Information can be public among a group. Whether or not information is public matters, for example, for accounts of interdependent rational choice, of communication, and of joint intention. A standard analysis of public information identifies it with (some variant of) common belief. The latter notion is stipulatively defined as an infinite conjunction: for p to be commonly believed is for it to believed by all members of a group, for all members to believe that all members believe it, and so (...) forth. This analysis is often presupposed without much argument in philosophy. Theoretical entrenchment or intuitions about cases might give some traction on the question, but give little insight about why the identification holds, if it does. The strategy of this paper is to characterize a practical-normative role for information being public, and show that the only things that play that role are (variants of) common belief as stipulatively characterized. In more detail: a functional role for “taking a proposition for granted” in non-isolated decision making is characterized. I then present some minimal conditions under which such an attitude is correctly held. The key assumption links this attitude to beliefs about what is public. From minimal a priori principles, we can argue that a proposition being public among a group entails common commitment to believe among that group. Later sections explore partial converses to this result, the factivity of publicity and publicity from the perspective of outsiders to the group, and objections to the aprioricity of the result deriving from a posteriori existential presuppositions. (shrink)

Ned Block argues that the higher-order (HO) approach to explaining consciousness is ‘defunct’ because a prominent objection (the ‘misrepresentation objection’) exposes the view as ‘incoherent’. What’s more, a response to this objection that I’ve offered elsewhere (Weisberg 2010) fails because it ‘amounts to abusing the notion of what-it’s-like-ness’ (xxx).1 In this response, I wish to plead guilty as charged. Indeed, I will continue herein to abuse Block’s notion of what-it’s-like-ness. After doing so, I will argue that the HO approach accounts (...) for the sense of what-it’s-like-ness that matters in a theory of consciousness. I will also argue that the only incoherence present in the HO theory is that generated by embracing Block’s controversial notion of what-it’s-like-ness, something no theorist of any stripe ought to do. Block is famous for (among other things) having introduced the notion of ‘phenomenal consciousness’ into contemporary philosophy of mind (Block 1995). This term is widely employed in the philosophical literature and it even appears in the empirical literature. But wide-speared usage has brought about divergent interpretations of the term. We can distinguish a ‘moderate’ and a ‘zealous’ reading of ‘phenomenal consciousness’. On the moderate reading, ‘phenomenal consciousness’ just means ‘experience’. Many people have embraced this sense of the term and use it to roughly pick out conscious experience involving sensory quality (states like conscious visual experiences or conscious pains, for example).2 On the zealous reading, however, phenomenal consciousness is held to be ‘distinct from any cognitive, intentional, or functional property’ (Block 1995: 234). That is, any explanation of phenomenal consciousness in exclusively cognitive, intentional, or functional terms will fail to capture, without remainder, what is really distinctive about phenomenal consciousness. Block, of course, is fully clear about embracing the zealous reading; indeed, his initial introduction of the notion is in those terms. The same ambiguity occurs with the much-used (and abused) idea of ‘what-it’s-like-ness’.. (shrink)

O objetivo deste artigo é apresentar aos pesquisadores das Humanidades as iniciativas brasileiras para o desenvolvimento de materiais didáticos para a aprendizagem de latim por estudantes de cursos superiores de nosso tempo, com foco no material didático do Programa “Latinitas: leitura de textos em língua latina”, produto da tese de doutorado do autor. Após os mais de três anos de elaboração e de testagens do material na Universidade Federal da Bahia (Brasil), resenha-se aqui o processo de elaboração e de aplicação (...) e noticia-se a disponibilização online, ao público interessado, dos materiais didáticos elaborados. (shrink)

Telling a patient that the outcome of his illness is not good, or even hopeless, requires sensitivity and the ability to communicate with him in the setting of a hospital which is an unnatural environment divorced from family and friends. It is a task which must be taught and learned by doctors and nurses.

