Vitalism was long viewed as the most grotesque view in biological theory: appeals to a mysterious life-force, Romantic insistence on the autonomy of life, or worse, a metaphysics of an entirely living universe. In the early twentieth century, attempts were made to present a revised, lighter version that was not weighted down by revisionary metaphysics: “organicism”. And mainstream philosophers of science criticized Driesch and Bergson’s “neovitalism” as a too-strong ontological commitment to the existence of certain entities or “forces”, over and (...) above the system of causal relations studied by mechanistic science, rejecting the weaker form, organicism, as well. But there has been some significant scholarly “push-back” against this orthodox attitude, notably pointing to the 18th-century Montpellier vitalists to show that there are different historical forms of vitalism, including how they relate to mainstream scientific practice. Additionally, some trends in recent biology that run counter to genetic reductionism and the informational model of the gene present themselves as organicist. Here, we examine some cases of vitalism in the twentieth century and today, not just as a historical form but as a significant metaphysical and scientific model. We argue for vitalism’s conceptual originality without either reducing it to mainstream models of science or presenting it as an alternate model of science, by focusing on historical forms of vitalism, logical empiricist critiques thereof and the impact of synthetic biology on current theorizing of vitalism. (shrink)

This collection of essays was created as a tribute to Dr. Irving Greenberg, a truly major figure in the American Jewish community for the past forty years. The authors who have contributed to this volume are a testimony to Dr. Greenberg's repercussive presence and theological contribution.

This is the first wide-ranging, multi-authored handbook in the field of philosophy of medicine, covering the underlying conceptual issues of many important social, political and ethical issues in health care. It introduces and develops over 70 topics, concepts, and issues in the field. It is written by distinguished specialists from multiple disciplines, including philosophy, health sciences, nursing, sociology, political theory, and medicine. Many difficult social and ethical issues in health care are based on conceptual problems, most prominently on the definitions (...) of health and disease, or on epistemological issues regarding causality or diagnosis. Philosophy is the discipline that deals with such conceptual, metaphysical, epistemological, methodological, and axiological matters. (shrink)

In this article, we develop a measure of complete well-being. The framework is derived from the theoretical model of human flourishing understood as a state in which all aspects of a human life are favorable. The approach extends beyond psychological well-being and reflects the World Health Organization definition of health that not only considers the health of body and mind but also embraces the wholeness of the person. The Well-Being Assessment is a comprehensive instrument designed to assess holistic well-being in (...) six domains: emotional health, physical health, meaning and purpose, character strengths, social connectedness, and financial security. Although each of these domains is distinct, all of them are nearly universally desired, and all but financial security constitute ends in themselves. Data were collected from a representative sample of working adults. A sample of 276 employees participated in the pilot, 2,370 participated in the first wave and 1,209 in the second wave of the survey. The WBA showed a good fitting, satisfactory reliability, test–retest correlation, and convergent/discriminant validity in relation to stability over time and relevant health measures, as well as a good fit to the data that were invariant over time, gender, age, education, and marital status. The instrument can be of use for scientists, practitioners, clinicians, public health officials, and patients. Adoption of more holistic measures of well-being that go beyond psychological well-being may help to shift the focus from health deficiencies to health and well-being promotion. (shrink)

The purpose of this study was to develop a Physician's Spiritual Well-Being Scale (PSpWBS). The significance of a physician's spiritual well-being was explored through in-depth interviews with and qualitative data collection from focus groups. Based on the results of qualitative analysis and related literature, the PSpWBS consisting of 25 questions was established. Reliability and validity tests were performed on 177 subjects. Four domains of the PSpWBS were devised: physician's characteristics; medical practice challenges; response to changes; and overall well-being. The explainable (...) total variance was 65.65%. Cronbach α was 0.864 when the internal consistency of the whole scale was calculated. Factor analysis showed that the internal consistency Cronbach α value for each factor was between 0.625 and 0.794 and the split-half reliability was 0.865. The scale has satisfactory reliability and validity and could serve as the basis for assessment of the spiritual well-being of a physician. (shrink)

Given that one of the major goals of the practice of Philosophy for Children (P4C) is the development of critical thinking skills (Sharp 1987/2018, pp. 4 6), an urgent question that emerged for one of the authors, who is of Chinese Heritage and a novice practitioner at a P4C summer camp was whether this emphasis on critical thinking might make this practice incompatible with the fabric of Chinese culture. Filial piety (孝), which requires respect for one’s parents, elders, and ancestors (...) is considered an important virtue in Asian culture, as is the preservation of harmony. But if one of the goals of P4C is to teach youngsters to courageously pursue reasoned dialogue, does this not set-up young Asians for serious conflict when they come face-to-face with positions that are articulated by elders, but which are ones to which they are diametrically opposed; a racist grandmother, for instance, or an uncle who insists that those at the Tiananmen Square uprising were nothing but hooligan’s. It is this question that we will explore in this presentation. In the process, we will come to the conclusion that, when positions seem irreconcilable, rather than continuing to pursue rigorous critical interchange that may do little other than escalate insult, the facilitator, rather, ought to move toward creating a deeper understanding of each position juxtaposed against its opposing view (a process that we refer to as ‘collaborative caring’), so as to produce side-by-side understanding, knowing that communal bonds have been maintained and, hence, that the opportunity for genuine reasoned collaborative inquiry on other issues and at future times remains open. (shrink)

