Examines the facts about the issue being covered, with information about arguments and opinions from around the globe. Special research projects, as well as a great variety of additional resources, invite the reader to engage with the issues that are currently shaping the world.

Registered nurses (RNs) employed in an urban medical center in the USA identified moral distress as a practice concern. This study describes RNs' moral distress and the frequency of morally distressing events. Data were collected using the Moral Distress Scale and an open-ended questionnaire. The instruments were distributed to direct-care-providing RNs; 100 responses were returned. Morally distressing events included: working with staffing levels perceived as `unsafe', following families' wishes for patient care even though the nurse disagreed with the plan, and (...) continuing life support for patients owing to family wishes despite patients' poor prognoses. One high frequency distressing event was carrying out orders for unnecessary tests and treatments. Qualitative data analysis revealed that the nurses sought support and information from nurse managers, chaplaincy services and colleagues. The RNs requested further information on biomedical ethics, suggested ethics rounds, and requested a non-punitive environment surrounding the initiation of ethics committee consultations. (shrink)

The idea that fictions may educate us is an old one, as is the view that they distort the truth and mislead us. While there is a long tradition of passionate assertion in this debate, systematic arguments are a recent development, and the idea of empirically testing is particularly novel. Our aim in this chapter is to provide clarity about what is at stake in this debate, what the options are, and how empirical work does or might bear on its (...) resolution. We distinguish between merely influencing people’s opinions and providing genuine learning, where the latter requires that the source of the change in opinion should be reliable. Other important ideas here are the extent to which authors of fiction may be considered to provide testimony, or something like it, and the possibility of recognizing an unstated purpose in the project of the fictional work. We ask whether fictions can furnish us not merely with ideas but with reasons for believing them, perhaps by constituting thought experiments. We consider whether the focus should be on understanding rather than on knowledge, and whether fictions can inform us about the qualities of another’s experiences. We briefly describe some experimental work of recent decades and suggest that the evidence for learning from fiction is currently meagre. (shrink)

Ideally, science would indeed be focused entirely on facts, truth, and objectivity. But the reality is different. Science cannot be separated from the human experience. As long as science is a human endeavor, it will carry with it the biases of society.

Do not ask for the definition of deconstruction; ask for its history. What needs and desires did it meet at the time of its emergence? What kind of threat did it represent? How has our understanding of deconstruction changed over time? This book offers an account of the invention and reinvention of deconstruction in literary studies and the humanities more generally. Focusing on the work of Jacques Derrida and Paul de Man, it argues that the early impact of deconstruction was (...) connected to its perceived assault upon truth. After de Man's death there is a steady insistence in Derrida's work on questions about time - invention, advent, event - and on the distance between them. This book tells the story of this transition from truth to time against a background of some of the most divisive debates of the late-twentieth and early twenty-first century, about politics, history and ethics. (shrink)

This article experiments with multimedia storytelling to re-vision difference outside biomedical and humanistic frames by generating new understandings of living dis/artfully with illness. We present and analyze seven short videos created by women and trans people living with illness as part of an arts-based research project that aimed to speak back to hegemonic concepts of disability that create barriers to healthcare.1 We call for a welcoming in of disability studies’ disruptive and re-imaginative orientations to bodily difference to unsettle medicine’s humanistic (...) accounts. In turn, we advance medical post-humanistic approaches that call on disability studies to re-embody its theories and approaches. (shrink)

Some pages of Cosmology have the reputation of appearing drab. In his essay, The Golden Chariot, Mr. Ganey undertakes to clothe with interest and imagery the difficult concept of Time, and we feel that his readers will agree that he has been successful.

An argument that we should be optimistic about the capacity of “methodologically omnivorous” geologists, paleontologists, and archaeologists to uncover truths about the deep past. -/- The “historical sciences”—geology, paleontology, and archaeology—have made extraordinary progress in advancing our understanding of the deep past. How has this been possible, given that the evidence they have to work with offers mere traces of the past? In Rock, Bone, and Ruin, Adrian Currie explains that these scientists are “methodological omnivores,” with a variety of strategies (...) and techniques at their disposal, and that this gives us every reason to be optimistic about their capacity to uncover truths about prehistory. Creative and opportunistic paleontologists, for example, discovered and described a new species of prehistoric duck-billed platypus from a single fossilized tooth. Examining the complex reasoning processes of historical science, Currie also considers philosophical and scientific reflection on the relationship between past and present, the nature of evidence, contingency, and scientific progress. -/- Currie draws on varied examples from across the historical sciences, from Mayan ritual sacrifice to giant Mesozoic fleas to Mars's mysterious watery past, to develop an account of the nature of, and resources available to, historical science. He presents two major case studies: the emerging explanation of sauropod size, and the “snowball earth” hypothesis that accounts for signs of glaciation in Neoproterozoic tropics. He develops the Ripple Model of Evidence to analyze “unlucky circumstances” in scientific investigation; examines and refutes arguments for pessimism about the capacity of the historical sciences, defending the role of analogy and arguing that simulations have an experiment-like function. Currie argues for a creative, open-ended approach, “empirically grounded” speculation. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: Agency and Access to the World Speaking and Seeing Imitation Some Resources of Narration The Varieties of Narrative Imitation.

