The article addresses the contributions psychoanalytic theory, particularly its concepts of transference and counter-transference, can make to our understanding of reflexivity in intercultural education (IE). After the introduction, the article is organized into three parts. The first part is a psychoanalytic discussion that focuses on the concepts of transference and counter-transference. The second part elaborates on the concepts of transference and counter-transference by presenting examples through existing studies in the fields of (...) multicultural and IE and psychoanalysis to illuminate what it would mean to psychoanalytically understand aspects of intercultural relations and reflexivity. In the third section, while contending that this article does not exclude other forms of reflexivity or delimit the danger of uncritically accepting the potentials for reflexivity, it offers the implications drawn from the discussions in the first and second sections by concluding that psychoanalysis is an area of inquiry that forces us to question how unconscious forces affect our interaction with students, the curriculum, and the meaning we give to teaching and learning experiences. The article concludes that reflexivity in IE can benefit from considering the effects of transference and counter-transference. (shrink)

One of the more draining aspects of being a clinical ethicist is dealing with the emotions of patients, family members, as well as healthcare providers. Generally, by the time a clinical ethicist is called into a case, stress levels are running high, patience is low, and interpersonal communication is strained. Management of this emotional burden of clinical ethics is an underexamined aspect of the profession and academic literature. The emotional nature of doing clinical ethics consultation may be better addressed by (...) utilizing concepts and tools from clinical psychology. Management of countertransference, the natural emotional reaction by the therapist toward the patient, is a widely discussed topic in the psychotherapeutic literature. This concept can be adapted to the clinical ethics encounter by broadening it beyond the patient-therapist relationship to refer to the ethics consultant's emotional response toward the patient, the family, or other members the healthcare team. Further, it may aid the consultant because a recognition of the source and nature of these reactions can help maintain ‘critical distance’ and minimize bias in the same way that a psychologist maintains neutrality in psychotherapy. This paper will offer suggestions on how to manage these emotional responses and their burden in the clinical ethics encounter, drawing upon techniques and strategies recommended in the psychotherapeutic literature. Using these techniques may improve consultation outcomes and reduce the emotional burden on the clinical ethicist. (shrink)

Countertransference is an important part of the analytical process. It is concerned with the analyst's emotional response to the patient. As such, it can be a particularly difficult aspect of the analytical setting and especially so because of the threat of possible sexual involvement with the patient. At present there is little available on this difficult topic. Jungian analyst David Sedgwick tackles the subject bravely and shows how to use the countertransference in a positive way. The result is one of (...) the finest Jungian clinical texts of recent years. (shrink)

The transference theory reduces causation to the transmission of physical conserved quantities, like energy or momenta. Although this theory aims at applying to all felds of physics, we claim that it fails to account for a quantum electrodynamic effect, viz. the Aharonov-Bohm effect. After having argued that the Aharonov-Bohm effect is a genuine counter-example for the transference theory, we offer a new physicalist approach of causation, ontic and modal, in which this effect is embedded.

In a recent BioEssays paper [W. F. Martin, BioEssays 2017, 39, 1700115], William Martin sharply criticizes evolutionary interpretations that involve lateral gene transfer into eukaryotic genomes. Most published examples of LGTs in eukaryotes, he suggests, are in fact contaminants, ancestral genes that have been lost from other extant lineages, or the result of artefactual phylogenetic inferences. Martin argues that, except for transfers that occurred from endosymbiotic organelles, eukaryote LGT is insignificant. Here, in reviewing this field, we seek to correct some (...) of the misconceptions presented therein with regard to the evidence for LGT in eukaryotes. A recent paper dismisses claims of lateral gene transfer into eukaryotic genomes. We counter the arguments made in that paper and discuss the extensive evidence for LGT in eukaryotes. (shrink)

Hobbes and Butler both conjure images of an abandoned infant in their respective discussions of vulnerability. Leviathan uses this image to discuss original dominion, or natural maternal right over the child, while for Butler rights discourse produces fantasies of invulnerability that derealize other lives. However, Hobbes’s infant in nature has no rights and can only consent to being nourished. Only when able to nourish itself can it claim rights to transfer through the covenant producing a fantasy of individual invulnerability. Vulnerability (...) in the state of nature and the com- monwealth’s fantasy of invulnerability are together a counter-fantasy to the fantasies of invulnerability of Hobbes’s time, through heaven or eternal glory. In question is whether Butler, in her reimagining of community, is, like Hobbes, producing a fantasy, but a meta-fantasy that community can be taken as fantasy without derealizing the fantastic or that fantasizes an honesty about its being fantasy. (shrink)

The article explores two recurring themes in the scholarly writings on ‘transferred malice’ the doctrine designed by Anglo-American law to allow full criminal responsibility where the defendant caused harm to a different object than the one he had in mind, due to either accident or mistake. First, in face of the diversity of views advocating the eradication of transferred malice, the article searches for the provinces in which that doctrine should still have relevance to our legal system. It is often (...) assumed that malice cannot transfer amongst different offences, which has led many scholars to conclude that the doctrine is superfluous. The analysis here offered counters both assumption and conclusion alike, as well as the common view that differentiates between the implications of accident and mistake. Second, reflecting on the different criteria proposed to restrict the implementation of transferred malice such as physical and immediate harm to the actual object, remoteness of the actual harm from the harm intended, and foreseeability as to the actual harm the article provides an analytical framework by which to assess these criteria and to determine which of them proves more persuasive. The result is a notion of transferred malice that strikes a favourable balance with the requirement of mens rea. (shrink)

Ideals (or ideal values) help people to navigate in social life. They indicate at a very fundamental level what people are concerned about, what they strive for, and what they want to be affiliated with. Transferring this to a leader-follower analysis, our first study (n = 306) confirms that followers' identification and satisfaction with their leaders are stronger, the more leaders match followers' ideal leader values. Study 2 (n = 244) extends the perspective by introducing the novel concept of counterideals (...) (i. e., how an ideal leader should not be) as a second, non-redundant point of reference. Results confirm that a leader's match on ideal and on counter-ideal values have independent effects in that both explain unique variance in followers' identification and satisfaction with their leader. Study 3 (n = 136) replicates the previous results in an experimental scenario study and provides evidence for the proposed causal direction of the underlying process. We conclude that counter-ideal values might be an additional point of reference that people use to triangulate targets above and beyond ideal values and discuss the implications of our findings for value research and management. (shrink)

‘Transversality’ is a key term in the work of Félix Guattari. As a conceptual and pragmatic motor for the generation of heterogeneity, it extends throughout all of his work, including the writing he undertook with Deleuze. It promotes the rupture and redistribution of hierarchical structures, the mobilisation of operations of deterritorialisation across the social and cultural field, and it gains a ‘chaosmic’ dimension in the later writings. Its ‘origins’, however, are to be found in Guattari's early work at the Clinique (...) de la Borde and in militant Marxist movements in the 1950s and early 1960s. This is an initial and necessarily provisional effort to embed the concept in a social and therapeutic pragmatics and thus counter a debateable tendency towards a dilution or diffusion of transversality in theoretical abstraction, where it risks becoming a synonym for a generalised sense of creative differentiation. (shrink)

Ideals (or ideal values) help people to navigate in social life. They indicate at a very fundamental level what people are concerned about, what they strive for, and what they want to be affiliated with. Transferring this to a leader–follower analysis, our first study (n = 306) confirms that followers’ identification and satisfaction with their leaders are stronger, the more leaders match followers’ ideal leader values. Study 2 (n = 244) extends the perspective by introducing the novel concept of (...) class='Hi'>counter-ideals (i.e., how an ideal leader should not be) as a second, non-redundant point of reference. Results confirm that a leader’s match on ideal and on counter-ideal values have independent effects in that both explain unique variance in followers’ identification and satisfaction with their leader. Study 3 (n = 136) replicates the previous results in an experimental scenario study and provides evidence for the proposed causal direction of the underlying process. We conclude that counter-ideal values might be an additional point of reference that people use to triangulate targets above and beyond ideal values and discuss the implications of our findings for value research and management. (shrink)

The term compassion fatigue has come to be applied to a disengagement or lack of empathy on the part of care-giving professionals. Empathy and emotional investment have been seen as potentially costing the caregiver and putting them at risk. Compassion fatigue has been equated with burnout, secondary traumatic stress disorder, vicarious traumatization, secondary victimization or co-victimization, compassion stress, emotional contagion, and counter-transference. The results of a Canadian qualitative research project on nurses? experience of compassion fatigue are presented. Nurses, (...) self-identified as having compassion fatigue, described a change in their practice by which they began to shield and distance themselves from the suffering of patients and families. Time to help patients and families cope with suffering seemed unavailable, and many felt they were running on empty and, ultimately, impotent as nurses. Feelings of irritability, anger, and negativity arose, though participants described denying or ignoring these emotions as a way to try to survive their work day. Difficulties with work carried over into the nurses? personal lives, affecting their relationships with family and friends. Such experiences invariably called into question the participants? identity, causing them to reflect on the kind of nurse they were. The participants? compassion fatigue created a sense of hopelessness regarding positive change, although some nurses described strategies that seemed to help alleviate their compassion fatigue. (shrink)

