Background: Clinical genomic implementation studies pose challenges for informed consent. Consent forms often include complex language and concepts, which can be a barrier to diverse enrollment, and these studies often blur traditional research-clinical boundaries. There is a move toward self-directed, web-based research enrollment, but more evidence is needed about how these enrollment approaches work in practice. In this study, we developed and evaluated a literacy-focused, web-based consent approach to support enrollment of diverse participants in an ongoing clinical genomic implementation study. (...) Methods: As part of the Cancer Health Assessments Reaching Many (CHARM) study, we developed a web-based consent approach that featured plain language, multimedia, and separate descriptions of clinical care and research activities. CHARM offered clinical exome sequencing to individuals at high risk of hereditary cancer. We interviewed CHARM participants about their reactions to the consent approach. We audio recorded, transcribed, and coded interviews using a deductively and inductively derived codebook. We reviewed coded excerpts as a team to identify overarching themes. Results: We conducted 32 interviews, including 12 (38%) in Spanish. Most (69%) enrolled without assistance from study staff, usually on a mobile phone. Those who completed enrollment in one day spent an average of 12 minutes on the consent portion. Interviewees found the information simple to read but comprehensive, were neutral to positive about the multimedia support, and identified increased access to testing in the study as the key difference from clinical care. Conclusions: This study showed that interviewees found our literacy-focused, web-based consent approach acceptable; did not distinguish the consent materials from other online study processes; and valued getting access to testing in the study. Overall, conducting empirical bioethics research in an ongoing clinical trial was useful to demonstrate the acceptability of our novel consent approach but posed practical challenges. (shrink)

For half a century, Ernest Fortin's scholarship has charmed and educated theologians and philosophers with its intellectual search for the best way to live. Written by friends, colleagues, and students of Fortin, this book pays tribute to a remarkable thinker in a series of essays that bear eloquent testimony to Fortin's influence and his legacy. A formidable commentator on Catholic philosophical and political thought, Ernest Fortin inspired others with his restless inquiries beyond the boundaries of conventional scholarship. With essays on (...) subjects ranging across philosophy, political science, literature, and theology Gladly to Learn and Gladly to Teach reflects the astonishing depth and breadth of Fortin's contribution to contemporary thought. (shrink)

For half a century, Ernest Fortin's scholarship has charmed and educated theologians and philosophers with its intellectual search for the best way to live. Written by friends, colleagues, and students of Fortin, this book pays tribute to a remarkable thinker in a series of essays that bear eloquent testimony to Fortin's influence and his legacy. A formidable commentator on Catholic philosophical and political thought, Ernest Fortin inspired others with his restless inquiries beyond the boundaries of conventional scholarship. With essays on (...) subjects ranging across philosophy, political science, literature, and theology Gladly to Learn and Gladly to Teach reflects the astonishing depth and breadth of Fortin's contribution to contemporary thought. (shrink)

Many believe that the ethical problems of donation after cardiocirculatory death (DCD) have been "worked out" and that it is unclear why DCD should be resisted. In this paper we will argue that DCD donors may not yet be dead, and therefore that organ donation during DCD may violate the dead donor rule. We first present a description of the process of DCD and the standard ethical rationale for the practice. We then present our concerns with DCD, including the following: (...) irreversibility of absent circulation has not occurred and the many attempts to claim it has have all failed; conflicts of interest at all steps in the DCD process, including the decision to withdraw life support before DCD, are simply unavoidable; potentially harmful premortem interventions to preserve organ utility are not justifiable, even with the help of the principle of double effect; claims that DCD conforms with the intent of the law and current accepted medical standards are misleading and inaccurate; and consensus statements by respected medical groups do not change these arguments due to their low quality including being plagued by conflict of interest. Moreover, some arguments in favor of DCD, while likely true, are "straw-man arguments," such as the great benefit of organ donation. The truth is that honesty and trustworthiness require that we face these problems instead of avoiding them. We believe that DCD is not ethically allowable because it abandons the dead donor rule, has unavoidable conflicts of interests, and implements premortem interventions which can hasten death. These important points have not been, but need to be fully disclosed to the public and incorporated into fully informed consent. These are tall orders, and require open public debate. Until this debate occurs, we call for a moratorium on the practice of DCD. (shrink)

