Since the introduction of the imitation game by Turing in 1950 there has been much debate as to its validity in ascertaining machine intelligence. We wish herein to consider a different issue altogether: granted that a computing machine passes the Turing Test, thereby earning the label of ``Turing Chatterbox'', would it then be of any use (to us humans)? From the examination of scenarios, we conclude that when machines begin to participate in social transactions, unresolved issues of trust and responsibility (...) may well overshadow any raw reasoning ability they possess. (shrink)
If everything exists, then it looks, prima facie, as if talking about nothing is equivalent to not talking about anything. However, we appear as talking or thinking about particular nothings, that is, about particular items that are not among the existents. How to explain this phenomenon? One way is to deny that everything exists, and consequently to be ontologically committed to nonexistent “objects”. Another way is to deny that the process of thinking about such nonexistents is a (...) genuine singular thought. The first strategy we may call “the Meinongian tradition” (championed by authors like Alexius Meinong, Ernst Mally, Terence Parsons, Richard Routley, and Ed Zalta), while the second could be dubbed “the de re tradition” (connected to work by Gareth Evans, John McDowell, and Tyler Burge). Finally, the third way to solve the above puzzle, and probably the majority view in contemporary philosophy, is due to Bertrand Russell and W.V.O. Quine, who deny the particularity of the apparent nonexistent object and the singularity of the corresponding thought via the view that any statement about apparently particular nonexistents can be paraphrased into a quantified expression containing no genuinely referring terms. Jody Azzouni’s book is an attempt to argue for and develop a fourth view, based on the hitherto unrecognised notion of an “empty singular thought”, which Azzouni takes to have a place in logical space. Concomitant to developing the view, Azzouni applies it to three typical cases of talk about nonexistents: numbers, hallucinations, and fictions. As the name suggests, empty singular thought is devised as having three essential characteristics: (1) it is genuine thought, no different from any other, (2) it is singular, that is, its content is partly determined by particular non-conceptualised states of affairs, and (3) nevertheless it is genuinely empty, unlike Meinongian thought, that is, its object “does not exist in any sense”, to use Azzouni’s own formulation. Azzouni undertakes some challenging acrobatics when trying to persuade the reader that his view is substantive and it does not end up being the same as any of the previous three views about apparent talk about nonexistents.. (shrink)
In this paper, I take issue with an idea that has emerged from recent relativist proposals, and, in particular, from Lasersohn (Linguistics and Philosophy 28: 643–686, 2005), according to which the correct semantics for taste predicates must use contents that are functions of a judge parameter (in addition to a possible world parameter) rather than implicit arguments lexically associated with such predicates. I argue that the relativist account and the contextualist implicit argument-account are, from the viewpoint of semantics, not much (...) more than notational variants of one another. In other words, given any sentence containing a taste predicate, and given any assignment of values to the relevant parameters, the two accounts predict the same truth value and are, in that sense, equivalent. I also look at possible reasons for preferring one account over the other. The phenomenon of “faultless disagreement” (cf. Kölbel, Truth without objectivity, 2002) is often believed to be one such reason. I argue, against Kölbel and Lasersohn, that disagreement is never faultless: either the two parties genuinely disagree, hence if the one is right then the other is wrong, or the two parties are both right, but their apparent disagreement boils down to a misunderstanding. What is more, even if there were faultless disagreement, I argue that relativism would fail to account for it. The upshot of my paper, then, is to show that there is not much disagreement between a contextualist account that models the judge parameter as an implicit argument to the taste predicate, and a relativist account that models it as a parameter of the circumstances of evaluation. The choice between the two accounts, at least when talking about taste, is thus, to a large extent, a matter of taste. (shrink)
Trash talking, which is the North American term for verbal barbs directed at opponents during a sporting event in order to gain a competitive edge, is widely accepted by athletes and the athletic community as a legitimate part of sport. It is, however, morally indefensible. A simple Kantian injunction against treating opponents merely as objects to be overcome is sufficient to condemn this verbal abuse. Attempts to justify trash talking as a strategic ploy that implies no disrespect are (...) disingenuous in view of the fact that its effectiveness depends on opponents' being offended by it. Nor can we defend trash talking as enhancing the goal of athletic competition, since the ability to verbally abuse opponents and remain impervious to their abuse are extraneous to the athletic excellence that contests are designed to measure. Attempts to deflect criticisms by partially immunizing sport from moral scrutiny are implausible. With few exceptions, we judge actions in sport by the same moral standards that we use in any other context. Moreover, the view that neither trash talking nor other actions in sport are fit subjects for strict moral scrutiny is inconsistent with the often-heard claim that sport promotes moral development. (shrink)
