What exactly do we need to do in order to make a promise, or to exercise some other normative power? On a view relied on by many philosophers writing on promising, consent, and related phenomena, the answer is that we must communicate a suitable kind of intention. On this view, power-conferring principles assert that specific normative consequences, determined in part by the content of the communicated intention, attach to such communicative acts, and these principles need not be socially practised or (...) accepted to be true. The paper offers a defense of this convention-independent view against the forceful challenge developed by Jed Lewinsohn in ‘The “Natural Unintelligibility” of Normative Powers’. Lewinsohn appeals to action-theoretic considerations to show that the relevant type of communicative act could not be performed under conditions of rationality and full information, and that therefore promissory power and other normative powers require the existence of social rules conferring such powers. The defense of the view targeted by Lewinsohn turns partly on the exact content of plausible constraints on the intelligibility of actions done with a particular aim, and partly on the question just how the social acceptance of power-conferring rules should be thought to matter. (shrink)

A philosopher argues that state-sponsored cyberattacks against central military or civilian targets are always acts of war. What is this philosopher doing? According to conceptual analysts, the philosopher is making a claim about our concept of war. According to philosophical realists, the philosopher is making a claim about war per se. In a quickly developing literature, a third option is being explored: the philosopher is engineering the concept of war. On this view, the philosopher is making a proposal about which (...) concept we should have – even if it deviates from the extant concept, and even if it does not capture ‘what war really is’. The activity or method of proposing such revisionary definitions, as well as the metaphilosophical reflection on it, has become known as conceptual engineering. (shrink)

Conceptual engineers aim to revise rather than describe our concepts. But what are concepts? And how does one engineer them? Answering these questions is of central importance for implementing and theorizing about conceptual engineering. This paper discusses and criticizes two influential views of this issue: semanticism, according to which conceptual engineers aim to change linguistic meanings, and psychologism, according to which conceptual engineers aim to change psychological structures. I argue that neither of these accounts can give us the full story. (...) Instead, I propose and defend the Dual Content View of Conceptual Engineering. On this view, conceptual engineering targets concepts, where concepts are understood as having two kinds of contents: referential content and cognitive content. I show that this view is independently plausible and that it gives us a comprehensive account of conceptual engineering that helps to make progress on some of the most difficult problems surrounding conceptual engineering. (shrink)

Carl Henrik Koch har i denne bog samlet en række af sine artikler om fremtrædende danske filosoffer. Med start ved Holberg i 1700-tallet arbejder Koch sig op gennem den danske filosofihistorie og strejfer blandt andre Eilchov, Sibbern, A.P. Adler, Brøchner og naturligvis mastodonterne Søren Kierkegaard og Georg Brandes. Bogen giver en hurtig, men spændende indførsel i en vigtig del af den danske kulturhistorie, som gennem de sidste 250 år har haft stor indflydelse både herhjemme og i udlandet.

A psychiatrist who has received international recognition for her research on the neural basis of primate social cognition, Leslie Brothers, M.D., offers here a major argument about the social dimension of the human brain, drawing on both her own work and a wealth of information from research laboratories, neurosurgical clinics, and psychiatric wards. Brothers offers the tale of Robinson Crusoe as a metaphor for neuroscience's classic notion of the brain: a starkly isolated figure, working, praying, writing alone. But (...) the famous castaway of literature, she notes, came from society and returned to society. So too with our brains: they have evolved a specialized capacity for exchanging signals with other brains--they are designed to be social. This can be seen in the brain's sensitive attunement to the meanings of facial expressions and physical gestures and the way it assigns mental lives to physical bodies--a feat we too often take for granted. Brothers describes fascinating case studies that show that certain kinds of brain damage can destroy a patient's ability to interpret faces, leaving him or her with the sense that they are surrounded by zombies. She takes us down to the level of the individual neuron, exploring the response of brain cells to social events. Perhaps most important, she connects neuroscience, psychiatry, and sociology as never before, showing how our daily interaction creates an organized social world--a network of brains that generates meaningful behavior and thought. Our emotions and our sense of self have no existence outside of a social context. Brothers conducts her argument with grace and style. By broadening our approach to the brain, this groundbreaking book makes an important contribution to our understanding of the human mind. (shrink)

