Professor Duncan Vere lays before us the idealised guidelines used for recruiting volunteers on which to try and test new medicines. He points out that if these were followed rigidly, few, if any volunteers would be found for this vital work. Inducements are used, but the size of these determines whether society deems it right or wrong. However, the aim is to help and advise volunteers of the need for such tests and the risks involved and therefore the information (...) leaflet reprinted as part of the article indicates how the drug testers are attempting to encourage volunteers in as ethical a way as possible. To abandon human tests with new drugs may be unethical. A balance is sought. (shrink)

This paper was first presented at the London Medical Group's Annual Conference entitled Death: the last taboo held in February 1980. Dr Vere comments on the evidence of research done by him and his colleagues on the pain and discomfort suffered by patients who are dying and are in hospital. He contrasts this with the situation in hospices, analyses the differences, and attributes much of the unnecessary pain suffered in hospitals to attitudes of staff, as well as to a (...) reluctance by relatives to allow patients with terminal pain to die at home. He deprecates the tendency in hospitals to separate 'curing' and 'caring' and suggests that sometimes the best help involves 'doing' less, not more. (shrink)

Physical pain has always been part of human experience, and throughout history it is recorded that doctors and wise men and women have sought to ease pain. The attitudes of those suffering pain, however, have varied from stoical acceptance to sullen endurance. Today, most people consciously seek to avoid pain or to have their pain eased, although they do not always expect what in fact appears to be possible. This study of 13 patients with protracted pain was carried out at (...) The London Hospital by a professional group to see how patients regarded their own pain and the efforts of doctors and nurses to relieve it. The attitudes of the doctors and nurses were also studied, and the results, despite the limitations of the survey, suggest that: [List: see text]. (shrink)

The subject of this rich and wide-ranging book is old-fashioned metaphysics: its aim is to give an account of "the real constituents of the world". But its idiom and methodology are those of late twentieth-century analytic philosophy. Newman works out his own positions in constant dialogue with such philosophers as Frege and Wittgenstein, Geach and D. M. Armstrong, Keith Campbell and David Lewis; and he has an impressive mastery of modern formal logic and contemporary philosophy of language. He also makes (...) effective use of a quite detailed understanding of recent work in mathematics and physics. For all his reliance on the concepts and techniques of logic and philosophy of language, however, Newman does not believe that either language or logic "is a reliable guide to the nature of reality". On his view, metaphysics is an autonomous intellectual discipline, at least some of whose convictions and concepts are primitive. (shrink)

We apply Dienes & Perner's (D&P's) framework to the automatic/nonautomatic processing contrast. Our analysis leads to the conclusion that automatic and nonautomatic processing result in representations that have explicit results. We propose equating consciousness with explicitness of aspects rather than with full explicitness as defined by D&P.

Each volume of this series of companions to major philosophers contains specially commissioned essays by an international team of scholars, together with a substantial bibliography, and will serve as a reference work for students and non-specialists. One aim of the series is to dispel the intimidation such readers often feel when faced with the work of a difficult and challenging thinker. The essays in this volume provide a systematic survey of Locke's philosophy informed by the most recent scholarship. They cover (...) Locke's theory of ideas, his philosophies of body, mind, language, and religion, his theory of knowledge, his ethics, and his political philosophy. There are also chapters on Locke's life and subsequent influence. New readers and non-specialists will find this the most convenient, accessible guide to Locke currently available. (shrink)

We focus on the question of how expertise as conceived by the Stoics interacts with the content of impressions. In Section 1, we situate the evidence concerning expert perception within the Stoic account of cognitive development. In Section 2, we argue that the content of rational impressions, and notably of expert impressions, is not exhausted by the relevant propositions. In Section 3, we argue that expert impressions are a subtype of kataleptic impressions which achieve their level of clarity and distinctness (...) due to the contribution of expertise. In Section 4, we argue that the expertise in living well not only allows the wise person to assent correctly but also affects the content of her impressions. We suggest that these two models – one’s attitude toward an impression being informed by expertise, and one’s impressions being affected by expertise – might characterize distinct stages of cognitive development. Stoic wisdom is not only a matter of the way one assents to one’s impressions but also a matter of the condition of one’s soul and, consequently, of the kinds of impressions one even entertains. Expertise offers a model of how cognitive and discriminatory improvement through practice and effort can transform the non-wise into the wise. A reading on which the content of impressions is not exclusively propositional illuminates a further aspect of this transformation. If the same propositions are accessible through impressions with different non-propositional content, we can account for cases in which the novice and the expert entertain the same proposition. (shrink)

Turning the attention to the temporal as well as the more familiar spatial dimensions of mobility, this volume focuses on the momentum for and temporal composition of mobility, the rate at which people enact or deploy their movements as well as the conditions under which these moves are being marshalled, represented and contested. This is an anthropological exploration of temporality as a form of action, a process of actively modulating or responding to how people are moving rather than the more (...) usual focus in mobility studies on where they are heading. (shrink)

This text is the introduction to V. Amit & N. B. Salazar, Pacing Mobilities. Timing, Intensity, Tempo & Duration of Human Movements, New York/Oxford, Berghahn, 2020, 202 p. It is also available on Berghahn publisher website.

