The general principles of the scientific method, which are applicable across all of the sciences, are essential for perspective, productivity, and innovation. These principles include deductive and inductive logic, probability, parsimony, and hypothesis testing, as well as science's presuppositions, limitations, ethics, and bold claims of rationality and truth. The implicit contrast is with specialized techniques confined to a given discipline, such as DNA sequencing in biology. Neither general principles nor specialized techniques can substitute for one another, but rather the winning (...) combination for scientists is mastery of both. The purposes of this book are to enhance perspective on science by drawing insights from the humanities, and to increase productivity by fostering a deep understanding of the general principles of scientific method. The examples and case studies span the physical, biological, and social sciences; include applications in agriculture, engineering, and medicine; and also explore science's interrelationships with disciplines in the humanities such as philosophy and law. This book engages a great diversity of viewpoints on science, both historical and contemporary, and responds by affirming science's rationality. Informed by position papers on science from the American Association for the Advancement of Science, National Academy of Sciences, and National Science Foundation, this book aligns with a distinctively mainstream vision of science. It is an ideal resource for anyone undertaking a systematic study of scientific method for the first time, from undergraduates to professionals in both the sciences and the humanities. (shrink)

Research Ethics, Volume 18, Issue 1, Page 3-12, January 2022. Consent is one necessary foundation for ethical research and it’s one of the research ethics committee’s major roles to ensure that the consent process meets acceptable standards. Although on Oxford ‘A’ REC we’ve been impressed by the thought and work put into this aspect of research ethics, we’ve continued to have concerns about the suitability and effectiveness of consent processes in supporting decision making, particularly for clinical trials. There’s poor understanding (...) of what people want to help them decide; current processes don’t provide the best grounding for informed consent and there’s inadequate public involvement. We’ve also found a lack of proportionality with researchers failing to adapt consent procedures in proportion to the burdens and consequences of the study. As a result, people are often not best helped to make an informed choice when asked to join a research study. To address these concerns, we considered how we might improve this aspect of research ethics review. Recognising the central importance of the dialogue between the volunteer and researcher, we’ve drawn up a model or flowchart of what we deem good consent practice, proposing consent should be built around four simple steps:Step 1: Introducing the study and the choices: helping the potential participants get an overview of the proposal and introducing the key issues.Step 2: Explaining all the details of the study using the detailed Participant Information Sheet.Step 3: After a gap, if necessary, reviewing and checking understanding.Step 4: Reaching agreement and recording consent.These steps, we believe, could help all involved and this article lays out ways we might improve participant choice while complying with accepted principles and current regulations. (shrink)

This paper examines the issue of global child labor. The treatment is grounded in the classical economics of Adam smith and the more recent writings of human capital theorists. Using this framework, the universal problem of child labor in newly industrializing countries is investigated. Child labor is placed in its historical context with a brief review of practices in the United States and Great Britain at the time those countries were industrializing. Then, child labor is examined in its contemporary global (...) context. We argue that, as countries industrialize, they tend to follow predictable patterns of development – including use of and eventual abandonment of child labor. We argue that this convergence under the logic of industrial capitalism supports a universalist approach to human rights (that would condemn child labor) over a more tolerant cultural relativist approach. (shrink)

Critics have argued that behaviorism must necessarily be inadequate to account for complex human behavior whereas cognitive psychology is adequate to account for such behavior. Recently, Fodor has focused this criticism on certain situations in which humans choose among a set of alternatives. We argue that this criticism applies to forms of behaviorism that are reductionistic but not to non-reductionistic behaviorisms like that of Skinner. Non-reductionistic behaviorism can be used to interpret human choice situations of varying degrees of complexity. Such (...) interpretations run into difficulty in accounting for certain aspects of verbal behavior, but so do cognitive theories. Although nothing, in principle, prohibits either type of theory from accounting for complex human behavior, neither current behavioral theory nor current cognitive theory is developed enough at the present time to do so. (shrink)

This broad-ranging _Companion_ comprises original contributions from leading Platonic scholars and reflects the different ways in which they are dealing with Plato’s legacy. Covers an exceptionally broad range of subjects from diverse perspectives Contributions are devoted to topics, ranging from perception and knowledge to politics and cosmology Allows readers to see how a position advocated in one of Plato’s dialogues compares with positions advocated in others Permits readers to engage the debate concerning Plato’s philosophical development on particular topics Also includes (...) overviews of Plato’s life, works and philosophical method. (shrink)

In a recent article, Shaw contrasts his own supposed good behaviour, as that of a self-proclaimed “social distance warrior” with the alleged rude behaviour of one of his relatives, Jack, at social events in the former’s house in Scotland in the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic. He does so to illustrate and support his claims that it was wrong and rude to fail to comply with the governmental advice regarding social distancing because we had a responsibility “to minimize risk” (...) and not wrong nor rude to challenge and cajole those people who failed to do so. This article shows that his claims are contestable. It suggests that his own behaviour was no better than Jack’s. (shrink)

Sociologists of risk tend to presume that populations have static perceptions of risk that can be correlated with their degree of technical expertise or their structural relation to society. Such commentators show little interest in human agency unless it is the agency of professional risk communicators educating the public. This analysis of the conflict over a radioactive incinerator in Livermore, California, emphasizes the fluidity of public perceptions of the incinerator and the agency of activists in shaping those perceptions in a (...) battle for rhetorical position with the U.S. Department of Energy. At a historical moment when the media was publicizing decades of environmental problems in the U.S. nuclear weapons complex, activists were able to defeat the incinerator by creating a transitory alliance with local developers and by using rhetorical strategies that slyly undermined the official discourse on risk. (shrink)