This article presents a stakeholder-based example of corporate social responsibility (CSR) within a university context. The first section provides a literature review that builds the case for CSR efforts by educational institutions. The next section details aspects of the focal corporate social responsibility program at the University of South Florida St. Petersburg (USFSP) from its early conception to its implementation. The Talking the Talk section describes the overarching mission of the larger university and its influence on the mission of (...) the newly formed College of Business which undertook an ambitious community outreach program in a downtown neighborhood. The execution of the program is discussed subsequently in the Walking the Walk section, with an emphasis on formation of advisory boards, development of appropriate coursework, relevant interactions with external constituencies, and plans for assessment and continuous improvement. The article closes with recommendations for universities considering similar endeavors. (shrink)
The dominance of the medical-model in American psychiatry over the last 30 years has resulted in the subsequent decline of the “talking cure”. In this paper, we identify a number of problems associated with medicalized psychiatry, focusing primarily on how it conceptualizes the self as a de-contextualized set of symptoms. Drawing on the tradition of hermeneutic phenomenology, we argue that medicalized psychiatry invariably overlooks the fact that our identities, and the meanings and values that matter to us, are created (...) and constituted by our dialogical relations with others. While acknowledging the importance of medical and pharmaceutical interventions, we suggest that it is only by means of the dialogical interplay of the talking cure that the client can both recognize unhealthy and self-defeating ways of being and be opened up to the possibility of new meanings and self-interpretations. (shrink)
To ensure ethical employee behavior, companies often utilize several forms of mostly one-way communication such as codes of conduct. The extent to which these efforts, in addition to informing about the company stance on ethics, are able to positively influence behavior is disputed. In contrast, research on business ethics communication and behavior indicates a relatively clear, positive link between open workplace dialogue about ethical issues and ethical conduct. In this article, I therefore address the question: What influences employee attitudes to (...)talking openly about ethical issues? Answers are proposed on the basis of focus group interviews with staff at the Denmark and Brazil affiliates of the global healthcare company Novo Nordisk. It was found that interest in discussing ethical issues was influenced by two main factors: employee conceptualizations of business ethics and the level of inter-collegial trust, credibility, and confidence. In this article, by examining these phenomena, I aim at providing insight that can both inform scholars in these fields as well as help managers in their attempts to promote open workplace dialogue about ethical issues. (shrink)
One sort of usage of the phrase ‘talking past one another’ that is quite prevalent in the philosophical literature suggests the following account of a particular phenomenon of miscommunication: Agent A and agent B talk past one another during a philosophical discussion if and only if A has in mind one meaning or conception of a crucial expression P that is distinct from some meaning or conception of P had in mind by B. In this paper, however, I argue (...) that this account – given the sort of phenomenon it is intended to be an account of – misses the mark. I then present and critically examine various alternative accounts of this phenomenon often labeled ‘talking past one another,’ finally presenting what I think provides the basis for a correct account. (shrink)
How are we to understand the fact that the philosophical debate over nanotechnologies has been reduced to a clash of seemingly preprogrammed arguments and counterarguments that paralyzes all rational discussion of the ultimate ethical question of social acceptability in matters of nanotechnological development? With this issue as its starting point, the study reported on here, intended to further comprehension of the issues rather than provide a cause-and-effect explanation, seeks to achieve a rational grasp of what is being said through the (...) appeals made to this or that principle in the range of arguments put forward in publications on the subject. We present the results of the study’s analyses in two parts. In the first, we lay out the seven categories of argument that emerged from an analysis of the literature: the arguments based on nature, dignity, the good life, utility, equity, autonomy, and rights. In the second part, we present the background moral stances that support each category of argument. Identifying the different categories of argument and the moral stance that underlies each category will enable a better grasp of the reasons for the multiplicity of the arguments that figure in discussions of the acceptability of nanotechnologies and will ultimately contribute to overcoming the tendency towards talking past each other that all too often disfigures the exchange. Clarifying the implications of the moral arguments deployed in the debate over nanotechnologies may make it possible to reduce the confusion observable in these exchanges and contribute to a better grasp of the reasons for their current unproductiveness. (shrink)
Farrell, Marie Review(s) of: A thinker's guide to sin: talking about wrongdoing today, by Neil Darragh ed. (Auckland, N.Z.: Accent Publications, 2010), pp.228, $35.
