It is well known that the interpretation of quantificational expressions in the comparative clause poses a serious challenge for semantic analyses of the English comparative. In this paper, we develop a new analysis of the comparative clause designed to meet this challenge, in which a silent occurrence of the negative degree quantifier no interacts with other quantificational expressions to derive the observed range of interpretations. Although our analysis incorporates ideas from previous analyses, we show that it is able to account (...) for a broader range of facts than other approaches, with a minimum of construction-specific stipulations. We demonstrate that the analysis can be embedded within a general syntactic and semantic architecture for the comparative, and although our analysis focuses on the English data, we give evidence of its potential for crosslinguistic application. We conclude with a discussion of the implications of our approach for the analysis of “split-scope” phenomena in nominal quantification. (shrink)

BackgroundIn this manuscript, we argue that within the context of phase IV, physician-researchers retain their fiduciary obligation to treat the patient-participants.DiscussionWe first clarify why the perspective that research ethics ought to be differentiated from clinical ethics is not applicable in phase IV, and therefore, why therapeutic orientation is most convivial in this phase. Next, assuming that ethics guidelines may be representative of common morality, we show that ethics guidelines see physician-researchers primarily as physicians and only secondarily as researchers. We then (...) elaborate on what a fiduciary obligation is and how some of the obligations are default duties. Lastly, we look at the fiduciary obligation of the physician-researcher in phase IV interventional trials.ConclusionThe fiduciary obligation to treat is not as easily waived as in earlier trials. Assuming the entwinement of research and practice in phase IV, physician-researchers, in collaboration with other researchers, investigators, and research ethics committees, should ensure that in terms of study design, methodology, and research practice, the therapeutic value of the research to the patient-participants is not diminished. (shrink)

'Active citizenship' is currently a popular term in citizenship education policy discourse. Despite this policy interest, there is no agreement about the meaning of 'active citizenship'. This article draws on data from the IEA Civic Education Study to explore how students themselves construct 'active citizenship'. The results show that students have quite sophisticated conceptions of citizenship responsibilities although their attitudes are gendered. They seem committed to political obligations rather than social obligations and they do not seem inclined to take advantage (...) of their political rights or become involved in protest activities of any kind. (shrink)

ABSTRACT‘Active citizenship’ is currently a popular term in citizenship education policy discourse. Despite this policy interest, there is no agreement about the meaning of ‘active citizenship’. This article draws on data from the IEA Civic Education Study to explore how students themselves construct ‘active citizenship’. The results show that students have quite sophisticated conceptions of citizenship responsibilities although their attitudes are gendered. They seem committed to political obligations rather than social obligations and they do not seem inclined to take advantage (...) of their political rights or become involved in protest activities of any kind. (shrink)

This paper seeks to reconstruct the role of schooling in a moment of accelerated social, political, economic, geo-political, climatic, indeed planetary crisis. It identifies the school as a potentially prefigurative institution, an evolutionary social frontier, capable of nurturing the democratic social character, a form of sensibility apart from which authentic political democracy is not possible. As theorized by Herbert Marcuse and Richard Hart and Antonio Negri, the “new sensibility” or “multitude” is characterized by greater psychological freedom, individuality, social creativity and (...) self-rule, comprising a “whole of singularities” that “acts in common”. It suggests a human subject with a vital, biological drive for liberation, with a consciousness capable of breaking through the material as well as ideological veil of a society based on hierarchy and domination, and is associated politically with democracy and social-anarchism, or what Murray Bookchin called “communalism”. This paper identifies three main characteristics of an institution informed by this form of modal subjectivity, all of them based on student-teacher dialogue: an emergent, project-based curriculum, whole-school direct democratic governance on all levels of the community, and the regular practice of communal philosophical inquiry, through which we problematize the concepts we live by, in the interest of their ongoing reconstruction. (shrink)

Agricultural commercialization as a mechanism to alleviate rural poverty raises concerns about small land-holders, non-adopters, and inequity in the distribution of benefits within transforming economies. Farm gross margins were calculated to assess the economic status and impact of cash cropping on the economic well-being of agrarian households in the Mid-hills of Nepal. On an individual crop basis, tomatoes and potatoes were the most profitable. On a per farm basis, 50 of the households with positive farm gross margins grew at least (...) one vegetable crop, while only 25 of households with negative farm gross margins included vegetable crops in their rotation. Farmers have been hesitant to produce primarily for the market given the rudimentary infrastructure and high variability in prices. Farmers reported selling more crops, but when corrected for inflation, gross revenues declined over time. The costs and benefits of developing markets have been unevenly distributed with small holders unable to capitalize on market opportunities, and wealthier farmers engaging in input intensive cash cropping. Farms growing vegetables had an average gross margin of US$137 per year compared to US$12 per year for farms growing only staple crops. However, the area under production is small, and while vegetable production is likely to continue increasing, sensitivity analysis and scenarios suggest high variability and limited short-term impact on poverty alleviation. (shrink)

