Abstract Betty claims that Sahkara's philosophy [and non?dualism generally] fails definitively at the point where he leaves the human experience??sin and suffering??unaccounted for?. It is because Sahkara sees sin and suffering as ultimately illusory that Betty claims he leaves sin and suffering unaccounted for. However, Betty misconstrues Sahkara's view in the worst way possible. It is precisely because Sahkara seeks to account for sin and suffering, to take it seriously and as significant?a genuine problem for life?that Sahkara constructs the particular (...) metaphysical account of reality that he does; an account he sees as consonant with scripture. In part one of this paper I examine Betty's argument. In part two, I explain why philosophical systems (Eastern and Western) that employ pervasive appearance/reality distinctions?like Sahkara's?cannot be dismissed out of hand in the way Betty has done. (shrink)
The current study examined youths’ and their parents’ perceptions concerning participation in an investigation of spontaneous and induced pain during recovery from laparoscopic appendectomy. Youth and their parents independently completed surveys about their study participation. On a scale from 0 to 10, both parents and youth rated their experience as positive. Among youth, experience ratings did not differ by pain severity and survey responses did not differ by age. Most youth reported that they would tell another youth to participate. Ethical (...) issues regarding instigation of pain in youth for research purposes are examined. (shrink)
Introduction This article is a response to Zagouras, Ellick, and Aulisio who presented a case study justifying the questioning of the capacity and autonomy of a young woman with a physical disability who was pregnant and facing coercive pressure to terminate. Case description Julia is described as a 26-year-old woman with a neurological disability that requires her to receive assistance with activities of daily living. She was described as living with her parents who provided her with personal care assistance. Julia (...) became pregnant and her parents wished her to terminate because they did not want to care for her child in addition to her. In fact, Julia's parents threatened her with institutionalization if she did not elect to terminate the pregnancy. Her health care team questioned her decision-making capacity based on her alleged “mental age” and experiences of being sheltered and excluded. The health care team used directive tactics to convince Julia to terminate the pregnancy, which describe as both an ethical and feminist intervention. Discussion The current authors take issue with the case analysis provided by and argue that they neglected to account for numerous instances of systemic ableism that adversely affected Julia, demonstrated prejudicial and judgmental attitudes toward pregnancy and disability, inappropriately questioned her decision-making capacity by infantilizing her, misconstrued the feminist concept of relational autonomy, and colluded with coercive interference from family members. This is a classic example of discriminatory and culturally incompetent reproductive health care for a disabled woman. (shrink)
The paper presents an innovative approach to teaching philosophy, which the authors name as a comicsophy approach to teaching philosophy. Such creative application of comics in the teaching of philosophy fully corresponds to the skandalonic and dialogical character of philosophy itself. The methodical value of using comics in philosophy teaching is manifested exactly in comics’ distinctly skandalonic character. The skandalon is a methodical process that seeks to provoke students' curiosity by questioning something that otherwise seemed unquestionable, self-evident, to present it (...) in a new light, in order to make it the subject of critical questioning and reflection. Given the visuality of the comics, its fun and root in popular culture, it is an excellent motivational tool for philosophical reflection and understanding of reality, philosophical issues, ideas and concepts in teaching philosophy. By introducing comics as recognizable products of pop culture close to students' reading interest and experience in teaching philosophy, it is easier for them to connect what they learn in school with real life, ie to apply what they have learned in everyday life situations. Comics can be used as a source of information, a form of learning new content, as well as a basis for encouraging dialog and discussion in the classroom. Also, students can individually or in pairs/groups create comics on specific philosophical topics, thus developing creative, critical and collaborative thinking. The paper presents specific criteria for evaluating comics on philosophical issues that students create in philosophy classes. (shrink)
The complex and dynamic nature of systems pose a particular challenge to researchers and require the use of a research methodology designed to deal with such systems. The properties of fit, relevance, understandability, generality, control, workability, generalizability, and modifiability make Glaserian grounded theory and grounded action particularly well suited for studying systems. These methods are innovative, systemic, and sophisticated enough to reveal the underlying complexities of systems and plan actions that address their complex, dynamic nature while remaining grounded in what (...) is occurring within the systems as they change over time. (shrink)
This essay offers a fresh interpretation of Bhartr̥hari’s concept of “insight”, and of its identification as the object of a sentence in the second kāṇḍa of the Vākyapadīya. Earlier scholars dealing with this topic disagreed on three main points: whether an epistemologically rigorous concept of insight can be found in Bhartr̥hari’s work, or if the notion remains irrevocably vague and equivocal; whether the concept of pratibhā primarily belongs to linguistics, or to action theory; whether Bhartr̥hari’s identification of insight as the (...) object of a sentence should be taken literally or figuratively. Starting from a close analysis of all passages in Bhartr̥hari’s work mentioning pratibhā, I identify, first of all, a univocal understanding of insight, valid throughout the Vākyapadīya, as immediate cognition informed by verbal transmission, in other words as a form of practical knowledge, non-representational yet essentially productive and dynamic. Showing, on this basis, how Bhartr̥hari’s understanding of language at the level of sentences is pragmatic rather than referential, I demonstrate, against the view prevalent in the late grammatical tradition, that a literal interpretation of his provocative statement on pratibhā as vākyārtha remains perfectly plausible. This thesis is further corroborated by the consideration of post-Bhartr̥hari philosophical sources elaborating on his ideas, which allow us better to understand in what sense pratibhā can legitimately be thought of as cognition “without an object”. (shrink)
Based on considerable factual material, the author establishes Berdyaev's Moscow addresses and shows how Berdyaev's Moscow environment related to different stages of his philosophical work and public life.
