In July 2011, the ACGME implemented new rules that limit interns to 16 hours of work in a row, but continue to allow 2nd-year and higher resident physicians to work for up to 28 consecutive hours. Whether the ACGME's 2011 work hour limits went too far or did not go far enough has been hotly debated. In this article, we do not seek to re-open the debate about whether these standards get matters exactly right. Instead, we wish to address the (...) issue of effective enforcement. That is, now that new work hour limits have been established, and given that the ACGME has been unable to enforce work hour limits effectively on its own, what is the best way to make sure the new limits are followed in order to reduce harm to residents, patients, and others due to sleep-deprived residents? We focus on three possible national approaches to the problem, one rooted in funding, one rooted in disclosure, and one rooted in tort law. (shrink)

Over the past decade, a series of studies have found that physicians-in-training who work extended shifts are at increased risk of experiencing motor vehicle crashes, needlestick injuries, and medical errors. In response to public concerns and a request from Congress, the Institute of Medicine conducted an inquiry into the issue and concluded in 2009 that resident physicians should not work for more than 16 consecutive hours without sleep. They further recommended that the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services and the (...) Joint Commission work with the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education to ensure effective enforcement of new work hour standards.The IOM's concerns with enforcement stem from well-documented non-compliance with the ACGME's 2003 work hour rules, and the ACGME's history of non-enforcement. In a nationwide cohort study, 84% of interns were found to violate the ACGME's 2003 standards in the year following their introduction. (shrink)

Ontology has been traditionally guided by sophia, a form of knowledge directed toward that which is eternal, permanent, necessary. This tradition finds an important early expression in the philosophical ontology of Aristotle. Yet in the Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle's intense concern to do justice to the world of finite contingency leads him to develop a mode of knowledge, phronsis, that implicitly challenges the hegemony of sophia and the economy of values on which it depends. Following in the tradition of the early (...) Heidegger's recognition of the ontological significance of Aristotle's Ethics and of Gadamer's appropriation of phronsis for hermeneutics, this article argues that an ontology guided by phronsis is preferable to one governed by sophia. Specifically, it suggests that by taking sophia as its paradigm, traditional philosophical ontology has historically been determined by a kind of knowledge that is incapable of critically considering the concrete historico-ethico-political conditions of its own deployment. This critique of sophia is accomplished by uncovering the economy of values that led Aristotle to privilege sophia over phronsis. It is intended to open up the possibility of developing an ontology of finite contingency based on phronsis. Such an ontology, because it is guided by and must remain responsible to the concrete individual with which it is engaged, would be ethical at its very core. (shrink)

A novel rereading of the relationship between ethics and ontology in Aristotle.

(2008). The Framework of Essences in Spinoza's Ethics. British Journal for the History of Philosophy: Vol. 16, No. 3, pp. 489-509. doi: 10.1080/09608780802200489.

In Plato’s Protagoras Alcibiades plays the role of Hermes, the ‘ambassador god,’ who helps lead Socrates’ conversation with Protagoras through a crisis of dialogue that threatens to destroy the community of education established by the dialogue itself. By tracing the moments when Alcibiades intervenes in the conversation, we are led to an understanding of Socratic politics as always concerned with the course of the life of an individual and the proper time in which it might be turned toward the question (...) of justice and the good. (shrink)

This book articulates the nature of truth as a cooperative activity between human beings and the natural world that is rooted in our endeavors to do justice to the nature of things.

Scholars often assume that Aristotle uses the terms morphē and eidos interchangeably. Translators of Aristotle's works rarely feel the need to carry the distinctionbetween these two Greek terms over into English. This article challenges the orthodox view that morphē and eidos are synonymous. Careful analysis of texts fromthe Categories, Physics, and Metaphysics in which these terms appear in close proximity reveals a fundamental tension of Aristotle's thinking concerning the being of natural beings. Morphē designates the form as inseparable from the (...) matter in which it inheres, while eidos, because it is more easily separated from matter, is the vocabulary used to determine form as the ontological principle of the composite individual. The tension between morphē and eidos—between form as irreducibly immanent and yet somehow separate—is then shown to animate Aristotle's phenomenological approach to the being of natural beings. This approach is most clearly enacted in Aristotle's biology, a consideration of which concludes the essay. (shrink)