Although the recent push toward sustainability is certainly generally a positive development in business and society, we can see many problems in the execution of the theory of sustainability. Where the triple bottom line calls on companies to weigh effects on stakeholders and the environment alongside profit, in practice in many cases, sustainability has been perverted to represent sustainable profits. In these cases, environmental impact and effects on people are only important insofar as they positively contribute to a firm‘s future (...) profits. It is not only practitioners who have often espoused this misappropriated view of sustainability but also academics have lent credibility to this view. In this work, we start by criticizing the often espoused current view of sustainability and remind academics of their responsibility to adapt a more critical view of this narrow focus. We provide examples that show how the current system of capitalism has resulted in outcomes for people and the environment that are patently unacceptable. Reasons are given as to why there is much hesitation to change the status quo. We then call on academics to reexamine what the role of businesses should be within society, what obligations business and corporations should have in society, and how we can encourage meaningful change that results in a better world for future generations. (shrink)

A collection of articles, some of which appeared previously. Partial contents:.

Literature addressing organizational ethical behavior has focused intensely on cognitive moral development, and more recently the automatic and natural moral inclinations. Research addressing the incapacity for moral reasoning, such as psychopathy, is rarely addressed in organizational behavior. Our first aim is to develop a construct definition for functional psychopathy that is appropriate for organizational science and theoretically consistent with the extensive previous clinical and criminal research in this field. Second, we apply two versions of a scale not previously used in (...) business research relative to moral judgments. This scale is a self-reported measure of functional psychopathy and is useful for its relationships with ethically relevant business decisions. Further, we examine which factors emerge as having the highest relationship with ethical decision making. Third, we seek to advance the usefulness of this construct by more precisely placing psychopathy within its nomological network. With these goals in mind, a combined sample of business school seniors participated in three studies. Findings indicate a significant influence of psychopathy over a range of ethically relevant business decisions, as well as negative correlations with factors of the Moral Approbation and the Moral Awareness scales. We conclude with directions for future research and considerations for practice. (shrink)

The objective of this paper is to augment the business values literature by building upon research that claims individual value frames are subject to hierarchical re-scaling, value redefinition, and value removal or induction. In contrast to the person-organization cultural fit approach of value congruence, we postulate that the cognitive discomforts resulting from just-world needs, self-identity completion and self-concept maintenance, as moderated by contextual and dispositional variables, are resolved through the selection and accentuation of legitimating and justifying values that ultimately cast (...) the nature of the world as fair, complete central self-identities, and affirm the self. Research and practical implications are discussed. (shrink)

Some institutional investors are exposed to social norms and public scrutiny. Prior research indicates that these norm-constrained institutions engage in negative screening and invest less in firms operating in ‘sin’ industries. We examine whether social norms also motivate these institutions to engage in positive screening—where they invest more in firms with better corporate social responsibility performance—and CSR-related activism—where they promote improvements in the CSR of existing investees. We find that firms with superior CSR performance have greater ownership by norm-constrained institutions, (...) consistent with positive screening, and we use a natural experiment to establish causality. We also find that increases in the shareholdings of norm-constrained institutions are associated with subsequent improvements in CSR, consistent with activism. Further, we rule out an alternative explanation for our results where the positive screening and activism are ‘profit-driven’ rather than driven by social pressure. Thus, our results suggest that the influence of social norms on stock markets is more pervasive than documented in the prior literature. (shrink)

As the United States population ages, there is a growing group of aging, elderly, individuals who may consider "preemptive suicide"(Prado, 1998). Healthy aging patients who preemptively attempt to end their life by suicide and who have clearly expressed a desire not to have life -sustaining treatment present a clinical and public policy challenge. We describe the clinical, ethical, and medical-legal decision making issues that were raised in such a case that presented to an academic emergency department. We also review and (...) evaluate a decision making process that emergency physicians confront when faced with such a challenging and unusual situation. (shrink)

