Dans cet entretien, Daniel Cohn-Bendit déplore l’atonie de la gauche française qui n’a pas voulu, lors de ces élections, réunir ses composantes sociale, écologiste et réformiste derrière Raphaël Glucksman autour d’un projet européen prônant la fédéralisation de l’UE. Or, cette unité est indispensable pour penser les États-Unis d’Europe face à trois insécurités majeures : la Covid, la guerre en Ukraine et le délabrement de la planète. Il s’agit de traiter ces trois insécurités ne même temps sans sacrifier l’objectif écologique. (...) Par quels moyens? Ce pourrait être par un grand emprunt européen garanti par la puissance du marché de ses 460 millions d’habitants ou par la création de partis transnationaux européens. Le navire Europe a encore du chemin à parcourir. Il flotte mais ne coule pas. (shrink)

Beginning with the earliest philosopher of the Middle Ages, Saadiah ben Joseph al-Fayyumi, this work surveys the writings of such figures as Solomon ben Joseph ...

Race or ethnic identity, despite its imprecise categorization, is a useful means of identifying population differences in mechanisms of disease and treatment effects. Therefore, race and other arbitrary demographic and physiological variables have appropriately served as a helpful guide to clinical management and to clinical trial participation. The African-American Heart Failure Trial was carried out in African-Americans with heart failure because prior data had demonstrated a uniquely favorable effect in this subpopulation of the drug combination in BiDil. The remarkable effect (...) of the drug in reducing mortality in this study has illuminated an important new mechanism of therapy for heart failure. Application of these findings need not be confined to the population studied, but the observation highlights the need for more precise ways to identify individual responsiveness to therapy. (shrink)

This English version is rewritten with some chapters omitted and 2 new chapters added of the book in Hebrew: ha-Muzikah: shelihut u-vesorah: avne beniyah la-estetikah shel ha-muzikah by Mikhal Zemorah-Kohen and Hertsel Shemueli, published Or Yehudah: Devir, c2007.

Stem cell research. Drug company influence. Abortion. Contraception. Long-term and end-of-life care. Human participants research. Informed consent. The list of ethical issues in science, medicine, and public health is long and continually growing. These complex issues pose a daunting task for professionals in the expanding field of bioethics. But what of the practice of bioethics itself? What issues do ethicists and bioethicists confront in their efforts to facilitate sound moral reasoning and judgment in a variety of venues? Are those immersed (...) in the field capable of making the right decisions? How and why do they face moral challenge -- and even compromise -- as ethicists? What values should guide them? In The Ethics of Bioethics, Lisa A. Eckenwiler and Felicia G. Cohn tackle these questions head on, bringing together notable medical ethicists and people outside the discipline to discuss common criticisms, the field's inherent tensions, and efforts to assign values and assess success. Through twenty-five lively essays examining the field's history and trends, shortcomings and strengths, and the political and policy interplay within the bioethical realm, this comprehensive book begins a much-needed critical and constructive discussion of the moral landscape of bioethics. (shrink)

Government agencies and nonprofit organizations have increasingly turned to randomized controlled trials (RCTs) to evaluate public policy interventions. Random assignment is widely understood to be fair when there is equipoise; however, some scholars and practitioners argue that random assignment is also permissible when an intervention is reasonably expected to be superior to other trial arms. For example, some argue that random assignment to such an intervention is fair when the intervention is scarce, for it is sometimes fair to use a (...) lottery to allocate scarce goods. We investigate the permissibility of randomization in public policy RCTs when there is no equipoise, identifying two sets of conditions under which it is fair to allocate access to a superior intervention via random assignment. We also reject oft-made claims that alternative study designs, including stepped-wedge designs and uneven randomization, offer fair ways to allocate beneficial interventions. (shrink)

Visual narratives like comics involve a range of complex cognitive operations in order to be understood. The Parallel Interfacing Narrative‐Semantics (PINS) Model integrates an emerging literature showing that comprehension of wordless image sequences balances two representational levels of semantic and narrative structure. The neurocognitive mechanisms that guide these processes are argued to overlap with other domains, such as language and music.

