This article examines the role of the aesthetic in the criticism of Edward Said through a reading of two lesser-explored texts, Musical Elaborations and On Late Style. It explores how, by drawing upon ideas from Gramsci and Adorno, Said advocates a convergence of social and aesthetic approaches to musical analysis and criticism. Although critical of some of the tensions arising from Said's varying perspectives on music and society, the article suggests that we can nonetheless detect a distinctive ideology of the (...) aesthetic in Said's writings on music. It argues that Said's ideas on the temporal or narrative structure of certain musical works or performances function, within his wider thinking, as an aesthetic paradigm for undermining fixed identity and linear or totalizing narratives. Thus Said's reflections on music do not simply retreat from social and political concerns, but rather elaborate a utopian thinking regarding the interface between criticism and the aesthetic. (shrink)

Unlike some other reproductions of classic texts (1) We have not used OCR(Optical Character Recognition), as this leads to bad quality books with introduced typos. (2) In books where there are images such as portraits, maps, sketches etc We have endeavoured to keep the quality of these images, so they represent accurately the original artefact. Although occasionally there may be certain imperfections with these old texts, we feel they deserve to be made available for future generations to enjoy.

The purpose of this article is to report what can be learned about nurses’ ethical conflicts by the systematic analysis of methodologically similar studies. Five studies were identified and analysed for: (1) the character of ethical conflicts experienced; (2) similarities and differences in how the conflicts were experienced and how they were resolved; and (3) ethical conflict themes underlying four specialty areas of nursing practice (diabetes education, paediatric nurse practitioner, rehabilitation and nephrology). The predominant character of the ethical conflicts was (...) disagreement with the quality of medical care given to patients. A significant number of ethical conflicts were experienced as ‘moral distress’, the resolution of which was variable, depending on the specialty area of practice. Ethical conflict themes underlying the specialty areas included: differences in the definition of adequacy of care among professionals, the institution and society; differences in the philosophical orientations of nurses, physicians and other health professionals involved in patient care; a lack of respect for the knowledge and expertise of nurses in specialty practice; and difficulty in carrying out the nurse’s advocacy role for patients. (shrink)

The history of maternal-fetal therapy is a complex and compelling one. It can be argued that the science and ethics underpinning this field evolved together, with emerging technology spurring on th...

Was Descartes a Cartesian Dualist? In this controversial study, Gordon Baker and Katherine J. Morris argue that, despite the general consensus within philosophy, Descartes was neither a proponent of dualism nor guilty of the many crimes of which he has been accused by twentieth century philosophers. In lively and engaging prose, Baker and Morris present a radical revision of the ways in which Descartes' work has been interpreted. Descartes emerges with both his historical importance assured and his philosophical importance (...) redeemed. (shrink)

The classic opening scene of 2001, A Space Odyssey shows an ape-man wreaking havoc with humanity's first invention--a bone used as a weapon to kill a rival. It's an image that fits well with popular notions of our species as inherently violent, with the idea that humans are--and always have been--warlike by nature. But as Douglas P. Fry convincingly argues in Beyond War , the facts show that our ancient ancestors were not innately warlike--and neither are we.

The American Society for Bioethics and Humanities has created a quality attestation process for clinical ethics consultants; the pilot phase of reviewing portfolios has begun. One aspect of the QA process which is particularly challenging is assessing the interpersonal skills of individual clinical ethics consultants. We propose that using case simulation to evaluate clinical ethics consultants is an approach that can meet this need provided clear standards for assessment are identified. To this end, we developed the Assessing Clinical Ethics Skills (...) tool, which identifies and specifies specific behaviors that a clinical ethics consultant should demonstrate in an ethics case simulation. The aim is for the clinical ethics consultant or student to use a videotaped case simulation, along with the ACES tool scored by a trained rater, to demonstrate their competence as part of their QA portfolio. The development and piloting of the tool is described. (shrink)

