Paul Moser's book defends what has been an unfashionable view in recent epistemology: the foundationalist account of knowledge and justification. Since the time of Plato philosophers have wondered what exactly knowledge is. This book develops a new account of perceptual knowledge which specifies the exact sense in which knowledge has foundations. The author argues that experiential foundations are indeed essential to perceptual knowledge, and he explains what knowledge requires beyond justified true beliefs. In challenging prominent sceptical claims that we (...) have no justified beliefs about the external world, the book outlines a theory of rational belief. (shrink)

In this book, Paul Moser explores Jesus' role as God's filial inquirer and clarifies a method of inquiry regarding Jesus, one that offers a compelling explanation regarding his experiential impact and his audience's response. Moser's method values the roles of history and moral/religious experience in inquiry about him, and it saves inquirers from distorting biases in their inquiry. His study illuminates Jesus' puzzling features, including his challenging question for inquirers of him, his distinctive experience of God as father, (...) his reference to himself as 'the son of man', his attitude toward his suffering and death, his unique role in the kingdom of God, and his understanding of his allegedly miraculous signs and of his parables and good news. The book also makes sense of evidence for the reality and the main purpose of Jesus. (shrink)

BackgroundThis paper investigates the content of Australian policies that address withholding or withdrawing life-sustaining treatment to analyse the guidance they provide to doctors about the allocation of resources.MethodsAll publicly available non-institutional policies on withholding and withdrawing life-sustaining treatment were identified, including codes of conduct and government and professional organization guidelines. The policies that referred to resource allocation were isolated and analysed using qualitative thematic analysis. Eight Australian policies addressed both withholding and withdrawing life-sustaining treatment and resource allocation.ResultsFour resource-related themes were (...) identified: doctors’ ethical duties to consider resource allocation; balancing ethical obligations to patient and society; fair process and transparent resource allocation; and legal guidance on distributive justice as a rationale to limit life-sustaining treatment.ConclusionOf the policies that addressed resource allocation, this review found broad agreement about the existence of doctors’ duties to consider the stewardship of scarce resources in decision-making. However, there was disparity in the guidance about how to reconcile competing duties to patient and society. There is a need to better address the difficult and confronting issue of the role of scarce resources in decisions about life-sustaining treatment. (shrink)

As Heraclitus, Cioran conceives man as a being that possesses lógos and is ruled in his life by it in its multiple aspects. Man not only makes use of word; this word also shapes him and traverses him entirely. Word is the necessary and intrinsic expression of every human being, and, as a result, he cannot elude it. In many of his works, Cioran warns us about the dangers that lógos has for man: not to find his genuine expression in (...) the midst of so many words, and to fall into totalizing fictions that lead us to deception and indoctrination. For this reason, in the midst of this misfortune, Cioran even considers silence as the only possible way out. However, if man denies the mark of language by avoiding all forms of expression, the anguish that his own existence entails will end up destroying him. Paradoxically, Cioran finds that the expression of lógos is the only possible salvation for man from the clutches of death, and that is, why by expressing oneself through lógos, one's own unhappiness becomes a necessary condition of life. (shrink)

Igreja e Educação, tema que se constrói e se manifesta como realização da missão evangelizadora pedida por Jesus Cristo, quando da sua subida aos céus. Ao assumir a educação, a Igreja percebe o mundo como uma realidade em contínua transformação e acredita que o ser humano pode, com suas atitudes, alterar os rumos da sociedade por meio da vivência solidária e da luta por um mundo melhor. Sendo os elementos-chave do processo educacional, a igualdade, a solidariedade, a autonomia, a cidadania (...) e a fraternidade, a Igreja se coloca inteiramente nessa perspectiva. Principalmente com a educação religiosa, a Igreja quer agir de tal forma que cada momento da sua atuação propicie um processo de dignidade, libertação e emancipação, a exemplo de Jesus Cristo. A educação para a Igreja tem, no exemplo de Jesus Cristo, a forma de melhor cumprir essa missão. (shrink)

