The idea of role‐playing makes some people nervous – even some people who play role‐playing games (RPGs). So the idea of immersion is central to understanding how Dungeons Dragons and other aspects of participatory culture work. Phenomenology is a kind of “philosophy of mind” associated with the works of twentieth‐century philosophers Edmund Husserl, Martin Heidegger, Jean‐Paul Sartre, and Maurice Merleau‐Ponty, among others. The domain of phenomenology encompasses the entire range of experiences in the world, paying attention to what Husserl called (...) “intentionality,” or how our consciousness is directed toward particular objects in the world. The fact that this is presented as an atypical approach to play, or at least one that requires some effort, invites us to ask about typical modes of play if visualization of in‐game events is not that mode. This chapter concluded by scratch the surface of a complete phenomenological description of role‐playing. (shrink)

The corporatization of U.S. health care has directed cost containment efforts toward scrutinizing the clinical decisions of physicians. This stimulated a variety of new utilization management interventions, particularly in hospital and managed care settings. Recent changes in fee-for-service medicine and physicians' traditional agency relationships with patients, purchasers, and insurers are examined here. New information systems monitoring of physician ordering behavior has already begun to impact on physician autonomy and the relationship of physicians to provider organizations in both for-profit and not-for-profit (...) sectors. As managed care practice settings proliferate, serious ethical questions will be raised about agency relationships with patients.This article examines health system dynamics altering the historical agency relationship between the physician and patient and eroding the traditional autonomy of the medical profession in the United States. The corporatization of medicine and the accompanying information systems monitoring of physician productivity is seen to account of such change, now posing serious ethical dilemmas. (shrink)

This dissertation elaborates and defends a certain broad orientation in the philosophy of mind---the inferentialism of Sellars and Brandom---and explores the striking consequences of that orientation for the field of practical reason. Inferentialism aims to understand the significance of various philosophically important concepts in terms of their role in inference. In the first part of the dissertation, I use an analysis of inference to draw a distinction between two types of practical reasoning: reasoning that takes facts as reasons for acting, (...) and reasoning that takes practical attitudes as reasons for acting. I argue that once we take a contextualist, non-foundationalist approach to practical reasoning---and we should---we realize that neither form of reasoning is more fundamental or primary than the other. This leaves behind a number of current debates between Humeans and their opponents. In the second part, I examine three important, practically-oriented mental states: intentions, evaluative beliefs, and desires. Using their role in practical reasoning as a guiding thread in my analysis, I arrive at novel accounts of each. I analyze intentions as practical commitments, the linchpin of practical reasoning, and reveal their deep connection with beliefs. Desires are understood in terms of intentions, reversing the usual direction of analysis, while evaluative beliefs are approached via a distinction between acknowledging and attributing practical states. (shrink)

The distinguished Kansas editor and author gives a vivid picture of the three major cycles of our country's progress--the revolutionary cycle, the antislavery cycle, and the populist cycle--each viewed as a part of the larger cycle of democratic growth that itself has come from that development loosely termed Christian civilization. Originally published in 1925. A UNC Press Enduring Edition -- UNC Press Enduring Editions use the latest in digital technology to make available again books from our distinguished backlist that were (...) previously out of print. These editions are published unaltered from the original, and are presented in affordable paperback formats, bringing readers both historical and cultural value. (shrink)

Theological determinism can make good sense of petitionary prayer. Answered prayers are a good thing, so God has reasons to create them. Thus, when a supplicant prays, she gives God a reason to create an answer to her prayer. When he does answer a prayer, he creates the prayed-for results as a means to the fulfillment of the petition. In this way, the prayed-for results are genuinely answers to prayer, even as God has also determined the supplicant to make the (...) request. This result holds whether or not God would have had sufficient reason to bring about the prayed-for result, had the petition not occurred. Thus, the theological determinist can hold all of: a) when a prayer is answered, it is always at least partly answered because of the prayer, b) God would have brought about some prayed-for results whether or not anyone prayed for them, and c) God would not have brought about some prayed-for results, if someone had not prayed for them. (shrink)