This study explores the connections between time, travel, and creative acts such as painting and poetry, highlighting the similarities that unite these themes. It also focuses on the relationships between the East and the West in regards to these subjects, and posits that travel can be understood as an active form of meditation. The study argues that the meaning of wanderings can be found by learning to make them conscious, and that there has been a deep reflection on time, consciousness, (...) and mobility since ancient times. (shrink)

Beyond the eras a dialogue seems to have been established between Bruegel the Elder (1525-1569) and Antonin Artaud (1896-1948). The poet’s wonder at the « painting of the North », both realistic and emblematic, reveals his deepest ideal as an artist : painting, a « magical » operation, deploys a power of expression based on signs and no longer on words, which the theatre is also called upon to seize. The juxtaposition of Bruegel’s Triumph of Death and a famous drawing (...) by Artaud, Le Théâtre de la cruauté [The Theatre of Cruelty], highlights the striking convergences between the two artists. Through their pictorial works, both of them renew over the centuries the funerary and mythical symbolism of death, inherited from the macabre scenes of medieval paintings, but also from ancient times. Studying the references to theatrical iconography in Bruegel’s painting, where carnival and crudity of death reinforce each other, allows us to deepen the meaning of these resonances. For the two artists, form and poetic momentum meet so that representation, as a structure common to painting and theatre, fixes a moment of the world, while animating that moment to infinity, thanks to signs conceived as « true hieroglyphs » (Artaud), a problem that Michel Foucault associated with the strongest truth that the experience of madness carries. (shrink)

We refine the intuitively appealing idea that you are blameworthy for something if it happened because you did not care enough. More formally: you are blameworthy for X (where X may be an action, omission, or outcome) just in case there is the right causal-explanatory relation between your poor quality of will and X. First, we argue that blameworthiness for actions, omissions, and outcomes is concerned with negative differences: you are blameworthy for the fact that X occurred instead of X*, (...) where X is worse than X*. Second, we argue that the way in which your quality of will is poor has to fit what you are blameworthy for. With these refinements, the account already gives intuitively correct verdicts in cases of forgetting, making a negative difference to a nevertheless good result, and doing an action with runaway consequences. We then discuss what the right causal-explanatory relation is and suggest that it is simply causation, understood in the right way. Here, we draw on the account of causation developed in Touborg, The Dual Nature of Causation. According to this account, there are two necessary and jointly sufficient conditions for causation. Roughly, C causes E rather than E* iff (a) C is process-connected to E, and (b) C makes E more secure and E* less secure. With this account of causation, our account of blameworthiness now also gives correct verdicts in omission, pre-emption, and switching cases, Frankfurt-style cases, and collective harm cases. (shrink)

A cause is proportional to its effect when, roughly speaking, it is at the right level of detail. There is a lively debate about whether proportionality is a necessary condition for causation. One of the main arguments against a proportionality constraint on causation is that many ordinary and seemingly perfectly acceptable causal claims cite causes that are not proportional to their effects. In this paper, I suggest that proponents of a proportionality constraint can respond to this objection by developing an (...) idea that is present in Yablo’s early work on proportionality, but which has strangely been ignored by both Yablo and others in the subsequent debate. My suggestion is that proportionality—and, indeed, causation itself—is relative to a domain of events. At the metaphysical level, this means that the causal relation has an extra relatum—namely, a domain of events. At the level of language, it introduces a new way in which causal claims are context-sensitive: what is expressed by a causal claim depends on the contextually relevant domain of events. As I argue, this suggestion allows us to accommodate the truth of ordinary causal claims while extending the explanatory benefits of a proportionality constraint. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to explain why, while Charles Darwin was well recognized as a scientific leader of his time, Claude Bernard never really regarded Darwinism as a scientific theory. The lukewarm reception of Darwin at the Académie des Sciences of Paris and his nomination to a chair only after 8 years contrasts with his prominence, and Bernard’s attitude towards Darwin’s theory of species evolution belongs to this French context. Yet we argue that Bernard rejects the scientific value (...) of Darwinian principles mainly for epistemological reasons. Like Darwin, Bernard was interested in hereditary processes, and planned to conduct experiments on these processes that could lead to species transformation. But the potential creation of new forms of life would not vindicate Darwinism since biologists can only explain the origin of morphotypes and morphological laws by the means of untestable analogies. Because it can be the object neither of experiments nor of any empirical observation, phylogeny remains out of science’s scope. Around 1878 Bernard foresaw a new general physiology based on the study of protoplasm, which he saw as the agent of all basic living phenomena. We will analyze why Bernard regarded Darwinism as part of metaphysics, yet still referred to Darwinians in his latter works in 1878. Basically, the absence of a scientific reception of Darwinism in Bernard's work should not obscure its philosophical reception, which highlights the main principles of Bernard’s epistemology. (shrink)