El «Didascalicon» es una obra de capital importancia dentro de la literatura de carácter pedagógico surgida en la Edad Media. El autor, que redactó su obra en 1130, selecciona y define todas las áreas de conocimiento vigentes en su época, demostrando que no solo están totalmente integradas entre ellas, sino que resultan necesarias para el logro de la perfección tanto en lo referente a la vida terrenal como en lo tocante a la eterna. Dividida en seis libros, presenta una clasificación (...) nueva de la ciencia. Divide la Filosofía en cuatro ramas: Teórica, Práctica, Mecánica y Lógica. La Teórica, a su vez, comprende la Teología, la Matemática y la Física. La Filosofía Práctica consta de tres partes: moral personal, moral administrativa o privada y moral civil o pública. La Mecánica tiene seis ramas: el lanificio o arte textil, la fabricación de armas, la agricultura la caza, la medicina y el arte teatral. La Lógica abarca la gramática y la teoría de la argumentación. La obra fue escrita para los estudiantes que acudían a la Escuela de San Víctor y su finalidad, que el mismo Hugo señala en el prefacio, es establecer normas para sacar el máximo provecho a su estudio. La obra se presenta aquí por primera vez en edición bilingüe latín-castellano, con una traducción ampliamente contrastada y un completo estudio preliminar. (shrink)

ABSTRACT This paper takes issue with the idea that there is a variety of moral theories available which can in some way usefully be applied to problems in ethics. The idea is reflected in the common view that those favouring a systematic approach would do well to abandon consequentialist thinking and turn to some alternative theory. It is argued here that this is not an option, since each of the usual supposed alternatives lacks the independent resources to meet the minimal (...) requirements of being a moral theory at all. The aim is to demonstrate that virtue ethics, rights theory and deontology lack the different forms of explanation that would make them genuinely alternative theories. The conclusion is that this part of ethics is much more of a unity than is standardly assumed and that, far from our being able to move on from consequentialism, certain problems that arise from its very nature are bound to remain central to any attempt at moral theory. (shrink)

In Aristotle′s Nicomachean Ethics, at 1149b15–16, there is a quotation: Aristotle does not tell us who wrote these words, and we now find the quotation as lyric fr. adesp. 949.2.

Valid consent requires the potential research participant understands the information provided. We examined current practice in 50 proposed Clinical Trials of Investigational Medicinal Products to determine how this understanding is checked. The majority of the proposals ( n = 44) indicated confirmation of understanding would take place during an interactive conversation between the researcher and potential participant, containing questions to assess and establish understanding. Yet up until now, research design and review have not focussed upon this, concentrating more on written (...) material. We propose ways this interactive conversation can be documented, and the process of checking understanding improved. (shrink)

The experience of fragility is part of the uncertainty surrounding the Covid epidemic. I see Depraz’s experience as involving two types of cognitive processes, one lighter than the other. The ….

Ramified natural theology concerns arguments for or against distinctively Christian theism, using only our natural endowments of reason and sense perception, without appealing to the authority of divine revelation. Before ramified natural theology’s arguments and evidence can be evaluated properly, first its methodology must be clear, impartial, settled, and effective. This paper defends three theses regarding methodology. First, ramified natural theology and science share the same core methodology, namely, the PEL model, specifying that conclusions about the world require three resources: (...) Presuppositions, Evidence, and Logic. Second, ramified natural theology, especially when implemented with the PEL model, provides a suitable methodology for investigating miracles. Third, despite methodological differences, there is a fruitful synergy between natural and revealed theology. Ramified natural theology has its own intrinsic importance, and yet its full value emerges from its synergy with revealed theology. (shrink)

The results of this paper concern the effective cardinal structure of the subsets of [ω1]<ω1, the set of all countable subsets of ω1. The main results include dichotomy theorems and theorems which show that the effective cardinal structure is complicated.

This commentary to Nescolarde-Selva and Usó-Doménech’s (Reality, systems and impure systems. Foundations of Science 2013) links ideas in their paper to radical constructivism and raises two questions. (1) Would it be helpful to substitute the constructivist notion of viability for the traditional notion of truth with its connotations of relating language and reality? (2) Is the link made to issues in ontological philosophy important since the implicit constructivist epistemology of the paper considers mathematical ideas are just as real as ideas (...) about objects. (shrink)

I distinguish three matters about which decisions have to be made in scientific activities: (1) adoption of strategy; (2) acceptance of data, hypotheses, and theories; and (3) application of scientific knowledge. I argue that, contrary to the common view that only concerning (3) do values have a legitimate role, value judgments often play indispensable roles in connection with decisions concerning (1)—that certain values may not only be furthered by applications of the scientific knowledge gained under a strategy, but they may (...) also provide a primary reason for conducting research under the strategy. However, this is compatible with making decisions concerning (2) that in no way draw upon values. While, in my opinion, this account applies to all the sciences, it has special salience in the behavioral and cognitive sciences. The behavioral scientist, qua scientist, makes value judgments when making decisions about which strategy to adopt, but not when deciding which theories to accept as providing knowledge and understanding of specified domains of phenomena. (shrink)

This is not a random collection of essays, but a book on a single theme. Written by separate hands, mainly by literary critics at Cambridge, it was planned as a whole and executed with a common purpose: to produce the first literary study of the English moralists of the seventeenth century to the beginning of the twentieth. The authors share two convictions: they believe that the study of literature demands an understanding of whatever moral philosophy is embodied in it; and (...) they believe that philosophical writings are capable of being tested by the techniques of literary criticism. In this book, such works as Bacon's Advancement of Learning, Hobbes's Leviathan, and Hume's Enquiries are viewed as whole works, not as repositories of philosophical propositions, nor as episodes in the history of English thought. (shrink)