Objective: This study examined whether patients who were randomly assigned to their preferred therapy arm had stronger engagement with their treatment than those who were randomly assigned to a non-preferred therapy arm.Method: Data were drawn from a RCT comparing Individual Meaning-Centered Psychotherapy, with Individual Supportive Psychotherapy, in patients with advanced cancer. Treatment engagement was operationalized as patients' perceptions of the therapeutic alliance with their therapist and therapy sessions attended. Two 2 by 2 Analysis of Variance models were used, with treatment (...) preference and treatment assignment as the independent variables and working alliance and number of sessions attended as outcome variables.Results: Patients who preferred and were assigned to IMCP reported a significantly stronger alliance than those who preferred IMCP but were assigned to ISP.Conclusions: The findings from this study have broader implications for research on psychotherapy beyond the appeal of IMCP in advanced cancer patients. Patients who prefer a novel psychotherapy that they cannot engage in elsewhere, but receive the standard treatment may experience weaker alliance than patients who prefer the standard but receive the novel therapy.Trial registration:Clinicaltrial.gov ID: NCT01323309. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Journal of the History of Philosophy 39.3 (2001) 442-443 [Access article in PDF] Steven Nadler, editor. The Cambridge Companion to Malebranche. Cambridge Companions. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2000. Pp. xi + 319. Cloth, $54.95. With his own Cambridge Companion, the seventeenth-century French philosopher Nicolas Malebranche has at last arrived in the English speaking world. As editor Nadler puts it, "Malebranche was widely recognized by his philosophical and theological (...) contemporaries... as an intellectual force to be reckoned with, a bold... synthesizer of... St. Augustine and Descartes and a systematic thinker of the first rank" (1). Yet until the relatively recent arrival of books or translations by scholars such as Nadler, McCracken, Jolley, Schmaltz, and Riley, Malebranche has largely been treated by Anglo-American scholars as merely the solitary proponent of the allegedly rather silly doctrine of occasionalism. The tide is now turning, and we may expect that over the next few years Malebranche's wide-ranging sophistication and significance will be more widely appreciated. Invaluable to that end will be Nadler's volume, which is of great interest both to those new to Malebranche and to seasoned scholars, for it presents accessible yet thorough introductions to Malebranche's many interesting doctrines—concerning self-knowledge, vision in God, continuous creation, occasionalism, theodicy, grace, freedom, morality, etc.—as well as raises important questions for future research. All of the essays Nadler has assembled are by well-known scholars, and all are worthwhile.The first point to make is that occasionalism—the view that God is the only true cause, and that finite substances lack all true causal power—was neither silly, nor was Malebranche its only proponent. As Nadler's own essay makes clear, the doctrine (or variations thereof) has roots in medieval philosophy as well as in Descartes, and was favored by other Cartesians preceding Malebranche, such as Cordemoy, la Forge, Geulincx, and Clauberg; further, Malebranche offered numerous distinct arguments for it, and, as evidenced in essays by Schmaltz, Rutherford, Kremer, and Riley, intended it to fit with his other metaphysical views in a complete and coherent system. Even if, as some of these same authors suggest, Malebranche failed to get everything to fit quite right, it's at least clear that the oft-raised charge that occasionalism was merely an ad hoc solution to the Cartesian mind-body problem is unjustified. There is of course room to disagree with certain details here: I've argued elsewhere, for example against Nadler, that despite evidence to the contrary Malebranche does not invoke continuous creation as an argument for occasionalism, and, in effect, against Kremer, that Malebranche can succeed in reconciling occasionalism and his conception of free will. But then the fact that scholars can disagree on points such as these is precisely evidence that Malebranche is a rich subject of study.Different essays have different virtues. Some are especially strong in philosophical analysis. Schmaltz provides penetrating analyses of Malebranche's doctrine that we see [End Page 442] all things "in God" as well as of related issues (such as the distinction between the intellectual and the sensible), and also traces their roots in or ramifications for thinkers such as Augustine, Descartes, Arnauld, and Regis; Kremer, too, does an impressive job disentangling the many discrete threads in Malebranche's theory of free will. Essays by Moreau and Riley are particularly useful for their overview or synthetic nature: Moreau presents the many points of contention in the decades-long dispute between Malebranche and Arnauld, while Riley makes explicit the implications that many of the doctrines discussed by other contributors have for Malebranche's moral theory (in the process perhaps implicitly supporting the claim that Malebranche's moral theory may be essential for understanding his metaphysics). Brown's and Robinet's contributions, the former detailing Malebranche's positive influence on or critical reception by figures such as Locke, Leibniz, Berkeley, Hume, and Reid, the latter focusing on disputes between Malebranche, Arnauld, and Leibniz, are essential for those interested (as all should be) in working Malebranche into standard undergraduate courses on modern philosophy, and will also be... (shrink)