As the field of clinical ethics consultation sets standards and moves forward with the Quality Attestation process, questions should be raised about what ethical issues really do arise in practice. There is limited data on the type and number of ethics consultations conducted across different settings. At Loyola University Medical Center, we conducted a retrospective review of our ethics consultations from 2008 through 2013. One hundred fifty-six cases met the eligibility criteria. We analyzed demographic data on these patients and conducted (...) a content analysis of the ethics consultation write-ups coding both the frequency of ethical issues and most significant, or key, ethical issue per case. Patients for whom ethics consultation was requested were typically male, white, between 50 and 69 years old, of non-Hispanic origin, and of Roman Catholic faith. Nearly half were in the intensive care unit and 44.2 % died in the hospital. The most frequent broad ethical categories were decision-making, goals of care/treatment, and end-of-life. More specifically, capacity, patient’s wishes/autonomy, and surrogate decision maker were the most frequent particular ethical issues. The most common key ethical issues were withdrawing/withholding treatment, patient wishes/autonomy, and capacity. Our findings provide additional data to inform the training of clinical ethics consultants regarding the ethical issues that arise in practice. A wider research agenda should be formed to collect and compare data across institutions to improve education and training in our field. (shrink)

Every day nurses are required to make ethical decisions in the course of caring for their patients. Ethics in Nursing Practice provides the background necessary to understand ethical decision making and its implications for patient care. The authors focus on the individual nurse’s responsibilities, as well as considering the wider issues affecting patients, colleagues and society as a whole. This third edition is fully updated, and takes into account recent changes in ICN position statements, WHO documents, as well as addressing (...) current issues in healthcare, such as providing for the health and care needs of refugees and asylum seekers, bioethics and the enforcement of nursing codes. (shrink)

The purpose of this article is to describe the development of a model of moral distress in military nursing. The model evolved through an analysis of the moral distress and military nursing literature, and the analysis of interview data obtained from US Army Nurse Corps officers (n = 13). Stories of moral distress (n = 10) given by the interview participants identified the process of the moral distress experience among military nurses and the dimensions of the military nursing moral distress (...) phenomenon. Models of both the process of military nursing moral distress and the phenomenon itself are proposed. Recommendations are made for the use of the military nursing moral distress models in future research studies and in interventions to ameliorate the experience of moral distress in crisis military deployments. (shrink)

Several prominent debates in biology, such as those surrounding adaptationism, group selection, and punctuated equilibrium, have focused on disagreements about the relative importance of a cause in producing a phenomenon of interest. Some philosophers, such as John Beatty have expressed scepticism about the scientific value of engaging in these controversies, and Karen Kovaka has suggested that their value might be limited. In this paper, I challenge that scepticism by giving a novel analysis of relative significance controversies, showing that there are (...) three forms they can take. I argue that these controversies can have significant epistemic upshots, in that they help scientists form predictions about new instances of the phenomenon of interest. Finally, using two historical examples, I show how engaging in these controversies can improve our understanding of causal relationships. (shrink)

Librarians often object to Internet filters on the grounds that filters are prone to overblocking and underblocking. This argument implies that a significant problem with contemporary filters is that they are insufficiently fine-grained. In this article, we posit that present-day filters will always be conceptually capable of failure, regardless of how granular their content analysis becomes. This is because, we argue, objections to content are best understood as objections to problematic interactions between content and particular knowers. We import the concept (...) of the situated knower from feminist epistemology to capture the heterogeneous, socially embedded nature of patrons, about whom we cannot make blunt generalizations for filtering purposes. A successful filter would need information about these differently situated patrons, the content they seek, and the interactions between the two. We conclude that a genuinely successful Internet filter would therefore need to be both mind reading and fortune-telling. (shrink)

