Bioethics represents a dramatic revision of the centuries-old professional ethics that governed the behavior of physicians and their relationships with patients. This venerable ethics code was challenged in the years after World War II by the remarkable advances in the biomedical sciences and medicine that raised questions about the definition of death, the use of life-support systems, organ transplantation, and reproductive interventions. In response, philosophers and theologians, lawyers and social scientists joined together with physicians and scientists to rethink and revise (...) the old standards. Governments established commissions to recommend policies. Courts heard arguments and legislatures passed laws. This book is the first broad history of the growing field of bioethics. Covering the period 1947-1987, it examines the origin and evolution of the debates over human experimentation, genetic engineering, organ transplantation, termination of life-sustaining treatment, and new reproductive technologies. It assesses the contributions of philosophy, theology, law and the social sciences to the expanding discourse of bioethics. Written by one of the field's founders, The Birth of Bioethics is based on extensive archival research into sources that are difficult to obtain and on interviews with many of the leading figures in the moral debates in medicine. A very readable and comprehensive account of the evolution of bioethics, this book stresses the history of ideas but does not neglect the social and cultural context and the people involved. It will serve the information needs of philosophers, ethicists, social historians, and everyone interested in the origins of some of today's most hotly debated issues. (shrink)

This book is about the ethical issues that clinicians encounter as they care for patients and is written to assist those who serve on hospital ethics committees as they deliberate about appropriate action in difficult ethical cases.

Activities of product design and manufacturing are carried out on a worldwide scale. Operations like outsourcing and fabless manufacturing occur frequently in both design and manufacturing processes to stimulate outbreaks of the abovementioned phenomena. In this situation, manufacturing knowledge data, that have been collected and used only by the same enterprise in the same place and within the same ethnic group up to now, are not sufficient or precise enough for making a plan of ongoing manufacturing. This paper tries to (...) suggest an example of manufacturing knowledge data containing an element of production culture and to estimate a risk of manufacturing trouble that could happen between each production culture. (shrink)

‘Case’ and ‘grammatical relations’ are central to syntactic theory, but rigorous treatments of these concepts in surface-oriented grammars such as Dynamic Syntax are pending. In this respect, Japanese is worthy of mention; in this language, the nominative case particle ga, which typically marks a subject, may mark an object in certain syntactic contexts, and more than one instance of ga may be present within a single clause. These patterns cannot be captured if we simply assume that ga marks a subject. (...) In the present article, we aim to advance formal aspects of the framework, especially the mechanism of ‘structural underspecification,’ by proposing that the parse of a case particle maximally excludes potential landing sites of an unfixed node at the time of parsing the case particle, delaying the resolution of the unfixed node until a subsequent stage of structure building. This maximal exclusion approach to structural underspecification accounts for a range of case marking patterns and their connections with grammatical relations. (shrink)

‘Case’ and ‘grammatical relations’ are central to syntactic theory, but rigorous treatments of these concepts in surface-oriented grammars such as Dynamic Syntax are pending. In this respect, Japanese is worthy of mention; in this language, the nominative case particle ga, which typically marks a subject, may mark an object in certain syntactic contexts, and more than one instance of ga may be present within a single clause. These patterns cannot be captured if we simply assume that ga marks a subject. (...) In the present article, we aim to advance formal aspects of the framework, especially the mechanism of ‘structural underspecification,’ by proposing that the parse of a case particle maximally excludes potential landing sites of an unfixed node at the time of parsing the case particle, delaying the resolution of the unfixed node until a subsequent stage of structure building. This maximal exclusion approach to structural underspecification accounts for a range of case marking patterns and their connections with grammatical relations. (shrink)

‘Case’ and ‘grammatical relations’ are central to syntactic theory, but rigorous treatments of these concepts in surface-oriented grammars such as Dynamic Syntax are pending. In this respect, Japanese is worthy of mention; in this language, the nominative case particle ga, which typically marks a subject, may mark an object in certain syntactic contexts, and more than one instance of ga may be present within a single clause. These patterns cannot be captured if we simply assume that ga marks a subject. (...) In the present article, we aim to advance formal aspects of the framework, especially the mechanism of ‘structural underspecification,’ by proposing that the parse of a case particle maximally excludes potential landing sites of an unfixed node at the time of parsing the case particle, delaying the resolution of the unfixed node until a subsequent stage of structure building. This maximal exclusion approach to structural underspecification accounts for a range of case marking patterns and their connections with grammatical relations. (shrink)