In this book Elizabeth Spillius and Edna O'Shaughnessy explore the development of the concept of projective identification, which had important antecedents in the work of Freud and others, but was given a specific name and definition by Melanie Klein. They describe Klein's published and unpublished views on the topic, and then consider the way the concept has been variously described, evolved, accepted, rejected and modified by analysts of different schools of thought and in various locations – Britain, Western Europe, North (...) America and Latin America. The authors believe that this unusually widespread interest in a particular concept and its varied ‘fate’ has occurred not only because of beliefs about its clinical usefulness in the psychoanalytic setting but also because projective identification is a universal aspect of human interaction and communication. _Projective Identification: The Fate of a Concept_ will appeal to any psychoanalyst or psychotherapist who uses the ideas of transference and counter-transference, as well as to academics wanting further insight into the evolution of this concept as it moves between different cultures and countries. (shrink)

Although Sartre denounces Descartes' two principles, he nevertheless draws inspiration from him. No doubt this is close to being paradoxical; we shall have to be no less paradoxical in our explanation. For although the text entitled “Cartesian Freedom,” which introduces a volume of selections from Descartes, , confers some coherence on this apparent non-sense, once the texts surrounding this work have been taken into account, we have to conclude not only that this text predates , even though it was published (...) afterwards, but that it is a collection of Descartes' writings on Sartre, even though it is a writing by Sartre on Descartes. For beyond the Sartrean analysis of the Cartesian analyses of the , we find Sartre's existential psychoanalysis of his predecessor, in which takes place not a transference, but a counter-transference. French S'il déclame contre les deux principes qui sont ceux de Descartes, Sartre se réclame pourtant de lui. Sans doute n'est-il pas à un paradoxe près. Reste qu'il nous faudra ne pas l'être moins pour expliquer le sien. Car certes, le sens du texte qu'il intitule « La li berté cartésienne » et qui articule ce volume de morceaux choisis qu'est Descartes 1596-1650 confère quelque cohérence à cet apparent non-sens. Mais une fois présenté de cette œuvre le paratexte, il nous faudra affirmer non seulement que celle-ci se lit avant L'être et le néant quoiqu'elle ait été publiée après, mais, plus encore, qu'elle est un ensemble d'écrits de Descartes sur Sartre quoiqu'elle soit un écrit de Sartre sur Descartes. C'est qu'outre l'analyse sartrienne des analyses cartésiennes de la Méditation quatrième , on y trouve une psychanalyse existentielle par l'auteur de son devancier, à l'occasion de laquelle a lieu non pas un transfert, mais un contre-transfert. (shrink)

To stress the subjectivity of the analyst is to accept the centrality of countertransference in the analytic relationship. Psychoanalysts have long recognized the importance of transference in the analytic setting—that is, the analysand's way of relating to the analyst in terms of his strong, ambivalent unconscious feelings for earlier figures , a process whose successful resolution constitutes the psychoanalystic "cure." But, since the patient's transference is only experienced by the analyst through his countertransference responses, recent theorists have come (...) to emphasize the importance of countertransference in psychoanalysis. In what Otto Kernberg calls its "totalistic" definition, countertransference refers to "the total emotional reaction of the psychoanalyst to the patient in the treatment situation."1 It is, therefore, a source of both empathic understanding and defensive misunderstanding, of distortion and insight. Hans Loewald remarks: "Since a psychoanalytic investigation can be carried out only by a human mind, we cannot conceive of one in which the analyst's [counter] transference and resistance are not the warp and woof of his activity."2 · 1. Otto Kernberg, Borderline Conditions and Pathological Narcissism , p. 49. · 2. Hans Loewald, "Psychoanalytic Theory and the Psychoanalytic Process," The Psychoanalytic Study of the Child 25 : 56. Cf. Heinz Kohut, "Introspection, Empathy, and Psychoanalysis," Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association 7 : 459-83. For a clear discussion of the background of the countertransference concept in Freud, see Humberto Nagera, et. al., Basic Psychoanalytic Concepts on Metapsychology, Conflicts, Anxiety and Other Subjects , pp. 200-206. Two surveys of the literature on the topic are particularly useful: Douglas Orr, "Transference and Countertransference: A Historical Survey," Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association 2 : 621-70, and Kernberg, pp. 49-66. Arthur F. Marotti, associate professor of English at Wayne State University, has written a number of essays on Ben Jonson, John Donne, Thomas Middleton, and Edmund Spenser. He is completing a book-length social-historical and psychoanalytic study of Donne's poetry and a book on Jonson; some of the theoretical assumptions behind both projects are discussed in this article. See also: "Psychoanalysis and the Marionette Theater: Interpretation is Not Depreciation" in Vol. 5, No. 1. (shrink)

Gedankenübertragung. Gegenübertragung. Thought-transference and counter-transference have rarely been considered together. One is a key instrument in much contemporary psychoanalytic practice and the other simply occultism. This essay traces the striking parallels in Sigmund Freud's interests in both. Its tale is the uncanny narrative of his essay ‘Psychoanalysis and Telepathy’. The story starts from Freud's engagements with Sándor Ferenczi and Carl Jung to speculate that his unpublished paper may be the article on counter-transference he promised but (...) never wrote. The repressed returns in the history and practice of psychoanalysis — and in Shoshana Felman's uncanny reading effect. (shrink)

Robert Litman descreve quatro casos extraordinários em que indivíduos revelam esse conhecimento reprimido por meio da análise de sonhos após o suicídio do “outro”. Em cada caso, ocorre um momento de reconhecimento da significância do sonho tal que o sujeito se dá conta da culpabilidade. E, em cada caso, essa culpabilidade teve que ver com uma interrupção na comunicação que é revelada através da psicanálise. Quero desconstruir a relação transferência-contratransferência como uma reciprocidade simbiótica. Não ouso adiante, inalterado, quando transcendo quem (...) eu era através da língua com outros. A língua é a alteração da subjetividade. Ofereço uma crítica de certas compreensões de alteridade envolvidas em psicoterapia pelo exame da situação geral do encontro com outros por meio do evento-língua, peculiar à psicoterapia. Devo reconhecer que a ameaça da alteridade do paciente é também a promessa da minha habilidade em oferecer ajuda. Se consideramos seriamente a transcendência do evento-língua da terapia, vemos que o processo de alteração do outro implica mudanças para todos os envolvidos.Robert Litman describes four remarkable cases where individuals reveal this repressed knowledge through dream analysis after the suicide of the “other.” In each case, there comes a moment of recognition of the significance of the dream such that the subject realizes culpability. And in each case, this culpability had to do with a communication breakdown that is revealed through psychoanalysis. I want to deconstruct the transference / counter-transference relationship as a symbiotic reciprocity. I do not venture forth unchanged as I transcend who I was through language with others. Language is alteration of subjectivity. I offer a criticism of certain understandings of alterity involved in psychotherapy by examining the general situation of the encounter with others through the peculiar language-event of psychotherapy. I must recognize that the threat of the alterity of the patient is also the promise of my ability to offer help. If we take seriously the transcendence of the language-event of therapy, we see that the process of altering another involves changes for all involved. (shrink)

There is increasing recognition within psychoanalysis and related therapies that awareness of the body is important in understanding and treating patients. Psychic Threats and Somatic Shelters explores the ways in which adults and children become acquainted with the range of physical issues that arise within their psychoanalytic or psychological treatments. Nitza Yarom discusses in a practical and clinically focused way the large variety of physical outlets which today's person uses to shelter from the many troubles and restrictions that are placed (...) on everyday life. Her book is divided into two main sections: Somatic shelters, which explores the variety of physical symptoms encountered by patients, including problems with weight and eating; with sensation through sight, sound, smell and taste; in movement through hyper activity or rigidity and through the communication of physical pain. Embodied dialogue, in which the author updates the use of the basic technical principles of psychoanalysis to involve the body in the treatment including transference and counter-transference between analyst and patient. In Psychic Threats and Somatic Shelters the emotional communication of these body narratives are vividly demonstrated in the treatments presented, here the interaction in the consulting room is revealed in bodily resonance and its therapeutic effects. This book is written for psychoanalysts and psychotherapists, psychologists, body therapists, family therapists, social workers and art/movement therapists. (shrink)

Exhibition catalogue for the exhibition of drawings and paintings held as part of the Wilderness and Inner Space conference at the University of Kent, Canterbury 2008. The concept of Territorialization from Deleuze and Guattari is linked to ideas of wilderness to both describe the psychotherapeutic relationship and to critique the proposed state regulation of the psychotherapies. The transference and counter transference relation between client and psychotherapist is described as a process of territorialization and deterritorialization in which a (...) dream of the client led to the production of art works by the psychotherapist. This at work led to the production of imagery based around the therapeutic relationship involving key images of wild animals. The animal imagery is linked to Deleuze and Guattari's re-interpretation of Freud’s interpretation of the Wolfman dream, emphasizing the social and historical determinants of dream imagery. The interrelationships between Wilderness, Territorialization and the personal and the political in dream imagery suggest the psychotherapeutic space as located on the borders between the social and a wild or wilderness space. The need to recognise the wild dimension of psychotherapy highlights the necessity to resist the imposition of monocultures of therapeutic practice through possible state regulation. (shrink)

