Can the 1985 proposal for the unification of the Christian churches co-authored by Karl Rahner and Heinrich Fries in Unity of the Churches: An Actual Possibility still provide a realistic basis for the unification of the churches? This paper considers the proposal as an application of the ecumenical principle that no greater burden than necessary be imposed as a requisite for full ecclesial communion, and of the hierarchy of truths. It explores the basic presuppositions of the proposal in light of (...) Rahner’s reflections on the role of the creed within the context of theological pluralism. Finally, it considers the changing contours of global Christianity and the potential of Rahner’s thought to hold together in creative tension the at times competing currents of those who would locate the ultimate basis of unity in a maximalist theological orthodoxy and those who would find it in an almost exclusive emphasis on orthopraxy. (shrink)

Résumé Le discours récent de Walter Kasper suggère que les méthodes employées dans les dialogues oecuméniques ne sont plus adéquates. L’auteur propose une réflexion sur le dialogue oecuménique sur la base de la pensée de Kasper à propos de la méthode théologique. Elle maintient que dans l’avenir, les dialogues auront à démontrer de manière plus explicite le lien entre les accords et l’expression de la foi et la pratique ecclésiale. Se faisant, les accords favoriseront la conversion des Églises.Recent statements by (...) Walter Kasper suggest that the methods used in ecumenical dialogue are no longer adequate. To understand why, the author proposes a reflection on method and ecumenical dialogue, drawing upon Kasper’s reflection on theological method. She argues that in the future, ecumenical dialogue will have to attend in a more explicit manner to the link between consensus statements and both past and present expressions of faith and practice. In so doing, consensus statements will play a more critical role and promote the conversion of the Churches. (shrink)

This collection of original essays examines the relationship between women and religion in the history of political thought broadly conceived. This theme is a remarkably revealing lens through which to view the Western philosophical and poetical traditions that have culminated in secular and egalitarian modern society. The essays also give highly analytical accounts of the manifold and intricate relationships between religion, family and public life in the history of political thought, and the various ways in which these relationships have manifested (...) themselves in pagan, Jewish, Christian and post-Christian settings. (shrink)

In exploring skilled performance in Contact Improvisation, we utilize an enactive ethnographic methodology combined with an interdisciplinary approach to examine the question of how skill develops in CI. We suggest this involves the development of subtleties of awareness of intra- and interkinaesthetic attunement, and a capacity for interkinaesthetic negative capability—an embodied interpersonal ‘not knowing yet’—including an ease with being off balance and waiting for the next shift or movement to arise, literally a ‘playing with’ balance, falling, nearly falling, momentum and (...) gravity. We draw on insights from an interdisciplinary approach, including from a developmental perspective concerning the experience of dyadic interpersonal embodied skill development in both infancy and CI. Building on Ravn and Høffding’s definition of expertise in improvisation as an “oscillatory process of assuming and relinquishing agency” we propose that a key aspect of expertise in CI involves oscillation between levels and processes of interkinaesthetic sense of agency. These interdisciplinary insights also elucidate limitations within current conceptualisations of sense of agency, including the relationship between sense of agency and sense of control. (shrink)

Is it possible to apply a theoretical approach to ethics? The French philosopher Catherine Chalier addresses this question with an unusual combination of traditional ethics and continental philosophy. In a powerful argument for the necessity of moral reflection, Chalier counters the notion that morality can be derived from theoretical knowledge. Chalier analyzes the positions of two great moral philosophers, Kant and Levinas. While both are critical of an ethics founded on knowledge, their criticisms spring from distinctly different points of (...) view. Chalier reexamines their conclusions, pitting Levinas against (and with) Kant, to interrogate the very foundations of moral philosophy and moral imperatives. She provides a clear, systematic comparison of their positions on essential ideas such as free will, happiness, freedom, and evil. Although based on a close and elegant presentation of Kant and Levinas, Chalier's book serves as a context for the development of the author's own reflections on the question "What am I supposed to do?" and its continued importance for contemporary philosophy. (shrink)

