The issue of directed donation of organs from deceased donors for transplantation has recently risen to the fore, given greater significance by the relatively stagnant rate of deceased donor donation in the UK. Although its status and legitimacy is explicitly recognized across the USA, elsewhere a more cautious, if not entirely negative, stance has been taken. In England, Wales and Northern Ireland, the Human Tissue Act 2004, and in Scotland the Human Tissue (Scotland) Act 2006, are both silent in (...) this regard. Although so-called conditional donation, donation to (or perhaps withheld from) a specific class, has been outlawed as a product of guidance issued by the Secretary of State for Health issued in the wake of the controversial incident occurring in the North of England in 1998, its intended application to ‘directed’ donation is less certain. Directed and conditional donations challenge the traditional construct of altruistic donation and impartial (equitable) allocation in a very immediate and striking fashion. They implicitly raise important questions as to whether the body or parts of the body are capable of being owned, and by whom. This paper attempts to explore the notion of donor ownership of body parts and its implications for both directed and conditional donation. (shrink)

Background: Funding organisations and research ethics committees should play a part in strengthening attention to gender equality in clinical research. In the research policy of European Union , funding measures have been taken to realise this, but such measures are lacking in the EU policy regarding RECs.Objective: To explore how RECs in Austria, Germany, Ireland, The Netherlands and Sweden deal with gender equality issues by asking two questions: Do existing procedures promote representation of women and gender expertise in the (...) committee? How are sex and gender issues dealt with in protocol evaluation?Methods: Two RECs were selected from each country. Data were obtained through interviews with key informants and content analysis of relevant documents .Results: All countries have rules to ensure the presence of women on RECs; gender expertise is not required. Drug study protocols are carefully evaluated, sometimes on a formal basis, as regards the inclusion of women of childbearing age. The reason for excluding either one of the sexes or including specific groups of women or making a gender-specific risk–benefit analysis are investigated by some RECs. Such measures are, however, neither defined in the regulations nor integrated in review tools.Conclusions: The RECs investigated in five European member states are found to pay limited attention to gender equality in their working methods and, in particular in protocol evaluation. Policy and regulations of EU are needed to strengthen attention to gender equality in the work of RECs. (shrink)

Today’s bodies are akin to ‘walking sensor platforms’. Bodies either host, or are the subjects of, an array of sensing devices that act to convert bodily movements, actions and dynamics into circulative data. This article proposes the notions of ‘disembodied exhaust’ and ‘embodied exhaustion’ to conceptualise processes of bodily sensorisation and datafication. As the material body interfaces with networked sensor technologies and sensing infrastructures, it emits disembodied exhaust: gaseous flows of personal information that establish a representational data-proxy. It is this (...) networked actant that progressively structures how embodied subjects experience their daily lives. The significance of this symbiont medium in determining the outcome of interplays between networked individuals and audiences necessitates that it is carefully contrived. The article explores the nature and function of the data-proxy, and its impact on social relations. Drawing on examples that depict individuals engaging with their data-proxies, the article suggests that managing a virtual presence is analogous to a work relation, demanding diligence and investment. But it also shows how the data-proxy operates as a mode of affect that challenges conventional distinctions made between organic and inorganic bodies, agency and actancy, mortality and immortality, presence and absence. (shrink)

Every living science, especially in its early stages, is compelled to devise fresh terms, either by coining new words or by giving new meanings to old ones. Unless and until these fresh terms become absorbed in the vocabulary of everyday speech, their unfamiliarity makes them a target for the shafts of the humourist. There can be no doubt that in the late fifth century B.C. literary criticism was still a new science. We can trace its beginnings in the treatises of (...) the Sophists, many titles of which have been handed down to us. Strepsiades' lesson in metric, though of itself amusing enough, would certainly gain in topical appropriateness if enacted at a time when such investigations were not only much in the air, but were still novel. And the whole ‘Agon’ of the Frogs, the character of which is forecasted in lines 796–802, depicts in the strongest colours the contrasted views of technician and inspirationist. We should therefore naturally expect a play of such a kind, written at such a time, to be full of technical jargon, barely understood by the ‘man in the street,’ and forming the object of his half-contemptuous amusement. That is, I believe, exactly what we do find, to an extent insufficiently recognized. Professor Radermacher, in his recent edition of the Frogs, has rendered valuable service by pointing out the frequent occurrence in that play of technical terms which meet us later in Dionysius of Halicarnassus and other critics. But I believe that technical language lurks unsuspected in many other passages, though the precise meaning may often be beyond recovery. (shrink)

Pleidooi voor een metafysische visie op hedendaagse sociale en economische problemen.

