Advance directives are written documents that give patients the opportunity to communicate their preferences regarding treatments they do or do not want to receive in case they become unable to make decisions. Commonly used pre-printed forms have different formats. Some offer space for patients to appoint a surrogate decision maker, and/or to determine future medical treatments and/or give a statement of personal values. So far it is unknown which forms GPs preferably use and why they decide to do so. 23 (...) semi-structured interviews with GPs were analysed using content analysis. Interviewees mainly use short templates and medium length templates with checkboxes to indicate patients’ preferences in regards to life prolonging measures. Especially when patients faced the progression of a disease, participants use the latter version. Only then, the interviewees remarked, patients are capable to rate concrete situations reliably. GPs also realize the importance of the verbal assessment of patients’ preferences; however they rarely keep a written form of the conversation. Some GPs hand out one or more templates and ask their patients to read and think about them at home with the option to talk to them about it later on, while others prefer their patients to fill them out alone at home. Regardless of template usage, most GPs emphasize that ADs require regular updates. GPs tend to see standardized advance directives mainly as a tool to start a conversation with their patients and to identify their real preferences and values. When the patient is still not facing the progression of an already existing disease it could be sufficient to only appoint a surrogate decision maker instead of creating a full AD. However, in all other situations, appointing a surrogate decision maker should be backed up by a written statement of a patient’s general values. Patients and their relatives should always have the opportunity to ask their GP for medical advice when drafting an AD. It is crucial to regularly verify and update existing ADs within the course of a disease. (shrink)

GPs usually care for their patients for an extended period of time, therefore, requests to not only discontinue a patient’s treatment but to assist a patient in a suicide are likely to create intensely stressful situations for physicians. However, in order to ensure the best patient care possible, the competent communication about the option of physician assisted suicide as well as the assessment of the origin and sincerity of the request are very important. This is especially true, since patients’ requests (...) for PAS can also be an indicator for unmet needs or concerns. Twenty-three qualitative semi-structured interviews were conducted to in-depth explore this multifaceted, complex topic while enabling GPs to express possible difficulties when being asked for assistance. The analysis of the gathered data shows three main themes why GPs may find it difficult to professionally communicate about PAS: concerns for their own psychological well-being, conflicting personal values or their understanding of their professional role. In the discussion part of this paper we re-assess these different themes in order to ethically discuss and analyse how potential barriers to professional communication concerning PAS could be overcome. (shrink)

On a currently popular reading of Locke, an idea represents its cause, or what God intended to be its cause. Against Martha Bolton and my former self (among others), I argue that Locke cannot hold such a view, since it sins against his epistemology and theory of abstraction. I argue that Locke is committed to a resemblance theory of representation, with the result that ideas of secondary qualities are not representations.

ABSTRACTHow accurate are insights compared to analytical solutions? In four experiments, we investigated how participants' solving strategies influenced their solution accuracies across different types of problems, including one that was linguistic, one that was visual and two that were mixed visual-linguistic. In each experiment, participants' self-judged insight solutions were, on average, more accurate than their analytic ones. We hypothesised that insight solutions have superior accuracy because they emerge into consciousness in an all-or-nothing fashion when the unconscious solving process is complete, (...) whereas analytic solutions can be guesses based on conscious, prematurely terminated, processing. This hypothesis is supported by the finding that participants' analytic solutions included relatively more incorrect responses than timeouts compared to their insight responses. (shrink)

Una forma frecuente de medir y estimular el desarrollo narrativo infantil utiliza el recontado de una narración. En Chile, se han diseñado tareas considerando la estructura del input verbal, tanto en un nivel léxico-sintáctico como textual, estableciéndose –incluso– niveles de complejidad. En el marco del Proyecto FONDECYT 1130420, para elaborar un cuento infantil –input de la tarea de recontado– se hizo hincapié no solo en los rasgos verbales, sino también visuales del relato. De tal forma, se propuso un doble objetivo: (...) diseñar las imágenes de una historia potenciando su significado a través de una gramática visual y observar en qué medida estos elementos aparecen reflejados en el recontado oral de los sujetos. Para este propósito, junto a la Gramática de la Historia para el discurso, se consideró la Gramática de Diseño Visual y sus herramientas analíticas para la construcción de imágenes. El cuento se piloteó en una muestra de 20 pre-escolares de Kinder de un colegio particular subvencionado de la Región de Valparaíso. Sus discursos fueron videograbados, transcritos y analizados. Se observó que todas las imágenes narrativas aparecen mencionadas en más de un 60% de los recontados. Además, existen tres referidas en el 90% de los discursos infantiles y representan momentos cruciales del relato o cierta complejidad del input como la simultaneidad de acciones. Estos resultados permiten valorar la importancia de los elementos visuales del cuento en la tarea de recontado infantil. (shrink)