The thirty-three essays in <I>Relativism: A Contemporary Anthology</I> grapple with one of the most intriguing, enduring, and far-reaching philosophical problems of our age. Relativism comes in many varieties. It is often defined as the belief that truth, goodness, or beauty is relative to some context or reference frame, and that no absolute standards can adjudicate between competing reference frames. Michael Krausz's anthology captures the significance and range of relativistic doctrines, rehearsing their virtues and vices and reflecting on a spectrum of (...) attitudes. Invoking diverse philosophical orientations, these doctrines concern conceptions of relativism in relation to facts and conceptual schemes, realism and objectivity, universalism and foundationalism, solidarity and rationality, pluralism and moral relativism, and feminism and poststructuralism. Featuring nine original essays, the volume also includes many classic articles, making it a standard resource for students, scholars, and researchers. <B>Table of Contents:</B> Foreword by Alan Ryan Preface Introduction Michael Krausz <B>Part I. Orienting Relativism</B> 1. Mapping Relativisms Michael Krausz 2. A Brief History of Relativism Maria Baghramian <B>Part II. Relativism, Truth, and Knowledge</B> 3. Subjective, Objective, and Conceptual Relativisms Maurice Mandelbaum 4. “Just the Facts, Ma’am!” Nelson Goodman 5. Relativism in Philosophy of Science Nancy Cartwright 6. The Truth About Relativism Joseph Margolis 7. Making Sense of Relative Truth John MacFarlane 8. On the Very Idea of a Conceptual Scheme Donald Davidson 9. Truth and Convention: On Davidson’s Refutation of Conceptual Relativism Hilary Putnam 10. Conceptual Schemes Simon Blackburn 11. Relativizing the Facts Paul A. Boghossian 12. Targets of Anti-Relativist Arguments Harvey Siegel 13. Realism and Relativism Akeel Bilgrami <B>Part III. Moral Relativism, Objectivity, and Reasons</B> 14. Moral Relativism Defended Gilbert Harman 15. The Truth in Relativism Bernard Williams 16. Pluralism and Ambivalence David B. Wong 17. The Relativity of Fact and the Objectivity of Value Catherine Z. Elgin 18. Senses of Moral Relativity David Wiggins 19. Ethical Relativism and the Problem of Incoherence David Lyons 20. Understanding Alien Morals Gopal Sreenivasan 21. Value: Realism and Objectivity Thomas Nagel 22. Intuitionism, Realism, Relativism, and Rhubarb Crispin Wright 23. Moral Relativism and Moral Realism Russ Schafer-Landau <B>Part IV. Relativism, Culture, and Understanding</B> 24. Anti Anti-Relativism Clifford Geertz 25. Solidarity or Objectivity? Richard Rorty 26. Relativism, Power, and Philosophy Alasdair MacIntyre 27. Internal Criticism and Indian Rationalist Traditions Martha C. Nussbaum and Amartya Sen 28. Phenomenological Rationality and the Overcoming of Relativism Jitendra N. Mohanty 29. Understanding and Ethnocentricity Charles Taylor 30. Relativism and Cross-Cultural Understanding Kwame Anthony Appiah 31. Relativism, Persons, and Practices Amélie Oksenberg Rorty 32. One What? Relativism and Poststructuralism David Couzens Hoy 33. Must a Feminist Be a Relativist After All? Lorraine Code List of Contributors Index. (shrink)

My fundamental argument is that a collective concept of race that presumes that there are, or were at some point in the past, discreet genetic groups that have tracked along continental lines and that those differences are the fundamental basis for our folk and political groupings of white, black, Asian, Native American, and Pacific Islander is a fallacy that will always lead to social inequality. Such an understanding of race currently reverberates through genetic science, but for social and political reasons, (...) and with good intentions. But if we want to move toward a social order that promotes social justice, all of us across the sciences, throughout health policy, and in the wider public will need to reconceptualize race in terms of legacies of discrimination. We will need to shift our focus from molecular differences to social and political differences, especially when we conduct gene‐environment analyses. (shrink)

