Context: Despite much research on informed choice and the individuals’ autonomy in organised medical screening, little is known about the individuals’ decision-making process as expressed in their own words.Objectives: To explore the decision-making process among women invited to a mammography screening programme.Setting: Women living in the counties of Sør- and Nord-Trøndelag, Norway, invited to the first round of the Norwegian Breast Cancer Screening Program in 2003.Methods: Qualitative methods based on eight semistructured focus-group interviews with a total of 69 women aged (...) 50–69 years.Results: The decision to attend mammography screening was not based on the information in the invitation letter and leaflet provided by the NBCSP. They perceived the invitation letter with a prescheduled appointment as if a decision for mammography had already been made. This was experienced as an aid in overcoming the postponements that easily occur in daily lives. The invitation to mammography screening was embraced as an indication of a responsible welfare state, “like a mother taking care.”Conclusion: In a welfare state where governmental institutions are trusted, mass screening for disease is acknowledged by screening participants as a valued expression of paternalism. Trust, gratitude, and convenience were more important factors than information about benefits, harms, and risks when the women made their decisions to attend screening. These elements should be included in the ethical debates on informed choice in preventive medicine. (shrink)

The relationship of man himself to his environment is an inseparable part of ecology; for he also is an organism and other organisms are a part of his environment. Ecology, therefore, broadly conceived and rightly understood, instead of being an academic science merely, out of touch with humanistic interests, is really that part of every other biological science which brings it into immediate relation to human kind. The proper place of humans in ecological study has been a recurring issue for (...) ecology. Of course humans are part of Nature writ large, but are they part of the ecologist's nature? The question bothered biologists even before the discipline of ecology was firmly institutionalized.... (shrink)

According to Aristotle, Metaphysics 2.3, 995a7–8, there are people who will take seriously the arguments of a speaker only if a poet can be cited as a ‘witness’ in support of them. Aristotle's passing observation sharply reminds us that Greek philosophy had developed within, and was surrounded by, a culture which extensively valued the authority of the poetic word and the poet's ‘voice’ from which it emanated. The currency of ideas, values, and images disseminated through familiarity with poetry had always (...) been a force with which philosophy, in its various manifestations, needed to reckon. As a mode of thought and discourse which proclaimed its aspiration to wisdom, philosophy could not easily eschew some degree of dialogue with an art whose practitioners had traditionally been ranked prominently among the sophoi. Even Aristotle, who keeps aloof from the assumption that philosophical contentions stand in need of poetic support, cites and quotes poetry regularly in his own writings in ways which indicate the influence on him of a prevailing mentality that regarded poets and philosophers as pursuers, up to a point at least, of a common wisdom. (shrink)

The aim of this inquiry is to investigate Heidegger's ontology of technology. We will show that this ontology is aporetic. In Heidegger's key technical essays, ?The question concerning technology? and its earlier versions ?Enframing? and ?The danger?, enframing is described as the ontological basis of modern life. But the account of enframing is ambiguous. Sometimes it is described as totally binding and at other times it appears to allow for exceptions. This oscillation between, what we will call total enframing and (...) partial enframing, is underscored in the work of two influential scholars of Heidegger's later thought, Hubert Dreyfus and Iain Thomson. We will show that like Heidegger, Dreyfus and Thomson unwittingly perpetuate this dilemma that ultimately covers up the aporetic structure of enframing. (shrink)

No part ot Plato's writings has been more debated than the three similes in Books VI.-VII. of the Republic, and still there is a diversity of opinion about their meaning. I believe that most of these difficulties arise from certain assumptions about their purpose which need revision. The current view applies the Cave to the Line, as Plato seems to direct, and this application, which is itself attended by considerable difficulties, leads to an assimilation of the two figures till they (...) seem to have much the same content and purpose. Again, as this makes the lower line appear to be the phenomenal world, it is thought that the simile of the sun foreshadows the theme of the Line by hinting at a connexion between the intelligible and the sensible which is made more explicit in the Line. Thus the group of similes seem mainly intended to show the dependence of Becoming upon Being. This paper will argue that such a view depends upon the misrepresentation of the symbolism adopted by Plato, that two antithetical groups of symbols are confused with one another, and that symbols are even identified with antitypes. Owing to these misinterpretations the Form of the Good has been mistaken for a material cause; both the Line and the Cave have been thought to reveal Plato as embarrassed by a dualism between sense and intellect, and the purpose of the Cave in particular, since the error is cumulative, has been completely obscured. This paper will attempt to substitute for current accounts another interpretation which will relate the three similes closely with the political arguments of Book VI., and with the Platonic education which is set forth in close connexion with them. (shrink)

