Fichtes theoretischer Philosophie keine gute Seite abgewinnen konnte. In den 1917 vor Kriegsheimkehrern gehaltenen und 1918 wiederholten Vorträgen über Fichte spricht Husserl von »abstrusen Konstruktionen«, die in der Wissenschaftslehre Fichtes zu finden seien. Nichtsdestotrotz kann man sehen, daß beide Ansätze mehr als bloße Strukturanalogien aufweisen. Es wurde - wenn auch nicht häufig - darauf hingewiesen, daß sachliche Verweise beider Ansätze aufeinander möglich sind. Die Berührungspunkte in der praktischen Philosophie dagegen fallen eher ins Auge. In seinen (...) Vorträgen orientiert sich Husserl insbesondere an Fichtes populären und religionsphilosophischen Schriften und es ist inzwischen bekannt, daß sich Husserl in den 20er Jahren vermehrt der praktischen Philosophie im Sinne Fichtes zuwendet, über deren Verhältnis zu der seinen er in einem Brief an Adolf Grimme meint, »daß die religions-philosophischen Perspektiven, die mir die Phänomenologie eröffnete, überraschend nahe Beziehung zu Fichtes späterer Gotteslehre zeigen«. Ich möchte mich an dieser Stelle auf den theoretischen Zugang konzentrieren und dabei speziell den Begriff der Affektion bei Fichte und Husserl näher untersuchen. (shrink)

Es ist bekannt, daß Husserl Fichtes theoretischer Philosophie keine gute Seite abgewinnen konnte. In den 1917 vor Kriegsheimkehrern gehaltenen und 1918 wiederholten Vorträgen über Fichte spricht Husserl von »abstrusen Konstruktionen«, die in der Wissenschaftslehre Fichtes zu finden seien. Nichtsdestotrotz kann man sehen, daß beide Ansätze mehr als bloße Strukturanalogien aufweisen. Es wurde - wenn auch nicht häufig - darauf hingewiesen, daß sachliche Verweise beider Ansätze aufeinander möglich sind. Die Berührungspunkte in der praktischen Philosophie dagegen fallen eher ins Auge. In seinen (...) Vorträgen orientiert sich Husserl insbesondere an Fichtes populären und religionsphilosophischen Schriften und es ist inzwischen bekannt, daß sich Husserl in den 20er Jahren vermehrt der praktischen Philosophie im Sinne Fichtes zuwendet, über deren Verhältnis zu der seinen er in einem Brief an Adolf Grimme meint, »daß die religions-philosophischen Perspektiven, die mir die Phänomenologie eröffnete, überraschend nahe Beziehung zu Fichtes späterer Gotteslehre zeigen«. Ich möchte mich an dieser Stelle auf den theoretischen Zugang konzentrieren und dabei speziell den Begriff der Affektion bei Fichte und Husserl näher untersuchen. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Adrian Del Caro PAUL CELAN'S UNCANNY SPEECH On October 22, 1960, Paul Celan was in Darmstadt, West Germany, to accept the prestigious Georg-Bûchner-Preis. Winners of this prize are required by custom to give a speech on some aspect of Georg Büchner's writings, and Celan followed suit with a speech entitled "Der Meridian." The speech itself, as an address given in German in Germany to German listeners, was uncanny, but (...) it was Celan's "uncanny" discourse that had earned him this prize in the first place. In his poetry die uncanny takes on a life of its own. In the Meridian speech, dimensions of the uncanny in Büchner's writings are explored for the purpose of shedding light on the artistic impulse, and on poetry in particular. The poetic of Paul Celan is difficult to define from the aggregate of his poems, and hardly transparent in the Meridian speech, either. But it is the concentration on the uncanny in "Meridian" that makes the effort worthwhile. I will use the Meridian speech, examples from German literature, and examples of Celan's poems to unpack this uncanny. "Meridian," like so many words chosen by Celan, is full. Among the things it can mean are highest point, prime of life, circle from pole to pole, and lines numbered according to degrees of longitude. We speak also of a prime meridian, namely Greenwich, having the property of a center, of a locus from which we determine our bearings. Celan the linguist and etymologist knew and considered all meanings. "Uncanny" as a translation of German das Unheimliche is not quite sufficient, but it is a good starting point. German heim is English home, and unheimlich, unheimisch would be unhomely or unhomey—at least in the etymological spirit. When things are not as they are at home, they are unheimlich. Grimm's dictionary tells us that it wasn't until die end of Philosophy and Literature, © 1994, 18: 211-224 212Philosophy and Literature the eighteenth century that an emotive quality was added to this formerly cognitive adjective; it began at diis time to be associated with feelings of terror, dread, and anxiety. The Romantic Ludwig Tieck was among the first German writers to treat supernatural, uncanny themes, and as unheimlich became associated with the supernatural, it began to lose its sense of homeliness. Later on, E. T. A. Hoffmann became a master of die uncanny in his numerous weird tales. English "uncanny," which is still the best translation we have for unheimlich, experienced a similar development away from its origins in Scottish, where canny meant quiet, snug, cozy, and pleasant. The Oxford English Dictionary tells us that "supernatural, mysterious, uncomfortably strange or unfamiliar" were properties ascribed to "uncanny" after 1850. Poe's writings are uncanny in this modern sense. Freud devoted an essay to the uncanny in 1919. He made die point diat das Unheimliche is merely das Heimliche that we have repressed. Ifwe romanticize this idea, dien in the beginning all things were heimlich or homey to us, and it is only after consciousness thatwe become alienated from our home in nature, a condition which makes us feel unheimlich. Celan certainly had strong reason to focus on the earliest meaning of unheimlich, since he experienced homelessness in virtually every conceivable sense of the word, but then, so did his people, dieJews; first in their experience of the Diaspora, then in their "final" eradication during the Holocaust. The people without Boden or land became, by 1945, a people no longer of die earth. Freud linked the concept of das Unheimliche to its origin in heimlich. After exhaustively quoting the lexicologists Sanders and Grimm, Freud concluded that only Schelling had added a new dimension to das Unheimliche: "Uncanny would be everything that is supposed to remain a secret, remain concealed, but has emerged."1 This is credible enough, and fits Freud's repression theory. Freud's statement at the conclusion of the first part of his long essay would have appealed to Celan: "Heimlich is a word according to whose meaning an ambivalence develops until finally it corresponds in any uncanny way with its opposite. Unheimlich is somehow a kind ofheimlich... (shrink)