Psychologists say a measure has construct validity when it, in fact, measures the construct it is intended to measure. Construct validity is both an important notion in psychological research methods and the source of much confusion and debate among psychologists. I argue that this confusion arises, in part, because of a failure to distinguish between construct validity, a feature of measures relative to a construct, and construct legitimacy, a feature of the construct itself. I propose a prescriptive account of construct (...) validity on the basis of this distinction, then provide evidence for my account through two examples from research psychology. (shrink)

In this article, I argue for the notion of what I term ‘uncanny water’ as a conceptual tool for reading contemporary oceanic fictions. The uncanny’s affective capacity to destabilise epistemological and ontological certainties makes it a particularly potent literary tool for challenging the nature/culture binary. I argue that fictions which actively defamiliarise the ocean can be used to redress the anthropocentric privilege found in hitherto narratives of the oceanic that were predicated upon mastery and control, and that uncanny moments of (...) displacement and uncertainty can illuminate human/oceanic interconnections and foster a sense of responsibility and compassion towards the oceans. I identify resonances between the uncanny’s continuing referentiality and the notion that feminist transcorporeality interrelates the subject into networks of materiality which extend across time and space in unknowable ways. Both transcorporeality and the uncanny work against the conceit of the individual through the dissolution of boundaries, and, crucially, both require a suspension of assumptions of the self as whole, discrete and impermeable. To demonstrate this, I read the uncanny waters of contemporary fictions from the Northern Atlantic Littoral (Atlantic Canada and the westernmost parts of the UK). The littoral position of these spaces makes them ideally placed to negotiate the borders between habitable and unhabitable spaces, and the limitations of knowledge that run alongside this. I assert that iterations of uncanny water offer a transoceanic dialogue which shifts constructions of subjectivity away from national and terrestrial boundaries to one more akin to the fluid and relational dialectics of transcorporeality. (shrink)

Psychedelic experiences are often compared to “transformative experiences” due to their potential to change how people think and behave. This study empirically examines whether psychedelic experiences constitute transformative experiences. Given psychedelics’ prospective applications as treatments for mental health disorders, this study also explores neuroethical issues raised by the possibility of biomedically directed transformation—namely, consent and moral psychopharmacology. To achieve these aims, we used both inductive and deductive coding techniques to analyze transcripts from interviews with 26 participants in psychedelic retreats. Results (...) indicate that psychedelic experiences can constitute transformative experiences. Twenty participants reported experiences or insights that were seemingly inaccessible or impossible to attain if not for the psychoactive effects of psychedelics. All participants besides one reported some change in identity, values, beliefs, desires, and behavior—changes in behavior being the most common. Participants also reported feeling capable deciding to use psychedelics in part due to information seeking prior to their retreats. Finally, several participants reported an enhanced capacity for enacting changes in their lives. Our results underscore both the importance of subjective embodiment to transformation and the role of transformative agency in shaping outcomes of the psychedelic experience. We examine our results relative to neuroethical issues and advocate for centering the person in psychedelic research and neuroethical inquiry about psychedelics to avoid pitfalls associated with psychedelics’ potential as moral psychopharmacological agents. (shrink)

Little is known and understood about ethics management or the development of formal, systematic, and goal-directed initiatives to improve ethics in the public relations workplace. This study found little ethics training and written guidelines in the public relations workplace. Organizational ethics initiatives are poorly communicated to practitioners and rely mostly on punitive restraints with little reward for ethical behavior. For many practitioners, ethics is not learned through workplace ethics initiatives but rather is mostly informed by external influences including personal values, (...) family upbringing, and professional work experiences. (shrink)