Albert Lautman (1908-1944) was a French philosopher of mathematics whose work played a crucial role in the history of contemporary French philosophy. His ideas have had an enormous influence on key contemporary thinkers including Gilles Deleuze and Alain Badiou, for whom he is a major touchstone in the development of their own engagements with mathematics. Mathematics, Ideas and the Physical Real presents the first English translation of Lautman's published works between 1933 and his death in 1944. Rather than being (...) preoccupied with the relation of mathematics to logic or with the problems of foundation, which have dominated philosophical reflection on mathematics, Lautman undertakes to develop an understanding of the broader structure of mathematics and its evolution. The two powerful ideas that are constants throughout his work, and which have dominated subsequent developments in mathematics, are the concept of mathematical structure and the idea of the essential unity underlying the apparent multiplicity of mathematical disciplines. This collection of his major writings offers readers a much-needed insight into his influence on the development of mathematics and philosophy. (shrink)

In the recent literature on concepts, two extreme positions concerning animal minds are predominant: the one that animals possess neither concepts nor beliefs, and the one that some animals possess concepts as well as beliefs. A characteristic feature of this controversy is the lack of consensus on the criteria for possessing a concept or having a belief. Addressing this deficit, we propose a new theory of concepts which takes recent case studies of complex animal behavior into account. The main aim (...) of the paper is to present an epistemic theory of concepts and to defend a detailed theory of criteria for having concepts. The distinction between nonconceptual, conceptual, and propositional representations is inherent to this theory. Accordingly, it can be reasonably argued that some animals, e.g., grey parrots and apes, operate on conceptual representations. (shrink)

Japanese exhibits the Multiple Nominative Construction (MNC), where more than one nominative-marked NP appear within a single clause. Though the MNC has been extensively investigated in the syntax literature, its relation to rightward-displacement constructions has hardly been discussed. In the present article, we provide new sets of MNC data relating to the three types of right-displacement constructions: relatives, clefts, and postposing. The generalisation is that for the linearly ordered nominative-marked NPs in an MNC string, only the leftmost NP may be (...) right-displaced (that is, relativised, clefted, postposed). This pattern is shown to follow as an outcome of modelling incremental parsing, without stipulations specifically made for the observed data. We propose an account of MNCs in the light of an incremental grammar, formalising it within Dynamic Syntax. In this account, an MNC sentence is parsed on a word-by-word basis, and its interpretation is gradually built up, modelled as the growth of a semantic structure. In cases where a right-displacement is permitted, the right-displaced NP is successfully parsed against the structure built by the preceding part of the sentence. In cases where a right-displacement is disallowed, the right-displaced NP cannot be properly processed because the preceding part of the sentence has created no structural position into which the content of the right-displaced NP is reflected. As theoretical implications of the proposed account, we suggest the concept of time-linear grammaticality. (shrink)

古代西洋より伝わったとされる対称美の分析―黄金比。しかし、本書では葛飾北斎、歌川広重など偉大な日本の先人たちはすでに、黄金比を会得していたことを証明しています。なぜ、北斎がすばらしいのか?なぜ、俳句は 5・7・5なのか?富士山はどの角度から眺めるのが一番美しいのか?すべては黄金比を使い、美の世界を数値化することで見える新たな世界。初めて黄金比を用い、実例を分析した本書は日本初の試み。.

Collection of texts published previously.

An accurate classification of bacteria is essential for the proper identification of patient infections and subsequent treatment decisions. Multi-Locus Sequence Typing (MLST) is a genetic technique for bacterial classification. MLST classifications are used to cluster bacteria into clonal complexes. Importantly, clonal complexes can serve as a biological species concept for bacteria, facilitating an otherwise difficult taxonomic classification. In this paper, we argue for the inclusion of terms relating to clonal complexes in biomedical ontologies.

