In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:The Evolution of Pragmatism in India: Ambedkar, Dewey, and the Rhetoric of Reconstruction by Scott R. StroudAlbert R. SpencerBy Scott R. StroudThe Evolution of Pragmatism in India: Ambedkar, Dewey, and the Rhetoric of Reconstruction Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press, 2023. 302 pp., incl. indexMore scholarly attention needs to be paid to the mutual influences between Asian and American thought, especially with regards to the development, (...) legacy, and future of pragmatism. Fortunately, there have been several notable attempts. Throughout his works, Richard Shusterman frequently incorporates the perspectives of various East Asian philosophies into his articulation of somaesthetics. Multiple scholars have explored John Dewey’s lectures in China and their political and educational impact, such as Jessica Ching-Sze Wang’s John Dewey in China or The Democracy of the Dead by Roger T. Ames and David L. Hall. Still others have highlighted the influence of Indian thought on pragmatism’s forerunners, such as American Philosophy Before Pragmatism (Goodman 2015), American Pragmatism: An Introduction (Spencer 2020), and The Ethics of Oneness (Engles 2021). Perhaps the most interesting inquiries into this influence can be found in a special volume of The Journal of Aesthetic Education (Vol. 43, No. 1) where multiple scholars discuss pragmatism’s connections and comparisons to The Bhagavad Gita, Confucianism, and Taoism. Among these scholars is Scott Stroud whose most recent publication The Evolution of Pragmatism in India (2023) represents the culmination of nearly two decades of research on the subject with special attention to the continuities between pragmatism and Indian thought. In it, he meticulously explores the influence of John Dewey on one of his students, Bhimrao Ambedkar (1891–1956), who was a transformative figure in the founding of the nascent Republic of India. The result is a work of scholarship that shows the global relevance of pragmatism in the 20th Century, [End Page 456] introduces the fascinating philosophy of Ambedkar to a non-Indian audience, and provides an entry for further scholarship on this profound thinker and activist.Bhimrao Ambedkar was a critical figure in the birth of modern India. Born an “untouchable” due to the rigid caste system, he tirelessly advocated for the right of Dalits (“crushed” or “untouchables”). By the mid-20th century, he had greatly influenced Indian politics, safeguarded the interests of the oppressed, and played a key role in drafting the Indian Constitution. Separate to his role as a statesman, Ambedkar promoted Buddhism in the 1950s as an escape from caste oppression, culminating in his publication, The Buddha and His Dhamma (1957). While his name is less familiar outside of India, he was voted the “Greatest Indian” in a 2012 poll due to his profound impact on the nation’s post-independence development. These accomplishments were supported by an extensive education, but unlike most subjects of the British Empire, Ambedkar also studied in the United States. Stroud initiates his study by focusing on this formative period, specifically his time at Columbia University and the influence of the philosopher and psychologist John Dewey. While their relationship has been acknowledged, Stroud is the first to explore this relationship in depth and he not only reconstructs the influence of Dewey on Ambedkar’s Navayana Pragmatism but illuminates the ways that Ambedkar integrated, modified, and even resisted Dewey’s pragmatism.Stroud masterfully builds his reconstruction of this synergy between Dewey’s pragmatism and Ambedkar’s philosophy not out of ephemeral conjecture or pithy textual evidence, but through painstaking, detailed, and exhaustive scholarship. He draws on comparative evidence in their major and minor works, their private correspondence, interviews of Ambedekar’s cohort at Columbia, Dewey’s voluminous lecture notes, and even the marginalia and notecards found between the pages of Ambedkar’s pragmatism bookshelf. Indeed, I often found myself pleasantly distracted as I imagined Stroud’s academic pilgrimage throughout India, Columbia University, and the Center for Dewey Studies to find every scrap of relevant information. In our age of instant information and digital archives, it is refreshing and inspiring to encounter a scholar still willing to trek across the globe for answers to his inquiries. Despite his passion to uncover the influence of Dewey on Ambedekar, Stroud never reduces the... (shrink)

It may seem obvious that the human being has always been present in anthropology. This book, however, reveals that he has never really been a part of it. Theoretical Anthropology or How to Observe a Human Being establishes the foundations and conditions, both theoretical and methodological, which make it possible to consider the human being as a topic of observation and analysis, for himself as an entity, and not in the perspective of understanding social and cultural phenomena. In debate with (...) both anthropologists and philosophers, this book describes and analyzes the human being as a “volume”. To this end, a specific lexicon is built around the notions of volume, volumography and volumology. These notions are further illustrated and enriched by several drawings. (shrink)

The selections contained in this volume were made by Richard Kik. The original edition Vom Licht in uns was published by Verlag J.F. Steinkopf, Stuhgart. It contains sayings of things highly spiritual nature as well as a description of the life of Richard Kik. One such selection is The beginning of all spiritual life is fearless belief in truth and its open confession. Albert Schweitzer (14 January 1875 4 September 1965) was a German-French theologian, musician, philosopher, and physician. He (...) was born in Kaysersberg in the province of Elsass-Lothringen (Alsace-Lorraine), at the time in the German Empire. Schweitzer challenged both the secular view of Jesus as depicted by historical-critical methodology current at his time in certain academic circles, as well the traditional Christian view, depicting a Jesus Christ who expected and predicted the imminent end of the world. He received the 1952 Nobel Peace Prize in 1953 for his philosophy of "Reverence for Life" expressed in many ways, but most famously in founding and sustaining the Albert Schweitzer Hospital in Lambarene, now in Gabon, west central Africa (then French Equatorial Africa). As a music scholar and organist, he studied the music of German composer Johann Sebastian Bach and influenced the Organ reform movement (Orgelbewegung). Schweitzer's passionate quest was to discover a universal ethical philosophy, anchored in a universal reality, and make it directly available to all of humanity. This is reflected in some of his sayings, such as: "Until he extends his circle of compassion to include all living things, man will not himself find peace." "I don't know what your destiny will be, but one thing I do know: the only ones among you who will be really happy are those who have sought and found how to serve.". (shrink)

A physician says, "I have an ethical obligation never to cause the death of a patient," another responds, "My ethical obligation is to relieve pain even if the patient dies." The current argument over the role of physicians in assisting patients to die constantly refers to the ethical duties of the profession. References to the Hippocratic Oath are often heard. Many modern problems, from assisted suicide to accessible health care, raise questions about the traditional ethics of medicine and the medical (...) profession. However, few know what the traditional ethics are and how they came into being. This book provides a brief tour of the complex story of medical ethics evolved over centuries in both Western and Eastern culture. It sets this story in the social and cultural contexts in which the work of healing was practiced and suggests that, behind the many different perceptions about the ethical duties of physicians, certain themes appear constantly, and may be relevant to modern debates. The book begins with the Hippocratic medicine of ancient Greece, moves through the Middle Ages, Renaissance and Enlightenment in Europe, and the long history of Indian and Chinese medicine, ending as the problems raised modern medical science and technology challenge the settled ethics of the long tradition. (shrink)

The question “What are cognitive processes?” can be understood variously as meaning “What is the nature of cognitive processes?”, “Can we distinguish epistemically cognitive processes from physical and biochemical processes on the one hand, and from mental or conscious processes on the other?”, and “Can we establish a fruitful notion of cognitive process?” The present aim is to deliver a positive answer to the last question by developing criteria for what would count as a paradigmatic exemplar of a cognitive process, (...) and then to offer the comparator mechanism as a convincing paradigmatic example. Thus, the paper argues, given the current state of science, we can indeed establish a fruitful scientific notion of a cognitive process. Nevertheless, it is left open whether the example-based characterization ends up as merely highlighting a fruitful convention within the early-twentyfirst century interdisciplinary investigation of intelligent behaviour in humans, animals, and robots, or whether the examples determine a natural kind or a property cluster. (shrink)

