If I lead a life of virtue, that may well be good for you. But will it also be good for me? The idea that it will—or even must—is an ancient one, and its appeal runs deep. For if this idea is correct then we can provide everyone with a good reason—arguably the best reason—for being virtuous. However, for all the effort which has been invested in defending the idea, by some of the best minds in the history of philosophy, (...) it remains unproven. Worse, in this skeptical age hardly anyone really believes it. I don't really believe it either, at least not in its strongest forms, but I think that the question is nonetheless worth examining. Even if we cannot show that virtue and self-interest coincide, we can at least measure the breadth of the gap between them. (shrink)

W. B. Gallie's words about Peirce's cosmology—"the black sheep or white elephant of his philosophical progeny" (1952, p. 216)—have often been quoted, usually as a preface to giving a better account of the animal. That he attributed the view to 'contemporary philosophers' and did not assert it himself has usually been ignored. True, Gallie did argue that the "cosmology is a failure, and an inevitable failure" (p. 236), but he also said that Peirce himself "recognized … that his work in (...) this field was imperfect and sketchy" (p. 215), and he concluded the chapter, and his book, with an extremely sympathetic account of all that is nevertheless of enduring value in that failure. After studying Peirce's writings of his.. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: Definition of Idealism Main Idealist Thinkers Absolute Idealism Vindicated (1) Phenomenalism (2) The Physical World as Imaginative Construction (3) The Purely Structural View of the Physical World (4) Panpsychism.

This book is remarkable for what it does not do. It purports to be about Peirce's opposition to nominalism, but it never states clearly what nominalism is and says little about Peirce's realist alternative. It contains no historical discussion of nominalism and thus does not explain the relation of Peirce's idiosyncratic use of that term to its original meaning. It ignores the secondary literature on that topic and does not even list Rosa Mayorga's highly relevant 2007 book, From Realism to (...) Realicism [sic], in its Bibliography. Nor, despite nominalism's alleged 'threat,' does it make reference to such important recent nominalists as Nelson Goodman or W.V.O. Quine. Indeed, after page one, there is hardly any.. (shrink)

Sustained attention, a key cognitive skill that improves during childhood and adolescence, tends to be worse in some emotional and behavioural disorders. Sustained attention is typically studied in non-affective task contexts; here, we used a novel task to index performance in affective versus neutral contexts across adolescence (N = 465; ages 11–18). We asked whether: (i) performance would be worse in negative versus neutral task contexts; (ii) performance would improve with age; (iii) affective interference would be greater in younger adolescents; (...) (iv) adolescents at risk for depression and higher in anxiety would show overall worse performance; and (v) would show differential performance in negative contexts. Results indicated that participants performed more poorly in negative contexts and showed age-related performance improvements. Those at risk of depression performed more poorly than those at lower risk. However, there was no difference between groups as a result of affective context. For anxiety there was no difference in performance as a function of severity. However, those with higher anxiety showed less variance in their reaction times to negative stimuli than those with lower anxiety. One interpretation is that moderate levels of emotional arousal associated with anxiety make individuals less susceptible to the distracting effects of negative stimuli. (shrink)

In a recent article1 mention was made of a MS. from which Goetz printed selections in Vol. V. of the . This MS. was not used by Goetz. On fol. 81 appears the following entry: ‘Moechus est adulter alterius t[h]orum furtim polluens; inde a m echo dicitur m[o]echanica ars, ingeniosa atque subtilissima et p ene quomodo facta uel administrata sit inuisibilis in tantum, ut etiam uisum conspicientium quodam modo furetur, dum non facile penetratur eius ingeniositas quali ingenio artis candelabrum illud (...) Theodosianum factum legitur.’. (shrink)

We discuss our surgical philosophy concerning the subtle interplay between the size of the surgical margin taken and the resultant morbidity from ablative oncological. procedures, which is ever more evident in the treatment of head and neck malignancy. The extent of tissue resection is determined by the "trade off" between cancer control and the perioperative, functional and aesthetic morbidity and mortality of the surgery. We also discuss our dilemmas concerning recent minimally invasive endoscopic microsurgical. techniques for the trans-oral laser removal. (...) or co-ablation of aero-digestive tract tumours, which result in a minimal. surgical margin of oncological clearance. By a process of inductive argument as to the nature of the surgical margin, we consider whether the risks of taking a lesser margin with adjuvant therapy is justified by the attendant gain in reduced surgical morbidity and the possible costs in tumour control. (c) 2006 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. (shrink)

Background. Africa has seen an increase in the number of health research projects being conducted on the continent, particularly clinical trials. Ideally, this should be accompanied by a commensurate improvement in research ethics review capacity to competently provide the much-required research ethics oversight. Unfortunately, this is not the case in many African countries, which are still grappling with weak research ethics oversight capacity, not only at national level but also at institutional level. Objectives. To describe the proposal by Kenya’s national (...) research ethics regulatory authority, the National Commission for Science Technology and Innovation (NACOSTI), to build the capacity of its National Scientific and Ethics Committee (NSEC), tasked with providing the required research ethics oversight in the country. Methods. This is the proposal submitted by NACOSTI to the European and Developing Countries Clinical Trials Partnership for funding of a project entitled ‘Strengthening Research Ethics and Oversight in Kenya’ (STReK). It describes the activities involved to strengthen the NSEC to provide the required research ethics in the country, and to build the research ethics capacity of research ethics committees (RECs) it has accredited, through training and mentorship programmes, to enable them to efficiently review research proposals. Results. Proposed activities of the project are presented. Implementation of the activities described is ongoing. Conclusion. Lessons learnt in this regard may be of benefit to other research ethics regulatory authorities in resource-constrained countries aiming to strengthen their research ethics oversight capacity. (shrink)