For organizational development that is future-oriented, enterprises increasingly need qualified, motivated and efficient workers who are able and willing to contribute actively to technical and organizational innovations. Furthermore, customers and consumers are increasingly interested in healthy products and services. Therefore, health has become a (potential) business value of strategic importance. In interaction with all relevant stakeholders, an approach was developed for companies that want to manage their health impact in a proactive and preventive manner. The approach was termed Integral Health (...) Management (IHM). IHM forms a strategic approach for reducing the costs of sickness absence and working disability, while the productivity and resilience of the company and its employees are increased. This brings the company direct economic benefits. Finally, it is of prime interest for employees to remain physically and mentally healthy and employable. The IHM approach distinguishes seven lines of development: (1) health as a strategic company interest; (2) the realization of a healthy primary process; (3) a safe and sound physical (work) environment; (4) an inspiring social (work) environment; (5) vital people; (6) a sound relationship with the immediate organizational environment and local community, and (7) healthy products and/or services. The inter-relationships between the seven development lines are essential for combining an improvement of the business impact on health with a strategic interest of companies and organizations. The seven lines of IHM development can easily be linked to the European Foundation for Quality Management''s European Excellence Model. (shrink)

In this article, I apply the concept of solidarity to collective knowledge practices in healthcare. Generally, solidarity acknowledges that people are dependent on each other in many respects, and it captures those support practices that people engage in out of concern for others in whom they recognise a relevant similarity. Drawing on the rich literature on solidarity in bioethics and beyond, this article specifically discusses the role that epistemic solidarity can play in healthcare. It thus focuses, in particular, on solidarity’s (...) relationship with justice and injustice. In this regard, it is argued (1) that justice and solidarity are two equally important and complementary values that should both be considered in healthcare practices and institutions and (2) that solidarity often arises in unjust situations and can be a means to bring about justice. I transfer these ‘general’ insights about solidarity to knowledge practices in healthcare and link them to the discussion about epistemic injustices in healthcare and how to overcome them. I argue that epistemic solidarity can play an important role in overcoming epistemic injustices as well as—and independently from its contribution to justice—in knowledge production in medicine more generally. To demonstrate how epistemic solidarity can add to our understanding of collective knowledge practices, I discuss two examples: patients sharing their medical data for research purposes and healthcare professionals’ engagement with patients to better understand their afflictions. (shrink)

First published in 2000. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

The Metaphysical Club, a gathering of intellectuals in the 1870s associated with Harvard, is widely recognized as the crucible where pragmatism, America's distinctively original philosophy, was refined and proclaimed. Louis Menand's bestseller about the group was a dramatic publishing success. However, only three actual members - Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr., Charles S. Peirce, and William James - appear in this book, alongside other thinkers such as John Dewey who were never in the Club. The Real Metaphysical Club tells the full (...) story of how this influential group shifted the course of philosophy in America. In addition to pioneering pragmatism, the group explored radical empiricism and idealism, and formulated personalism and process philosophy, equally important developments. This volume contains thirty-seven important writings dating from 1870 to 1885 by the real members of the Metaphysical Club. The first section centers on pragmatism and science; the second part collects writings of the lawyers; and the third part covers idealist and personalist philosophers. Many of these writings have never been reprinted before, and nothing like this impressive collection has ever been attempted. A general introduction provides a narrative history, and the editors' three introductions to the volume's sections vividly bring to life the intense meetings, sustained debates, and pioneering thought from the Metaphysical Club. (shrink)

Frank Ramsey was the greatest of the remarkable generation of Cambridge philosophers and logicians which included G. E. Moore, Bertrand Russell, Ludwig Wittgenstein and Maynard Keynes. Before his tragically early death in 1930 at the age of twenty-six, he had done seminal work in mathematics and economics as well as in logic and philosophy. This volume, with a new and extensive introduction by D. H. Mellor, contains all Ramsey's previously published writings on philosophy and the foundations of mathematics. The (...) latter gives the definitive form and defence of the reduction of mathematics to logic undertaken in Russell and Whitehead's Principia Mathematica; the former includes the most profound and original studies of universals, truth, meaning, probability, knowledge, law and causation, all of which are still constantly referred to, and still essential reading for all serious students of these subjects. (shrink)

We attempt to extend the nominalistic project initiated in Hartry Field's Science Without Numbers to modern physical theories based in differential geometry.

This article rebuts Ramsey's earlier theory, in 'Universals of Law and of Fact', of how laws of nature differ from other true generalisations. It argues that our laws are rules we use in judging 'if I meet an F I shall regard it as a G'. This temporal asymmetry is derived from that of cause and effect and used to distinguish what's past as what we can know about without knowing our present intentions.