What does it look like when an organization tentatively steps away from an exclusively rules-based regime and begins to attend to both rules and principles? What insights and guidance can ethicists and ethical theory offer? This paper is a case study of an organization that has initiated such a transition. The American Institute of Certified Public Accountants has begun a turn toward the promotion of ethical principles and best practices by adding a “conceptual framework” to its existing Code of Professional (...) Conduct. This conceptual framework calls upon its members to intentionally increase their awareness of significant threats to their compliance with its rules of conduct and to establish safeguards to offset or eliminate those threats. To this end, each member is required to regard every questionable situation, circumstance, transaction or relationship by attempting to view it through the eyes of an imagined reasonable third party. This paper examines this protocol theoretically and practically. First, we frame this analysis within the principles and ethical concepts that inform the professional ethics of accountants. Second, we critique the AICPA’s long-standing rules-based approach to its Code. Third, we examine the new conceptual framework with a view toward its potential for the promotion of a more principles-based approach to the professional ethics of the accounting profession. Fourth, we give attention to the notion of the “reasonable and informed third party,” which has been embedded in the new conceptual framework, and consider how two schools of thought—Adam Smith’s modernist “impartial spectator” concept and Emmanuel Lévinas’ postmodern phenomenology in regard to “the Other”—may offer theoretical support and clarity for this epistemic exercise. Finally, we point out several ways in which the AICPA’s commitment to its new conceptual framework could be strengthened and enhanced. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Sacramental Wisdom:Humilitatio, Eruditio, Exercitatio in the Scholastics and TodaySr. Albert Marie Surmanski O.P.IntroductionThe relationship between human nature and the sacraments is often characterized in a way that takes away from the beauty and power of the sacraments. Sacraments are sometimes viewed today as something basically irrelevant to human life, an interesting spiritual "option" for those who find comfort in ritual. This view leads to a sacramental practice that (...) is occasional, irregular, or nonexistent. Many young people who fail to grasp religion as important to their reality implicitly embrace this perspective. The difficulty parishes have had in the past few years in convincing parishioners to return to liturgical prayer after each wave of the coronavirus pandemic demonstrates this viewpoint.In another perspective, the sacraments might be viewed precisely as expressions of what it means to be human, or one might say, to be human in a world in which God reveals himself at all times.1 In this view, the sacraments [End Page 1391] are our own graced self-expression as a community. They merely make thematic what already happens each moment. Alternatively, they celebrate who we are, and perhaps can be radically updated to reflect changing categories of social identity. 2Both of these viewpoints overlook the fallen state of human nature that cries out for healing from God. The first view does not preclude knowledge of human violence and fragility, but fails to recognize the sacraments as a medicine needed for the remedy of human ills. The second viewpoint, while professing a need for Christ, looks to the human person or community for healing rituals. This approach risks being enmeshed with human nature in a disordered state in such a way that it celebrates human disorder instead of healing it. Alternatively, the viewpoint may lead to the abandonment eschatological hope and wither into inanity.There are profound metaphysical and anthropological issues that play out in these two opposite but strangely united viewpoints. Rather than directly analyze these errors, this paper would like to propose the recovery of a medieval viewpoint that offers another perspective. This is Hugh of St. Victor's explanation that the sacraments fit and heal human nature through offering humanity humility, instruction, and exercise. 3 This paper will briefly survey Hugh's contribution, analyze its reception by several of the thirteenth-century Scholastics, shows its deep rootedness in biblical wisdom, and then show how it fruitfully opposes current-day challenges.Hugh of St. VictorHugh of St. Victor was a twelfth-century canon of the Parisian Abbey of St. Victor. The most influential writer of the Victorine school, his work is characterized by an Augustinian concern for the re-formation of the image of God in man, a sense of the wise ordering of salvation history, and an emphasis on both virtue and liturgical practice. In his masterwork, De Sacramentis Christianae Fidei, Hugh of St. Victor divides the works of God into two main periods: the work of creation and the work of restoration. Within the [End Page 1392] work of restoration, there are three periods: the period of the natural law, that of the Mosaic or written law, and that of grace, inaugurated by Christ.4 His book's division into two parts cuts across these distinctions: Part 1 of Hugh's text covers creation, the restoration in general, faith, sacraments in general, as well as particulars of the sacraments of the periods of the natural and written law. Part 2 includes the Incarnation, the Church, various Christian rituals, and the final restoration of Christ's return.Hugh is writing around the time when theologians began to list the number of the sacraments of the Church as seven. Emerging from the wider use of the term, Hugh uses the word "sacrament" in a wide sense, but distinguishes several categories of sacraments. Following Dominique Poirel, scholars recognize that Hugh uses the word sacramentum in five main ways.5 The first is a general definition: (1) any sign of anything sacred. The second through fourth are more specific usages, to which we do not commonly give the term "sacrament" today: (2) Scripture, which signifies sacred realities both through its text and the... (shrink)

This article explores emotions and their relationship to ‘somatic responses’, i.e., one’s automatic responses to sensations of pain, cold, warmth, sudden intensity. To this end, it undertakes a Husserlian phenomenological analysis of the first-hand experience of eight basic emotions, briefly exploring their essential aspects: their holistic nature, their identifying dynamic transformation of the lived body, their two-layered intentionality, their involuntary initiation and voluntary espousal. The fact that the involuntary tensional shifts initiating emotions are irreplicatable voluntarily, is taken to show that (...) all emotions have an innate core, a conclusion corroborated by their strong similarities to somatic responses in dynamics, hedonic tone, and topology. The fact that emotions may be culturally reworked, is shown to be explicable in terms of their complex nature: their dependence on belief, their voluntary espousal, and their ready social transmittability. Finally, it is argued that emotions may plausibly be deemed the evolutionary descendants of somatic responses. (shrink)

This is the God Squad. It is faceless, impersonal, unmoved by tragedy, almost terrorist in aspect. The photo appeared in LIFE magazine on November 9, 1962, and it depicted the Admissions and Policy Committee of the Seattle Artificial Kidney Center. The Committee had been established in 1962 to select those few persons who would be admitted to the new and tiny dialysis unit that was created by Dr. Belding Scribner, inventor of the arteriovenous shunt. It consisted of seven anonymous members (...) – a minister, a lawyer, a businessman, a homemaker, a labor leader, and two physicians. Each month they received a pile of charts about persons with end-stage renal disease. A prior medical evaluation had rated them all medically suitable for dialysis. The Committee’s task was to select one or two out of a dozen or so to take the available spots. The others were left to die. After several years of this agonizing work, the amendments to the Social Security Act provided financial support for renal dialysis and transplant, allowing the Admission Committee some peace of mind. (shrink)

We discuss two recent attempts two solve Schrodinger's cat paradox. One is the modal interpretation developed by Kochen, Healey, Dieks, and van Fraassen. It allows for an observable which pertains to a system to possess a value even when the system is not in an eigenstate of that observable. The other is a recent theory of the collapse of the wave function due to Ghirardi, Rimini, and Weber. It posits a dynamics which has the effect of collapsing the state of (...) macroscopic systems. We argue that the modal interpretation cannot account for non-accurate measurements and that both accounts have the consequence that in ordinary measurement situations the observables that ends up well defined are not quite the ones that we want to be well defined. (shrink)