Background Clinical empathy is an essential part of healthcare, and patient-centered care models require clinical empathy to be established. Despite this, little is known about its measurement in the neonatal scenario. Research Aim To measure clinical empathy in health professionals who work with medium and high-risk neonates and build a construct of this empathy. Research Design Single-center survey study. Participants and Research Context The Jefferson Scale of Empathy for Health Professionals questionnaire was applied to health professionals who work in an (...) intensive care unit and a medium-risk unit, in Brazil. Analysis was done using descriptive statistics and a factor analysis model, to build the construct of empathy. Overall empathy was calculated, and the domains’ punctuations were analyzed and compared to the maximum punctuation possible. The study followed the STROBE checklist. Ethical Considerations This study was approved by the Research Ethics Committee of the institution. All participants signed the informed consent form. Participants’ confidentiality and anonymity were protected. Findings Median empathy was 117 (IQR 113–124). The domain of Walking in the Patient’s Shoes had lower scores and represented 77.6% of the maximum punctuation possible. The factor analysis included three factors named Understanding, Experiences, and Treatment, and Emotional Relationships, explaining 64.3% of the overall variance. The domain Walking in the Patient’s Shoes was not included in the model. Conclusions In this scenario, clinical empathy should improve. There is a need to improve the domain of Walking in the Patient’s Shoes, in this case, the neonate, and provide more empathic care to them. (shrink)

The existential analysis -- The death of dasein -- The timeliness of dasein -- The derivation of time -- The time of being.

The achievements of the textile industry in Roman Britain are often underestimated as a result of the meagreness of our available evidence. The Edict on maximum prices issued by Diocletian in A.D. 301 shows that British capes commanded high prices on the markets of the Empire, and that in the late third century A.D. British rugs were the best in the world. In view of the competition from the traditional centres of rug manufacture in the East, this is an astonishing (...) achievement. (shrink)

The received translation and interpretation of many of the technical terms current in the textile industry of the Roman Empire are inaccurate, because lexicographers have either fought shy of being precise, or have thought that they recognized in the ancient world technical processes which originated at a much later date. The evidence is often equivocal or insufficient, but may still yield details that have been overlooked. The textile expression scutulatus, to take an example, deserves more attention than Blümner has devoted (...) to it. When it refers to the appearance of a garment, Lewis and Short, s.v. scutulatus, translate ‘diamond or lozenge-shaped, checkered’. It seems worth while to attempt a more precise translation, and, if possible, to estimate the significance in context of the goods so designated. (shrink)

Living out of silence, out of a fully functioning, lovingly attentive mind, and not just out of thought, out of a partially functioning mind, is requisite for depth or profundity in living or relating. A fully attentive, truly silent or meditative mind sees that there is real dualism of time and the timeless and that time and the timeless each has its own unique value. The timeless, or real silence, that which alone can make for depth in one's living and (...) relating, can be there only when, in one's awareness, time and all that is related to time, have come to an end. An examination of a wide variety of statements made by writers, both past and present, shows that these understandings are seldom there in contemporary writings, just as they were not there in writings that have come down to us from the past. 'Living beyond the One and the Many' invites readers to consider the possibility that what is presented in it can bring deep meaning to one's way of living in the world"--Publisher's description, back cover. (shrink)

If the world itself is metaphysically indeterminate in a specified respect, what follows? In this paper, we develop a theory of metaphysical indeterminacy answering this question.

Jeffrey Collins’ new book aims to presents Locke’s views on religious toleration in the light of Thomas Hobbes’ political philosophy. At first blush, Hobbes seems an unusual choice as a point of co...

Razão e liberdade são tidas como os princípios fundadores da sociedade industrial e tecnológica do capitalismo avançado. Para garantir a validação de seu discurso, a tecnologia dispõe de sofisticadas formas de controle, que atuam na consolidação da unidimensionalidade como elemento garantidor da coesão social e da manutenção do status quo. Para isso, o “ordenamento tecnológico” recebe o apoio de uma “coordenação política e intelectual”, que garantem a eficiência processual e a eficácia teleológica das diversas formas de controle da civilização industrial (...) avançada. Este artigo tem como objetivo compreender e expor como para Marcuse, a sociedade do capitalismo afluente, com suas novas formas de controle, protagoniza a formação e consolidação da cultura da unidimensionalidade. Para tanto, a partir do método dialético do filósofo frankfurtiano, debateremos temas como, a contenção do pensamento crítico, condicionamento das necessidades humanas e a racionalidade tecnológica. No intercurso de nossa exposição mostraremos que por trás do discurso da liberdade, a nova sociedade industrial tecnológica, impõe suas formas específicas de controle sobre os indivíduos tendo como resultado a formação de um sistema social unidimensional, onde não há lugar para o pensamento crítico, tido como supérfluo. Pois, não só ameaça a atual compreensão de progresso tecnológico da sociedade unidimensional, como também é capaz de inverter a ordem do discurso estabelecido e desmontar toda e qualquer convivência social do atual status quo. (shrink)