Objective: Compassion has been associated with eudaimonia and prosocial behavior, and has been regarded as a virtue, both historically and cross-culturally. However, the psychological study of compassion has been limited to laboratory settings and/or standard survey assessments. Here, we use an experience sampling method (ESM) to compare naturalistic assessments of compassion with standard assessments, and to examine compassion, its variability, and associations with eudaimonia and prosocial behavior. -/- Methods: Participants took a survey which included standard assessments of compassion and eudaimonia. (...) Then, over four days, they were repeatedly asked about their level of compassion, eudaimonia, and situational factors within the moments of daily life. Finally, prosocial behavior was tested using the Dual Gamble Task and an opportunity to donate task winnings. -/- Results: Analyses revealed within-person associations between ESM compassion and eudaimonia. ESM compassion also predicted eudaimonia at the next ESM time point. While not impervious to situational factors, considerable consistency was observed in ESM compassion in comparison with eudaimonia. Further, ESM compassion along with eudaimonia predicted donating behavior. Standard assessments did not. -/- Conclusion: Consistent with virtue theory, some individual’s reports displayed a probabilistic tendency toward compassion, and ESM compassion predicted ESM eudaimonia and prosocial behavior toward those in need. (shrink)

European Journal of Philosophy, Volume 29, Issue 4, Page 712-730, December 2021.

A longstanding philosophical premise perceives simplicity as a desirable attribute of scientific theories. One of several raised justifications for this notion is that simple theories are more likely to indicate the true makeup of natural systems. Qualitatively parsimonious hypotheses and theories keep to a minimum the number of different postulated entities within a system. Formulation of such ontologically simple working hypotheses proved to be useful in the experimental probing of narrowly defined bio systems. It is less certain, however, whether qualitatively (...) parsimonious theories are effective indicators of the true nature of complex biological systems. This paper assesses the success of ontologically simple theories in envisaging the makeup of three complex systems in bacteriology, immunology, and molecular biology. Evidence shows that parsimonious theories completely misconstrued the actual ontologically complex constitutions of the three examined systems. Since evolution and selective pressures typically produce ontologically intricate rather than simple bio systems, qualitatively parsimonious theories are mostly inapt indicators of the true nature of complex biological systems. (shrink)

The development of nursing ethics as a field of inquiry has largely relied on theories of medical ethics that use autonomy, beneficence, and/or justice as foundational ethical principles. Such theories espouse a masculine approach to moral decision-making and ethical analysis. This paper challenges the presumption of medical ethics and its associated system of moral justification as an appropriate model for nursing ethics. It argues that the value foundations of nursing ethics are located within the existential phenomenon of human caring within (...) the nurse/patient relationship instead of in models of patient good or rights-based notions of autonomy as articulated in prominent theories of medical ethics. Models of caring are analyzed and a moral-point-of-view (MPV) theory with caring as a fundamental value is proposed for the development of a theory of nursing ethics. This type of theory is supportive to feminist medical ethics because it focuses on the subscription to, and not merely the acceptance of, a particular view of morality. (shrink)

Background and AimsEnd-of-life discussions can be difficult for seriously ill adolescents and young adults. Researchers aimed to determine whether completing Voicing My CHOiCES —a research-informed advance care planning guide—increased communication with family, friends, or health care providers, and to evaluate the experience of those with whom VMC was shared.MethodsFamily, friends, or HCPs who the AYAs had shared their completed VMC with were administered structured interviews to assess their perception of the ACP discussion, changes in their relationship, conversation quality, and whether (...) the discussion prompted changes in care. Open-ended responses underwent thematic analysis.ResultsOne-month post-completion, 65.1% of AYA had shared VMC completion with a family member, 22.6% with a friend, and 8.9% with an HCP. Among a sample of respondents, family and friends reported a positive change in their relationship with the AYA. Participant descriptions of the experience fell into five themes: positive experience, difficult experience, appreciated a guide to facilitate discussion, provided relief, and created worry/anxiety. Only 1 HCP noted a treatment change. Family, friends, and HCP did not think the AYA would have discussed EoL preferences without completing VMC.ConclusionsVMC has potential to enhance communication about ACP between AYA and their family and friends, though less frequently with HCPs. Participants reported a positive change in their relationship with the AYA after discussing VMC, and described experiencing the conversation as favorable, even when also emotionally difficult. (shrink)