This symposium comprises five papers on Locke's theory of sense perception. The authors are John Rogers, Gideon Yaffe, Lex Newman, Tom Lennon, and Martha Bolton. There are also comments on the papers, both individually and as a group, by Vere Chappell. In addition to Locke's view of perception, the papers deal with the nature of Lockean ideas and with the question whether Locke is committed to skepticism regarding the external world. The authors (and the commentator) disagree in their readings (...) of Locke on these issues, but most maintain--and some argue--that he holds a representative theory of perception, and that he is not an external-world skeptic. (shrink)

In Hellenistic philosophy, one can find contrasting evaluations of the argumentative use of merely conceivable states of affairs. On the one hand, Epicureans discard any proposal that has no plausibility from the point of view of someone in possession of the relevant expertise. On the other hand, Sceptics regularly invoke views which one might conceivably hold, irrespective of the view’s epistemic credentials or whether or not it has or has ever had actual proponents. Since thought experiments often introduce scenarios involving (...) merely conceivable but non-actual states of affairs, the positions of Epicureans and Sceptics regarding conceivability can be transposed into different attitudes towards the method of thought experiments. (shrink)

This article aims to deepen and extend theoretical understanding of mobility by exploring some of the mechanisms by which it operates. It introduces the concept and practices of ‘tacking’ as a frame for examining the creative processes of navigation and improvisation through which people approach and reflect on the irregularities and uncertainties of their everyday rounds, enacted or otherwise narrated as spatial biography – lives conceived in mobile-spatial terms. ‘Tacking’ also travels beyond this frame of reference, i.e. it is ‘good (...) to think with’ across different substantive contexts of social interaction. Tacking suggests ongoing adjustment and modification that respond to shifting circumstances and may create new facts on the ground, which elicit further adjustments. (shrink)

Considering the absence of any ancient systematic approach to the reading of the novel, this paper turns to ancient dream hermeneutics as a valuable field of reference that can provide the theoretical framework for studying the ancient novel within its own cultural context. In introducing dream interpretation as one of the ancient novel's creative sources, this essay focuses on Apuleius' Metamorphoses. It explores the dream logic in Apuleius' novel by turning to such authorities as Heraclitus, Plato, Cicero, Artemidorus, and Macrobius, (...) whose characterization of the phenomenon of dreaming sheds light on specific narratological trtaits of the Metamorphoses. It argues that the lower dream category, the insomnium , provides a notion of textuality that can clarify the traditional status of the Metamorphoses as a marginal work of art. In contrast to divinely sent symbolic dreams, it is primarily the insomnium—conceived as a by-product of the lower functions of the soul—that lends psychological force to Apuleius' fiction. (shrink)

This book analyzes recent artistic and activist projects in order to conceptualize the new roles and goals of a critical theory and practice of art and photography. Vered Maimon argues that current artistic and activist practices are no longer concerned with the "politics of representation" and the critique of the spectacle, but with a "politics of rights" and the performative formation of shared yet highly contested public domains. The book thus offers a critical framework in which to rethink the artistic, (...) the activist, and the political under globalization. The primary focus is on the ways contemporary artists and activists examine political citizenship as a paradox where subjects are struggling to acquire rights whose formulation rests on attributes they allegedly don't have; while the universal political validity of these rights presupposes precisely the abstraction of every form of difference, rights for all. The book will be of interest to scholars working in art history, contemporary art, photography theory, visual culture, cultural studies, critical theory, political theory, human rights, and activism. (shrink)

This chapter contains section titled: Descartes's Uses of the Word “Substance” Individual Substances in the Meditations and Objections and Replies Descartes and Aristotle Modes and Attributes: Tropes Two Further Points About Substances in the Meditations Substance in the Synopsis of the Meditations Substance in the Fourth Replies Substance in the Principles The Most General Things Uni‐Generic Attributes Attributes in General Substance in Descartes's Later Works Conclusion Acknowledgments References and Further Reading.