Technologies for mitigating and adapting to climate change are inherently political. Their development, diffusion and deployment will have uneven impacts within and across national borders. Bringing the governance of climate technologies under democratic control is imperative but impeded by the global scale of governance and its polycentric nature. This article draws on innovative theorising in the deliberative democracy tradition to map possibilities for global democratic governance of climate technologies. It is argued that this domain is not beyond the reach of (...) democracy. Civil society has a unique and expanded role to play in generating democratic legitimacy by fostering public deliberation; translating and transmitting concepts, ideas and messages; and promoting and facilitating deliberative accountability. (shrink)

This is the first book-length study of Descartes's metaphysics to place it in its immediate historical context, the Late Scholastic philosophy of thinkers such as Suárez against which Descartes reacted. Jorge Secada views Cartesian philosophy as an 'essentialist' reply to the 'existentialism' of the School, and his discussion includes careful analyses and original interpretations of such central Cartesian themes as the role of scepticism, intentionality and the doctrine of the material falsity of ideas, universals and the relation between sense and (...) understanding, causation and the proofs of the existence of God, the theory of substance, and the dualism of mind and matter. His study offers a picture of Descartes's metaphysics that is both novel and philosophically illuminating. (shrink)

Task shifting is increasingly used to address human resource shortages impacting HIV service delivery in low- and middle-income countries. By shifting basic tasks from higher- to lower-trained cadres, such as Community Health Workers, task shifting can reduce overhead costs, improve community outreach, and provide efficient scale-up of essential treatments like antiretroviral therapies. Although there is rich evidence outlining positive outcomes that CHWs bring into HIV programs, important questions remain over their place in service delivery. These challenges often reflect concerns over (...) whether CHWs can mitigate HIV through a means that does not overlook the ethical and practical constraints that undergird their work. Ethical and practical guidance thus needs to become the cornerstone of CHW deployment. This paper analyzes such challenges through the lens of Ethical Principlism. We examined papers identifying substantive and ethical challenges impacting CHWs as they provide HIV services in low- and middle-income contexts. To do this, we analyzed papers written in English and published from year 2000 or later. These articles were identified using MEDLINE, Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews, and Google Scholar databases. In total, 465 articles were identified, 78 of which met our inclusion criteria. Article reference lists and grey literature were also examined. CHWs experience specific challenges while carrying out their duties, such as conducting emotionally- and physically-demanding tasks with often inadequate training, supervision and compensation. CHWs have also been poorly integrated into health systems, which not only impacts quality of care, but can hinder their prospects for promotion and lead to CHW disempowerment. As we argue, these challenges can be addressed if a set of ethical principles is prioritized, which specifically entail the principles of respect for persons, justice, beneficence, proportionality and cultural humility. CHWs play a crucial role in HIV service delivery, yet the ethical challenges that can accompany their work cannot be overlooked. By prioritizing ethical principles, policymakers and program implementers can better ensure that CHWs are combatting HIV through a means that does not exploit or take their critical role within service delivery for granted. (shrink)