_Initiating Psychoanalysis_ presents an international collection of papers brought together by the Working Party on Initiating Psychoanalysis of the European Psychoanalytic Federation and addresses the specific clinical and technical issues involved in launching the processes that are at the core of psychoanalysis and psychoanalytic treatment. Expert contributors provide introductions and commentaries on a selection of psychoanalytic papers, including one by Freud himself, which refer to beginning psychoanalytic treatment in a wide range of settings. Divided into four main sections, areas of (...) discussion include: historical and conceptual developments in the field practical, technical and ethical considerations unconscious transference and counter-transference dynamics of initial interviews internal factors that can help or hinder psychoanalysts in their work to initiate psychoanalysis. This book will be helpful to all psychoanalytical practitioners in thinking about their work in first interviews with prospective patients, as well as psychoanalysts and psychotherapists at all levels of experience, who will be able to use this book to enrich their own practice. (shrink)

Synchronicity IIn the summer of 2006, I read several books by well-known existential psychiatrist and insightful novelist Irvin Yalom.2 They were all thought-provoking and mightily entertaining. Dr. Yalom sustains lively interests in philosophical aspects of psychiatry, as well as in psychiatric aspects of philosophy. Among other works, he has written two profoundly philosophical novels, namely The SchopenhauerCure and When Nietzsche Wept, in which he has delved deeply and creatively into the psyches of these two outstanding thinkers via the refracting media (...) of literary and historical fiction, and through lenses of eclectic existential psychiatry.Yalom’s fictive excursions are not confined to philosophical realms—far from it. In a delightfully ironic novel entitled Lying on the Couch Yalom takes to task some perennially unfinished business of psychoanalysis, namely analysts’ perpetual struggles with counter-transference issues. Even the most seasoned psychoanalysts, so Yalomartfully reveals, have not yet had their own egos sufficiently shrunk. In consequence, they are apt to experience all kinds of problems with patients, and not always of the patients’ making. To be sure, patients are wont to deceive their analysts at times, whether subconsciously, diffidently, or maliciously. And analysts themselves are prone to all the vanities catalogued by Ecclesiastes in antiquity,3 egoisms and egotisms alike that appear innately rooted in the human psyche, and which inevitably contribute to self-deception. If an analyst’s vanities, self-deceptions, and unresolved counter-transferences were skillfully exploited by a professional con-artist posing as a patient, personal and professional mayhemwould result. This is one of the conspicuous threads in the rich tapestry of untruths, vanities and self deceptions that Yalom weaves in Lying on The Couch.One particular episode in Yalom’s novel rather jarred me when I encountered it in August 2006, because it coincided with an uncannily similar episode that was unfolding in my own life at precisely the same time. (shrink)

In the context of the socio-political instability that exists in Ukraine, the problem of stress resistance among psychological service professionals has emerged. The aim of the research is to analyse the professional activity of psychologists in Ukraine at the present stage under the influence of stress factors. The following methods were used to study the nature of stress and its impact on the personality of a psychologist: analytical and synthesis methods, statistical, comparative, survey and interpretive methods. The research results theoretically (...) reveal the peculiarities of the concept of stress, the stages of stress development, and identify the main stressors of professional activity. An empirical study of the stress resistance of psychologists was conducted. The influence of stress on the quality of psychological care was determined. Professional qualities in the psychologist's personality structure were identified, the phenomenon of professional exhaustion, the role of countertransference in counselling were studied, the importance of the code of ethics for psychologists and its violation in the course of practice were revealed. The importance of interventions and supervision as a means of psychological support for the professional development of psychologists was investigated, and statistical indicators of the level of stress were analysed. The practical significance of the research is determined by the current coverage of the problem of the impact of stress on the professional activity of a psychologist and in the creation of effective ways of emotional self-preservation and development of stress resistance, which provide the search for their resources for self-healing and effective work. (shrink)

Countering the fake news phenomenon has become one of the most important challenges for democratic societies, governments and non-profit organizations, as well as for the researchers coming from several domains. This is not a local problem and demands a holistic approach to analyzing heterogeneous data and storing the results. The research problem we face in this paper is the proposition of an innovative distributed architecture to tackle the above-mentioned problems. The architecture uses state-of-the-art technologies with a focus on efficiency, scalability (...) and also openness, so that community-created components and digital content analyzers could be added. Moreover, we prove the usability of the prototype on Kaggle Fake News dataset. In particular, we consider different configurations of the proposed deep neural network and present the results reflecting the effectiveness, scalability and transferability of the proposed solution. (shrink)

One of the most attractive, but nevertheless highly controversial proposals to alleviate the negative effects of today’s international patent regime is the Health Impact Fund (HIF). Although the HIF has been drafted to facilitate access to medicines and boost pharmaceutical research, we have analysed the burdens for the global poor a similar proposal designed to promote the use and development of climate-friendly technologies would have. Drawing parallels from the access to medicines debate, we suspect that an analogous “Climate Impact Fund” (...) will increase the already very high scientific and technological supremacy of the developed world over the Global South. We advocate countering this dominance on the ground that countries with scarce research and development capacities will be in a difficult position to reject technologies and will not have a say on how such technologies should look like. Further, addressing global hazards should be an inclusive endeavour and not only a privilege reserved for the developed world. Incentivizing grassroots innovation would be a major step to promote scientific and technological inclusion. (shrink)

Psychological essentialism is the belief that some internal, unseen essence or force determines the common outward appearances and behaviors of category members. We investigated whether reasoning about transplants of bodily elements showed evidence of essentialist thinking. Both Americans and Indians endorsed the possibility of transplants conferring donors' personality, behavior, and luck on recipients, consistent with essentialism. Respondents also endorsed essentialist effects even when denying that transplants would change a recipient's category membership (e.g., predicting that a recipient of a pig's heart (...) would act more pig-like but denying that the recipient would become a pig). This finding runs counter to predictions from the strongest version of the “minimalist” position (Strevens,2000), an alternative to essentialism. Finally, studies asking about a broader range of donor-to-recipient transfers indicated that Indians essentialized more types of transfers than Americans, but neither sample essentialized monetary transfer. This suggests that results from bodily transplant conditions reflect genuine essentialism rather than broader magical thinking. (shrink)

In a recent paper, Pruss proves the validity of the rule beta-2 relative to Lewis’s semantics for counterfactuals, which is a significant step forward in the debate about the consequence argument. Yet, we believe there remain intuitive counter-examples to beta-2 formulated with the actuality operator and rigidified descriptions. We offer a novel and two-dimensional formulation of the Lewisian semantics for counterfactuals and prove the validity of a new transfer rule according to which a new version of the consequence argument (...) can be formulated. This new transfer rule is immune to the counter-examples involving the actuality operator and rigidified descriptions. However, we show that counter-examples to this new rule can also be generated, demanding that the Lewisian semantics be generalized for higher dimensions where counter-examples can always be generated. (shrink)

Psychological essentialism is a folk theory characterized by the belief that a causal internal essence or force gives rise to the common outward behaviors or attributes of a category's members. In two studies, we investigated whether 4- to 7-year-old children evidenced essentialist reasoning about heart transplants by asking them to predict whether trading hearts with an individual would cause them to take on the donor's attributes. Control conditions asked children to consider the effects of trading money with an individual. Results (...) indicated that children reasoned according to essentialism, predicting more transfer of attributes in the transplant condition versus the non-bodily money control. Children also endorsed essentialist transfer of attributes even when they did not believe that a transplant would change the recipient's category membership. This finding runs counter to predictions from a strong interpretation of the “minimalist” position, an alternative to essentialism. (shrink)

In “The Choice Theory of Contracts,” we explain contractual freedom and celebrate the plurality of contract types. Here, we reply to critics by refining choice theory and showing how it fits and shapes what we term the “Contract Canon”. I. Freedom. (1) Charles Fried challenges our account of Kantian autonomy, but his views, we show, largely converge with choice theory. (2) Nathan Oman argues for a commerce-enhancing account of autonomy. We counter that he arbitrarily slights noncommercial spheres central to (...) human interaction. (3) Yitzhak Benbaji suggests that choice theory’s commitment to autonomy is overly perfectionist. Happily, in response to Benbaji, we can cite with approval Charles Fried’s point that contract types are “enabling our liberties.” II. Choice. (4) Aditi Bagchi criticizes our inattention to impediments to choice. We show how choice theory’s commitments to both multiplicity and relational justice ameliorate these impediments. (5) Gregory Klass explores parol evidence to highlight the mechanisms of choice. We substantially concur with his position, and show how such mechanisms can ensure voluntariness, an essential element of choice. (6) Oren Bar-Gill and Clayton Gillette question the institutional capacity of existing legal actors to implement choice theory. Working from the example of cohabitation, we offer a somewhat more optimistic view. III. Contracts. (7) Peter Benson contends our focus on the rational slights the reasonable. Although we did not use this Rawlsian vocabulary, choice theory complies with its strictures — more so than transfer theory. (8) Daniel Markovits and Alan Schwartz claim provocatively that contract theory must: capitulate before pluralism (as they endorse); leverage it; or fall victim to a so-called “embracing” approach (their charge against us). We reject the charge that choice theory is foundationally value-pluralist. Instead, we cabin pluralism and put it to work. (9) The Contract Canon starts on the next big step for choice theory by explaining existing doctrine (rebutting Benson on lack of fit) and helping adjudicate contract practice (countering Markovits and Schwartz on the vices of our pluralism). Each Article in this Issue advances the field; each prompts us to refine choice theory — all steps, we hope, toward a more just and justified law of contract. (shrink)