Tyler Burge offers a theory of testimony that allows for the possibility of both testimonial a priori warrant and testimonial a priori knowledge. I uncover a tension in his account of the relationship between the two, and locate its source in the analogy that Burge draws between testimonial warrant and preservative memory. I contend that this analogy should be rejected, and offer a revision of Burge's theory that eliminates the tension. I conclude by assessing the impact of the revised theory (...) on the scope of a priori knowledge. (shrink)

Blending social analysis and philosophy, Albert Borgmann maintains that technology creates a controlling pattern in our lives.

The study examines the argumentative competencies of people with Asperger syndrome (AS) and compares this with those of normal – or what are called neurotypical (NT) – subjects. To investigate how people with AS recognise, evaluate and engage in argumentation, we have adapted and applied the empirical instrument developed by van Eemeren, Garssen and Meuffels to study the conventional validity of the pragma-dialectical freedom rule (van Eemeren, Gars- sen & Meuffels 2003a; 2003b; 2005a; 2005b; van Eemeren & Meuffels, 2002). Our (...) paper begins with some background information on Asperger syndrome and how it impacts upon communication and argumentation; then it addresses the research questions and methods used; thirdly, it presents some initial findings; finally, it will conclude with some im- plications for those people with AS, for those they come into contact with and for the pragma-dialectic model in general. (shrink)

This book is about the ethical issues that clinicians encounter as they care for patients and is written to assist those who serve on hospital ethics committees as they deliberate about appropriate action in difficult ethical cases.

In “A Priori Knowledge,” Albert Casullo asks whether there is a priori knowledge. He ultimately defines a priori knowledge as true belief with a priori justification, where a belief is a priori justified if it is nonexperientially justified. Armed with this definition, Casullo evaluates several traditional arguments for and against the existence of a priori knowledge. He concludes that the traditional arguments reach an impasse by arguing on a priori grounds that the opposite position is deficient. A successful way (...) to defend a priori knowledge, he argues, would be to find empirical evidence that supports the existence of nonexperiential sources of justification. (shrink)

A demanding introduction to logic and critical thinking, this book offers more traditional means of teaching the art of reasoning at a time when the field has become almost mathematical. Francis Dauer has rethought the framework for teaching reasoning in general and formal logic in particular, the desired epistemological context, and the role of the fallacies. The result is a coherent and very readable work, informed by Dauer's extensive experience teaching and writing on the subject.

Introduction Watching the Doctor In some cultures, it is said, villagers cluster around a healer and a patient, eagerly listening to their conversation and ...

Heterogeneous beliefs and decision processes generate positive externalities for social and economic systems, analogous to biodiversity in biological systems. Although some aspects of biodiversity (e.g., pests, parasites and bacteria) can lead to ecological and economic problems, biodiversity provides flows of beneficial ecological services and is widely regarded as a valuable natural resource and informational asset, whose value increases as we learn more and science progresses (Wilson in Bioscience 35(11):700–706, 1985). Heterogeneous beliefs and decision processes (and heterogeneous behaviors they generate) similarly (...) provide flows of beneficial economic services. Behavioral diversity should therefore be seen as a natural resource and informational asset likely to improve human wellbeing in surprising ways in the future. Paternalistic policies motivated by the goal of “correcting” allegedly suboptimal beliefs and behavior that diverge from expert recommendations jeopardize behavioral diversity at a substantial cost to social welfare. The risk of encroaching on this beneficial behavioral heterogeneity with policies that aim to induce behavioral and belief monocultures should be included explicitly as costs when evaluating nudges and other paternalistic policies. (shrink)

Hans Albert is the leading critical rationalist in the German-speaking world and the main critic of the hermeneutic tradition. He is well-known for applying the idea of critical reason to various kinds of human practice, including economics, politics, and law. But he has also improved on Popper's methodology by introducing the idea of rational heuristics. This collection of essays presents the core of his work on epistemology, philosophy of the social sciences, philosophy of religion, and philosophy of law. Most (...) of Albert's works have not been available in English. It is enormously useful to have these articles collected in a single volume. (shrink)

The major divide in contemporary epistemology is between those who embrace and those who reject a priori knowledge. Albert Casullo provides a systematic treatment of the primary epistemological issues associated with the controversy. By freeing the a priori from traditional assumptions about the nature of knowledge and justification, he offers a novel approach to resolving these issues which assigns a prominent role to empirical evidence. He concludes by arguing that traditional approaches to the a priori, which focus primarily on (...) the concepts of necessity and analyticity, are misguided. (shrink)