Children diagnosed with type 1 diabetes mellitus (T1DM) are at risk for neurocognitive sequelae, including impaired attention functioning. The specific nature of the cognitive deficit varies; current literature underscores early age of diabetes diagnosis and increased disease duration as primary risk factors for this neurocognitive decline. Forty-three children with T1DM were evaluated for Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) symptomatology using the MOXO continuous performance test (MOXO-CPT) performed during a routine outpatient evaluation. The study cohort demonstrated a significant decline in all four (...) domains of attention functioning. The effect was most pronounced with early age at T1DM diagnosis, a longer disease duration and with poorer glycemic control (represented by higher HbA1c values). With increased disease duration (of 5 plus years), acute hyperglycemia was associated with inattention in the real-time setting. These findings highlight the need for routine screening of neurocognitive function in children with T1DM so that early intervention can be employed during this crucial period of cognitive development. (shrink)

The profession of psychology is one of many entities affected by the current economic recession. The question of what to do when clients cannot pay agreed-upon charges will need to be answered. Ethical issues related to setting the fee for psychotherapy, insurance coverage, abandonment, pro bono psychotherapy, and lack of resources are addressed in light of the 2002 American Psychological Association's Ethical Principles of Psychologists and Code of Conduct and other relevant literature. The impact of the Mental Health Parity Act (...) on the financial complexities that professionals in psychology now face is also discussed. Several recommendations are made for psychologists, calling them to be proactive in their communities, to be advocates for their clients, and to critically evaluate their financial practices. (shrink)

This paper discusses health policy and systems research in complex and rapidly changing contexts. It focuses on ethical issues at stake for researchers working with government policy makers to provide evidence to inform major health systems change at scale, particularly when the dynamic nature of the context and ongoing challenges to the health system can result in unpredictable outcomes. We focus on situations where ‘country ownership’ of HSR is relatively well established and where there is significant involvement of local researchers (...) and close ties and relationships with policy makers are often present. We frame our discussion around two country case studies with which we are familiar, namely China and South Africa and discuss the implications for conducting ‘embedded’ research. We suggest that reflexivity is an important concept for health system researchers who need to think carefully about positionality and their normative stance and to use such reflection to ensure that they can negotiate to retain autonomy, whilst also contributing evidence for health system change. A research process informed by the notion of reflexive practice and iterative learning will require a longitudinal review at key points in the research timeline. Such review should include the convening of a deliberative process and should involve a range of stakeholders, including those most likely to be affected by the intended and unintended consequences of change. (shrink)

Charles Darwin and C. Lloyd Morgan forward two influential principles of cognitive ethological inference that yield conflicting results about the extent of continuity in the cognitive traits of humans and other animals. While these principles have been interpreted as reflecting commitments to different senses of parsimony, in fact, both principles result from the same vera causa inferential strategy, according to which “We ought to admit no more causes of natural things, than such as are both true and sufficient to explain (...) their appearances”. Instead, the conflict stems from Darwin’s and Morgan’s views about the true causes of human psychology. Darwin holds a thoroughly Humean philosophy of the human mind, from which he infers significant continuity between human and animal minds. In contrast, Morgan argues that Humean cognitive mechanisms cannot account for a class of uniquely human behaviors, and therefore, he concludes that there is a significant discontinuity between human and animal cognition. This historical debate is informative for current controversies in comparative psychology. (shrink)

Several major breakthroughs in the history of physics have been prompted not by new empirical data but by thought experiments. James Robert Brown and John Norton have developed accounts of how thought experiments can yield such advances. Brown argues that knowledge gained via thought experiments demands a Platonic explanation; thought experiments for Brown are a window into the Platonic realm of the laws of nature. Norton argues that thought experiments are just cleverly disguised inductive or deductive arguments, so no new (...) account of their epistemology is needed. In this paper, I argue that although we do not need to invoke any Platonic insight to explain thought experimentation, Norton’s eliminativist account fails to capture the unique epistemological importance of thought experiments qua thought experiments. I then present my own account, according to which thought experiments are a particular type of inductive inference that is uniquely suited to generate new breakthroughs. (shrink)

