The place of scientific results, the role of scientific method, and the impact of the scientific temper in ethical theory are surveyed. The concept of an "existential perspective of an ethical theory"--"its view of the world and its properties, man's nature and condition, insofar as these enter into its understanding of moral processes and moral judgments"--is sketched and used to clarify the diversity of ethical approaches. Edel promises, but does not here develop, a scientific ethics based on the behavioral sciences.--A. (...) P. D. M. (shrink)

Before Euro-American settlement, many Native American nations intercropped maize (_Zea mays_), beans (_Phaseolus vulgaris_), and squash (_Cucurbita pepo_) in what is colloquially called the “Three Sisters.” Here we review the historic importance and consequences of rejuvenation of Three Sisters intercropping (3SI), outline a framework to engage Native growers in community science with positive feedbacks to university research, and present preliminary findings from ethnography and a randomized, replicated 3SI experiment. We developed mutually beneficial collaborative research agendas with four Midwestern US Native (...) American nations. Ethnographic data highlighted a culturally based respect for 3SI as living beings, the importance it holds for all cultural facets of these Native nations, and the critical impact the practice has on environmental sustainability. One concern expressed by Native growers during ethnographic research was improving soil health—part of the rationale for establishing the 3SI agronomic experiment. To address this, we collaboratively designed a 3SI experiment. After 1 year, 3SI increased short-term soil respiration by 24%, decreased salt-extractable nitrate by 54%, had no effect on soil microbial biomass (but increased its carbon-to-nitrogen ratio by 32%) compared to the average of monoculture crops. The overarching purpose of this collaborative project is to develop a deeper understanding of 3SI, its cultural importance to Native communities, and how reinvigorating the practice—and intercropping in general—can make agroecosystems more sustainable for people and the environment. (shrink)

Abduction is or subsumes a process of inference. It entertains possible hypotheses and it chooses hypotheses for further scrutiny. There is a large literature on various aspects of non-symbolic, subconscious abduction. There is also a very active research community working on the symbolic (logical) characterisation of abduction, which typically treats it as a form of hypothetico-deductive reasoning. In this paper we start to bridge the gap between the symbolic and sub-symbolic approaches to abduction. We are interested in benefiting from developments (...) made by each community. In particular, we are interested in the ability of non-symbolic systems (neural networks) to learn from experience using efficient algorithms and to perform massively parallel computations of alternative abductive explanations. At the same time, we would like to benefit from the rigour and semantic clarity of symbolic logic. We present two approaches to dealing with abduction in neural networks. One of them uses Connectionist Modal Logic and a translation of Horn clauses into modal clauses to come up with a neural network ensemble that computes abductive explanations in a top-down fashion. The other combines neural-symbolic systems and abductive logic programming and proposes a neural architecture which performs a more systematic, bottom-up computation of alternative abductive explanations. Both approaches employ standard neural network architectures which are already known to be highly effective in practical learning applications. Differently from previous work in the area, our aim is to promote the integration of reasoning and learning in a way that the neural network provides the machinery for cognitive computation, inductive learning and hypothetical reasoning, while logic provides the rigour and explanation capability to the systems, facilitating the interaction with the outside world. Although it is left as future work to determine whether the structure of one of the proposed approaches is more amenable to learning than the other, we hope to have contributed to the development of the area by approaching it from the perspective of symbolic and sub-symbolic integration. (shrink)

A collection of essays on the nature of science, concept formation, causality and counterfactuals, and the theory of real numbers. The argument is in the form of an exposition and critique of classical and recent literature; but more programmatic remarks are registered, and more promissory notes issued, than are made good.--A. P. D. M.

A series of brief discussions of such key topics of analytic philosophy as qualities vs. grammatical variables, descriptions, the problem of perception, the notion of proposition and determinism. The views of Carnap and Strawson receive special attention and are, on the whole, sympathetically appraised.--A. P. D. M.