BackgroundPreprint usage is growing rapidly in the life sciences; however, questions remain on the relative quality of preprints when compared to published articles. An objective dimension of quality that is readily measurable is completeness of reporting, as transparency can improve the reader’s ability to independently interpret data and reproduce findings.MethodsIn this observational study, we initially compared independent samples of articles published in bioRxiv and in PubMed-indexed journals in 2016 using a quality of reporting questionnaire. After that, we performed paired comparisons (...) between preprints from bioRxiv to their own peer-reviewed versions in journals.ResultsPeer-reviewed articles had, on average, higher quality of reporting than preprints, although the difference was small, with absolute differences of 5.0% [95% CI 1.4, 8.6] and 4.7% [95% CI 2.4, 7.0] of reported items in the independent samples and paired sample comparison, respectively. There were larger differences favoring peer-reviewed articles in subjective ratings of how clearly titles and abstracts presented the main findings and how easy it was to locate relevant reporting information. Changes in reporting from preprints to peer-reviewed versions did not correlate with the impact factor of the publication venue or with the time lag from bioRxiv to journal publication.ConclusionsOur results suggest that, on average, publication in a peer-reviewed journal is associated with improvement in quality of reporting. They also show that quality of reporting in preprints in the life sciences is within a similar range as that of peer-reviewed articles, albeit slightly lower on average, supporting the idea that preprints should be considered valid scientific contributions. (shrink)

Resumen. El presente documento tiene como finalidad plasmar la importancia que tiene el tomar encuenta los deseos y necesidades de los espectadores para el éxito económico de las organizaciones deproducción cinematográfica mexicanas. Se establecen las funciones culturales y económicas quedeben considerar los directores y productores de las organizaciones aquí estudiadas. Por otro lado, seubica los diferentes grados de insatisfacción en los que cae un espectador al que no le agradó lapelícula. Se propone el concepto “Síndrome Lozano-Barragán”* para ubicar a aquellasorganizaciones (...) de producción cinematográfica que culpan a los espectadores que quedaroninsatisfechos, del fracaso en taquilla, además de argumentar que dichos espectadores no supieronentender la película o que no saben de la naturaleza de la misma. Por último, hacemos algunasrecomendaciones que pueden seguir las organizaciones de producción cinematográfica para evitareste síndrome e incrementar la satisfacción de los espectadores.Palabras Claves. Organizaciones de producción cinematográfica, industria cultural, síndrome Lozano-Barragán, espectadores, insatisfacción.. The main purpose of this document is to state the importance of taking into considerationthe desires and needs of the spectators by the Mexican film production organizations has for theireconomical success. It establishes the cultural and economic functions that filmmakers studied onthis document must consider. On the other hand, it locates the different degrees of the dissatisfactionin which a spectator can falls into when he or she doesn´t like the movie. We propose the “Lozano-Barragan syndrome”* concept, to distinguish those film production organizations that blame thedissatisfied spectator, for the box office failure, as well as, they argued that those spectators didn´tunderstand the movies or that they don´t understand the nature of it. Finally, we make somerecommendations that could de followed by the film production organizations to avoid this syndromeand increase the spectator satisfaction.Keywords. Film production organizations, cultural industry, Lozano-Barragan syndrome,spectators, dissatisfaction. (shrink)