This paper discusses the logical space of alternative conceptual engineering projects, with a specific focus on (1) the processes, (2) the targets and goals, and (3) the methods of such projects. We present an overview of how these three aspects interact in the contemporary literature and discuss those alternative projects that have yet to be explored based on our suggested typology. We show how choices about each element in a conceptual engineering project constrain the possibilities for the others, thereby giving (...) rise to distinct groupings of possible projects under the banner of conceptual engineering. We conclude with a critical reflection on the potential ethical issues that arise as a result of effectively putting conceptual engineering into practice. (shrink)

This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work was reproduced from the original artifact, and remains as true to the original work as possible. Therefore, you will see the original copyright references, library stamps (as most of these works have been housed in our most important libraries around the world), and other notations in the work. This work is in the public domain (...) in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. As a reproduction of a historical artifact, this work may contain missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant. (shrink)

The world of disability theory is currently divided between those who insist it reflects a physical fact affecting life quality and those who believe disability is defined by social prejudice. Despite a dialogue spanning bioethical, medical and social scientific literatures the differences between opposing views remains persistent. The result is similar to a figure-ground paradox in which one can see only part of a picture at any moment. This paper attempts to find areas of commonality between the opposing camps, and (...) thus to rearrange the figures of the paradox at a fundamental level. The purpose is first to identify areas in which common ground can be achieved, and secondarily, to clarify the areas in which disagreement continues. While a general and unified theory of physical difference/disability is beyond the scope of this paper the result may advance that general goal. (shrink)

Résumé Les affinités paradoxales que la recherche a pu pointer entre la « secte » philosophique épicurienne et la secte chrétienne dans les premiers siècles de notre ère sont rappelées puis examinées dans le détail du premier document attestant une rencontre précise entre les deux sectes, le récit des Actes des Apôtres qui montre Paul discutant avec les Épicuriens et les Stoïciens d’Athènes, puis nous restitue le discours de Paul devant l’Aréopage d’Athènes. Il apparaît que Paul se pose en philosophe (...) pour exposer sa doctrine en des termes jusqu’à un certain point compatibles avec une doctrine matérialiste voire polythéiste. (shrink)

In so far as the Tao Te Ching and the Chuang Tzu are life-philosophies, they are philosophies of solitude. My aim in the following pages is to explain and defend this claim, clarifying the distinctive kind of solitude that is taught by Lao Tzu and Chuang Tzu.

People judge positive information to be more alike than negative information. This good-bad asymmetry in similarity was argued to constitute a true property of the information ecology (Alves, H., Koch, A., & Unkelbach, C. (2017). Why good is more alike than bad: Processing implications. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 21, 69–79). Alternatively, the asymmetry may constitute a processing outcome itself, namely an influence of phasic affect on information processing. Because no research has yet tested whether phasic affect influences perceived similarity (...) among stimuli, we conducted 5 Experiments that also tested whether phasic affect can account for the higher judged similarity among positive compared to negative stimuli. In three experiments, we affectively charged pictures of different Pokemon by pairing them with monetary gains and losses (Exp. 1a, 1b) as well as positive and negative trait words (Exp. 2); yet, the evaluative charge did not differentially influence perceived similarity among the Pokemon. Experiment 3 replicated the basic similarity asymmetry among positive and negative words, and found that it was unaffected by externally induced phasic affect. Experiment 4 showed that phasic affect had no influence on perceived similarity of non-evaluative words either. We conclude that albeit a weak influence of phasic affect on perceived similarity of stimuli cannot be ruled out entirely, it can most likely not account for the typically medium to large sized asymmetry in similarity among positive and negative stimuli. (shrink)