This essay explores the detailed argument of the Coase Theorem, as found in Ronald Coase’s “The Problem of Social Cost” and subsequently defended by Coase in The Firm, the Market, and the Law. Fascination with the Coase Theorem arises over its apparently unassailable counterintuitive conclusion that the imposition of legal liability has no effect on which of two competing uses of land prevails, and also over the general difficulty in tying down an unqualified statement of the theorem. Instead of entering (...) the debate over what exactly the theorem holds, this article suggests that the core of Coase’s reasoning is flawed and to the extent that any version of the theorem relies upon this reasoning it can be disproved. It is further suggested that a version of the theorem which avoided the need for Coase’s core argument by focusing on “the efficiency thesis” at the expense of “the invariance thesis” would be insufficiently significant to merit the status of a theorem; and that, in any event, Coase’s reasoning does not sustain an efficient outcome. The heart of the essay comprises the allegation of an error made by Coase when he transferred his core argument to the context of economic rents. The essay commences by considering and modelling the nature of the counter-intuitive thrust to the Coase Theorem, which is used to trace the development of Coase’s reasoning, and ultimately to expose the flaw it contains. Ancillary observations are made on the relationship between the Coasean analysis of characteristically legal problems and the conditions of general market equilibrium, and the theoretical status of law-and-economics. (shrink)

This paper examines recent developments in U.K. utility regulation from a business ethics perspective. The regulatory framework that facilitated privatisation of the utility companies has foundations based upon free market principles involving a transfer from regulation to competitive markets wherever possible. Where competition is not feasible, continuing economic regulation is relied upon, designed to mirror the competitive market to induce, through comparative competition and the price capping mechanism, incentives for greater efficiency. The New Labour Government, having fundamentally reviewed this framework (...) when it came to office, has surprisingly endorsed its basic tenets. However, it wishes to superimpose social responsibility regulations designed to achieve social policy rather than economic objectives. This interventionist approach is in itself in conflict with the free market inspired regulatory framework but additionally, the imposition of social policy objectives creates fundamental ambiguities within the framework for the key stakeholders. The paper concludes that the Government''s policy, by eliciting stakeholder confusion and perverse behaviour, could be counter-productive but that ethical theories and frameworks can contribute to thinking in this vital area of the economy. (shrink)

Merleau-Ponty: From Perspective to the Chiasm,the Epistemic Rigor of an AnalogyHere, we wish to take up the discussion of Merleau-Ponty’s notion of chiasm in light of the question of its status. Is it a matter of a metaphor without any cognitive value resulting from an analogical and arbitrary transfer from one domain to another, or is it a matter of a rigorous concept susceptible of being experimented upon, taken up again, or improved? If the latter is the case, what is (...) the nature of this concept? Is it descriptive, heuristic, or even logical? The question is worth asking insofar as it is not only the most orthodox positivists who may be likely to see, in this transfer of concept, nothing more than poetic license. Indeed, the most careful commentators authorized by Merleau-Ponty are in lockstep with the critics of his supposedly “literary” style. “Ambiguous” is thus the term, which more often describes Merleau-Ponty’s notions of encroachment, of reversibility, or even chiasm. First, we shall examine the function and the role of the concept of chiasm in Merleau-Ponty’s philosophy. We shall then establish its scope in order to be able to determine its exact status. It is only at the conclusion of this study that we will be able to show how this notion sheds light on Merleau-Ponty’s main concern, namely, to produce a counter-model of perspective and to promote a newcategory of relation – a concern which organizes the seemingly unrelated elements in his philosophy.Merleau-Ponty: dalla prospettiva al chiasma,il rigore epistemico di un’analogiaIntendiamo riprendere, in questa sede, la discussione sulla nozione di chiasma in Merleau-Ponty, alla luce di una domanda circa il suo statuto: si tratta di una metafora, priva di ogni valore cognitivo perché nata da un trasferimento analogico ed arbitrario da un campo semantico ad un altro, o si tratta di un concetto rigoroso, suscettibile di essere messo alla prova dell’esperienza e via via perfezionato? In tal caso, qual è la natura di questo concetto? È descrittiva, euristica, oppure logica? È interessante porre questa domanda dato che non sono solamente i positivisti più ortodossi, a vedere in questo trasferimento una semplice licenza poetica. In effetti, molti tra i commentatori più autorevoli di Merleau-Ponty aderiscono alle diverse critiche sollevate intorno alla presunta natura «letteraria» di questa espressione, e ritengono che il chiasma sia una semplice metafora. Interrogheremo innanzitutto la funzione e il ruolo di questo concetto nella filosofia di Merleau-Ponty al fine di determinarne l’esatto statuto. Solo al termine di questo studio preliminare potremo mostrare come questa nozione possa gettare nuova luce sulla preoccupazione principale di Merleau-Ponty, vero e proprio filo rosso che organizza in profondità tutti gli elementi apparentemente eterogenei della sua filosofia: vale a dire, il tentativo di produrre un contro-modello della prospettiva e una nuova categoria di relazione. (shrink)

Merleau-Ponty: From Perspective to the Chiasm,the Epistemic Rigor of an AnalogyHere, we wish to take up the discussion of Merleau-Ponty’s notion of chiasm in light of the question of its status. Is it a matter of a metaphor without any cognitive value resulting from an analogical and arbitrary transfer from one domain to another, or is it a matter of a rigorous concept susceptible of being experimented upon, taken up again, or improved? If the latter is the case, what is (...) the nature of this concept? Is it descriptive, heuristic, or even logical? The question is worth asking insofar as it is not only the most orthodox positivists who may be likely to see, in this transfer of concept, nothing more than poetic license. Indeed, the most careful commentators authorized by Merleau-Ponty are in lockstep with the critics of his supposedly “literary” style. “Ambiguous” is thus the term, which more often describes Merleau-Ponty’s notions of encroachment, of reversibility, or even chiasm. First, we shall examine the function and the role of the concept of chiasm in Merleau-Ponty’s philosophy. We shall then establish its scope in order to be able to determine its exact status. It is only at the conclusion of this study that we will be able to show how this notion sheds light on Merleau-Ponty’s main concern, namely, to produce a counter-model of perspective and to promote a newcategory of relation – a concern which organizes the seemingly unrelated elements in his philosophy.Merleau-Ponty: dalla prospettiva al chiasma,il rigore epistemico di un’analogiaIntendiamo riprendere, in questa sede, la discussione sulla nozione di chiasma in Merleau-Ponty, alla luce di una domanda circa il suo statuto: si tratta di una metafora, priva di ogni valore cognitivo perché nata da un trasferimento analogico ed arbitrario da un campo semantico ad un altro, o si tratta di un concetto rigoroso, suscettibile di essere messo alla prova dell’esperienza e via via perfezionato? In tal caso, qual è la natura di questo concetto? È descrittiva, euristica, oppure logica? È interessante porre questa domanda dato che non sono solamente i positivisti più ortodossi, a vedere in questo trasferimento una semplice licenza poetica. In effetti, molti tra i commentatori più autorevoli di Merleau-Ponty aderiscono alle diverse critiche sollevate intorno alla presunta natura «letteraria» di questa espressione, e ritengono che il chiasma sia una semplice metafora. Interrogheremo innanzitutto la funzione e il ruolo di questo concetto nella filosofia di Merleau-Ponty al fine di determinarne l’esatto statuto. Solo al termine di questo studio preliminare potremo mostrare come questa nozione possa gettare nuova luce sulla preoccupazione principale di Merleau-Ponty, vero e proprio filo rosso che organizza in profondità tutti gli elementi apparentemente eterogenei della sua filosofia: vale a dire, il tentativo di produrre un contro-modello della prospettiva e una nuova categoria di relazione. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reply to My CriticsMargaret Watkins (bio)Science is related to wisdom as virtuousness is related to holiness; it is cold and dry, it has not love and knows nothing of a deep feeling of inadequacy and longing. It is as useful to itself as it is harmful to its servants, insofar as it transfers its own character to them and thereby ossifies their humanity. As long as what is meant (...) by culture is essentially the promotion of science, culture will pass the great suffering human being by with pitiless coldness, because science sees everywhere only problems of knowledge and because within the world of the sciences suffering is really something improper and incomprehensible, thus at best only one more problem.1When Nietzsche writes these words in “Schopenhauer as Educator” in 1874, nearly a century after Hume’s death, he is not using “science” (Wissenschaft) to refer only to what we now know as the natural sciences. Indeed, as another essay in the Untimely Meditations makes clear, history is as much, if not more, in Nietzsche’s sights as biology or physics. He is naming a peculiar irony here: in the quest for a certain kind of progress—the progress of knowledge—we can end up killing any hope of progress for life. Certain methods of historical study are forms of enquiry whose spiritless effect is to “let the dead bury the living.”2 Our relentless quest to catalog and preserve the old robs us of the higher ways we might learn from it, or overcome it. We “historians of philosophy” can do this by reading past philosophers as dead artifacts, focusing intently on how they were responding to their particular contexts and pursuing their own projects. As indispensable as such study is, it can kill the texts’ potential to continue to inspire and inform philosophical thought of our own. [End Page 163]In writing The Philosophical Progress of Hume’s “Essays,” my hope was to counteract this tendency in myself and in readers of Hume—to show that these works often neglected by contemporary philosophers are still capable of inspiring life-giving, generative philosophical thought. (I do not say they are of more than “mere” historical interest; abusing the study of history with such a pernicious adverb runs counter to every fiber of my being.) Such thought need not be optimistic, encouraging, or even morally admirable at every step. It need simply inspire our own thought, activate that love of truth that Hume says can never “be carried to too high a degree,” or (preferably and) show us how that truth matters for human life (EHU 5.1).3My attempts to achieve this aim have two primary modes: showing that the Essays can inspire vital philosophical reflection and arguing that they are themselves philosophical or works of philosophy. To put my cards on the table: the enemies within (and without) that run counter to this effort are the tendency to put a piece of philosophical writing under a microscope (whose lens might be analytic or historical) without ever asking why it matters, and the tendency to dismiss the writing as philosophical because it does not fit neatly into one of the current categories of our discipline or our understanding of “the” early modern philosophical project.I am therefore pleased that both my generous interlocutors, Jacqueline Taylor and Andre Willis, recognize my attempt to extend as well as explain Hume’s insights. There is far too much insight in their own contributions for me to do justice to. I will therefore limit my discussion to three main topics: the notion of Humean public spirit I attempt to elucidate in the book, the related problems of analytic distance, and the pressing question of the difference between Hume’s projects in other philosophical works—especially the two Enquiries—and his projects in the Essays.Although there is no essay called “Of Public Spirit,” it is still a significant concept for the Essays. The initial advertisement to the 1741 volume of Essays, Moral and Political included this observation: “Public Spirit, methinks, shou’d engage us to love the Public, and to bear an equal Affection to all our Country-Men; not... (shrink)