Smoking is frequently presented as being particularly problematic when the smoker is a pregnant woman because of the potential harm to the future child. This premise is used to justify targeting pregnant women with a unique approach to smoking cessation including policies such as the routine testing of all pregnant women for carbon monoxide at every antenatal appointment. This paper examines the evidence that such policies are justified by the aim of harm prevention and argues that targeting pregnant women in (...) this way is likely to do more harm than good. Routine carbon monoxide testing is particularly problematic as it sends a message to pregnant women that they cannot be trusted either to truthfully answer questions as to whether or not they smoke, or to make decisions in the best interests of themselves and their future children in the way that non-pregnant individuals are. Further, if the aim is to reduce rates of prenatal harm, the evidence suggests that adopting a supportive and empowering approach to prenatal care is the most effective way to achieve this, something that the current policies aimed at pregnant women are in conflict with. (shrink)

The book is about three things. First, how Ancient thinkers perceived humans as like or unlike other animals; second about the justification for taking a humane attitude towards natural things; and third about how moral claims count as true, and how they can be discovered or acquired. Was Aristotle was right to see continuity in the psychological functions of animal and human souls? The question cannot be settled without taking a moral stance. As we can either focus on continuity or (...) on discontinuities, how should natural science draw the boundaries? Moral agents act and react in a world that they see under a certain description, and there is no value free science that can settle what is the correct description. This book asks us to think about where moral justification could come from, and suggests that the supposed ‘moral status’ of the object cannot provide the answer. For the moral status of the object is a product of our own imagination, and once we see that, we also see that there remains the question where we ought to have the will to see it. Furthermore, since the perception of moral truth involves the development of imagination and will, the means to attain it will be better served by engagement with poetry and literature than with enquiries that seek to exclude the engagement of the imagination, or any appeal to the beauty of nature or the love of one's fellow creatures. (shrink)

Natural forms, often characterized by irregularity and roughness, have a unique complexity that exhibit self-similarity across different spatial scales or levels of magnification. Our visual system is remarkably efficient in the processing of natural scenes and tuned to the multi-scale, fractal-like properties they possess. The fractal-like scaling characteristics are ubiquitous in many physical and biological domains, with recent research also highlighting their importance in aesthetic perception, particularly in the visual and, to some extent, auditory modalities. Given the multitude of fractal-like (...) scaling manifestations, we explore potential commonalities in the way they might affect aesthetic preference within and across different physical and sensory domains. We use a range of visual and tactile stimuli to explore the equivalence of fractal-scaling effects on aesthetic preferences within and across visual and tactile modalities. Our results suggest that, despite some superficial differences, the underlying dimensional structure mediating the preference across the two domains is remarkably similar. The qualitative nature of this dimensional structure as well as suggestions for future research are discussed. (shrink)

Contemporary scholars have begun to document the extensive influence of the sixth to seventh century Buddhist philosopher Dharmakīrti on Pratyabhijñā Śaiva thought. Utpaladeva and Abhinavagupta’s adaptation of Dharmakīrti’s apoha theory provides a striking instance of the creative ways in which these Śaivas use Dharmakīrti’s ideas to argue for positions that Dharmakīrti would emphatically reject. Both Dharmakīrti and these Śaivas emphasize that the formation of a concept involves both objective and subjective factors. Working within a certain perceptual environment, factors such as (...) a subject’s desires, habits, and conditioning lead him or her to form a concept based on excluding what is not relevant to the accomplishment of his or her goal. However, the two differ in their account of the relationship between concepts and subject/object duality itself. While Dharmakīrti claims that the division of a cognition into subject, object, and awareness is nonconceptual, the subtly shifted definition of a concept that these Śaivas employ allows them to claim that the error of subject/object duality is actually conceptual. This seemingly small difference in their respective evaluations of the nature of subject/object error has surprisingly large consequences. If, as these Śaivas claim, any awareness involving a duality is conceptual, then subject and object are concepts. Moreover, if the formation of a concept requires desire, then some kind of desire must be inherent to consciousness itself before the formation of a limited subject/object pair. In short, ultimate consciousness must be Śiva, who possesses the freedom to will any and all possible realities. (shrink)

Exemplification is the relation of an example to whatever it is an example of. Goodman maintains that exemplification is a symptom of the aesthetic: although not a necessary condition, it is an indicator that symbol is functioning aesthetically. I argue that exemplification is as important in science as it is in art. It is the vehicle by which experiments make aspects of nature manifest. I suggest that the difference between exemplars in the arts and the sciences lies in the way (...) they exemplify. Density and repleteness are characteristic of aesthetic exemplars but not of scientific ones. (shrink)