This Article discusses BLAs as tools of global labor migration governance, with a specific focus on gender. Drawing on our global database of 582 bilateral labor migration agreements, we investigate the extent to which these governing instruments connect and align with relevant international normative frameworks, in particular the extent to which they represent gains, gaps or gaffs in terms of gender equality and the human and labor rights protection of women migrants. In the context of the Global Compact for Safe, (...) Orderly and Regular Migration, which stresses a gender-responsive approach to migration governance as one of its guiding principles, we ask: Do the BLAs which are increasingly being used as instruments to govern labor migration contribute toward sustainable gender equality, decent work and reduced inequalities for women and gender-diverse migrants? (shrink)
Are religious beliefs psychologically different from matter-of-fact beliefs? Many scholars say no: that religious people, in a matter-of-fact way, simply think their deities exist. Others say yes: that religious beliefs are more compartmentalized, less certain, and less responsive to evidence. Little research to date has explored whether lay people themselves recognize such a difference. We addressed this question in a series of sentence completion tasks, conducted in five settings that differed both in religious traditions and in language: the US, Ghana, (...) Thailand, China, and Vanuatu. Participants everywhere routinely used different verbs to describe religious versus matter-of-fact beliefs, and they did so even when the ascribed belief contents were held constant and only the surrounding context varied. These findings support the view that people from diverse cultures and language communities recognize a difference in attitude type between religious belief and everyday matter-of-fact belief. (shrink)
RESUMENEl propósito de este ensayo es discutir sobre la posibilidad de desarroyo de una ontología de la imagen a partir de las premisas teóricas del Sistema del Saber hegeliano, mostrando también su relevancia en el debate contemporáneo de los visual studies o de la Bildkritik.PALABRAS CLAVESHEGEL, IMAGEN, ROMANTICISMO, ARTE ABSTRACTO, ESPIRITU SUBJETIVO, ICONOCLASTIA ENDOGENAABSTRACTThe aim of this essay is to argument the possibility to develop an Ontology of Image, taking as a starting-point the theoretical premises of the Hegelian System of (...) Knowledge and by doing so to show its actuality in the contemporary debate of visual studies or of Bildkritik.KEY WORDSHEGEL, IMAGE, ROMANTICISM, ABSTRACT ART,SUBJECTIVE SPIRIT, ENDOGENUS ICONOCLASM. (shrink)
This book offers a study of Bhartrhari's Vakyapadiya in an altogether modern (the post-Fregean) perspective on the philosophy of language. Bhartrhari's analysis of language is presented methodically and in contemporary philosophical idiom.