Models of the work-to-family and family-to-work interface were tested in two heterogeneous samples of workers, one from North America (N = 408) and one from China (N = 442), using the same measures translated from English to Chinese using back translation. Consistent with proposed differences in the centrality of work and family, tolerance of work demands, and the availability of family support, work-to-family spillover effects tended to be stronger in the North American sample, whereas family-to-work spillover effects tended to be (...) stronger in the Chinese sample. However, some inconsistencies across cultures did not conform to this generalization. Results point to asymmetric differences between North America and China in the work–family interface. Theoretical implications for resource scarcity and expansionist perspectives are discussed, as well as those for the applicability of work–family interventions across North America and China. (shrink)

What is the interaction between storage and computation in language processing? What is the psychological status of grammatical rules? What are the relative strengths of connectionist and symbolic models of cognition? How are the components of language implemented in the brain? The English past tense has served as an arena for debates on these issues. We defend the theory that irregular past-tense forms are stored in the lexicon, a division of declarative memory, whereas regular forms can be computed by a (...) concatenation rule, which requires the procedural system. Irregulars have the psychological, linguistic and neuropsychological signatures of lexical memory, whereas regulars often have the signatures of grammatical processing. Furthermore, because regular inflection is rule-driven, speakers can apply it whenever memory fails. (shrink)

Each of our theories of mental representation provides some insight into how the mind works. However, these insights often seem incompatible, as the debates between symbolic, dynamical, emergentist, sub-symbolic, and grounded approaches to cognition attest. Mental representations—whatever they are—must share many features with each of our theories of representation, and yet there are few hypotheses about how a synthesis could be possible. Here, I develop a theory of the underpinnings of symbolic cognition that shows how sub-symbolic dynamics may give rise (...) to higher-level cognitive representations of structures, systems of knowledge, and algorithmic processes. This theory implements a version of conceptual role semantics by positing an internal universal representation language in which learners may create mental models to capture dynamics they observe in the world. The theory formalizes one account of how truly novel conceptual content may arise, allowing us to explain how even elementary logical and computational operations may be learned from a more primitive basis. I provide an implementation that learns to represent a variety of structures, including logic, number, kinship trees, regular languages, context-free languages, domains of theories like magnetism, dominance hierarchies, list structures, quantification, and computational primitives like repetition, reversal, and recursion. This account is based on simple discrete dynamical processes that could be implemented in a variety of different physical or biological systems. In particular, I describe how the required dynamics can be directly implemented in a connectionist framework. The resulting theory provides an “assembly language” for cognition, where high-level theories of symbolic computation can be implemented in simple dynamics that themselves could be encoded in biologically plausible systems. (shrink)

Nucleation and motion of kink pairs on partial dislocations are examined by elasticity theory for materials with a high Peierls stress. Two approaches are used: one considers the change in average stacking-fault energy due to alloying elements and the other considers the change in local SFE due to a nearby solute atom. Both approaches highlight the role of SFE on kink nucleation, propagation and annihilation and both furnish strain rate as a function of stress, temperature and SFE. Model predictions are (...) compared with yield stress data for two systems: firstly, an intermetallic, MoSi 2 , which softens for alloying elements that decrease the SFE and hardens for Re additions that increase the SFE; secondly, a ceramic oxide, MgO-Al 2 O 3 spinel, which softens with increasing addition of excess alumina and at the same time exhibits a decrease in SFE. The average SFE approach agrees qualitatively with the data while quantitative agreement is obtained with the local SFE approach. The possibility is considered that the model applies to other materials, such as TiAl, HfV 2 and Fe 3 Al, which show softening with certain alloying additions. One requirement is that the dislocations are dissociated more than a few atomic distances; otherwise kink nucleation occurs on the perfect dislocation . Hence the model does not apply to materials such as bcc metals which only have a core dissociation. Normal hardening effects of solutes from size and modulus misfits are additive with any softening effects from a decrease in SFE and so may mask the latter, as occurs for W additions to MoSi 2. (shrink)

Montague, Prior, von Wright and others drew attention to resemblances between modal operators and quantifiers. In this paper we show that classical quantifiers can, in fact, be regarded as S5-like operators in a purely propositional modal logic. This logic is axiomatized and some interesting fragments of it are investigated.

As the commentaries reveal, cognitive neuroscience's first steps toward a theory of development are marked by vigorous debate, ranging from basic points of definition to the fine details of mechanism. In this Response, we present the neural constructivist position on this broad spectrum of issues, from basic questions such as what sets constructivism apart from other theories (particularly selectionism) to its relation to behavioral theories and to its underlying mechanisms. We conclude that the real value of global theories at this (...) stage of cognitive neuroscience is not just their answers but the new set of research questions they pose. (shrink)