Space, Time, and Stuff is an attempt to show that physics is geometry: that the fundamental structure of the physical world is purely geometrical structure. Along the way, he examines some non-standard views about the structure of spacetime and its inhabitants, including the idea that space and time are pointless, the idea that quantum mechanics is a completely local theory, the idea that antiparticles are just particles travelling back in time, and the idea that time has no structure whatsoever. The (...) main thrust of the book, however, is that there are good reasons to believe that spaces other than spacetime exist, and that it is the existence of these additional spaces that allows one to reduce all of physics to geometry. Philosophy, and metaphysics in particular, plays an important role here: the assumption that the fundamental laws of physics are simple in terms of the fundamental physical properties and relations is pivotal."--P. [4] of cover. (shrink)

An introduction to informal logic, critical thinking and rhetoric utilizing actual public discourse .

I argue that it may well be the case that space and time do not consist of points, indeed that they have no smallest parts. I examine two different approaches to such pointless spaces : a topological approach and a measure theoretic approach. I argue in favor of the measure theoretic approach.

Suppose that two geysers, about one mile apart, erupt at irregular intervals, but usually erupt almost exactly at the same time. One would suspect that they come from a common source, or at least that there is a common cause of their eruptions. And this common cause surely acts before both eruptions take place. This idea, that simultaneous correlated events must have prior common causes, was first made precise by Hans Reichenbach (Reichenbach 1956). It can be used to infer the (...) existence of unobserved and unobservable events, and to infer causal relations from statistical relations. Unfortunately it does not appear to be universally valid, nor is there agreement as to the circumstances in which it is valid. (shrink)

The common cause principle states that correlations have prior common causes which screen off those correlations. I argue that the common cause principle is false in many circumstances, some of which are very general. I then suggest that more restricted versions of the common cause principle might hold, and I prove such a restricted version.

The eighteenth century, having inherited a pessimism from classical anthropology that its own ideology of progress had to absorb, seemed to have invented le mal de vivre. Clues to this condition are suggested by the etymology of the term vacuus: vacuousness of existence (“Everywhere I find a terrifying emptiness,” asserted the hero of a novel around 1769), and “a vague disquiet which permeates everything and finds nothing to calm it,” according to the definition of Jacques the Fatalist. Le mal de (...) vivre was indeed an invention because, despite a terminology that was inspired by the theory of humors (“hysterical vapors” among women; “hypochondriac melancholy” for men), the philosophers and doctors of the Enlightenment already had envisaged the fatality of an anatomical “limit” for the etiology of “afflictions of the soul.” In this way, according to the Eléments de Physiologie (Elements of Physiology) of Diderot, the agitation of the imagination actually represented the degree of irritability, or of erethism, of the nervous system: “the dreams of young people in a state of innocence come from the extremities of the fibres (meaning the nervous fibres) which are the original carriers of obscure desires, vague disquiet, a melancholy whose cause they do not understand.” If we believe the article on “delight” (jouissance) in the Encyclopaedia, a “vague and melancholy disquiet,” which is linked in particular with the physiological changes occurring at puberty, constitutes a general and “normal” state of sensation, all “delight” implying by this definition the absence of disquiet in comparison with its external object. Reduced to its vibratile intensities, the “perceiving body” that is deprived of its totalizing metaphor becomes pulverized and fragmented into so many “desiring monads.” Like Condillac's statue, it destabilizes itself through the fields of force of the phenomenal world, completely obedient to the energy economy of other bodies that define its external frontier, left to the contradictory universal laws of attraction and repulsion that govern them: “Here below, each part, through a higher impulse, combines toward the central harmony of a whole. We collide with one another and are thrown backward and forward by the force maintaining a general equilibrium and order, in which we participate mechanically.”. (shrink)

I argue that standard decision theories, namely causal decision theory and evidential decision theory, both are unsatisfactory. I devise a new decision theory, from which, under certain conditions, standard game theory can be derived.

At the end of the sixteenth century, a new conception of history appeared that Jean Bodin theorized in France as geographistory. Building on the discoveries of the New World and the subsequent onset of globalization, and drawing on Polybius’s Histories as well as Stoic cosmopolitanism, geographistory aimed to impose a coherent and authentic order (“metre en ordre des choses tant désordonnees”) on the puzzle of fortuitous historical events by appealing to the immanent and material nature of things, presented as a (...) kind of Fortune through which events would realize their universal telos. Configured after the model of the destiny of the Roman Empire, which at his apogee dominated all the world urbi et orbi, the growing world’s unity and universality would therefore providentially substitute for both God’s miraculous intervention and the Aristotelian epic hero’s action; which had failed in the eyes of Calvinists because of the historic fiasco of King Henri IV. In that respect, the poet Agrippa d’Aubigné hoped, with his Histoire universelle, to endow history with a new direction and progress (as Bacon and, still later, Bossuet will do) by methodically combining the parameters of time and space, in the manner of panoptic and rotating Baroque perspective. (shrink)

Physicians may justifiably limit patients' refusals of medical interventions when the refusal is based on a negative right to noninterference coupled with a request for an unreasonable alternative.