Purpose of the article One of the approaches how to create a concept of a brand is a form of identifying association network in the mind of the consumer and creating semantic maps composed of all associations that are largely shaped by cultural values of consumers. Methodology/methods In the first phase, the author of the study was detecting the associations connected with the Mexican brand alcoholic beer Corona Extra using focus group with a sample of 15 respondents. In the second (...) phase, she analysed the data found in the context of Slovak cultural values and compared them with the results of the secondary research. Scientific objective The article highlights the importance of understanding cultural values of the target market for the management and brand communication across cultures. The main objective of the survey was to determine how the Slovak respondents perceive selected sample of global brand, to compare the findings of a secondary survey conducted at German and Spanish students, and in the final phase of the research to analyse the data found in the context of the cultural dimensions of respondents. Findings On one hand, the associations formed by consumers about Corona Extra mutually differ depending on the countries surveyed. On the other hand, they correspond to the cultural values of the nation, and thus confirm the strong influence of the cultural aspects of the brand perception. Conclusions The presented article confirms, that there will always be an open space for the extensive research in global marketing and cross-cultural differences in consumer behaviour. Exploring cultural aspects of communication of global brands will benefit not only in terms of increasing the efficiency of advertising campaigns, but also for the mutual knowledge and understanding between cultures. (shrink)

La inmunización en adultos es una estrategia de salud pública que se ha desarrollado e impulsado en los últimos años como consecuencia del envejecimiento poblacional. El aumento de la proporción de personas adultas en la población y la manifiesta preocupación por promover un envejecimiento saludable de la población plantean la premura de aportar evidencia científica sobre los factores que se asocian a la vacunación de adultos. La prevalencia de inmunizaciones en adultos está por debajo de las metas planteadas por el (...) Ministerio de Salud, por ello se propone como objetivo explorar e identificar los factores asociados a la vacunación de adultos en Argentina, teniendo en cuenta las recomendaciones del calendario nacional de inmunizaciones. Se trata de un estudio cuantitativo, exploratorio y correlacional, cuya fuente de datos es la Encuesta Nacional de Factores de Riesgo de 2013. En la metodología se desarrollan modelos logísticos individuales usando como variables explicativas sexo, nivel de instrucción, cobertura de salud, situación conyugal y si accedió a información sobre vacunas de adultos en algún medio masivo de comunicación. La unidad de análisis son las personas mayores de 18 años y se analizan las subpoblaciones objetivo de las siguientes vacunas: doble bacteriana o triple acelular del adulto, influenza y neumococo. Como contribución puede mencionarse que los resultados indican que haber visto o escuchado información sobre vacunas de adultos resultó el factor que más aumenta las probabilidades de estar inmunizados de los adultos argentinos. (shrink)

Christian Ethics for a Digital Society looks at how we live in an increasingly digital world. From sexting to hashtag activism like the #metoo movement, technology has entered both our private and public lives in a deep way. Far from hand-wringing about the dangers of technology, Christian Ethics for a Digital Society offers pragmatic wisdom on how to live thoughtfully today. Instead of just worrying about the next technological gadget or app, it's time we consider what Christianity has to offer (...) a world increasingly reimagined in a digital landscape. This book provides a new perspective on how to assess digital technology use, development, and expansion through a lens of Christian values. The purpose of this book is to begin a conversation about the massive ecosystem change that digital technologies push in our lives through a focus on the ethics of everyday practices. (shrink)

In order to discuss essay as a form in its relationship to philosophy, we take Adorno's text, "Essay as form", to investigate this formal choice of Frankfurt School. Once we find Adorno's proposition about the object of essay as a detained conflict, we try to suggest some of the social motivations to this choice.Com o objetivo de participar num debate em torno da forma ensaio em sua relação com a filosofia, discutimos essa opção formal da Escola de Frankfurt a partir (...) do texto de Adorno "O ensaio como forma". Uma vez encontrada sua proposição de que o objeto do ensaio é um conflito detido, tentamos sugerir algumas das razões sociais que induzem essa escolha. (shrink)

