In clinical mental health research with children, both child and parent are essential members of the research team. The 3 R's of parent/child team membership are respect, rapport, and recognition. Respect and recognition include fair reimbursement for time, expense, and inconvenience, but the most important compensation for many families is the appreciation of the other team members for their sacrifice and cooperation. Reimbursement, although honoring the principles of justice and respect for persons, raises difficult issues about appropriate amount, particularly in (...) research involving children. The 3 R's are supported by the investigator 5 A's: attitude, adaptability, availability, attachment, and appreciation. Although the principles seem clear in the abstract, implementation encounters many practical problems. Perhaps the most difficult of these is determining the appropriate amount of compensation that avoids undue inducement but not at the expense of the 3 R's and 5 A's. (shrink)

The first part of this paper contends that argumentation is central and essential to Aristotle's Rhetoric, and recounts a number of arguments in support of that view, particularly the recognition that deliberative rhetoric or the rhetoric of counsel is the primary concern of Aristotle's work. The second part of the paper reviews the work that follows in this present volume to show that the other writers' views fit in perfectly with this thesis.

Der Philosoph Frane Petrić , widmet einen bedeutenden Teil seiner Studien über Ontologie und Kosmologie, insbesondere in seinen Hauptwerken Discussiones peripateticae und Nova de universis philosophia, einer höchst originellen Untersuchung des Lichtes und der Zeit, zwei Konzepten, die auch in Einsteins „Zur Elektrodynamik bewegter Körper“ eine wichtige Rolle spielen. Bei der Gegenüberstellung der Konzepte dieser zwei Philosophen kommt ihre Verwandtschaft in jedem der erwähnten Systeme zum Ausdruck. Sowohl für Patricius, als auch für Einstein besitzt das Licht eine einmalige, unveränderliche Funktion (...) im Universum. In seiner Analyse der Zeit und mit ihr verwandter Konzepte, beispielsweise der Dauer, entwickelte Patricius eine konzeptuelle Struktur, dynamisch genug, um ihre Konsistenz mit Einsteins Analyse von Zeit und Simultaneität erkennbar zu machen. (shrink)

The philosopher Frane Petriċ , particularly in his major works, Discussiones peripateticae and Nova de universis philosophia, devoted a significant part of his studies in ontology and cosmology to a highly original study of light and of time, two of the same concepts that play such an important part in Einstein’s paper of 1905, “The electrodynamics of moving bodies”. By juxtaposing these concepts in the two thinkers, it becomes clear that there is an affinity between the concepts in each of (...) the thinker’s systems. For Patricius, as for Einstein, light has a unique, unchanging function in the universe. And in his analysis of time and related concepts such as duration, Patricius developed a conceptual structure dynamic enough to find consistency with Einstein’s analysis of time and of simultaneity. (shrink)

Le philosophe Frane Petriċ a consacré, surtout dans ses æuvres principales Discussiones peripateticae et Nova de universis philosophia une grande partie de ses recherches sur l`ontologie et la cosmologie à une étude originale de la lumière et du temps, deux concepts ayant un rôle important dans l`ouvrage d`Einstein « Electrodynamique des corps en mouvement ». La confrontation de ces concepts des deux penseurs fait apparaître leur affinité dans chacun des systèmes. Pour Patricius, de même que pour Einstein, la lumière est (...) une fonction unique, constante dans l`univers. Dans son analyse du temps et des concepts relevant du temps comme la durée, Patricius a développé une structure conceptuelle suffisamment dynamique pour que soit révélée sa consistance avec l`analyse du temps et de la simultanéité d`Einstein. (shrink)