Provider claims to conscientious objection have generated a great deal of heated debate in recent years. However, the conflicts that arise when providers make claims to the "conscience" are only a subset of the more fundamental challenges that arise in health care practice when patients and providers come into conflict. In this piece, the author provides an account of patient-provider conflict from within the moral tradition of St. Thomas Aquinas. He argues that the practice of health care providers should be (...) understood as a form of practical reasoning and that this practical reasoning must necessarily incorporate both "moral" and "professional" commitments. In order to understand how the practical reasoning of provider should account for the needs and commitments of the patient and vice versa, he explores the account of dependence provided by Alasdair MacIntyre in his book Dependent Rational Animals. MacIntyre argues that St. Thomas’ account of practical reasoning should be extended and adapted to account for the embodied vulnerability of all humans. In light of this insight, providers must view patients not only as the subjects of their moral reflection but also as fellow humans upon whom the provider depends for feedback on the effectiveness and relevance of her practical reasoning. The author argues that this account precludes responsive providers from adopting either moral or professional conclusions on the appropriateness of interventions outside the individual circumstances that arise in particular situations. The adoption of this orientation toward patients will neither eradicate provider-patient conflict nor compel providers to perform interventions to which they object. But this account does require that providers attend meaningfully to the suffering of patients and seek feedback on whether their intervention has effectively addressed that suffering. (shrink)

The acceptance of military directives violating medical ethics and international covenants encouraged by the demonisation of the enemy by the US president in 2002 has effectively removed the right of medical personnel to refuse participation in internationally proscribed actionsMedicine and its traditional ethic of care is today a victim of the current conflict in Iraq and Afghanistan, its uniquely humanising mission rejected by US President George W Bush and his advisors. In denying the applicability of international agreements guaranteeing medicine’s ecumenical (...) role in this conflict they have transformed medicine into just another weapon of tactical significance. The result, predictable in retrospect, has been to make military physicians and nurses complicit—actively or passively—in what Litton calls an “atrocity-producing situation”, resulting in detainee or prisoner abuse.1From the first revelations of detainee torture in US detention camps to recent allegations of continued abuse , the focus of international attention has shifted from the US prosecution of low ranking, non-commissioned military personnel to the context in which the atrocities they committed occurred. “No one up the chain of command has ever been held accountable for what is in these horrifying images,” Center for Constitutional Rights Director Bill Goodman said of recently published photographs of 2004 prisoner torture and abuse.2 “The situation in several areas violates international law and conventions on human rights and torture,” said the UN Special Rapporteur on Torture following a 2006 investigation.3The denial of international law and convention involved the overt disavowal of covenants and conventions that for almost 150 years required medical personnel in the US military to act within the guidelines of a Hippocratic vision of medicine. To understand how fundamental this change has been requires a brief review of the history of medicine’s previously protected status and then a description of …. (shrink)

There has been no informed or honest debate in North America over the issue of liberalized euthanasia. Despite thousands of newspaper stories, scores of learned academic articles, a handful of closely analyzed legal decisions, and hours of broadcast news and talk show imagery, a full discussion is yet to begin.

Morain and colleagues (2019) advocate rethinking the rather dogmatic guidance from both regulatory authorities and professional associations cautioning physician-investigators against obtaining inf...

A question between John Harris and I is the degree to which lessons may be learned, and insights gained, from a life distinguished by physical differences. He argues it as the “aborting Beethoven fallacy”, I insist on the evidence that what we learn from physical differences may be critical and life enhancing.

