Social prescriptions are one term commonly used to describe non-pharmaceutical approaches to healthcare and are gaining popularity in the community, with evidence highlighting psychological benefits of reduced anxiety, depression and improved mood and physiological benefits of reduced risk of cardiovascular disease and reduced hypertension. The relationship between human health benefits and planetary health benefits is also noted. There are, however, numerous barriers, such as duration and frequencies to participate in activities, access, suitability, volition and a range of unpredictable variables impeding (...) a comprehensive approach to their use on a wider scale. From a multidisciplinary perspective, this commentary incorporates a salutogenic and nature-based approach to health, we also provide a range of recommendations that can be undertaken at the patient level to assist in shifting the acknowledged systemic barriers currently occurring. These include using simple language to explain the purpose of health empowerment scripts, ensuing personal commitment to a minimum timeframe, enabling ease of access, co-designing a script program, providing ongoing motivational support and incorporating mindfulness to counter unexpected disruptions. (shrink)

Do numbers have a life of their own or do we give them meaning? How do data play a role in constructing people’s perceptions of the world around them? How far can we trust numbers to speak truth to power? The COVID-19 pandemic offers a unique moment to answer these questions. This book examines how politicians, experts and journalists gave meaning to data through the story of seven iconic numbers from the pandemic. Shedding light on a new dawn of data, (...) this book makes a valuable contribution to our understanding of the relationship between numbers, meaning and society. (shrink)

In Part 1 of this wide-ranging interview, Tony Lawson discussed his role in, and relationship to, Critical Realism as well as various defences of mathematical modelling in economics. In Part 2 he t...

In their proof-of-concept, Meier and colleagues describe the purpose and programming decisions underpinning Medical Ethics Advisor, an automated decision support system used t...

Revelation and Falsification: The Kitāb al-qirāʾāt of Aḥmad b. Muḥammad al-Sayyārī. Edited by Etan Kohlberg and Mohammad Ali Amir-Moezzi. Texts and Studies on the Qurʾān, vol. 4. Leiden: Brill, 2009. Pp. viii + 363 + 201. $259.

A First Course in Logic is an introduction to first-order logic suitable for first and second year mathematicians and computer scientists. There are three components to this course: propositional logic; Boolean algebras; and predicate/first-order, logic. Logic is the basis of proofs in mathematics — how do we know what we say is true? — and also of computer science — how do I know this program will do what I think it will? Surprisingly little mathematics is needed to learn and (...) understand logic (this course doesn't involve any calculus). The real mathematical prerequisite is an ability to manipulate symbols: in other words, basic algebra. Anyone who can write programs should have this ability. (shrink)

Being Human: Baha’i Perspectives on Islam, Modernity, and Peace. By Todd Lawson. Studies in the Bábí and Bahá’í Religions, vol. 25. Los Angeles: Kalimát PreSS, 2019. Pp. xxi + 172. $39.95.

Book synopsis: Aristotle's probing inquiry into some of the fundamental problems of philosophy, The Metaphysics is one of the classical Greek foundation-stones of western thought, translated from the with an introduction by Hugh Lawson-Tancred in Penguin Classics. The Metaphysics presents Aristotle's mature rejection of both the Platonic theory that what we perceive is just a pale reflection of reality and the hard-headed view that all processes are ultimately material. He argued instead that the reality or substance of things lies (...) in their concrete forms, and in so doing he probed some of the deepest questions of philosophy: What is existence? How is change possible? And are there certain things that must exist for anything else to exist at all? The seminal notions discussed in The Metaphysics - of 'substance' and associated concepts of matter and form, essence and accident, potentiality and actuality - have had a profound and enduring influence, and laid the foundations for one of the central branches of Western philosophy. Hugh Lawson-Tancred's lucid translation is accompanied by a stimulating introduction in which he highlights the central themes of one of philosophy's supreme masterpieces. Aristotle (384-22 BC) studied at the Academy of Plato for 20 years and then established his own school and research institute, 'The Lyceum'. His writings, which were of extraordinary range, profoundly affected the whole course of ancient and medieval philosophy and are still eagerly studied and debated by philosophers today. (shrink)

