Hermeneutic research in nursing: developing a Gadamerian‐based research method This paper takes the stance that although there are many different approaches to phenomenological and hermeneutic research, some of these have become blurred due to multiple interpretations of translated materials. Working from original texts by the German philosophers, this paper reconsiders the relevance of phenomenology and hermeneutics to nursing research. We trace the development of Gadamer's philosophy in order to propose a research method based in this tradition. Five steps have been (...) identified as a guide for nurse researchers. These are deciding upon a question, identification of preunderstandings, gaining understanding through dialogue with participants, gaining understanding through dialogue with text and establishing trustworthiness. (shrink)

This intriguing volume provides a thorough examination of the historical roots of global climate change as a field of inquiry, from the Enlightenment to the late twentieth century. Based on primary and archival sources, the book is filled with interesting perspectives on what people have understood, experienced, and feared about the climate and its changes in the past. Chapters explore climate and culture in Enlightenment thought; climate debates in early America; the development of international networks of observation; the scientific transformation (...) of climate discourse; and early contributions to understanding terrestrial temperature changes, infrared radiation, and the carbon dioxide theory of climate. But perhaps most important, this book shows what a study of the past has to offer the interdisciplinary investigation of current environmental problems. (shrink)

Conscious experiences involve subjective qualities, such as colours, sounds, smells and emotions. In this Perspective, we argue that these subjective qualities can be understood in terms of their similarity to other experiences. This account highlights the role of memory in conscious experience, even for simple percepts. How an experience feels depends on implicit memory of the relationships between different perceptual representations within the brain. With more complex experiences such as emotions, explicit memories are also recruited. We draw inspiration from work (...) in machine learning as well as the cognitive neuroscience of learning and decision making to make our case and discuss how the account could be tested in future experiments. The resulting findings might help to reveal the functions of subjective experience and inform current theoretical debates on consciousness. (shrink)

Through the explicit introduction of hyperplane dependence as a form of relativistic dynamical evolution, we construct a manifestly covariant description of a single positive energy particle interacting with any one of a large class of “moving” external potentials. In1+1 dimensions, the simplified mathematics allows us to display a number of general properties of solutions to the equations of motion for evolution on hyperplanes.

Introspection, or metacognition, is the capacity to reflect on our own thoughts and behaviours. Here, we investigated how one specific metacognitive ability develops in adolescence, a period of life associated with the emergence of self-concept and enhanced self-awareness. We employed a task that dissociates objective performance on a visual task from metacognitive ability in a group of 56 participants aged between 11 and 41 years. Metacognitive ability improved significantly with age during adolescence, was highest in late adolescence and plateaued going (...) into adulthood. Our results suggest that awareness of one’s own perceptual decisions shows a prolonged developmental trajectory during adolescence. (shrink)

ExcerptThis special issue of Telos focusing on the work of the German philosopher Hans Blumenberg aims to reinvigorate the critical engagement with his work in the English-speaking world by casting a new light on his thought and its fundamental concerns. The American reception of Blumenberg reached an initial high point in the late 1980s and 1990s with Robert M. Wallace's remarkable translation of three monumental volumes: The Legitimacy of the Modern Age (1983), Work on Myth (1985), and The Genesis of (...) the Copernican World (1987). This reception often (though not exclusively) focused on the questions prompted by Blumenberg's contributions to…. (shrink)

Patients and physicians often perceive the current health care system to be unfair, in part because of the ways in which coverage decisions appear to be made. To address this problem the Ethical Force Program, a collaborative effort to create quality improvement tools for ethics in health care, has developed five content areas specifying ethical criteria for fair health care benefits design and administration. Each content area includes concrete recommendations and measurable expectations for performance improvement, which can be used by (...) those organizations involved in the design and administration of health benefits packages, such as purchasers, health plans, benefits consultants, and practitioner groups. (shrink)