This rich and varied collection of essays addresses some of the most fundamental human questions through the lenses of philosophy, literature, religion, politics, and theology. Peter Augustine Lawler and Dale McConkey have fashioned an interdisciplinary consideration of such perennial and enduring issues as the relationship between nature and history, nature and grace, reason and revelation, classical philosophy and Christianity, modernity and postmodernity, repentance and self-limitation, and philosophy and politics.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:570 BOOK REVIEWS like reasonable rule for economic life. This effort is worthy of more attention than is possible here, but let it be noted that it must inevitably suffer the same fate as any ethical calculus: someone must decide for others what is their due and what is not. How much wealth, for example, makes for a concentration [of wealth] that would be " demonstrably detrimental to some (...) people's exercise of their generic rights "? His is ultimately an entitlement or rights ethic, rather than an aitial ethic of goal-purposive fulfillment for the individual, projected outwards for a common good scenario. While his rejection of goal ethics's inability to detail principles for distribution of goods is noteworthy, it does not appear that a tightened version of generic rights theory will come closer to either of Phillips's desiderata: a justification of moral reasoning apart from any theory of nature or a calculus for its application. Desan and Phillips wish to think against the limits of the human situation. For Desan, rising above limitation is a moral task and obligation facing us each, if there is to be a common future. His call is to be World Citizen in a Polis of Nations. Phillips's vision is more concrete, a distribution of benefits to benefit all with well-being and freedom. But this mundane task is no less difficult than Desan's transcendent one. Indeed, according to Augustine, even the Divine Mind must utilize an artifice in dealing with human creation: "He loves each of us as though there were only one of us." Both ethicists have striven to show us how we might think this vision for ourselves, i.e., for each other of us. ]OIIN B. DAVIS, O.P. ' Detroit, Michigan Catholics, Anglicans, and Puritans: Seventeenth-Century Essays. By HUGH TREVOR-ROPER. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1988. Pp. xiii + 317. $27.50 (hardbound). Even to list the changes and events which occurred in seventeenth century England is a difficult task: the century spans the period from the death of Queen Elizabeth to the Glorious Revolution and beyond, through the Civil War, the accession and exile (twice) of the Stuarts, the rise of science, the transformation of the theological and religious issues of the English Reformation, to name only the most obvious. To conceive a book, in the form of occasional essays, which not only addresses these changes and events but does so by establishing the connections which were present with European currents at the same time surely tempts fate, even when it does not tempt reviewers. BOOK REVIEWS 571 But Hugh Trevor-Roper is a master, both of the period under survey and of the form of the essay. With one exception, each of these essays began as a lecture or seminar paper, and the pleasantly legible style in which they are written must bear some trace of that origin. The occasional flashes of wit, mixed with rthe fairly non-technical style, make the book a joy to read and a welcome escape from the usually constipated style of scholarly prose. In his Introduction, the essayist clearly sets forth his thesis that English intellectual history does not exist apart from the currents of European intellectual history (a thesis for which Trevor-Roper has already staked a claim). That leads to what may very well be the major problem with these essays: its end is in its beginning. The list of names cited in these essays only partially coincides with the list of names in the index; the former is much longer than the latter. And while the style of the essay welcomes the reader to the period, it also throws up more names and places and events than can be explained or even annotated adequately. This occurs both on a large and on a small scale. The first essay, on "Nicholas Hill, the English Atomist" contains such a vast array of names that at times it becomes the prosopo· graphical equivalent of a telephone book. On a large scale, there is the problem with a definition of Arminianism. No definition, at least no formal definition, is attempted-and this is probably wise. But, particularly in... (shrink)

James V. Schall, S.J. is unquestionably one of the wisest Catholic political thinkers of our time. For more than forty years, Fr. Schall has been an unabashed practitioner of what he does not hesitate to call Roman Catholic political philosophy. A prolific writer and renowned teacher at Georgetown University, Fr. Schall has helped to educate two generations of Catholic thinkers. The present volume brings together seventeen essays by noted scholars in honor of Fr. Schall. It is a testimony to Fr. (...) Schall's erudition and influence that the authors of these essays did not have the privilege of directly studying under him. Rather, they are the indirect but grateful beneficiaries of "Another Sort of Learning," one that Fr. Schall tirelessly defends and practices. An appendix lists all the books Schall has written. Contributors include Marc Guerra, J. Brian Benestad, Francis Canavan, S.J., Kenneth Grasso, Thomas Hibbs, John Hittinger, Mary Keys, Robert Kraynak, Douglas Kries, Rev. Matthew Lamb, Peter Augustine Lawler, Frederick Lawrence, Daniel Mahorky, Graham McAleer, Michael Novak, Tracey Rowland, and Paul Seaton. (shrink)