One of the most important questions in the ethics of human clinical research asks what obligations investigators owe the people who enroll in their studies. Research differs in many ways from standard care - the added uncertainties, for instance, and the nontherapeutic interventions such as diagnostic tests whose only purpose is to measure the effects of the research intervention. Hence arises the question whether a physician engaged in clinical research has the same obligations toward research subjects that he owes his (...) medical patients, or whether they differ in any fundamental way.Perhaps the most common answer is that the relationship is the same. Investigators, like physicians, are said to be fiduciaries of the volunteers who enroll in research trials. Each owes the best available medical care, which means that a physician can only justify enrolling his patient in research if the study meets the requirements of clinical equipoise, namely, that there is legitimate disagreement within the medical community as to whether the standard treatment or the investigational intervention is superior. (shrink)

In Alabaster v. Barclays Bank plc and Secretary of State for Social Security (No. 2: [2005] E.W.C.A Civ. 508, [2005] I.R.L.R. 576.) Michelle Alabaster won a grand total of £204.53 (plus £65.86 interest) after eight years of litigation, which included two visits to the Court of Appeal and one to the European Court of Justice. This marathon resulted from the sex discrimination which Alabaster had alleged in relation to the calculation of her Statutory Maternity Pay (S.M.P.) whilst she was pregnant (...) 10 years earlier. The technicalities of the statutory schemes involved should not be allowed to disguise the important principle which finally emerges in the Court of Appeal and which underlines one of the longstanding criticisms of the equality legislation, namely the requirement that a woman must compare herself with a man in order to establish unlawful sex discrimination. (shrink)

Presentación del Dossier 'Perspectivas aristotélicas contemporáneas'.

The “futility debate” turns on intractable conflicts of deeply held beliefs about the value of life. It raises practical moral dilemmas of how best to permit parties to honor their own values without coercing unwilling others.

Universal access to health care is still a dream rather than a reality in the United States. This is partly because a rule of rescue, by impelling us to help people in need, urges us to ignore the limits of our health care policies wherever those limits would adversely affect a given individual. As the rule of rescue undermines whatever limits we set on health care entitlements, it can thwart the cost containment so essential to expanding access. Rather than accept (...) unlimited expense, we have thus far declined to universalize health care. The situation is exacerbated by an economic insulation shielding patients and physicians from the costs of care, prompting both to regard health care as free, an unlimited right. To reverse this costly entitlement mentality and place reasonable limits on rescue, patients must exercise greater personal responsibility for the costs of their care by directly experiencing some of the economic consequences of their health care decisions. Several mechanisms are available to accomplish this goal without posing economic barriers to needed care or penalizing people for becoming ill. Keywords: Clinton health plan, rationing, rule of rescue CiteULike Connotea Del.icio.us What's this? (shrink)