The mad scientist stories of fiction and film are exercises in antirationalism, particularly its Gothic horror variant. As such, they convey the argument that rationalist secular science is dangerous, and their principal device for doing so is to invest the evil of science in the personality of the scientist. To understand this cultural critique of science, it is necessary to understand how the symbols of the scientist's personality are manipulated. This article argues that mad scientists become increasingly amoral as nineteenth-century (...) texts are adapted to twentieth-century films. The consequence is that this cultural critique is becoming even more severe, due to external reasons independent of the glories or the crimes of real scientists. (shrink)

The young Spinoza and the mature Leibniz both characterize the soul as a self-moving spiritual automaton. Though it is unclear if Leibniz’s use of the term was suggested to him from his reading of Spinoza, Leibniz was aware of its presence in Spinoza’s Treatise on the Emendation of the Intellect. Considering Leibniz’s staunch opposition to Spinozism, the question arises as to why he was willing to adopt this term. I propose an answer to this question by comparing the spiritual automaton (...) in both philosophers. For Spinoza, the soul acts as a spiritual automaton when it overcomes imaginative ideas and produces true ideas. For Leibniz, the soul acts as a spiritual automaton when it spontaneously produces its perceptions according to the universal harmony preestablished by God. Thus, for Leibniz contra Spinoza, the spiritual automaton is a means to render intelligible a providential order in which everything happens for the best. (shrink)

Leibniz standardly associates “mechanism” with extended material bodies and their aggregates. In this paper, I identify and analyze a further distinct sense of “mechanism” in Leibniz that extends, by analogy, beyond the domain of material bodies and applies to the operations of immaterial substances such as the monads that serve, for Leibniz, as the metaphysical foundations of physical reality. I argue that in this sense, Leibniz understands “mechanism” as an intelligible process that is capable of providing a sufficient reason for (...) a series of changes. I then apply these findings to enrich our understanding of Leibniz’s well-known mill argument in Monadology ¶17: although material machines and mechanisms cannot produce perceptions, the perceptual activity of immaterial monads is to be understood as “mechanical” according to this analogical sense. (shrink)

Despite the emphasis on moral intuition in the research literature, little attention has been given to the ways in which moral intuition can be educated within management settings (Dane & Pratt 2007). In this paper, I discuss an experiential learning approach that links Robin Hogarth’s (2001, 2008) work on the learning of intuition with Mary Gentile’s (2010) educational program on values-based leadership, Giving Voice To Values (GVV). Building on Hogarth’s proposal that intuitions are primarily acquired and thus shaped by our (...) experiences, GVV offers a pedagogical framework for reflective, experiential learning. Specific attention is given to the themes of learning environments, how these structures shape intuitions, and how students can identify these structures using the GVV emphasis on examination of past experiences. (shrink)

Using a subliminal priming lexical decision task, the present research investigated whether individuals who show negative implicit evaluations of an ex-partner immediately after a break-up show superior post-break-up emotional adjustment. As expected, individuals whose reaction times indicated negative implicit evaluations of their ex-partner showed reduced depressive affect immediately after the break-up. Individuals who did not initiate their break-up demonstrated less negative implicit evaluations of their ex-partners as well as more depressive affect. Finally, increased negative implicit evaluations of ex-partners over a (...) one-month period were associated with corresponding improvements in adjustment. The findings demonstrate a critical role for implicit evaluations in post-break-up adjustment. (shrink)

I defend a new reading of Spinoza's account of causation that reconciles the strengths of the mechanist and formal cause interpretations by locating instances of nature's fixed and unchanging laws inside individual natures; natures are efficacious because that's where the laws are. God's necessity, for instance, follows from certain logical principles contained within God's nature. Causes between finite particulars likewise stem entirely from finite natures. They do so, I argue, because finite instances of nature's fixed and unchanging laws are inscribed (...) within those natures. In each of these instances, effects follow from natures on account of laws contained within them. (shrink)

At least since the appearance of Aristotle's Politics, Plato's Republic has been read as arguing for a politics of unity in which difference is understood as a threat to the polis. By focusing on the musical imagery of the Republic, and specifically on its compositional organization around three 'preludes', this essay seeks an understanding of Socratic politics that moves beyond the hypothesis of unity. In the first 'prelude', Thrasymachus and his insistence that justice is the self-interest of the stronger threatens (...) to subject the harmony of the community to the tyrannical whims of the individual. In the second, the perfected justice of Adeimantus's city threatens to destroy the erotic rhythm of difference that is the very condition for the possibility of the polis. It is only in the song of dialectic, which itself is called a 'prelude', that the tension between the rhythm of plurality and the rational homophony of unity is dynamically tuned in such a way that both the anarchic politics of self-interest and the totalitarian politics of rationalized oppression are equally muted. This conception of politics is embodied in the relationship that emerges between Glaucon and Socrates. Ultimately, the true political community is established here, between rational, erotic individuals seeking justice in concrete, living dialogue. (shrink)

