BackgroundClinical ethics consultations can be complex interventions, involving multiple methods, stakeholders, and competing ethical values. Despite longstanding calls for rigorous evaluation in the field, progress has been limited. The Medical Research Council proposed guidelines for evaluating the effectiveness of complex interventions. The evaluation of CEC may benefit from application of the MRC framework to advance the transparency and methodological rigor of this field. A first step is to understand the outcomes measured in evaluations of CEC in healthcare settings. ObjectiveThe primary (...) objective of this review was to identify and map the outcomes reported in primary studies of CEC. The secondary objective was to provide a comprehensive overview of CEC structures, processes, and roles to enhance understanding and to inform standardization.MethodsWe searched electronic databases to identify primary studies of CEC involving patients, substitute decision-makers and/or family members, clinicians, healthcare staff and leaders. Outcomes were mapped across five conceptual domains as identified a priori based on our clinical ethics experience and preliminary literature searches and revised based on our emerging interpretation of the data. These domains included personal factors, process factors, clinical factors, quality, and resource factors. ResultsForty-eight studies were included in the review. Studies were highly heterogeneous and varied considerably regarding format and process of ethical intervention, credentials of interventionist, population of study, outcomes reported, and measures employed. In addition, few studies used validated measurement tools. The top three outcome domains that studies reported on were quality, process factors, and clinical factors. The majority of studies examined multiple outcome domains. All five outcome domains were multidimensional and included a variety of subthemes.ConclusionsThis scoping review represents the initial phase of mapping the outcomes reported in primary studies of CEC and identifying gaps in the evidence. The confirmed lack of standardization represents a hindrance to the provision of high quality intervention and CEC scientific progress. Insights gained can inform the development of a core outcome set to standardize outcome measures in CEC evaluation research and enable scientifically rigorous efficacy trials of CEC. (shrink)

Midway through How to Do Things With Words, J.L. Austin’s announces a “fresh start” in his efforts to characterize the ways in which speech is action, and introduces a new conceptual framework from the one he has been using up to that point. Against a common reading that portrays this move as simply abandoning the framework so far developed, Marina Sbisà contends that the text takes the argumentative form of a proof by contradiction, such that the initial framework plays an (...) instrumental role as part of a proof in favour of the subsequent one. Despite agreeing with Sbisà’s broad instrumentalist approach, we argue that her regimentation of Austin’s narrative into a proof by contradiction ultimately fails - both as a proof and as an interpretation of Austin. Instead, we suggest that a better way of interpreting the peculiar structure of How to Do Things With Words is as a pedagogical exercise whose point is to bring a concealed alternative into view in a manner that also explains its initial concealment, and that this approach provides richer resources for supporting Sbisà’s own conventionalist understanding of illocution than that afforded by reading the text as a proof by contradiction. (shrink)

In this article we focus on three key precepts shared by Confucianism and the African ethic of Ubuntu: the central value of community, the desirability of ethical partiality, and the idea that we tend to become morally better as we grow older. For each of these broad similarities, there are key differences underlying them, and we discuss those as well as speculate about the reasons for them. Our aim is not to take sides, but we do suggest ways that Ubuntu (...) and Confucianism might have something to learn from each other and perhaps come closer. We hope that our preliminary reflections can inspire further debate and thinking on a theme – dialogues between long-standing and large-scale non-Western traditions – that is bound to increase in importance as non-Western societies play a greater role in the global system and as the search continues for a 'global ethic'. (shrink)

The strange story of the von Neumann impossibility proof is recalled, and the even stranger story of later impossibility proofs, and how the impossible was done by de Broglie and Bohm. Morals are drawn.

Examines Frege's theory of judgement, according to which a judgement is, paradigmatically, the assertion that a particular object falls under a given concept. Throughout the book the aim is to both state Frege's views clearly and concisely, and to defend, modify or reject these where appropriate.

