Background: Fear of cancer recurrence or progression is a common challenge experienced by people living with and beyond cancer and is frequently endorsed as the highest unmet psychosocial need amongst survivors. This has prompted many cancer organizations to develop self-help resources for survivors to better manage these fears through psychoeducation, but little is known about whether they help reduce FCR/P.Method: We recruited 62 women with ovarian cancer. Women reported on their medical history and demographic characteristics and completed the Fear of (...) Progression Questionnaire-Short Form. They then read a booklet on FCR specifically created for Ovarian Cancer Australia by two of the authors. One week after reading the booklet, 50/62 women completed the FoP-Q-SF and answered questions about their satisfaction with the booklet.Results: More than half of the women scored in the clinical range for FCR/P at baseline. Of the completers, 93% said that they would recommend the booklet to other women. Satisfaction with the booklet was relatively high and more than two-thirds of women rated it as moderately helpful or better. However, FCR/P did not change significantly over the week following reading the booklet [t = 1.71, p = 0.09]. There was also no difference in change in FCR/P between women in the clinical vs. non-clinical range on the FoP-Q. Women high in FCR/P rated the booklet as less helpful in managing FCR/P, but overall satisfaction with the booklet was not associated with degree of FCR/P.Conclusions: These results suggest that a simple online FCR booklet is acceptable to women with ovarian cancer and they are satisfied with the booklet, but, it was insufficient to change in FCR/P levels. These results suggest that such resources are valued by women with ovarian cancer, but more potent interventions are necessary to reduce FCR in this population. (shrink)

The book that launched the modern American conservative movement, now available in trade paperback.

Academic literature addressing the topic of business ethics has paid little attention to cross-cultural studies of business ethics. Uncertainty exists concerning the effect of culture on ethical beliefs. The purpose of this research is to compare the ethical beliefs of managers operating in South Africa and Australia. Responses of 52 managers to a series of ethical scenarios were sought. Results indicate that despite differences in socio-cultural and political factors there are no statistically significant differences between the two groups regarding their (...) own ethical beliefs. Results thus support the view that culture has little or no impact on ethical beliefs. (shrink)

Sales professionals have been frequent targets of ethical criticism. This paper reports on a survey on ethics of sales professionals in South Africa. The results revealed salespeoples views on controversial sales practices that involve direct monetary consequences; on practices that adversely affect customers, employers and competitors; and on sales peoples sensitization of ethical issues. Stealing from a competitor at a trade show was viewed as the most unethical of the scenarios, while phone sabotage and lying to a customer were held (...) to be the next most unethical scenarios. Analysis of the results lead to a discussion of the implications for sales management. Ethical perceptions were affected by financial considerations. Marketing and Sales Managers will have to review their approach to training in sales ethics as well as how sales professionals implement the market driven approach. (shrink)

People with the kind of preferences that give rise to the St. Petersburg paradox are problematic---but not because there is anything wrong with infinite utilities. Rather, such people cannot assign the St. Petersburg gamble any value that any kind of outcome could possibly have. Their preferences also violate an infinitary generalization of Savage's Sure Thing Principle, which we call the *Countable Sure Thing Principle*, as well as an infinitary generalization of von Neumann and Morgenstern's Independence axiom, which we call *Countable (...) Independence*. In violating these principles, they display foibles like those of people who deviate from standard expected utility theory in more mundane cases: they choose dominated strategies, pay to avoid information, and reject expert advice. We precisely characterize the preference relations that satisfy Countable Independence in several equivalent ways: a structural constraint on preferences, a representation theorem, and the principle we began with, that every prospect has a value that some outcome could have. (shrink)

This paper analyses the activities of five organizations shaping the debate over the global governance of genome editing in order to assess current approaches to public engagement (PE). We compare the recommendations of each group with its own practices. All recommend broad engagement with the general public, but their practices vary from expert-driven models dominated by scientists, experts, and civil society groups to citizen deliberation-driven models that feature bidirectional consultation with local citizens, as well as hybrid models that combine elements (...) of both approaches. Only one group practices PE that seeks community perspectives to advance equity. In most cases, PE does little more than record already well-known views held by the most vocal groups, and thus is unlikely to produce more just or equitable processes or policy outcomes. Our exploration of the strengths, weaknesses, and possibilities of current forms of PE suggests a need to rethink both “public” and “engagement.”. (shrink)