The problem -- Fearless speech -- Talking versus writing -- The critical method -- Reasons and causes -- Elucidations -- Back to the rough ground -- The self and images -- A non-foundational therapy.
The fifth in the series of Ramin Jahanbegloo's interviews of prominent intellectuals who have influenced modern Indian thought, in Talking Politics Jahanbegloo converses with Bhikhu Parekh, one of the leading political philosophers of our time. The book addresses issues encompassing cultural diversity and global ethics to universal moral rights and duties, liberal democracy, and the importance of multiculturalism in the contemporary global scenario. The dialogue flows effortlessly from Parekh's descriptions of his early life in undivided India, his travels in (...) Europe, his experiences in Westminster to discussions on caste-system, untouchability, Islam and Europe, relevance of Gandhian philosophy in contemporary world, and finally his entry into the House of Lords. Engaging and thought-provoking, this book is journey into the life and work of one of the leading political thinkers of our time. (shrink)
Psychoanalysis has had to defend itself from a barrage of criticism throughout its history. Nevertheless, there are many who claim to have been helped by this therapy, and who claim to have achieved genuine insight into their condition. But do the psychodynamic or exploratory psychotherapies - the so-called talking cures - really help clients get in touch with their "inner", "real" or "true" selves? Do clients make important discoveries about the real causes of their behaviours, emotions, and personalities? Are (...) their insights, and the psychodynamic interpretations offered them by their psychotherapists, true? Many think so. -/- Talking Cures and Placebo Effects contests this view. It defends the unpopular hypothesis that therapeutic changes in the psychodynamic psychotherapies are sometimes functions of powerful placebos that rally the mind's native healing powers in much the same way that placebo pills rally the body's native healing powers; and that psychodynamic insights and interpretations are themselves placebos. Few clients know this, and fewer still are informed of the potential placebo effects at play in exploratory psychotherapy, and of the consequent risks of self-misinterpretation and self-deception. Thus does Talking Cures and Placebo Effects target a host of problems that lie at the very intersection of the epistemology, ethics, scientific status, and public accountability of the talking cures. (shrink)
Linda Morrison brings the voices and issues of a little-known, complex social movement to the attention of sociologists, mental health professionals, and the general public. The members of this social movement work to gain voice for their own experience, to raise consciousness of injustice and inequality, to expose the darker side of psychiatry, and to promote alternatives for people in emotional distress. Talking Back to Psychiatry explores the movement's history, its complex membership, its strategies and goals, and the varied (...) response it has received from psychiatry, policy makers, and the public at large. (shrink)
Fertile grounds for theoretical inquiry can be found in the oddest corners. Contemporary television programming provides viewers with several talk shows of the grotesque, as I will call them, in which the aim of each episode is to put some monstrous human phenomenon on display with the help of a host and a participating studio audience. In this paper I will try to support the unlikely claim that these talk shows, which include The Jerry Springer Show and Sally Jesse Raphael (...) (among others), provide remarkably fruitful foci for theoretical attention. My plan is to give a reading of the ideological structure of talk shows of the grotesque. In particular, my interest lies in a relatively recent strand of ideological theory that has treated questions concerning the nature and reproduction of ideology as serious ontological questions: questions that go to the heart of our philosophical understanding of subjectivity, autonomy, and the metaphysics of belief and other intentional attitudes. Here I take the work of Louis Althusser, Judith Butler, and Slavoj i ek as paradigmatic and seminal representatives of this type of theorizing. My eye, in this paper, will be turned toward showing how the contemporary talk show of the grotesque provides us with a case study through which we can productively interrogate this new theoretical turn in our understanding of ideology. After spending a substantial amount of time laying down some theoretical groundwork, during which I take a selective and usurious tour through recent theories of ideology, performativity, and the constitution of subjectivity, I will analyze the talk show phenomenon by dividing it into four levels of participatory activity: those of the host, the guests, the studio audience, and the television audience. I will argue.. (shrink)
