By registering different health benefits on a common scale, CEA allows us to assess the relative social importance of different health care interventions and opens the way for the allocation decisions of health care policy. If it is really to be effective, however, CEA must be recalibrated so that it better reflects some of our widely held beliefs about the merits of different kinds of treatment.

By registering different health benefits on a common scale, CEA allows us to assess the relative social importance of different health care interventions and opens the way for the allocation decisions of health care policy. If it is really to be effective, however, CEA must be recalibrated so that it better reflects some of our widely held beliefs about the merits of different kinds of treatment.

How promising is Bitcoin as a currency? This paper discusses four claims on the advantages of Bitcoin: a more stable currency than state-backed ones; a secure and efficient payment system; a credible alternative to the central management of money; and a better protection of transaction privacy. We discuss these arguments by relating them to their philosophical roots in libertarian and neoliberal theories, and assess whether Bitcoin can effectively meet these expectations. We conclude that despite its advocates’ enthusiasm, there are good (...) reasons to doubt that Bitcoin can fulfill its promises and act as a functioning currency, rather than as a mere speculative asset. (shrink)

Stereo-electroencephalography is a method that uses stereotactically implanted depth electrodes for extra-operative mapping of epileptogenic and functional networks. sEEG derived functional mapping is achieved using electrical cortical stimulations that are currently the gold standard for delineating eloquent cortex. As this stands true especially for primary cortices, ECS applied to higher order brain areas determine more subtle behavioral responses. While anterior and posterior language areas in the dorsal language stream seem to share characteristics with primary cortices, basal temporal language area in (...) the ventral temporal cortex behaves as a highly associative cortex. After a short introduction and considerations about methodological aspects of ECS using sEEG, we review the sEEG language mapping literature in this perspective. We first establish the validity of this technique to map indispensable language cortices in the dorsal language stream. Second, we highlight the contrast between the growing empirical ECS experience and the lack of understanding regarding the fundamental mechanisms underlying ECS behavioral effects, especially concerning the dispensable language cortex in the VTC. Evidences for considering network architecture as determinant for ECS behavioral response complexities are discussed. Further, we address the importance of designing new research in network organization of language as this could enhance ECS ability to map interindividual variability, pathology driven reorganization, and ultimately identify network resilience markers in order to better predict post-operative language deficit. Finally, based on a whole body of available studies, we believe there is strong evidence to consider sEEG as a valid, safe and reliable method for defining eloquent language cortices although there have been no proper comparisons between surgical resections with or without extra-operative or intra-operative language mapping. (shrink)

The Gold and the Dross: Althusser for Educators is an introduction to the philosophy of Louis Althusser for educators, activists, and those who are new to theory in general.

Summary Mining companies after the Gold Rush depended heavily on foreign expertise, and yet historians of mining have glorified ‘German engineering’ in America. The application of German technology in America was fraught with difficulties, and most advances were micro- rather than macro-innovations, such as Philip Deidesheimer's famous square-set timbering on the Comstock Lode. The problem began at German mining schools, such as the Freiberg Mining Academy, where Americans like Louis and Henry Janin, while they acquired advanced training and adopted (...) an engineering ethos, struggled to learn about Mexican and American mining. Having complemented their course of study to remedy this deficiency, the brothers returned to the US intending to modernize mining on the frontier. Louis attempted the ‘Freiberg Process’ of amalgamation on the Comstock Lode, but locally developed methods proved more feasible, and the experiment failed. He came to apply his training rather toward the micro-level problem of how to reprocess amalgamation waste heaps. (shrink)