In feminist and cultural studies, there is a growing body of work concerned with how people’s lives are subjected to multiple, intersecting axes of differentiation and power. There is growing concern that we seem unable to address more than one difference at a time, thus failing to interrogate enactments of class, race, ethnicity, gender, and sexuality in science, technology, and medicine. This article aims to contribute to the effort to conceptualize the making of and interactions between differences. It explores how (...) differences such as disability, gender, and class are made and unmade in sociotechnical practices. It shows that interactions between enactments of differences are complex, contradictory, unpredictable, and surprising and defy simple conclusions about effects and politics. These patterns of interference need to be investigated in situated practices, and we have to examine carefully how processes of differentiation interact to support and reinforce but also to challenge and undermine each other. (shrink)

Three questions motivate this book's account of evidence for the existence of God. First, if God's existence is hidden, why suppose He exists at all? Second, if God exists, why is He hidden, particularly if God seeks to communicate with people? Third, what are the implications of divine hiddenness for philosophy, theology, and religion's supposed knowledge of God? This book answers these questions on the basis of a new account of evidence and knowledge of divine reality that challenges skepticism about (...) God's existence. The central thesis is that we should expect evidence of divine reality to be purposively available to humans, that is, available only in a manner suitable to divine purposes in self-revelation. This lesson generates a seismic shift in our understanding of evidence and knowledge of divine reality. The result is a needed reorienting of religious epistemology to accommodate the character and purposes of an authoritative, perfectly loving God. (shrink)

ObjectiveTo increase knowledge of how doctors perceive futile treatments and scarcity of resources at the end of life. In particular, their perceptions about whether and how resource limitations influence end-of-life decision making. This study builds on previous work that found some doctors include resource limitations in their understanding of the concept of futility.SettingThree tertiary hospitals in metropolitan Brisbane, Australia.DesignQualitative study using in-depth, semistructured, face-to-face interviews. Ninety-six doctors were interviewed in 11 medical specialties. Transcripts of the interviews were analysed using thematic (...) analysis.ResultsDoctors’ perceptions of whether resource limitations were relevant to their practice varied, and doctors were more comfortable with explicit rather than implicit rationing. Several doctors incorporated resource limitations into their definition of futility. For some, availability of resources was one factor of many in assessing futility, secondary to patient considerations, but a few doctors indicated that the concept of futility concealed rationing. Doctors experienced moral distress due to the resource implications of providing futile treatment and the lack of administrative supports for bedside rationing.ConclusionsDoctors’ ability to distinguish between futility and rationing would be enhanced through regulatory support for explicit rationing and strategies to support doctors’ role in rationing at the bedside. Medical policies should address the distinction between resource limitations and futility to promote legitimacy in end-of-life decision making. (shrink)

Apology is arguably the central act of the reparative work required after wrongdoing. The analysis by Claudia Card of complicity in collectively perpetrated evils moves one to ask whether apology ought to be requested of persons culpably complicit in institutional evils. To better appreciate the benefits of and barriers to apologies offered by culpably complicit wrongdoers, this article examines doctors’ complicity in a practice that meets Card's definition of an evil, namely, the non-medically necessary, nonconsensual “normalizing” interventions performed on babies (...) born with intersex anatomies. It argues that in this instance the complicity of doctors is culpable on Card's terms, and that their culpable complicity grounds rightful demands for them to apologize. (shrink)

It is often assumed that it was the alliance between patient associations and neuroscience, which originally made dementia a matter for intervention. In parallel ways, science and technology studies often attributes the power to define and act upon matters of life to biomedicine and science. The concern here is that the science centrism of STS contributes to the dominance of science and biomedicine by granting these analytical privileges. As a result, alternative modes of acting, for instance in care, are disarticulated (...) and made absent. This article mobilizes the sensibilities of anthropology to difference and draws upon excerpts of data from fieldwork in dementia care to show this and argue that there are different practices that act upon life and its limits; that these enact different versions of life and dementia; and that they matter because they shape how people are cared for and live and die with dementia. (shrink)