Consumer surveys repeatedly suggest that corporate social responsibility and products’ social, environmental, or ethical attributes enhance consumers’ purchase intentions. The realization that CSR still has only a minor impact on consumers’ actual purchase decisions thus represents a puzzling paradox. Whereas prior literature on consumer decision making provides valuable insights into the factors that impede or facilitate consumers’ socially responsible consumption decisions, such elements may be only the tip of the iceberg. To gain a fuller understanding of the CSR–consumer paradox, this (...) study proposes investigating the phenomenon through additional theoretical lenses, namely, a clinical psychology, an evolutionary psychology/biology, a social psychology, and an economic and economic psychology lens. From these four unique theoretical lenses, the authors derive an integrative framework and draw several propositions for further research. (shrink)

Pythagoreans dominated the political scene in southern Italy for nearly a century in the late 6th to 5th century BC. What was the secret of their political success and can their political, social and economic policies be assessed in the customary terms with which historians try to analyse ancient societies? I argue that they cannot, and that the Pythagorean approach to politics was sui generis, and successful because it was based on ideas, not force or popular demagogy.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:BOOK REVIEWS Systematic Theology: Roman Catholic Perspectives. Edited by FRANCIS SCHUSSLER FIORENZA and JOHN P. GALVIN. Minneapolis: Fortress, 1991. Vol. 1: Pp. xv+ 336. Vol. 2: Pp. xv+ 384. $21.95 each; $39.95 set. Not too long ago a fellow Dominican who wanted to do some personal updating and retooling in theology asked me to recommend to him some hooks in Catholic systematics which would show him the lay of (...) the land in contemporary theology. I was happy to be able to apprise him of the two volumes under review. Most of the essayists do not explore new territory or establish new beachheads (nor was this their task) hut instead skillfully sketch the revised maps of terra cognita and graciously occupy already conquered lands, sometimes repeating their own creative work published elsewhere. Without doubt the majority of the Catholic theological guild who belong to the College Theology Society or the Catholic Theological Society of America would recognize in the overall thrust and import of these articles a broad harmony with the main themes and general methodology of contemporary Catholic theology, while they would also acknowledge in the articles' various emphases and organizational techniques the legitimate pluralistic expressions of that theology. In e:ffect, the authors offer, in a balanced and evenhanded way, albeit from their own individual perspectives (hence the subtitle), a rich distillation and compact presentation of the state of contemporary Catholic theology as it is probably taught by the majority of professors in North America. The editors see the volumes as opening up the diverse theological perspectives within Roman Catholic systematic theology, hut as the list of authors reveals, these perspectives actually cluster within the moderate center-to-left-of-center spectrum of contemporary Catholic theology : Systematic Theology: Tasks and Methods (Fiorenza); Faith and Revelation (Avery Dulles) ; Approaching the Christian Understanding.of God (David Tracy) ; The Trinitarian Mystery of God (Catherine Mowry LaCugna); Creation (Anne M. Clifford); Jesus Christ (Galvin); Church (Michael A. Fahey); Sin and Grace (Roger Haight); Saints and Mary (Elizabeth A. Johnson) ; Sacraments in General, Baptism and Confirmation, Penance, Anointing of the Sick (Regis A. Duffy); Eucharist, Order (David N. Power); Marriage (Fiorenza); Eschatology (Monika K. Hellwig). The traditional topics in the traditional order reveal that the volumes 305 306 BOOK REVIEWS are meant to serve as a summary and survey of the major courses of· fered within most Master of Arts and Master of Divinity programs. The intended audience is the beginning student, the student who needs to review the major themes of systematic theology, and the student who needs some updating in contemporary theology. In my opinion, the best articles for the intended audience and purpose are those hy Fior· enza (Systematic Theology), Dulles, Galvin, Haight and Johnson. The editors asked the authors to bear in mind five specific goals: to root their work in Roman Catholic theology; to help recover, in Rahner 's words, " the forgotten truths " of Catholicism, by displaying how historical studies have uncovered heretofore neglected traditions; to make use of current hermeneutical theories and philosophical reflections ; to take into account the ecumenical dimension of theology, while also clarifying the distinctive Roman Catholic position on various topics; and to he attentive to the current stress on praxis. In general, whenever their topic required it, the authors have fulfilled these goals. What has resulted is a combined work deeply grounded in historical understanding which is ecumenically broad while also distinctively Roman Catholic. The articles have tended to retrieve Catholicism's forgotten truths from the church's patristic era, since the dominant tradition until Vatican II was the one defined by the high Middle Ages and Trent. Indicative of this trend is the fact that, among the brief annotated bibliographies appended to each essay, only those by Dulles and Haight contain a work by Thomas Aquinas-and in Dulles's opinion the treatment of faith in the Summa theologiae is " stilil the most authoritative and incisive Catholic treatise on faith" (I :128). Never· theless, the authors are fair in giving medieval theology its rightful place within the Catholic tradition. Instead of offering even the briefest summary of the seventeen individual essays, since the aui:hors' basic introductory treatment of their topics... (shrink)

