While much excitement has been generated surrounding evidence-based medicine, internal documents from the pharmaceutical industry suggest that the publicly available evidence base may not accurately represent the underlying data regarding its products. The industry and its associated medical communication firms state that publications in the medical literature primarily serve marketing interests. Suppression and spinning of negative data and ghostwriting have emerged as tools to help manage medical journal publications to best suit product sales, while disease mongering and market segmentation of (...) physicians are also used to efficiently maximize profits. We propose that while evidence-based medicine is a noble ideal, marketing-based medicine is the current reality. (shrink)

Our topic is the theory of topics. My goal is to clarify and evaluate three competing traditions: what I call the way-based approach, the atom-based approach, and the subject-predicate approach. I develop criteria for adequacy using robust linguistic intuitions that feature prominently in the literature. Then I evaluate the extent to which various existing theories satisfy these constraints. I conclude that recent theories due to Parry, Perry, Lewis, and Yablo do not meet the constraints in total. I then introduce (...) the issue-based theory—a novel and natural entry in the atom-based tradition that meets our constraints. In a coda, I categorize a recent theory from Fine as atom-based, and contrast it to the issue-based theory, concluding that they are evenly matched, relative to our main criteria of adequacy. I offer tentative reasons to nevertheless favour the issue-based theory. (shrink)

In this paper, I examine Plato’s Euthyphro phenomenologically, reading the dialogue as manifesting the posture and activity of gratitude as an essential moment of piety. This phenomenon of gratitude appears directly through Euthyphro’s own remarks and indirectly through Socrates’s interaction with Euthyphro. Other recent commentators, notably Mark McPherran, David Parry, James Brouwer, and William Mann, have noted the importance of the Euthyphro as a dialogue that offers a great deal to the discussion of piety through the shape of the (...) relationship between Socrates and Euthyphro. In building my argument, I follow Parry’s examination of the notion of therapeia or care in order to mark out my own emphasis on charis or gratitude. And I note that, when gratitude is taken as an important phenomenon in the dialogue, what also appears to the reader is the pious possibility of authentic gift-giving and mutual recognition, something Brouwer, Mann, and McPherran have also noted indirectly. Finally, in addition to its synthesis of previous scholarship around a new theme, this paper applies to the dialogue the arguments of Melanie Klein’s “Envy and Gratitude,” Martin Heidegger’s lectures entitled What Is Called Thinking, and Jacques Derrida’s Given Time. (shrink)

In this paper, I examine Plato’s Euthyphro phenomenologically, reading the dialogue as manifesting the posture and activity of gratitude as an essential moment of piety. This phenomenon of gratitude appears directly through Euthyphro’s own remarks and indirectly through Socrates’s interaction with Euthyphro. Other recent commentators, notably Mark McPherran, David Parry, James Brouwer, and William Mann, have noted the importance of the Euthyphro as a dialogue that offers a great deal to the discussion of piety through the shape of the (...) relationship between Socrates and Euthyphro. In building my argument, I follow Parry’s examination of the notion of therapeia or care in order to mark out my own emphasis on charis or gratitude. And I note that, when gratitude is taken as an important phenomenon in the dialogue, what also appears to the reader is the pious possibility of authentic gift-giving and mutual recognition, something Brouwer, Mann, and McPherran have also noted indirectly. Finally, in addition to its synthesis of previous scholarship around a new theme, this paper applies to the dialogue the arguments of Melanie Klein’s “Envy and Gratitude,” Martin Heidegger’s lectures entitled What Is Called Thinking, and Jacques Derrida’s Given Time. (shrink)

It is argued here that Prior's non-standard modal system Q, and the Parry-Dunn system of analytic implication, though entirely independent and independently motivated systems, together provide a rationale for explicating the concept of validity in a non-standard way; their implications are explored for the theory of natural deduction as well as for modal logic and the concept of entailment. I give an account of formal logic from this non-standard viewpoint, together with an informal presentation of the system that unites (...) the insights of Prior (drawing on Russell) and, Parry (drawing on Kant), and the motivations for both in the concept of the contingent existence - as opposed to the contingent truth or falsehood - of a proposition. (shrink)