This article raises the question of how we acquire self-information through self-talkââ¬â i.e., of how self-talk mediates self-awareness. It is first suggested that two social mechanisms leading to self-awareness could be reproduced by self-talk: engaging in dialogues with ourselves, in which we talk to fictive persons, would permit an internalization of others' perspectives; and addressing comments to ourselves about ourselves, as others do toward us, would allow an acquisition of self-information. Secondly, it is proposed..
We present Logical Description Grammar (LDG), a model ofgrammar and the syntax-semantics interface based on descriptions inelementary logic. A description may simultaneously describe the syntacticstructure and the semantics of a natural language expression, i.e., thedescribing logic talks about the trees and about the truth-conditionsof the language described. Logical Description Grammars offer a naturalway of dealing with underspecification in natural language syntax andsemantics. If a logical description (up to isomorphism) has exactly onetree plus truth-conditions as a model, it completely specifies thatgrammatical (...) object. More common is the situation, corresponding tounderspecification, in which there is more than one model. A situation inwhich there are no models corresponds to an ungrammatical input. (shrink)
DISCOURSE; EXPRESSION (i) 'Discourse' is a word with a variety of meanings. One of the more useful is as an omnibus word covering both thought and talk. ...
This book consists of fifteen dialogues between Bryan Magee and some of the outstanding thinkers of the twentieth century. It is based on a highly successful BBC television series which had enormous impact. The informality and clarity of the conversational form makes even the most difficult ideas accessible to the general reader. -/- Isaiah Berlin opens by considering the fundamental question 'What is philosophy?' Subsequent conversations examine such widely different schools as Marxism and existentialism. Chomsky, Quine, Marcuse, and others discuss (...) their own work; A. J. Ayer reviews logical positivism; Iris Murdoch talks about the relation between philosophy and literature. Moral philosophy, political philosophy, the philosophy of language, and the philosophy of science are all treated in depth by the thinkers whose work has shaped the fields. (shrink)
: Theorists analyzing the concepts of race and gender disagree over whether the terms refer to natural kinds, social kinds, or nothing at all. The question arises: what do we mean by the terms? It is usually assumed that ordinary intuitions of native speakers are definitive. However, I argue that contemporary semantic externalism can usefully combine with insights from Foucauldian genealogy to challenge mainstream methods of analysis and lend credibility to social constructionist projects.
Twin-earth thought experiments, standardly construed, support the externalist doctrine that the content of propositional attitudes involving natural-kind terms supervenes upon properties external to those who entertain them. But this doctrine in conjunction with a common view of self-knowledge might have the intolerable consequence that substantial propositions concerning the environment could be knowable a priori. Since both doctrines, externalism and privileged self-knowledge, appear independently plausible, there is then a paradox facing the attempt to hold them concurrently. I shall argue, however, that (...) externalist claims about the dependence of content on environmental factors presuppose certain theses about the semantics of natural-kind terms that, if sound, would make those claims eligible for empirical justification instead. In fact, that is the only interpretation of their epistemic status that could square with the standard conclusion from twin-earth cases. Furthermore, it can be shown to solve the paradox of externalism and self-knowledge in a more doxastically conservative way--accommodating precisely each of the well-accepted intuitions about knowledge, closure and the individuation of content given up by available competitors. (shrink)
Introduction -- The mathematical roots of the concept of analogy -- Aristotle : the uses of analogy -- Aristotle : analogy and language -- Thomas Aquinas -- Immanuel Kant -- Karl Barth -- Final reflections.