Central passages: Cicero On Fate 11–17; Alexander of Aphrodisias On Fate 208.15–21. Critics of the Stoics tried to show up an inconsistency between Chrysippus’ acceptance of divination, on the one hand, and his conception of contingency, on the other. The argument claims that, since theorems of divination connect, in a conditional, a proposition about the past with one about the future, and since the necessity of the former is transferred to the latter, future occurrences—as far as covered by divination—are all (...) necessary. In the first part of this chapter, the argument is analysed in detail, and several logical difficulties contained in it are unravelled. The second part is concerned with Chrysippus’ counter‐argument. By determining that divinatory theorems are correctly expressed as negated conjunctions rather than conditionals, Chrysippus successfully blocks his opponents’ argument: what is genuinely predicted by diviners is not necessitated through the prediction, because the relation between sign and predicted future event does not ‘transmit’ necessity. Universal regularity between sign and predicted event does not suffice to make a future event necessary. There is no ‘causal chain’ connecting them. Theorems of other sciences, for example, medical theorems that express an empirical connection between things/events, make true Chrysippean conditionals. However, human freedom as conceived by the Stoics is not thereby threatened. (shrink)

The neo-Lockean justification of the highly unequal distribution of income in capitalist societies is based upon two key premises: that people are the rightful owners of their labor and talents, and that the external world was, in the state of nature, unowned, and therefore up for grabs by people, who could rightfully appropriate parts of it subject to a ‘Lockean proviso.’ The argument is presented by Nozick. Counter-proposals to Nozick’s, for the most part, have either denied the premise that (...) people should morally be viewed as the owners of their talents, or have challenged Nozick’s Lockean proviso.Rawls, and to a more limited extent Ronald Dworkin, deny self-ownership. As Rawls writes: ‘…the difference principle represents, in effect, an agreement to regard the distribution of natural talents as a common asset … The naturally advantaged are not to gain merely because they are more gifted, but only to cover the costs of training and education and for using their endowments in ways that help the less fortunate as well. No one deserves his greater natural capacity nor merits a more favorable starting place in society.’ Behind the Rawlsian veil of ignorance, those who deliberate about justice are deprived of knowledge about characteristics whose distribution is morally arbitrary. In Dworkin’s proposal for resource egalitarianism, agents calculate the insurance policy they would hypothetically ask for, were they denied knowledge of what talents they will draw in the birth lottery. Compensation for unequal talents is, according to Dworkin, properly made by taxing and transferring income according to the way it would have been distributed as a consequence of such insurance. Dworkin’s veil of ignorance is thin, because agents in the appropriate posture for deliberating about income distribution know their preferences and attitudes toward risk, but not their talents. For both Rawls and Dworkin, the self-ownership premise is challenged by constructing a veil of ignorance in which people are deprived of knowledge of certain personal characteristics, knowledge of which would bias their opinions, from a moral viewpoint. (shrink)

Committee: Fred Dretske (Advisor), Michael Bratman, Debra Satz, Ken Taylor. My thesis is that testimonial knowledge of particular matters of fact is a species of perceptual (non-inferential) knowledge. There are two rival views. The first holds that testimonial knowledge is a species of inductive knowledge. According to inductivism, we learn from others because we have inductively established that testimony is a reliable source. I argue that this view is too demanding. The second holds that testimonial knowledge is, like memory, preservative. (...) According to preservativism, a hearer learns from a speaker because the speaker's knowledge is transferred to the hearer. Testimony preserves knowledge across subjects at a time as memory preserves knowledge within a subject over time. This view is subject to counter-example. What matters to whether the hearer teams is not whether the speaker knows, but whether the hearer's cognitive state of taking the speaker to state that P adequately grounds the belief that P. One way to account for "adequate grounds" is in terms of Information-carrying I argue that knowledge is not preserved or transferred through testimony, rather Information is conveyed. This shows that testimonial knowledge is perceptual knowledge, for perceptual knowledge depends on adequate grounds and not prior knowledge. Testimonial knowledge, like standard cases of perceptual knowledge, is original. Call my position originalism. ;There are three main sources of opposition. First, linguistic acceptance is inferential in a way that perceptual belief is not. Second, acceptance, if reliable, is reliable in a way that perceptual belief is not. Third, testimony involves agency, free will, and the following of norms and perceptual belief does not. In reply I argue that linguistic acceptance that the world is a certain way does not depend on believing that the speaker stated that it is that way, that even if there are differences between the way in which testimony is reliable and the way standard cases of perception are reliable, those differences are only contingent or epistemologically irrelevant, and that even though testimony does involve agency and norms in a way that vision, taste, and so on do not, that fact does not matter to whether testimonial knowledge is a species of perceptual (non-inferential) knowledge. (shrink)

There is an inevitable interaction between Arabic and Turkish as word transitions occur in every language. One of the common examples of this exchange between Arabic and Turkish is the word ikhtilāf (conflict).However, it is not possible to say that the bilingual partnership about this word is meaningful. Because this word expresses the meaning of opposition, contradiction, diversity, separation of opinion between two persons or groups, opposing attitude and contradictory attitude in Arabic, all of these meanings are not transferred into (...) Turkish.In other words, the word ikhtilāf’s meaning is narrowed during its transition into Turkish. In fact, the word is almost fixed in Turkish as “the separation of opinion between two persons or groups”. This difference in the meaning of the language between the two languages ​​of the contradiction must not be construed and interpreted as “controversy” or “disagreeing” at every passing moment of the word. Because in some verses this situation can be a wrong choice.Differences in interpretation in tafsir and translation errors are the most obvious indication of this possibility. Therefore, it should be considered that the use and meaning of the word may be changed according to the text. SummaryWords and concepts are the most important tools for people to share with their interlocutors both in oral communication and in writing. Because the meaning of the preferred word and concept directly affects the increase or decrease of the power of the message to be given. So, the choice of word and concept are important in the spoken word and the used word. However, despite this importance, people are not entirely free in word selection. This is because there is no vocabulary to express everything separately. So, the words are limited, and the objects named through them are unlimited. This led people use some words that have more than one meaning, which also explains the emergence of the concept of polysemy.Polysemy is a phenomenon seen in Arabic as well as in many languages. Since the Qur'ān, which contains the messages of Allah to humanity, is in Arabic, there are many words that have two or more meanings. This situation should be taken into account to understand the Qur'ān and its context when determining the meaning of such words. Revealing all potential meanings of qur’ānic expressions is important to convey the intended meaning. In other words, the inability to detect the correct meaning of the word or to ignore the fact that it is very meaningful makes some comprehension problems inevitable.One of the words in this context that have the problem of understanding is the concept ikhtilāf(Conflict). This concept, which is used 51 times in 45 verses in different ways, does not mean the same meaning wherever it is used. It is used in more than one meaning depending on the context in which it is located. The change and diversity that points to the power of Allah, the conflict, the separation of thought and behaviour between the two groups, and the unilateral opposition attitude of a person or group are the meanings of this concept. There is no significant difference in the tafsirs of these meanings regarding the meanings of change, diversity, and contradiction. The differences seen in the exegesis (tafsīr) are in the way that the same meaning is mostly stated in a different way. This situation in the tafsirs was reflected to Turkish translations of the Qur'ān on the meaning of the concept and it was translated correctly in general. This shows that the context of determining the meaning of the concept is taken into account and that the polysemy of the concept is not an important problem in the meaning of “change,” “diversity” and “contradiction.”One of the most important meanings of the concept of ikhtilāf(Conflict) is the difference of thought and behaviour between two people or groups. In this sense, the concept has two subjects and refers to the situation of these two subjects against each other. This meaning, which we see more in the use of the concept as verb, refers to the conflict and contradiction of the different thoughts and attitudes that people have to against others they face because of their personal characteristics and ideology. In this sense, ikhtilāf(Conflict) among the sides reflects a negative situation without the possibility of finding the ground and the middle way. In the verses where the concept is used in this sense, there are also elements that indicate the difference of opinion between the two subjects, such as bayna(between) preposition, the believing-disbeliever comparison. The concept has been translated into Turkish with this sense in the Qur'ān. Its meanings of conflict, conflict and conflict are also used in Turkish. Therefore, it is possible to say that this meaning has a common meaning between Arabic and Turkish. Therefore, meanings of the concept such as conflict, disagreement, etc. in Turkish translations of the Qur'an are enough to reflect the meaning of the verses in this context. So, it is possible to say that in meaning of the concept does not have a problem of understanding and interpreting in general.The concept of ikhtilāf(Conflict) is also used to counter and oppose to a thought or belief in the Qur’an except for the general meaning of the above. With this meaning we encounter in the usage of ikhtalafaand mukhtalifin this sense, it is not only the mutual attitude of the two sides but the dissident, against and opposing attitude of one side towards the other. As such, the concept reflects an action of "one subject". As in the case of conflict between the two sides, there is a negative and undesirable situation in this usage. Because in the verses where the concept is used in this sense, the contradictions, and attitudes of the unbelievers about the faith revealed by Allah, religion, the book, and the prophet are generally explained. However, this meaning of the concept has not been translated into Turkish. In other words, there is no meaning in the word ikhtilāf(Conflict) used in Turkish. Therefore, there is no exact equivalence between Turkish and Arabic regarding this meaning of the word. For this reason, translations in the form of “conflict,” “dispute” for use in this sense are insufficient to reflect the meaning of it. Because, in these translations, the contraction of the concept which was experienced in the transition from Arabic to Turkish was not observed. This causes the misunderstandings of the verses in which this concept exists.The concept of ikhtilāf(Conflict) refers to the differences of tafsir in the verses that express the opposing attitude of a person or group as with other polysemy concepts, this concept also points to the need to be careful. Instead of giving the same meaning in every passage of such polysemy concepts, it is necessary to determine the correct meaning according to the context of the unity of the verse and its context. The same sensitivity should be taken into consideration in translating the concept into Turkish. So, while translating the concept passed in Turkish by narrowing, that accepting it is true in both languages and transferring to Turkish according to it is insufficient to reflect the meaning referred in the verse. (shrink)