Sweet describes the pragmatic foundations of standard logic and applies these foundations to the task of developing a theory of intended models as an extension of standard model theory in which the relevant "intending" is represented pragmatically. Methods of formal logic are used to investigate the structure of the relation between language and the world. The truism which holds that this relation includes the speaker as well as the object spoken about is formally explicated and applied to the problem of (...) illuminating one of the deepest phenomena in standard model theory: the existence of non-isomorphic models of complete theories. To this end it is shown that standard logic admits pragmatic foundations upon which a theory of intended models can be built as an extension of standard model theory. The relevant "intending" is represented by the very forms of verbal behavior which determine the grammatical and logical structure of the sentences whose referential meaning is in question. The uniqueness properties of the class of intended models may then be described. The first section of the book states the immediate goal of standard pragmatics as that of recovering the algebraic structure first-order logic by means of a purely pragmatic construction. The second section, the major portion of the work, then provides the foundation for a semiotic theory of intended models and referential meaning. The theory is then applied to the problem of referential indeterminancy, which has been associated with the phenomenon of scientific revolutions. The theory is also applied to the problem of the apparent synonymy of observationally equivalent theories. Sweet concludes that such theories are not referentially synonymous in any natural sense which is analogous to the paradigm sense in which theories of alternative scales of measurement are referentially synonymous. A novel feature of this book is the formal explication of the idea that the factors, pragmatical in nature, which distinguish the actual meaning of a sentence from among its possible meanings, whose range is defined by the manner in which the sentence is parsed, determine that very parsing. Applicability to natural language of the model-theoretic semantics thereby obtained is made possible by another feature of the book: the development of a theory of locally standard grammar which provides the foundation for representing the structure of natural language as that of standard first-order logic, in a local, as distinguished from a global, sense. This book is intended for scholars in logic, semiotics, and the philosophies of language and of science. Those concerned specifically with such philosophers as Peirce, Martin, and Davidson will also find the study valuable. (shrink)

The Center for Disease Control and Prevention’s Active Bacterial Core Surveillance (CDC ABCs) Program is a collaborative effort betweeen the CDC, state health departments, laboratories, and universities to track invasive bacterial pathogens of particular importance to public health [1]. The year-end surveillance reports produced by this program help to shape public policy and coordinate responses to emerging infectious diseases over time. The ABCs case report form (CRF) data represents an excellent opportunity for data reuse beyond the original surveillance purposes.

The various roles proposed for emotion, whether psychological such as preparing for action or serving prior concerns, or biological such as protecting and promoting well-being, are easily shown to have an awkward number of exceptions. This paper attempts to explain why. To this end it undertakes a Husserlian phenomenological examination of first-person experience of two types of responses, the various somatic responses elicited by sensations (pain, cold, pleasure, sudden intensity) and the various personal directed emotions (grief, fear, affection, joy). The (...) analysis brings out the overall close structural symmetry between the two types of response and the strong hedonic, dynamic, and topological similarity between particular members from each of the two groups. The findings strongly suggest that emotions evolved from the more rudimentary involuntary somatic responses. The hypothesis finds further support in the fact that it explains both the biological unsoundness and anomalous archaic features that emotions often display. It also explains why emotions have no tidy function. (shrink)

It is necessary to realize first of all that the concept of culture is founded upon two closely related dichotomies: that between the natural and artificial and that between the chaotic and the orderly. In its most primitive signification, culture means simply the imposition of an exquisite order upon the raw givenness of experience. In this sense, nature represents the immediacy of need, culture its formalization. Man may be "a rational animal," as Aristotle said, but in possessing the rational potential (...) which he intermittently actualizes, he never ceases to remain an animal grounded immediately in hunger, lust, and the multiple instances of natural desire. Plato waged a never-ending struggle against the lawless outbreak of the natural appetites, and his efforts to curb, discipline, and form them is a primitive paradigm of the activity of culture. Man's capacity for thought and reason, for sociality and humane consideration has made him a sculpture-building animal and has made it possible for him, as Cassirer said, to live in a symbolic universe which he has himself created. But while his basic reality is not physical but cultural and spiritual, his anchorage forever remains that of nature and of animal need. The measure of culture is, therefore, a measure of artistic transformation. Albert William Levi is the author of The Idea of Culture, of which this essay is a part. The David May Distinguished University Professor of the Humanities at Washington University, St. Louis, he is the author of Philosophy and the Modern World; Literature, Philosophy and the Imagination; Humanism and Politics; and Philosophy as Social Expression. His "De interpretatione: Cognition and Context in the History of Ideas" appeared in Critical Inquiry, Autumn 1976. (shrink)

This is the first collected volume dedicated to Olympiodorus of Alexandria, the last pagan Platonic philosopher at the end of antiquity.

Contrary to accepted ideas, questions of gender started to be raised around the end of the 19th century. The characters of problematic sex and sexuality who abounded in literature at that time had the function of emblems of the fears aroused by the erasure and divorce between the sexes in a civilization in disarray. The figure of the androgyne was used to name and depict those condemned to indecision. But its closeness to the invert led to the decline of the (...) myth, which in the meantime was taken over by turn-of-the-century clinical medicine. Just like homosexuality, hermaphroditism became an anomaly, and those affected by it were depicted as deviant, incomplete beings. However, it was from the explosive superimposition of those two denigrated figures – the homosexual and the androgyne – that the concept of gender emerged in its true nature, that is, as a mental construction as much as an anatomical destiny. (shrink)

Sophocles' Oedipus at Colonus has traditionally been regarded as the poet's primary tragedy involving hero cult; this essay explores the more subtle but no less ritually explicit hero cult of the Aias first outlined by Burian. The passage, as Burian saw, occurs when the young Eurysakes kneels at his father's body and Teukros conducts an unusual combination of rites: supplication, curse, offering of hair, and magic . One crucial direction to the child, kai phulasse , however, is here not understood (...) to be a paradox of the suppliant who "protects" what he seizes but rather his physical attachment to the locus where he abides as well as his ritual dependence on the source of protection . By saying a curse and obtaining protection, Teukros and Eurysakes indicate how the still-warm body of the dead hero has already acquired special powers after death: specifically, the power to bestow both blessings and curses on mortals. The argument turns from the body to the tomb, the physical and lasting monument of hero cult, which the Sophoclean audience would know. The preceding scene ends with a pivotal choral passage where the hero's burial and cult are prescribed in highly Homeric terms . This passage forms an important link between the opposing views of the fate of the corpse and also between the hero's death and burial. This choral celebration of the hero's future status is cast in traditional Homeric language, but with some revealing inversions. One is the reversal of the verb whereby the earth "holds" or possesses heroes in Homer, while Aias occupies and possesses his tomb . The evolution of Homeric views of death is traced . In Sophocles' Aias the chorus performs the burial as a ritual act establishing a cult, long before it happens at the end of the play. The article concludes with a discussion of the historical cults of Aias known to the Athenians and of the more significant way that Aias becomes a hero: not self-consciously, as Oedipus did, but through rituals performed by his family and community. In the Aias, the poet's sense of hero cult lies closer to Homer and the epic tradition than it does, for instance, to Aeschylus. (shrink)

Propositional dynamic logic (PDL) provides a natural setting for semantics of means-end relations involving non-determinism, but such models do not include probabilistic features common to much practical reasoning involving means and ends. We alter the semantics for PDL by adding probabilities to the transition systems and interpreting dynamic formulas 〈α〉 ϕ as fuzzy predicates about the reliability of α as a means to ϕ. This gives our semantics a measure of efficacy for means-end relations.

In a survey spanning over half a century of his own work, Hirschman, among the most influential thinkers of the twentieth century on political economy, celebrates the ability to undermine one’s own claims and theories. Whereas skepticism toward other people’s work is not noteworthy, Hirschman argues, self-critque is crucial in relation “to one’s own generalizations or constructs.” But self-criticism and interpretive changes do “not in the end cancel out or refute the earlier findings”; rather, they help to define domains of (...) the social world where originally postulated relations do not hold. Exercises in “self-subversion,” while often experienced at first as traumatic, are eventually, as Hirschman’s own career attests, “rewarding and enriching.”. (shrink)

_This untraditional text is a series of parables, allegories, and prose poems that reflect on the problem of the fragment. Studying the fragment lays the theoretical ground for the basic question of where a text begins and ends._.