Este artigo analisa a importância do papel desempenhado pelo diplomata George Frost Kennan na elaboração da política externa dos Estados Unidos durante a Guerra Fria. Ao final da Segunda Guerra Mundial, no contexto marcado pelas apreensões relativas às rivalidades globais entre os EUA e a URSS, Kennan recomendou uma estratégia com a intenção de conter as potenciais tendências expansionistas da União Soviética. Em sua consideração, a principal ameaça posta pela União Soviética não era militar, mas sua capacidade de (...) influência ideológica, veiculada pelos partidos comunistas e seus seguidores no interior das sociedades democráticas ocidentais. Desta hipótese precedente, Kennan arquitetou a Doutrina de Contenção, uma estratégia crucial da política externa dos Estados Unidos durante a Guerra Fria. Como um diplomata de carreira e grande autoridade nos estudos relacionados à sociedade Soviética, Kennan escreveu durante a sua vida uma extraordinária obra relacionada à diplomacia dos EUA e aos seus desafios colossais no ambiente do conflito global. No entanto, desde o início da segunda Administração Truman, Kennan observou que a estratégia estadunidense em relação à Guerra Fria havia se tornado mais militarista e intensificado a corrida armamentista. Ao assumir uma posição crítica em relação a essas diretrizes, que, de acordo com a sua perspectiva, levava à distorção da sua concepção original da teoria da Contenção, Kennan foi marginalizado pelo novo Secretário de Estado, Dean Acheson e deslocado do núcleo de elaboração política do governo. Posteriormente, ele questionou a adopção da Doutrina Truman, a criação da OTAN e o envolvimento dos Estados Unidos nas guerras da Coréia e do Vietnam.George Frost Kennan and the architecture of U.S. Foreign Policy in the genesis of the Cold War This article analyzes the major role performed by diplomat George Frost Kennan in the United States Foreign Policy during the Cold War. By the end of World War II, amidst apprehensions concerning the U.S. and the USSR global rivalries, Kennan recommended a strategy intending to contain the potential expansionist tendencies of the Soviet Union. In his consideration, the core threat upraised by Soviet Union was not military, but its ideological influence conveyed by Communist parties and fellow travelers inside the western democratic societies. From this preceding hypothesis, Kennan designed the doctrine of containment, a crucial strategy of U.S. foreign policy during the Cold War. As a career diplomat and major authority on Soviet society, Kennan wrote during his lifetime an remarkable work related to U.S. diplomacy and its colossal challenges in the environment of that global conflict. Nonetheless, since the inauguration of the second Truman administration, Kennan observed that U.S. Cold War strategy had become more militaristic and that it had strengthened the arms race. For assuming a critical position towards this path, which, according to his perspective, was a distortion of his original containment theory, Kennan was marginalized by the new Secretary of State, Dean Acheson, and displaced from core government power. Subsequently, he stood up against the adoption of the Truman Doctrine, the creation of NATO and the commitment of the United States in the Korean and Vietnam wars. Resumen George Frost Kennan y la arquitectura de la política externa de los EUA en el origen de la Guerra Fría Este artículo analiza la importancia del papel desempeñado por el diplomático George Frost Kennan en la elaboración de la política externa de los Estados Unidos durante la Guerra Fría. Al finalizar la Segunda Guerra Mundial, en el contexto marcado por las aprehensiones vinculadas a las rivalidades globales entre los EUA y la URSS, Kennan recomendó una estrategia con la intención de contener las potenciales tendencias expansionistas de la Unión Soviética. En su entendimiento, la principal amenaza de la Unión Soviética no era militar, y sí su capacidad de influencia ideológica, vehiculada por los partidos comunistas y sus seguidores en el interior de las sociedades democráticas occidentales. Partiendo de esta hipótesis, Kennan ideó la Doctrina de Contención, una estrategia crucial de la política externa de los EEUU durante la Guerra Fría. Como diplomático de carrera y una autoridad en estudios relacionados a la Unión Soviética, Kennan escribió durante su vida una extraordinaria obra relacionada a la diplomacia estadounidense y sus desafíos colosales en el ambiente del conflicto global. Sin embargo, desde el inicio de la segunda administración Truman, Kennan observó que la estrategia de los EUA en relación a la Guerra Fría se había tornado más militarista, intensificándose la carrera armamentista. Al asumir una posición crítica en relación a estas directrices que, de acuerdo a su perspectiva, conducía a la distorsión de su original teoría de la Contención, Kennan fue marginado por el nuevo Secretario de Estado, Dean Acheson, y desplazado del núcleo de elaboración política del gobierno. Posteriormente, él cuestionó la adopción de la Doctrina Truman, la creación de la OTAN y la participación de Estados Unidos en las guerras de Corea y de Vietnam. (shrink)