This essay is a reconstruction and defense of Davidson''s argument against the intelligiblity of the notion of conceptual scheme. After presenting a brief clarification of Davidson''s argument in On the Very Idea of a Conceptual Scheme, I turn to reconstructing Davidson''s argument. Unlike many commentators, and occasionally Davidson, who hold that the motive force of the argument is the Principle of Charity (or the denial of the Third Dogma), I argue that there is a further principle which underlies the argument. (...) This principle I call the Strong Discrimination Principle.But the argument of the paper is not purely exegetical. Not only do I show how the Strong Discrimination Principle meets certain objections to Davidson''s argument, but I show how the Principle clarifies the realist position. In particular, I show how a line of argument advanced by Rorty and Putnam against (metaphysical) realism can be rejected. (shrink)
This study compares Avicenna's and Thomas Aquinas' conceptions of God, theological language, the nature of creative action and the beginning of the universe.
The aim of this paper is to explore the proper content of a formal semantic theory in two respects: first, clarifying which uses of expressions a formal theory should seek to accommodate, and, second, how much information the theory should contain. I explore these two questions with respect to occurrences of demonstratives and pronouns – the so- called ‘deferred’ uses – which are often classified as non-standard or figurative. I argue that, contrary to initial impressions, they must be treated as (...) semantically identical to ordinary, perceptual uses of these expression-types, and that this finding has important repercussions for our view of the scope and limits of a semantic theory. (shrink)
I argue that a practice can only be taken to be one of apparent rule following if it contains a practice of policing moves within the practice. So the existence of an apparently rule-governed practice entails the existence of, what I call, a policing practice. I then argue that this entailment cannot be reconciled with a non-factualist construal of the policing practice. Thus non-factualism about the policing practice is false. Factualism about the policing practice entails realism about rules. So I (...) conclude that we ought to be realists about rules. Finally I distinguish a position which I call ultra-realism about rules and note that this too is a casualty of the view developed here. (shrink)
This essay is a reconstruction and defense of Davidson's argument against the intelligibility of the notion of conceptual scheme. After presenting a brief clarification of Davidson's argument in 'On the Very Idea of a Conceptual Scheme', I turn to reconstructing Davidson's argument. Unlike many commentators, and occasionally Davidson, who hold that the motive force of the argument is the Principle of Charity (or the denial of the Third Dogma), I argue that there is a further principle which underlies the argument. (...) This principle I call the Strong Discrimination Principle. But the argument of the paper is not purely exegetical. Not only do I show how the Strong Discrimination Principle meets certain objections to Davidson's argument, but I show how the Principle clarifies the realist position. In particular, I show how a line of argument advanced by Rorty and Putnam against (metaphysical) realism can be rejected. (shrink)
In this paper I consider the aboutness objection against standard truth-preserving presentism (STP). According to STP: (1) past-directed propositions (propositions that seem to be about the past) like , are sometimes true (2) truth supervenes on being and (3) the truth of past-directed propositions does not supervene on how things were, in the past. According to the aboutness objection (3) is implausible, given (1) and (2): for any proposition, P, P ought to be true in virtue of what P is (...) about, and so it is upon the past that the truth of past-directed propositions ought to supervene. Although an objection along these lines has been offered previously, I press the objection in two ways. First, by providing needed support for the view that propositions ought to be true in virtue of what they are about and, second, by arguing that the two responses available to the proponent of STP fail to be compelling. (shrink)
Few subjects have provoked more speculation or scholarly inquiry than the relationship between creativity and madness—or, in the case of Jason Thompson, the link between memoir writing and depression. Plato theorized that the poet’s madness is divinely inspired, and two thousand years later Sigmund Freud (1928/1961) admitted that “Before the problem of the creative artist analysis must, alas lay down its arms” (p. 177)—a cautionary injunction he then disregards. Should authors heed Thompson’s prudent advice not to write about present traumas, (...) or should they accept D. H. Lawrence’s (1981) statement that “One sheds one’s sicknesses in books, repeats and presents again one’s emotions, to be master of them” (p. .. (shrink)