Many years ago, the esteemed patriarch of bioethics, Joseph Fletcher, spoke loud and clear in favor of rationality in reproduction. By rationality, he meant not merely limiting population growth, which he certainly favored, but bringing to bear human analytic and creative intelligence on the random and instinctive activities of sexual intercourse and procreation that we share with all mammals. In his 1974 book, The Ethics of Genetic Control: Ending Reproductive Roulette, he foresaw most of the issues that we are facing (...) today. He reflected on artificial insemination, prenatal diagnosis, cloning, eugenics, ectogenesis, ovum transfers, and genetic engineering. He examined these innovations to the extent that he felt that each of them represents a way of exercising rational and responsible control over life and reproduction. The subtitle of his book, “Ending Reproductive Roulette,” proclaims his faith. Dr. Fletcher's dedication to rationality led him to make the astonishing statement, “Man is a maker and the more rationally contrived and deliberate anything is, the more human it is. Therefore, laboratory reproduction is radically human compared to conception by ordinary heterosexual intercourse.”. (shrink)

Contemporary theory of argumentation offers many insights about the ways in which, in the context of a public controversy, arguers should ideally present their arguments and criticize those of their opponents. We also know that in practice not all works out according to the ideal patterns: numerous kinds of derailments are an object of study for argumentation theorists. But how about the use of unfairstrategiesvis-à-vis one’s opponents? What if it is not a matter of occasional derailments but of one party’s (...) systematic refusal to take other parties seriously? What if one party continually forgoes any form of critical testing and instead resorts to threats or blackmail? Can this be countered by the tools of reason? Or should one pay one’s opponent back in the same coin? To gain some grasp of these issues, we describe a number of strategies used in the public controversy about induced earthquakes in Groningen. We check whether these strategies arefair,i.e.balanced, transparent,andtolerant.We also investigate the effects of the choice for a particular kind of strategy. It appears that, in circumstances, choosing a fair strategy may be detrimental for resolving the controversy and choosing an unfair one beneficial. Following up ideas from social psychology and political science, we formulate some guidelines for the choice of strategies. At the end, we stress the importance — especially for those whose opinions carry little weight — of having a society in which the knowledge and skills needed for assessing the fairness of strategies are widespread. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Room for Maneuver When Raising Critical DoubtJan Albert Van Laar1When interlocutors start talking at cross-purposes it becomes less likely that they will be able to resolve their initial difference of opinion (Van Eemeren and Grootendorst 1992, 125). How much room should we give a party for rephrasing or revising her adversary’s standpoint in a manner that suits her individual purposes in the dialogue? Certainly, as textbooks in argumentation (...) and critical thinking make clear, we should steer clear of erecting and attacking straw men (Ennis 1996, 172; Govier 1985, 109–12; Groarke, Tindale, and Fisher 1997, 123). Still, a critic in a discussion or debate should be given some room to maneuver in order to rephrase the arguer’s position in her own words or to get at the underlying position of the arguer. In this article, I will be dealing with this issue from the pragma-dialectical perspective of strategic maneuvering between the shared dialectical objective of resolving a difference of opinion and the individual rhetorical objective of persuading the other side. According to existing accounts of the straw man fallacy (Talisse and Aikin 2006; Van Eemeren and Grootendorst 1992; Walton 1996), the criterion for fallaciousness resides in whether or not the critic misrepresents or distorts the arguer’s actual position. In this article I intend to provide more detailed guidelines for critics: a critic distorts or [End Page 195] misrepresents a position when she changes the formulation or nature of the arguer’s standpoint, even though this contribution by her cannot be reconstructed as containing a proposal for a change that might be acceptable to the arguer.In section 2 I will elaborate on the notion of confrontational maneuvering, that is, of strategic maneuvering between the dialectical and rhetorical goals that arise from the confrontation stage of a critical discussion. In section 3 I will characterize the form of maneuvering where an antagonist reformulates or modifies the protagonist’s standpoint in an opportune way. In section 4 I will examine the conditions under which applications of maneuvering of this kind can be sound and legitimate from a dialectical perspective and relate these conditions to the straw man fallacy. In section 5 the results of the preceding sections will be applied to a case.2. Confrontational ManeuveringIn argumentative discourse, participants typically try to achieve two kinds of objectives. First, they try to be dialectically reasonable, and second, they are out for some kind of personal triumph. The act, by the critic, of reformulating or revising the arguer’s standpoint will be dealt with from this dual perspective of strategic maneuvering (Van Eemeren and Houtlosser 2000, 2003). In order to analyze and evaluate the maneuver under discussion, I will elaborate in this section, first, on the notion of critical discussion in order to clarify the meaning of dialectical reasonableness and fallaciousness; second, on the importance of reconstruction for understanding argumentative discourse; third, on the notion of a confrontation stage; and fourth, on the distinction between direct and indirect maneuvering. These notions will be applied as follows: critics have some room for maneuvering when raising critical doubt, even when they change the arguer’s position or formulation, because there are contexts of utterance within confrontations where such a contribution does allow for a reconstruction in such a way that the result is not a direct and fallacious confrontational maneuver but, rather, an indirect and dialectically reasonable one.According to the pragma-dialectical methodology developed by Van Eemeren and Grootendorst (1984, 1992, 2004), an argumentative discourse must be reconstructed and evaluated from the perspective of a critical discussion. A critical discussion is a normative procedure that starts from a difference of opinion and that is solely aimed at resolving this dispute on the merits of the case (as perceived by the participants). When following [End Page 196] this procedure, discussants start by putting their difference of opinion into words in the confrontation stage; they proceed by deciding on the procedural and material starting points in the opening stage and by exchanging arguments and criticisms in the argumentation stage; and then they bring their discussion to a close by deciding in the concluding stage on whether the initial... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:126 HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY be used in a thousand different ways; it has been a misty halo which could be summoned to surround all revolution and every reaction. To the extent that the limitation upon man's right to consent to either tyranny or chaos was ignored or rejected in particular circumstances, it became associated with the dream of all the discontented and unfortunate. It has been a symbol which (...) might be invoked by all who have sought power with the support of the people. Popular sovereignty almost, but never quite, became the principle that work-a-day political justice is merely what the people want. The transition from historic popular sovereignty to Western democracy was a product of an age of confusion which began in the sixteenth century. On the one hand, there were specific things which it was considered that the power of the people should do, and therewith emerged the whole problem of what practical techniques the people might use. On the other hand, the basic divisions in modern theory of the function of public opinion appeared as the problem's philosophical counterpart (p. 12). Prof. Wilson traces the growing recognition and respect for "opinion" in politics from Plato, who had a low opinion of it, through the Medieval controversies to Marsilius of Padua, who, on Aristotelian premises formulated the "modern" principle that "the whole body of the citizens, or the weightier multitude thereof, which must be taken for the same thing, can better discern what must be elected and what rejected than any part of it taken separately" (p. 28). From this doctrine to the theory of popular sovereignty the way is fairly evident. But the story from the faith in popular sovereignty to a genuine theory of the legitimate and useful functions of public opinion and to a conception of institutionalized public opinion, which is central to modern democratic theories, is an intricate development. This story the author tells with great skill and with many references to the important literature. HERBERT W. SCHNEIDER Claremont, CaliJornia Rational Man: A Modern Interpretation of Aristotelian Ethics. By Henry Babcock Veatch. (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1962. Pp. 226. ~5.00.) Professor Veatch's book is an engaging one in its plea that philosophers be allowed to write (and that some should write) in "normative ethics" and not just in "recta-ethics." It is only less engaging in its exposition and advocacy of a Socratic-Aristotelian doctrine that the good life for man is an "examined life" and is a striving for the natural end of man as a rational animal. It is least engaging (and least accurate) in its counterattack, probably uncalled for in the thesis, on Moore's attack on the "naturalistic fallacy," which Mr. Veatch holds responsible, whatever may have been Moore's intention, for all the noncognitivists--emotivistor existentialist or popular. Moore's criticism of the naturalistic fallacy, right or wrong, has had the tribute of an extraordinary number of interpretations and criticisms in turn. Mr. Veatch's will not, I think, add to our understanding of the matter. Aristotle's opening "The good is that at which all things aim" is notoriously equivocal. Does it tell us what things aim at or what the good is? Mr. Veatch takes it as defining good but as needing, and having, the specification that the good is what a thing aims at "by nature," properly. I do not think this is Aristotle's basic doctrine. His very equivocality and circularity is perhaps his final sagacity in a subject not meant for scientific precision and he might better be taken on his word in the Rhetoric: The good is what would be chosen by the ablest man, with relevant knowledge, if the man is good. Virtue has happiness as its aim and happiness is a life in accordance with virtue. BOOK REVIEWS 127 And yet, with all his caviling, Aristotle does back up Socrates's examined life and his acceptance of arete as arete of someone and for something with the application of "know thyself" to the definition of man as a rational animal and with the advice that we try (some few) to reason and (all) to be... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Seeing Through Zen: Encounter, Transformation, and Genealogy in Chinese Chan BuddhismAlbert WelterSeeing Through Zen: Encounter, Transformation, and Genealogy in Chinese Chan Buddhism. By John R. McRae. Berkeley, Los Angeles, and London: University of California Press, 2003. Pp. xx + 204.The field of Chan and Zen studies has been in transformation in recent decades, as an increasing number of scholars have begun to challenge the accepted story of Chan's (...) rise and dissemination. In the process, a disjuncture has developed between how scholars have come to view Chan narrative as mythos rooted in the circumstances of Chan's development, and how it is still depicted in many textbooks and popular publications on Zen. Teachers aware of this gap have been at a loss when looking for new texts to supplant the old ones and give a more accurate view of Chan, its history, and its development. Aside from the compelling sway that Chan and Zen narratives have over the popular understanding, part of the difficulty is that the field is still in transformation. While scholars are altering, sometimes radically, perceptions and assumptions about how Chan developed, this process is ongoing. And while the picture is growing clearer, a full consensus has not yet emerged.Into the breach a new book has come along: Seeing Through Zen: Encounter, Transformation, and Genealogy in Chinese Chan Buddhism, by John R. McRae. McRae's name will certainly be recognizable to all who work in the field of Chan and Zen studies. Along with Bernard Faure, Professor McRae pioneered the study of the previously maligned, so-called "Northern School" in the West (The Northern School and the Formation of Early Ch'an Buddhism), utilizing to full advantage the scholarship of the doyenne of twentieth-century Zen studies, Yanagida Seizan. [End Page 355] Through a series of articles, McRae has contributed greatly to emerging perspectives on Chan. The current volume under review may be taken as McRae's current observations on the subject of Chinese Chan, based on his own recent research and that of others.The chapters that constitute Seeing Through Zen were first prepared in Spanish translation for presentation at the Templo Zen Luz Serena in Valencia, Spain. The expected readership includes three groups: "Zen and other Buddhist practitioners; students and scholars of Chinese religions, Buddhist studies, and related fields; and a general audience interested in Asian religions and human culture" (p. xi). While some of the propositions in the book will, by design, provoke healthy debate among scholars, the primary purpose for this book as I see it is as a classroom text, either at universities or for temple instruction for practitioners interested in current scholarly assessments of their religion (according to the author, many of the chapters were the basis for presentations to various groups of Chan and Zen practitioners).Seeing Through Zen comprises six chapters: "Looking at Lineage: A Fresh Perspective on Chan Buddhism," "Beginnings: Differentiating/Connecting Bodhidharma and the East Mountain Teaching," "Metropolitan Chan: Imperial Patronage and the Chan Style," "The Riddle of Encounter Dialogue: Who, What, When, and Where?" "Zen and the Art of Fund-Raising: Religious Vitality and Institutional Dominance in the Song Dynasty," and "Climax Paradigm: Cultural Polarities and Patterns of Self-Cultivation in Song-Dynasty Chan." In addition to the back matter-"Notes," "Character Glossary," "Bibliography," and "Index"-the front matter includes a "Preface," "Conventions," and a section titled "McRae's Rules of Zen Studies." These "rules of Zen"-(1) It's not true, and therefore it's more important; (2) Lineage assertions are as wrong as they are strong; (3) Precision implies inaccuracy; and (4) Romanticism breeds cynicism (pp. xix-xx)-with accompanying explanations, provide an accessible orientation to McRae's approach and touchstones that are frequently returned to in the materials introduced in the following chapters.I have two reactions to Seeing Through Zen, one as a teacher and one as a scholar. For the teacher, Seeing Through Zen represents a welcome addition indeed! I look forward to using it in my classes, and I'm sure others will as well. Written in a lively, engaging style, it is sophisticated in its analysis and creative in drawing on analogies from research... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Dracula and Carmilla:Monsters and the MindBenson Saler and Charles A. ZieglerFollowing the publication of Bram Stoker's Dracula in 1897, vampire narratives proliferated in Britain and the United States.1 While many twentieth century short stories, novels, plays, and films in both countries depart from Dracula in various ways, it is our impression that that workand its close derivatives retain pride of place in the popular imagination. Yet Dracula was but (...) one of several well-known vampire stories published in English during the nineteenth century, and scholars deem certain of the other tales to be of literary merit.In noting that, we raise this question: What is it about the plot and the characterization of vampires in Dracula that make it the most famous example of vampires in English fiction? Why, in particular, has it been more influential than Le Fanu's Carmilla which preceded it in time and is of equal or perhaps greater literary distinction?2 We address that question, and by doing so we hope to gain some insight into the attraction and persistence of vampire tales across time and cultures.We begin by sketching our approach to conceptualizing the category "vampire." Nina Auerbach, a Professor of English at the University of Pennsylvania, writes that "There is no such creature as 'The Vampire'; there are only vampires."3 That declaration is in keeping with her demonstration that in nineteenth and twentieth century British and American vampire novels, short stories, plays, and films, vampires vary greatly in behavior, in apparent motivation, and in cultural significance. Different social orders and different culturally supported sensibilities [End Page 218] and sensitivities, she persuasively argues, find expression in different sorts of vampires.We deem Auerbach's literary nominalism preferable to an essentialism that would govern vampiric class inclusion by insisting on some conjunction of necessary features or conditions. At the same time, however, we think that there is a better way of allowing for differences in conceptualizing vampires and in understanding their multi-faceted significance in British and American imaginings of the last two centuries. That way combines the recognition of family resemblances with insights derived from prototype theory in the cognitive sciences.A family resemblance approach can be quite liberal in what it includes as instantiations of the category "vampire." It can encompass not only such familiar (albeit different) figures as Ruthven, Varney, Carmilla, Dracula, and Lestat, but also others, including so-called "psychic vampires," who flourish not by sucking blood but by draining vitality, will, and even experience from their victims. Some may ask, does this not create a category that is so promiscuous in what it includes as to render the category analytically useless? No, we reply, once you couple family resemblance with insights from prototype theory.Prototype theory, narrowly described, attempts to account for "prototype effects." These "effects" are differences in the judgments that people render about how well different instances of a category exemplify the category. Thus, for instance, some people may judge apples and oranges to be clearer or better exemplars of the category "fruit" than olives. Similarly, some may judge robins and sparrows to be clearer or better exemplars of the category "bird" than penguins. Judgments can be explicitly given, or they can be inferred from the order of examples that people give or from their responses to lists of examples furnished by others. Prototype theorists call the adjudged clearest or "best" examples of categories "prototypes" or "the most prototypical exemplars."4 This approach celebrates centrality and periphery rather than essence and boundary in conceptualizing categories.5 It allows that some instantiations of a category may be deemed more central to the category than others. Thus in the case of vampires, Dracula is more central to the category than, say, the shape-shifting space alien who extracts salt from victims in an episode of Star Trek, First Generation. Auerbach recognizes that centrality when she refers to "Dracula's dominance in our century" (p. 111). We contend, moreover, that while Sheridan Le Fanu's vampire Carmilla is more prototypical—that is, an adjudged better exemplar of the category—than vampiric space aliens [End Page 219] and legions of psychic vampires, she is less... (shrink)