This paper demonstrates how British Quakers, between 1870 and 1914, attempted to understand and debate the issue of vivisection through the lens of the Quaker peace testimony. Drawing on primary source materials, the article argues that these Friends were able to agitate for radical legislative and social change using virtue ethics as their framework. The paper further suggests that the moral parameters of the Quaker testimony for peace expanded briefly in this period to include interspecies as well as intraspecies engagement. (...) Friends accomplished this by arguing that humans could not engage in vivisection—a “moral disease” just like slavery and war—without risking individual and social virtue. Friends were able to call for radical change in society without arguing for ethical egalitarianism. Hierarchy was implicit in their virtue ethic, but this did not hinder their creation of a forward-thinking stance on human-animal relations. (shrink)

In South Africa, disability grant allocation has been under review and tensions are evident in government rhetoric stressing welfare provision on the one hand, and encouraging on the other. This ambiguity is traced down to the level of grant negotiations between doctors and in a psychiatry clinic in Khayelitsha. Here embodies the distress associated with harsh circumstances and is deemed by supplicants as sufficient to secure a grant. The paper illustrates how national discourses influence the presentation and experience of suffering (...) and the way in which doctors mediate diagnoses. The implications of local understandings of for expectations of the post-apartheid state are explored. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Journal of the History of Philosophy 41.1 (2003) 126-127 [Access article in PDF] James Arthur Diamond. Maimonides and the Hermeneutics of Concealment: Deciphering Scripture and Midrash in The Guide of the Perplexed. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2002. Pp. viii + 235. Paper, $20.95. In his text about the nature of Maimonidean text, Diamond shows us firsthand how the great medieval Jewish thinker's use of biblical and (...) rabbinic prooftexts brings life to each page of his Guide by having meaning rely ultimately on the reader's interpretive glance. Inviting us into his study with an epigraph by Rosenzweig on the integral role of quotation in Jewish medieval writing, Diamond concludes that a prooftext within Maimonides' great philosophical text, The Guide of the Perplexed, is "not merely a prop on which to hang certain philosophical propositions regarding God and his relationship to the creation but rather melds with the text to form an organic continuum of thought" (160). By showing how Maimonides has crafted a masterful "interplay of text and prooftext" (30), Diamond presents the Guide to us as "a bridge, drawing the student out of the philosophical text into the sacred texts and back again, dissolving the divide between the two in a perpetual hermeneutical crisscross" (31).Emphasizing the centrality of the role of the reader—and in particular, the reader engaged in an intertextual hermeneutic—in any appreciation of Maimonidean text, Diamond employs Ricoeurian language, speaking, for example, of how Maimonides' text, in its use of prooftexts whose efficacy lies in the reader's interpretive response, constitutes "a network of intersignification, thanks to which the isolated texts signify something else, something more" (40; quote from Ricoeur, "The Bible and the Imagination," 71). In particular, Diamond stresses how these hermeneutically charged prooftexts are used by Maimonides to penetrate through a range of—what are for Maimonides—metaphorical discourses about the Divine within the Jewish tradition. Ranging from straightforwardly anthropomorphic claims about God sitting or standing, to more subtly anthropocentric conceptions of the role of God in Providence, there are a host of biblical and rabbinic claims about God which Maimonides sees as metaphors—statements whose meanings are in no way worn on their sleeves, as it were. Mindful, though, of the potentially devastating effects of alerting all religious folk to the falsity of certain ways of thinking about God, Maimonides crafts his text—in particular, according to Diamond, in his use of intertextually pointing prooftexts—to beckon only the philosophically prepared readers to the real truths about God and Providence. These truths are neither spelled out in the prooftext nor in the further context from which said prooftext is pulled; rather, as Diamond explains, the truths emerge in the hermeneutical unfolding of text and prooftext, in the live process of the reader's intertextual investigation. In an encounter with Maimonides' Guide, intertextually pointing prooftexts thus enable a reader to fashion "a 'surplus of meaning' out of apparent semantic nonsense" (11; reference to Ricoeur's treatment of metaphor in his Interpretation Theory: Discourse and the Surplus of Meaning).What is fresh, creative and new about Diamond's book is not that it alerts us to the presence of secret writing strategies in Maimonides' Guide which reveal unspoken truths about God. This idea in and of itself is quite well-rehearsed within Maimonidean scholarship. What is fresh, creative and new about Diamond's study is that, in its focus on the hermeneutical efficacy of prooftexts as central to that secret writing strategy, it actually walks us through the hermeneutical process in question, step by step, with a number of cases in point. And so, Diamond not only tells us that Maimonides uses prooftexts as a strategy for pointing careful readers to uncover unspoken truths about the Divine, but Diamond actually devotes a full-length study to showing how this works in a number of [End Page 126] concrete cases. Diamond actually engages in exegesis of Maimonides' Guide in this study of Maimonidean exegesis; he actually shows us how he thinks a number of prooftexts ought to be traced through. Using a number of Maimonidean prooftexts as his starting points, Diamond takes us from Maimonides' text... (shrink)