Organisations have implemented intensive home-based teleworking in response to global COVID-19 lockdowns and other pandemic-related restrictions. Financial pressures are driving organisations to continue intensive teleworking after the pandemic. Understanding employees’ teleworking inclinations post COVID-19, and how these inclinations are influenced by different factors, is important to ensure any future, more permanent changes to teleworking policies are sustainable for both employees and organisations. This study, therefore, investigated the relationships between the context of home-based teleworking during the pandemic, productivity perceptions during home-based (...) teleworking, and employees’ future teleworking inclinations beyond the pandemic. Specifically, the study examined whether pandemic-teleworking conditions related to the job, and the physical and social environments at home, influenced employees’ FTI, and if perceptions of improved or reduced productivity mediated these relationships. Data were collected during April and May 2020 with a cross-sectional online survey of teleworkers in Germany, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, and other countries during the first COVID-19 lockdowns. Reported FTI were mixed. Most participants reported wanting to telework more post-pandemic compared to before the pandemic; however, 18% wanted to telework less. Hierarchical multiple regression analysis revealed that some teleworking conditions were positively associated with FTI. Other teleworking conditions were not associated with FTI. Perceived changes in productivity mediated the relationship between work privacy fit and FTI. Findings highlight the role of work privacy fit and job demands in influencing pandemic productivity perceptions and teleworking inclinations post-pandemic. Results raise questions about the suitability and sustainability of home-based teleworking for all staff. As organisations plan to increase the proportion of teleworking post-pandemic, this study suggests there is a need to support employees who perceived their productivity to be poor while home-working during the pandemic. (shrink)

In this paper I hope to show that a conception of human rights requires a view of the social ideal and the good life, and requires a view of the nature of human community. But what I say in favor of these points hardly amounts to a demonstration. Instead I try to exhibit how we think and talk about rights in general, and what the presuppositions of such thought and talk are. Throughout, I emphasize the pragmatic side of rights-discourse and (...) I try to establish some of the contexts in which such discourse can be significantly employed. Much of what I say is motivated by the consideration that an historically important factor in the generation of various rights, their acknowledgement and implementation, and their extension to increasingly larger segments of the population, has been the claims put forward and the demands made by individuals and groups against individuals and groups. This factor constitutes a suggestive clue for the development of a theory of rights. The treatment here, however, is largely programmatic and fragmentary. The space allotted does not permit more. Moreover, I lead up to—but do not go into—the social ideal and the human community. The title of this essay indicates its limited scope. The above points are, of course, hardly novel; many older writers laid great stress upon them. But of late they have not received the attention that they in my view deserve. What does it mean for someone to maintain a conception of human rights? How is this conception given any concrete content? The answers to these questions, I believe, ultimately lead to a consideration of social ideals and the human community. What follows is meant to stimulate new thinking on these old-fashioned topics. (shrink)

There is no consensus about appropriate philosophical method that can be relied on to settle philosophical questions and instead of established findings, there are multiple conflicting arguments and positions, and widespread disagreement and debate. Given this feature of philosophy, it might seem that philosophy has proven to be a worthless endeavour, with no possibility of philosophical progress. The challenge then is to develop a conception of philosophy that reconciles the lack of general or lasting agreement with the possibility of philosophical (...) progress. I present such a conception in this paper. I argue that the aim of philosophy is to resolve philosophical problems, which is different from establishing settled and final answers or positions. Philosophical problems involve inadequate or incongruous conceptions that cannot be settled once and for all but can be resolved by transforming our conceptions so they are now congruous and adequate. There is philosophical progress every time a warranted, defensible position is developed that resolves a philosophical problem, even if there are competing resolutions and further problems to resolve, as there always are in philosophy. (shrink)

Although constructivist discussions in the classroom are often treated as if they were all of the same kind, in this paper I argue that there are subtle but important distinctions that need to be made. An analysis of these distinctions shows that there is a continuum of different constructivist discussions. At one extreme are teacher-directed discussions where students are led to construct the ‘correct’ understanding of a pre-decided conclusion; at the other extreme are unstructured discussions where students are free to (...) construct any understanding. While there are many positions on the continuum, the middle ground is occupied by discussions that find a balance between teacher-control and student-independence, and between having set-answers and a free-for-all. I argue that the Community of Inquiry is a useful conception of constructivist discussions in this middle ground. (shrink)