The leopoldistic version of the events before Berchtesgaden - politically the most important period in the Question Royale during the occupation - is from the start till the end historically not grounded. The known facts prove that the King was absolutely not passive in political matters. He doesn't reject the proposal for a meeting with Hitler. Already on May 31 he declares to agree in principle to meet the Führer. On June 26 he again expresses this willingness. In October he (...) sends his sister Marie-José, crownprincess of Italy, to Hitler, collecting the requested invitation for a meeting. The meeting Hitler-Leopold III at Berchtesgaden reveals not only a humanitarian, but also an indeniable political character.There is too great a difference between the leopoldistic version and the facts - as far as known at this moment and from limited sources. One is inclined to ask oneself if the editors of the Whitebook and of the report of the Servais-commission, had knowledge of all the facts, which normally should have been at their disposal. If the answer is no, than one has to assume «a secret of the King». (shrink)

A Nobel Prize winner, Dr. Szent-Györgyi concerns himself with the underlying forces and conditions that have prevented the realization of the higher possibilities of the American Dream, and, by extension, of all mankind. He addresses himself especially to the youth of the world in his attempt to show how man, the more he progresses technologically, seems the more to regress psychologically and socially, until he resembles his primate ancestors in a state of high schizophrenia. The fundamental question asked by this (...) book is: Why is it that most of the scientific research that is done to elevate human life serves in the end to destroy it? That this phenomenon exists is unarguable. How to alter it is the problem the author tackles. He finds the possibility, indeed the instrument of our survival, in our youth. Dr. Szent-Györgyi calls upon youth the world over to organize and exercise their power to create a new world. He implores them not to waste their energies in petulance and frustration-the world is ripe for the radical changes needed for man's survival, and for youth to fritter away their opportunity would be to compound the tragedy and seal the fate of mankind. Born into the fourth generation of a noted family of scientists in Hungary, Albert Szent-Györgyi decided at an early age to devote his life to biological research. As a medical student he required international recognition for his studies in microscopic anatomy. The First World War, which he spent in the service of the Austro-Hungarian army, caused a break in his career. After the war he left his devastated country to work for ten years in various countries, notably Germany, Holland, England and the United States. He then returned to his native Hungary to help rebuild science there. In 1937, he won the Nobel Prize for his studies on metabolism and for the discovery of ascorbic acid (Vitamin C). He soon found himself in conflict with the growing movement of Nazism, was arrested, escaped, and was hunted for years by the secret service of Hitler. After World War II, disappointed by Soviet colonialism and the terrorist methods of Stalin, he left Hungary and found refuge at the Marine Biological Laboratory of Woods Hole, Massachusetts. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Jacob Burckhardt, Religion, and the Historiography of “Crisis” and “Transition”Thomas Albert Howard*A great historical subject, the representation of which should be the high point of a historian’s life, must cohere sympathetically and mysteriously to the author’s innermost being.Jacob Burckhardt 1If you are to venture to interpret the past you can do so only out of the fullest exertion of the vigor of the present: only when you can (...) put forth your... qualities in all their strength will you divine what is worth knowing and preserving in the past.Friedrich Nietzsche 2The renowned nineteenth-century Swiss-German historian Jacob Burckhardt (1818–97) was a masterful historian of crises and transitional periods. Two of his major works, The Age of Constantine the Great (1852) and The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy (1860), bear out this claim. In his Constantine Burckhardt deals with the transition from late pagan antiquity to the early Christian Middle Ages, and in his more famous Renaissance he deals with the transition from the late Middle Ages to the beginnings of secular modernity. In the [End Page 149] latter, as is well known, he established one of the most compelling and creative theses in the history of modern historiography, virtually creating the “idea of the Renaissance” that has long influenced both scholarly and popular conceptions of that period. 3What elicited Burckhardt’s interest in crises and transitions in general and in these two periods of crisis and transition in particular? In this article, I shall argue that there is a strong relationship between Burckhardt’s own historical experience in the early and mid-nineteenth century and his choice of subject and mode of analysis in these two monumental works. In theoretical terms one observes a “dialectical” form of objectivity in the execution of Burckhardt’s historiographical tasks: a structural affinity or kinship between subject (Burckhardt, his historical experience) and object (late antiquity, Renaissance) predisposes Burckhardt to his theme/argument and thus provides a key to understanding the genesis and the character of insights that he offers in these two works. 4 To establish this point I shall focus on the category of religion, on Burckhardt’s own experience of questions of religious truth and skepticism in the nineteenth century, and on his treatment of religion in these two works.The Young Jacob Burckhardt and ReligionReligion is a crucial but often neglected aspect of Jacob Burckhardt’s thought. 5 Like a number of nineteenth-century German intellectuals, Burckhardt was a Pfarrersohn, a “pastor’s son.” 6 He grew up in a profoundly conservative Protestant environment in Basel, nicknamed “pious Basel” for its dogged resistance to the “ideas of 1789” and for its earlier heritage of Reformation and pietist religiosity. During Burckhardt’s youth in fact, his father was a children’s minister and head-deacon (Obersthelfer) before becoming in 1838 the city cathedral’s Antistes, the highest and most prestigious ecclesiastical office in Basel. In short, as his biographer Werner Kaegi has noted, Burckhardt’s early [End Page 150] upbringing and education were strongly shaped by the world of his father, a world of “old Protestant piety.” 7Following his father’s example, Burckhardt started out on the clerical track, studying theology at the University of Basel. However, during his Theologie-studium (1837–39) he experienced a profound crisis of faith brought on by an encounter with German historical biblical criticism and liberal theology represented in the person of W. M. L. de Wette (1780–1848). A radical theologian and biblical scholar, de Wette had wound up in Basel in 1822 after being dismissed from the University of Berlin for holding views considered heterodox and politically threatening by the conservative Prussian government. 8 In a letter to his friend Johannes Riggenbach written in August 1838 Burckhardt tells how de Wette’s critical theology had unseated his faith. “In my eyes,” Burckhardt wrote,de Wette’s system grows in stature every day; one simply must follow him, there is no alternative; but every day a part of our traditional church doctrine melts away under his hand. Today, finally, I realized that he regards the birth of Christ simply as a myth... (shrink)

ObjectiveDropout rates are a prominent problem in youth psychotherapy. An important determinant of dropouts is the quality of the therapeutic relationship. This study aimed to evaluate the association between the therapeutic relationship and dropouts in an intensive mentalization-based treatment for adolescents with personality disorders.MethodsPatients included were either dropouts or completers of an intensive MBT. The therapeutic relationship was measured with the child version of the Session Rating Scale, which was completed by the patient after each group therapy session. For each (...) patient, the treatment termination status was indicated by the treatment staff. The reliable change index was calculated for the C-SRS to determine significant changes in the therapeutic relationship.ResultsWhile both groups started with similar scores on the C-SRS, the scores between dropouts and completers differed significantly at the end of the treatment period. On average, during therapy, an increase was seen in the scores of completers, and a decrease was seen in the scores of dropouts. While dropouts could not be predicted based on the C-SRS scores, a significant decrease in C-SRS scores during the last two sessions occurred more often for dropouts than for completers.ConclusionOur findings show that to prevent dropouts, the patient’s judgment of the quality of the therapeutic relationship should be monitored continuously, and decreases discussed with the patient and the group. (shrink)