Today there are over 1,500 public-use airports in the United States. Each of these airports provides a service to the surrounding community, whether in the form of a general aviation or commercial air service facility. An airport is dependent on many facets of the local government infrastructure for support services. Also, the airports have ties to neighboring or resident military installations. A military installation has similar missions and objectives to an airport, a situation that enables a working relationship that is (...) complementary to each party. For example, airports and military installations alike must provide such services as emergency response, fire protection, airspace control, environmental protection, and a safe infrastructure for aircraft operations. While many aspects of the relationships are intangible and subjective, others are easily measured. (shrink)

Thought experiments play a role in science and in some central parts of contemporary philosophy. They used to play a larger role in philosophy of science, but have been largely abandoned as part of the field’s “practice turn”. This chapter discusses possible roles for thought experimentation within a practice-oriented philosophy of science. Some of these roles are uncontroversial, such as exemplification and aiding discovery. A more controversial role is the reliance on thought experiments to justify philosophical claims. It is proposed (...) that if we adopt an underlying empiricist view of concepts, then thought experiments can be seen as affording us contact with scientific practice, despite their seemingly a priori character. The advantages and drawbacks of thought experiments are discussed via comparison with case studies, on the one, and simulations on the other hand. The chapter closes with some remarks on how to combine thought experiments with other methods. (shrink)

The philosopher of Common Sense -- Knowing & doing -- Dreaming -- Knowing, doing, and saying -- Doing science -- Doing psychotherapy -- Gaining self-mastery -- Self-mastery and self-rule -- Rejecting common sense -- Romanticism -- Imposing an alternative to Common Sense -- Misunderstanding Einstein.

Thought experiments play a role in science and in some central parts of contemporary philosophy. They used to play a larger role in philosophy of science, but have been largely abandoned as part of the field’s “practice turn”. This chapter discusses possible roles for thought experimentation within a practice-oriented philosophy of science. Some of these roles are uncontroversial, such as exemplification and aiding discovery. A more controversial role is the reliance on thought experiments to justify philosophical claims. It is proposed (...) that if we adopt an underlying empiricist view of concepts, then thought experiments can be seen as affording us contact with scientific practice, despite their seemingly a priori character. The advantages and drawbacks of thought experiments are discussed via comparison with case studies, on the one, and simulations on the other hand. The chapter closes with some remarks on how to combine thought experiments with other methods. (shrink)

In February 2010, the American Psychiatric Association (APA) launched their DSM-5 website with details about the development of the fifth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5). The APA invited “the general public” to review the draft diagnostic criteria and provide written comments and suggestions. This revision marks the first time the APA has solicited public review of their diagnostic manual. This article analyzes reported speech on the DSM-5 draft diagnostic criteria for the classification Posttraumatic Stress (...) Disorder. It demonstrates how textual standardization facilitates the cultural portability of the DSM-5 diagnostic criteria such that a community of speakers beyond the borders of the APA come to be seen as exemplary speakers, writers, and revisers of the professional style. Furthermore, analysis shows how co-authoring practices recontextualize the “voice” and persona of putative patient reported speech on Criterion D2. As a consequence of textual standardization, spoken discourse becomes recontextualized as the product of scientific inquiry and the organization of psychiatric knowledge. (shrink)

In considering the similarities between "momoirs"--popular memoirs written by mothers about motherhood experiences--and evocative autoethnographic mother-writing, I argue that differentiating these two forms of intimate observation and personal narrative requires a rethinking of autoethnographic practice. Specifically, I draw on the work of Gilles Deleuze to advocate for a radical specificity in autoethnographic writing. Thinking the autoethnographic narrative in terms of specificities and differences encourages us to think creatively about personal experiences and cultural relations beyond what is shared and communicable.