Throughout the biological and biomedical sciences there is a growing need for, prescriptive ‘minimum information’ (MI) checklists specifying the key information to include when reporting experimental results are beginning to find favor with experimentalists, analysts, publishers and funders alike. Such checklists aim to ensure that methods, data, analyses and results are described to a level sufficient to support the unambiguous interpretation, sophisticated search, reanalysis and experimental corroboration and reuse of data sets, facilitating the extraction of maximum value from data sets (...) them. However, such ‘minimum information’ MI checklists are usually developed independently by groups working within representatives of particular biologically- or technologically-delineated domains. Consequently, an overview of the full range of checklists can be difficult to establish without intensive searching, and even tracking thetheir individual evolution of single checklists may be a non-trivial exercise. Checklists are also inevitably partially redundant when measured one against another, and where they overlap is far from straightforward. Furthermore, conflicts in scope and arbitrary decisions on wording and sub-structuring make integration difficult. This presents inhibit their use in combination. Overall, these issues present significant difficulties for the users of checklists, especially those in areas such as systems biology, who routinely combine information from multiple biological domains and technology platforms. To address all of the above, we present MIBBI (Minimum Information for Biological and Biomedical Investigations); a web-based communal resource for such checklists, designed to act as a ‘one-stop shop’ for those exploring the range of extant checklist projects, and to foster collaborative, integrative development and ultimately promote gradual integration of checklists. (shrink)

This article situates Mexican sexology, and how it engaged homosexuality and gender nonconformity, within more familiar nation-building projects in Mexico following the Revolution (1910–20). It argues that much like with understandings of race, Mexican sexologists, influenced by neo-Lamarckism and ‘Latin' eugenics, viewed sexuality as caused largely by social and environmental factors, rather than simply as a congenital characteristic. Such experts advocated for social solutions for what they saw as the ‘state of danger’ that homosexuality represented, targeting their interventions at youths, (...) who were seen as pliable, future citizens, rather than adults, who were largely seen as irredeemable and best isolated from the national body. The article explores discursive, ideological, and methodological threads in Mexican sexology from the 19th to the mid-20th century, the field’s professionalization and transnational connections, case studies of youths in which the preferred solutions involved promoting family stability and coherence, and adult cases ranging from prison studies to the case of Marta Olmos, recipient of Mexico’s first widely known sex reassignment. Overall, it demonstrates important intersections between sexology and nation-building projects related to criminology, anthropology, and eugenics, and how the attempted management of homosexuality and gender nonconformity sheds light on Mexican development more broadly. (shrink)

New Blackfriars, Volume 102, Issue 1100, Page 595-597, July 2021.

This volume concerns the status and ambitions of metaphysics as a discipline.

The Metaphysical Club, a gathering of intellectuals in the 1870s associated with Harvard, is widely recognized as the crucible where pragmatism, America's distinctively original philosophy, was refined and proclaimed. Louis Menand's bestseller about the group was a dramatic publishing success. However, only three actual members - Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr., Charles S. Peirce, and William James - appear in this book, alongside other thinkers such as John Dewey who were never in the Club. The Real Metaphysical Club tells the full (...) story of how this influential group shifted the course of philosophy in America. In addition to pioneering pragmatism, the group explored radical empiricism and idealism, and formulated personalism and process philosophy, equally important developments. This volume contains thirty-seven important writings dating from 1870 to 1885 by the real members of the Metaphysical Club. The first section centers on pragmatism and science; the second part collects writings of the lawyers; and the third part covers idealist and personalist philosophers. Many of these writings have never been reprinted before, and nothing like this impressive collection has ever been attempted. A general introduction provides a narrative history, and the editors' three introductions to the volume's sections vividly bring to life the intense meetings, sustained debates, and pioneering thought from the Metaphysical Club. (shrink)

Editor's note: This article contains material similar to a book review by the same author previously published in The Pluralist, vol. 18, no. 2, pp 114–21. The present article represents a further critical use of this material that we deem worthy of publication.in this vital and splendidly crafted work, Bethany Henning recovers a philosophy of aesthetic wisdom far richer than the narrow epistemological lens dominant today. From its start, American philosophy looked beyond Europe's atomistic empiricism toward a continuity between our (...) thought and nature's aesthetic splendor. Jonathan Edwards found beauty in the structure of being reflected in relations among ideas. For Emerson, each of us is a "transparent eyeball"... Read More. (shrink)