Applications of game theory to moral philosophy are impededby foundational issues and troublesome examples. In the first part of this paper,questions are raised about the appropriate game-theoretical frameworks for applications to moralphilosophy and about the proper interpretations of the theoretical devices employed inthese frameworks. In the second part, five examples that should be of particular interest to thoseinterested in the connections between ethics and game theory are delineated and discussed. Thefirst example comprises games in which there is an outcome unanimously (...) preferred to the``solution'' of the game, appropriately defined. The second comprises games whose solution callsfor different players to employ different strategies. The third comprises games whosesolution calls for players to adopt mixed strategies. The fourth comprises games whose solutionrequires players to cycle among a variety of strategies. The fifth comprises games whose solutionrequires players to discriminate in morally inappropriate ways. (shrink)

In this tribute to Steven T. Katz on the occasion of his seventieth birthday, Michael Zank and Ingrid Anderson present sixteen original essays written by senior and junior scholars in comparative religion, philosophy of religion, modern Judaism, and theology after the Holocaust, fields of inquiry where Steven Katz made major contributions over the course of his distinguished scholarly career. The authors of this volume, specialists in Jewish history, especially the modern experience, and Jewish thought from the Bible to (...) Buber, offer theoretical and practical observations on the value of the particular. Contributions range from Tim Knepper's reevaluation of the ineffability discourse to the particulars of the Settlement Cookbook, examined by Nora Rubel as an American classic. (shrink)

The semantics of tense has received a great deal of attention in the contemporary linguistics, philosophy and logic literatures. This is probably due partly to a renewed appreciation for the fact that issues involving tense touch on certain issues of philosophical importance (viz., determinism, causality, and the nature of events, of time and of change). It may also be due partly to neglect. Tense was noticeably omitted from the theories of meaning advanced in previous generations. In the writings of both (...) Russell and Frege there is the suggestion that tense would be absent altogether from an ideal or scientifically adequate language. (Tense was not the only blemish of natural language to be removed, of course, but tense is a more serious omission than, say, pronouns because it is present in every sentence of the language.) Finally, in recent years there has been a greater recognition of the important role that all of the so-called “indexical” expressions must play in an explanation of mental states and human behavior. Tense is no exception. Knowing that our friend died is cause for mourning, knowing that he dies is just another confirmation of a familiar syllogism. (shrink)

The prisoner 's dilemma game has acquired large literatures in several disciplines. It is surprising, therefore, that a good definition of the game is hard to find. Typically an author relates a story about captured criminals or military rivals, provides a particular payoff matrix and asserts that the PD is characterized, or illustrated, by that matrix. In the few cases in which characterizing conditions are given, the conditions, and the motivations for them, do not always agree with each other or (...) with the paradigm examples elsewhere. In this paper we describe several varieties of PD's. In particular, we suggest there are two distinctions among PD's with philosophical significance, the pure/impure and the utilitarian/nonutilitarian distinctions. In the first section, we explain and characterize the two distinctions. In the second, we discuss an issue of moral philosophy that illustrates the significance of the former. (shrink)

Objective: Caloric vestibular stimulation has traditionally been used as a tool for neurological diagnosis. More recently, however, it has been applied to a range of phenomena within the cognitive neurosciences. Here, we provide an overview of such studies and review our work using CVS to investigate the neural mechanisms of a visual phenomenon - binocular rivalry. We outline the interhemispheric switch model of rivalry supported by this work and its extension to a metarivalry model of interocular-grouping phenomena. In addition, studies (...) showing a slow rate of binocular rivalry in bipolar disorder are discussed, and the relationship between this finding and the interhemispheric switch model is described. We also review the effects of CVS in various clinical contexts, explain how the technique is performed and discuss methodological issues in its application. (shrink)

Objectives: To quantify the use of do-not-resuscitate orders in a tertiary-care children’s hospital and to characterise the circumstances in which such orders are written.Design: Retrospective study conducted in a 500-bed children’s hospital in Taiwan.Patients: The course of 101 patients who died between January 2002 and December 2005 was reviewed. The following data were collected: age at death, gender, disease and its status, place of death and survival. There were 59 males and 42 females with a median age of 103 months (...) . 50 children had leukaemias, and 51 had malignancies other than leukaemia. The t test and the χ2 test were applied as appropriate.Results: The study found that 44% of patient deaths occurred in the paediatric oncology ward; 29% of patient deaths occurred in the intensive care unit; and 28% of patients died in their home or at another hospital. Other findings included the following: 46 of 101 patients died after attempted cardiopulmonary resuscitation and 55 died with a DNR order in effect. The mean age at death was 9.8 years in both groups with or without DNR orders.Conclusions: From the study of patient deaths in this tertiary-care children’s hospital, it was concluded that an explicit DNR order is now the rule rather than the exception, with more DNR orders being written for patients who have been ill longer, who have solid tumours, who are not in remission and who are in the ward. (shrink)

Simple finite axiomatizations are given for versions of the modal logics K and K4 with non-contingency (or contingency) as the sole modal primitive. This answers two questions of I. L. Humberstone.