We often lament our limited nature as human beings. Supernatural is certainly no stranger to this theme and often contrasts the many weaknesses of man to the awesome power of angels, demons, and otherworldly creatures. It should be enough to show that angels can reasonably be atheists by showing two things. First, the best arguments in favor of the existence of God are no better if Anna and Cas think about them, and second, that these angels are also in no (...) better position than we are to deny what is perhaps the strongest argument against the existence of God. The cosmological argument for the existence of God begins with a couple of observations about the universe. The first is pretty obvious‐“things exist.” The second is that everything that exists was caused to exist as it is. (shrink)

This book considers the experience of enchantment in art. Considering the essential characteristics, dynamics and conditions of the experience of enchantment in relation to art, including liminality, it offers studies of different kinds of artistic experience and activity, including painting, music, fiction and poetry, before exploring the possibility of a life oriented to enchantment as the activity of art itself. With attention to the complex relationship between wonder in art and the programmatic disenchantment to which it is often subject, the (...) author draws on the thought of a diverse range of philosophers, sociological theorists and artists, to offer an understanding of art through the idea of enchantment, and enchantment through art. An accessible study, richly illustrated with experience - both that of the author and others - Art and Enchantment will appeal to scholars and students of sociology, anthropology, philosophy, and anyone with interests in the nature of aesthetic experience. (shrink)

Engaging citizens with digital technology to co-create data, information and knowledge has widely become an important strategy for informing the policy response to COVID-19 and the ‘infodemic’ of misinformation in cyberspace. This move towards digital citizen participation aligns well with the United Nations’ agenda to encourage the use of digital tools to enable data-driven, direct democracy. From data capture to information generation, and knowledge co-creation, every stage of the data lifecycle bears important considerations to inform policy and practice. Drawing on (...) evidence of participatory policy and practice during COVID-19, we outline a framework for citizen ‘e-participation’ in knowledge co-creation across every stage of the policy cycle. We explore how coupling the generation of information with that of social capital can provide opportunities to collectively build trust in institutions, accelerate recovery and facilitate the ‘e-society’. We outline the key aspects of realising this vision of data-driven direct democracy by discussing several examples. Sustaining participatory knowledge co-creation beyond COVID-19 requires that local organisations and institutions incorporate adaptive learning mechanisms into their operational and governance structures, their integrated service models, as well as employing emerging social innovations. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Knowing the EastPatti M. MarxsenKnowing the East. By Paul Claudel. Translated by James Lawler. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2004. 136 pp.Fifty years after his death, Paul Claudel (1868–1955) is remembered for many things. Not only was he a major twentieth-century poet and playwright, he was an astute observer of Dutch, Spanish, and Japanese art. Not only was he the brother of sculptor Camille Claudel, he was a (...) diplomat who lived for nearly twenty years in Asia, including a stint as the French ambassador to Japan (1921–1927). When he was elected as a member of the Académie Française in 1946 at nearly 80 years of age he quipped, "For an academic, that is puberty." He died at 87, having lived large in two centuries and on three continents.Following an adolescence marked with indifference toward religion, Claudel experienced a profound conversion to Catholicism during a Christmas night service at Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris at the age of 18. With Christianity at the center of his universe and under the influence of Symbolist poets Rimbaud and Mallarmé, he developed a response to the world that was at once poetic and spiritual. Through his poetry, plays, and essays, he insisted on a fundamental unity between matter and spirit, a harmonious and vast universe into which the human mind could enter. And, at least for him, the point of entry was the portal of the Church. He struggled at times, but never lost sight of his faith. For all this, he is often credited with the revival of French Catholicism in the wake of WWI. After all, if Paul Claudel could take religion seriously and find meaning in it, pourquoi pas the rest of us?The facts of his extraordinary biography form a peculiar background to the recent translation by James Lawler of Claudel's collection of prose poems titled Knowing [End Page 229] the East. First published in 1946 as Connaissance de l'est, these sixty-one texts were written between 1895 and 1905 during Claudel's first visits to China and Japan as a young vice-consul stationed in Shanghai. He was twenty-six and still finding his poetic voice. And though his stance in the world is decidedly Christian, the content of this intriguing work reveals an inner dialogue with Buddhist ideas of interconnection, harmony, the ongoing quest for a higher life condition, and the overwhelming impact of nature in the lives of mere humans.In "Pagoda," Claudel describes a seven-story Chinese pagoda as it "amplifies and multiplies the roof, exaggerates the horned corners that rise with an elegant surge, and turns their curves upward to the sky." This form that "does away with walls" and concentrates on the uplifting roof creates a space where "Buddha, Prince of Peace, dwells inside with all the gods." In this architecture he reads a structuring of physical and spiritual space, a kind of never ending upward movement divided into "the seven mystical heavens." The culminating effect is the heavenly achievement of the unknowable. And so, after going as far as he can go into the world of the spirit, he ends this prose poem with an abrupt return to temporal reality. "I have no more to say of the Pagoda. I do not know its name."Elsewhere, in "The Wanderer," he turns his sense of awe toward nature. "Every tree has its personality, every small beast its role, every voice its part in the symphony," he writes. "As one understands music, so I understand nature, like a detailed narrative of proper names; as my walk and the day advance, so does the elaboration of the doctrine." The "doctrine," it seems, is the idea of dependent origination, the interrelation of all life that springs from a single source. In the last line, he states, "I understand the world's harmony. When will I grasp its melody?"In "The Temple of Consciousness" Claudel climbs "the black rock's vertical wall, and only at this late afternoon hour do I know myself to be on the right track." Below, he observes golden rice fields. Ahead there is an "old stairway overlaid with hoary moss... (shrink)