In classical American pragmatism, fallibilism refers to the conception of truth as an ongoing process of improving human knowledge that is nevertheless susceptible to error. This paper traces appearances of fallibilism in Jewish thought in general, and particularly in the halakhic thought of Eliezer Berkovits. Berkovits recognizes the human condition’s persistent mutability, which he sees as characterizing the ongoing effort to interpret and apply halakhah in shifting historical and social contexts as Torat Ḥayyim. In the conclusion of the article, broader (...) questions and observations are raised regarding Jewish tradition, fallibility, and modernity, and the interaction between Judaism and pragmatism in the history of ideas. (shrink)

A British coffee chain’s fundraising practices constitute a background for this study to examine ideological discourses behind British charitable giving. The charity executes projects in coffee growing communities by providing education for children in disadvantaged neighbourhoods. The study takes a critical stance from a discursive paradigmatic perspective to analyse visual contents used by the charity. The applied visual critical discourse analysis was inspired by Barthes’ semiotic theory. Findings suggest that the adverts’ interpretative repertoires can serve ideologies that sustain the donors’ (...) social-cultural dominance over the recipients by justifying group-based social hierarchies. The chains of signifiers do not question the spectators’ moral position but rationalise status quo and maintain undisturbed consumption. Findings suggest the possibility that the discourses of prosocial behaviour incited under consuming conditions do not challenge but may even justify global inequality. This finding presents challenges facing charitable organisations balancing their work within wider commercial and cultural contexts. (shrink)

Americans who are afraid of living for many years with Alzheimer's might seek a way to end their lives early, when their dementia has just entered the moderate phase. There is no legal process for doing so. In this paper I argue that advance directives, in particular, are not a legal solution for those who prefer to die rather than suffer years of dementia. The problem is that an advance directive only works to hasten death when there is a life-threatening (...) illness for which one can refuse treatment; more often than not, Alzheimer's kills the self long before it kills the body. (shrink)

In this study, I surveyed students' evaluative perceptions of instructor behavior and their possible influence on academic dishonesty. Slightly over 20% of 1,369 student respondents admitted to academic dishonesty in at least 1 class during 1 term at college. Students who admitted to acts of academic dishonesty had lower overall evaluations of instructor behavior than students who reported not committing academic dishonesty. Implications for student learning and the enhancement of academic integrity in the classroom are discussed.

This article continues a discussion the authors have had with Mats Wahlberg on evolutionary theodicies. We have previously suggested a theodicy where there are token unique goods that could only have been actualized through indeterministic evolution. Wahlberg objects that we cannot appeal to such goods, since given indeterminism, God cannot know that such goods will appear. In this article we respond by arguing that God can know well enough that certain kinds of token goods will appear, without knowing in detail (...) their specific character, or when they will happen. (shrink)

In the wake of both the semiotic and the psychoanalytic revolutions, how is it possible to describe the object of religious worship in realist terms? Semioticians argue that each object is known only insofar as it gives birth to a series of signs and interpretants (new signs). From the psychoanalytic side, religious beliefs are seen to belong to transference energies and projections that contaminate the religious object with all-too-human complexes. In Nature's Religion, distinguished theologian and philosopher Robert S. Corrington weaves (...) together the concept of infinite semiosis with that of the transference to show that the self does have access to something in nature that is intrinsically religious. Corrington argues that signs and our various transference fields can and do connect us with fully natural religious powers that are not of our own making, thereby opening up a path past the Western monotheisms to a capacious religion of nature. With a foreword by Robert C. Neville, Nature's Religion is essential reading for philosophers of religion, scholars of the psychology of religion, and theologians. (shrink)

Scholarship on the Euthydemus has largely focused on the protreptic character of the Euthydemus—that is, the manner by which Socrates attempts to turn the young Cleinias toward philosophy. By focusing on the dramatic structure of the text, and above all its comic tenor, this article argues that it is Crito—he to whom Socrates tells his hilarious story of his encounter with the two sophist-brothers—who is the real object of Socrates’s protreptic speech.

The introduction of the concept of capital inCapital– with the words ‘we find’ – has provoked a great deal of discussion about the precise relation between the categories of simple circulation and the concept of capital. In this article, I argue that Marx derives the concept of capital by way of an analysis of the immanent contradictions of money, and that this dialectical derivation can be understood as a conceptual movement in which the concepts of money and capital progressively change (...) their modal status. Furthermore, I examine the development of this transition to capital throughout Marx’s writings from the period 1857 to 1872, arguing that the same arguments can be found in all the relevant writings. Finally, the article provides a critical review of the literature on the transition to capital. (shrink)

The drama of the unfolding of the spirit, Corrington argues, is one of the most powerful struggles within the human process. The spirit is in and of nature and can never lift the self outside of nature. For Corrington's ecstatic naturalism, there is no realm of the supernatural, only dimensions and orders within nature.