This article presents a study of corporate-stakeholder relationships using an empirical technique called Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) to assess company "best practices" with respect to five primary stakeholders at an industry level of analysis. Five key stakeholder domains are considered: community relations, employee relations, environment, customer (product category), and stockholders (financial performance). These data reflect the relationships between companies and these five primary stakeholders; these relationships are considered to be important elements of corporate social performance. About 15% of companies, on (...) average, are found to be operating at the multidimensional "best practices frontier" that DEA establishes. Differences in treatment of stakeholders within industries and between industries are observed. (shrink)

In its governance activities for genetic resources, the international community has adopted various approaches to their ownership, including: free access; common heritage of mankind; intellectual property rights; and state sovereign rights. They have also created systems which combine elements of these approaches. While governance of plant and animal genetic resources is well-established internationally, there has not yet been a clear approach selected for human genetic resources. Based on assessment of the goals which international governance of human genetic resources ought to (...) serve, and the implications for how they will be accessed and utilised, it is argued that common heritage of mankind will be the most appropriate approach to adopt to their ownership/control. It does this with the aim of stimulating discussion in this area and providing a starting point for deeper consideration of how a common heritage of mankind, or similar, regime for human genetic resources would function and be implemented. (shrink)

Truth and Truthfulness: an Essay in Genealogy. By Bernard Williams.

Cognitive advancement is not always a matter of acquiring new information. It often consists in reconfiguration--in reorganizing a domain so that hitherto overlooked or underemphasized features, patterns, opportunities, and resources come to light. Several modes of reconfiguration prominent in the arts--metaphor, fiction, exemplification, and perspective--play important roles in science as well. They do not perform the same roles as literal, descriptive, perspectiveless scientific truths. But to understand how science advances understanding, we need to appreciate the ineliminable cognitive contributions of non-literal, (...) non-descriptive symbols. (shrink)

The principle that epistemic justification is necessarily transmitted to all the known logical consequences of a justified belief continues to attract critical attention. That attention is not misplaced. If the Transmission Principle is valid, anyone who thinks that a given belief is justified must defend the view that every known consequence of the belief is also justification of the conclusion in an obviously valid argument. Once created, the gap is hard to fill, whatever the circumstances. Reflection principle is modified, the (...) possibility of deductive justification is threatened. If some known consequence fails to be justified, the failure may extend to every known consequence. To reject Transmission is to insert a logical gap between the justification of a premise and the justification of the conclusion in an obviously valid argument. Once created, the gap is hard to fill, whatever the circumstances. Reflection on the Transmission Principle therefore usefully brings us face to face with the following dilemma: accept the principle and hand Cartesian scepticism a powerful weapon, or modify the principle and risk undermining deductive justification. (shrink)