Narratives are an integral part of human expression. In the graphic form, they range from cave paintings to Egyptian hieroglyphics, from the Bayeux Tapestry to modern day comic books (Kunzle, 1973; McCloud, 1993). Yet not much research has addressed the structure and comprehension of narrative images, for example, how do people create meaning out of sequential images? This piece helps fill the gap by presenting a theory of Narrative Grammar. We describe the basic narrative categories and their relationship to a (...) canonical narrative arc, followed by a discussion of complex structures that extend beyond the canonical schema. This demands that the canonical arc be reconsidered as a generative schema whereby any narrative category can be expanded into a node in a tree structure. Narrative “pacing” is interpreted as a reflection of various patterns of this embedding: conjunction, left-branching trees, center-embedded constituencies, and others. Following this, diagnostic methods are proposed for testing narrative categories and constituency. Finally, we outline the applicability of this theory beyond sequential images, such as to film and verbal discourse, and compare this theory with previous approaches to narrative and discourse. (shrink)

Who are the Jews? What do they believe? Why is Israel so important to them? What's all this about self-hating Jews? These are just some of the questions that engage a Reform rabbi and a Humanist philosopher in their lively and intriguing conversations. From Antisemitism to Zionism, from animal slaughter kosher-style to the Zeitgeist of Jewish disparaging humour, rabbi Dan Cohn-Sherbok gives us the flavours, traditions and 'feel' of Jewish life and identity enmeshed in the importance of the Holy (...) Land, while philosopher Peter Cave gets him to dig deeper, revealing philosophical perplexities, unsettling questions -- and even Wittgenstein. The book is unique for it challenges unconscious assumptions such as the Jewish conviction that Judaism must survive and that Hitler must not secure a posthumous victory -- as well as widening eyes to searching questions concerning a nation's identity and what justifies territorial rights. Because Jewish humour plays a crucial role in Jewish life, this wide-ranging and thought-provoking exploration includes Jewish jokes and Dan's Jewish cartoons, all designed to add some spice to the dish of what it is like to be a Jew in these modern times. The dialogues introduce the non-Jewish to the Jewish world of argument, anguish and identity -- and will lead Jews to discover some fresh approaches and challenges to their interests and worries. For both Jews and non-Jews, this book casts lights -- with an engaging and accessible tone -- for, clearly, this rabbi and philosopher enjoy the cut and the thrust. (shrink)

The paper outlines a model-theoretic framework for investigating and comparing a variety of mereotopological theories. In the first part we consider different ways of characterizing a mereotopology with respect to (i) the intended interpretation of the connection primitive, and (ii) the composition of the admissible domains of quantification (e.g., whether or not they include boundary elements). The second part extends this study by considering two further dimensions along which different patterns of topological connection can be classified - the strength of (...) the connection and its multiplicity. (shrink)

Arguing about Judaism differs from other introductions to Judaism. It is unique, not solely in its engaging dialogues between a Reform rabbi and a humanist, atheist philosopher, but also in its presentation of and challenges to the fundamental religious beliefs of the Jewish heritage and their relevance to today's Jewish community. The dialogues contain both Jewish narratives and philosophical responses, with topics ranging from the nature of God to controversies over sexual relations, animal welfare and the environment -- from antisemitism (...) to the state of Israel and Zionism. Although the rabbi and philosopher argue strongly, clearly enjoying the cut and thrust of debate, they do so with sensitivity, charm and respect, revealing the rich intricacies of the Jewish religion and contemporary Jewish life. While essential reading for those studying Judaism and Jewish history, the book aims to stimulate debate more generally amongst Jews and non-Jews, the religious and the atheist -- all those with a general interest in religion and philosophy. (shrink)

This paper describes the topological aspect of a logic-based, artificial intelligence approach to formalising the qualitative description of spatial properties and relations, and reasoning about those properties and relations. This approach, known as RCC theory, has been under development for several years at the University of Leeds. The main rationale for this project is that qualitative descriptions of spatial properties and relationships, and qualitative spatial reasoning, are of fundamental importance in human thinking about the world: even where quantitative spatial data (...) are most important, they must be attached to the components of a perceived spatial structure if we are to make use of them. RCC theory covers other qualitative aspects of spatial description and reasoning, but the topological properties and relations of spatially extended entities are fundamental to our work. The topological formalisms used by mathematicians are, in general, not well suited to the task of formalising the kinds of ‘common-sense’ or ‘everyday’ qualitative spatial description and reasoning which are our primary interest. Nevertheless, we must come to grips with the concepts of topology as practised by mathematicians if we are not to risk constantly ‘reinventing wheels’. (shrink)

Cohn's (2013) theory of “Visual Narrative Grammar” argues that sequential images take on categorical roles in a narrative structure, which organizes them into hierarchic constituents analogous to the organization of syntactic categories in sentences. This theory proposes that narrative categories, like syntactic categories, can be identified through diagnostic tests that reveal tendencies for their distribution throughout a sequence. This paper describes four experiments testing these diagnostics to provide support for the validity of these narrative categories. In Experiment 1, participants (...) reconstructed unordered panels of a comic strip into an order that makes sense. Experiment 2 measured viewing times to panels in sequences where the order of panels was reversed. In Experiment 3, participants again reconstructed strips but also deleted a panel from the sequence. Finally, in Experiment 4 participants identified where a panel had been deleted from a comic strip and rated that strip's coherence. Overall, categories had consistent distributional tendencies within experiments and complementary tendencies across experiments. These results point toward an interaction between categorical roles and a global narrative structure. (shrink)