In recent years a number of commentators have discussed the importance of measuring quality of life in health care. We want to know whether an intervention will help people to live better, not just longer, and whether some treatments cause more trouble than they are worth. New technologies promise wondrous benefits. But when millions of people have no insured access to health care, and when many others face increasingly stringent limits on care, technologies’ high costs require us to choose what (...) we should do from the broader universe of what we can do.The challenges to measuring QL are formidable. Researchers debate whether to measure general QL or disease-specific QL; whether to focus on functional status such as the patient's ability to walk and dress himself, or on the value people ascribe to that functional status; whether to seek the values of the general public, or to concentrate on people actually affected by a given disease or disability. (shrink)

Aristotle and the sea battle, by G. E. M. Anscombe.--Aristotle's different possibilities, by K. J. J. Hintikka.--On Aristotle's square of opposition, by M. Thompson.--Categories in Aristotle and in Kant, by J. C. Wilson.--Aristotle's Categories, chapters I-V: translation and notes, by J. L. Ackrill.--Aristotle's theory of categories, by J. M. E. Moravcsik.--Essence and accident, by I. M. Copi.--Tithenai ta phainomena, by G. E. L. Owen.--Matter and predication in Aristotle, by J. Owens.--Problems in Metaphysics Z, chapter 13, by M. J. Woods.--The meaning (...) of agathon in the Ethics of Aristotle, by H. A. Prichard.--Agathon and eudaimonia in the Ethics of Aristotle, by J. L. Austin.--The final good in Aristotle's Ethics, by W. F. R. Hardie.--Aristotle on pleasure, by J. O. Urmson.--Bibliography (p. 335-341). (shrink)

Human clinical research trials, by which corporations, universities, and research scientists bring new drugs, devices, and procedures into the practice and marketplace of medicine, have become a huge business. The National Institutes of Health doubled its spending over the past five years, while in the private sector the top twenty pharmaceutical companies have more than doubled their investment in research and development over a roughly comparable period. To date, some twenty million Americans have participated in clinical research trials that now (...) are as common in the private practice setting as in academia.For many years human clinical trials received relatively little public attention. In the wake of several well-publicized research abuses, Congress created in 1974 the National Commission for the Protection of Human Subjects of Biomedical and Behavioral Research to formulate recommendations to protect human research subjects. The Commission’s 1979 Belmont Report helped to guide the Institutional Review Boards that review the ethics of federally funded research. (shrink)

Human clinical research trials, by which corporations, universities, and research scientists bring new drugs, devices, and procedures into the practice and marketplace of medicine, have become a huge business. The National Institutes of Health doubled its spending over the past five years, while in the private sector the top twenty pharmaceutical companies have more than doubled their investment in research and development over a roughly comparable period. To date, some twenty million Americans have participated in clinical research trials that now (...) are as common in the private practice setting as in academia.For many years human clinical trials received relatively little public attention. In the wake of several well-publicized research abuses, Congress created in 1974 the National Commission for the Protection of Human Subjects of Biomedical and Behavioral Research to formulate recommendations to protect human research subjects. The Commission’s 1979 Belmont Report helped to guide the Institutional Review Boards that review the ethics of federally funded research. (shrink)

As managed care organizations provide an increasing proportion of citizens' health care, the move toward asking individuals to help control costs by taking more responsibility for their health is likely to intensify. Economic, medical, and legal responses to lifestyle‐induced health care costs raise concerns as well as possibilities for using resources responsibly.

Traditional medical approaches to moral issues found in the clinical setting can, if properly understood, enlighten our philosophical understanding of moral issues. Moral problem-solving, as distinct from ethical and metaethical theorizing, requires that one reckon with practical complexities and uncertainties. In this setting the quality of one's answer depends not so much upon its content as upon the quality of reasoning which supports it. As the discipline which especially focuses upon the attributes of good-quality reasoning, philosophy therefore has much to (...) contribute to the clinical enterprise of moral (and medical) problem-solving. (shrink)

David Hyman and Charles Silver are quite right. Opinion 6.01 in the American Medical Association's Code of Medical Ethics is difficult to defend. Ties between compensation and outcomes need not mislead patients into thinking that results are guaranteed; they are widely used in other fields with considerable success, even if they have some disadvantages; they can potentially bring patients more actively into decision-making about whether and from whom to purchase which medical care; and, if carefully tuned, they can promote quality (...) by aligning providers’ welfare more closely with patients’.The purpose of this commentary is thus not to disagree with the fundamental thesis that result-based compensation arrangements can be appropriate and useful in the health-care setting. Rather, the objective is to “cut the next swath,” so to speak. While Hyman and Silver are right that RBCAs have potential to do good, they may be overly optimistic about benefits, while underestimating the potential limitations and hazards. (shrink)