Transdisciplinary analogies and metaphors are potential useful tools for thinking and creativity. The exploration of other conceptual philosophies and fields can be rewarding and can contribute to produce new useful ideas to be applied on different problems and parts of reality. The development of the so-called 'sustainability' approach allows us to explore the possibility of translate and adapt some of its main ideas to the organisation of human language diversity. The concept of 'sustainability' clearly comes from the tradition of thinking (...) that criticises the perspective of economic development that overlooks almost totally the natural environment -the precise context where this development takes place -and which thus leads it to a final end devoid of resources and clearly harmful for the life of human beings. Against this economicist view, which is blind to its very important side effects, some academic and activist enclaves have proposed the perspective of 'sustainable development' or 'lasting development'. In other words, they have theorised, constructed, and begun to practice an economic and urbanistic development respectful of, integrated into, and in keeping with the dynamics of nature. Such perspective provides a way of improving the material aspects of human life while at the same time not damaging other environmental aspects still more necessary and fundamental for the quality —and even for the simple possibility- of human existence. In fact, the view is a synthesis of possible opposed patterns. It does not renounce material and economic improvement, but nor does it exclude a fully healthy environment that is appropriate for the continuation of the species. If we now try to transfer and to apply this way of thinking to the linguodiversity reality, are there useful analogies and metaphors to be made? We believe there are, and ones that can be used to good advantage, and linked, moreover, to the traditions of thought that have always been present but perhaps even more so these last years with the drive to develop the thinking we are calling ‘eco-linguistic’. From the outset, we would underscore the will to connect apparent ‘opposites’ in an integrative conceptualisation, such as the very syntagm ‘sustainable development’. On the sociolinguistic plane, our debate should probably be about our ‘opposites’, which could be on the one hand the expansion of the dominant languages and, on the other hand, the maintenance and development of human linguistic diversity. (shrink)

A recent online article in the Journal of Medical Ethics, which received wide media coverage, raised the possibility that children are being ‘subjected to torture’ due to the ‘fervent or fundamentalist views’ of their parents. However, the quality of argument in that article was inadequate to sustain such a radical thesis. There was no engagement with the perspectives of different religious traditions about end-of-life care. Instead the authors invoked practices such as male infant circumcision which are wholly irrelevant to the (...) end-of-life theme. There were serious failings in relation to core principles of social and epidemiological research practice: the study based its conclusion on a sample of only six cases and failed to consider even the more obvious confounding features. Rather than demonizing the religious beliefs of parents there should be recognition of the need for mutual respect, dialogue based on an ‘expert–expert relationship’ and collaboration based on ‘shared understanding’. (shrink)

This paper develops the philosophy and technology needed for adding a supremum operator to the interpretability logic ILM\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \usepackage{amsmath} \usepackage{wasysym} \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{amsbsy} \usepackage{mathrsfs} \usepackage{upgreek} \setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \begin{document}$$\mathsf {ILM}$$\end{document} of Peano Arithmetic. It is well-known that any theories extending PA\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \usepackage{amsmath} \usepackage{wasysym} \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{amsbsy} \usepackage{mathrsfs} \usepackage{upgreek} \setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \begin{document}$$\mathsf {PA}$$\end{document} have a supremum in the interpretability ordering. While provable in PA\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \usepackage{amsmath} \usepackage{wasysym} \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{amsbsy} \usepackage{mathrsfs} \usepackage{upgreek} \setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \begin{document}$$\mathsf {PA}$$\end{document}, this fact is not reflected in the theorems of the modal (...) system ILM\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \usepackage{amsmath} \usepackage{wasysym} \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{amsbsy} \usepackage{mathrsfs} \usepackage{upgreek} \setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \begin{document}$$\mathsf {ILM}$$\end{document}, due to limited expressive power. Our goal is to enrich the language of ILM\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \usepackage{amsmath} \usepackage{wasysym} \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{amsbsy} \usepackage{mathrsfs} \usepackage{upgreek} \setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \begin{document}$$\mathsf {ILM}$$\end{document} by adding to it a new modality for the interpretability supremum. We explore different options for specifying the exact meaning of the new modality. Our final proposal involves a unary operator, the dual of which can be seen as a provability predicate satisfying the axioms of the provability logic GL\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \usepackage{amsmath} \usepackage{wasysym} \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{amsbsy} \usepackage{mathrsfs} \usepackage{upgreek} \setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \begin{document}$$\mathsf {GL}$$\end{document}. (shrink)

The traditional sporting games correspond to a set of signs full of meanings, which come to life through the motor behaviors of the players as they participate in its semiotic semantics. As a result of this exchange, interpersonal conflicts may emerge because of each person’s semiotic interpretation of the sociomotor dynamics of the game. This research aimed to analyze the comments of intense negative emotions that arise in conflicts of a praxical nature in a TSG, in its different parts, and (...) in the motor interventions of its protagonists. A total of 160 university students participated in a competitive sociomotor traditional sporting game of cooperation-opposition: the Marro. At the end of the practice, all answered the validated GES-II questionnaire. Subsequently, a content analysis of 480 comments was performed using ATLAS.ti 8.4 software. The conclusion of this work verifies the existence of different levels of meaning in the semiotic experience that originate interpersonal conflicts in traditional sporting games. Considering the multidimensional network of signs and meanings that emerge in any game will help to understand the meaning of the protagonists’ conflictive motor conducts. (shrink)

Background There is ongoing debate regarding how moral distress should be defined. Some scholars argue that the standard “narrow” definition overlooks morally relevant causes of distress, while others argue that broadening the definition of moral distress risks making measurement impractical. However, without measurement, the true extent of moral distress remains unknown. Research aims To explore the frequency and intensity of five sub-categorizations of moral distress, resources used, intention to leave, and turnover of nurses using a new survey instrument. Research design (...) A mixed methods embedded design included a longitudinal, descriptive investigator-developed electronic survey with open-ended questions sent twice a week for 6 weeks. Analysis included descriptive and comparative statistics and content analysis of narrative data. Participants Registered nurses from four hospitals within one large healthcare system in Midwest United States. Ethical considerations IRB approval was obtained. Results 246 participants completed the baseline survey, 80 participants provided data longitudinally for a minimum of 3 data points. At baseline, moral-conflict distress occurred with the highest frequency, followed by moral-constraint distress and moral-tension distress. By intensity, the most distressing sub-category was moral-tension distress, followed by “other” distress and moral-constraint distress. Longitudinally, when ranked by frequency, nurses experienced moral-conflict distress, moral-constraint distress, and moral-tension distress; by intensity, scores were highest for moral-tension distress, moral-uncertainty distress, and moral-constraint distress. Of available resources, participants spoke with colleagues and senior colleagues more frequently than using consultative services such as ethics consultation. Conclusions Nurses experienced distress related to a number of moral issues extending beyond the traditional understanding of moral distress (as occurring due to a constraint) suggesting that our understanding and measurement of moral distress should be broadened. Nurses frequently used peer support as their primary resource but it was only moderately helpful. Effective peer support for moral distress could be impactful. Future research on moral distress sub-categories is needed. (shrink)