Frank Ebersole's extraordinary investigations of certain key philosophical ideas behind problems in epistemology and metaphysics are the subject of this article-review. I have resisted providing what many readers will expect me to provide, namely, a critical examination of his philosophical methodology. I do question his unwilligness to say why his investigations only yield I negative results, and I do have something to say about classifying him as an ordinary language philosopher. However, my main focus is on trying to engage critically (...) with what he actually does in his work. To this end, I provide a narrative of the investigation he carries out into the possibility of comparing the objects of perception and dreams, and I cite other works of his in support of my understanding of that investigation. Although one of his lengthiest essays seems to be devoted to an anticipation of an objection to his approach, I explain why even there he is not concerned with the question of why he always seems to get negative results. After suggesting why some of his later essays seem to be so hard to read, I conclude by saying something about what I take to be his achievement. (shrink)

ʻAyn al-Quḍāh al-Hamadhānī, ʻAbd Allāh ibn Muḥammad, -1131. ; Ontology -- Islam. ; Knowledge, Theory of (Islam). ; Sufis -- Iran -- Biography. ; Muslim philosophers -- Iran -- Biography.

This is a short paper covering my own views on the methods and reasons behind the teaching of medical ethics. All the whys and wherefores are discussed and some conclusions reached. This paper is given from a junior doctor's viewpoint but could equally apply to many others.

The historian of philosophy often encounters arguments that are enthymematic: they have conclusions that follow from their explicit premises only by the addition of "tacit" or "suppressed" premises. It is a standard practice of interpretation to supply these missing premises, even where the enthymeme is "real," that is, where there is no other context in which the philosopher in question asserts the missing premises. To do so is to follow a principle of charity: other things being equal, one interpretation is (...) better than another just to the extent that the one produces a better argument than the other. We show that this principle leads to paradoxical conclusions, including the following: there is no objectively correct interpretation of any real enthymeme found in the text of a major philosopher; an interpreter will not regard a real enthymeme of a major philosopher as adequately interpreted until he has found a way of reading it that makes it into a good argument; every classical philosopher is infallible and omniscient; major philosophers never disagree. These conclusions are preposterous, but there are indications that they are in fact being reached, as we show by means of a case study of recent scholarship on Plato's Third Man Argument. To avoid the overinterpretation and anachronism that result from the unrestrained use of the principle of charity, one must employ a counterbalancing principle of parsimony: to seek the simplest explanation for the text under discussion. We study the role of the principle of parsimony by means of a mathematical case study, involving the suppressed premises in Euclid's Elements. Here the principle of parsimony plays a larger role than it does in the interpretation of philosophical texts, leading to a sharper distinction between Euclid's geometry and Euclidean geometry than we find between Plato and Platonism. We conclude by comparing two models of interpretation, which we call prospective and retrospective. Although the prospective model of interpretation leads to Platonism rather than to Plato, we argue that it still has a place in Platonic scholarship. (shrink)

Professor Solmsen's interpretation is orthodox; his comprehensive account builds on recent more specialized studies, including his own, and those of Jaeger, Ross, and Cherniss. If in some ways the book contains no large surprises, it nevertheless makes a major contribution by its treatment of Plato. The author has skillfully disengaged Plato's observations about nature from the customary ethical, epistemic, or, as the case may be, metaphysical contexts. He demonstrates that Plato was toward the end of his career a more serious (...) investigator of physical phenomena than is commonly supposed. Moreover, at almost every turn he finds Platonic precedents for Aristotle's thinking in this field. He does not detract from Aristotle's originality, but illumines it, and Plato's as well. (shrink)

The outline of modern macroeconomics took shape in Britain in the early nineteenth century thanks, in part, to David Ricardo, one of the most influential economists of the time. Britain was challenged by monetary inflation, industrial unemployment and the loss of jobs abroad. Ricardo pointed the way forward. As a financier and Member of Parliament, he was well versed in politics and commercial affairs. His expertise is shown by the practicality of his proposals, including the resumption of the gold standard, (...) which was essential given the destabilizing policy of the Bank of England. Ricardo's expertise appears also in his debate with T. R. Malthus about whether an industrial economy can suffer a prolonged depression. Say's Law of Markets and the Quantity Theory of Money figure prominently in his works, but not in an extreme form. He was instead a subtle theorist, recognizing the non-neutrality of money, trade depressions and unemployment. (shrink)

Treatise, with commentaries, on Navya-Nyāya philosophy.