Cognitive decline is common in Parkinson’s disease (PD), and precise cognitive assessment is important for diagnosis, prognosis, and treatment. To date, there are no studies in PD investigating cultural bias on neuropsychological tests. Clinical practice in multicultural societies such as Toronto Canada, where nearly half of the population is comprised of first generation immigrants, presents important challenges as most neuropsychological tools were developed in Anglosphere cultures (e.g., USA, UK) and normed in more homogeneous groups. We examine total scores and rates (...) of deficits on tests of visuoperceptual/visuospatial, attention, memory, and executive functions in Canadians with PD born in Anglosphere countries (n = 248) versus in Canadians with PD born in other regions (International group; n = 167). The International group shows lower scores and greater rates of deficits on all visuoperceptual and some executive function tasks, but not on attention or memory measures. These biases are not explained by demographic and clinical variables as groups were comparable. Age at immigration, years in Canada, and English proficiency also do not account for the observed biases. In contrast, group differences are strongly mediated by the Historical Index of Human Development of the participants’ country of birth, which reflects economic, health, and educational potential of a country at the time of birth. In sum, our findings demonstrate lasting biases on neuropsychological tests despite significant exposure to, and participation in, Canadian culture. These biases are most striking on visuoperceptual measures and non-verbal executive tasks which many clinicians still considered to be “culture-fair” despite the growing evidence from the field of cross-cultural neuropsychology to the contrary. Our findings also illustrate that socio-development context captures important aspects of culture that relate to cognition, and have important implications for clinical practice. (shrink)

This article explores the way in which the practice of neuroscience, in the form of contemporary brain-imaging, has to actively define and isolate aspects of mindfulness as solely contained within the individual. Although hidden from final scientific accounts, at the centre of this process is the need for the researchers to forge brief but intimate and personal relationships with the volunteers in their studies. With their increasing interest in studying more and more complex mental processes, and in particular as researchers (...) focus on what they term `the social brain', a potential paradox arises from the commitment to the straightforward location of brain function and recognition of the more distributed and intersubjective nature of the objects of their study. Consequently, in order to elicit specific mental activities, such as empathy, the scientists inevitably employ a range of socially based resources, which includes establishing a personal relationship with the volunteers. The scientists themselves see this as ensuring that they can trust that the volunteers will participate in the ways intended. But in contrast, the article argues that the central feature is actually the creation of a sense of intimacy, which serves to align the expectations and experiences of volunteer and researcher. Yet, while this relationship is necessary in order to ensure the required mental state is generated, during the experiment itself a great deal of work is then done to ensure it can be excluded from the final conceptualization of mental activity. (shrink)

Cognitive Science, Volume 46, Issue 7, July 2022.

Volume 20, Issue 3, March 2020, Page 1-5.

The practice of using race or ethnic origin as a distinguishing feature of populations or individuals seeking health care is a universal and well-accepted custom in medicine. Although the origin of this practice may, in part, reflect past prejudicial attitudes, its use today can certainly be defended as a useful means of improving diagnostic and therapeutic efforts. Indeed, the tradition of dividing populations by some racial distinction in clinical research has nearly always revealed differences in mechanisms of disease and disease (...) frequency that can enhance diagnostic and therapeutic precision.At the conference occasioning this symposium, Professors Duster and Rotimi provided persuasive evidence that so-called race is not an accurate way to distinguish populations and that identification by race has led to serious prejudice. Professor Cho pleaded that race should never be used to characterize population differences. (shrink)

Much attention has been given to determining whether an adolescent patient has the capacity to consent to research. This study explores the factors that influence adolescents' decisions to participate in a research study about youth violence and to determine positive or negative feelings elicited by being a research subject. The majority of subjects perceived their decision to participate to be free of coercion, and few felt badly about having participated. However, adolescents who were alone in the room during the assent (...) process were more likely to report that they chose freely to be a research subject. This study may influence the ways physicians communicate with adolescent patients around research assent within a clinical care environment. 1This article was presented at the Annual Meetings of The Pediatric Academic Societies in Baltimore, MD and The Society for Academic Emergency Medicine in Atlanta, GA in May, 2001. (shrink)

In this issue, Ellen Fox and colleagues report on their national study on ethics consultation in U.S. hospitals, following up on the previous 1999–2000 landmark study. Th...