Background Victoria was the first Australian state to legalize voluntary assisted dying (elsewhere known as physician-assisted suicide and euthanasia). Some institutions indicated they would not participate in voluntary assisted dying. The Victorian government issued policy approaches for institutions to consider Objective To describe and analyse publicly available policy documents articulating an institutional objection to voluntary assisted dying in Victoria. Methods Policies were identified using a range of strategies, and those disclosing and discussing the nature of an institutional objection were thematically (...) analysed using the framework method. Results The study identified fifteen policies from nine policymakers and developed four themes: (1) extent of refusal to participate in VAD, (2) justification for refusal to provide VAD, (3) responding to requests for VAD, and (4) appeals to state-sanctioned regulatory mechanisms. While institutional objections were stated clearly, there was very little practical detail in most documents to enable patients to effectively navigate objections in practice. Conclusion This study demonstrates that despite having clear governance pathways developed by centralized bodies (namely, the Victorian government and Catholic Health Australia), many institutions’ public-facing policies do not reflect this guidance. Since VAD is contentious, laws governing institutional objection could provide greater clarity and regulatory force than policies alone to better balance the interests of patients and non-participating institutions. (shrink)

En las últimas décadas, se ha consolidado un campo de estudios alrededor de la expertise que articula enfoques y programas de investigación heterogéneos, según los modos de conceptualizar la relación entre ciencia y política, saber y poder, de fijar sus conexiones y de determinar el nivel del análisis para su abordaje. El corpus foucaulteano contiene herramientas analíticas fructíferas para el tratamiento sustantivo de la politicidad inherente a los saberes, al cuestionar las lecturas instrumentales de aquella relación e inscribir la actividad (...) especializada en estrategias de gobierno y en formas de resistencia hacia ellas. Sin embargo, las conceptualizaciones del saber experto desde una matriz foucaulteana registran cierta dispersión y, pese al avance de los estudios sobre gubernamentalidad en este aspecto, la ausencia de una reflexión sobre la categoría de expertise introduce el riesgo de que en estos análisis se establezca una cuestionable relación de coherencia y correspondencia entre saberes y racionalidades de gobierno. En este artículo, nos proponemos revisar el corpus foucaulteano y sistematizar otras claves de lectura sobre los saberes y su condición política, a fin de aportar con ello al campo de estudios sobre expertise. Examinamos la “hipótesis de la guerra”, mostramos su pulso en el ejercicio de saber y ponemos en juego estas coordenadas analíticas en un pequeño trabajo de archivo sobre una serie documental de textos de Hayek, a propósito de la articulación de la racionalidad neoliberal de gobierno. La conformación del corpus y el análisis de los textos se valieron, metodológicamente, de una traducción instrumental de tales coordenadas mediada por una perspectiva materialista del discurso. (shrink)

Partiendo de una serie de tesis respecto del significado de la negación lógica, se ofrece una reflexión acerca de la relación entre el pluralismo lógico y el estatus de ciertos principios lógicos fundamentales. El objetivo de este trabajo es mostrar que el Problema de la Adopción, tal como se encuentra formulado por Kripke-Padró, no representa un conflicto para una visión antiexcepcionalista de la lógica. Las leyes lógicas no poseen un status privilegiado, independientemente de que existan algunas que no podemos adoptar, (...) porque sí podemos decidir abandonar principios lógicos y es abandonando reglas y no adoptándolas como se revisa una teoría lógica; en consecuencia es aceptable un tipo de pluralismo lógico que parta de considerar que más de un conjunto de principios capturan de manera adecuada el significado de la negación. (shrink)

Emotional processing and episodic memory are closely related throughout childhood development. With respect to emotional episodic memory, available evidence shows that the consolidation of information is accompanied by an arousal that generates longer duration and persistence of the memory representations. In the case of early stages of development (i.e., first 5 years), it is less clear how these associations emerge and are modulated by individual and environmental factors. In this study, 116 4- to 5-years old Argentinean children from different socio-environmental (...) contexts (i.e., favorable or unfavorable living conditions at home), performed a task of visual emotional memory in which they observed a set of 15 images with variable emotional valences (negative, neutral, and positive). The child’s task was to appraise each image using one of the following three possible valences: (a) drawings of faces with smiles (positive valence), (b) drawings of faces with tears and round mouth with edges down (negative valence), or (c) drawings of faces with horizontal mouth (neutral valence). Five years-old children exhibited greater accuracy appraisal. Individual differences in emotional accuracy appraisal allowed us to observe different performances in free recall of negative visual images. Accuracy appraisal did not vary between children with respect to gender, living conditions at home, or language ability. Seven to ten days after the emotional appraisal children were asked to tell the experimenter all the images they remembered (variables of interest: free recall of negative, positive, or neutral images). Results showed individual (age) differences. Specifically, 5-years-old children evoked more images than 4-years-old children. These findings contribute to the understanding of emotional memory in early developmental stages and raise the need to include emotional appraisal in the assessment of episodic memory. (shrink)