Com esse texto-experimento e como um cartógrafo, aventuramos nos espaços epensamentos erráticos, nômades, liso, de Stalker, filme do cineasta russo Andrei Tarkovski e doconto “O recado do morro” do escritor João Guimarães Rosa. De certa forma, o percurso elaboradopelas expedições, os três homens de Stalker e os cinco homens de “O recado do morro”, guardamalgumas vizinhanças que se desdobram sobre os problemas nos socius em que percorrem. O sociussobrecodifica os fluxos do desejo, buscando determiná-los, regulá-los. Ainda que sejam olharessingulares, filme (...) e literatura, avultam-lhes sensações problemáticas tendo em vista as maneirasinusitadas com que os caminhos se fazem no conto e no filme. Para esse experimento, utilizamosa geofilosofia imanente deleuzeguatarriana. (shrink)

O objetivo deste artigo é apresentar a crítica nietzschiana a moral moderna, tal como descrita na Genealogia da moral. Procuramos ainda destacar a crítica de Habermas a Nietzsche presente na obra: Discurso Filosófico da Modernidade, mais precisamente no capítulo IV “Entrada na Pós-Modernidade: Nietzsche como ponto de inflexão”, onde Habermas discute os aspectos que estruturam o pensamento moderno, colocando a filosofia de Nietzsche como uma ruptura entre o moderno e o pós-moderno. Habermas apresenta a Modernidade como um paradigma, um momento (...) ímpar na história do Ocidente. É no interior da filosofia hegeliana, segundo Habermas, que pela primeira vez se toma consciência no plano conceitual do que seja a Modernidade. Habermas acrescenta ainda que, nem Hegel, nem seus discípulos jamais questionaram as conquistas da Modernidade. Contudo, Nietzsche vislumbra nesta Modernidade a continuação de um mesmo mal: a vida reativa continuaria a triunfar, os valores que vem de baixo continuam a vigorar e os antigos valores metafísicos e negadores da vida que vão determinar as ações. Portanto, aquilo que Nietzsche propõe em sua crítica a modernidade é uma transvaloração dos valores, o que implicaria necessariamente a superação dos valores reativos, pois, só assim seria possível a grandeza na terra. (shrink)

Esta não é uma escrita que procura falar sobre textos artísticos em específico, no sentido de interpretá-los. Ao invés disso, ela se deixa atravessar por aquilo que, na arte, é força de. Ou, força para. Noutras palavras, deseja o estar com, ou melhor, o ser com. Trata-se de recolher abraços de artistas diversxs, de épocas distintas e de linguagens várias, não como uma energia apaziguadora, mas como aumento da potência de agir. Abraços vaga-lumes. Neste caminho, intenta-se uma reflexão sobre como (...) a arte pode ser força para a não capitulação dos sujeitos, ainda que inseridos em contextos (macro e micro) políticos em que quase tudo ganha a cor e o peso do chumbo. Assim como o Brasil de 2019.Palavras-chave: Vaga-lumes. Arte. Resistência. (shrink)

Doctors’ strikes are legally permissible in the UK, with the situation differing in other countries. But are they morally permissible? Doug McConnell and Darren Mann have systematically attempted to dismiss the arguments for the moral impermissibility of doctors’ strikes and creatively attempted to provide further moral justification for them. Unfortunately for striking doctors, they fail to achieve this. Meanwhile, junior doctors’ strikes have continued in the UK through 2023 and have now extended into 2024. In this response, which focuses on (...) the UK situation and specifically junior doctors’ strikes in the National Health Service (NHS) in England, I will demonstrate a central problem with their arguments—namely that they underplay the harms caused by prolonged doctors’ strikes by ignoring the harms to patients with cancer. This weakens their conclusion that strikes are morally permissible in terms of the conditions and thresholds they set. I then provide a psychological critique of their justification for strikes in terms of the interests of the public. It follows that invoking the controversial concept of supererogatory action is ungrounded but also absurd when you consider time-critical cancer care. If those representing striking doctors wish to maintain a modicum of moral respectability, they should mitigate for patients with cancer and negotiate reasonably and with urgency. (shrink)