The paper defends a combination of perdurantism with mereological universalism by developing semantics of temporary predications of the sort ’some P is/was/will be (a) Q’. We argue that, in addition to the usual application of causal and other restrictions on sortals, the grammatical form of such statements allows for rather different regimentations along three separate dimensions, according to: (a) whether ‘P’ and ‘Q’ are being used as phase or substance sortal terms, (b) whether ‘is’, ‘was’, and ‘will be’ are (...) the ‘is’, ‘was’, ‘will be’ of identity or of constitution, and (c) whether ‘Q’ is being used as a subject or predicate term. We conclude that this latitude is beneficial, as it conforms with linguistic reality (i.e., the multiple uses actually in place) and also enables one to turn what is ordinarily perceived as a problem for universalist perdurantism viz., a commitment to all sorts of weird and gerrymandered temporally extended entities, into an advantage, for the richness in questions allows us to make sense of the many different readings of sentences of the same grammatical form. (shrink)
There are competing accounts of the birth of bioethics. Despite the differences among them, these accounts share the claim that bioethics was not born in a single disciplinary home or in a single social space, but in numerous, including hospitals, doctors' offices, research laboratories, courtrooms, medical schools, churches and synagogues, and philosophy classrooms. This essay considers the interdisciplinarity of bioethics and the contribution of new disciplines to bioethics. It also explores the implications of interdisciplinarity for bioethics education. As bioethics develops, (...) it will be helpful to identify essential elements in the education of bioethicists and to distinguish between members of other disciplines who make important contributions to bioethics and bioethicists. (shrink)
Costs at the end of life disproportionately contribute to health care costs in the United States. Addressing these costs will therefore be an important component in making the U.S. health care system more financially sustainable. In this paper, we explore the moral justifications for having discussions of end-of-life costs in the doctor-patient encounter as part of an effort to control costs. As health care costs are partly shared through pooled resources, such as insurance and taxation, and partly borne by individuals (...) through out-of-pocket expenses, we separate our defense for, and approach to, discussing both pooled and individual aspects of cost. We argue that there needs to be a shift away from formulating the options as a dichotomous choice of paying attention to end-of-life costs versus ignoring such costs. The question should be how personal costs will be managed and how societal expenditures should be allocated. These are issues that we believe patients care about and need to have addressed in a manner with which they are comfortable. Conversations about how money will be spent at the end of life should begin before the end is near. We propose discussing costs from the onset of chronic illness and incorporating financial issues in advance care planning. Through these approaches one can avoid abruptly and insensitively introducing financial issues at the very conclusion of a person's life when one would prefer to address the painful and important issues of spiritual and existential loss that are appropriately the focus when a person is dying. (shrink)
Stanley Hauerwas's contribution to the study of Christian ethics is analyzed in the course of offering an overview of his work, including (1) his early reflections on “vision,”“narrative,” and moral agency; (2) his continuing focus on Christian virtues and practices in contrast to the ethos of moral and political liberalism; and (3) his specific attention to the meaning of peaceableness and the rejection of violence. The essay concludes by considering Hauerwas's legacy as a postliberal theologian, a critical participant in American (...) Protestant ethics, and a conversation partner with Roman Catholics. (shrink)
Is there a grammar of the name ‘God’? In an obvious and trivial sense there certainly is. This term, being a part of the English language, has to obey the grammatical rules of that language. So, for example, by consulting the relevant textbooks and dictionaries we can establish that ‘God’ is a noun, so it can function as the subject or predicate of simple categorical sentences, but it cannot, for example, function as a verb or a preposition.