Book synopsis: For the Pre-Socratic philosophers the soul was the source of movement and sensation, while for Plato it was the seat of being, metaphysically distinct from the body that it was forced temporarily to inhabit. Plato's student Aristotle was determined to test the truth of both these beliefs against the emerging sciences of logic and biology. His examination of the huge variety of living organisms - the enormous range of their behaviour, their powers and their perceptual sophistication - convinced (...) him of the inadequacy both of a materialist reduction and of a Platonic sublimation of the soul. In De Anima, he sought to set out his theory of the soul as the ultimate reality of embodied form and produced both a masterpiece of philosophical insight and a psychology of perennially fascinating subtlety. (shrink)

Originally published in 1973,this book describes the medieval origins of the British education system, and the transformations successive historical events – such as the Reformation, the Civil War and the Industrial Revolution – have wrought on it. It examines the effect on the educational pattern of such major cultural upheavals as the Renaissance; it looks at the different parts played by church and state, and the influence of new social and educational philosophies.

Reagan, Lawson This article will argue that a Humanist future is a technoprogressive one. It will first give an overview of the emerging third dimension of 21st century politics, that of biopolitics. It will define the broad differences between the transhumanist and bioconservative movements. Then it will turn to the two main ideologically competing strands of the transhumanist movement: that of right wing 'Libertarian Transhumanism' and left wing 'Technoprogressivism'.

Itis a strange chance that our whole conception of that scene of the Persae in which Atossa and the Chorus evoke from the lower world the spirit of Darius should be dependent largely on the interpretation or the restoration of a single line. πιστ πιστν λικς θ' βης μς Πρσαι γεραιο, τνα πλις πονε πνονον; στνει, κκοπται, κα χαρσσεται πδον. λεσσων δ' κοιτιν τν μν τφου πλας ταρβ, χος δ πρευμνς δεξμην. μες δ θρηνετ' γγς σττες τφου κα ψυχαγωγος ρθιζοντες (...) γοις οκτρς καλεσθ μ' …. (shrink)

I read Dr Cherniack’s article regarding do not resuscitate orders with interest.1 One of the problems with DNR orders is the patients’ assumption that if there is no DNR order they will survive resuscitative efforts. This of course is far from the truth. In my hospital these orders have been modified to “do not attempt to resuscitate” orders. One cannot be truly autonomous without being informed. Long term survival, as measured only by being alive, following inhouse cardiac arrest, is about (...) 15% over all age groups.2 In sick elderly patients over 70 years of age who survive a cardiac arrest, the subsequent hospital mortality approaches 100%. This fact, and concerns about harm, influence physicians’ attitudes, …. (shrink)

Analysis of three kinds of flow of viscous, incompressible, electrically conducting fluids in high-aspect-ration rectangular channels subjected to transverse magnetic fields: turbulent flow in the presence of a d-c magnetic field, and both laminar and turbulent induction-driven flows.

Iris Murdoch was a philosopher and novelist who wrote extensively on the themes of love, goodness, religion, and morality. In this article, we explore her notion of ‘moral vision’; the idea that morality is not just about how we act and make choices, but how we see the world in a much broader sense.

Ontology tends to be held in deep suspicion by many currently engaged in the study of technology. The aim of this paper is to suggest an ontology of technology that will be both acceptable to ontology’s critics and useful for those engaged with technology. By drawing upon recent developments in social ontology and extending these into the technological realm it is possible to sustain a conception of technology that is not only irreducibly social but able to give due weight to (...) those features that distinguish technical objects from other artefacts. These distinctions, however, require talk of different kinds of causal powers and different types of activity aimed at harnessing such powers. Such discussions are largely absent in recent technological debates, but turn out to be significant both for ongoing technology research and for the recasting of some more traditional debates within the philosophy of technology. (shrink)

For over 2000 years our culture has believed in the possibility of a single true account of the world. Now this age is coming to a close. As a result there is a deep unease. We are lost both as individuals, and as a culture. In the new relativistic, post-modern era, we have no history, no right or moral action, and no body of knowledge. In their place is a plethora of alternative, and sometimes incompatible theories from 'fuzzy logic' to (...) 'consilience' proposing a theory of everything. _Closure_ is a response to this crisis. It is a radically new story about the nature of ourselves and of the world. _Closure_ exposes the central questions of contemporary philosophy: language and meaning, of the individual and identity, of truth and reality, but it is also philosophical in the broader everyday sense that it enables us to make sense of where and who we are. A central principle, the process of closure, is shown to be at the heart of experience and language. As a theory of knowledge it has dramatic consequences for our understanding of the sciences, involving a reinterpretation of what science does and how it is able to do it. It similarly proposes a profound shift in the role of art and religion. But, above all, it reshapes our understanding of ourselves and the organisation of society, our goals and our capacity to achieve them. A superb new account of how order is created out of disorder, _Closure_ is an exhilarating work of conceptual geography. (shrink)