This article explains how teachers might navigate inquiry learning despite the experience of a constant tension between abandoning their students and controlling them. They do this by conceiving of themselves as guides who decide the path with students, not for them. I build on a conception of teaching as guiding from Burbules, and argue that inquiry teachers should take the particular stance of an expedition-educator (rather than the stance of either a tour-leader or an expedition-leader). They should guide students to (...) make progress during co-inquiry, rather than leading them to follow the teacher’s agenda. This stance gives a heuristic they can use to balance control and abandonment in their pedagogical practice—they judge which pedagogical actions to take, and when, according to which actions are likely to help their students to engage in autonomous inquiry and hence learn to guide themselves. Students thus can learn to inquire by participating in an inquiry which is guided, but not controlled, by their teacher. (shrink)

One issue in the debate about faith concerns the stance a religious person is committed to take on “God exists.” I argue that this stance is best understood as an assumption that God exists for the purpose of pursuing a good relationship with God. The notion of an “assumption for practical purpose” is distinguished from notions such as “belief” and “hope.” This stance is contrasted with others found in discussions of faith, and its ramifications for the problem of whether it (...) is rational to have faith are discussed. (shrink)

The purpose of this note is to examine the notion of obligations to future generations, a notion that finds increasing use in discussions of social policies and programs, particularly as concerns population distribution and control and environment control. Thus, it may be claimed, the solution of problems in these areas is not merely a matter of enhancing our own good, improving our own conditions of life, but is also a matter of discharging an obligation to future generations.

Class discussions about ethical, social, philosophical and other controversial issues frequently result in disagreement. This leaves a problem: has there been any progress? This article introduces and analyses the concept ‘collective epistemic progress’ in order to resolve this problem. The analysis results in four main ways of understanding, guiding and judging collective epistemic progress in the face of seemingly irreconcilable differences. Although it might seem plausible to analyse and judge collective epistemic progress by the increasing vigour of the dialogue community, (...) by how long the conversation is continued, or by how close we have moved towards consensus or the truth, I argue that these fail to provide serviceable analyses or epistemic criteria. Yet, we might instead analyse, understand and judge progress using epistemic criteria such as whether we have: furthered the one distributed process of inquiry or deliberation; and reached mutual understanding; inquiry milestones; or consensus about our procedures. (shrink)

An expanding body of research aims to identify culture in cetaceans, often positing killer whales as an exemplar species. To this end, gene-culture coevolutionary theory provides a conceptual language with which whales are discussed in raciological terms. It renders killer whale ecotypes as discrete cultures that are intrinsically xenophobic and evolutionarily divergent. Such research on whale culture intends to substantiate theories of divergent natural selection between human cultures as well. This effort furthers the essentialism, simultaneously biological and cultural, that has (...) long impelled colonial technoscientific projects of racial typologization. The exchange between the raciologies of humans and killer whales is facilitated by the infrahumanizing frameworks of gene-culture coevolutionary theory that locate whale populations alongside indigenous peoples on a spectrum of cultural simplicity and complexity. At this convergence of the animal and the human, gene-culture coevolutionary theory posits indigenous peoples and killer whales as evidence for social Darwinist theories that dehistoricize and naturalize intercultural conflict and ethnicization. The extension of raciology beyond the human species signals an urgent need to decolonize the biological sciences. (shrink)

Because of immigration in the West, increased cultural diversity poses a variety of problems for the criminal justice system. This paper examines whether a so‐called “cultural defense” ought to be allowed as a freestanding defense to a criminal charge. Such a defense would “negate or mitigate criminal responsibility where acts are committed under a reasonable good‐faith belief in their propriety, based on the actor's cultural heritage or tradition.” The cultural defense, as a formal defense, and the use of cultural evidence (...) in order to buttress one of the traditional defenses, are distinguished. Three cases are discussed to illustrate the issues. The possible similarity of the cultural defense to an ignorance or mistake of law defense is then considered. The latter is accepted by such theorists as Gunther Arzt and George P. Fletcher and also apparently in German law, but it is rejected by Jerome Hall on the ground that it undermines the objectivity of the criminal law. The similarity, however, is shown not to hold. It is concluded that a freestanding cultural defense should not be allowed. (shrink)