How does experimental philosophy address philosophical questions and problems? That is: What projects does experimental philosophy pursue? What is their philosophical relevance? And what empirical methods do they employ? Answers to these questions will reveal how experimental philosophy can contribute to the longstanding ambition of placing philosophy on the ‘secure path of a science’, as Kant put it. We argue that experimental philosophy has introduced a new methodological perspective – a ‘meta-philosophical naturalism’ that addresses philosophical questions about a phenomenon by (...) empirically investigating how people think about this phenomenon. This chapter asks how this novel perspective can be successfully implemented: How can the empirical investigation of how people think about something address genuinely philosophical problems? And what methods – and, specifically, what methods beyond the questionnaire – can this investigation employ? We first review core projects of experimental philosophy and raise the question of their philosophical relevance. For ambitious answers, we turn to experimental philosophy’s most direct historical precursor, mid-20th century ordinary language philosophy, and discuss empirical implementations of two of its research programmes that use experimental methods from psycholinguistics and corpus methods from the digital humanities. (shrink)

AI and people do not compete on a level-playing field. Self-driving vehicles may be safer than human drivers, but laws often penalize such technology. People may provide superior customer service, but businesses are automating to reduce their taxes. AI may innovate more effectively, but an antiquated legal framework constrains inventive AI. In The Reasonable Robot, Ryan Abbott argues that the law should not discriminate between AI and human behavior and proposes a new legal principle that will ultimately improve human (...) well-being. This work should be read by anyone interested in the rapidly evolving relationship between AI and the law. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:The Politics of Practical Reason: Why Theological Ethics Must Change Your Life by Mark RyanDavid ElliotThe Politics of Practical Reason: Why Theological Ethics Must Change Your Life Mark Ryan eugene, or: cascade books, 2011. 229 pp. $20.80If the spirited debate between Stanley Hauerwas and Jeffrey Stout remains front-page news in theological ethics, then Mark Ryan’s subtle and penetrating The Politics of Practical Reason will help (...) keep it there. Ryan argues that practical reason is the hinge of ethical thinking and that it is “political” in the sense of shaping the community or polis. Given this hinge, the pressing question is of course, “Whose practical reason?” To answer this, Ryan probes major contemporary ethicists from Charles Taylor to Alasdair MacIntyre, but the book always circles back to Hauerwas and Stout. Their debate is ultimately decided by proxy, through a mediating philosopher whose work on practical reason Ryan sees both as the gold standard and as the indispensable background for understanding Hauerwas. Expecting this to be MacIntyre, the reader may be surprised—and perhaps even convinced—that the philosopher who best explains and possibly vindicates Hauerwas is in fact Elizabeth Anscombe, Ludwig Wittgenstein’s protégé, close friend, and translator.The book opens with Anscombe’s Intention (1957), which Donald Davidson called “the most important treatment of action since Aristotle.” In it, Anscombe argued that intention presupposes desire and is declared in public language within a context of social practices presupposed for agency to be intelligible. The implication is that we form intentions as members of a community with a particular form of life sustained by social practices. With human desire as its motivating nisus, Ryan insists that intention “is part of the very form of practical reasoning, then, to be political” (144).Having retrieved Anscombe’s model of practical reason, Ryan examines the field of contemporary ethics to see who measures up. Charles Taylor fails to place agents in a particular community, locating us instead in that bloated abstraction called “modernity.” Ryan therefore concludes that Taylor’s is an “ethics for anybody,” which leaves the self finally disembodied (94–98). Stout fares little better due to his refrain that Hauerwas went astray when he abandoned justice talk. Ryan counters that Stout’s sort of justice should be abandoned; lacking a substantive vision of the good and a teleology of freedom, Stout’s justice is reckoned a blind guide who cannot see or say why the polis should pursue one end and not another. Hauerwas, on the other hand, specifies a particular polis within which practical reason can intelligibly function: the church. It has [End Page 218] a substantive vision of the good (i.e., the peaceable kingdom) located in a scriptural narrative displayed by social practices requiring formation in the virtues (119–21). Ryan therefore endorses Hauerwas’s politics of practical reason, indebted to MacIntyre and made possible by Anscombe.I see one lacuna in this otherwise excellent book. Ryan seemingly advocates a pragmatic model of practical reason that is wholly internal to the polis rather than grounded in “truths of human nature as such” (101). This makes Anscombe an uneasy ally. Her “Modern Moral Philosophy” famously proposed a retrieval of virtue that required an overhauled “account of human nature … and above all of human flourishing” (41). This move opened the door for ethical naturalism, perhaps even natural law—both of which Anscombe and the later MacIntyre endorse. But these look suspiciously like what Ryan calls an “ethics for anybody.” So in the end are Anscombe and MacIntyre turncoats, or do Hauerwas and Ryan not follow them far enough? This crucial question remains unanswered.Despite this wrinkle, Ryan’s book is the best intervention in the Hauerwas–Stout debate that we now have. It throws light on Hauerwas, challenges Stout, shows why Anscombe matters, and gives practical reason its generous due. Philosophically deft and charitable in tone, it deserves to be read and studied as a major contribution to the field.David ElliotUniversity of Notre DameCopyright © 2015 Society of Christian Ethics... (shrink)