Turkey has a complex character, which has differences from the Western world or Eastern Asia as well as common points. Even after more than a century of efforts to modernise and integrate with the West, Turkish society has values that are different from those of the West, as well as having Western values. It is worth questioning whether ordinary Turkish people show an individualistic character. The principle of respect for individual autonomy arises from a perception of oneself as an individual, (...) and the person’s situation may affect the applicability of the principle. Patients who perceive themselves to be members of a community rather than free persons and who prefer to participate in the common decisions of the community and to consider the common interest and the common value system of the community concerning problems of their life rather than to decide as independent, rational individuals may not be competent to make an autonomous choice. Expectations that such patients will behave as autonomous individuals may be unjustified. The family, rather than the patient, may take a primary role in decisions. A flexible system considering cultural differences in the concept of autonomy may be more feasible than a system following strict universal norms. (shrink)
As assisted reproductive technologies become increasingly popular, debate has intensified over the ethical justification for restricting access to ART based on various medical and non-medical factors. In 2010, the Australian state of Victoria enacted world-first legislation that denies access to ART for all patients with certain criminal or child protection histories. Patients and their partners are identified via a compulsory police and child protection check prior to commencing ART and, if found to have a previous relevant conviction or child protection (...) order, are given a “presumption against treatment.” This article reviews the legislation and identifies arguments that may be used to justify restricting access to ART for various reasons. The arguments reviewed include limitations of reproductive rights, inheriting undesirable genetic traits, distributive justice, and the welfare of the future child. We show that none of these arguments justifies restricting access to ART in the context of past criminal history. We show that a “presumption against treatment” is an unjustified infringement on reproductive freedom and that it creates various inconsistencies in current social, medical, and legal policy. We argue that a state-enforced policy of restricting access to ART based on the non-medical factor of past criminal history is an example of unjust discrimination and cannot be ethically justified, with one important exception: in cases where ART treatment may be considered futile on the basis that the parents are not expected to raise the resulting child. (shrink)
ABSTRACTThis article critically considers a state-centred approach to public law that has been epitomised in Martin Loughlin’s claim that the concept of the state is the sine qua non of public law....
At first glance, Tommy Curry’s project in Another white Man’s Burden may seem like a strange undertaking. While American philosophers have been writing more frequently on Royce over the past decade, he remains a fairly peripheral figure. Those of us in Society for the Advancement of American Philosophy circles may be able to recognize terms like “Beloved Community” or “Loyalty to Loyalty” readily, but we would be hard-pressed to gain an audience for conversations about them at the American Philosophical Association’s (...) regional meetings. Royce rarely ends up on undergraduate syllabuses, and few people read Royce in the greater philosophical community. Royce is not Aristotle, Kant, or even Dewey. He is a... (shrink)
The term “principle of sufficient reason” was coined by Leibniz, and he is often regarded as its paradigmatic proponent. But as Leibniz himself often insisted, he was by no means the first philosopher to appeal to the idea that everything must have a reason. Histories of the principle attribute versions of it to various ancient authors. A few of these studies include—or at least do not exclude—medieval philosophers; one finds the PSR in Abelard, another finds it in Aquinas. And while (...) Leibniz retains pride of place in these histories, Spinoza is sometimes said to precede him “in appreciating the importance of the Principle and placing it at the center of his philosophical system.” In this paper, the author argues that the same should be said of the Islamic philosopher Avicenna. Writing 600 years before his early modern counterparts, Avicenna routinely and consistently appeals to the PSR in generating his metaphysical system. The paper aims first to establish that Avicenna deserves a position of prominence in histories of the PSR, and then to consider how he addresses certain challenges to the PSR, especially the threat posed by necessitarianism. (shrink)
Attention Restoration Theory proposes that exposure to natural environments helps to restore attention. For sustained attention—the ongoing application of focus to a task, the effect appears to be modest, and the underlying mechanisms of attention restoration remain unclear. Exposure to nature may improve attention performance through many means: modulation of alertness and one’s connection to nature were investigated here, in two separate studies. In both studies, participants performed the Sustained Attention to Response Task before and immediately after viewing a meadow, (...) ocean, or urban image for 40 s, and then completed the Perceived Restorativeness Scale. In Study 1, an eye-tracker recorded the participants’ tonic pupil diameter during the SARTs, providing a measure of alertness. In Study 2, the effects of connectedness to nature on SART performance and perceived restoration were studied. In both studies, the image viewed was not associated with participants’ sustained attention performance; both nature images were perceived as equally restorative, and more restorative than the urban image. The image viewed was not associated with changes in alertness. Connectedness to nature was not associated with sustained attention performance, but it did moderate the relation between viewing the natural images and perceived restorativeness; participants reporting a higher connection to nature also reported feeling more restored after viewing the nature, but not the urban, images. Dissociation was found between the physiological and behavioral measures and the perceived restorativeness of the images. The results suggest that restoration associated with nature exposure is not associated with modulation of alertness but is associated with connectedness with nature. (shrink)