A content analysis of 601 commercials was conducted in order to identify the appeals that characterize commercials aimed at children and teenagers. Our findings demonstrated that the use of appeals showed strong age differences and was highly gender-role stereotyped, particularly in commercials aimed at children. The most typical appeals in commercials aimed at male children were action-adventure, sports, and play, whereas commercials aimed at female children emphasized nurturing, physical attractiveness, friendship, and romance. Having the best, competition, and achievement were the (...) dominant appeals in commercials aimed at male teenagers, whereas romance, sexuality, and belonging to a group were emphasized in commercials aimed at female teenagers. (shrink)

Elected prosecutors have pledged not to enforce abortion laws, in response to state-level abortion bans. For their pledges to be meaningful, prosecutors must exercise their discretion in cases of individuals who face legal risk, including people who help others self-manage their abortions. With a harm-reduction approach to improving abortion access, prosecutors should aim to reduce abortion helpers’ involvement with the criminal justice system.

In 1935, a group of mathematical statisticians in the United States announced the founding of a new professional organization, the Institute of Mathematical Statistics. In the coming years, this institution became a significant source of support for the growing community of mathematical statisticians. Thus it would seem that the formation of the Institute marked the beginning of the process of the creation of that community. This paper, however, argues that those who initially participated in the Institute constituted a small, loosely (...) organized, but wellconnected group within the broader scientific world even before they joined together formally to promote their discipline. We will examine some aspects of their education, employment, and interests in order to determine how American mathematical statisticians set themselves apart from other scientists and helped to define their discipline before the community acquired its official status. (shrink)

ArgumentGertrude Cox, first chair of North Carolina State University's Department of Experimental Statistics, worked as a consultant for the Ford Foundation to Cairo University's Institute of Statistical Studies and Researches in 1964. An analysis of this work provides a case study in the internationalization of the statistics profession, the systems of patronage available to scientists in the second half of the twentieth century, and the history of women in science. It highlights some of the complexities in the process of internationalization (...) in science, showing that even when scientists cross national boundaries to promote their discipline, they may have as a goal the advancement of their own nationalistic interests, or those of their patrons. In documenting Cox's commitment to serving her professional community, this case study will show that some particularly feminine qualities of Cox's approach to her work enabled her to accomplish what her male colleagues tried unsuccessfully to do. (shrink)

In recent years, the concepts of charity and development aid have changed significantly. Present concepts combine direct money transfer with co-production, knowledge sharing and the development of products and services designed for the need of developing and transition economies. The concept of micro-financing is a financial service which has proven to allow for entrepreneurs in the respective countries to start up their businesses. A relatively new financial product for these countries is micro-insurance. This article deals with the question whether consumers (...) in the Netherlands are willing to donate micro-insurances and which factors influence this willingness to contribute to the non-profit micro-insurance approach of an insurance company. The data were collected with questionnaires among a sample of the Dutch population. The data have been processed in a one-way between-groups ANOVA, a paired sample t test and an ordinal regression analysis. The results show that approximately half of the Dutch consumers are willing to pay an additional amount on their insurance premium for the donation of micro-insurances. The amount of the insurance premium did, however, not affect the willingness to donate. If consumers could choose the beneficiary less people are willing to donate, yet those people are willing to donate more money. In conclusion, there is readiness among consumers to contribute to micro-insurance via an insurance company that assists in setting up micro-insurance projects. This indicates a possible role for companies to act as an intermediary between philanthropic acts and consumers. (shrink)