Shepard provides an account of mechanisms underlying perceptual judgment or representation. Ought we to interpret the account as revealing principles on which those mechanisms operate or merely an account of principles to which their operation apparently conforms? The difference, invisible so long as we remain at a high level of abstraction, becomes important when we begin to consider implementation. [Shepard].
Genetic information is becoming increasingly used in modern life, extending beyond medicine to familial history, forensics and more. Following this expansion of use, the effect of genetic information on people’s identity and ultimately people’s quality of life is being explored in a host of different disciplines. While a multidisciplinary approach is commendable and necessary, there is the potential for the multidisciplinarity to produce conceptual misconnection. That is, while experts in one field may understand their use of a term like ‘gene’, (...) ‘identity’ or ‘information’ for experts in another field, the same term may link to a distinctly different concept. These conceptual misconnections not only increase inefficiency in complex organisational practices, but can also have important ethical, legal and social consequences. This paper comes at the problem of conceptual misconnection by clarifying different uses of the terms ‘gene’, ‘identity’ and ‘information’. I start by looking at three different conceptions of the gene; the Instrumental, the Nominal and the Postgenomic Molecular. Secondly, a taxonomy of four different concepts of identity is presented; Numeric, Character, Group and Essentialised, and their use is clarified. A general concept of Information is introduced, and finally three distinct kinds of information are described. I then introduce Concept Creep as an ethical problem that arises from conceptual misconnections. The primary goal of this paper is to reduce the potential for conceptual misconnection when discussing genetic identity and genetic information. This is complimented by three secondary goals—1) to clarify what a conceptual misconnection is, 2) to explain why clarity of use is particularly important to discussions of genes, identity and information and 3) to show how concept creep between different uses of genetic identity and genetic information can have important ethical outcomes. (shrink)
Spirituality or religion often presents as a foreign element to the clinical environment, and its language and reasoning can be a source of conflict there. As a result, the use of spirituality or religion by patients and families seems to be a solicitation that is destined to be unanswered and seems to open a distance between those who speak this language and those who do not. I argue that there are two promising approaches for engaging such language and (...) helping patients and their families to productively engage in the decision-making process. First, patient-centered interviewing techniques can be employed to explore the patient's religious or spiritual beliefs and successfully translate them into choices. Second, and more radically, I suggest that in some more recalcitrant conflicts regarding treatment plans, resolution may require that clinicians become more involved, personally engaging in discussion and disclosure of religious and spiritual worldviews. I believe that both these approaches are supported by rich models of informed consent such as the transparency model and identify considerations and circumstances that can justify such personal disclosures. I conclude by offering some considerations for curbing potential unprofessional excesses or abuses in discussing spirituality and religion with patients. (shrink)
In this essay I discuss the idea of deploying workshops in phenomenology -- i.e., teaching the discipline by practising it. I focus on the model proposed by Herbert Spiegelberg, the first person to give systematic attention to this idea and the first to institutionalize it over a period of several years. Drawing on my experience in several of the workshops he led at Washington University, St. Louis, I detail the method he recommended in preparation for a workshop I ten led (...) at the inaugural meeting of To the Things Themselves at the University of New Hampshire. (shrink)
The possible role of language in intermodular communication and non-domain-specific thinking is an empirical issue that is independent of the “vehicle” claim that natural language is “constitutive” of some thoughts. Despite noting objections to various forms of the thesis that we think in language, Carruthers entirely neglects a potentially fatal objection to his own preferred version of this “cognitive conception.”.