This spotlight article reflects on President Xi Jinping's handling of the COVID-19 epidemic and evaluates its specificities by making a brief incursion into the history of Chinese official responses to epidemics. This analysis shows that Xi Jinping's response to the COVID-19 epidemic differs from official responses to the 2003 SARS epidemic and the cerebrospinal meningitis epidemic of 1966–1967, and is used to assert his legitimacy on both the local and the international stage. By sharing data, even if it was not (...) as accurate as claimed, Xi Jinping has presented himself as a trustworthy international partner, leading a country that is at the forefront of scientific research, capable of vigorously implementing epidemic preparedness measures, and destined to become a major player in global health. On the Chinese stage, he showed that the central government has regained control over local public health organizations and that public health is once again a key government priority. As part of his response, Xi Jinping also honored gods of the Chinese pantheon, in a seeming contradiction with communism and science. I argue that, by combining the most advanced technology with a religious heritage, Xi Jinping is skillfully creating an image of himself not only as powerful and modern, but also as a leader undeniably rooted in Chinese tradition. (shrink)

Metacognition – the ability to represent, monitor and control ongoing cognitive processes – helps us perform many tasks, both when acting alone and when working with others. While metacognition is adaptive, and found in other animals, we should not assume that all human forms of metacognition are gene-based adaptations. Instead, some forms may have a social origin, including the discrimination, interpretation, and broadcasting of metacognitive representations. There is evidence that each of these abilities depends on cultural learning and therefore that (...) cultural selectionmight shape humanmetacognition. The cultural origins hypothesis is a plausible and testable alternative that directs us towards a substantial new programme of research. (shrink)

Which systems/organisms are conscious? New tests for consciousness (‘C-tests’) are urgently needed. There is persisting uncertainty about when consciousness arises in human development, when it is lost due to neurological disorders and brain injury, and how it is distributed in nonhuman species. This need is amplified by recent and rapid developments in artificial intelligence (AI), neural organoids, and xenobot technology. Although a number of C-tests have been proposed in recent years, most are of limited use, and currently we have no (...) C-tests for many of the populations for which they are most critical. Here, we identify challenges facing any attempt to develop C-tests, propose a multidimensional classification of such tests, and identify strategies that might be used to validate them. (shrink)

Disproportional morbidity and mortality experienced by ethnic minorities in the UK have been highlighted by the COVID-19 pandemic. The ‘Black Lives Matter’ movement has exposed structural racism’s contribution to these health inequities. ‘Cultural Safety’, an antiracist, decolonising and educational innovation originating in New Zealand, has been adopted in Australia. Cultural Safety aims to dismantle barriers faced by colonised Indigenous peoples in mainstream healthcare by addressing systemic racism.This paper explores what it means to be ‘culturally safe’. The ways in which New (...) Zealand and Australia are incorporating Cultural Safety into educating healthcare professionals and in day-to-day practice in medicine are highlighted. We consider the ‘nuts and bolts’ of translating Cultural Safety into the UK to reduce racism within healthcare. Listening to the voices of black, Asian and minority ethnic National Health Service (NHS) consumers, education in reflexivity, both personal and organisational within the NHS are key. By listening to Indigenous colonised peoples, the ex-Empire may find solutions to health inequity. A decolonising feedback loop is required; however, we should take care not to culturally appropriate this valuable reverse innovation. (shrink)

Common everyday materials such as textiles, foodstuffs, soil or skin can have complex, mutable and varied appearances. Under typical viewing conditions, most observers can visually recognize materials effortlessly, and determine many of their properties without touching them. Visual material perception raises many fascinating questions for vision researchers, neuroscientists and philosophers, yet has received little attention compared to the perception of color or shape. Here we discuss some of the challenges that material perception raises and argue that further philosophical thought should (...) be directed to how we see materials. (shrink)

Norman Daniels, who has written extensively on population health, once sighed that medical care is simply “the ambulance waiting at the bottom of the cliff” (Daniels 2008, 79). At the bottom of Dan...