Medications of choice, necessary supplies, and evidence-based health care now seem like luxuries. The contrast between my experience at a well-funded health unit and the Lev El Lev (“heart to heart”) African Refugee Clinic in Tel Aviv, Israel, is staggering. The complex personal, social, health, psychological, educational, and economic difficulties create a unique ethical environment for the health care provider.

For a long while the dilemma between ‘not being’ and ‘being other’ has haunted the history of Brazil. The country's mixed-race condition lay at the heart of the dilemma which reached its apogee in the second half of the nineteenth and the beginning of the twentieth centuries. At that point in its history, that is, its emergence as a nation-state, the construction of a national identity became an imperative for the political and intellectual elites of Brazil. In this context, a (...) European, the German naturalist, Carl von Martius, made himself particularly notable for having been one of the first, after Independence, to point out the significance of miscegenation in the composition of Brazilian identity. (shrink)

O artigo apresenta reflexões teóricas sobre a atividade de ensino que se torna práxis bem-sucedida. Essa discussão gira em torno de duas categorias teóricas: atividade e afetação. A atividade, categoria teórica de base marxista, é discutida a partir dos aportes da psicologia sócio-histórica. A categoria afetação é aqui analisada com base na filosofia de Baruc de Espinosa. Realizamos este estudo a partir de pesquisa bibliográfica que tem como objetivo refletir sobre o que contribui para que o professor consiga realizar um (...) ensino capaz de afetar com alegria seus alunos levando ao desenvolvimento de uma práxis bem-sucedida. A pesquisa bibliográfica é realizada a partir dos teóricos da psicologia sócio-histórica, sobretudo Vygotsky e Leontiev. Da filosofia de Espinosa pesquisamos a obra Ética. Os resultados revelam que professores e alunos são sujeitos que se constituem historicamente, a partir de múltiplas mediações. Significados, sentidos e afetações são parte das mediações que constituem professores e alunos envolvidos em atividades de ensino consideradas exitosas. O estudo aprofundado acerca dessas categorias poderá contribuir de forma determinante para que o ensino, como atividade social que se realiza entre pessoas, possa tornar-se um encontro alegre, gerador de afetos que potencializem desejos e aumentem a potência de agir e pensar de professores e alunos, fato que contribui para a emancipação humana. Palavras-chave: Atividade de ensinar. Sentido e significado. Encontros alegres. Afetação. (shrink)

In this paper we present an approach between the conceptions of choice in Thomas Aquinas (1224-1274) and Jean-Paul Sartre (1905-1980). The purpose is to offer elements for a refl ection on the permanency of essentially human characteristics under quite different historical – and theoretical – conditions. The analysis follows the assumptions of Social History, from Braudel’s perspective of Long Duration. In fact, it is possible to identify analogies between Thomas’ and Sartre’s concepts of choice, which allows us, in education, to (...) make inferences about man’s responsibility for their actions. (shrink)

Debate a formação de educadores e de professores na sociedade contemporânea, com destaque para as políticas de formação de professores presentes na estrutura institucional do Estado e da sociedade brasileira. Analisa as condições históricas da produção das políticas de educação e, dentro delas, os aspectos de formação e de preparação de professores para as diversas etapas, graus e níveis da Educação Básica. Estuda as causas históricas e políticas do atraso cultural, institucional e político da organização da escola no Brasil e (...) debate as ressonâncias dessas contradições na vida cotidiana, na identidade subjetiva dos professores e em sua autoestima. Apresenta fundamentos filosóficos de uma formação docente para as relações humanas de igualdade e de alteridade, de dialeticidade e de elevação ética e estética. Apresenta a educação escolar como processo de formação humana e destaca a tarefa de educar como processo de desenvolvimento ou de formação humana. Apresenta as esperadas características de uma docência humanizadora e emancipatória. Enuncia processos humanistas e atitudes éticas de acolhimento voltados para as práticas de formação de professores, com destaque para os estágios e os percursos formativos. Destaca com esperanças as novas propostas de novas docências diante de novos sujeitos sociais e de novos desafios para a educação e a escola na sociedade tecnológica. (shrink)