Three case studies were conducted on the implications of the use of expert systems for the work of clerks and operators in Britain. An expert system had been introduced in a process control application. The operators' work was deskilled. The second case was a fault diagnosis application. An operator was very happy with his new work. In the third case, insurance clerks received training to operate an expert system which extended the scope of their work. In conclusion, it is suggested (...) that expert systems extend the range of work which can be automated, but may not have unique impacts. (shrink)

Machine generated contents note: Chapter 1. Environmental Problems and Society Part I: The Material Chapter 2. Consumption and Materialism Chapter 3. Money and Machines Chapter 4. Population and Development Chapter 5. Body and Health Part II: The Ideal Chapter 6. The Ideology of Environmental Domination Chapter 7. The Ideology of Environmental Concern Chapter 8. The Human Nature of Nature Chapter 9. The Rationality of Risk Part III: The Practical Chapter 10. Mobilizing the Ecological Society Chapter 11. Governing the Ecological Society (...) . (shrink)

The theoretical applicability of the constructs of configurality, holism, and Gestalten are ubiquitous in perceptual psychology, yet there is a noticeable absence of a generally accepted, unified theory of Gestalt phenomena. Aside from a few quite specific models of performance in some particular sphere, rigorous definitions and quantitative models are scarce. In addition, in the realm of quantitative dynamic information-processing characteristics, definitions, proposed explanations, and derivations regarding concepts of holistic vs non-holistic objects are rare if extant at all. The primary (...) goal of this chapter is to argue for the establishment of a mathematical language within which the properties of strategic concepts that describe and purport to distinguish configural as opposed to non-configural perception can be elucidated. We do this in two ways, each of which is intended to compel formal connections among diverse operational concepts, and facilitate the translation to testable experimental hypotheses. (shrink)

Machine generated contents note: 1.What is a Concept? -- 2.Why Philosophy? -- 3.How to Become a Philosopher -- 4.Putting Philosophy in its Place -- 5.Philosophy and Science -- 6.Philosophy and Logic -- 7.Philosophy and Art.

"I found this a fascinating book: wide-ranging, readable." —Alison Jaggar Bell shows how the flesh-and-blood female body engaged in sexual interaction for payment has no inherent meaning and is signified differently in different cultures ...

The status of boundaries and borders, questions of global poverty and inequality, criteria for the legitimate uses of force, the value of international law, human rights, nationality, sovereignty, migration, territory, and citizenship: debates over these critical issues are central to contemporary understandings of world politics. Bringing together an interdisciplinary range of contributors, including historians, political theorists, lawyers, and international relations scholars, this is the first volume of its kind to explore the racial and imperial dimensions of normative debates over global (...) justice. (shrink)

What responsibilities does each of us have to reduce or limit our greenhouse gas emissions? Advocates of individual emissions reductions acknowledge that there are limits to what we can reasonably demand from individuals. Climate ethics has not yet systematically explored those limits. Instead, it has become popular to suggest that such judgements should be ‘context-sensitive’ but this does not tell us what role different contextual factors should play in our moral thinking. The current approach to theory development in climate ethics (...) is not likely to be the most effective way to fill this gap. In existing work, climate ethicists use hypothetical cases to consider what can be reasonably demanded of individuals in particular situations. In contrast, ‘climate ethics with an ethnographic sensibility’ uses qualitative social science methods to collect original data in which real individuals describe their own situations. These real-life cases are more realistic, more detailed and cover a broader range of circumstances than hypothetical cases. Normative analysis of real-life cases can help us to develop a more systematic understanding of the role that different contextual factors should play in determining individual climate responsibilities. It can also help us to avoid the twin dangers of ‘idealization’ and ‘special pleading’. (shrink)

Healthcare environments continue to prove discriminatory and marginalizing towards patients and healthcare workers themselves, which contributes to inequitable health outcomes across lines of socially constructed difference. This content and discourse analysis of nursing identity scholarship asks whether there is a connection between nursing identity and oppressive behaviour by examining the construction of nursing identity and the foundational discourses, sometimes in absentia, that support such a construction. Bourdieu's concepts of social fields and Audre Lorde's concept of the master's house are applied (...) as a framework towards understanding the constructs of power and status in healthcare. The analysis identifies a gap in nursing identity literature where social constructs of difference are not considered. In the reviewed literature, nursing identity has been co‐opted by the professionalization project in effort to stabilize a conceptualization of nursing's contribution to healthcare towards gaining professional and societal status. This leads to a monolithic, apolitical representation of nursing identity that erases difference, denies historical influence, universalizes nursing work and further marginalizes marginalized identities. The oppressive and hegemonic nature of a universal nursing identity may contribute to a lack of disciplinary reflexivity about the ongoing influences of foundational discursive constructs of gender, epistemology, power and professional status. (shrink)