Can our beloved cats and dogs love us back? This chapter aims to find a satisfactory theory of love that substantiates the claim that they can. It begins by reconstructing and critically evaluating recent attempts by scientists to show that dogs can love humans back. Although these attempts are argued to be unsuccessful, it is further argued that they illuminate the need for an adequate theory of love and offer us some plausible ideas about love that direct us to two (...) recent philosophical theories of love that support the idea that dogs can love humans back. These two theories are discussed in detail before it is argued that dogs, but not cats, seem capable of loving humans under these theories. These theory-based defenses of the belief that dogs can love humans back are then criticized on the grounds that the theories they use are unsatisfactory because they fail to capture three central truths about love. This leads to a third theory of love that, after some friendly amendments, is argued to be a tentatively adequate theory that provisionally vindicates the claim that dogs, but not cats, can love humans back. (shrink)

The focus of this chapter is on some of the ethical and philosophical issues at the intersection of robotics and artificial intelligence (AI) applications in the health care sector and medical assistance in dying (e.g. physician-assisted suicide and euthanasia), including: (1) Is there a role for robotic systems/AI to play in the orchestration or delivery of assisted dying?; (2) Can the use of robotic systems/AI make the orchestration of assisted dying more ethical?; and (3) What insights can be generated in (...) the ethical debate on physician assisted suicide and euthanasia from considering the prospect of robotic systems/AI assisting with the provision of or providing assistance in dying? The prospect of including robotic systems/AI in the context of assisted dying provides opportunity to revisit longstanding philosophical and ethical issues under new light. Indeed, reflecting on these questions may invigorate debate, for example in reconsidering the de-medicalization of assisted dying, reconsidering whether assisted dying is within the proper scope of medicine, and reconsidering which normative approach to the ethics of assisted dying is the most appropriate. (shrink)