In contemporary philosophy and social theory, Harbermas's theory of communicative action stands indisputably for a modernity enlightened about itself and its potential. Yet, however much he professes his commitment to universalist ideals of inclusiveness and equality, his influential theory is also marked by disquieting statements on matters of gender. I argue that the problem of gender in Habermas's theory can be traced to his attempt to rework the Marxian tradition of historical materialism. I do so by discussing Habermas's proposal for (...) reconstructing this tradition, and examining the system/lifeworld distinction on which the theory of communicative action is based. Regarding, I direct attention to his argument that the Marxian concept of social labor cannot account for the specifically human form of reproducing life; a theory of social evolution and historical progress requires equal recognition of socialization processes and the moral-practical insight transmitted through those processes. I show that Habermas attributes a special value to the "female" labor of socialization and that he conceptualizes such labor as outside "social" labor. Regarding, I argue that while Habermas's system/lifeworld distinction in the context of historical materialism makes possible a more complex interpretation of Marx and Engels understanding of the basic components of social labor, his theory of communicative action-like his proposal for reconstructing historical materialism-reproduces the Marxian exclusion of "female" labor from social labor. (shrink)

In clinical practice, evidence suggests that teaching ethics using normative ethical theory has little influence on the ethical actions of providers in practice. Thus, new training methods are needed that improve clinician response to ethical problems. A sensemaking approach to ethics training has demonstrated promise as an evidence-based pedagogical method to improve ethical reasoning and response. Project ECHO is theoretically linked to improved sensemaking. This study examines the effectiveness of ECHO and training in use of sensemaking approaches to ethical response (...) by clinicians. A quasi-experimental design study using univariate linear regression was used to examine the effect of the three types of ethics training on ethical response self-efficacy scores, while controlling for participant characteristics of years in practice, discipline and sex. We found evidence that training in sensemaking through participation in ECHO promotes improved ethical response self-efficacy of clinicians. However, results also suggest that a traditional ECHO format that does not explicitly introduce sensemaking strategies into the training does not result in the same learning outcomes as measured through an ethical response self-efficacy survey. This study found important preliminary results to support use of sensemaking approaches in clinical ethics training. (shrink)

This book has been defined around three important issues: the first sheds light on how people, in various philosophical, religious, and political contexts, understand the natural environment, and how the relationship between the environment and the body is perceived; the second focuses on the perceptions that a particular natural environment is good or bad for human health and examines the reasons behind such characterizations ; the third examines the promotion, in history, of specific practices to take advantage of the health (...) benefits, or avoid the harm, caused by certain environments and also efforts made to change environments supposed to be harmful to human health. The feeling and/or the observation that the natural environment can have effects on human health have been, and are still commonly shared throughout the world. This led us to raise the issue of the links observed and believed to exist between human beings and the natural environment in a broad chronological and geographical framework. In this investigation, we bring the reader from ancient and late imperial China to the medieval Arab world up to medieval, modern, and contemporary Europe. This book does not examine these relationships through the prism of the knowledge of our modern contemporary European experience, which, still too often, leads to the feeling of totally different worlds. Rather, it questions protagonists who, in different times and in different places, have reflected, on their own terms, on the links between environment and health and tries to obtain a better understanding of why these links took the form they did in these precise contexts. This book targets an academic readership as well as an “informed audience”, for whom present issues of environment and health can be nourished by the reflections of the past. (shrink)

The aim of the present research was twofold. First, we examined the effects of perceived organizational support on workplace conflict (i.e., relationship conflict and task conflict). Second, we identified one mechanism explaining these relationships, namely failure-related trust. Using a sample of 263 teachers from Belgium, the results of Study 1 indicated that perceived organizational support is negatively related to relationship conflict and is also, unexpectedly, negatively related to task conflict. Furthermore, using a sample of 477 Belgian employees, Study 2 replicated (...) these results and further demonstrated that failure-related trust mediates the negative relationship between perceived organizational support and both types of workplace conflict. Theoretical and practical insights of this research are discussed. (shrink)

This book starts from a first general observation: there are very diverse ways to frame and convey scientific knowledge in texts. It then analyzes texts on mathematics, astronomy, medicine and life sciences, produced in various parts of the globe and in different time periods, and examines the reasons behind the segmentation of texts and the consequences of such textual divisions. How can historians and philosophers of science approach this diversity, and what is at stake in dealing with it? The book (...) addresses these questions, adopting a specific approach to do so. In order to shed light on the diversity of organizational patterns and rhetorical strategies in scientific texts, and to question the rationale behind the choices made to present such texts in one particular way, it focuses on the issue of text segmentation, offering answers to questions such as: What was the meaning of segmenting texts into paragraphs, chapters, sections and clusters? Was segmentation used to delimit self-contained units, or to mark breaks in the physical appearance of a text in order to aid reading and memorizing, or to cope with the constraints of the material supports? How, in these different settings and in different texts, were pieces and parts made visible? (shrink)