I analyze two recent parsimony arguments that have been offered to break the current impasse in the chimpanzee mindreading controversy, the ‘logical problem’ argument from Povinelli, Penn, and Vonk, and Sober's attempt to apply model selection criteria in support of the mindreading hypothesis. I argue that Sober's approach fails to adequately rebut the ‘logical problem’. However, applying model selection criteria to chimpanzees' own mental models of behavior does yield a response to the ‘logical problem’ and reveals an adaptive advantage of (...) mindreading models and a potential solution to a paradox raised by Whiten. (shrink)

The probability that the fitter of two alleles will increase in frequency in a population goes up as the product of N (the effective population size) and s (the selection coefficient) increases. Discovering the distribution of values for this product across different alleles in different populations is a very important biological task. However, biologists often use the product Ns to define a different concept; they say that drift “dominates” selection or that drift is “stronger than” selection when Ns is much (...) smaller than some threshold quantity (e.g., ½) and that the reverse is true when Ns is much larger than that threshold. We argue that the question of whether drift dominates selection for a single allele in a single population makes no sense. Selection and drift are causes of evolution, but there is no fact of the matter as to which cause is stronger in the evolution of any given allele. (shrink)

The theory-theory of human uniqueness posits that the capacity to theorize, in a way strongly analogous to theorizing in scientific practice, was a key innovation in the hominid lineage and was responsible for many of our unique cognitive traits. One of the central arguments that its proponents have used to support the claim that animals are not theorists, the logical problem, bears strong similarities to Hempel's theoretician's dilemma, which purports to show that theories are unnecessary. This similarity threatens to undermine (...) both the claim that theorizing serves a unique, adaptive role in human cognition and our ability to test for the presence of theories. I examine two historical responses to the theoretician's dilemma and argue that they open up strategies for experimentally testing for theoretical ability in other animals. (shrink)

Several recent arguments by philosophers of biology have challenged the traditional view that evolutionary factors, such as drift and selection, are genuine causes of evolutionary outcomes. In the case of drift, advocates of the statistical theory argue that drift is merely the sampling error inherent in the other stochastic processes of evolution and thus denotes a mathematical, rather than causal, feature of populations. This debate has largely centered around one particular model of drift, the Wright–Fisher model, and this has contributed (...) to the plausibility of the statisticalists’ arguments. However, an examination of alternative, predictively inequivalent models shows that drift is a genuine cause that can be manipulated to change population outcomes. This case study illustrates the influence of methodological assumptions on ontological judgments, particularly the pernicious effect of focusing on a particular model at the expense of others and confusing its assumptions and idealizations for true claims about the phenomena being modeled. (shrink)

In their 2010 book, Biology’s First Law, D. McShea and R. Brandon present a principle that they call ‘‘ZFEL,’’ the zero force evolutionary law. ZFEL says (roughly) that when there are no evolutionary forces acting on a population, the population’s complexity (i.e., how diverse its member organisms are) will increase. Here we develop criticisms of ZFEL and describe a different law of evolution; it says that diversity and complexity do not change when there are no evolutionary causes.