L'article est une introduction à la pensée politique /catholique de James V. Schall, S.J. Deux oeuvres majeures de Schall sur la théorie politique, Reason, Revelation and the Foundations of Political Philosophy et At the Limits of Political Philosophy: From « Brillant Errors » to Things of Uncommon Importance, présentent un exposé thomiste des origines et des fins de la philosophie politique. Pour Schall, la philosophie politique trouve son origine dans la reconnaissance de questions éternelles de base, telles la nature de (...) la justice et la question de savoir qui doit détenir le pouvoir, - questions qui se posent naturellement dans la vie politique. Mais, comme Schall le montre, les problèmes que ces questions soulèvent conduisent de façon ultime à un horizon qui dépasse le domaine du politique. En fait, pour Schall, les questions humaines importantes que la philosophie politique pose reçoivent finalement leurs réponses les plus intelligibles dans les doctrines révélées du Christianisme. (shrink)

Este dossiê reúne artigos produzidos por conta do simpósio internacional “Guerra Fria: entre o local e o global”, promovido pelo Instituto de Estudos Estratégicos da Universidade Federal Fluminense em setembro de 2017, com apoio e financiamento da CAPES. Os artigos nele reunidos pretendem apresentar casos específicos das articulações entre questões locais e globais durante a Guerra Fria.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Defending a Phenomenological–Behavioral Perspective: Culture, Behavior, and ExperienceMarino Pérez-Álvarez (bio), José M. García-Montes (bio), Adolfo J. Cangas (bio), and Louis A. Sass (bio)KeywordsBehavior, contextual phenomenology, culture, experienceWe should like to express our sincere thanks to all the authors for their commentaries on our articles. Given the restrictions of space (a limitation they too had to contend with), we can only respond to a few aspects of their interesting remarks. (...) We shall reply of course on the basis of our own approach—an approach that sets out to integrate culture, behavior, and experience, and that might be termed contextual phenomenology, phenomenological behaviorism, or perhaps most accurately (albeit more awkwardly), the phenomenological–behavioral perspective.In her commentary, Ibáñez-Guerra (2008), referring to the target articles “Phenomenology and behaviorism” (Pérez-Álvarez, Sass, and Cangas 2008) and “The role of superstition in psychopathology” (García-Montes et al. 2008), wonders whether our maintaining of the spirit of Skinner, as well as our recourse to phenomenology, might not themselves represent forms of superstitious behavior. She points out that it is not always a good idea to put new wine in old barrels. For her, the new wine and new barrels would be represented by social constructivism, of which she is reminded by some aspects of our work. But in making her own case, Ibáñez-Guerra (2008) reveals certain common prejudices concerning behaviorism, prejudices that have apparently persisted even after reading our article. Thus, for example, she does not see operant behavior as incorporating intentionality (what, in the target article, is presented in terms of final causality), because she assumes that intentionality would necessarily imply a mentalist and dualist notion involving a supposed internal mental entity that causes behavior. Skinner (1974) himself noted and rejected this very assumption in a passage that clearly distinguishes his own approach from what he calls a “stimulus-response formula”: “Possibly no charge,” he wrote,is more often leveled against behaviorism or a science of behavior than that it cannot deal with purpose or intention. A stimulus-response formula has no answer, but operant behavior is the very field of purpose and [End Page 281] intention. By its nature it is directed toward the future: a person acts in order that something will happen, and the order is temporal.(pp. 55–6)The place Skinner gives to intentionality and purpose is elaborated in our target article.Furthermore, Ibáñez-Guerra (2008) assumes that, on methodological grounds, Skinner rejects all that is not observable, or at least that cannot be operationalized. This, however, is simply incorrect, at least as regards Skinner’s radical behaviorism. As the reader may recall, radical (as opposed to methodological) behaviorism is neither operationalist nor does it reject private or subjective events because of their unobservability. Indeed, Skinner specifically acknowledges that such events are in fact observable—at least for one person: the subject him- or herself. The question for Skinner is to understand how the part of the world that is only observable and experiential for oneself is constructed or formed. In the end, it turns out that radical behaviorism is more radical, in the Aristotelian ontological sense (see Pérez-Alvarez, Sass, and García-Montes 2008), than post-modern constructionism. Indeed, as we remarked, radical behaviorism can still surprise us today. Similarly, phenomenology is starting to be missed in the clinical context (Andreasen 2007). We believe that radical behaviorism and phenomenology, mutually readjusted, are in fact excellent wines for the times we live in—if only we knew how to appreciate them.In their commentary on “Phenomenology and behaviorism: A mutual readjustment,” Fletcher and Hayes (2008) argue that the philosophy and theory of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT)/Relational Frame Theory (RFT) already contain the salutary aspects of phenomenology that we highlight in our target article. Their insistence on reducing the affinities we find between phenomenology and behaviorism to ACT/RFT consists, in our view, in a scientific–technical argument that is more scientistic than strictly philosophical in nature. Their insistence on the scientific–technical argument itself implies an unclarified philosophical assumption. On what grounds do experimental data constitute the last word? Has... (shrink)