In a book that challenges the most widely held ideas of why individuals engage in collective conflict, Russell Hardin offers a timely, crucial explanation of group action in its most destructive forms. Contrary to those observers who attribute group violence to irrationality, primordial instinct, or complex psychology, Hardin uncovers a systematic exploitation of self-interest in the underpinnings of group identification and collective violence. Using examples from Mafia vendettas to ethnic violence in places such as Bosnia and Rwanda, he describes (...) the social and economic circumstances that set this violence into motion. Hardin explains why hatred alone does not necessarily start wars but how leaders cultivate it to mobilize their people. He also reveals the thinking behind the preemptive strikes that contribute to much of the violence between groups, identifies the dangers of "particularist" communitarianism, and argues for government structures to prevent any ethnic or other group from having too much sway. Exploring conflict between groups such as Serbs and Croats, Hutu and Tutsi, Northern Irish Catholics and Protestants, Hardin vividly illustrates the danger that arises when individual and group interests merge. In these examples, groups of people have been governed by movements that managed to reflect their members' personal interests--mainly by striving for political and economic advances at the expense of other groups and by closing themselves off from society at large. The author concludes that we make a better and safer world if we design our social institutions to facilitate individual efforts to achieve personal goals than if we concentrate on the ethnic political makeup of our respective societies. (shrink)

This book includes detailed critical analysis of a wide variety of versions of the indispensability argument, as well as a novel approach to traditional views about mathematics.

This book explores the rise of theoretical physics in 19th century Germany. The authors show how the junior second physicist in German universities over time became the theoretical physicist, of equal standing to the experimental physicist. Gustav Kirchhoff, Hermann von Helmholtz, and Max Planck are among the great German theoretical physicists whose work and career are examined in this book. Physics was then the only natural science in which theoretical work developed into a major teaching and research specialty in its (...) own right. Readers will discover how German physicists arrived at a well-defined field of theoretical physics with well understood and generally accepted goals and needs. The authors explain the nature of the work of theoretical physics with many examples, taking care always to locate the research within the workplace. The book is a revised and shortened version of Intellectual Mastery of Nature: Theoretical Physics from Ohm to Einstein, a two-volume work by the same authors. This new edition represents a reformulation of the larger work. It retains what is most important in the original work, while including new material, sharpening discussions, and making the research more accessible to readers. It presents a thorough examination of a seminal era in physics. (shrink)

In this paper I provide a novel argument against the claim that classical genetics is being reduced to molecular genetics. Specifically, I demonstrate that reductionists must subscribe to the unargued and problematic thesis that molecular genetics is 'independent' of classical genetics. I also argue that several standard antireductionist positions can be faulted for unnecessarily conceding the Independence Thesis to the reductionists. In place of a 'tale of two sciences', I offer a 'heroic' stance that denies classical genetics is being reduced, (...) yet sees classical and molecular genetics as fundamentally unified. (shrink)

Motor proficiency reflects the ability to perform precise and coordinated movements in different contexts. Previous research suggests that different profiles of motor proficiency may be associated with different cognitive functioning characteristics thus suggesting an interaction between cognitive and motor processes. The current study investigated this interaction in the general population of healthy adults with different profiles of motor proficiency by focusing on error-related cognitive control and behavioral adaptation mechanisms. In addition, the impact of these processes was assessed in terms of (...) trait anxiety and worries. Forty healthy adults were divided into high and low motor proficiency groups based on an assessment of their motor skills. Using electroencephalography during a flanker task, error-related negativity was measured as the neural indicator of cognitive control. Post-error slowing was measured to represent behavioral adaptation. Participants also completed an anxiety assessment questionnaire. Participants in the high motor proficiency group achieved better task accuracy and showed relatively enhanced cognitive control through increased ERN. Contrastingly, individuals in the lower motor proficiency group achieved poorer accuracy whilst showing some evidence of compensation through increased PES. Trait anxiety reflecting general worries was found to be correlated with motor functioning, but the study could not provide evidence that this was related to cognitive or behavioral control mechanisms. The interaction between cognitive and motor processes observed in this study is unique for healthy and sub-clinical populations and provides a baseline for the interpretation of similar investigations in individuals with motor disorders. (shrink)