At least since the appearance of Aristotle’s Politics, Plato’s Republic has been read as arguing for a politics of unity in which difference is understood as a threat to the polis. By focusing on the musical imagery of the Republic, and specifically on its compositional organization around three ‘preludes’, this essay seeks an understanding of Socratic politics that moves beyond the hypothesis of unity. In the first ‘prelude’, Thrasymachus and his insistence that justice is the self-interest of the stronger threatens (...) to subject the harmony of the community to the tyrannical whims of the individual. In the second, the perfected justice of Adeimantus’s city threatens to destroy the erotic rhythm of difference that is the very condition for the possibility of the polis. It is only in the song of dialectic, which itself is called a ‘prelude’, that the tension between the rhythm of plurality and the rational homophony of unity is dynamically tuned in such a way that both the anarchic politics of self-interest and the totalitarian politics of rationalized oppression are equally muted. This conception of politics is embodied in the relationship that emerges between Glaucon and Socrates. Ultimately, the true political community is established here, between rational, erotic individuals seeking justice in concrete, living dialogue. (shrink)

This paper is an initial attempt to develop a dynamic conception of being which is not anarchic. It does this by returning to Aristotle in order to begin the process of reinterpreting the meaning of ousia, the concept according to which western ontology has been determined. Such a reinterpretation opens up the possibility of understanding the dynamic nature of ontological identity and the principles according to which this identity is established. The development of the notions of energeia, dynamis and entelecheia (...) in the middle books of Aristotle’s Metaphysics will be discussed in order to suggest that there is a dynamic ontological framework at work in Aristotle’s later writing. This framework lends insight into the dynamic structure of being itself, a structure which does justice as much to the concern for continuity through change as it does to the moment of difference. The name for this conception of identity which affirms both continuity and novelty is "legacy." This paper attempts to apprehend the meaning of being as legacy. (shrink)

Scholars often assume that Aristotle uses the terms morphē and eidos interchangeably. Translators of Aristotle's works rarely feel the need to carry the distinctionbetween these two Greek terms over into English. This article challenges the orthodox view that morphē and eidos are synonymous. Careful analysis of texts fromthe Categories, Physics, and Metaphysics in which these terms appear in close proximity reveals a fundamental tension of Aristotle's thinking concerning the being of natural beings. Morphē designates the form as inseparable from the (...) matter in which it inheres, while eidos, because it is more easily separated from matter, is the vocabulary used to determine form as the ontological principle of the composite individual. The tension between morphē and eidos—between form as irreducibly immanent and yet somehow separate—is then shown to animate Aristotle's phenomenological approach to the being of natural beings. This approach is most clearly enacted in Aristotle's biology, a consideration of which concludes the essay. (shrink)

This essay suggests the possibility of conceiving the transcendental synthesis of imagination in Kant's Critique of Pure Reason as the understanding at work on sensibility by developing an active conception of identity according to which the distinction between the imagination and the understanding is merely nominal. Aristotle's philosophy is shown both to provide such a conception of identity and to be tacitly at work in Kant's thinking. Finally, the essay traces this position into the discussion of aesthetic judgment in the (...) Critique of Judgment. (shrink)

. Human capabilities theory has emerged as an important framework for measuring whether various social systems promote human flourishing. The premise of this theory is that human beings share some nearly universal capabilities; what makes a human life fulfilling is the opportunity to exercise these capabilities. This essay proposes that the use of human capabilities theory can be expanded to assess whether a company has organized the work environment in such a way that allows workers to develop a variety of (...) human capabilities. This mode of analysis is put forward as a complement to the work of Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, who has suggested that the key to promoting human well-being in the workplace is the maximization of flow experiences. (shrink)