Traditionally, expressions in formal systems have been regarded as signifying finite inscriptions which are—at least in principle—capable of actually being written out in primitive notation. However, the fact that (first-order) formulas may be identified with natural numbers (via "Gödel numbering") and hence with finite sets makes it no longer necessary to regard formulas as inscriptions, and suggests the possibility of fashioning "languages" some of whose formulas would be naturally identified as infinite sets . A "language" of this kind is called (...) an infinitary language : in this article I discuss those infinitary languages which can be obtained in a straightforward manner from first-order languages by allowing conjunctions, disjunctions and, possibly, quantifier sequences, to be of infinite length. In the course of the discussion it will be seen that, while the expressive power of such languages far exceeds that of their finitary (first-order) counterparts, very few of them possess the "attractive" features (e.g., compactness and completeness) of the latter. Accordingly, the infinitary languages that do in fact possess these features merit special attention. (shrink)

This essay is an attempt to sketch the evolution of type theory from its beginnings early in the last century to the present day. Central to the development of the type concept has been its close relationship with set theory to begin with and later its even more intimate relationship with category theory. Since it is effectively impossible to describe these relationships (especially in regard to the latter) with any pretensions to completeness within the space of a comparatively short article, (...) I have elected to offer detailed technical presentations of just a few important instances. (shrink)

This forward-thinking collection presents new work that looks beyond the division between the analytic and continental philosophical traditions—one that has long caused dissension, mutual distrust, and institutional barriers to the development of common concerns and problems. Rather than rehearsing the causes of the divide, contributors draw upon the problems, methods, and results of both traditions to show what post-divide philosophical work looks like in practice. Ranging from metaphysics and philosophy of mind to political philosophy and ethics, the papers gathered here (...) bring into mutual dialogue a wide range of recent and contemporary thinkers, and confront leading problems common to both traditions, including methodology, ontology, meaning, truth, values, and personhood. Collectively, these essays show that it is already possible to foresee a future for philosophical thought and practice no longer determined neither as "analytic" nor as "continental," but, instead, as a pluralistic synthesis of what is best in both traditions. The new work assembled here shows how the problems, projects, and ambitions of twentieth-century philosophy are already being taken up and productively transformed to produce new insights, questions, and methods for philosophy today. (shrink)

This book offers an extended comparison of the philosophies of Gilles Deleuze and David Hume. The book argues that Deleuze's early work on Hume was instrumental to Deleuze's formulation of the problems and concepts that would remain a focus of his entire corpus. Reading Deleuze's work in light of Hume's influence, along with a comparison of Deleuze's work with William James, Henri Bergson and others set the stage for a vigorous defence of his philosophy against a number of recent criticisms (...) and extend the field of Deleuze studies by showing how Deleuze's thought can clarify and contribute to the work being done in political theory, cultural studies, and history, particularly the history of the Scottish Enlightenment. By engaging Deleuze's thought with the work of Hume, this book clarifies and supports the work of Deleuze and exemplifies the continuing relevance of Hume's thought to a number of contemporary debates. (shrink)

This chapter traces the historical and conceptual development of the idea of the continuum and the allied concept of real number. Particular attention is paid to the idea of infinitesimal, which played a key role in the development of the calculus during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, and which has undergone a revival in the later twentieth century.

In 1967, after a talk Deleuze gave to the Society of French Philosophy, Ferdinand Alquiéé expressed concern during the question and answer session that perhaps Deleuze was relying too heavily upon science and not giving adequate attention to questions and problems that Alquiéé took to be distinctively philosophical. Deleuze responded by agreeing with Alquiéé; moreover, he argued that his primary interest was precisely in the metaphysics science needs rather than in the science philosophy needs. This metaphysics, Deleuze argues, is to (...) be done ‘‘in the style of Whitehead’’ rather than the style of Kant, and in developing this metaphysics Deleuze draws heavily on Spinoza. The present essay examines this Deleuzian-Spinozist metaphysics done in the style of Whitehead, the ‘‘metaphysics science needs’’, drawing on the writings of David Hume and Bruno Latour in the process. This discussion will in turn enable us to situate Deleuze's metaphysics in relation to contemporary debates concerning speculative realism and correlationism, and especially Quentin Meillassoux's critique of the latter. Our conclusion will be that the kind of metaphysics Deleuze pursues is neither correlationist nor straightforwardly realist, but rather charts a course between realism and anti-realism. (shrink)