The concept of vocal charisma has changed in the past decades from something that people have to something that people do, thereby stimulating research on how vocal charisma can be created and improved. Broadening the perspective on vocal charisma beyond the speaker’s performance itself to the context of the speech, we conducted acoustic-prosodic analyses of public speeches of two prominent Israelian politicians – Benjamin Netanyahu and Benny Gantz. The speech material consisted of 311–516 prosodic phrases per politician from the election (...) campaigns 2019–2020 and, crucially, was balanced so as to include an equal number of pre- and post-election speeches. Results show a superiority of Netanyahu over Gantz in almost all facets of vocal charisma, although Gantz caught up over time. Moreover, unlike Gantz, Netanyahu showed a strong adaptation of his vocal charisma patterns to before- and after-election contexts. Scrutinizing this versatility difference, an additional perception experiment with 42 listeners and excerpts from the two politicians’ speeches was carried out. Results show that Netanyahu’s speech excerpts were, unlike those of Gantz, mainly rated as more charismatic in those contexts in which they were performed. Gantz’ post-election speech excerpts, by contrast, were primarily rated as not fitting into that context, i.e., as unfolding their charisma better in a pre-election context. Moreover, listeners also rated Netanyahu as overall more charismatic than Gantz. The combined production and perception evidence suggests the relevance of context in the evaluation and interpretation of vocal charisma signals. (shrink)

This new volume in the successful Oxford Readings in Philosophy series presents a selection of the best recent articles on the main topics in Locke's philosophy. These include: innate ideas, ideas and perception, primary and secondary qualities, free will, substance, personal identity, language, essence, knowledge, and belief. The authors include some of the world's leading Locke scholars, and their essays exemplify the best - and most accessible - recent scholarship on Locke, making the volume essential for students and specialists.

Locke was a libertarian: he believed in human freedom. To be sure, his conception of freedom was different from that of many philosophers who call themselves libertarians. Some such philosophers maintain that an agent is free only if her action is uncaused; whereas Locke thought that all actions have causes, including the free ones. Some libertarians hold that no action is free unless it proceeds from a volition that is itself free; whereas Locke argued that free volition, as opposed to (...) free action, is an impossibility. On the other hand, Locke agrees with the typical professed libertarian that free actions depend on volitions - or, as he often puts it, that an agent is free only with respect to the actions she wills, to those that are voluntary. And he also refuses to make voluntariness sufficient for freedom, whereby a free action is merely one that is willed. The free agent, Locke insists, must also be able or have been able to do something other than she does or did. Thus both Locke and the libertarian professor require indifference as well as spontaneity for freedom. But Locke’s freedom is not contra-causal; and he denies that it extends to volition. In this paper I want to focus on just this last component of Locke’s view of freedom: that freedom in willing, far from being required for free agency, is not even possible. I call this ‘the thesis of volitional determinism’. Locke presents an argument for this thesis in the Essay, but scholars have never paid much attention to it: I want to examine it. (shrink)

Home museums in Israel and Germany produce a representational space in which the public figure, usually a ‘great man,’ is effectively ‘dragged home’ to the so-called private sphere so as to make the domestic worthy of musealization. Based on three years of ethnographic research in nine such museums, this article shows that when the sphere most identified with women is represented through the life and work of the men who lived there, the place of the wife and children is sidelined, (...) belittled, and at times concealed. In representing famous persons through material space and objects in the private abode, museal techniques determine which specific domestic areas, such as the kitchen and the bedroom, become the prime location of telling stories about women who lived in the house. They provide a shared perspective for visitors who find the stories about the wives endearing, recognizing home through them. (shrink)

Do human beings ever act freely, and if so what does freedom mean? Is everything that happens antecedently caused, and if so how is freedom possible? Is it right, even for God, to punish people for things that they cannot help doing? This volume presents the famous seventeenth-century controversy in which Thomas Hobbes and John Bramhall debate these questions and others. The complete texts of their initial contributions to the debate are included, together with selections from their subsequent replies to (...) one another and from other works of Hobbes, in a collection that offers an illuminating commentary on issues still of concern to philosophers today. The volume is completed by a historical and philosophical introduction that explains the context in which the debate took place. (shrink)

Do human beings ever act freely, and if so what does freedom mean? Is everything that happens antecedently caused, and if so how is freedom possible? Is it right, even for God, to punish people for things that they cannot help doing? This volume presents the famous seventeenth-century controversy in which Thomas Hobbes and John Bramhall debate these questions and others. The complete texts of their initial contributions to the debate are included, together with selections from their subsequent replies to (...) one another and from other works of Hobbes, in a collection that offers an illuminating commentary on issues still of concern to philosophers today. The volume is completed by a historical and philosophical introduction that explains the context in which the debate took place. (shrink)