This is a book both sober and optimistic, both analytical and humane. In the course of a virtual reinstatement of a Socratic ethics, it is claimed that: analytic philosophy can decide moral issues, at least indirectly, by clarifying the relevant concepts; moral philosophers are wrong in saying that there can be no argument about generally accepted standards; our failure to resolve cases of ultimate ethical disagreement is only a measure of our ignorance of the human machine, and confusion about our (...) shared purposes; students of moral concepts cannot be neutral with respect to morals--analytic philosophers should not disguise their role as social reformers.--A. P. D. M. (shrink)

Médecins Sans Frontières is not morally required to continue providing the same therapeutic and preventative interventions for lead poisoning in Nigeria in the face of conditions that negatively impact on the achievement of their objectives. Nevertheless, Médecins Sans Frontières may have reasons to revise their objectives and adopt different interventions or methods.

Meanings are construed by analogy with offices. But in contrast with similar views, offices are seen as "entities." In the final analysis all offices are reduced to that of stating facts. If the latter thesis were adequately defended the book would mark another reversal of philosophical thinking. But the author limits himself to reviving, restating, and modifying earlier positivist attempts to reduce all meaning to description.--A. P. D. M.

Meaning is interpreted in terms of distributional regularities in the corpus of a language; synonymy in terms of contrastive and non-contrastive sets of morphemic environments. For this blending of philosophical analysis and empirical linguistics, however, no defense is offered, though in the course of his sketch the author registers subtle and unconventional insights into key concepts and issues in philosophy of language.--A. P. D. M.

In refutation of Cajetan, the sixteenth century commentator who is still considered an authority on Thomas' doctrine of analogy, it is argued that "the analogy of names is, for St. Thomas, a logical intention, and in speaking of it we must observe the general rule that the logical and real orders must not be confused. St. Thomas does not see any peculiar significance of analogy for metaphysics--apart, i.e., from the significance it has for science and ordinary discourse." The thesis is (...) closely argued for and painstakingly documented.--A. P. D. M. (shrink)

This controversial book professes to be a "critical account of Linguistic Philosophy and a study of Ideology." It is clearly written and abounds with entertaining aphorisms. Philosophically important objections against the Oxford School are developed in the first hundred pages. The rest is highly repetitious, and, aside from rhetorical effects and remarks on the psychology and sociology of the movement, contribute little to a "refutation" of Linguistic Philosophy. As an alternative to Linguistic Philosophy, the book only vaguely hints to a (...) "clean," "non-oblique," and "non-insinuated" form of naturalism.--A. P. D. M. (shrink)

This article provides an introduction to the articles in this theme issue. This collection examines epistemological, ontological, moral and political questions in medicine in light of the philosophical ideas of Charles Taylor. A synthesis of Taylor's relevant work is presented. Taylor has argued for a conception of the human sciences that regards human life as meaningful–deriving meaning from surrounding horizons of significance. An overview of the interdisciplinary articles in this issue is presented. This collection advances our thinking in the philosophy (...) of medicine as well as the philosophy of Charles Taylor. (shrink)

A series of four lectures given in Athens during the author's tenure of a Fulbright Fellowship. The intention is to introduce Athenian public to three classical American philosophers, as well as to contemporary trends. The author sees interesting parallels between Emerson and the Byzantine Mystics and predicts that the interest of Americans in Ancient Greek philosophy will lead to closer studies of Byzantine philosophy. The chief defect of the book is its willingness to sacrifice content for coverage. Presentation is cursory (...) and often by terms which are misleading in themselves and particularly unfortunate when rendered into modern Greek.--. (shrink)

M. Piguet believes that philosophy is, in a strict sense, a compromise between science and art. In the course of establishing this thesis he makes some interesting suggestions on the question of ordinary language. For him this idiom is the "culture language"; it embodies the cultural experience of an age; it can be neither technical nor colloquial; it is the language of the honnête homme. It is also the basic "translation language" with which all other technical and artistic idioms must (...) be ultimately coordinated.--A. P. D. M. (shrink)

This little volume shows a remarkable familiarity with both continental and Anglo-American literature on the subjects of probability and induction. Discussion is both expository and critical. The author argues in favor of a psychological-pragmatic interpretation of the principle of induction and the theory of confirmation.--A. P. D. M.

The authors ably demonstrate the value and relevance of sophisticated conceptual analysis in law. Such concepts as cause, reason, consequence, condition, opportunity, and explanation are carefully investigated. The use of the causal notions in the Anglo-American tradition of tort, contract, and criminal law, as well as in continental theories, is examined in detail. A book of importance which carries out English analysis in a subtle and exciting way. It is sure to be one of the lasting contributions of the recent (...) analytic movement.--A. P. D. M. (shrink)

The substance and development of Eddington's "scientific epistemology" are presented in close parallelism with the philosophy of Kant. The author argues that Kant was far more successful in displaying the philosophical structure of Newtonian physics than Eddington is in showing the philosophy behind quantum mechanics and relativity.--A. P. D. M.