'Compreeder Hannah Arendt' oferece uma introdução sucinta a esta pensadora. O Livro examina temas de sua obra, bem como as controvérsias em torno dela. Karin Fry explora o pensamento político de Arendt que emergiu em respostas às controvérsias políticas de seu tempo e descreve como ela buscou visualizar um esquema coerente para pensar a política de modo novo.

There is no topic that attracts more attention, more energy and time and devotion, than love. As long as there's been recorded history, love has taken center seat as the inspiration for countless paintings, instigator of wars, muse of untold poets and musicians. And just as poetry, art and music have the ability to communicate something about love that is difficult to articulate with words, the same is true of mathematics. Of course, mathematics can't easily help us translate the emotional (...) side of love, emotions rarely behave in a neatly ordered, rational and easily predictable way. It is difficult to quantify the rollercoaster of romance or to define how lovers might feel via a set of simple equations. But that doesn't mean that mathematics isn't crucial to understanding love. Love, like most things in life, is full of patterns. And mathematics is ultimately the study of patterns, from predicting the weather to the fluctuations of the stock market, the movement of planets or the growth of cities. These patterns twist and turn and warp and evolve just as the rituals of love do. In [this book, the author] takes the listener on a fascinating journey through the patterns that define our love lives, tackling some of the most common yet complex questions pertaining to love: What's the chance of us finding love? What's the chance that it will last? How does online dating work, exactly? When should you settle down? How can you avoid divorce? When is it right to compromise? Can game theory help us decide whether or not to call? From evaluating the best strategies for online dating to defining the nebulous concept of beauty, Dr. Fry proves, with great insight, wit and fun, that math is a surprisingly useful tool to negotiate the complicated, often baffling, sometimes infuriating, always interesting, patterns of love. (shrink)

William Empson: Prophet Against Sacrifice provides the most coherent account of Empson's diverse career to date. While exploring the richness of Empson's comic genius, Paul H. Fry serves to discredit the appropriation of his name in recent polemic by the conflicting parties of deconstruction and politicized cultural criticism. He argues that Empson is a larger, more important figure than the orthodox in either camp can acknowledge, deserving to be considered alongside such versatile critics as Walter Benjamin, Kenneth Burke and Roland (...) Barthes. (shrink)

_William Empson: Prophet Against Sacrifice_ provides the most coherent account of Empson's diverse career to date. While exploring the richness of Empson's comic genius, Paul H. Fry serves to discredit the appropriation of his name in recent polemic by the conflicting parties of deconstruction and politicized cultural criticism. He argues that Empson is a larger, more important figure than the orthodox in either camp can acknowledge, deserving to be considered alongside such versatile critics as Walter Benjamin, Kenneth Burke and Roland (...) Barthes. (shrink)

_William Empson: Prophet Against Sacrifice_ provides the most coherent account of Empson's diverse career to date. While exploring the richness of Empson's comic genius, Paul H. Fry serves to discredit the appropriation of his name in recent polemic by the conflicting parties of deconstruction and politicized cultural criticism. He argues that Empson is a larger, more important figure than the orthodox in either camp can acknowledge, deserving to be considered alongside such versatile critics as Walter Benjamin, Kenneth Burke and Roland (...) Barthes. (shrink)

The field of clinical ethics consultation has matured into a multidisciplinary profession, with clinical ethics consultants (CECs) being trained in bioethics, philosophy, theology, law, medicine, n...