A personable teenager with Down's syndrome became a Canadian cause célèbre a few months ago when University Hospital in Edmonton, Alberta, denied him a position on the organ transplantation waiting list. Terry Urquart lacked “reasonable” intelligence, hospital officials said, a criterion for all transplant candidates at that hospital. Protests by the boy's family, and by groups active in the cause of those with developmental disabilities, became well-photographed stories on the nightly television news and in the nation's newspapers. It did not (...) hurt the Urquart cause one bit that the 17-year-old teenager had won a gold medal in skiing at the International Special Olympics. (shrink)

This essay reviews a range of issues arising from the complex case of Terri Schiavo and the lessons the case raises for bioethicists. It argues that embedded in the case is a broader controversy than is immediately evident, one involving the definitions by which bioethics judge cases of extreme physical and psychological limits, in its principled form of address. Further, it argues that bioethicists who assume the issues involved in the case are settled miss the point of the emotional responses (...) it has brought forth. (shrink)

Since trauma is a thoroughly relational phenomenon, it is highly unpredictable, and cannot be made to fit within the scientific framework Freud so admired. In _Toward a Psychology of Uncertainty: Trauma-Centered Psychoanalysis,_ Doris Brothers urges a return to a trauma-centered psychoanalysis. Making use of relational systems theory, she shows that experiences of uncertainty are continually transformed by the regulatory processes of everyday life such as feeling, knowing, forming categories, making decisions, using language, creating narratives, sensing time, remembering, forgetting, and (...) fantasizing. Insofar as trauma destroys the certainties that organize psychological life, it plunges our relational systems into chaos and sets the stage for the emergence of rigid, life-constricting relational patterns. These trauma-generated patterns, which often involve denial of sameness and difference, the creation of complexity-reducing dualities, and the transformation of certainty into certitude, figure prominently in virtually all of the complaints for which patients seek analytic treatment. Analysts, she claims, are no more strangers to trauma than are their patients. Using in-depth clinical illustrations, Dr. Brothers demonstrates how a mutual desire to heal and to be healed from trauma draws patients and analysts into their analytic relationships. She recommends the reconceptualization of what has heretofore been considered transference and countertransference in terms of the transformation of experienced uncertainty. In her view the increased ability of both analytic partners to live with uncertainty is the mark of a successful treatment. Dr. Brothers’ perspective sheds fresh light on a variety of topics of great general interest to analysts as well as many of their patients, such as gender, the acceptance of death, faith, cult-like training programs, and burnout. Her discussions of these topics are enlivened by references to contemporary cinema and theatre. (shrink)

This article provides practical guidance for researchers who wish to enroll and collect data from pediatric research participants through online and mobile platforms, with a focus on the involvement of both children and their parents in the decision to participate.

Healthcare Providers advising patient surrogates on the appropriateness of continued care for comatose patients have often been sharply criticized for coercive behavior toward patient surrogates; with failing to provide them with adequate information; and for a general failure to adequately cinsider the cimplex needs and hopes of patients, their surrogates, and caregivers. Because decisions on the continuation or withdrawal of care often need the legal approval of surrogates the failure of both medical personnel and patient families to understand each other's (...) priorities may lead to ethical and interpersonal conflict. (shrink)

In the twentieth century the question of the relationship of Terence's Heautontimorumenos to its Greek original has been largely neglected or else dismissed on the grounds that it presents no major problem. It is true that, because of the new light which the discovery of the Cairo codex of Menander shed on the nature and role of the chorus in Greek new comedy, there was a flurry of activity concerning the difficult passage 167 ff.; but the far more fundamental problem (...) of contaminatio in general and of the meaning and interpretation of lines 4 to 6 of the play's prologue has attracted comparatively little attention. H. Marti produced a two-part survey of work done on Terence in the years 1909 to 1959; in it he says that in the period under review the question of contaminatio in Heauton–in the sense of the fusion of two originals –has been totally abandoned, with the exception of one article by F. Skutsch in which he holds to his earlier views on the subject. Marti also refers to Kohler's earlier work on the same problem, and to the discussion to be found in Kuiper's more comprehensive work on Roman comedy, but that is all. (shrink)