This book deals with the need to rethink the aims and methods of contemporary linguistics. Orthodox linguists' discussions of linguistic form fail to exemplify how language users become language makers. Integrationist theory is used here as a solution to this basic problem within general linguistics. The book is aimed at an interdisciplinary readership, comprising those engaged in study, teaching and research in the humanities and social sciences, including linguistics, philosophy, sociology and psychology.

I evaluate the plausibility of explanatory elitism, the view that a good scientific explanation of an outcome will show that it was highly probable. I consider an argument from Michael Strevens that elitism is the only view that can account for the historical acceptance of probabilistic theories in physics. I argue that biology provides better test cases for evaluating elitism and conclude that theories in that domain were favored in virtue of conferring correct, and not necessarily high, probabilities on outcomes.

This volume will acquaint novice philosophers with one of the most important debates in twentieth-century philosophy, and will provide seasoned readers with a ...

"Gray Matters is a thorough examination of the main topics in recent philosophy of mind. It aims at surveying a broad range of issues, not all of which can be subsumed under one position or one philosopher's theory. In this way, the authors avoid neglecting interesting issues out of allegiance to a given theory of mind." --Book Jacket.

In the Origin, Darwin forwards two incompatible lines of attack on special creationism. First, he argues that imperfect or functionless traits are evidence against design. Second, he argues that since special creationism can be made compatible with any observation, it is unscientific and explanatorily vacuous. In later works, Darwin shifts to an argument that he finds much more persuasive and which would undermine theistic evolutionism as well. He argues that variation is random with respect to selection and that this demonstrates (...) that there is no design in the biological world. I examine why Darwin found the argument from independence of variation and selection more compelling than the argument from imperfection. I argue that Darwin utilized general principles of causal inference, akin to those used in modern causal modeling, to rule out any unified cause behind the evolutionary process. (shrink)

A number of influential biologists are currently pursuing efforts to restore previously extinct species. But for decades, philosophers of biology have regarded “de-extinction” as conceptually incoherent. Once a species is gone, it is gone forever. We argue that a range of metaphysical, biological, and ethical grounds for opposing de-extinction are at best inconclusive and that a pragmatic stance that allows for its possibility is more appealing.