Derk Pereboom has posed an empirical objection to agent-causal libertarianism: The best empirically confirmed scientific theories feature physical laws predicting no long-run deviations from fixed conditional frequencies that govern events. If agent-causal libertarianism were true, however, then it would be virtually certain, absent ‘wild coincidences’, that such long-run deviations would occur. So, current empirical evidence makes agent-causal libertarianism unlikely. This paper formulates Pereboom’s ‘Problem of Wild Coincidences’ as a five-step argument and considers two recent responses. Then, it offers a different (...) response: The Problem of Wild Coincidences does not show that current empirical evidence makes agent-causal libertarianism unlikely, even if all events are governed by physical laws featuring fixed long-run conditional frequencies and even if agents can ‘overrule’ normal physical laws. (shrink)

A $\Pi _{1}^{0}$ class is the set of paths through a computable tree. Given classes P and Q, P is Medvedev reducible to Q, P ≤M Q, if there is a computably continuous functional mapping Q into P. We look at the lattice formed by $\Pi _{1}^{0}$ subclasses of 2ω under this reduction. It is known that the degree of a splitting class of c.e. sets is non-branching. We further characterize non-branching degrees, providing two additional properties which guarantee non-branching: inseparable (...) and hyperinseparable. Our main result is to show that non-branching iff inseparable if hyperinseparable if homogeneous and that all unstated implications do not hold. We also show that inseparable and not hyperinseparable degrees are downward dense. (shrink)

In March 2004, the U.K. government announced its intention to grant limited authorization for the growing of commercial genetically modified (GM) crops. This article reviews the potential liabilities that may arise from GM cropping, for environmental damage and for economic losses claimed by non-GM producers. It considers the application of the European Community (EC) Environmental Liability Directive of 2004 to genetically modified organisms (GMO) releases, and the proposed statutory scheme for the coexistence of GM and non-GM agriculture in England and (...) Wales. It also examines the application of the common law of nuisance to the release of GMOs and considers the relevant case law of the English courts. Although there will be a residual role for liability at common law following the establishment of a statutory coexistence scheme, the article highlights a number of formidable problems facing attempts to establish claims for liability arising from GMO releases at common law. (shrink)

This paper analyzes Leibniz’s use of analogies in both natural philosophical and metaphysical contexts. Through an examination of Leibniz’s notes on scientific methodology, I show that Leibniz explicitly recognizes the utility of analogies as heuristic tools that aid us in conceiving unfamiliar theoretical domains. I further argue that Leibniz uses the notion of a self-moving machine or automaton to help capture the activities of the immaterial soul. My account helps resist the conventional image of Leibniz as an arch-rationalist unconcerned with (...) methods of empirical discovery and contributes to ongoing discussions on the nature of immaterial substance and mind in Leibniz. (shrink)

As Sorcerer Supreme, Doctor Stephen Strange has had several occasions in which he had to deal with the concept of a personal God. Despite his lack of traditional faith, there are important instances in which Doctor Strange acknowledges the Creator God using expressions drawn from the Western monotheistic traditions. In his Metaphysics, the ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle presents the idea of God, or more specifically a god among the gods, who is responsible for the origin and operation of the whole (...) universe. A more helpful image of God can be found in the writing of Saint Thomas Aquinas, who formed a theological synthesis of Aristotelian philosophy and Christian revelation. According to Aquinas, the all‐good Creator of the universe is the author of the moral law. In the Chronicles of Narnia, author and English professor C. S. Lewis refers to the eternal law of God as the “deep magic” that comes from the “Emperor Beyond the Sea”. (shrink)

In Plato’s Protagoras Alcibiades plays the role of Hermes, the ‘ambassador god,’ who helps lead Socrates’ conversation with Protagoras through a crisis of dialogue that threatens to destroy the community of education established by the dialogue itself. By tracing the moments when Alcibiades intervenes in the conversation, we are led to an understanding of Socratic politics as always concerned with the course of the life of an individual and the proper time in which it might be turned toward the question (...) of justice and the good. (shrink)

As histories of nanotechnology are created, one question arises repeatedly: how influential was Richard Feynman’s 1959 talk, “There’s Plenty of Room at the Bottom”? It is often said by knowledgeable people that this talk was the origin of nanotech. It preceded events like the invention of the scanning tunneling microscope, but did it inspire scientists to do things they would not have done otherwise? Did Feynman’s paper directly influence important scientific developments in nanotechnology? Or is his paper being retroactively read (...) into the history of nanotechnology? To explore those questions, I trace the history of “Plenty of Room,” including its publication and republication, its record of citations in scientific literature, and the comments of eight luminaries of nanotechnology. This biography of a text and its life among other texts enables us to articulate Feynman’s paper with the history of nanotechnology in new ways as it explores how Feynman’s paper is read. (shrink)