It is acknowledged that the study of metaphor is a key inflection in Ricœur’s heremeneutics. It is perhaps less well known that this study is concomittant with one of parables, which represents an equally noteworthy inflection in Ricœur’s contribution to Biblical hermeneutics. Some, however, use this concommitance to argue that the transfer of some theological presuppositions (as to the nature of language and the Truth) is facilitated by this and then do not hesitate to claim that the pages devoted to (...) tha analogia entis , in The Rule of Metaphor , are proof of the presence of dubious theological interests in the development of his theory of metaphor. To counter this devastating critique, this article draws from some analyses by Umberto Eco, which imply that the relation between analogia entis and metaphor are not epistemologically scandalous as well as Alain, who sketched out an interpretation of parables which is very close to Ricœur’s. (shrink)

Game theory is usually considered applied mathematics, but a few game‐theoretic results, such as Borel determinacy, were developed by mathematicians for mathematics in a broad sense. These results usually state determinacy, i.e., the existence of a winning strategy in games that involve two players and two outcomes saying who wins. In a multi‐outcome setting, the notion of winning strategy is irrelevant yet usually replaced faithfully with the notion of (pure) Nash equilibrium. This article shows that every determinacy result over an (...) arbitrary game structure, e.g., a tree, is transferable into existence of multi‐outcome (pure) Nash equilibrium over the same game structure. The equilibrium‐transfer theorem requires cardinal or order‐theoretic conditions on the strategy sets and the preferences, respectively, whereas counter‐examples show that every requirement is relevant, albeit possibly improvable. When the outcomes are finitely many, the proof provides an algorithm computing a Nash equilibrium without significant complexity loss compared to the two‐outcome case. As examples of application, this article generalises Borel determinacy, positional determinacy of parity games, and finite‐memory determinacy of Muller games. (shrink)

Viewing difficulty as an opportunity for learning runs counter to the common view of difficulty as a source of frustration and confusion. The aim of this article is to focus on the idea of difficulty as a stepping-off point for learning. The literature on difficulty in reading texts, and its impact on thinking and the interpretive process, serve as a foundation for the use of poetry in healthcare ethics education. Because of its complexity and strangeness compared to the usual (...) scientific and clinical texts health science students encounter, poetry is an excellent means to achieve the aim of thinking through difficulties in ethics. Specific examples of teaching and learning strategies for turning difficulty into opportunities for learning are presented, including the difficulty paper and the triple mark-up method. Both methods require students to examine their process of working through difficulties, reflect on how they make sense of difficult texts and then share their process and interpretations in a collaborative manner with peers. The importance of framing difficulties as a public, visible, collaborative process rather than a personal process is emphasized. Working together to hypothesize reasons for difficulty and map out plans to come to terms with difficulty are equally relevant for reading text as they are for reading complex ethical situations. Finally, I argue that transference of this kind of personal and collaborative learning about difficulties benefits interprofessional clinical practice, particularly when dealing with ethical issues. (shrink)

Notes on Cynical Speech. Callicles and Thrasymachusas Cynical SpeakersCynical speech is a proper form of manifestation of what we call cynicism. It takes the form of a persuasive strategy which assumes the achievement of the rhetorical consubstantiation of a cynical speaker and her/his auditorium. Cynical speech is a game that takes place between three sides: a cynical speaker posing as an immoralist, a moralist and an auditorium, the acquisition of which is the aim of both interlocutors. At the outset, the (...) cynical speaker gives the identity of naive dilettantes’ to both the members of the auditorium and the moralist and then tries to persuade the audience to side with him and take on the role of the students of a cynical expert. This is what can be described as cynical modulation. In its course, the initial opposition of a professional versus dilettante turns into an opposition of master versus student, while the unattractive identity of a dilettante is transferred to a moralist. In this way, the speaker achieves what Kenneth Burke thinks is the right goal for any rhetorical act: the speaker’s consubstantiation with the auditorium. This process is presented based on the example of the disputes between Socrates, as a moralist on the one hand, and sophist-politicians Thrasymachus and Callicles, who personify the type of cynical speakers, on the other. The analysis of cynical speech carried out in the paper leads to an indication of some basic features of this way of speaking, as well as the relationship that exists between them and the content of viewpoints voiced by cynical speakers. These viewpoints have been described as aristocratic democratism and people’s anti-democratism. These are two forms of what has been described as the cynical counter-ideal. The adoption of these positions is an indirect expression of the same systematic ambiguity that lies in the form of cynical speaking, which belongs to the very essence of cynicism as a cultural phenomenon. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Kennedy Institute of Ethics Journal 16.4 (2006) 379-396MuseSearchJournalsThis JournalContents[Access article in PDF]Pharmacists and Conscientious Objection *In March 2005, a Wisconsin pharmacist's act of conscience garnered headlines across the United States. After a married woman with four children submitted a prescription for the morning-after pill, the pharmacist, Neil Noesen, not only refused to fill it, but also refused to transfer the prescription to another pharmacist or to return the prescription (...) to the customer. As more such incidents occurred, many states "... decided to consider and enact laws setting the bounds of pharmacists' and other health care workers' professional obligations" (III, Grady 2006, p. 327). Discussions of objector legislation, also referred to as "conscience clauses," "refusal clauses," and "abandonment laws" (III, Appel 2005, p. 279), are not limited to professional ethics, but also draw from philosophical, theological, and legal perspectives. The purpose of this Scope Note is to present a wide variety of viewpoints on the health provider's right to conscience.More than 40 years ago the development of "The Pill" as the first reliable method of birth control not only ushered in a feminist revolution, but also provided a new focus for concerns of conscience for those who were part of the anti-abortion movement based on religious belief in the sanctity of life. Similarly, in the past ten years, worldwide, and seven years (1999) since the emergency contraception "morning after" pill first became available as a prescription item, there has been an upsurge in the number of medical personnel who refuse to prescribe or dispense it on grounds of personal conscience, whether for religious reasons or not. Their actions bring into play issues of power and control for health care personnel and for patients—in this case women, which also raises women's rights issues. Ironically, studies in France, Sweden, and the United Kingdom have shown that emergency contraception does not reduce the abortion rate—it is too infrequently used (II, Glasier 2006).It is important to underline the difference between the "morning-after" pill or "Plan B," which is made up of two progestin pills containing levonorgestrel (a synthetic derivative of the female hormone progesterone), and RU-486 (Mifiprex [End Page 379] or mifipristone with misoprostol). Plan B, if taken within 72 hours post-coitus prevents implantation, and therefore pregnancy, by suppressing the output of luteinizing hormone, the hormone that triggers the ovulation process. Scientists have been unable to determine whether this action could destroy already fertilized eggs, but even if it does, it uses the same mechanism as occurs with the birth-control pill, that was developed some 45 years ago. By contrast, RU-486 acts up to 49 days after implantation by blocking the action of progesterone in order to terminate the pregnancy and as such is an abortifacient (II, US FDA 1).On 24 August 2006, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration announced approval of the Plan B pill for over-the-counter (OTC ) sales (II, US FDA 2). Although this action makes the drug more widely available, it remains to be seen whether pharmacists who are conscientious objectors and who refuse to dispense it also will refuse to provide it OTC.A survey article by Rebecca Dresser (II, 2005, p. 9) succinctly sums up the problem for conscientious objectors: "Because emergency contraception can act to block implantation of a fertilized egg, people who believe in protection of human life after conception find it morally objectionable."When conscientious objections are raised over abortion or birth control services performed, prescribed, or dispensed, they affect not only the health professionals—physicians, pharmacists, nurses, and health technicians—who may object, as well as their colleagues and/or managers, but also the consumers: the female patients who are then forced to reconsider or to seek an alternative supplier, as well as their spouses or partners. Alta Charo (II, 2005, p. 2473) makes the point that the patient needs to have access to a system of counseling and referral "so... (shrink)