In this article we critically reflect on ‘feminist research methods’ and ‘methodology’, from the perspective of a feminist research unit at a South African university, that explicitly aims to improve gender-based violence service provision and policy through evidence-based advocacy. Despite working within a complex and inequitable developing country context, where our feminist praxis is frequently pitted against seemingly intractable structural realities, it is a praxis that remains grounded in documenting the stories of vulnerable individuals and within a broader political project (...) of working towards improving the systems that these individuals must navigate under challenging social and structural conditions. We primarily do this by working with non-governmental organisations (NGOs) providing gender-based violence services in research conceptualisation, design and implementation. This raises unique and complex questions for feminist participatory research, which we illustrate through a case study of collaborative, participatory research with NGOs to improve health and criminal justice outcomes for survivors of sexual violence. Issues include the possibility of good intentions/good research designs failing; the suitability of participatory research in sensitive service provision contexts; the degree(s) of engagement between researchers, service providers (collaborators/participants) and research participants; as well as our ethical duties to do no harm and to promote positive, progressive change through personal narratives and other forms of evidence. Given the demands of our context and these core issues, we not only argue that there are no ‘feminist methods’, but also caution against the notion of a universal ‘feminist methodology’. Whilst we may all be in agreement about the centrality of gender to our research and analysis, the fundamental aims and assumptions of mainstream (Western) feminist approaches do not hold true in all contexts, nor are they without variance in mode, ideal degrees of participation and importance to social context. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Journal of the History of Philosophy 39.1 (2001) 77-99 [Access article in PDF] Malebranche's Distinction Between General and Particular Volitions Andrew Pessin "God needs no instruments to act," Malebranche writes in Search; "it suffices that He wills in order that a thing be, because it is a contradiction that He should will and that what He wills should not happen. Therefore, His power is His will." 1 God (...) acts by willing; so much is clear. But Malebranche goes further, especially in his Treatise, by asserting that (i) only in miracles and the initial creation does God act by "particular volitions," while (ii) God ordinarily acts in nature via laws or "general volitions." This distinction between general and particular volitions is central to Malebranche's theories of divine activity, theodicy, and occasionalism. Nevertheless, I will argue, it has been almost universally misunderstood.The two standard interpretations of Malebranche's expressions "general volition" and "particular volition" are these: (GC) A "general volition" for Malebranche is one whose content is general; a "particular volition" is one whose content is particular. [End Page 77](PC) All divine volitions have particular contents; but a "general volition" is one which is in accord with general laws, while a "particular volition" is one not in accord with general laws. 2Andrew Black offers the following two schemata for volition contents, where (B) also provides the general form of laws of nature: A: Let c be F at t. B: For all created substances x and y and for every time t1, if x is G at t1and x bears relation R to y then there is a time t2 such that t2 bears relation T to t1 and y is F at t2. 3(A) is "particular" insofar as it represents a particular state of affairs, involving a particular substance in a mode at a time; (B) is general in making no such reference. According to (GC), then, when Malebranche's God acts by "general volitions," He has volitions whose content is of the form of (B) (specifically, a law of nature); when He acts by particular volitions His volitions are of the form of (A). According to (PC), both general and particular volitions are of the form of (A), while the former are in accord with laws of nature and the latter aren't.To simplify matters, I will focus on God's activity in the material world; the laws of nature in question will usually be the laws of motion. Further, to avoid terminological confusion, I will refer to volitions of the form of (A) as "particular content volitions," and those of (B) as "general content volitions." The issue before us then is: When Malebranche's God acts by "general volitions," are these general content volitions or particular content volitions? Proponents of (GC) support the former; those of (PC) the latter.Unhappily, almost everything Malebranche says directly on the subject can be interpreted either way. 4 (I'll speculate why at the end.) And admittedly, what Malebranche says more broadly about natural laws and divine volitions is often suggestive of (GC)—so it is no surprise that almost all recent commentators adopt (GC), usually simply assuming it without argument. Still, I shall argue that if one of the interpretations is correct, it is (PC). [End Page 78]My plan in this paper: (1) Offer some prima facie support for (PC); (2) Provide four arguments that (PC) either fits better with, or is alone consistent with, various Malebranchean doctrines; (3) Reply to some recent objections against (PC); (4) Argue that Malebranche's direct reply to Arnauld supports (PC); (5) Offer a conclusion and final thought. 1. Some Prima Facie Support For (PC) Let me first note that Steven Nadler offers various passages which do at least suggest (PC). 5 But that evidence, while strong, is not alone conclusive. For one thing, those passages can perhaps be accommodated by (GC); 6 for another, there are many passages which suggest (GC). So we must go further.Consider, then, Malebranche's primary concern in the Treatise, the... (shrink)