Philosophical research tends to be done separately from empirical research, but this makes it difficult to tackle questions which require both. To make it easier to address these hybrid research questions, I argue that we should sometimes combine philosophical and empirical investigations. I start by describing a continuum of research methods from data collecting and analysing to philosophical arguing and conceptualising. Then, I outline one possible middle-ground position where research is equally philosophical and empirical: the Community of Inquiry reconceived as (...) a research method. In this method, a group of participants engage in philosophical discussion and dialogue to answer the research question . I argue that this collaborative philosophical inquiry, moderated by a philosopher, provides a new method for collecting and testing data. The results are philosophical positions and arguments blended with empirical findings. Next, I illustrate how I used this philosophical–empirical method in a recent study to evaluate the strength of educational metaphors. I conclude that the Community of Inquiry is a viable means of combining philosophical and empirical research, and a new and worthwhile method for research in education. (shrink)

Philosophy in Schools is a complex educational practice, unfamiliar to most teachers and philosophers, subtly different to similar forms of education, and so easy to misunderstand and mishandle. Because of this, a common worry for practitioners is whether they are doing it properly. Given this slipperiness of Philosophy in Schools, one of my main concerns has been to give an account that would be useful; that could guide practitioners to teach well. I presented my first account in a 2006 article (...) ‘What is Philosophy in Schools?’ which was based on 14 years’ experience as a Philosophy in Schools teacher and teacher educator. Now, by invitation of the editors, I have the privilege to present a re-worked, improved account. This builds on and synthesises my previous publications, but it also significantly refines anything I have previously written, and is the culmination of my work in Philosophy in Schools. (shrink)

This article focuses on questions of pure fact-of-the-matter and asks whether two omniscient judges may disagree over the legal answer to a straightforward question of a matter of fact. There are approaches to legal theory among some western and Jewish philosophers of law whereby at least superficially it is possible that two or more contradictory legal statements regarding a given reality can be equally correct. The article provides a critical analysis of three different models derived from the Jewish legal literature, (...) and reviews the contributions of Jewish sources to the understanding of the phenomenon of disagreements concerning matters of fact. (shrink)

Neurons are now known to produce a variety of types of chemical transmitters. Classical transmitters are stored within synaptic vesicles which undergo synaptic exocytosis in association with presynaptic thickenings. The larger, dense‐cored secretory granules present in most neurons contain neuropeptides and mainly discharge their contents at morphologically undifferentiated (i.e.nonsynaptic) sites. The synaptic character of vesicle discharge enables transmitters to exercise a highly focal action, whereas nonsynaptic release probably relates to the slow rate of degradation of many neuropeptides and their consequent (...) widespread diffusion and sphere of action. However, one variant of the basic pattern, involving the restriction of granule discharge to areas of the terminal plasmalemma situated adjacent to the postsynaptic cells (i.e. a parasynaptic configuration), enables a degree of targeted peptide discharge to be achieved. The diversity of patterns of neural exocytosis adds a further dimension to the complexity of nervous function. (shrink)

As a reaction to the dominant effect and interpretive authority of the digital, Data Loam combines radical approaches based on positions taken in the international practice of contemporary art. Previously: insistence on indexicality and the instrumental reduction of knowledge. Instead: a new metric that requires play, curiosity, experiment, and risk. As an urgent response to the continually growing flood of information that libraries, search engines, and cultural institutions are exposed to, the authors develop approaches that suggest and permit sensual logic, (...) causal permeability, and new forms of man–machine interaction. Data Loam focuses on the future of knowledge systems in texts about artificial intelligence, cybernetics, and cryptoeconomics – as a means of counteracting end-of-the-world fears. (shrink)