Photovoice, a community-based participatory research method, employs images and words to convey participants' needs, concerns, and desires. It proves particularly valuable in researching marginalized communities who face elevated health risks, disease transmission, and social and health disparities. This paper seeks to investigate the ethical considerations inherent in photovoice research projects. We conducted an extensive literature review spanning four databases to identify pertinent photovoice studies. Ethical issues from the selected articles were identified, categorized, and summarized. Our analysis of twenty-five photovoice studies (...) uncovered various ethical concerns, which had been grouped into informed consent, participant safety and disclosure, privacy and confidentiality, misrepresentation, power dynamics, and compensation. In essence, our findings underscore the importance of addressing these ethical concerns to uphold the rights and autonomy of participants, even as photovoice research strives for authenticity, inclusivity, and empowerment. (shrink)

The article contributes to the debate on new materialism commenced by Sara Ahmed (2008). Taking up Lena Gunnarsson’s (2013) argument that erasing distinctions is no effective antidote to dualistic theorising, the article argues that Karen Barad’s (2003, 2007) theory is problematic on this count. Whereas Barad dilutes the theoretical distinction between mind and matter as well as that between the animate and the inanimate, the contention here is that it is ethically and politically vital to hold on to a notion (...) of subjectivity understood in terms of the capacity for experience, on account of which sentient being is exposed to suffering. This requires accentuating the passive dimension of subjectivity rather than merely the active dimension of matter. This article contests Barad’s reinscription of a masculinist devaluation of passivity on the grounds that only by moving beyond it can we overcome the hierarchical opposition of subject versus object and, in consequence, of mind versus matter. (shrink)

Este artigo aborda as motivações para a docência e os desafios enfrentados por licenciandos em psicologia. A metodologia utilizada foi a abordagem qualitativa, e o instrumento de coleta de dados questionário online com questões abertas e fechadas. Participaram do estudo, onze estudantes de cursos de licenciatura em psicologia de quatro instituições universitárias das regiões sul e sudeste do Brasil. Os resultados demonstraram que a escolha pela licenciatura se deu, sobretudo, pelo interesse e curiosidade na área da educação, apropriação dos saberes (...) pedagógicos, ampliação do mercado de trabalho, bem como as possibilidades de atuação profissional. As dificuldades apontadas revelaram: a falta de informações sobre as especificidades do curso de licenciatura e da atuação do professor de psicologia e a ausência de docentes com saberes pedagógicos para atuar na licenciatura em psicologia. Embora seja considerada formação complementar entre os estudantes, observou-se possibilidades de um ensino-aprendizagem de psicologia engajada e inventiva. (shrink)

This study aimed to outline the profile of retractions of scientific articles on COVID-19 published in journals indexed in the Scopus database between 2020 and 2021. To analyze the data, we used a bibliometric technique, with the Bibliometrix package in the R-Studio software, and descriptive statistics. Twenty-nine retractions were analyzed, and we found that the most common reasons for retraction were related to ethical issues and that 68.97% of authors have previously retracted articles. We concluded that there appears to have (...) been a change in the publication policies of journals, which resulted in an increase in scientific retractions related to COVID-19 during the study period. (shrink)

Different forms of mindfulness meditation are increasingly integrated in the clinical practice in the last three decades. Previous studies have identified changes in the neurophysiology and neurochemistry of the brain resulting from different mindfulness meditation practices in the general population. However, research on neural correlates of different types of meditation, particularly on the clinical outcomes, is still very sparse. Therefore, the aim of this article is to review the neural impact of mindfulness meditation interventions on different mental disorders via the (...) classification of main components of mindfulness meditation. The clearer classification of mindfulness meditation may inform future clinical practice and research directions. (shrink)