Professor Linsay has called my attention to the need for an examination of these compounds, with a view to ascertaining whether they are ever used in the Singular by Latin writers, or always in the Plural. From a scholium, probably by Donatus, on Aen. X. 173: insula inexhaustis Chalybum generosa metallis, has come a gloss which appears in the Ansileubus Glossary in two forms: FR 205 Frofra : insula Tirreno mari in quo ferrifodina exercentur, RU 77 Rufa: insula Tirreni maris (...) in qua ferrifodina exercetur. (shrink)

The main object of this thesis is to explain in a systematic fashion Francis Hutcheson's moral theory. Such an attempt will necessarily involve a discussion of the various philosophical problems which are inherent in his theory. For example, I discuss the issue of whether Hutcheson's theory of the moral sense is to be interpreted in an intuitionist or an emotivist fashion. It is argued that some aspects of his moral sense theory favour the former and some the latter interpretation, Hutcheson's (...) theory of benevolence is outlined and his' arguments against the psychological egoists are discussed. Perhaps the most important problem with Hutcheson's moral sense theory is the problem of motivation. Any moral theory which locates the virtue of virtuous actions in the motive from which they are done, as Hutcheson's does, will encounter problems in explaining how knowledge of right and wrong can influence us to be virtuous. Hutcheson's ingenious solution to this problem and his theory of moral motivation, which I suggest have not been adequately discussed previously to this thesis, are explicated at length. Hutcheson's criticisms of the moral rationalists are considered, as are Price's criticisms of Hutcheson. A final chapter attempts to show how the development of Hutcheson's thinking was the result of his realizing the implications of his own theories, especially his theory of moral motivation. (shrink)

This paper aims to address the relevance of the natural sciences for transcendental phenomenology, that is, the issue of naturalism. The first section distinguishes three varieties of naturalism and corresponding forms of naturalization: an ontological one, a methodological one, and an epistemological one. In light of these distinctions, in the second section, I examine the main projects aiming to “naturalize phenomenology”: neurophenomenology, front-loaded phenomenology, and formalized approaches to phenomenology. The third section then considers the commitments of Husserl’s transcendental phenomenology with (...) respect to the three varieties of naturalism previously discussed. I argue that Husserl rejected strong and weak forms of epistemological naturalism, strong methodological naturalism, and ontological naturalism. The fourth section presents the argument that Husserl endorsed a weak, conditional form of methodological naturalism. This point is illustrated with Husserl’s proposal of “somatology,” a natural science apt to study the corporeality of the lived body. The final section addresses the complementarity and respective limits of the transcendental phenomenological and the natural scientific frameworks. I argue that, on Husserl’s account, the function of transcendental phenomenology with respect to the natural sciences is to provide them with an epistemological foundation and an ontological clarification. I suggest that certain natural sciences can be understood, within the transcendental phenomenological framework, as “sciences of constitution,” that is, as sciences investigating the contribution of real structures acting as conditions of possibility for the occurrence of certain kinds of comprehensive unities in lived experience. (shrink)