Disputes over territory are a major contributing factor to the disruption of international relations. We believe that a cumulative, integrated, and continuously updated resource providing information about such disputes in an easily accessible form would be of benefit to intelligence analysts, military strategists, political scientists, and also to historians and others concerned with international disputes. We propose an ontology-based strategy for creating such a resource. The resource will contain information about territorial disputes, arguments for and against claims pertaining to sovereignty, (...) proffered evidence for such claims, political and military motives (overt or hidden), and associated conflicts. Our approach is designed to address several issues surrounding the representation of geopolitical conflict, including the tracking and individuation of disputes and the validation of disseminated information. (shrink)

In 1985, Swiss legal philosopher Walter Ott visited Herbert Hart in Oxford and made this record of their meeting, which casts novel light on some of Hart’s ideas. Ott engaged Hart in a fresh encounter with the legal philosophy of Gustav Radbruch, particularly Hart’s and Radbruch’s reasons for a minimum content of justice in law. They also discussed the grudge informer, state responsibility under laws of an earlier régime, and questions of the definition and falsifiability of legal theories. Hart surprisingly (...) reported Hans Kelsen as stating, when they had met at Berkeley in 1961, that Hume (and not Kant, and certainly not Wittgenstein) was the greatest philosopher who had ever lived. The translation is accompanied with annotations explaining references, assumptions and contexts. (shrink)

How language works — its functions, mechanisms, and limitations — matters to the early moderns as much as it does to contemporary philosophers. Many of the moderns make reflection on language central to their philosophical projects, both as a tool for explaining human cognition and as a weapon to be used against competing views. Even in philosophers for whom language is less central, we can find important connections between their views on language and their other philosophical commitments.

Food security is becoming an increasingly relevant topic in the Global North, especially in urban areas. Because such areas do not always have good access to nutritionally adequate food, the question of how to supply them is an urgent priority in order to maintain a healthy population. Urban and peri-urban agriculture, as sources of local fresh food, could play an important role. Whereas some scholars do not differentiate between peri-urban and urban agriculture, seeing them as a single entity, our hypothesis (...) is that they are distinct, and that this has important consequences for food security and other issues. This has knock-on effects for food system planning and has not yet been appropriately analysed. The objectives of this study are to provide a systematic understanding of urban and peri-urban agriculture in the Global North, showing their similarities and differences, and to analyse their impact on urban food security. To this end, an extensive literature review was conducted, resulting in the identification and comparison of their spatial, ecological and socio-economic characteristics. The findings are discussed in terms of their impact on food security in relation to the four levels of the food system: food production, processing, distribution and consumption. The results show that urban and peri-urban agriculture in the Global North indeed differ in most of their characteristics and consequently also in their ability to meet the food needs of urban inhabitants. While urban agriculture still meets food needs mainly at the household level, peri-urban agriculture can provide larger quantities and has broader distribution pathways, giving it a separate status in terms of food security. Nevertheless, both possess potential, making them valuable for urban food planning, and both face similar threats regarding urbanisation pressures, necessitating adequate planning measures. (shrink)

Two kinds of people might find this useful: first, those interested in the modern debate over ideas and representation who don’t happen to read French, or who do, but would like to have in one place the relevant excerpts, to see whether looking at the originals is worth their time. Second are teachers of modern philosophy. The back-and-forth among these figures makes for a refreshing change from the massive, often self-contained works that characterize much of the rest of such a (...) course. For example, one could easily work in chapter 3 (the high point of the debate, from my point of view) between Descartes and Berkeley. (shrink)

According to some, there is a problem concerning the emotions we feel toward fictional entities such as Anna Karenina, Werther and the like. We feel pity, fear, and sadness toward them, but how is that possible? “We are saddened, but how can we be? What are we sad about? How can we feel genuinely and involuntarily sad, and weep, as we do know that no one has suffered or died?” (Radford, in: Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, 1975). This is the (...) paradox of fiction which is based on the assumption that emotions, to be genuine and rational, should be directed toward existent beings. But if beliefs about existence are necessary for us to be rationally moved by something, and such beliefs are lacking when we are moved by fiction (because we do not believe fictional characters and events to be real), then our capacity for an emotional response to fiction is irrational. Consequently, our emotional attitude toward future generations should be considered as irrational as well. But is this really the case? Are there good arguments to consider future and fictional entities as similar from this point of view? Or would it be better to distinguish the two? Is there such a thing as a paradox of the future? If so, how does it relate to the more famous paradox of fiction? (shrink)