Background In the ethical and clinical literature, cases of parents who want treatment for their child to be withdrawn against the views of the medical team have not received much attention. Yet resolution of such conflicts demands much effort of both the medical team and parents. Objective To discuss who can best protect a child9s interests, which often becomes a central issue, putting considerable pressure on mutual trust and partnership. Methods We describe the case of a 3-year-old boy with acquired (...) brain damage due to autoimmune-mediated encephalitis whose parents wanted to stop treatment. By comparing this case with relevant literature, we systematically explored the pros and cons of sharing end-of-life decisions with parents in cases where treatment is considered futile by parents and not (yet) by physicians. Conclusions Sharing end-of-life decisions with parents is a more important duty for physicians than protecting parents from guilt or doubt. Moreover, a request from parents on behalf of their child to discontinue treatment is, and should be, hard to over-rule in cases with significant prognostic uncertainty and/or in cases with divergent opinions within the medical team. (shrink)

Background: There is evidence that household point-of-use water treatment products can reduce the enormous burden of water-borne illness. Nevertheless, adoption among the global poor is very low, and little evidence exists on why. Methods: We gave 600 households in poor communities in Dhaka, Bangladesh randomly-ordered two-month free trials of four water treatment products: dilute liquid chlorine, sodium dichloroisocyanurate tablets, a combined flocculant-disinfectant powdered mixture, and a silver-coated ceramic siphon filter. Consumers also received education on the dangers of untreated drinking water. (...) We measured which products consumers used with self-reports, observation, and chlorine tests. We also measured drinking water's contamination with E. coli. Findings: Households reported highest usage of the filter, although no product had even 30% usage. E. coli concentrations in stored drinking water were generally lowest when households had Water Guard. Households that self-reported product usage had large reductions in E. coli concentrations with any product as compared to controls. Conclusion: Traditional arguments for the low adoption of POU products focus on affordability, consumers' lack of information about germs and the dangers of unsafe water, and specific products not meshing with a household's preferences. In this study we provided free trials, repeated informational messages explaining the dangers of untreated water, and a variety of product designs. The low usage of all products despite such efforts makes clear that important barriers exist beyond cost, information, and variation among these four product designs. Without a better understanding of the choices and aspirations of the target end-users, household-based water treatment is unlikely to reduce morbidity and mortality substantially in urban Bangladesh and similar populations. © 2011 Luoto et al. (shrink)

This article argues for a viable genealogical approach within critical theory that could settle the questions regarding normative viability of such critique. Then, the implications of the normative inheritance implied lead to the pairing of Jaeggi’s conceptualization and critique of forms of life with Rosa’s dual diagnosis of (late) modernity through the structural lenses of genealogy as tridimensional endeavor posed by Saar. In the end, the final argument is that a genealogical critique in these terms could be the next step (...) towards the revitalization of decolonial studies and a path for direct political action. (shrink)

It is a matter of fact that Europe is facing more and more crucial challenges regarding health and social care due to the demographic change and the current economic context. The recent COVID-19 pandemic has stressed this situation even further, thus highlighting the need for taking action. Active and Assisted Living technologies come as a viable approach to help facing these challenges, thanks to the high potential they have in enabling remote care and support. Broadly speaking, AAL can be referred (...) to as the use of innovative and advanced Information and Communication Technologies to create supportive, inclusive and empowering applications and environments that enable older, impaired or frail people to live independently and stay active longer in society. AAL capitalizes on the growing pervasiveness and effectiveness of sensing and computing facilities to supply the persons in need with smart assistance, by responding to their necessities of autonomy, independence, comfort, security and safety. The application scenarios addressed by AAL are complex, due to the inherent heterogeneity of the end-user population, their living arrangements, and their physical conditions or impairment. Despite aiming at diverse goals, AAL systems should share some common characteristics. They are designed to provide support in daily life in an invisible, unobtrusive and user-friendly manner. Moreover, they are conceived to be intelligent, to be able to learn and adapt to the requirements and requests of the assisted people, and to synchronise with their specific needs. Nevertheless, to ensure the uptake of AAL in society, potential users must be willing to use AAL applications and to integrate them in their daily environments and lives. In this respect, video- and audio-based AAL applications have several advantages, in terms of unobtrusiveness and information richness. Indeed, cameras and microphones are far less obtrusive with respect to the hindrance other wearable sensors may cause to one’s activities. In addition, a single camera placed in a room can record most of the activities performed in the room, thus replacing many other non-visual sensors. Currently, video-based applications are effective in recognising and monitoring the activities, the movements, and the overall conditions of the assisted individuals as well as to assess their vital parameters. Similarly, audio sensors have the potential to become one of the most important modalities for interaction with AAL systems, as they can have a large range of sensing, do not require physical presence at a particular location and are physically intangible. Moreover, relevant information about individuals’ activities and health status can derive from processing audio signals. Nevertheless, as the other side of the coin, cameras and microphones are often perceived as the most intrusive technologies from the viewpoint of the privacy of the monitored individuals. This is due to the richness of the information these technologies convey and the intimate setting where they may be deployed. Solutions able to ensure privacy preservation by context and by design, as well as to ensure high legal and ethical standards are in high demand. After the review of the current state of play and the discussion in GoodBrother, we may claim that the first solutions in this direction are starting to appear in the literature. A multidisciplinary debate among experts and stakeholders is paving the way towards AAL ensuring ergonomics, usability, acceptance and privacy preservation. The DIANA, PAAL, and VisuAAL projects are examples of this fresh approach. This report provides the reader with a review of the most recent advances in audio- and video-based monitoring technologies for AAL. It has been drafted as a collective effort of WG3 to supply an introduction to AAL, its evolution over time and its main functional and technological underpinnings. In this respect, the report contributes to the field with the outline of a new generation of ethical-aware AAL technologies and a proposal for a novel comprehensive taxonomy of AAL systems and applications. Moreover, the report allows non-technical readers to gather an overview of the main components of an AAL system and how these function and interact with the end-users. The report illustrates the state of the art of the most successful AAL applications and functions based on audio and video data, namely lifelogging and self-monitoring, remote monitoring of vital signs, emotional state recognition, food intake monitoring, activity and behaviour recognition, activity and personal assistance, gesture recognition, fall detection and prevention, mobility assessment and frailty recognition, and cognitive and motor rehabilitation. For these application scenarios, the report illustrates the state of play in terms of scientific advances, available products and research project. The open challenges are also highlighted. The report ends with an overview of the challenges, the hindrances and the opportunities posed by the uptake in real world settings of AAL technologies. In this respect, the report illustrates the current procedural and technological approaches to cope with acceptability, usability and trust in the AAL technology, by surveying strategies and approaches to co-design, to privacy preservation in video and audio data, to transparency and explainability in data processing, and to data transmission and communication. User acceptance and ethical considerations are also debated. Finally, the potentials coming from the silver economy are overviewed. (shrink)

Albert and Aquinas present beatitude in their Commentaries on the Sentences in strikingly different ways. While Albert’s theory of beatitude is an account purely based on theological conceptions and sources, Aquinas makes extensive use of philosophers such as Aristotle, Alexander of Aphrodisias, Avicenna, and Averroes. Recent scholarship has shown that Aquinas derived his philosophical argumentation for the beatific vision from Averroes’s conjunction theory. Yet the reasons for Albert’s and Aquinas’s disparate theories of beatitude have not yet been (...) investigated. In this paper, I shall show that Albert’s and Aquinas’s divergent conceptions of the relationship between the two sciences of philosophy and theology explain their disparate theories of beatitude. (shrink)

Albert and Aquinas present beatitude in their Commentaries on the Sentences in strikingly different ways. While Albert’s theory of beatitude is an account purely based on theological conceptions and sources, Aquinas makes extensive use of philosophers such as Aristotle, Alexander of Aphrodisias, Avicenna, and Averroes. Recent scholarship has shown that Aquinas derived his philosophical argumentation for the beatific vision from Averroes’s conjunction theory. Yet the reasons for Albert’s and Aquinas’s disparate theories of beatitude have not yet been (...) investigated. In this paper, I shall show that Albert’s and Aquinas’s divergent conceptions of the relationship between the two sciences of philosophy and theology explain their disparate theories of beatitude. (shrink)