Much of the commentary in the wake of the Charlie Gard litigation was aimed at apparent shortcomings of the law. These include concerns about the perceived inability of the law to consider resourcing issues, the vagueness of the best interests test and the delays and costs of having disputes about potentially life-sustaining medical treatment resolved by the courts. These concerns are perennial ones that arise in response to difficult cases. Despite their persistence, we argue that many of these criticisms are (...) unfounded. The first part of this paper sets out the basic legal framework that operates when parents seek potentially life-sustaining treatment that doctors believe is against a child’s best interests, and describes the criticisms of that framework. The second part of the paper suggests an alternative approach that would give decision-making power to parents, and remove doctors’ ability to unilaterally withhold or withdraw life-sustaining treatment that they regard is futile. This proposal is grounded in several values that we argue should guide these regulatory choices. We also contend that the best interests test is justifiable and since the courts show no sign of departing from it, the focus should be on how to better elucidate the underlying values driving decisions. We discuss the advantages of our proposed approach and how it would address some of the criticisms aimed at the law. Finally, we defend the current role that the judiciary plays, as an independent state-sanctioned process with a precedent-setting function. (shrink)

The Oxford Handbook of Epistemology contains 19 previously unpublished chapters by today's leading figures in the field. These chapters function not only as a survey of key areas, but as original scholarship on a range of vital topics. Written accessibly for advanced undergraduates, graduate students, and professional philosophers, the Handbook explains the main ideas and problems of contemporary epistemology while avoiding overly technical detail.

Active white ignorance is accompanied by an epistemic and affective insensitivity that allows American white people to avoid the negative affect that might typically accompany harmdoing. Resisting active ignorance about racism and white supremacy, therefore, often gives rise to shame. Yet, thinkers have debated the value of shame for white people’s antiracism. This article asserts that shame is an appropriate response for white people recognizing our culpability for and complicity in racist injustices and violence. However, the article exposes problems with (...) philosophical accounts of white shame, and draws on recent psychological research to show that contextual factors actually determine whether shame can support white antiracism. The article proposes a role for shame in what José Medina calls an “ethics and epistemology of discomfort,” arguing that there are conditions under which shame may encourage the sustained self-interrogation, sensitivity, and humility required if white people are to contribute meaningfully to antiracist action. (shrink)

Paul Moser's book defends what has been an unfashionable view in recent epistemology: the foundationalist account of knowledge and justification. Since the time of Plato philosophers have wondered what exactly knowledge is. This book develops a new account of perceptual knowledge which specifies the exact sense in which knowledge has foundations. The author argues that experiential foundations are indeed essential to perceptual knowledge, and he explains what knowledge requires beyond justified true beliefs. In challenging prominent sceptical claims that we (...) have no justified beliefs about the external world, the book outlines a theory of rational belief. (shrink)

El texto presenta un adelanto de un profundo “trayecto” de trabajo colectivo en curso impulsado por un grupo de jóvenes investigadores y docentes que integran el Programa “Problemáticas comunicacionales barriales, organizacionales y políticas. Experiencias de lucha y resistencia a comienzos de siglo XXI en la provincia de Córdoba” (Argentina), desde el año 2011. La sistematización de las distintas experiencias, que presenta el libro, permite poner en común las peculiaridades de los contradictorios escenarios de conflicto y resistencia analizados, organizada en tres (...) capítulos que repasan con cuidadosa “vigilancia epistemológica” los procesos realizados con los actores sociales que integran los proyectos a saber: habitantes de las ciudades-barrio, trabajadores de la economía solidaria y vecinos e instituciones que forman parte de instancias participativas en los gobiernos locales. (shrink)