This paper acts as an introduction to a dossier centered on the ethical implications of Practicing Philosophy with Children and Adults. It identifies ethical themes in the P4C movement over three generations of theorists and practitioners, and argues that, historically and materially, the transition to a “new” hermeneutics of childhood that has occurred within the P4C movement may be said to have emerged as a response to the ever-increasing pressure of neoliberalism and a weaponized capitalism to construct public policies in (...) education on an over-regulated, prescribed, state-monitored, model. Could a new relationship to childhood provide the ethical and political agenda that our times require for doing philosophy with children with integrity? Could a radical listening and openness to childhood—which has been an intrinsic confessional characteristic of P4C pedagogy from the beginning--sustain the movement through these dark times? Finally, the paper presents a set of articles written in response to these questions: What, if any, should the ethical commitments of the P4C facilitator be? Is political/ideological neutrality required of the P4C facilitator? Is political neutrality possible? What constitutes indoctrination in educational settings? Are children more vulnerable to indoctrination than adults, and if so, what are the implications of that fact for the practice of P4C? What are the uses of P4C in the dramatically polarized ideological landscape we currently inhabit? What, if any, are the ethical responsibilities of a teacher engaging in philosophical practice? Are the philosophical practitioner’s ethical responsibilities similar or different when the subjects are children or adults? Does every methodology have a “hidden curriculum”? If so, what is the hidden curriculum of P4C? What distinguishes dialogical from monological practice? May one have the appearance of the other? Is the “Socratic method” as we conceive it dialogical? What, if any, are the uses of irony in philosophical practice? Should Socrates be considered a model for P4C practitioners? (shrink)

No detailed description available for "Renaissance Philosophy: New Translations".

Consideration of the property of action is proposed to provide a more meaningful definition of efficient energy use and sustainable production in ecosystems. Action has physical dimensions similar to angular momentum, its magnitude varying with mass, spatial configuration and relative motion. In this article, the relationship of action to thermodynamic processes such as the spontaneous increase in entropy of the second law is explained and the utility of action for measuring changes in energy and material distribution is promoted. In particular, (...) the view that increases in entropy and action are equivalent to disorder is challenged. Given that the development of action states may be assigned an economic value and the various sources of free energy assigned a price, action theory may provide a novel mechanism for the economic allocation of resources. The importance of the diversity and redundancy of energy resources and work processes to optimize action is highlighted. (shrink)

This paper documents the growing awareness of the sexual exploitation of women who seek help from priests and ministers. Over the six years that MACSAS has been in existence, 100 women and three men have contacted the organisation concerning sexual abuse as adults by clergy and ministers. Typically leaders of Christian denominations to whom they have reported this abuse characterise it as 'an affair' and often blame women for seducing male clergy. Drawing from literature on the sexual abuse of clients (...) by professionals, this paper vigorously calls for clergy and ministers to be regarded as professionals and for women and men who seek the pastoral help of clergy to be viewed as clients. Concepts of 'vulnerability' and 'consent' are also explored in order to clarify the nature of clergy abuse. (shrink)

Placebos are much discussed in both the medical and philosophy of medicine literatures. Once narrowly defined as inert “sugar pills,”, they now are now most often taken to be “treatments that appear similar to experimental treatments, but that lack their characteristic components”. In addition to their use in the control groups of many clinical trials, placebos are also now widely recognized by medical practitioners to be powerful therapies in themselves, often outperforming conventional drug therapies in these studies.Given this, I find (...) Haller’s book, which is divided into six chapters, “Evidence Based Medicine,” “Postmodernist Medicine,” “The Powerful Placebo,” “Politics of... (shrink)

The combined tendency for positive self‐presentation and mimicry or social learning results in the capability of a population of simulated individuals to optimize their cognitive structures. A population of parallel constraint satisfaction networks was created, with globally and locally optimal activation patterns. Individuals started with random activations and interacted to find optimal vectors. Two social network topologies were tested, as well as two modes of interaction; results indicated that the ability to optimize activation vectors depends on the social network configuration (...) and whether individuals are influenced by their best neighbor or are attracted to a neighborhood centroid. Simulated individuals are able to find suitable patterns of belief or attitude with very little internal information processing, using social interaction. (shrink)

ABSTRACT: In this paper, I revisit arguments for and against various theses concerning higher-order knowledge in order to fully gauge their impact on the principles of positive and negative introspection. I argue that the expression “knowing that one knows” has at least two salient understandings: the more common one, labelled “transparentist”, validates the principle of positive introspection, while the other which is less common, labelled “agrippean”, supports some of the arguments against this principle.

A revision of George Kennedy's translation of, introdution to, and commentary on Aristotle's On Rhetoric. His translation is most accurate, his general introduction is the most thorough and insightful, and his brief introductions to sections of the work, along with his explanatory footnotes, are the most useful available.