Canada has followed the pattern of Benelux nations by legislating sufferingSuffering as the pivotal eligibilityEligibilitycriterionCriterion for euthanasiaEuthanasia/assisted death without requiring terminal prognosis as is needed in most permissive jurisdictions. This chapter will explore the relationship between sufferingSuffering and Medical Assistance in Dying (MAID) and the ways in which sufferingSuffering is understood in the Supreme Court of Canada, the federal Criminal Code legislation and by health care assessors. Based on this analysis, we will argue that the resulting sufferingSufferingeligibilityEligibilitycriterionCriterion leaves the law (...) open to unintended forms of interpretation, thus instituting perhaps the most unbounded and risk-prone form of assisted death in the world. A review of the literature on sufferingSuffering, the wish to dieWish to die, and reasons for MAIDReasons for MAID requests found sufferingSuffering of severe illness to be frequently associated with unstable mental health, social, and existentialExistential variables that are often amenable to therapy or remediation. While sufferingSuffering remains a powerful motivating force to seek opportunities to relieve distress, its use as an eligibilityEligibilitycriterionCriterion for MAID has significant ambiguity in its’ characterization of ‘enduring’ and ‘irremediable’ and thus fails to protect against abuse for the vulnerable. (shrink)

The dominant unspoken philosophical basis of medical care in the United States is a form of Cartesian reductionism that views the body as a machine and medical professionals as technicians whose job is to repair that machine. The purpose of this paper is to advocate for an alternative philosophy of medicine based on the concept of healing relationships between clinicians and patients. This is accomplished first by exploring the ethical and philosophical work of Pellegrino and Thomasma and then by connecting (...) Martin Buber's philosophical work on the nature of relationships to an empirically derived model of the medical healing relationship. The Healing Relationship Model was developed by the authors through qualitative analysis of interviews of physicians and patients. Clinician-patient healing relationships are a special form of what Buber calls I-Thou relationships, characterized by dialog and mutuality, but a mutuality limited by the inherent asymmetry of the clinician-patient relationship. The Healing Relationship Model identifies three processes necessary for such relationships to develop and be sustained: Valuing, Appreciating Power and Abiding. We explore in detail how these processes, as well as other components of the model resonate with Buber's concepts of I-Thou and I-It relationships. The resulting combined conceptual model illuminates the wholeness underlying the dual roles of clinicians as healers and providers of technical biomedicine. On the basis of our analysis, we argue that health care should be focused on healing, with I-Thou relationships at its core. (shrink)

Individualist and communitarian. Anarchist and totalitarian. Classicist and romanticist. Progressive and reactionary. Since the eighteenth century, Jean-Jacques Rousseau has been said to be all of these things. Few philosophers have been the subject of as much or as intense debate, yet almost everyone agrees that Rousseau is among the most important and influential thinkers in the history of political philosophy. This new edition of his major political writings, published in the year of the three-hundredth anniversary of his birth, renews attention (...) to the perennial importance of Rousseau’s work. The book brings together superb new translations by renowned Rousseau scholar John T. Scott of three of Rousseau’s works: the _Discourse on the Sciences and Arts,_ the _Discourse on the Origin and Foundations of Inequality Among Men, _and _On the Social Contract. _The two _Discourses_ show Rousseau developing his well-known conception of the natural goodness of man and the problems posed by life in society. With the _Social Contract, _Rousseau became the first major thinker to argue that democracy is the only legitimate form of political organization. Scott’s extensive introduction enhances our understanding of these foundational writings, providing background information, social and historical context, and guidance for interpreting the works. Throughout, translation and editorial notes clarify ideas and terms that might not be immediately familiar to most readers. The three works collected in _The Major Political Writings of Jean-Jacques Rousseau_ represent an important contribution to eighteenth-century political theory that has exerted an extensive influence on generations of thinkers, beginning with the leaders of the French Revolution and continuing to the present day. The new translations on offer here will be welcomed by a wide readership of both Rousseau scholars and readers with a general interest in political thought. (shrink)

This volume explores the principle trends and lines of division within comtemporary sociology, presenting arguments about the relative merits of the positions covered.

This book, written by leading authors in the field, takes a completely new approach to objectivity and subjectivity, no longer treating them as opposed - as many existing texts do - but as logically and methodologically related in social research. The authors explain complex arguments with great clarity for social science students, while also providing the detail and comprehensiveness required to meet the needs of practicing researchers and scholars.