Due to the simultaneous linguistic and musical quality of voicing, voiced breath poses theoretical challenges to notions of ‘embodiment’, especially as they are used in theatre practice/studies. In this article, I make two intertwining arguments to address questions of the place of semantic meaning and conscious thought in performance practice/theories as they arose in my anthropological engagement with laboratory theatre. Firstly, theatre and performance practice/theories keen to embrace ‘embodiment’ often leave out things like explicit analysis, reflexivity, referential or semantic meaning (...) and so on because, as my ethnography shows, they are judged as secondary, and thus belonging implicitly more closely to disembodied ‘mind’. I engage in anthropological comparison to show how other ways of being/knowing complicate any sense in which practices labelled ‘embodied’ can be seen as primary in contrast to conscious, linguistic or explicit knowing. Instead I outline an onto/epistemology of emergence that offers an alternative imaginary in which no binaries exist a priori. Rather all is a matter of ongoing mutual constitution. Secondly, while the discourses of embodiment in performance practice/theory that I critique may continue to reproduce dualist assumptions, theatre approaches influenced by Grotowski’s anti-method, focusing on continual revision of practice, offer insights for scholarship concerned with the ontological indistinguishability of social, psychological and physical phenomena. Laboratory theatre practices offer a prospective way of knowing, enabling an exploration of the ontological equality of breath, in this case in song, and the sorts of meaningfulness associated with language and analysis. In 2011, my Nanna (grandmother in Maltese) passed away in circumstances that remain traumatic to me. I turned with to my daily practices to find ways to scream, to grieve: to anthropology and to a particular practice of song in laboratory theatre, where encounter is actively sought. Arising from ethnographic and analytic engagement with such practices, in this article, I offer an anthropologically inflected critique of notions of embodiment in performance studies and performance philosophy. I present the alternative imaginary of emergence onto/epistemologies and the prospective investigative practices of laboratory theatre. I do this by weaving autobiographical, ethnographic and anthropological threads to explore my own practice relating to the work of my collaborator Gey Pin Ang, a Singaporean director, actor and pedagogue. (shrink)

O artigo visa estabelecer uma interpretação das ideias apresentadas por Descartes em seu Compendium Musicae como expressivas da transição entre os períodos renascentista e barroco na música. Parte-se de uma análise comparativa da música desses dois períodos, assim como de algumas ideias filosóficas e científicas que circundaram a transição entre eles, e busca-se identificar ideias vinculadas a ambos no Compendium. De acordo com os resultados dessa análise, argumenta-se que, se do ponto de vista da teoria e da prática musical, a (...) obra se encontra ainda vinculada ao estilo renascentista, no que diz respeito ao fundo filosófico e científico, ela apresenta ideias comumente associadas ao Barroco. (shrink)

"The need to speak, even if one has nothing to say, becomes more pressing when one has nothing to say, just as the will to live becomes more urgent when life has lost its meaning."--from _The Ecstasy of Communication _First published in France in 1987, _ The Ecstasy of Communication_ was Baudrillard's summarization of his work for a postdoctoral degree at the Sorbonne: a dense, poetically crystalline essay that boiled down two decades of radical, provocative theory into an aphoristically eloquent (...) swan song to twentieth-century alienation. Baudrillard's quixotic effort to be recognized by the French intellectual establishment may have been doomed to failure, but this text immediately became a pinnacle to his work, a mid-career assessment that looked both forward and back. By carefully distilling the most radical elements of his previous books, Baudrillard constructed the skeleton key to all of the work that was to come in the second half of his career, and set the scene for what he termed the "obscene": a world in which alienation has been succeeded by ceaseless communication and information. _The Ecstasy of Communication_ is a decisive, compact description of what it means to be "wired" in our braver-than-brave new world, where sexuality has been superseded by pornography, knowledge by information, hysteria by schizophrenia, subject by object, and violence by terror. The Ecstasy of Communication is an anti-manifesto that confronted and dispensed with such influences as Marshall McLuhan, Guy Debord, and Georges Bataille. It is an essential crib-book, lexicon, and companion piece to any and all of Baudrillard's books. Twenty-five years after its original publication, it remains not only a prescient portrait of our contemporary condition, but also a dark mirror into which we have not yet dared to look. (shrink)

In adopting a deontological lens to assess message ethicality, this study identifies and explicates the ethical dimensions of fast food advertising through five principles of the TARES framework of persuasion ethics. In moral weight, fast food—with its high calories and low nutritional value—is negatively prejudiced. A deontological-ethical perspective, by focusing on the quality of the advertising message, shifts the focus from the product to a more measured deliberation about the moral responsibility of fast food advertisers to reposition them as moral (...) agents who are accountable for their messages. A content analysis of 380 television and print ads for fast food in Singapore shows that few ads met the TARES's expectations. Ads targeting children and teenagers are associated with lower message ethicality than ads targeting adults and the general audience, lending empirical support to the literature critical of fast food advertising's insidious approach of targeting the young. (shrink)

Neste artigo discutimos como algumas questões políticas que permearam as fases da Psicologia Industrial, Psicologia Organizacional e da Psicologia do Trabalho ajudaram na construção do pluralismo teórico da subárea da Psicologia no contexto do trabalho, uma vez que essas se encontram hoje interagind..