Time travel has been a staple of science fiction. With the advent of general relativity it has been entertained by serious physicists. But, especially in the philosophy literature, there have been arguments that time travel is inherently paradoxical. The most famous paradox is the grandfather paradox: you travel back in time and kill your grandfather, thereby preventing your own existence. To avoid inconsistency some circumstance will have to occur which makes you fail in this attempt to kill your grandfather. Doesn't (...) this require some implausible constraint on otherwise unrelated circumstances? We examine such worries in the context of modern physics. (shrink)

Zeno argued that since at any instant an arrow does not change its location, the arrow does not move at any time, and hence motion is impossible. I discuss the following three views that one could take in view of Zeno's argument:(i) the "at-at" theory, according to which there is no such thing as instantaneous velocity, while motion in the sense of the occupation of different locations at different times is possible,(ii) the "impetus" theory, according to which instantaneous velocities do (...) exist but these are only contingently and causally related to the temporal developments of positions,(iii) the "no instants" theory, according to which instants in time do not exist, and hence instantaneous velocities do not exist, while motion, in the sense of different areas occupied during different time intervals, is possible.I argue that, despite the fact that there have been interesting and relevant developments in mathematics and physics since the time of Zeno, each of these views still has serious drawbacks. (shrink)

The scientific advances made in the last two centuries have drastically improved the quality and structure of human existence. Exploring the history of that technological progress, and the numerous and complex elements that propelled its development, the _Encyclopedia of Technological Progress_ attempts to comprehensively classify the theories and hypotheses proposed in modern human history on the effects, meaning, and control of these advances. This massive and learned reference work draws on a wide range of disciplines in its study of technological (...) development, including philosophy, sociology, theology, history, and literature, as well as writings found in newspapers, political speeches, letters, and sermons, among other sources. “It is exceedingly important... that we should seek to understand more deeply the nature of technological development and very timely that this book should have appeared now to give distance and perspective to our efforts in this direction.”—Alexander King, president of the Club of Rome. (shrink)

Psilocybin-assisted psychotherapy, i.e., psilocybin treatment with psychological support, has demonstrated the efficacy of psilocybin to reduce depressive symptoms. However, in clinical trials, the structure of psilocybin-assisted psychotherapy is primarily based on preparation, navigation, and integration. For psychotherapeutic guidance, the application of this structure is favored over the usage of theoretical models. The applied psychotherapeutic models may be of critical importance if the effects are augmented due to the psychologically insightful experiences during the navigation and integration sessions. One of the important (...) next steps is to provide therapists with guidance on how to provide psilocybin-assisted psychotherapy. We present an integrated protocol for psilocybin-assisted psychotherapy for depression based on the theoretical model and psychotherapeutic framework of Compassion Focused Therapy. We hypothesize that CFT can provide the theoretical model and compassion practices that will reinforce the experiences during the navigation and follow-up therapy sessions. In this paper, we describe the rationale for selecting CFT, the compatibility of CFT and psilocybin-therapy, an overview of the psilocybin-assisted CFT protocol, the study protocol, and limitations to this approach. (shrink)

In this huge study the author presents a systematic and thematic overview of all concepts and ideas, that are basic and gave shape to Western thinking about history: Jewish and Christian concepts of redemptive history, particularism vs. universal concepts, ethnocentric concepts, typology, eschatology and the apocalyptic. He considers concepts of history in the Classical Age, the Middle Ages, Reformation, the Age of Enlightenment, the Romantic Age, Humanism, Positivism, the impact of the Holocaust and Postmodernism. He offers a critical treatment of (...) themes as the periodizing of history, continuity and discontinuity, optimistic and pessimistic theories, repetitive and non-repetitive theories. (shrink)

What is it that troubles and preoccupies us about the anxieties and anguishes of social and private life? Have advances in the disciplines of psychoanalysis, psychology or the social sciences in general ministered to our needs in these areas? In this forcefully argued collection of essays, Frank Cioffi examines Wittgenstein's reflections on the comparative claims of clarification and empirical enquiry. Though writing out of admiration and indebtedness, he expresses reservations as to the limits Wittgenstein places on the relevance and (...) desirability of empirical knowledge. His discusssions extend from Wittgenstein's reflections on human sacrifice and other ritual practices dealt with by Frazer to Freud's account of the sources of anxiety, depression, dreams and laughter. He asks both whether it is empirical investigation or more lucid reflection that these phenomena demand, and what kind of question this itself is. (shrink)

Electronic sports and other variants of ‘digital sports’ have increased in popularity all over the world and may even come to challenge hegemonic concepts of sport. More relevant than the apparent opposition between ‘physical’ and ‘non-physical’ is the question what kind of embodiment is manifested within virtual environments. In this paper, we argue that eSports do require the learning and performance of motor skills and that embodiment within a virtual environment may be considered playful or even athletic. The type of (...) skills that might be tested can even be considered fundamental movement skills. Under appropriate educational supervision, with knowledge of the game, eSports can be utilized for the development of specific elements of digital literacy. Although motor skills are a defining characteristic of eSports, we do not argue that eSports should be integrated within PE. These arguments have not so much to do with the status of physicality present, but with differences in t... (shrink)

This note is a postscript to Ramsey's 'Truth and Probability'. It replaces that article's psychological reading of subjective probability with a reading of it as a consistency condition on the theory that we act to maximise expected utility.