This article seeks to show the interaction between cultural and anatomic evolution in the birth and differentiation of cultures and languages. The diversity which characterizes our world does not preclude logical regularities due to the coherence of the human mind, which evolved slowly through the paleontological phases of its emergence over millions of years. The anatomical retroaction of the hominids is analyzed to show that, in the long run, anatomy reflected ‘cultural selection’. With the anatomic evolution of man, culture became (...) a crucial component for all human beings and their anatomy simply adapted progressively to this fact. (shrink)

I discuss Extended Cognition theory in relation to Confucius’s Analects, the Mozi, and the Zhuangzi. Extendedness is treated as part of an approach that sees cognition as embodied, embedded, enacted, extended and affective. A common feature of extended cognition views is their resistance to the Cartesian split between extension and thinking and as squeezed between two other capacities that involve extension, namely perception and action. This creates the “classical sandwich”: extensive input —unextended symbolic processing —extensive output. In the Chinese tradition, (...) an embodied understanding of knowledge is dominant. Yet, we can discern two directions for its development by thinkers, either towards contextualization and engagement, or towards decontextualization and disengagement. I shall illustrate the two positions using examples from the Analects and the Mozi. They imply two different directions in furthering or extending knowledge, towards intensity and towards extensity. In the final part, the Zhuangzi is presented as an excellent example of an embodied and extended view of cognition, but which at the same time also takes the decontextualising direction to the utmost. (shrink)

Unintended negative outcomes on child behavior due to lockdown and home confinement following the corona virus disease pandemic needs highlighting to effectively address these issues in the current and future health crises. In this sub-study of the ODIN-study, the objectives were to determine whether the Danish lockdown and home confinement following the COVID-19 pandemic affected changes in emotional-behavioral functioning of pre-school-aged children using the validated Strength and Difficulties Questionnaire answered by parents shortly before lockdown and 3 weeks into lockdown, and (...) moreover, to examine whether baseline family and social characteristics could predict change in child emotional-behavioral functioning during lockdown. Parents of 40 children with a mean age of 5.0 completed the baseline questionnaire and the lockdown follow-up questionnaire. The SDQ-Total difficulties score and Prosocial Behavioral score changed significantly from pre- to lockdown [SDQ-TD mean: 6.0 and 7.9; P = 0.02, respectively and PSB mean: 8.5 and 7.9; P = 0.03, respectively]. Attending leisure time activities before lockdown was a predicting factor of changes to the worse in the children’s SDQ-TD scores, with a mean difference in SDQ-TD between those with and without activities of 3.16 ; P = 0.03. In conclusion, the study showed a modest decrease in child-emotional behavioral functioning during the COVID-19 lockdown, potentially due to parental stress. Although these results might not be generalizable due to small sample size and selected population, the results point to a need of a greater awareness of child mental wellbeing during a lockdown situation. (shrink)

This article canvases the main areas of controversy: the nature of Lockean signification and his position on propositions and particles.

When solving a problem with insight, people suddenly become aware of the solution (Mayer, 1995). Insight is often accompanied by a feeling of pleasure and certainty, known as an “Aha! moment” (Gick...

If one compares various skeptical arguments about our perceptual beliefs with arguments against scientific realism one immediately notices important similarities. Skeptical arguments about perceptual beliefs are often based on the premise that all of our perceptual beliefs could be wrong. Our experience is consistent with many different states of affairs; some familiar examples are hallucination, an evil demon, and brains in a vat. Thus it is claimed we have no reason to believe that the perceptual beliefs we normally form are (...) true and alternative beliefs are false.One of the most powerful arguments against scientific realism is based on the claim that our data underdetermines our theory. There exist empirically equivalent theories, which means that there is no observation that could lead us to accept one and reject the other. Each member of a class of empirically equivalent theories will be equally supported by the evidence. (shrink)