English, French, German, and Italian, with summaries in the same languages.

While the importance of mechanisms in determining causality in medicine is currently the subject of active debate, the role of mechanistic reasoning in clinical practice has received far less attention. In this paper we look at this question in the context of the treatment of a particular individual, and argue that evidence of mechanisms is indeed key to various aspects of clinical practice, including assessing population-level research reports, diagnostic as well as therapeutic decision making, and the assessment of treatment effects. (...) We use the pulmonary condition bronchiectasis as a source of examples of the importance of mechanistic reasoning to clinical practice. (shrink)

Within the evidence-based medicine construct, clinical expertise is acknowledged to be both derived from primary experience and necessary for optimal medical practice. Primary experience in medical practice, however, remains undervalued. Clinicians’ primary experience tends to be dismissed by EBM as unsystematic or anecdotal, a source of bias rather than knowledge, never serving as the “best” evidence to support a clinical decision. The position that clinical expertise is necessary but that primary experience is untrustworthy in clinical decision-making is epistemically incoherent. Here (...) we argue for the value and utility of knowledge gained from primary experience for the practice of medicine. Primary experience provides knowledge necessary to diagnose, treat, and assess response in individual patients. Hierarchies of evidence, when advanced as guides for clinical decisions, mistake the relationship between propositional and experiential knowledge. We argue that primary experience represents a kind of medical knowledge distinct from the propositional knowledge produced by clinical research, both of which are crucial to determining the best diagnosis and course of action for particular patients. (shrink)

The present study was aimed at investigating whether and how the explicit representation of the decision outcome, framed in terms of lives saved or lost, could affect decision choices, emotional experience, and decision times in the course of a moral dilemma task. Decision outcomes were framed in a between-group design by means of smiling or injured faces depicting, respectively, the lives saved or lost with each choice. A control condition with no frame and no outcome was included. Results showed that (...) behavioral choices were highly resistant to the framing manipulation in both dilemma types. However, an overall reduction in the number of utilitarian choices and in the decision times, associated with an increase in unpleasantness during decision-making, was found, suggesting a progressive increase in aversive emotional activation favoring the rejection of utilitarian resolutions. Interestingly, at the beginning of the task, the POS group showed a delay in decision times as compared with the NOF group, specifically for footbridge-type dilemmas. This result might be interpreted as an interference effect temporarily slowing decision-making during the resolution of dilemmas in which the internal representation is spontaneously focused on the personal cost of causing intentional harm to others. (shrink)

The reality of resource limitation during the Coronavirus Disease 2019 pandemic has deeply challenged established approaches to healthcare system emergency response. Early preparation du...

The Description for this book, Machiavelli in Hell, will be forthcoming.

Go to John Cantwell’s response to the original paper from here › Go to Grazia Ietto-Gillies’ original paper from here ›.

En este artículo, nos proponemos considerar el modo en el cual el alma individual es capaz de recorrer el camino al que Proclo invita según su ciencia teológica sobre la base de los diálogos de Platón y en polémica con la tradición que integra, tomando por caso la figura de Plotino. Para ello, analizaremos, en primer lugar, el carácter múltiple y uno del alma entendida en términos generales al interior de su esquema metafísico según algunos pasajes del capítulo 6 del (...) libro III de la Teología Platónica y algunas proposiciones pertinentes de los Elementos de Teología; en segundo lugar, el caso de la tripartición del alma individual que Proclo defiende en la Disertación VII del Comentario a la República; y, finalmente, intentaremos vincular esta concepción unimúltiple del alma con la afirmación de que ella posee la capacidad de alcanzar la hénosis. (shrink)

1. Preambolo In qualsiasi conversazione a tavola se provo a chiedere ai commensali se c’è una differenza tra moneta e denaro, dopo una prima perplessità e una certa sorpresa per la domanda, quasi tutti dicono sì, ma poi trovano difficile spiegare in che cosa si distinguano. Un dato però è certo: tutti pensano che una qualche diversità vi sia. Un secondo quesito potrebbe essere invece posto a chi come me ha intrapreso un’indagine per comprendere le caratteristiche e la natura di (...) tale differenz... (shrink)