Life and the living (on Aristotelian biohorror) -- Supernatural horror as the paradigm for life -- Aristotle's De anima and the problem of life -- The ontology of life -- The entelechy of the weird -- Superlative life -- Life with or without limits -- Life as time in Plotinus -- On the superlative -- Superlative life I: Pseudo-Dionysius -- Negative vs. affirmative theology -- Superlative negation -- Negation and preexistent life -- Excess, evil, and non-being -- Superlative life II: (...) Eriugena -- Negation in the periphyseon -- The quaestio de nihilo: on nothing -- The quaestio de nihilo: superlative nothing -- Dark intelligible abyss -- Apophasis -- The apophatic logic -- Negation in Frege and Ayer -- Negation vs. subtraction in Badiou -- Negation and contradiction in Priest -- The dialetheic vitalism of negative theology -- Ellipses: Suhraward and the luminous void -- Univocal creatures -- On spiritual creatures -- Life as form in Aristotle -- The concept of the creature -- Univocity I: Duns Scotus vs. Aquinas -- Univocity in Aquinas' Summa theologica -- Univocity in Duns Scotus' Opus oxoniense -- The common nature of the creature -- Univocity II: Duns Scotus vs. Henry of Ghent -- Univocity in Henry of Ghent -- Negative vs. privative indetermination -- Absolute indetermination -- Univocity III: Deleuze's scholasticism three variations -- Spinoza et le problème de l'expression -- Différence et répétition -- Cours de Vincennes -- Univocal creatures -- Ellipses: Dgen and uncreated univocity -- Dark pantheism -- Everything and nothing -- Life as spirit in Aquinas -- The concept of the divine nature -- Immanence I: Eriugena's periphyseon -- Natura and the unthought -- Universal life -- Four statements on pantheism -- Immanence II: Duns Scotus' reportatio Ia -- Univocal immanence -- Actual infinity -- The pathology of the triple primacy -- Immanence III: Nicholas of Cusa's De docta ignorantia -- The coincidence of opposites -- The folds of life -- Absolute vs. contracted pantheism -- Speculative pantheism (Deleuze's interlocutors) -- Pantheism and pure immanence -- The insubordination of immanence in Deleuze -- Scholia I: the isomorphism of univocity and immanence -- Scholia II: the vitalist logic of common notions -- Scholia III: the life of substance -- Dark pantheism -- Ellipses: Wang Yangming and idealist naturalism -- Logic and life (on Kantian teratology) -- The wandering line from Aristotle to Kant -- Critique of life -- Spectral life and speculative realism -- Ontotheology in Kant, atheology in Bataille -- The night land. (shrink)

Scientific research is almost always conducted by communities of scientists of varying size and complexity. Such communities are effective, in part, because they divide their cognitive labor: not every scientist works on the same project. Philip Kitcher and Michael Strevens have pioneered efforts to understand this division of cognitive labor by proposing models of how scientists make decisions about which project to work on. For such models to be useful, they must be simple enough for us to understand their dynamics, (...) but faithful enough to reality that we can use them to analyze real scientific communities. To satisfy the first requirement, we must employ idealizations to simplify the model. The second requirement demands that these idealizations not be so extreme that we lose the ability to describe real-world phenomena. This paper investigates the status of the assumptions that Kitcher and Strevens make in their models, by first inquiring whether they are reasonable representations of reality, and then by checking the models' robustness against weakenings of these assumptions. To do this, we first argue against the reality of the assumptions, and then develop a series of agent-based simulations to systematically test their effects on model outcomes. We find that the models are not robust against weakenings of these idealizations. In fact we find that under certain conditions, this can lead to the model predicting outcomes that are qualitatively opposite of the original model outcomes. (shrink)

For Plato and Aristotle, arete (traditionally translated as "virtue") was the essential object of human admiration and striving, and even the key to happiness. Their work continues to inspire reflection on fundamental questions of ethics and politics today, as the fourteen new essays collected here demonstrate. -/- Contributors: Lidia Palumbo, Eva Anagnostou-Laoutides, Ryan M. Brown, Jay R. Elliott, Guilherme Domingues da Motta, Federico Casella, Jonathan A. Buttaci, George Harvey, Mark Ralkowski, Gary S. Beck, Paula Gottlieb, Giulio di Basilio, Audrey (...) L. Anton, and Elena Bartolini. (shrink)

The essential guide to the life, thought, and legacy of Adam Smith Adam Smith (1723–90) is perhaps best known as one of the first champions of the free market and is widely regarded as the founding father of capitalism. From his ideas about the promise and pitfalls of globalization to his steadfast belief in the preservation of human dignity, his work is as relevant today as it was in the eighteenth century. Here, Ryan Hanley brings together some of the (...) world's finest scholars from across a variety of disciplines to offer new perspectives on Smith's life, thought, and enduring legacy. Contributors provide succinct and accessible discussions of Smith's landmark works and the historical context in which he wrote them, the core concepts of Smith's social vision, and the lasting impact of Smith's ideas in both academia and the broader world. They reveal other sides of Smith beyond the familiar portrayal of him as the author of the invisible hand, emphasizing his deep interests in such fields as rhetoric, ethics, and jurisprudence. Smith emerges not just as a champion of free markets but also as a thinker whose unique perspective encompasses broader commitments to virtue, justice, equality, and freedom. An essential introduction to Adam Smith's life and work, this incisive and thought-provoking book features contributions from leading figures such as Nicholas Phillipson, Amartya Sen, and John C. Bogle. It demonstrates how Smith's timeless insights speak to contemporary concerns such as growth in the developing world and the future of free trade, and how his influence extends to fields ranging from literature and philosophy to religion and law. (shrink)