In this paper I examine the meaning of physical touch as it occurs in the nurse–patient interaction. There are two aspects of the nurse–patient relationship that are found in most nurse–patient interactions which together have profound implications for nurses as practitioners and as individual human persons. The first is the clinical intimacy of the nurse–patient relationship where nurses touch, rub, smooth, clean, dress and otherwise physically interact with patients. The other is the existential crisis, the possibility of loss, suffering and (...) death that lurks at the horizon of most, if not all, healthcare encounters. Edmund Husserl, Merleau‐Ponty and more recently Robert Sokolowski argue that tactile sensations and resultant perceptions are fundamental to all sensory perception. Further, they argue that tactile sensation is fundamental for the ongoing constitution of ‘my’ self as a person and for the development and exercise of human intersubjectivity. If tactile interaction is crucial to the development of our very selves as persons and a significant aspect of our interaction with patients includes direct or observed tactile sensations and if further these sensations occur around the context of existential crises for our patients, then nurse's very selves as persons are being challenged by these interactions. Here, then I examine the philosophical argument for the role of tactile sensations in our human development and briefly look at contemporary neurophysiologic research that supports this philosophical account. I then suggest ways such physical intimacy can lead to a strengthening or weakening of the person of the nurse and the nursing interaction and end with some thoughts about ways to support nurses in these activities. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Making Fetal PersonsFetal Homicide, Ultrasound, and the Normative Significance of BirthCatherine MillsIn early 2012, the then attorney general of Western Australia, Christian Porter, announced plans to introduce fetal homicide laws that would “create a new offence of causing death or grievous bodily harm to an unborn child through an unlawful assault on its mother” (Porter 2012). While well established in the United States, fetal homicide laws are only beginning (...) to take shape in Australia.1 The proposed law would mean that if an offender assaulted a woman and thereby caused the death of the fetus she was gestating, the courts would be required to impose a sentence of life imprisonment in all but exceptional circumstances—equivalent to the penalty for murder. While the proposed fetal homicide law is said to give appropriate recognition to the grief and suffering of the woman involved—and while it may help to do that—this is certainly not all it would do.2 For it would also give existence to a new legal subject in Western Australia, that is, the “unborn child”: currently, under Western Australian law a child is only legally capable of being murdered when already external to the mother’s body. Thus, the woman’s body constitutes a kind of “natural” basis for a legal boundary—one that the proposed law transgresses and perhaps obliterates, at the same time as it purports to recognize the trauma associated with the transgression and obliteration of that boundary by another.Fetal homicide laws thus traverse difficult territory in the maternal-fetal relationship, in which actions against one person come to constitute a crime against another. Significantly, these laws are typically formulated to provide legal protection for pregnant women against the intrusions of a third party against [End Page 88] their person. However, it may be that they can also be interpreted more generally to provide legal protection for the fetus against others. So construed, such laws open up a danger for pregnant women themselves, insofar as their actions threaten the life and well-being of the fetus they carry. One recent example of the exploitation of this ambiguity in fetal homicide laws is the case of Bei Bei Shuai, a young woman of Chinese descent who faced felony charges of murder in Indiana after a failed suicide attempt resulted in the death of the thirty three week old fetus she was gestating (Pilkington 2011, 2012). If a woman’s actions against herself, leading to the death of her fetus, can be legally construed as murder, where does this leave the law on abortion? The Western Australian attorney general insisted that the proposed law would not affect laws on abortion in any way, since it would not encroach on a woman’s right to make decisions about her pregnancy (Porter 2012). But a woman’s decisional rights in regards to her pregnancy are at best an unstable dividing line; at worst, it is precisely her decision to terminate a pregnancy—that is, to intentionally bring about the death of the fetus—that substantiates a murder charge. Indeed, at the crux of the Shuai case was her suicide note, in which she apparently stated her intent to kill her fetus.This ambiguity between abortion and fetal homicide has been the topic of much discussion in legal literature, and it raises significant questions that bear further investigation. For one, it raises in a particularly pointed way questions about the moral and legal significance of birth, and the bearing it has on the status of the fetus. Birth has historically been significant in establishing personhood, but this reliance on birth is challenged by the shift to treating the fetus as a person for the purposes of some areas of the law. The further question then arises of whether that status must remain consistent across domains of the law, such as those addressed to the death of a fetus at the hands of a third party, and those on abortion. While these questions have been well canvassed in legal discussions, we might also consider the impact that technologies such as obstetric ultrasound have on notions of fetal life and personhood. Advances in medical technologies appear... (shrink)