In order to understand the place Max Scheler occupied in the debates of his time around the notion of Europe, this article aims to shed some light on the possible convergences between Max Scheler and Rudolf Eucken, who was his thesis director at Jena. The article begins by outlining Rudolf Eucken's conception of Europe, then it identifies a number of points in common between the two authors, before finally measuring the extent of these convergences in Scheler's conception of Europe. At (...) the end of the discussion, it appears that the reception of Augustinianism and a shared conception of community reveal interesting links between the two authors. This connection will give the twenty-first-century reader a better understanding of the framework in which Max Scheler's reflections on Europe are set. (shrink)

Learning depends on attention. The processes that cue attention in the moment dynamically integrate learned regularities and immediate contextual cues. This paper reviews the extensive literature on cued attention and attentional learning in the adult literature and proposes that these fundamental processes are likely significant mechanisms of change in cognitive development. The value of this idea is illustrated using phenomena in children's novel word learning.

In typical development, word learning goes from slow and laborious to fast and seemingly effortless. Typically developing 2-year-olds seem to intuit the whole range of things in a category from hearing a single instance named—they have word-learning biases. This is not the case for children with relatively small vocabularies. We present a computational model that accounts for the emergence of word-learning biases in children at both ends of the vocabulary spectrum based solely on vocabulary structure. The results of Experiment 1 (...) show that late-talkers' and early-talkers' noun vocabularies have different structures and that neural networks trained on the vocabularies of individual late talkers acquire different word-learning biases than those trained on early-talker vocabularies. These models make novel predictions about the word-learning biases in these two populations. Experiment 2 tests these predictions on late- and early-talking toddlers in a novel noun generalization task. (shrink)

Este artigo é um recorte do projeto de pesquisa “Leitura de imagens no ensino de História: um estudo sobre mudanças e permanências nas prescrições, livro didático e representações culturais”. Ele apresenta uma análise, dentre as muitas possíveis, da condição leitora na obra Cuore, escrita por Edmondo De Amicis, traduzida para o português brasileiro com o título Coração. Centenário, o livro teve sua primeira edição publicada no ano de 1886, na Itália, e tornou-se um grande sucesso editorial, principalmente por ter sido (...) adotado nas escolas. Nesta investigação, foram analisados quatro exemplares publicados na metade do século XX no Brasil, com enfoque na materialidade da obra. Buscou-se identificar as relações entre as características de apresentação do livro, identificadas nas capas, nas ilustrações e na escolha da linguagem, com a prática de leitura. Esta investigação baseia-se nas considerações de Chartier sobre o livro escolar como objeto de circulação. Outros estudos fundamentais, que tratam da análise do projeto gráfico, da função da ilustração e da leitura enquanto prática social, são aqui apresentados e discutidos, respectivamente, a partir de Collaro, Camargo e Kleiman. Como método de análise, optou-se pelo estudo bibliográfico, pela busca e análise de diálogos informais sobre a experiência leitora da obra, e por pesquisa de campo em bibliotecas e hemerotecas. Em relação aos resultados, a presente investigação permitiu concluir que: o livro Coração circulou no Brasil, sobretudo na região nordeste do Estado do Rio Grande do Sul; a padronização dos exemplares no formato bolso do livro possibilitou acessar mais facilmente os seus destinatários, inclusive pelo valor de venda, possível graças ao investimento em altas tiragens para distribuição e circulação interna na Itália e também no exterior; o projeto editorial, no decorrer do tempo, reuniu aspectos visuais que dinamizam e promovem o estímulo à leitura; a prática de leitura do livro em voz alta, usada pelos professores na escola, foi força persuasiva à leitura e contribuiu à sensibilização dos alunos aos conteúdos dos contos presentes na obra. (shrink)

O artigo examina o conceito de existência, o modo de ser fundamental do Dasein, presente em Ser e tempo, parte I, na medida em que este ocupa um papel central nesta obra. Heidegger empreende uma destruição do conceito tradicional de existência, porque a tradição ontológica trata o ser do Dasein a partir do horizonte interpretativo da ontologia da coisa, que compreende a existência como simplesmente subsistente. Palavras-chave.