Individualist and communitarian. Anarchist and totalitarian. Classicist and romanticist. Progressive and reactionary. Since the eighteenth century, Jean-Jacques Rousseau has been said to be all of these things. Few philosophers have been the subject of as much or as intense debate, yet almost everyone agrees that Rousseau is among the most important and influential thinkers in the history of political philosophy. This new edition of his major political writings, published in the year of the three-hundredth anniversary of his birth, renews attention (...) to the perennial importance of Rousseau’s work. The book brings together superb new translations by renowned Rousseau scholar John T. Scott of three of Rousseau’s works: the _Discourse on the Sciences and Arts,_ the _Discourse on the Origin and Foundations of Inequality Among Men, _and _On the Social Contract. _The two _Discourses_ show Rousseau developing his well-known conception of the natural goodness of man and the problems posed by life in society. With the _Social Contract, _Rousseau became the first major thinker to argue that democracy is the only legitimate form of political organization. Scott’s extensive introduction enhances our understanding of these foundational writings, providing background information, social and historical context, and guidance for interpreting the works. Throughout, translation and editorial notes clarify ideas and terms that might not be immediately familiar to most readers. The three works collected in _The Major Political Writings of Jean-Jacques Rousseau_ represent an important contribution to eighteenth-century political theory that has exerted an extensive influence on generations of thinkers, beginning with the leaders of the French Revolution and continuing to the present day. The new translations on offer here will be welcomed by a wide readership of both Rousseau scholars and readers with a general interest in political thought. (shrink)

Rousseau coined the term perfectibilité to name what he claimed was the faculty that distinguished human beings from other animals. Although Rousseau himself largely associated perfectibility with the tendency of the human race to become corrupt, later thinkers adopted his term but then transformed it into a concept denoting the human capacity for progress. This article has two goals. The first goal is to analyse Rousseau’s discussion of perfectibilité in order to identify a specifically Rousseauean of perfectibilité. I identify three (...) related features of Rousseau’s perfectibilité: the ambiguous status of both instinct and freedom, the unique malleability of human nature, and the fact that perfectibilité operates on both the levels of the individual and the species. The second goal is to examine the transformation of this specifically Rousseauean conception in the thought of one of the thinker largely responsible for giving it a very different direction, Condorcet. (shrink)

The contributors to this volume address global, regional, and local landscapes, cosmopolitan and indigenous cultures, and human and more-than-human ecology as they work to reveal place-specific tensional dynamics. This unusual book, which covers a wide-ranging array of topics, coheres into a work that will be a valuable reference for scholars of geography and the philosophy of place.

A unique contribution to discussions of social theory, this book counters the argument that no social theory was ever produced in Britain before the late twentieth century. Reviewing a period of 300 years from the seventeenth century to the mid-twentieth century, it sets out a number of innovative strands in theory that culminated in powerful contributions in the classical period of sociology. The book discusses how these traditions of theory were lost and forgotten and sets out why they are important (...) today. (shrink)

The study of landscape and place has become an increasingly fertile realm of inquiry in the humanities and social sciences. In this new book of essays, selected from presentations at the first annual meeting of the Society for Philosophy and Geography, scholars investigate the experiences and meanings that inscribe urban and suburban landscapes. Gary Backhaus and John Murungi bring philosophy and geography into a dialogue with a host of other disciplines to explore a fundamental dialectic: while our collective and personal (...) activity modifies the landscape, in turn, the landscape modifies human identities, and social and environmental relations. Whether proposing a peripatetic politics, conducting a sociological analysis of building security systems, or critically examining the formation of New York City's municipal parks, each essay sheds distinctive light on this fascinating and engaging aspect of contemporary environmental studies. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:The Harmony Between Rousseau’s Musical Theory and his PhilosophyJohn T. ScottRousseau is best known as the author of philosophic works, but he was a musician and musical theorist before he burst onto the European literary scene with his First Discourse. While he earned celebrity as an anti-philosophical philosopher, he continued to consider music as his primary vocation and avocation throughout his life. Rousseau testifies to the harmony between his (...) musical work and his philosophy in his Dialogues, where he explains that his musical writings and compositions are animated by the same feelings and ideas as all of his works—that they too are based on the principle of his “system” that “man is good although men are wicked.” 1 His mature musical theory not only incorporates his philosophy of human nature and development but also extends it through an examination of the role of the passions in human communication. Rousseau’s musical theory is an important, yet often overlooked, facet of his philosophy.The relationship between Rousseau’s musical theory and his philosophy as a whole has seldom been extensively analyzed. 2 His only widely known writing relating to music is the Essay on the Origin of Languages, but even that work has in general not received a full accounting because it has rarely been interpreted in light of his other musical writings. The Essay emerged out of both the Second Discourse and the contemporaneous musical polemics of the mid-1750s. The simultaneous elaboration of his “system” and his continued work on music was the context in which Rousseau’s mature musical theory developed. After an account of Rousseau’s pre-systematic musical writings and [End Page 287] a discussion of the development of his musical theory, I will turn to an examination of the Essay. Finally, I will conclude by discussing Rousseau’s novel aesthetic theory and its impact.Rousseau’s Presystematic Musical Writings“Jean-Jacques was born for music.” 3 Rousseau’s musical writings might be characterized as his attempt to account for his native love for music. In his Confessions he speaks of “the taste or rather passion for music” that he had almost from birth and says that it was while in Italy, after running away from Geneva at age sixteen, that his passion began to declare itself. 4 Rousseau increasingly indulged his love for music over the next several years, although six months in a choir school at about the age of seventeen was almost the only formal musical instruction he received. He acquired and painstakingly mastered Rameau’s Treatise on Harmony, and studied informally with a young organist with Italian training, recalling how he compared his friend’s “principles” to those of “my Rameau.” 5 At least in retrospect, then, Rousseau noted the contrast between French and Italian music that would later bring him into conflict with his youthful hero.Rousseau soon took up the profession of a music teacher and copyist, a trade to which he would return after abandoning philosophy. Copying music acquainted him with the difficulty of the ordinary visual system of notating music, and he therefore devised a numerical system. It was with his system of notation and a play, Narcisse, that Rousseau set out for Paris in 1741. He gained an audience for his “Plan Regarding New Signs for Music” (1742) at the Academy of Sciences, and while it was favorably received, the report of a select committee concluded that his system was not entirely new and was less practical in most respects than the ordinary system. 6 Rousseau was nonetheless convinced of his system’s utility and published it as the Dissertation on Modern Music (1743). This work contains a digression on musical expression where he explains that we are not “touched” by sounds themselves but by the harmonic relationships they have among them. He sends his reader to Rameau’s writings, where the source of musical expression is “sufficiently explained.” 7 In his mature musical writings Rousseau expounds a theory explicitly opposed to Rameau’s theory of musical expression.Several incidents in the next decade before the discovery of his “system” seem to have contributed to Rousseau’s subsequent break with Rameau. [End... (shrink)