Lawson and McCauley have argued that non-cultural regularities in how actions are conceptualized inform and constrain participants' understandings of religious rituals. This theory of ritual competence generates three predictions: 1) People with little or no knowledge of any given ritual system will have intuitions about the potential effectiveness of a ritual given minimal information about the structure of the ritual. 2) The representation of superhuman agency in the action structure will be considered the most important factor contributing to effectiveness. (...) 3) Having an appropriate intentional agent initiate the action will be considered relatively more important than any specific action to be performed. These three predictions were tested in two experiments with 128 North American Protestant college students who rated the probability of various fictitious rituals to be effective in bringing about a specified consequence. Results support Lawson and McCauley's predictions and suggest that expectations regarding ordinary social actions apply to religious rituals. (shrink)

Cognitive science is beginning to make a contribution to the science-and-religion dialogue by its claims about the nature of both scientific and religious knowledge and the practices such knowledge informs. Of particular importance is the distinction between folk knowledge and abstract theoretical knowledge leading to a distinction between folk science and folk religion on the one hand and the reflective, theoretical, abstract form of thought that characterizes both advanced scientific thought and sophisticated theological reasoning on the other. Both folk science (...) and folk religion emerge from commonsense reasoning about the world, a form of reasoning bequeathed to us by the processes of natural selection. Suggestions are made about what scientists and theologians can do if they accept these claims. (shrink)

After 40 years of attributing high rates of physician career dissatisfaction, attrition, alcoholism, divorce and suicide to ‘burnout’, there is growing recognition that these outcomes may instead be caused by moral injury. This has led to a debate about the relative diagnostic merits of these two terms, a recognition that interventions designed to treat burnout may be ineffective, and much perplexity about how—if at all—this changes anything. The current research seeks to develop the construct of moral injury outside military contexts, (...) generate more robust validity tests and more fully describe and measure the experiences of persons exposed to moral harms. Absent from the literature is a mechanism through which to move from the collective moral injury experience of physicians to a systematic change in the structure of medical practice. To address this, after providing a brief history, definitions and contrasts between burnout, moral distress and moral injury, we review the interplay of moral and ethical codes in the context of moral injury. We conclude by suggesting that professional associations can potentially prevent moral injury by providing protections for physicians within their codes of ethics. There are no data in this work. (shrink)

Our research examined understandings of individual student target setting processes through semi?structured interviews with staff and students from two schools in England: a special school for students with severe learning difficulties and a linked mainstream secondary school. This article details some of the tensions and issues arising from perceived ownership of targets and the communication and sharing of these between and within schools, specifically focusing on dimensions of power and agency.

This essay explores the development of Simone Weil's conception of obedience across religious, political, and ethical contexts. By bringing together these strands of Weil's thought, it aims to illuminate some important connections in her treatment of obedience throughout these diverse topics. The author argues that Weil's political treatment of obedience is deeply influenced by ideas in Christian thought, and that this account is situated within an understanding of obedience in the natural world which is itself ethically loaded. Hence it is (...) suggested that Weil's account of obedience has something to offer philosophy today: namely, a conception of obedience which recognises the practical and ethical need for obeying others, but which is distinct from the mere submission to power. (shrink)

In those parts of his paper that have the clearest bearing upon mycontributions, Simon Deichsel 1) elaborates various conceptions ofrealism; 2) declares himself an anti-realist of a specific sort; 3) seeks toidentify and criticise pragmatic aspects of my justification for adoptinga realist orientation; and 4) argues that his anti-realist perspective ispreferable to realism.An immediate problem with Deichsel’s project, if intended as acritique of my own realist orientation, is that the sort of realism againstwhich his anti-realism is oppositionally defined is not (...) the versionof realism I maintain. In fact the only one of Deichsel’s formulationsthat I unambiguously accept as a version of realism is ontological realism. Realism as I understand the term is about existence.It is ontological in nature. At its most basic, it posits the existence of an‘external’ reality.1So understood, realism is not a theory of knowledge, or of language,or even of truth. Indeed so formulated it says nothing about knowledgeor truth.2In particular it does not commit anyone to the correspondencetheory of truth, or indeed to any other theory or conception of truth.In fact it is not a semantic theory at all. (shrink)