When Anquetil-Duperron landed at Pondicherry in 1755, in search of the sacred books of the “Indous et des Parses” (“Hindus and Parsees”), he surely had no idea that he was inaugurating a new discipline, Indianism. He returned to France in 1761, laden with a whole library of Indian texts which he was to spend the rest of his life deciphering. That year was a turning point in Indian history: the Marathes, on the verge of becoming the dominant power of the (...) entire Indian continent, were crushed in Panipat, north of Delhi, by the armies of an Afhgan invasion, and this catastrophe halted their advance for a while. During the same year, in the south of India, Lally-Tollendal was beaten and taken prisoner by the English, thereby destroying the French dream, shared by Dupleix and Bussy, of creating an Indian empire for themselves. (shrink)

A partir des théories fondatrices de la pensée de l'image, développées par Platon et par Aristote, cet ouvrage tend à déterminer la nature de l'image cinématographique. Quelle est la teneur de la reproduction mise en jeu au cinéma? Quelle est la spécificité de cette reproduction qui duplique le réel sans qu'intervienne la main humaine? Quel rapport le cinéma, double du réel, entretient-il à la notion de modèle?

This book details how quantification can serve both as evidence and as an instrument of government, whether when dealing with statistics on employment, occupational health and economic governance, or when developing public management or target-driven policies. In the process, it presents a thought-provoking homage to Alain Desrosières, who pioneered ways to study large numbers and the politics underlying them. It opens with a summary of Desrosières's contributions to the field in which several generations of researchers detail how this statistician and (...) historian profoundly influenced them. This tribute, based on personal testimonies, bears witness to the vitality of the school of thought and analytical framework Desrosières initiated. Next, a collection of essays explores the statistical argument in the neoliberal era, examining issues such as counting the homeless in Europe, measuring the performance of public services, and quantifying the effects of public action on the unemployed in France. The third part details the uses of quantification. It reveals that although statistics are frequently used to the advantage of those in power, they can also play a vital role in challenging and resisting both the conventions underlying the measurements as well as the measurements themselves.Featuring the work of economists, historians, political scientists, sociologists, and statisticians, this title provides readers with a thoughtful look at an influential figure in the history of statistics. It also shows how statistics are used to direct public policy, the degree of conflict that is possible in their production, and the disputes that can develop around their uses. (shrink)

Background: Transgender health care is a subject of much debate among clinicians, political commentators, and policy-makers. While the World Professional Association of Transgender Health (WPATH) Standards of Care (SOC) establish clinical standards, these standards contain implied ethics but lack explicit focused discussion of ethical considerations in providing care. An ethics chapter in the SOC would enhance clinical guidelines. Aims: We aim to provide a valuable guide for healthcare professionals, and anyone interested in the ethical aspects of clinical support for gender (...) diverse and transgender people of all ages. Recognizing that the WPATH is a global association, we address broad challenges. We offer a reflection on general ethical principles, providing conceptual tools for healthcare providers, patients, and families to navigate the specific challenges they might encounter in transgender health care, in line with WPATH’s worldwide mission and scope. Method: This article employs a descriptive analysis, and our framework of reference is the four principles of biomedical ethics: respect for autonomy, beneficence, nonmaleficence, and justice. Results: The article presents a discussion on the four ethical principles as applied to transgender health care. We address issues such as respect for patient autonomy in decision-making, the role of beneficence and nonmaleficence in clinical interventions, and the importance of justice in equitable treatment and access to care. Some of the ethical concerns we address in this article pertain to the current sociopolitical climate, where there has been increasing legal interference, internationally, for transgender and nonbinary people, particularly youth, seeking medical care. Discussion: We highlight the interplay between ethical principles and clinical practice, underscoring the need for ethical guidance in addressing the diverse challenges faced by healthcare providers and patients in transgender health care. We advocate for continuous refinement of ethical thinking to ensure that transgender health care is not only medically effective but also ethically sound. (shrink)