More than half of the book is devoted to what is almost a catalogue exposition of Western moral philosophy from Kant to Nowell-Smith. Although the author claims in the preface to have included "suitable references to Indian points of view, including the Buddhist," what references there are are usually too general, and never fully explained to be of any use to Western readers. Exposition tends to be disjointed, and the English leaves much to be desired. On the whole there is (...) much eclecticism and little originality.--A. P. D. M. (shrink)

Topics in the standard introductory logic course are all covered, with emphasis on the understanding of concepts rather than the development of skills in symbolic manipulation. Exposition is informal and rich in illustrations from reasoning in ordinary life. Exercises are also drawn from ordinary discourse, but they often call for the application of symbolic techniques. In combining accuracy and sophistication with simplicity and liveliness of style, the book is indeed a pedagogic success. --A. P. D. M.

In this posthumously published work the author deplores the decline in standards of rigor and clarity in recent German philosophy. A return to Socratic methods and to Brentano's early conception of a "phenomenal psychology" is urged.--A. P. D. M.

This paper argues that professionals who make boundary-related decisions should be guided by relationship-based practice. In our roles as service users and professionals, drawing from our lived experiences of professional relationships, we argue we need to move away from distance-based practice. This includes understanding the boundary stories and narratives that exist for all of us – including the people we support, other professionals, as well as the organisations and systems within which we work. When we are dealing with professional boundary (...) issues, we should centre relationship-building skills that are central to many other aspects of our work. Skills that foster relationships at all levels – between professionals, service users, and services – need to be revalued. Our final recommendation is to create, develop, and foster safer spaces within and outside of organisations, as well as inter-professionally, for the discussion and exploration of boundary-related issues and practice. We are interested in hearing from those with experiences of being marginalised by boundaries so that they can inform a reshaping of our collective ideas around boundary related practices. To foster relationship-based practices in organisations, we have outlined several recommendations here; however, we recognize that these do not go far enough, and that collective action is needed to inform systemic change. (shrink)

The dilemma of whether and how to disclose a diagnosis of cancer or of any other terminal illness continues to be a subject of worldwide interest. We present the case of a 62-year-old Japanese woman afflicted with advanced gall bladder cancer who had previously expressed a preference not to be told a diagnosis of cancer. The treating physician revealed the diagnosis to the family first, and then told the patient: "You don't have any cancer yet, but if we don't treat (...) you, it will progress to a cancer". In our analysis, we examine the role of family consent, communication patterns (including ambiguous disclosure), and advance directives for cancer disclosure in Japan. Finally, we explore the implications for Edmund Pellegrino's proposal of "something close to autonomy" as a universal good. (shrink)

In this paper we introduce the concept of conservative translation between logics. We present some necessary and sufficient conditions for a translation to be conservative and study some general properties of logical systems, these properties being characterized by the existence of conservative translations between the systems. We prove that the class constituted by logics and conservative translations between them determines a co-complete subcategory of the bi-complete category constituted by logics and translations.

Signals to the brain from the flows of energy around the body, varied primarily by declining amounts of food energy in the stomach, can explain the pattern of meals in the laboratory rat, the differences between dark and light phases, and the development of obesity ion the rat wioth VMH lesions but normal sating.

The paper examines a single, apparently simple argument for the existence of incompatibilities between the virtues as traits of character. This argument appeals not to empirical truths about human psychology or human nature but to the possibility of conflict between the exercise of different virtues in action. There are, for example, situations in which we can exercise the virtue of truthfulness only at the expense of not exercising the virtue of tact, as when we are asked a question to which (...) the straightforward answer will pain our questioner. The person who in these situations would give a straightforward answer possesses the virtue of truthfulness to a higher degree than the person who would respond more evasively, whereas the latter person possesses the virtue of tact to a higher degree than the former. But since the two responses are mutually exclusive, it follows that the degree to which we possess the virtue of truthfulness must, at least in some measure, correlate inversely with the degree to which we possess the virtue of tact. And similarly for many other pairs of virtues. My paper focusses on the two cardinal assumptions of this argument, viz., (i) that sometimes the exercise of one virtue can conflict with the exercise of another, and (ii) that the degree to which a person possesses a virtue correlates directly with the extent of its exercise, and defends both assumptions against a variety of objections which allege that, in different ways, they are insensitive to the complexity of the virtues. (shrink)