The sport of wheelchair rugby is the subject of a recent film Murderball, which tells the story of the apparently intense rivalry between the Canadian and United States men's teams. In part, the story is told through the lives of some of the game's leading players and coaches. Murderball deals with a series of ethical and political questions concerned with conceptions of disability, articulations of sporting bodies, and the value attached to sporting performance. In this paper we offer a critique (...) of Murderball and explore a number of themes including: (1) What can disabled bodies do?; (2) This is not the Special Olympics; and (3) ?Hot? and disabled. We conclude that these themes offer us new intellectual challenges for thinking about the physical education experiences of young disabled people and progression in disability sport. Indeed, we argue that Murderball moves disability issues into new intellectual terrain, thus increasing the ways in which people who work with young people and sport might need to take account of disability. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Journal of the History of Philosophy 41.1 (2003) 25-49 [Access article in PDF] Descartes's Nomic Concurrentism:Finite Causation and Divine Concurrence Andrew Pessin DESCARTES APPEARS TO HOLD the traditional view that God acts in the world via willing. 1 In recent papers on his successor Malebranche, who also holds that view, I have argued that since volitions are paradigm representational states, close attention to the representational content of God's (...) volitions has substantial exegetical rewards. 2 The same, I will argue, is true regarding Descartes. In particular, due to lack of such attention, scholars have largely failed to realize that Descartes retains [End Page 25] a version of the scholastic doctrine that God ordinarily concurs with the causal activities of both mental and material finite substances ("concurrentism"). 3 Since concurrentism implies the true causal powers of those finite substances, in exposing Descartes's adherence to it I aim to open up new ways of thinking about some old problems in Cartesian exegesis.The plan:(I) I will first sketch a partial "worldview," along with evidence that Descartes held something like it, then(II) argue, both on the basis of this worldview and other evidence, that we should interpret Descartes's account of divine and finite causality as a version of concurrentism, then(III) show how interpreting Descartes this way has significant implications for understanding his views on the causal powers of both mental and material finite substances, and finally(IV) contrast my interpretation with two recent relevant ones: Kenneth Clatterbaugh's and Daniel Garber's. 1. A Partial Worldview If Descartes's God acts on the world via willing, we may inquire into the contents of those volitions. I suggest that Descartes's God has, among others, distinguishable volitions with roughly the following contents. 4 These constitute a partial worldview (W), and will be discussed in turn:(V1) At all times beginning with original Creation matter exists everywhere.(V2) There is at original Creation a particular quantity q and particular distribution d of motion.(V3) At all times, the laws of motion apply.(V4) Mind m exists at time t (appropriately substituted).(V5) At all times, the laws of mind-body union apply.Our first task is to accommodate God's role in the Cartesian system as the continuous conserver of the material world. 5 One divine volition which would accomplish that might have the content, not that each individual body persists, but rather, simply, that [End Page 26](V1) at all times beginning with original Creation matter exists everywhere. 6Now (V1) may require us to rethink the way continuous conservation arguments are typically framed. In the texts of La Forge and Malebranche, for example, what God conserves are individual bodies,and Cartesian texts seem sometimes to suggest the same. 7 Such framing might suggest, contra (V1), that God's conservational volitional contents make explicit reference to each individual body. Nevertheless, there are reasons to think that Descartes's God's conserving activity is and ought to be framed as in (V1):(i) God's willing that (V1) provides an easy way to reconcile Cartesian mind —> body causal interaction with continuous conservation. 8 Many think that there is a tension between these two doctrines, since God, in conserving bodies, would seem to be responsible for all their modes including motion, leaving nothing for minds to contribute to them. Now that might be true where God's conserving volition explicitly represents each individual body, particularly given the role that motion plays in distinguishing individual Cartesian bodies. 9 (V1), however, in making no reference to individual bodies, is perfectly consistent with minds affecting either the quantity or distribution of motion in the material world.(ii) Similarly in Physiologia, Des Chene convincingly defends the claim that for Descartes, "since the existence of motion... is not entailed by the existence of matter, the creation of motion [is] independent of the creation of matter" (329). In light, again, of Descartes's conception of individual bodies (n. 9, below), this independence is best modeled by distinguishing God's conserving volition from those volitions... (shrink)