Ciudad Cayalá in Guatemala brands itself as the country’s first private city. I turn to Hannah Arendt to show how and why Cayalá does not and cannot provide the space of appearance she argues is needed to support the possibility of political action. I show how Arendt provides two apparently distinct phenomenological accounts in The Human Condition—one historically-oriented and the other politically-oriented—that articulate how Cayalá fails in its aspiration to privatize the political. Yet the apparent divergence between her accounts raises (...) concern about her relevance for liberatory feminist projects. To demonstrate how and why Arendt’s political phenomenology is aligned with certain feminist aims, I also generate a Cayaláian reading of Arendt to demonstrate the coherence of her two phenomenological accounts through interpreting her thinking by way of Cayalá’s architecture. This article enacts a dialogue between Arendt and Cayalá, mediated by feminist and architectural theory, concerning why efforts toward the privatization of cities will fail. (shrink)

This book presents the concept of ‘unstaging’ war as a strategic response to the failure of the discourse and institutions of peace. This failure is explained by exploring the changing character of conflict in current and emergent global circumstances, such as asymmetrical conflicts, insurgencies, and terrorism. Fry argues that this pluralisation of war has broken the binary relation between war and peace: conflict is no longer self-evident, and consequentially the changes in the conditions, nature, systems, philosophies and technologies of war (...) must be addressed. Through a deep understanding of contemporary war, Fry explains why peace fails as both idea and process, before presenting ‘Unstaging War’ as a concept and nascent practice that acknowledges conflict as structurally present, and so is not able to be dealt with by attempts to create peace. Against a backdrop of increasingly tense relations between global power blocs, the beginnings of a new nuclear arms race, and the ever-increasing human and environmental impacts of climate change, a more viable alternative to war is urgently needed. Unstaging War is not claimed as a solution, but rather as an exploration of critical problems and an opening into the means of engaging with them. (shrink)

Observational and experimental discoveries of new factual entities such as objects, systems, or processes, are major contributors to some advances in the life sciences. Yet, whereas discovery of theories was extensively deliberated by philosophers of science, very little philosophical attention was paid to the discovery of factual entities. This paper examines historical and philosophical aspects of the experimental discovery by Carl Woese of archaea, prokaryotes that comprise one of the three principal domains of the phylogenetic tree. Borrowing Kuhn’s terminology, this (...) discovery of a major biological entity was made during a ‘normal science’ project of building molecular taxonomy for prokaryotes. Unexpectedly, however, an observed anomaly instigated the discovery of archaea. Substantiation of the existence of the new archaeal entity and consequent reconstruction of the phylogenetic tree prompted replacement of a long-held model of a prokarya and eukarya bipartite tree of life by a new model of a tripartite tree comprising of bacteria, archaea, and eukarya. This paper explores the history and philosophical implications of the progression of Woese’s project from normal science to anomaly-instigated model-changing discovery. It is also shown that the consequential discoveries of RNA splicing and of ribozymes were similarly prompted by unexpected irregularities during normal science activities. It is thus submitted that some discoveries of factual biological entities are triggered by unforeseen observational or experimental anomalies. (shrink)

In this paper, I answer the question,how do we collaborate well with others?I first look at cases of good collaboration, contrasting them briefly with some cases of poor collaboration; I then describe the similarities between the good cases, such as shared aims, shared planning of projects, shared norms among collaborators. The conclusion is that collaborating well involves shared norms, derived both from societal norms and from a well‐ordered relationship between participants; a shared vision derived from shared knowledge and open communication (...) grounded in relationship; and open‐mindedness and thoughtful disagreement, which depend on mutual respect and trust between participants. (shrink)

Volume 20, Issue 3, March 2020, Page 27-29.