Much of the progress in the fields constituting cognitive science has been based upon the use of explicit information processing models, almost exclusively patterned after conventional serial computers. An extension of these ideas to massively parallel, connectionist models appears to offer a number of advantages. After a preliminary discussion, this paper introduces a general connectionist model and considers how it might be used in cognitive science. Among the issues addressed are: stability and noise‐sensitivity, distributed decision‐making, time and sequence problems, and (...) the representation of complex concepts. (shrink)

O presente texto parte de um diálogo com um artigo publicado recentemente na revista HOPOS (Journal of the International Society for the History of Philosophy of Science), de autoria dos pesquisadores Fons Dewulf e Massimiliano Simons, intitulado “Positivism in Action: The case of Louis Rougier” (2020). No artigo, os pesquisadores abordam a trajetória pouco frequentada de Louis Rougier, filósofo francês cuja fortuna crítica associou-se à sua participação na rede de intelectuais liberais do pós-guerra e a sua função central na (...) organização do Colóquio Walter Lippmann, ainda em 1938. Os autores abordam a trajetória de Rougier de maneira disciplinarmente inusual: procuram interpretar suas teorias filosóficas à luz de seus comprometimentos políticos, defendendo uma imbricação entre ambas as facetas do pensamento de Rougier. Quero sugerir que uma abordagem disposta a compreender as relações dinâmicas entre uma trajetória intelectual e seu entorno social se beneficia de uma abordagem como essa, às quais pode ser acrescida uma dimensão propriamente institucional das trajetórias intelectuais. Para observá-la, proponho acionar o debate sobre virtudes epistêmicas tal como tem sido pensado por autores como Herman Paul, Lorraine Daston e J. Dongen, com o objetivo de investigar se o debate sobre as non-textual things da atividade intelectual podem ser um caminho para transitar de forma profícua entre texto e contexto. Palavras-chave: Virtudes epistêmicas. História da Filosofia. Louis Rougier. Liberalismo. (shrink)

El artículo estudia la teoría de la guerra justa, en san Agustín, considerándolo como el fundador de esta teoría, ya que fue el primero en articular los criterios perennes dentro del marco de "ethos" cristiano del amor e igualdad como seres humanos creados a imagen y semejanza del Creador. Trata también del influjo de Agustín en el desarrollo de esta teoría de la guerra justa.

In the history of human thought the name of ARISTOTLE must be written in capital letters. Of few of the Great Thinkers of history is it so true that he was one of what William James called “the folio editions of mankind.” In speaking of him, whether in praise or dispraise, it has been found almost impossible to avoid superlatives. The later ancients ranked the disciple level with his master Plato as occupying the twin summits of philosophical attainment. Since then (...) they have divided the allegiance of the thinkers of the Western World. No doubt it is a rather wild judgment of Coleridge's that every man is born either a natural Platonist or a natural Aristotelian, but it is scarcely an exaggeration to say that no man has attained any width of knowledge or depth of reflection who is not driven to recognize, and often to express, a preference for the one over the other. (shrink)