For the mature Leibniz, a living being is a created substance composed of an infinitely complex organic body and a simple, immaterial soul. Soul and body do not interact directly, but rather their states correspond according to a harmony preestablished by God. I show that Leibniz’s theory faces challenges with respect to the question of whether substances need to possess knowledge of how they bring about their effects, and I argue that, to address these challenges, Leibniz turns to a concept (...) of “divine preformation” that he attributes to both soul and body. Insofar as divine preformation provides Leibniz with an explanation for how soul and body can both act without possessing explicit knowledge of what they are doing, it serves as a key tool for justifying the theory of preestablished harmony. (shrink)

This paper discusses the background in reality of the Heroikos (Dialogue concerning Heroes), which is ascribed to Philostratus of Athens, and is mainly devoted to the hero Protesilaos. After a summary of the work, the paper considers it from four aspects. The time of writing falls after 217 (the second victory at Olympia of the athlete Helix of Phoenicia); there may be a reference to events in Thessaly under the emperor Alexander Severus (222-235). If the author is the well-known Philostratus, (...) then such a date also implies a dramatic date in the author¿s own time. This is corroborated by two series of references which appear to run from the comparatively recent past to the present. One of these concerns bones of heroes, while the other concerns athletes to whom the hero Protesilaos had given advice in the form of oracles. The geographical setting of the dialogue is Elaious in the Thracian Chersonese. The evidence for the cult of Protesilaos on the territory of Elaious comes from literature, notably Herodotus, from coins of the time of Commodus, and from modern observations, notably a vivid account given by Heinrich Schliemann. While Philostratus¿ description of the cult-place at Elaious appears very accurate, his account of the Island of Achilles in the Pontus is less so. Finally, the paper considers the Heroikos in the context of contemporary belief about heroes and their powers. Another work probably by the same author, the Life of Apollonius of Tyana, is adduced to assess the credulity of readers in Philostratus¿ time and later. Documents and literature of the imperial period show that even dead contemporaries could be regarded as heroes, who were still influential even from beyond the grave. The references to Protesilaos in literature (Pausanias, Lucian) strongly suggest that he was regarded as issuing oracles in the form of dreams, and this too accords with beliefs about heroes both in the Hellenistic period and in the Roman. (shrink)

In the Gorgias, Socrates claims to practice the true art of politics, but the peculiar politics he practices involves cultivating in each individual he encounters an erotic desire to live a life animated by the ideals of justice, beauty and the good. Socratic and Platonic Political Philosophy demonstrates that what Socrates sought to do with those he encountered, Platonic writing attempts to do with readers. Christopher P. Long's attentive readings of the Protagoras, Gorgias, Phaedo, Apology, and Phaedrus invite us (...) to cultivate the habits of thinking and responding that mark the practices of both Socratic and Platonic politics. Platonic political writing is here experienced in a new way as the contours of a politics of reading emerges in which the community of readers is called to consider how a commitment to speaking the truth and acting toward justice can enrich our lives together. (shrink)

A $\Pi^0_1$ class can be defined as the set of infinite paths through a computable tree. For classes $P$ and $Q$, say that $P$ is Medvedev reducible to $Q$, $P \leq_M Q$, if there is a computably continuous functional mapping $Q$ into $P$. Let $\mathcal{L}_M$ be the lattice of degrees formed by $\Pi^0_1$ subclasses of $2^\omega$ under the Medvedev reducibility. In "Non-branching degrees in the Medvedev lattice of $\Pi \sp{0}\sb{1} classes," I provided a characterization of nonbranching/branching and a classification of (...) the nonbranching degrees. In this paper, I present a similar classification of the branching degrees. In particular, $P$ is separable if there is a clopen set $C$ such that $P \cap C \neq \emptyset \neq P \cap C^c$ and $P \cap C \perp_M P \cap C^c$. By the results in the first paper, separability is an invariant of a Medvedev degree and a degree is branching if and only if it contains a separable member. Further define $P$ to be hyperseparable if, for all such $C$, $P \cap C \perp_M P \cap C^c$ and totally separable if, for all $X,Y \in P$, $X \perp_T Y$. I will show that totally separable implies hyperseparable implies separable and that the reverse implications do not hold, that is, that these are three distinct types of branching degrees. Along the way I will show some related results and present a combinatorial framework for constructing $\Pi^0_1$ classes with priority arguments. (shrink)