This paper considers a new problem for desire theories of well-being. The problem claims that these theories are implausible because they misvalue the effects of fleeting desires, long-standing desires, and fluctuations in desire strength on well-being. I begin by investigating a version of the desire theory of well-being, simple concurrentism, that fails to capture intuitions in these cases. I then argue that desire theories of well-being that are suitably stability-adjusted can avoid this problem. These theories claim that the average strength (...) of a desire, and the length of time that it is held, both influence the extent to which its fulfilment or frustration affects well-being. I end by considering whether value-fulfilment theories of well-being have a more attractive response to this problem. I find that these theories have significant downsides that make them unappealing alternatives. (shrink)

A common worry about the genetic engineering of human beings is that it will reduce human genetic diversity, creating a biological monoculture that could not only increase our susceptibility to disease but also hasten the extinction of our species. Thus far, however, the evolutionary implications of human genetic modification remain largely unexplored. In this paper, I consider whether the widespread use of genetic engineering technology is likely to narrow the present range of genetic variation, and if so, whether this would (...) in fact lead to the evolutionary harms that some authors envision. By examining the nature of biological variation and its relation to population immunity and evolvability, I show that not only will genetic engineering have a negligible impact on human genetic diversity, but also that it will be more likely to ensure rather than undermine the health and longevity of the human species. (shrink)

We prove a representation theorem for preference relations over countably infinite lotteries that satisfy a generalized form of the Independence axiom, without assuming Continuity. The representing space consists of lexicographically ordered transfinite sequences of bounded real numbers. This result is generalized to preference orders on abstract superconvex spaces.

Professional philosophers have tended either to shrug off American philosophy as negligible or derivative or to date American philosophy from the work of twentieth century analytical positivists such as Quine. Russell Goodman expands on the revisionist position developed by Stanley Cavell, that the most interesting strain of American thought proceeds not from Puritan theology or from empirical science but from a peculiarly American kind of Romanticism. This insight leads Goodman, through Cavell, back to Emerson and Thoreau and thence to (...) William James and John Dewey, as they assimilated to American circumstances and intellectual habits the currents of European thought from Kant to Wittgenstein. (shrink)

MacIntyre’s theory of practices, institutions, and their respective kinds of goods, has revived and enriched the ethical critique of market economies, and his view of politics as centrally concerned with common goods and human flourishing presents a major challenge to neutralist liberal theorists’ attempts to exclude distinctively ethical considerations from political deliberation. However, the rejection of neutrality does not entail the rejection of liberalism tout court: questions of human flourishing may be accorded a legitimate role in political decisions-including those about (...) economic systems - provided that the powers of the state remain subject to certain recognizably liberal constraints. Further, although neutralist liberals often defend market economies on the mistaken grounds that they alone are consistent with the principle of ethical neutrality, a non-neutralist defence of them should not be ruled out, especially if the substantive theory of goods used to evaluate them is somewhat less restrictive than MacIntyre’s. (shrink)

This book presents an overview of the later medieval trinitarian theology of the rival Franciscan and Dominican intellectual traditions, and includes detailed studies of thinkers such as Thomas Aquinas, Henry of Ghent, John Duns Scotus, ...

Mechanistic explanations are often said to explain because they reveal the causal structure of the world. Conversely, dynamical models supposedly lack explanatory power because they do not describe causal structure. The only way for dynamical models to produce causal explanations is via the 3M criterion: the model must be mapped onto a mechanism. This framing of the situation has become the received view around the viability of dynamical explanation. In this paper, I argue against this position and show that dynamical (...) models can themselves reveal causal structure and consequently produce nonmechanistic, dynamical explanations. Taking the example of cell fates from systems biology, I show how dynamical models, and specifically the attractor landscapes they describe, identify the causes of cell differentiation and explain why cells select particular fates. These dynamical features of the system better fit Woodward’s (2010, 2018) criteria of specificity and proportionality and make them the best candidate causes of cell fates than mechanisms. I also show how these causes are irreducible and inaccessible to mechanistic models, making 3M unworkable and counterproductive in this case. Dynamical models can reveal dynamical causes and thereby provide causal explanations. (shrink)

I examine what the mathematical theory of random structures can teach us about the probability of Plenitude, a thesis closely related to David Lewis's modal realism. Given some natural assumptions, Plenitude is reasonably probable a priori, but in principle it can be (and plausibly it has been) empirically disconfirmed—not by any general qualitative evidence, but rather by our de re evidence.