When thinking of Plato’s discussions of virtue, many dialogues come to mind, but, assuredly, the Phaedrus does not. The word ἀρετή is used only six times in the dialogue. Unlike other dialogues, the Phaedrus thematizes neither the general concept of virtue nor any of the particular virtues. Given the centrality of virtue to Plato’s ethics and politics, it is surprising to see little reference to virtue in a dialogue devoted to love and to rhetoric, topics that have deep ethical and (...) political significance. -/- I argue that the Phaedrus makes important contributions to our understanding of virtue in Plato despite the infrequency of references. First, the dialogue juxtaposes competing conceptions of virtue: the “urbane” (cf. 227d) capacity to make things conform to one’s happenstance desires, championed by Lysias, and the “manic” capacity to conform oneself to reality, championed by Socrates. After clarifying that enslavement to pleasure-lust is the underlying condition of soul for Lysianic virtue, Socrates reveals that the non-lover’s “virtue” is, in truth, virtue in name only. Rather, true virtue emerges only when the soul becomes harmoniously ordered under reason’s guidance, a condition which is achieved through the soul’s encounter with beauty. Second, in the process of articulating how true virtue comes to be in the soul, Socrates gives grounds for distinguishing it from “self-restraint” (ἐγκράτεια), a condition of soul whose outward aspect may be indistinguishable from that of virtue. While a soul in which reason does not take the reins may act from self-restraint, it does not yet act from virtue. Third, the dialogue gives us resources for seeing how other people, such as artful rhetoricians, can influence one’s cultivation of virtue. At first glance, Socrates’s claim that artful rhetoricians can “hand over” virtue (270b) seems incompatible with his claim that virtue is unteachable (cf. Meno 86d-99e). However, the dialogue offers some resources for seeing that the unteachability of virtue and the capacity for rhetoricians to “hand over” virtue are not, in fact, incompatible. From these three points, we will see that the Phaedrus offers an intellectualist account of virtue reminiscent of what we see in other dialogues. The intellectualist vision here, however, is one that includes a positive role for the subrational elements of the soul rather than one that excludes them from relevance or actively seeks to suppress them. (shrink)

Coronavirus disease 2019 can lead to respiratory failure. Some patients require extracorporeal membrane oxygenation support. During the current pandemic, health care resources in some cities have been overwhelmed, and doctors have faced complex decisions about resource allocation. We present a case in which a pediatric hospital caring for both children and adults seeks to establish guidelines for the use of extracorporeal membrane oxygenation if there are not enough resources to treat every patient. Experts in critical care, end-of-life care, bioethics, and (...) health policy discuss if age should guide rationing decisions. (shrink)

When are morally good actions beautiful, when indeed they are? In this paper, it is argued that morally good actions are beautiful when they appear to express the deep or true self, and in turn tend to give rise to an emotion which is characterised by feelings of being moved, unity, inspiration, and meaningfulness, inter alia. In advancing the case for this claim, it is revealed that there are additional sources of well-formedness in play in the context of moral beauty (...) in addition to those that have tended to be focused on to date: one which is connected to imagining a deep location for the goodness concerned, and another which is connected to imagining that the goodness stems from capacities which are essential to the person. (shrink)

In this article, robust evidence is provided showing that an individual’s moral character can contribute to the aesthetic quality of their appearance, as well as being beautiful or ugly itself. It is argued that this evidence supports two main conclusions. First, moral beauty and ugliness reside on the inside, and beauty and ugliness are not perception-dependent as a result; and, second, aesthetic perception is affected by moral information, and thus moral beauty and ugliness are on the outside as well.

These essays strike a judicious yet thought-provoking balance between theoretical and historical perspectives.