This article explores a problem of the articulation of an adequate account of the human person in both philosophical and nursing theory. It follows the lead of philosopher Norris Clarke in suggesting that there has been a significant division in the way philosophers have looked at the human person and goes on to suggest that this division is paralleled in prominent nursing theories. The paper reviews and argues for the synthesis of two contemporary philosophic theories of the person that arise (...) from the traditional philosophical division, and uses Clarke's account to show the ontological need for such a synthesis if we are to have a more adequate account of the human person. Next, accounts of the person identified in a number of the prominent theories of nursing are briefly reviewed revealing the vast complexity of the person encountered in nursing practice. It is suggested that each new theory of nursing is founded, at least in part, on the need to account for attributes of the person missing from prior nursing theories. It will be seen that the synthesized account of the person argued for here more adequately accounts for the various attributes identified in these nursing accounts and it is hoped that this synthesized account will serve as a somewhat more complete basis for a continued exploration of the persons encountered in nursing practice in its many and varied manifestations. (shrink)

Introduction We search for origins the way some cats chase their tails. After brief bursts of frenetic spinning, we think we have a grasp of our topic, ...

This paper reports on a survey of auditors in New Zealand which investigates the nature of the moral judgements they make on a series of problems with ethical dimensions. The framework adopted for this purpose is developed from earlier work which identifies a range of ethical principles which may be involved in business ethical decision‐making. Auditors responded to a questionnaire which posed, firstly, several questions about the context of their ethical decision‐making, and secondly, a series of vignettes elaborating problematical dilemmas (...) which required the selection of one of four possible responses. Data was analysed to determine whether or not it confirmed previous findings in suggesting a predominant ethical orientation for auditors. The results were correlated with demographic variables in order to determine whether or not age, gender, position in firm and size of employee firm were significantly correlated to ethical response. The survey results, on the whole, confirmed the ethical orientation suggested by previous findings, but there were some unexpected results in three out of the ten vignettes examined. Although some correlations were found between the demographic variables and subject responses, the evidence of this survey does not strongly suggest a consistent significant correlation. (shrink)

A collection of essays covering a range of topics related to Leibniz. The monads and the pre-established harmony make numerous appearances, and so do Leibniz's discussions of causality, relations, individuation, nature, freedom, consciousness, and divinity. In addition to sections on Leibniz's physics and his theory of substance, a number of papers are included on his philosophy of mind that draw heavily on the New Essays, along with several articles on metaphysical and theological issues, and a section on Leibniz's relationships with (...) his contemporaries and predecessors. (shrink)

Leibniz entertained the idea that, as a set of “striving possibles” competes for existence, the largest and most perfect world comes into being. The paper proposes 8 criteria for a Leibniz-world. It argues that a) there is no algorithm e.g., one involving pairwise compossibility-testing that can produce even possible Leibniz-worlds; b) individual substances presuppose completed worlds; c) the uniqueness of the actual world is a matter of theological preference, not an outcome of the assembly-process; and d) Goedel’s theorem implies that (...) there can be no algorithm for producing optimal worlds, assuming an optimal world contains truth-discerning creatures, though this is not to say that such worlds cannot arise naturally. (shrink)

ABSTRACT This article discusses Nietzsche's interpretation of Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection and the basis for his rejection of the major elements of Darwin's overall scheme on observational grounds. Nietzsche's further opposition to the attempt of Darwin and many of his followers to reconcile the “struggle for existence” with Christian ethics is the subject of the second half of the essay.

Cognitive scientists routinely distinguish between controlled and automatic mental processes. Through learning, practice, and exposure, controlled processes can become automatic; however, whether automatic processes can become deautomatized – recuperated under the purview of control – remains unclear. Here we show that a suggestion derails a deeply ingrained process involving involuntary audiovisual integration. We compared the performance of highly versus less hypnotically suggestible individuals in a classic McGurk paradigm – a perceptual illusion task demonstrating the influence of visual facial movements on (...) auditory speech percepts. Following a posthypnotic suggestion to prioritize auditory input, HSIs but not LSIs manifested fewer illusory auditory perceptions and correctly identified more auditory percepts. Our findings demonstrate that a suggestion deautomatized a ballistic audiovisual process in HSIs. In addition to guiding our knowledge regarding theories and mechanisms of automaticity, the present findings pave the road to a more scientific understanding of top-down effects and multisensory integration. (shrink)