Background In this qualitative analysis we aimed to explore addiction physicians’ perspectives on safer injection education for people who inject drugs, especially: (1) on possible means of introducing safer injection education in the medical environment, (2) on the compatibility of safer injection education with each physician’s core values and goals, and (3) on possible reasons for the ethical dilemma in safer injection education. Methods We conducted semi-structured interviews with eleven physicians practicing addiction medicine in France in clinical and harm reduction (...) settings. Results All participants were in favor of educational interventions for people who inject drugs. Nonetheless, these interventions varied from simple advice to injection supervision and they were seen as less acceptable when they concerned the practical and material aspects of injection. Some participants found that physicians practicing in clinical settings, where patients consult mostly to stop their drug use, should not practice safer injection education. On the contrary, other participants claimed that safer injection education was essential in all settings and was not a choice but rather a duty for addiction physicians. The ethical dilemma of such intervention when delivered by medical staff was viewed as a complex phenomenon, related to the representations of intravenous drug use and to societal expectations from physicians. Conclusion Physicians’ views on safer injection education for people who inject drugs reveal an emotionally charged subject related to the structural organization of addiction management in France. Such education is marked by an arduous history of harm reduction policies in France. IRB registration: #00011928. (shrink)

The ‘Ashley treatment’ has raised much ethical controversy. This article starts from the observation that this debate suffers from a lack of careful philosophical analysis which is essential for an ethical assessment. I focus on two central arguments in the debate, namely an argument defending the treatment based on quality of life and an argument against the treatment based on dignity and rights. My analysis raises doubts as to whether these arguments, as they stand in the debate, are philosophically robust. (...) I reconstruct what form good arguments for and against the treatment should take and which assumptions are needed to defend the according positions. Concerning quality of life, I argue that to make a discussion about quality of life possible, it needs to be clear which particular conception of the good life is employed. This has not been sufficiently clear in the debate. I fill this lacuna. Regarding rights and dignity, I show that there is a remarkable absence of references to general philosophical theories of rights and dignity in the debate about the Ashley treatment. Consequently, this argument against the treatment is not sufficiently developed. I clarify how such an argument should proceed. Such a detailed analysis of arguments is necessary to clear up some confusions and ambiguities in the debate and to shed light on the dilemma that caretakers of severely disabled children face. (shrink)

BackgroundImplementation of recommendations from clinical practice guidelines is essential for evidence based clinical practice. However, the most effective methods of implementation are unclear. We conducted a national, cluster-randomised, blinded implementation trial to determine if midwife or doctor local implementation leaders are more effective in implementing a guideline for use of oral dextrose gel to treat hypoglycaemic babies on postnatal wards. To prevent any conscious or unconscious performance bias both the doctor and midwife local implementation leaders were kept unaware of the (...) trial. This paper reports the ethical dilemmas and practical challenges of ensuring clinicians remained unaware of their involvement in an implementation trial.MethodsWe sought approval from the National Health and Disability Ethics committee to keep clinicians unaware of the trial by waiving the standard requirement for locality approval usually required for each district health board. The ethics committee did not approve a waiver of consent but advised that we approach the chief executive of each district health board to ask for provisional locality approval. Ultimately it was necessary to seek ethics approval for three separate study designs to keep clinicians unaware of the trial.ResultsThe median time for chief executive approval was 16 days and for locality approval was 57 days. We completed 21 different locality approval forms for 27 hospitals.ConclusionsKeeping clinicians unaware of their involvement in a national implementation cluster-randomised trial is feasible. However, despite a national ethics committee, significant logistical challenges were time consuming and delayed trial completion. Co-ordination of the locality approval process would help facilitate multi-centre trials. (shrink)