Eric Santner offers a radically new interpretation of Marx's labor theory of value as one concerned with the afterlife of political theology in secular modernity. What Marx characterized as the dual character of the labor embodied in the commodity, he argues, is the doctrine of the King's Two Bodies transferred from the political theology of sovereignty to the realm of political economy. This genealogy, leading from the fetishism of the royal body to the fetishism of the commodity, also suggests a (...) new understanding of the irrational core at the center of economic busyness today, its 24/7 pace. The frenetic negotiations of our busy-bodies continue and translate into the doxology of everyday life the liturgical labor that once sustained the sovereign's glory. Maintaining that an effective critique of capitalist political economy must engage this liturgical dimension, Santner proposes a counter-activity, which he calls "paradoxological." With commentaries by Bonnie Honig, Peter Gordon, and Hent de Vries, an introduction by Kevis Goodman, and a response from Santner, this important new book by a leading cultural theorist and scholar of German literature, cinema, and history will interest readers of political theory, literature and literary theory, and religious studies. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:You Can't Say "No" to That!(A "Difficult Patient" Story)Ingrid BergAs a sequela of COVID-19, my rural Wisconsin hospital has been jam-packed for months with patients for whom we routinely provide care and many for whom we do not. An exodus of health care workers and other constraints have made the transfer of critically ill patients very difficult. In this disquieting "new-normal" of our work life, we routinely must call (...) bigger cities throughout our state to find beds for complex patients.So, it was not surprising when a young patient, an IV drug user in sepsis from a heart infection, was admitted to me in the middle of the night. In less disheartening times, before the pandemic, this patient would have been transferred promptly to the big-city hospital. Now, though, the possibility of finding an open bed is next to impossible. Resigned, I placed admission orders, continued antibiotics and fluids, and crossed my fingers. Then the unexpected happened: a bed opened up, and we could send her at once!The patient had a harsh heart murmur. It was likely that a "vegetation" was clinging to the valve, between the right upper and lower chambers of her heart. A vegetation is a clump of debris, such as platelets, clotting proteins, and bacteria that is a menace to the body. Her chest imaging looked like her infection had already spread to her lungs.A definitive diagnosis for endocarditis requires a special ultrasound with a probe that goes down through the esophagus, a procedure performed by cardiologists. It's a serious infection, one that requires weeks of IV antibiotics and is best monitored by infectious disease specialists. Sometimes, cardiothoracic surgeons are called upon to strip away the infection at the site, depending on how badly the valve has been slayed or the size of the vegetation. My only recommendation for a young, otherwise healthy patient in this scenario, is transfer.All of these reasons for transfer were lolling around in my tired head when the night-time [End Page 14] nursing supervisor approached me and said, "We have a problem." When the patient was updated about the transfer, she balked: "She says she is tired and refusing to go," the supervisor began. "She doesn't feel like getting into an ambulance in the middle of the night and she doesn't care if her condition is life-threatening. She knows we can't force her to go and she will only talk about it again in the morning."The cartoon version of myself at that moment had bugged-out eyes, a dropped jaw, fists tight and clenched at my sides, and steam coming out of my head. I can look past a patient's self-neglect, poor medication adherence, abysmal communication, alcohol and drug addiction, and other crimes. But saying no to a bed at a tertiary care facility? Unacceptable!I marched down the quiet hallway and into her room. She was lying on her side, facing the door, one IV in a thin arm. I was confident I could reason with her once I explained the scarcity of beds and the medical necessity of transfer. But she was having none of it. I was calm until I could no longer maintain my cool: "You can't give up this bed!""Maybe in the morning," she insisted, yawning. "But not now. I am tired and want to rest!""But there might not be a bed in the morning," I countered. "And your infection can be life-threatening." (This is true, but we both knew she wasn't dying at this very moment.)"I am not going anywhere!" She raised her voice and then closed her eyes.And she was right. I had no choice but to keep her. I could not kick her out of the hospital because she was making a poor choice, and I was frustrated for having to manage the fallout of that decision. Giving her antibiotics and fluid boluses to bolster her blood pressure was certainly within my scope of practice. And fretting. Fretting is always within my scope of practice; not that my scope of practice matters when all the big... (shrink)

On September 27, 2016 people across the world looked down at their buzzing phones to see the AP Alert: “Baby born with DNA from 3 people, first from new technique.” It was an announcement met with confusion by many, but one that polarized the scientific community almost instantly. Some celebrated the birth as an advancement that could help women with a family history of mitochondrial diseases prevent the transmission of the disease to future generations; others held it unethical, citing medical (...) tourism and consequences for the future of the therapy. The child in question was actually born a few months earlier on April 6, 2016, but the research was published a few months later in the October edition of Fertility and Sterility. The mother carries DNA that could have given the baby Leigh Syndrome, a severe neurological disorder characterized by psychomotor regression that typically results in death between ages two and three.[1] Also known as subacute necrotizing encephalomyelopathy, Leigh Syndrome is caused by genetic mutations in mitochondrial DNA, which causes defective oxidative phosphorylation. Because people with this condition cannot re-form ATP, “demyleniation, gliosis, necrosis, spongiosis, or capillary proliferation”[2] can occur, thereby producing bilateral lesions across the central nervous system. The 36-year-old mother previously had four miscarriages and successfully birthed two children, both of whom survived less than six years due to the syndrome. For religious reasons, the mother opted for Spindle Nuclear Transfer instead of Pronuclear Transfer,[3] which many religious organizations oppose because it entails the destruction of fertilized eggs.[4] In Pronuclear Transfer, both the parent and donor egg are fertilized. The parent’s nuclear material is then removed from the egg containing mutated mitochondria and inserted into the fertilized donor egg—from which the original nuclear material has been removed and destroyed. Spindle Nuclear Transfer, on the other hand, removes the mother’s nuclear material from the egg with unhealthy mitochondria, then implants it into a donor’s egg. The newly created egg is then fertilized with the father’s sperm. This Spindle Nuclear Transfer was performed in Mexico by a team of doctors led by Dr. John Zhang, the founder of the New Hope Fertility Center in New York City. In their report, the doctors outline that five oocytes were successfully reconstituted, four of which developed into blastocysts. Only one was euploid: containing 46 XY chromosomes. Researchers then biopsied that blastocyst and found that the transmission rate of maternal mtDNA was, “5.10 ± 1.11% and the heteroplasmy level for 8993T>G was 5.73%.”[5] This indicates that at the blastocyst stage, around five percent of the mitochondria are from the original maternal egg with the mutation for Leigh Syndrome. After birth, they biopsied different tissues and found that they had an average of less than 1.60 ± 0.92% of transmitted mtDNA from the original maternal egg. The baby is reportedly doing well and the team of doctors concluded that “[h]uman oocytes reconstituted by SNT are capable of producing a healthy live birth. SNT may provide a novel treatment option in minimizing pathogenic mtDNA transmission from mothers to their babies."[6] Even when considered theoretically, Spindle Nuclear Transfer is controversial. Many doctors believe that the risks at this stage of research are too great. Dr. Trevor Stammers, a bioethicist at St. Mary’s University in London, points out: “We do not yet have a clear picture of the interaction between nuclear DNA and mitochondria.”[7] Others hold that faulty mitochondrial DNA can still be transferred during the procedure. Still more argue this technology could create problems because of germline modification.[8] Dr. Paul Knoepfler, a cell biologist at the UC Davis School of Medicine, explains: “Since this is uncharted territory and the children born from this technology would have heritable genetic changes, there are also significant unknown risks to future generations.”[9] However, proponents counter these arguments. They say the benefits outweigh the risks, as “mitochondrial replacement techniques [like Spindle Nuclear Transfer] would eliminate maternal transmission of mitochondrial disease… allowing a woman with a family history of mitochondrial diseases to ensure her children would not be affected.”[10] Additionally, experts say that no symptoms will occur if less than 20% of the transferred mitochondrial DNA is faulty.[11] And while opponents see potential germline modification as a problem, advocates answer that this could stop a family history of mitochondrial disease, which they deem a more serious concern. In this case specifically, however, there are more issues at hand. While the team of doctors did eliminate the possibility of germline modification by selecting a male embryo, there are other ethical concerns. Some argue that this case could be described as “medical tourism.” While New Hope Medical Clinic does maintain a branch in Mexico, Dr. Zhang stated that Mexico has “no rules.”[12] It is a country with underdeveloped regulations, making it difficult to confirm that doctors adhere to widely-held medical and ethical standards. Furthermore, while it is highly unlikely that the child will develop Leigh’s Syndrome, Dr. Dietrich Egli of the New York Stem Cell Foundation says the 5% mitochondrial transfer rate indicates that the technique “was not carried out well.”[13] He points to studies of embryos where the rate of mtDNA transfer was almost ten times lower. Spindle Nuclear Transfer is currently legal in the UK,[14] and many are hoping to see it legalized in the US, although Congress currently prohibits the FDA from considering applications that would entail trials in people.[15] While Dr. Zhang’s work is arguably revolutionary, many wonder if the manner in which this study was performed—in Mexico and with a high mitochondrial transfer rate—will impact the technology’s future in the US. Last week, Dr. Zhang presented the report to scientists gathered in Salt Lake City, saying that while science isn’t a race, it is “in a sense, a race for the family to find a cure, to find hope.”[16] Only time will tell if this study set back other families racing and hoping for a cure. References 1. "Leigh Syndrome." Genetics Home Reference, US National Library of Medicine, 25 Oct. 2016. Accessed 26 Oct. 2016. 2. McKusick, Victor A., and Ada Hamosh. "LEIGH SYNDROME; LS." Online Mendelian Inheritance in Man, Johns Hopkins University, 20 Jan. 2016. Accessed 30 Oct. 2016. 3. Zhang, J, H Liu, S Luo, A Chavez-Badiola, and Z Liu. "First live birth using human oocytes reconstituted by spindle nuclear transfer for mitochondrial DNA mutation causing Leigh syndrome." Fertility and Sterility, vol. 106, no. 3, 2016, pp. e375-76. Accessed 30 Oct. 2016. 4. Sample, Ian. "‘Three-parent’ babies explained: what are the concerns and are they justified?" The Guardian, 2 Feb. 2015. Accessed 30 Oct. 2016. 5. Zhang, et al. 6. Ibid. 7. Knapton, Sarah. "Three-parent babies: the arguments for and against." The Telegraph, 3 Feb. 2015. 8. Ibid. 9. Ibid. 10. "Mitochondrial Replacement Therapy FAQs." New York Stem Cell Foundation Research Institute, New York Stem Cell Foundation. Accessed 30 Oct. 2016. 11. Reardon, Sara. "‘Three-parent baby’ claim raises hopes — and ethical concerns." Nature, 28 Sept. 2016. Accessed 30 Oct. 2016. 12. Hamzelou, Jessica. "Exclusive: World’s first baby born with new “3 parent” technique." New Scientist, 27 Sept. 2016. Accessed 30 Oct. 2016. 13. Reardon, Sara. "‘Three-parent baby’ claim raises hopes — and ethical concerns." Nature, 28 Sept. 2016. Accessed 30 Oct. 2016. 14. "3-Person IVF: A Resource Page." Center for Genetics and Society, 24 Oct. 2016. Accessed 30 Oct. 2016. 15. Ritter, Malcolm. "Baby born with DNA from 3 people, first from new technique." Associated Press, 27 Sept. 2016. Accessed 30 Oct. 2016. 16. Chen, Daphne. "Controversy swirls around first three-parent baby." Deseret News, 19 Oct. 2016. Accessed 30 Oct. 2016. Works consulted Swetlitz, Ike. "FDA urged to approve ‘three-parent embryos,’ a new frontier in reproduction." STAT, 3 Feb. 2016. Accessed 30 Oct. 2016. (shrink)