The principle of bivalence is the assertion that every statement is either true or else false. Its legal analog, however, must be formulated relative to particular legal systems and in terms of validity rather than truth. It asserts that every statement of law that can be formulated in the vocabulary of a given legal system is valid or else invalid in that system. A line of New York cases is traced, beginning with Thomas v. Winchester . This case, which involved (...) a poison mislabeled as a medicine, established an exception to the rule that a manufacturer or supplier is never liable for negligence to a remote purchaser. The court made an exception because a poison is an “imminently dangerous” thing. How far may this exception be applied to other fact‐situations? Some subsequent cases are examined, and it is considered whether there is no correct answer in these instances and, more dramatically, whether more than one correct answer is tenable. In either event the legal analog of bivalence would seem to fail. (shrink)

This paper seeks to establish a connection between the existence of a legal system and the ideal of the rule of law. Its point of departure is the phenomenon of a transitional regime that is attempting to restore or institute the rule of law. Lon Fuller's formulation of the canons of the rule of law as an internal morality of law is expounded as well as his notion of legal pathology as symptomatic of departure from the canons' requirements. The existence (...) of a legal system, it is argued, is a matter of degree, covariant with the degree to which the rule of law is realized. Problems inherent to the implementation of the rule of law are examined, such as the effect of the passage of time on reasonable expectations. While legal pathology is always a matter of degree, police states are shown to suffer seriously from it. Among the examples discussed are Nazi Germany and Communist East Germany, though it is granted that there are moral differences between them. Finally, a response is made to some contemporary critiques of the rule of law. (shrink)

Philip Cam has been an inspiration to me in his approach to Philosophy for Children, and I have tried to follow the trail he blazed. He is a master of developing what I call ‘practitioner theories’ of Philosophy for Children. These are practical theories designed to be useful for practitioners of Philosophy for Children, rather than abstract theories designed to contribute to the scholarship of Philosophy for Children. I first explain what I mean by a practitioner theory, using Cam’s Question (...) Quadrant as an illustration. Then, for the rest of the article I give a more detailed analysis and elaboration of Cam’s practitioner theory about assessing thinking. This theory first appears in Thinking Together in the form of a table that teachers can use to assess how frequently their students perform different thinking moves. For example, we can assess student thinking based on how often they ask questions, or build on what someone else has said. I will show how this seemingly simple theory captures a great deal of theoretical complexity, combining themes about thinking moves from Splitter and Sharp, making thinking visible from Perkins and Richhart, and habits of mind from Costa and Kallick. I will also show how we can develop Cam’s practitioner theory into a sharper tool for assessing thinking if we incorporate further insights about learning to think, and assessing thinking, from Perkins, Dewey, Piaget, Vygotsky and Bloom. (shrink)

Angelaki, Volume 17, Issue 1, Page 131-134, March 2012.

This paper reflects on affect and emotion as they relate to poetics — her/histories — in twenty-first century museums. Using specific examples, it considers the ways in which collections of material culture hold diverse meanings and how ideas are communicated to audiences over time and space but might also be challenged through imaginative activity. Key objects, exhibitions and activities discussed highlight masculinities at work in museums and include the temporary art installations by Yinka Shonibare and Fred Wilson in the Victoria (...) and Albert Museum's (V&A) Norfolk House Music Room in 2007; the portrait in oils of the Jamaican scholar Francis Williams, painted by an anonymous artist around 1745; and a contemporary oral commentary by Benjamin Zephaniah in the V&A British Galleries, which are considered through a feminist lens of poetics. (shrink)

This chapter contains section titled: Questions About Responsibility The Holmesian Approach: Objective Liability Aristotle on Voluntary Action and Responsibility The Model Penal Code and Voluntariness Responsibility as a Defeasible Concept: H.L.A. Hart Individual Responsibility: Antony Duff Individual Responsibility: Norrie's Critique of Duff The Abandonment of Responsibility: Wootton The General Rationale of Excuses: H.L.A. Hart Conclusion References Further Reading.

Introduction: Between Crisis and Closure One of the truisms of the history of French philosophy is that it was the importation of German philosophy, ...