In an effort to reclaim women's moral psychology, feminist philosophers have reevaluated several seemingly negative emotions such as anger, resentment, and bitterness. However, one negative emotion has yet to receive adequate attention from feminist philosophers: contempt. 1 argue that feminists should reconsider what role feelings of contempt for male oppressors and male'dominated institutions and practices should play in our lives. 1 begin by surveying four feminist defenses of the negative emotions. I then offer a brief sketch of the nature and (...) moral significance of contempt, and argue that contempt can be morally and politically valuable for the same reasons that feminists have defended other negative emotions. I close by considering why feminists have been hesitant to defend contempt as a morally and politically important emotion. (shrink)

:Resentment and other hard feelings may outlive their targets, and people often express a desire to overcome these feelings through forgiveness. While some see forgiving the dead as an important moral accomplishment, others deny that genuine forgiveness of the dead is coherent, let alone desirable or valuable. According to one line of thought, forgiveness is something we do for certain reasons, such as the offender’s expressed contrition. Given that the dead cannot express remorse, forgiveness of the dead is impossible. Others (...) see the apparent coherence and moral importance of forgiving the dead as a reason to give up on the idea that forgiveness is conditional upon the offender’s remorse. According to these philosophers, forgiveness of the dead poses no special problems; forgiveness of the dead, like forgiveness of the living, is not contingent upon the offender’s contrition. I steer a path between these two positions in such a way as to bring out an important aspect of forgiveness that is not adequately addressed in the literature: I argue that forgiving the dead may be perfectly coherent and morally valuable even though the dead cannot ask for forgiveness or engage in reparative activities. A full appreciation of the relational character of forgiveness allows us to make sense of forgiving the dead. (shrink)

Periodically, we take stock of SubStance and provide a brief statement regarding initiatives and priorities in the journal's interests. Three years ago, we announced that "Exploring hybrid writing with theoretical impact is at the center of our current preoccupations."1 Since that time, the journal has made significant changes. This issue marks our fourth issue of publishing with Johns Hopkins University Press in a transition that recognizes our new publisher as a leader among university presses.Our plan also expressed our intent to (...) move toward publishing digital work that exemplifies theoretical thinking in nonlinear, experimental forms. In 2018, we launched Digital SubStance, a platform for "hybrid work that... (shrink)

First published in 1999. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

While Confucian ideals continue to inspire thinkers and political actors, discussions of concrete Confucian practices and institutions appropriate for the modern era have been conspicuously absent from the literature thus far. This volume represents the most cutting edge effort to spell out in meticulous detail the relevance of Confucianism for the contemporary world. The contributors to this book - internationally renowned philosophers, lawyers, historians, and social scientists - argue for feasible and desirable Confucian policies and institutions as they attempt to (...) draw out the political, economic, and legal implications of Confucianism for the modern world. The book is divided in three parts that correspond to the basic hallmarks of modernity as a social and political system - democracy, capitalism, and the rule of law. (shrink)

ABSTRACT: It is characteristic of a continuum that it be “all of one piece”, in the sense of being inseparable into two (or more) disjoint nonempty parts. By taking “part” to mean open (or closed) subset of the space, one obtains the usual topological concept of connectedness . Thus a space S is defined to be connected if it cannot be partitioned into two disjoint nonempty open (or closed) subsets – or equivalently, given any partition of S into two open (...) (or closed) subsets, one of the members of the partition must be empty. This holds, for example, for the space R of real numbers and for all of its open or closed intervals. Now a truly radical condition results from taking the idea of being “all of one piece” literally, that is, if it is taken to mean inseparability into any disjoint nonempty parts, or subsets, whatsoever . A space S satisfying this condition is called cohesive or indecomposable. While the law of excluded middle of classical logic reduces indecomposable spaces to the trivial empty space and one-point spaces, the use of intuitionistic logic makes it possible not only for nontrivial cohesive spaces to exist, but for every connected space to be cohesive.In this paper I describe the philosophical background to cohesiveness as well as some of the ways in which the idea is modelled in contemporary mathematics. (shrink)

In an effort to reclaim women's moral psychology, feminist philosophers have reevaluated several seemingly negative emotions such as anger, resentment, and bitterness. However, one negative emotion has yet to receive adequate attention from feminist philosophers: contempt. I argue that feminists should reconsider what role feelings of contempt for male oppressors and male-dominated institutions and practices should play in our lives. I begin by surveying four feminist defenses of the negative emotions. I then offer a brief sketch of the nature and (...) moral significance of contempt, and argue that contempt can be morally and politically valuable for the same reasons that feminists have defended other negative emotions. I close by considering why feminists have been hesitant to defend contempt as a morally and politically important emotion. (shrink)