Every quantum state can be represented as a probability distribution over the outcomes of an informationally complete measurement. But not all probability distributions correspond to quantum states. Quantum state space may thus be thought of as a restricted subset of all potentially available probabilities. A recent publication (Fuchs and Schack, arXiv:0906.2187v1, 2009) advocates such a representation using symmetric informationally complete (SIC) measurements. Building upon this work we study how this subset—quantum-state space—might be characterized. Our leading characteristic is that the inner (...) products of the probabilities are bounded, a simple condition with nontrivial consequences. To get quantum-state space something more detailed about the extreme points is needed. No definitive characterization is reached, but we see several new interesting features over those in Fuchs and Schack (arXiv:0906.2187v1, 2009), and all in conformity with quantum theory. (shrink)

Objectives To conduct an independent evaluation of the first phase of the Health Foundation’s Safer Patients Initiative (SPI), and to identify the net additional effect of SPI and any differences in changes in participating and non-participating NHS hospitals. Design Mixed method evaluation involving five substudies, before and after design. Setting NHS hospitals in the United Kingdom. Participants Four hospitals (one in each country in the UK) participating in the first phase of the SPI (SPI1); 18 control hospitals. Intervention The SPI1 (...) was a compound (multi-component) organisational intervention delivered over 18 months that focused on improving the reliability of specific frontline care processes in designated clinical specialties and promoting organisational and cultural change. Results Senior staff members were knowledgeable and enthusiastic about SPI1. There was a small (0.08 points on a 5 point scale) but significant (P<0.01) effect in favour of the SPI1 hospitals in one of 11 dimensions of the staff questionnaire (organisational climate). Qualitative evidence showed only modest penetration of SPI1 at medical ward level. Although SPI1 was designed to engage staff from the bottom up, it did not usually feel like this to those working on the wards, and questions about legitimacy of some aspects of SPI1 were raised. Of the five components to identify patients at risk of deterioration—monitoring of vital signs (14 items); routine tests (three items); evidence based standards specific to certain diseases (three items); prescribing errors (multiple items from the British National Formulary); and medical history taking (11 items)—there was little net difference between control and SPI1 hospitals, except in relation to quality of monitoring of acute medical patients, which improved on average over time across all hospitals. Recording of respiratory rate increased to a greater degree in SPI1 than in control hospitals; in the second six hours after admission recording increased from 40% (93) to 69% (165) in control hospitals and from 37% (141) to 78% (296) in SPI1 hospitals (odds ratio for “difference in difference” 2.1, 99% confidence interval 1.0 to 4.3; P=0.008). Use of a formal scoring system for patients with pneumonia also increased over time (from 2% (102) to 23% (111) in control hospitals and from 2% (170) to 9% (189) in SPI1 hospitals), which favoured controls and was not significant (0.3, 0.02 to 3.4; P=0.173). There were no improvements in the proportion of prescription errors and no effects that could be attributed to SPI1 in non-targeted generic areas (such as enhanced safety culture). On some measures, the lack of effect could be because compliance was already high at baseline (such as use of steroids in over 85% of cases where indicated), but even when there was more room for improvement (such as in quality of medical history taking), there was no significant additional net effect of SPI1. There were no changes over time or between control and SPI1 hospitals in errors or rates of adverse events in patients in medical wards. Mortality increased from 11% (27) to 16% (39) among controls and decreased from 17% (63) to 13% (49) among SPI1 hospitals, but the risk adjusted difference was not significant (0.5, 0.2 to 1.4; P=0.085). Poor care was a contributing factor in four of the 178 deaths identified by review of case notes. The survey of patients showed no significant differences apart from an increase in perception of cleanliness in favour of SPI1 hospitals. Conclusions The introduction of SPI1 was associated with improvements in one of the types of clinical process studied (monitoring of vital signs) and one measure of staff perceptions of organisational climate. There was no additional effect of SPI1 on other targeted issues nor on other measures of generic organisational strengthening. (shrink)