This written account of a clinical encounter - depicting fragments of a more extensive array of events - attempts to exemplify many facets and associated complexities of clinical ethics consultation. Within the general telling, I provide more detailed portrayals of several key events. In secion 1, I document briefly my initial interactions at the beginning of the consultation, focusing on the information gained - in the context of those interactions - as I read the medical chart of Mrs. Rose. Next (...) in section 2, I briefly describes my initial conversation with Mrs. Rose's three sons. Section 3 illustrates several questions raised in sections 1 and 2. Then section 4 presents my encounter with Paul, the youngest son, as he was carrying out his vigil at his mother's bedside in the hospital. Section 5 chronicles my interactions with several care providers involved in Mrs. Rose's situation, including two different meetings that occurred with Mrs. Rose's attending physician. I conclude in section 6 by telling about a conversation I had with Mrs. Rose's middle son, Russell, approximately one month after Mrs. Rose died. (shrink)
Tristram Engelhardt provides an important set of reflections for bioethics in a secular context. Taking Engelhardt's work as its point of departure this article explores the challenges that Jewish ethicists face in contributing to bioethics in a secular context. The article explores how the Jewish tradition can address issues in bioethics in ways that are true to its tradition and at the same time accessible and relevant to "moral strangers" in a secular society. Keywords: bioethics, Engelhardt, Jewish tradition, moral strangers, (...) multicultural, natural law CiteULike Connotea Del.icio.us What's this? (shrink)
Blair presumes the validity of the fluid-crystallized model throughout his article. Two comparative evaluations recently demonstrated that this presumption can be challenged. The fluid-crystallized model offers little to the understanding of the structural manifestation of general intelligence and other more specific abilities. It obscures important issues involving the distinction of pervasive learning disabilities (low general intelligence) from specific, content-related disabilities that impede the development of particular skills. (Published Online April 5 2006).
Hans Ruin and Patrick Heelan join me in celebrating the rise of post-positivist and phenomenological approaches to scientific and technological practice. Yet as they both know, I am also concerned that the very presence of all the new accounts which give voice to this trend may tempt us into concluding prematurely that the traditional understanding of science and technology has already been displaced. With especially Ruin’s encouragement, I expand my original discussion of this concern by explaining why I agree with (...) him about the ontologically mistaken suppositions that one might become post-positivistic by doing philosophy “meta-philosophically,” or become phenomenological by making “life” more basic that “nature.”. (shrink)
The article offers a conversation with the ghost of the madman 'Jacotot/Rancière': one of the possible dialogues between the ignorant schoolmaster and my own perplexities in what I feel to be an endgame. Is there any point at the present time, in the declining mercantilist university, in pondering once again the issue of the place of philosophy in institutions responsible for training people who will work in the sphere of education? 'We' knew the old words, so the article goes, but (...) now we are no longer sure they mean anything. And we are not keen to learn the new ones: we do not trust them, they are irrelevant to us. Moreover, we are sad and tired. All we feel is rage and impotence. Will we be capable of trying all the words once again: university, philosophy, education? Will we be capable of trying all the verbs once again: reading, writing, conversing, perhaps thinking? (shrink)
There are at least two approaches that assist students in understanding complexity and differing interpretations about human diversity and race. Because differing perspectives emerge from data perceived at different levels, different scales provide a tool for understanding relationships among perspectives and understanding the differential importance of specific factors. Constructivist listening, which assists students in examining their own experiences, feelings and understanding, provides a tool for digesting complex new material and learning emotional literacy. It can be applied to dialogue about race (...) and to classroom situations. These approaches can help students master the conceptual and interpersonal skills needed for successful scientific practice. (shrink)
Although Steeles & Belpaeme's (S&B) results may be useful for development of technical devices, their significance for behavioral sciences is very limited. This is because the question the authors asked was “Why do people use similar words in a similar way?” rather than “How can similar words stand for similar experience?” The main problem is not shared word usage, but shared references.
Contra Shepard we argue, first, that his presentation of a three-dimensional representational (psychological or phenomenal) colour space is at odds with many results in colour science, and, second, that there is insufficient evidence for Shepard's stronger claim that the three-dimensionality of colour perception has resulted from natural selection, moulded by the particulars of the solar spectrum and its variations. [Shepard].
"After the first 40 pages I was hooked, and it has been a long time since I have been unable to put a book down unitl it was finished. I would highly recommend this book. Colin Feltham has brought together all the elements that have or do influence counselling, including placing counselling in a social context. As far as this publication goes I have actually put my money where my mouth is and paid for a copy of my own." --Gladeana (...) McMahon in British. (shrink)