This book integrates studies on the thought of Bernard de Mandeville and other philosophers and historians of Modern Thought. The chapters reflect a rethinking of Mandeville’s legacy and, together, present a comprehensive approach to Mandeville’s work. The book is published on the occasion of the 300 years that have passed since the publication of the Fable of the Bees. Bernard de Mandeville disassembled the dichotomies of traditional moral thinking to show that the outcomes of the social action emerge as new, (...) non-intentional effects from the combination of moral opposites, vice and virtue, in such a form that they lose their moral significance. The work of this great writer, philosopher and physician is interwoven with an awareness of the paradoxical nature of modern society and the challenges that this recognition brings to an adequate perspective on the historical world of modernity. (shrink)

The research aims to investigate the characteristics and risks associated with the handling of sensitive data in the implementation of public policies within the digital government model. To achieve this, a hypothetical-deductive method and bibliographic and documentary procedures are employed, proposing an interdisciplinary discussion on technological advancement, data protection, transparency, and public policies. The justification revolves around the importance of a comprehensive, cohesive system that genuinely protects sensitive personal data, considering the need to keep pace with technological developments and maintain (...) a minimum level of security in the digital age at both national and international levels. There is no doubt that the judicious and strategic use of data has the potential to drive substantial improvements in policy evaluation, decision-making, and the relationship between government and citizens. However, dealing with personal data also means addressing risks with responsibility, transparency, and respect for individual rights. (shrink)

This study investigated the beliefs that formed teachers’ intentions to integrate STEM content into their social studies instruction. Participants were 60 elementary, middle, and high school in-service teachers who attended a summer history workshop on Abraham Lincoln. Data were collected by qualitative and quantitative instruments. Beliefs about likely outcomes of integrating STEM, and beliefs about persons who would approve, or disapprove, of STEM integration were elicited from teachers, and content analyzed. The resulting outcome and normative beliefs were used as stems (...) for items in the quantitative instrument. Quantitative data were analyzed primarily by correlation and multiple regression. This study found that attitude toward the behavior, integrating STEM, was formed by 15 outcome beliefs, subjective norm was formed by five normative beliefs, and that attitude and norm predicted behavioral intention. The theory we used enabled us to calculate the numerical contribution of each of the beliefs that were important in forming teachers’ intentions. The results have implications for theory, research, and practice in social studies education. In the realm of practice, these implications are for the initial preparation of, and the subsequent professional development of social studies teachers, both at the elementary and secondary levels. (shrink)

A presente pesquisa propõe apresentar, pela primeira vez na área de conhecimento das Ciências da Religião, a análise do pensamento jusnaturalista de John Finnis acerca do aspecto humano da religião. Nas obras de sua autoria, Finnis apresenta uma reconstrução inovadora da teoria do direito natural de Aristóteles e Tomás de Aquino. Tal inovação foi publicada em 1980, sob a orientação de Herbert Lionel Adolphus Hart, que foi seu mentor quando na conclusão de seu doutorado, sendo que este último lhe propôs (...) o título da obra Natural Law and Natural Rights - Lei Natural e Direitos Naturais, o qual foi acolhido. A primeira publicação desta obra no Brasil ocorreu somente em 2007, pela editora Unisinos. Finnis enfatiza em suas obras a possibilidade de, por meio da razão prática, ser possível a identificação de sete bens humanos que ele mesmo os caracteriza como fundamentais básicos, dentre eles a Religião. Tais bens, segundo a sua compreensão acerca da teoria da lei natural de Aristóteles e Tomás de Aquino, consistem em valores inerentes ao ser humano, e, por assim o serem, são essenciais para o florescimento humano de cada indivíduo. Dessa forma, essa dissertação propõe-se a analisar como a teoria do direito natural de John Finnis colabora para pensar o lugar da religião no espaço público, no que condiz a sua ressignificação como fundamento ético para a formação dos direitos humanos. A análise será realizada mediante a leitura das obras do autor acerca deste tema, principalmente Natural Law & Natural Rights e Religion & Public Reasons. Como resultado geral, indica-se a necessidade de se fundamentar eticamente os direitos humanos sob a base dos bens humanos fundamentais básicos da teoria do direito natural de John Finnis. Sendo assim, fundamentando-se os Direitos Humanos na Religião, considerando-a de tal maneira, como bem fundamental básico, será possível pensar a importância do seu lugar na esfera pública. Como bem humano fundamental básico, a religião passa a ser entendida, segundo o autor determina, como essencial bem para o florescimento humano, assim como, para o bem comum da sociedade como um todo. (shrink)