This is the first critical edition of the most important political text by William of Ockham, a significant and influential fourteenth century British philosopher.

Ecrasez l'infâme! Voltaire's rallying cry against fanaticism resonates with new force today. Nothing suggests the complex legacy of the Enlightenment more than the struggle of superstition, prejudice, and intolerance advocated by most of the Enlightenment philosophers, regardless of their ideological differences. The aim of this book is to undertake a reconsideration of the controversies surrounding the questions of religion, toleration, and fanaticism in the eighteenth century through an examination of Rousseau's dialogue with Voltaire. What come to light from this confrontation (...) are two leading and at times competing world views and conceptions of the place of the engaged writer in society. (shrink)

This comprehensive and authoritative statement of fundamental principles of sociological analysis integrates approaches that are often seen as mutually exclusive. John Scott argues that theorising in sociology and other social sciences is characterised by the application of eight key principles of sociological analysis: culture, nature, system, structure, action, space-time, mind and development. He considers the principal contributions to the study of each of these dimensions in their historical sequence in order to bring out the cumulative character of knowledge. Showing that (...) the various principles can be combined in a single disciplinary framework, Scott argues that sociologists can work most productively within an intellectual division of labour that transcends artificial theoretical and disciplinary differences. Sociology provides the central ideas for conceptualising the social, but it must co-exist productively with other social science disciplines and disciplinary areas. (shrink)

Bergk in his Griechische Litertur geschichte, Vol. I., pp. 708, 709, 710, 715, and elsewhere, rejected all verses in the Odyssey where reference is made to Eurynome, a servant or attendant in the palace of Odysseus. His comments on p. 715 concerning the first verses of the twentieth book are typical: ‘Right at the beginning of this book the appearance of Eurynome shows the activity of the imitator. This very passage proves beyond a doubt that Eurynome had no part in (...) the original poem, and that a later bard arbitrarily used her name instead of the name of Eurycleia, who was the true female attendant in the old form of the Odyssey.’. (shrink)

"We are all confronted, at one time or another, with choices as to what sort of life we will lead." So Tzvetan Todorov begins _Frail Happiness_, an important interpretation of Rousseau, one suffused with Todorov’s own moral seriousness and intellectual depth. While ranging widely through Rousseau’s corpus with skill and scholarly authority Todorov returns, again and again, to the fragile yet persistent hope for human happiness.

"We are all confronted, at one time or another, with choices as to what sort of life we will lead." So Tzvetan Todorov begins _Frail Happiness_, an important interpretation of Rousseau, one suffused with Todorov’s own moral seriousness and intellectual depth. While ranging widely through Rousseau’s corpus with skill and scholarly authority Todorov returns, again and again, to the fragile yet persistent hope for human happiness.

Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778) was a pivotal thinker in the history of political philosophy. Making major contributions in a variety of areas, he brought his political theory to bear on subjects such as the novel, music, education, and autobiography, amongst others. Bringing together and reprinting the vital scholarly papers on the broad range of Rousseau's thought, with a particular emphasis on his political theory, this collection includes translations of a number of influential interpretations of his work that were not previously available (...) in English and were prepared especially for this set, such as those of Lanson, de Jouvenal, Weil, Wahl, and Baczko. Organized thematically, and including an initial new introduction by the editor, as well as brief introductions to each individual volume, this systematic collection is undoubtedly an essential resource for a wide variety of students and scholars. (shrink)

Fifty Key Sociologists: The Contemporary Theorists covers the life, work, ideas and impact of some of the most important thinkers in this discipline. Concentrating on figures writing predominantly in the second half of the twentieth century, such as Zygmunt Bauman, Pierre Bourdieu, Judith Butler, Michel Foucault and Claude Le;vi-Strauss, each entry includes: · full cross-referencing · a further reading section · biographical data · key works and ideas · critical assessment. Clearly presented in an easy-to-navigate A-Z format, this accessible reference (...) guide is ideal for undergraduate and postgraduate students of sociology, cultural studies and general studies, as well as other readers interested in this fascinating field. (shrink)