The perspectives of the dominant Western ethical theories, have dominated the concepts of autonomy and informed consent for many years. Recently this dominant understanding has been challenged by ethics of care which, although, also emanates from the West presents a more nuanced concept: relational autonomy, which is more faithful to our human experience. By paying particular attention to relational autonomy, particularity and Process approach to ethical deliberations in ethics of care, this paper seeks to construct a concept of informed consent (...) from the perspective of ethics of care which is here called relational autonomy-in-informed consent. Thus, providing a broader theoretical basis for informed consent beyond the usual theoretical perspectives that are particularly Western. Care ethics provides such a broader basis because it appeals to a global perspective that encompasses lessons from other cultures, and this will help to enrich the current ideas of bioethics principles of autonomy and informed consent. This objective will be achieved by exploring the ethics of care emphasis on relationships based on a universal experience of caring; and by contrasting its concept of autonomy as relational with the understanding of autonomy in the approaches of the dominant moral theories that reflect rational, individualistic, and rights-oriented autonomy of the American liberalism. (shrink)

Economics is privileged in contemporary government policy such that all human transactions are seen as economic forms of exchange. Education has been discursively restructured according to the logic of the market, with education policy being increasingly colonised by economic policy imperatives. This paper explores some of the consequences of this reframing which draws upon metaphors from industrial and business domains. This paper examines a significant dimension of teaching that currently has marginal presence in official discourse: social contingency. We argue that (...) social contingency is characterised by a variety of distinctive features that include unpredictability, relationality and ethical demands. The significance of social contingency is highlighted by a comparison with industrial production, which is organisationally contingent, and craft production, which is characterised as materially contingent. We argue that the different nature of contingency in these domains makes them inappropriate as metaphors for teaching. We explore the nature of social contingency and some of the practical and ethical consequences of the failure to articulate this in official discourse. Its absence in such discourse is illustrated by consideration of competence statements in the Initial Teacher Education context. We argue that the neglect of social contingency is founded on assumptions of teacher sovereignty that are both philosophically and ethically unsustainable. (shrink)

The metaphysics of relations is still in its infancy. We use the idea of truthmaking to gain purchase on this metaphysics. Assuming a modest supervenience conception of truthmaking, where true relational predications require multiply dependent truthmakers, these are indispensable relations. Though some such relations are required, none are needed for internal relatedness, nor for several other kinds of relational predication. Discerning the metaphysically basic kinds of relations is fraught with uncertainties, but must be tackled if progress is to be made.

Embodied Memories, Embedded Healing foregrounds the East Asian cultural beliefs and practices that shape the environmental consciousness of the twenty-first century. In highlighting such influences, this anthology also foregrounds the closely related new and exciting directions in ecocriticism.

I defend the following version of the ought-implies-can principle: (OIC) by virtue of conceptual necessity, an agent at a given time has an (objective, pro tanto) obligation to do only what the agent at that time has the ability and opportunity to do. In short, obligations correspond to ability plus opportunity. My argument has three premises: (1) obligations correspond to reasons for action; (2) reasons for action correspond to potential actions; (3) potential actions correspond to ability plus opportunity. In the (...) bulk of the paper I address six objections to OIC: three objections based on putative counterexamples, and three objections based on arguments to the effect that OIC conflicts with the is/ought thesis, the possibility of hard determinism, and the denial of the Principle of Alternate Possibilities. (shrink)

Peter Winch; I*—The Presidential Address: “Eine Einstellung zur Seele”, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Volume 81, Issue 1, 1 June 1981, Pages 1–16, ht.

Peter Alexander; I*—The Presidential Address: Incongruent Counterparts and Absolute Space, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Volume 85, Issue 1, 1 June 1.

This is the first part of a two-part article on semantic compositionality, that is, the principle that the meaning of a complex expression is determined by the meanings of its parts and the way they are put together. Here we provide a brief historical background, a formal framework for syntax and semantics, precise definitions, and a survey of variants of compositionality. Stronger and weaker forms are distinguished, as well as generalized forms that cover extra-linguistic context dependence as well as linguistic (...) context dependence. In the second article, we survey arguments for and arguments against the claim that natural languages are compositional, and consider some problem cases. It will be referred to as Part II. (shrink)