Background:Attention to ethical leadership in nursing has diminished over the past several decades.Objectives:The aim of our study was to investigate how frontline nurses and formal nurse leaders envision ethical nursing leadership.Research design:Meta-ethnography was used to guide our analysis and synthesis of four studies that explored the notion of ethical nursing leadership.Participants and research context:These four original studies were conducted from 1999-2008 in Canada with 601 participants.Ethical considerations:Ethical approval from the original studies covered future analysis.Findings:Using the analytic strategy of lines-of-argument, we (...) found that 1) ethical nursing leadership must be responsive to practitioners and to the contextual system in which they and formal nurse leaders work, and 2) ethical nursing leadership requires receiving and providing support to increase the capacity to practice and discuss ethics in the day-to-day.Discussion and conclusion:Formal nurse leaders play a critical, yet often neglected role, in providing ethical leadership and supporting ethical nursing practice at the point of patient care. (shrink)
The notion of epistemic injustice has become an important topic of inquiry in recent times. It refers to the injustice committed to a person when her claim to knowledge is not given due consideration. This article argues that there are two major sources of epistemic injustice: One is the dominating tendencies present in us, and the other is susceptibility to cognitive biases and distortions. When societies become more complex, injustice increases and one can see countless instances of epistemic injustice in (...) everyday life. To reduce epistemic injustice, one has to tackle both sources. Increasing cooperative behaviour is the key in this regard which, in turn, may require revisiting the way the self is automatically understood. (shrink)
The author clarifies the attitudes of Herzen as a Westernizer of a special kind, a consistent liberal and democrat, and a defender of the historical role of the peasant commune.
Imitation in robotics is seen as a powerful means to reduce the complexity of robot programming. It allows users to instruct robots by simply showing them how to execute a given task. Through imitation robots can learn from their environment and adapt to it just as human newborns do. Despite different facets of imitative behaviours observed in humans and higher primates, imitation in robotics has usually been implemented as a process of copying demonstrated actions onto the movement apparatus of the (...) robot. While the results being reached are impressive, we believe that a shift towards a higher expression of imitation, namely the comprehension of human actions and inference of its intentions, is needed. In order to be useful as human companions, robots must act for a purpose by achieving goals and fulfilling human expectations. In this paper we present ConSCIS, an architecture for goal-level imitation in robotics where the focus is put on final effects of actions on objects. The architecture tightly links low-level data with high-level knowledge, and integrates, in a unified framework, several aspects of imitation, such as perception, learning, knowledge representation, action generation and robot control. Some preliminary experimental results with an anthropomorphic arm/hand robotic system are shown. (shrink)
Although ethical leadership by formal nurse leaders is critical to enhancing ethical health-care practice, research has shown that many nurses feel unsupported by their leaders. In this article, we consider the limited attention directed toward ethical leadership of formal nurse leaders and how our own research on ethical nurse leadership compares to other research in this field. In searching Nursing Ethics since its inception 20 years ago, we found only a dozen articles that directly addressed this topic. We then reviewed (...) nurses’ professional codes of ethics in Canada and found significant retractions of ethical guidelines for formal nurse leaders’ ethical responsibilities over the past decade. We began to seek explanations of why this is so and offer some recommendations for the study and enhancement of ethics for formal nurse leadership. (shrink)
Imitation in robotics is seen as a powerful means to reduce the complexity of robot programming. It allows users to instruct robots by simply showing them how to execute a given task. Through imitation robots can learn from their environment and adapt to it just as human newborns do. Despite different facets of imitative behaviours observed in humans and higher primates, imitation in robotics has usually been implemented as a process of copying demonstrated actions onto the movement apparatus of the (...) robot. While the results being reached are impressive, we believe that a shift towards a higher expression of imitation, namely the comprehension of human actions and inference of its intentions, is needed. In order to be useful as human companions, robots must act for a purpose by achieving goals and fulfilling human expectations. In this paper we present ConSCIS, an architecture for goal-level imitation in robotics where the focus is put on final effects of actions on objects. The architecture tightly links low-level data with high-level knowledge, and integrates, in a unified framework, several aspects of imitation, such as perception, learning, knowledge representation, action generation and robot control. Some preliminary experimental results with an anthropomorphic arm/hand robotic system are shown. (shrink)