Philosophers of science diverge on the question what drives the growth of scientific knowledge. Most of the twentieth century was dominated by the notion that theories propel that growth whereas experiments play secondary roles of operating within the theoretical framework or testing theoretical predictions. New experimentalism, a school of thought pioneered by Ian Hacking in the early 1980s, challenged this view by arguing that theory-free exploratory experimentation may in many cases effectively probe nature and potentially spawn higher evidence-based theories. Because (...) theories are often powerless to envisage workings of complex biological systems, theory-independent experimentation is common in the life sciences. Some such experiments are triggered by compelling observation, others are prompted by innovative techniques or instruments, whereas different investigations query big data to identify regularities and underlying organizing principles. A distinct fourth type of experiments is motivated by a major question. Here I describe two question-guided experimental discoveries in biochemistry: the cyclic adenosine monophosphate mediator of hormone action and the ubiquitin-mediated system of protein degradation. Lacking underlying theories, antecedent data bases, or new techniques, the sole guides of the two discoveries were respective substantial questions. Both research projects were similarly instigated by theory-free exploratory experimentation and continued in alternating phases of results-based interim working hypotheses, their examination by experiment, provisional hypotheses again, and so on. These two cases designate theory-free, question-guided, stepwise biochemical investigations as a distinct subtype of the new experimentalism mode of scientific enquiry. (shrink)

The aim of this essay is to contribute to the development of a paradigmatic shift in how design is understood, transformed and practiced in the Global South. It does this by establishing the case for building a strong contextual relation between design, colonialism, and the mobilised counter-agency of decoloniality. Thereafter, design for/by the Global South is presented within a critical epistemological reframing subordinate to a situated imperative of the ‘Sustainment’.

Ethics education is recognized as an integral component of health professionals’ education and has been occurring in various guises in the curricula of health professional training in many countries since at least the 1970s. However, there are a number of different aims and approaches adopted by individual educators, programs, and, importantly, different health professions that may be characterized according to strands or trends in ethics education.

Volume 19, Issue 11, November 2019, Page 69-70.

s the 'telling' of defuturing, this text arrives as something confronting n impossibility and a necessity. What is impossible is the telling of the story, ...

Agriculture is a serious contributor to pollution and other environmental harms, making it an important site of action for the development of environmentally friendly products and practices. However, farmer adoption of such options is varied and dependent on a wide range of factors including the visual appeal of sustainable farming. Recent studies have shown that negative aesthetics related to more environmentally friendly ways of farming can delay or prevent adoption of such practices. Drawing on the concepts of good farming, cultural (...) capital, and the aesthetics of waste, this paper aims to assess the status of biodegradable plastic mulch in relation to a range of alternative and conventional specialty crop growers’ aesthetic perceptions. BDM has the potential to significantly reduce non-biodegradable polyethylene mulch waste, thus addressing serious environmental and human health concerns. However, the aesthetics of BDM may present a challenge. BDM looks identical to PE plastic, and its degradation throughout the season results in scraps in the soil. To investigate aesthetics as a possible barrier to BDM adoption, we conducted five photo-elicitation focus groups with specialty crop growers in Washington State. Results indicate that alternative growers are slightly more adverse to the aesthetics of BDM, especially because of its ‘plastic’ appearance. Conventional growers had higher rates of BDM adoption, even though they felt a strong aesthetic aversion to the messy nature of BDM degradation. Confidence in the product, particularly as a result of education and experience, was believed to be the key to overcoming this negative aesthetic. Study participants offered a variety of ways to enhance the acceptability of BDM, such as making the mulch brown instead of black. These findings have wider implications for the acceptance and adoption of practices that, although environmentally friendly, have an unattractive visual element. (shrink)

We describe a novel affect-inspired mechanism to improve the performance of computational systems operating in dynamic environments. In particular, we designed a mechanism that is based on aspects of the fear response in humans to dynamically reallocate operating system-level central processing unit (CPU) resources to processes as they are needed to deal with time-critical events. We evaluated this system in the MINIX® and Linux® operating systems and in three different testing environments (two simulated, one live). We found the affect-based system (...) was not only able to react more rapidly to time-critical events as intended, but since the dynamic processes for handling these events did not need to use significant CPU when they were not in time-critical situations, our simulated unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) was able to perform even non-emergency tasks at a higher level of efficiency and reactivity than was possible in the standard implementation. (shrink)