Rigorous yet engaging and accessible, Introduction to Formal Logic with Philosophical Applications is composed of two parts. The first part provides a focused, "nuts-and-bolts" introduction to formal deductive logic that covers syntax, semantics, translation, and natural deduction forpropositional and predicate logics. The second part presents student-friendly essays on logic and its applications in philosophy and beyond, with writing prompts and suggestions for further reading.

With a never-before published paper by Lord Henry Cavendish, as well as a biography on him, this book offers a fascinating discourse on the rise of scientific attitudes and ways of knowing. A pioneering British physicist in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, Cavendish was widely considered to be the first full-time scientist in the modern sense. Through the lens of this unique thinker and writer, this book is about the birth of modern science.

Brieven van de Engelse wijsgeer (1872-1970) uit de periode 1884-1914.

In their efforts to apportion blame and channel retaliatory action in the post September 11 world, scholars and pundits alike have used a series of rhetorical techniques to great effect, manufacturing an image of Islam, the proverbial Other, that is highly conducive to the needs of liberal democracies but hardly a reflection of any one of the many 'authentic' Islams. This has largely been achieved by ignoring the many differences within the Islamic movement and asserting that social identities are based (...) on a stable, uniform kernel that moves unchanged throughout history and across the globe. This inevitably results in caricatures that have many uses; in portraits of dissenting groups it tends towards demonization. In this wide-ranging essay--which considers a variety of discursive sites, from contemporary film and art to the War on Terror--a scholar of religion asks the reader to consider how the classifications we use to name and thereby negotiate our social worlds--foremost among them the classification religion itself--are implicitly political and are being wielded in the public arena to carry out generally undisclosed/under analyzed social work. (shrink)

During the past decade, debate has intensified about the role of long-term opioid therapy in the management of chronic nonmalignant pain. Specialists in pain management have discussed the issues extensively and now generally agree that a selected population of patients with chronic pain can attain sustained analgesia without significant adverse consequences. This perspective, however, is not uniformly accepted by pain specialists and has not been widely disseminated to other disciplines or the public. Rather, the more traditional perspective, which ascribes both (...) transitory benefit and substantial cumulative risk to long-term opioid therapy, continues to predominate. According to this perspective, the inevitability of tolerance limits the possibility of sustained efficacy, and other pharmacological properties increase the likelihood of adverse outcomes, including persistent side-effects, impairment in physical and psychosocial functioning, and addiction. If accurate, these outcomes would indeed justify the withholding of opioid therapy for all but the most extreme cases of chronic nonmalignant pain. (shrink)

In his commentary, David Galin raises several important issues that deserve to be addressed. In this response, I do three things. First, I briefly discuss the relation between the present work and the metaphoric theories of thought developed by cognitive lin- guists such as Lakoff and Johnson (1998). Second, I address some of the confusions that seem to have arisen about my use of the terms ''substantive thought'' and ''nucleus.'' Third, I briefly discuss some of the directions that Galin suggests (...) for further research. (shrink)

Events have played a central role in a number of recent philosophical analyses. In general, there are two different sorts of arguments that might be offered in favour of an event analysis: first, it might be held that the constructions being analyzed contain certain nominals which intuitively refer to events, and further that any satisfactory analysis must respect these intuitions; second, it might be argued that quite aside from our intuitions, the concept of an event — perhaps as a purely (...) technical device — permits the solution of philosophical problems implicit in alternative non-event analyses.I wish to argue that both the above sorts of arguments fail. First, I argue that our intuitions about the reference on nominals are inconsistent, varying from context to context, so that the various sorts of event analyses cannot be talking about a single category of entities. (shrink)

The Conquest of Happiness is Bertrand Russell’s recipe for good living. First published in 1930, it pre-dates the current obsession with self-help by decades. Leading the reader step by step through the causes of unhappiness and the personal choices, compromises and sacrifices that lead to the final, affirmative conclusion of ‘The Happy Man’, this is popular philosophy, or even self-help, as it should be written.