Stereological techniques allow biologists to create quantitative, three-dimensional descriptions of biological structures from two- dimensional images of tissue viewed under the microscope. For example, they can accurately estimate the size of a particular organelle, the total length of a mass of capillaries, or the number of neurons or synapses in a particular region of the brain. This book provides a practical guide to designing and critically evaluating stereological studies of the nervous system and other tissues. It explains the basic concepts (...) behind design-based stereology and how to get started. Also included are detailed descriptions of how to prepare tissue appropriately, perform pilot studies and decide on the appropriate sampling strategy, and account for phenomena such as tissue shrinkage. Numerous examples of applications of stereological methods that are applicable to studies of the central system and a wide variety of other tissues are explained. The book is therefore essential reading for neurobiologists and cell biologists interested in generating accurate representations of cell and tissue architecture. (shrink)

Volume 20, Issue 8, August 2020, Page 27-29.

In the Critique of Judgment, Kant claims that genius is a talent for art, but not for science. Despite his restriction of genius to the domain of fine art, several recent interpreters have suggested that genius has a role to play in Kant’s account of cognition in general and scientific practice in particular. In this paper, I explore Kant’s reasons for excluding genius from science as well as the reasons that one might nevertheless be tempted to think that his account (...) allows room for the scientific genius. I then argue that Kant’s concerns are not only epistemic, but also moral, and together, they give us good reason for resisting the veneration of genius. (shrink)

Husserlian phenomenology, as the study of conscious experience, has often been accused of solipsism. Husserl’s method, it is argued, does not have the resources to provide an account of consciousness of other minds. This chapter will address this issue by providing a brief overview of the multiple angles from which Husserl approached the theme of intersubjectivity, with specific focus on the details of his account of the concrete interpersonal encounter – “empathy.” Husserl understood empathy as a direct, quasi-perceptual form of (...) intentionality through which the sense of the Other is constituted. Furthermore, his account of empathy is holistically integrated with his overall theory of intersubjectivity, including his discussions of the objectivity of nature, and the social, historical, and communal aspects of subjectivity. Husserl’s theory of empathy continues to cast a long shadow, influencing both the analytic and continental approaches to the problem of other minds, as well as contemporary account of social cognition in the cognitive sciences. (shrink)

An Essay on Human Action seeks to provide a comprehensive, detailed, enlightening, and (in its detail) original account of human action. This account presupposes a theory of events as abstract, proposition-like entities, a theory which is given in the first chapter of the book. The core-issues of action-theory are then treated: what acting in general is (a version of the traditional volitional theory is proposed and defended); how actions are to be individuated; how long actions last; what acting intentionally is; (...) what doing one thing by doing another is; what basic action is; and what omitting to do something is. Attention is also given to the concepts of causation, intention, volition, deciding, choosing, and trying. Finally, a libertarian account of free action is tentatively proposed and defended. (shrink)

Despite All Critique (2014) -- World Politics and Western Reason (1980) -- The Doubled Outsides of the Modern International (2005) -- The Subject of Security (1995) -- The Protection of Nature and the Nature of Protection (2005) -- Social Movements/World Politics (1994) -- Europe is Not Where It is Supposed to Be (2000) -- They Seek it Here, They Seek it There : Looking for Politics in Clayoquot Sound (2003) -- Violence, Modernity, Silence : From Weber to International Relations (1993) (...) -- Hobbes, Origins, Limits (2011) -- War, Terror, Judgement (2002) -- International, Imperial, Exceptional (2005) -- Which Democracy for Which Demos? (2013) -- The Political Theory of Boundaries and the Boundaries of Political Theory : Interview With Raia Prokhovnik (2012). (shrink)

The author offers perspectives that can assist healthcare managers in achieving the highest ethical standards as they face their roles as healthcare providers, employers, and community service organizations. He also examines how to comply with relevant laws and regulations, provide high quality patient care with limited resources, and more.

The book is a comparative analysis of all the major social science/political science grand theories. It focuses on developmentalism, dependency theory, the world systems approach, Marxism, institutionalism, rational choice, psychoanalysis, political sociology, sociobiology, environmentalism, neuro-politics, transitions to democracy, and non-Western systems of analysis. To facilitate comparison and analysis, a common framework and outline are employed throughout. An integrating introduction and conclusion help tie the book together.