Only when students feel engaged both socially and academically can schools and teachers lay the groundwork to motivate achievement. This volume, the fifth in the _Harvard Education Letter _Spotlight series, brings together fifteen seminal articles that examine research and practice on these complex and interrelated issues. Foreword by Sam M. Intrator, associate professor of education and of the Program in Urban Studies at Smith College and codirector of Smith’s Urban Education Initiative. Contributors include: Michael Bitz, James Paul Gee, Pedro A. (...) Noguera, Laura Pappano, George Sugai, and Richard Weissbourd. (shrink)

This volume maps the areas of ethical concern in the debate regarding the governance of genetic information, and suggests alternative ethical frameworks and models of regulation in order to inform its restructuring. Genetic governance is at the heart of medical and scientific developments, and is connected to global exploitation, issues of commodification, commercialisation and ownership, the concepts of property and intellectual property and concerns about individual and communal identity. Thus the decisions that are made in the next few years about (...) appropriate models of genetic governance will have knock-on effects for other areas of governance. In short the final answer to 'Who Decides?' in the context of genetic governance will fundamentally shape the ethical constructs of individuals and their networks and relationships in the public sphere. (shrink)

Commentators have tended to focus on the conceptual framework of our article, the contrast between genetic and associative accounts of mirror neurons, and to challenge it with additional possibilities rather than empirical data. This makes the empirically focused comments especially valuable. The mirror neuron debate is replete with ideas; what it needs now are system-level theories and careful experiments – tests and testability.

This article examines the discursive construction of Scottish and British- English national identities in the printed press within the context of the planned Scottish independence referendum. Using Critical Discourse Analysis and informed by sociological and anthropological research, the study uses a Corpus Linguistics approach to analyse newspaper texts from the Scottish and British printed media to define the strategies used in the construction and disarticulation of these identities and the ideologies behind them. The results of the analysis will show that (...) the Scottish broadsheets use a staunchly Scottish rhetoric with frequent examples of nation flagging, showing the palpable struggle for power and a certain sense of inferiority. Inadvertently or otherwise, these newspapers engender a sense of separateness by employing techniques of positive in-group identification. The Scottish editions of UK broadsheets, on the contrary, hold a more Anglocentric perspective and their treatment of the referendum is more political than ideological, frequently attributing negative evaluations to the independence issue and engaging in the practice of “tartanisation”. To conclude, the UK broadsheets tend to provide a more balanced and objective point of view, thus being at the political centre of the social debate enacted by the referendum and the subsequent possible independence of Scotland. (shrink)

Maquiavel é geralmente considerado um precursor, senão mesmo o criador, da ciência política. Tal interpretação vê na obra do Florentino uma sistematização da racionalidade intrínseca à ação humana. Com tonalidades distintas, podemos vê-la em autores tão diferentes como Hegel, Meinecke ou Leo Strauss, que atribuem a Maquiavel a intuição do estado como princípio subjacente à autonomia do político e ao realismo. Estará, no entanto, esse princípio realmente presente na obra de Maquiavel? O presente texto questiona semelhante hipótese, sustentando, ao invés, (...) que o Florentino pertence a um universo de pensamento onde o moderno conceito de estado se encontra ausente. Pelo contrário, a mistura de razão e desrazão, que é inerente à ação política, mas que o postulado fundador da ciência política dos modernos – o mito do estado, como lhe chama Cassirer – virá ocultar, ainda se encontra a descoberto. (shrink)

In this essay, I provide some insights on how to instruct students with learning disabilities. The first half of this essay deals with the theoretical issue of equal opportunity. I begin by examining the question of access and consider the various ways philosophy remains inaccessible to students with learning disabilities. Then, I use the legal definition of accommodation to argue that it is possible to make philosophy courses accessible to students with learning disabilities without fundamentally altering the nature of these (...) courses. Finally, I point out several reasons for preferring the accessibility model of equal opportunity in education over the accommodation model. The second half of this essay proceeds to highlight several pedagogical practices an instructor can employ to create an inclusive college-level philosophy course under the accessibility model. Specifically, I provide recommendations for how to write effective accessibility statements, develop inclusive course design, ensure equal assessment opportunities, utilize technology in the classroom, and maintain strong academic relationships between instructors and students. (shrink)