Contemporary Materialism brings together the best recent work on materialism from many of our leading contemporary philosophers. This is the first comprehensive reader on the subject. The majority of philosophers and scientists today hold the view that all phenomena are physical, as a result materialism or 'physicalism' is now the dominant ontology in a wide range of fields. Surprisingly no single book, until now, has collected the key investigations into materialism, to reflect the impact it has had on current thinking (...) in metaphysics, philosophy of mind and the theory of value. The classic papers in this collection chart contemporary problems, positions and themes in materialism. At the invitation of the editors, many of the papers have been specially up-dated for this collection: follow-on pieces written by the contributors enable them to appraise the original paper and assess developments since the work was first published. The book's selections are largely non-technical and accessible to advanced undergraduates. The editors have provided a useful general introduction, outlining and contextualising this central system of thought, as well as a topical bibliography. Contemporary Materialism will be vital reading for anyone concerned to discover the ideas underlying contemporary philosophy. David Armstrong, University of Sydney; Jerry Fodor, Rutgers University, New Jersey; Tim Crane, University College, London; D. H. Mellor, Univeristy of Cambridge; J.J.C. (shrink)

The Anvil Book series offers a set of short, paper–back monographs by specialists in history and social science upon special periods or movements of thought. Three of its opening works deal sensibly with those highly ambiguous, but aggressively sentimental terms, Rationalism, Liberalism and Conservatism which in the past three centuries have managed to impose a verbal fetish upon their shifting detail of speculative philosophy and politico–economic policy. It is no small service to the contemporary student to clearly analyse the historical (...) origins and development of each line of thought. And the method is uniformly successful in each book: approximately one hundred pages are devoted to an historico–critical analysis of each topic, followed by a ninety page selection of classic texts from its leading spirits. (shrink)

Every human being has a vast store of knowledge about health and sickness and the ability to draw conclusions on the basis of this knowledge. Yet science research continues to be based largely on `objective studies' conducted by academics and to look down on `subjective' studies. The belief that `pure' objective science is highest and subjective information is lowest, inculcated by the way science is taught in schools, deters doctors from communicating information based on personal experience lest it be decried (...) - as it certainly will be - as scientifically worthless. Alternative medicine with its open, flexible approach to the whole person, has something to teach conventional medicine. And doctors must pay more attention to what their patients can tell them. There is no rational justification for accepting the factual information that people give (in a case history) while disregarding what they have to say about their condition. Old-style science is particularly inept in helping doctors deal with psychosomatic problems. What is needed is a new `science of the subjective' which would be truly appropriate to the subject of study, the whole human being. There is a commentary on this paper by Sir Douglas Black, President of the Royal College of Physicians. (shrink)

Infinite time Turing machines with only one tape are in many respects fully as powerful as their multi-tape cousins. In particular, the two models of machine give rise to the same class of decidable sets, the same degree structure and, at least for partial functions f : ℝ → ℕ, the same class of computable functions. Nevertheless, there are infinite time computable functions f : ℝ → ℝ that are not one-tape computable, and so the two models of infinitary computation (...) are not equivalent. Surprisingly, the class of one-tape computable functions is not closed under composition; but closing it under composition yields the full class of all infinite time computable functions. Finally, every ordinal that is clockable by an infinite time Turing machine is clockable by a one-tape machine, except certain isolated ordinals that end gaps in the clockable ordinals. (shrink)

The Against Apion of Josephus is not only a defense of Judaism and Jewish history, but also an essay in historiography and historical criticism, as an outline of the work reveals. Josephus explains how history should and should not be written, and attempts to prove that certain versions of the past are truer than others. The Against Apion may attack the reliability and integrity of Greek historiography as being divisive and instable, but it is from the Greeks that Josephus learned (...) the idea and techniques of historical criticism. He develops his argument by appeal to the superiority of Jewish history, canon, and community, but all these pro-Jewish and anti-Greek arguments have Greek origins. The Greek argument from consensus shaped the historical and theological argumentation of the Against Apion, and Greek precedents provided the basis for the ahistorical or antihistorical view of Judaism that Josephus proposes. Josephus' polemic proves weakest in his argument from canon, and in his contrasting Jewish stability with Greek restiveness. (shrink)

While the United States is an important Asia-Pacific actor, its engagement with the region is complex and often difficult. Not only must US regionalism balance the diverse requirements of an ambitious policy agenda, but also US policy norms and priorities often clash with those of other regional actors. This has important implications for the capacity of the United States to provide regional leadership. Recent years have seen growing policy convergence between the United States and other Asia-Pacific actors, particularly in economic (...) terms, but US regionalism continues to feature competition alongside collaboration. (shrink)