Hidalgo offers a novel and interesting defence of the active recruitment of health workers by organisations based in the developed world.1 His conclusions are highly controversial and run directly counter to those drawn by a large number of bioethicists, empirical researchers and national and international organisations interested in the issue of health worker migration.The debate about the effects of the migration of healthcare professionals began in earnest in the 1970s. During this decade a number of researchers argued that migration (...) flows from the developing to the developed world were detrimental to poorer countries and suggested that policies ought to be put in place to both retard the flow of migration and compensate countries for the negative effects of any ongoing migration.2 However, some researchers have recently argued that the migration of healthcare workers has many positive effects.3 This is because migration encourages human capital investment, leads to large scale flows of remittances back to source countries, encourages the transfer of knowledge, innovations and best practice, and improves trade relations. Clemens even argues that the net effects of migration are positive—which implies that the so called …. (shrink)

Merleau-Ponty: From Perspective to the Chiasm,the Epistemic Rigor of an AnalogyHere, we wish to take up the discussion of Merleau-Ponty’s notion of chiasm in light of the question of its status. Is it a matter of a metaphor without any cognitive value resulting from an analogical and arbitrary transfer from one domain to another, or is it a matter of a rigorous concept susceptible of being experimented upon, taken up again, or improved? If the latter is the case, what is (...) the nature of this concept? Is it descriptive, heuristic, or even logical? The question is worth asking insofar as it is not only the most orthodox positivists who may be likely to see, in this transfer of concept, nothing more than poetic license. Indeed, the most careful commentators authorized by Merleau-Ponty are in lockstep with the critics of his supposedly “literary” style. “Ambiguous” is thus the term, which more often describes Merleau-Ponty’s notions of encroachment, of reversibility, or even chiasm. First, we shall examine the function and the role of the concept of chiasm in Merleau-Ponty’s philosophy. We shall then establish its scope in order to be able to determine its exact status. It is only at the conclusion of this study that we will be able to show how this notion sheds light on Merleau-Ponty’s main concern, namely, to produce a counter-model of perspective and to promote a newcategory of relation – a concern which organizes the seemingly unrelated elements in his philosophy.Merleau-Ponty: dalla prospettiva al chiasma,il rigore epistemico di un’analogiaIntendiamo riprendere, in questa sede, la discussione sulla nozione di chiasma in Merleau-Ponty, alla luce di una domanda circa il suo statuto: si tratta di una metafora, priva di ogni valore cognitivo perché nata da un trasferimento analogico ed arbitrario da un campo semantico ad un altro, o si tratta di un concetto rigoroso, suscettibile di essere messo alla prova dell’esperienza e via via perfezionato? In tal caso, qual è la natura di questo concetto? È descrittiva, euristica, oppure logica? È interessante porre questa domanda dato che non sono solamente i positivisti più ortodossi, a vedere in questo trasferimento una semplice licenza poetica. In effetti, molti tra i commentatori più autorevoli di Merleau-Ponty aderiscono alle diverse critiche sollevate intorno alla presunta natura «letteraria» di questa espressione, e ritengono che il chiasma sia una semplice metafora. Interrogheremo innanzitutto la funzione e il ruolo di questo concetto nella filosofia di Merleau-Ponty al fine di determinarne l’esatto statuto. Solo al termine di questo studio preliminare potremo mostrare come questa nozione possa gettare nuova luce sulla preoccupazione principale di Merleau-Ponty, vero e proprio filo rosso che organizza in profondità tutti gli elementi apparentemente eterogenei della sua filosofia: vale a dire, il tentativo di produrre un contro-modello della prospettiva e una nuova categoria di relazione. (shrink)

Gregory Kavka's 'Toxin Puzzle' suggests that I cannot intend to perform a counter-preferential action A even if I have a strong self-interested reason to form this intention. The 'Rationalist Solution,' however, suggests that I can form this intention. For even though it is counter-preferential, A-ing is actually rational given that the intention behind it is rational. Two arguments are offered for this proposition that the rationality of the intention to A transfers to A-ing itself: the 'Self-Promise Argument' and (...) David Gauthier's 'Rational Self-Interest Argument.' But both arguments – and therefore the Rationalist Solution – fail. The Self-Promise Argument fails because my intention to A does not constitute a promise to myself that I am obligated to honor. And Gauthier's Rational Self-Interest Argument fails to rule out the possibility of rational irrationality. (shrink)

The neo-Lockean justification of the highly unequal distribution of income in capitalist societies is based upon two key premises: that people are the rightful owners of their labor and talents, and that the external world was, in the state of nature, unowned, and therefore up for grabs by people, who could rightfully appropriate parts of it subject to a ‘Lockean proviso.’ The argument is presented by Nozick. Counter-proposals to Nozick’s, for the most part, have either denied the premise that (...) people should morally be viewed as the owners of their talents, or have challenged Nozick’s Lockean proviso.Rawls, and to a more limited extent Ronald Dworkin, deny self-ownership. As Rawls writes: ‘…the difference principle represents, in effect, an agreement to regard the distribution of natural talents as a common asset … The naturally advantaged are not to gain merely because they are more gifted, but only to cover the costs of training and education and for using their endowments in ways that help the less fortunate as well. No one deserves his greater natural capacity nor merits a more favorable starting place in society.’ Behind the Rawlsian veil of ignorance, those who deliberate about justice are deprived of knowledge about characteristics whose distribution is morally arbitrary. In Dworkin’s proposal for resource egalitarianism, agents calculate the insurance policy they would hypothetically ask for, were they denied knowledge of what talents they will draw in the birth lottery. Compensation for unequal talents is, according to Dworkin, properly made by taxing and transferring income according to the way it would have been distributed as a consequence of such insurance. Dworkin’s veil of ignorance is thin, because agents in the appropriate posture for deliberating about income distribution know their preferences and attitudes toward risk, but not their talents. For both Rawls and Dworkin, the self-ownership premise is challenged by constructing a veil of ignorance in which people are deprived of knowledge of certain personal characteristics, knowledge of which would bias their opinions, from a moral viewpoint. (shrink)

In what follows I shall consider symbols only in their function as conveyors of meanings. That symbols have emotive and volitional properties as well, that they have elaborate and complicated relations to the self which uses them, that they are themselves physical counters, i.e., noises, visual objects, etc.,—all of these facts I recognize but choose to neglect. When symbols are considered merely as instruments for the transfer of meanings, only one important assumption is involved, viz., symbols which are precisely defined (...) are to be preferred to symbols which either are undefined or are defined inadequately. In other words, the task of a theory of meaning is that of showing how symbols take on a maximum degree of precision in significance. (shrink)