Background Paediatric clinical research faces unique challenges that compromise optimal recruitment of children into clinical trials. A main barrier to enrolment of children is parental misconceptions about the research process. In developing countries, there is a knowledge gap regarding parental perceptions of and attitudes towards their children's participation in clinical trials. Objective To explore such perceptions and attitudes in Lebanese parents. Study design 33 in-depth interviews were conducted with parents with and without previous research experience. Interviews were tape-recorded, transcribed in (...) colloquial Arabic, and later subjected to thematic analysis. Results Benefit/risk ratio assessment was a major determinant of parental consent. Fear of adverse events or painful procedures in research was a recurring theme in most interviews. Whereas perception of direct benefit to the child, trust in the physician or institution, financial gains or having a positive previous experience in research facilitated consent, a complex informed consent form and misunderstanding of the term ‘randomisation’ hindered parental approval of participation. Conclusion Lebanese parents have perceptions of and attitudes towards children's participation in clinical trials that are similar to those reported from the industrialised world. Improving communication with parents and building trust between researchers and parents is important for successful recruitment. Investigators planning to conduct paediatric trials in developing countries need to simplify consent forms and devise new ways to explain randomisation. (shrink)

Early in his Essays on Intellectual Powers, Reid draws a distinction between mental power, mental operation, and mental capacity (EIP 21). To the untrained eye, these terms could probably be used interchangeably, and Reid believes this is correct, up to a point. He argues that, if we are interested in understanding exactly how the human mind works, we must use these terms with more precise meanings. This is part of his more general strategy of trying to always use the words (...) with their common meanings, as much as possible, but also pointing out that certain philosophical distinctions are needed to carry out the project of laying out the foundations of the science of the mind. This paper explains what the distinction between power, operation, and capacity is, according to Reid, with the goal of understanding why it is important to draw such a distinction, not only for the Reidian project, but for action theory, more generally. (shrink)

A remarkable feature of the philosophical work on conspiracy theory theory has been that most philosophers agree there is nothing inherently problematic about conspiracy theories (AKA the thesis of particularism). Recent work, however, has challenged this consensus view, arguing that there really is something epistemically wrong with conspiracy theorising (AKA generalism). Are particularism and generalism incompatible? By looking at just how much particularists and generalists might have to give away to make their theoretical viewpoints compatible, I will argue that particularists (...) can accept many of the concerns that motivate generalism because generalism can never be about ‘all’ conspiracy theories without being either ahistorical or apolitical. In the end generalist critiques are best seen as useful guidelines or considerations for the appraising of particular conspiracy theories. (shrink)

In much of the current academic and public discussion, conspiracy theories are portrayed as a negative phenomenon, linked to misinformation, mistrust in experts and institutions, and political propaganda. Rather surprisingly, however, philosophers working on this topic have been reluctant to incorporate a negatively evaluative aspect when either analyzing or engineering the concept conspiracy theory. In this paper, we present empirical data on the nature of the concept conspiracy theory from five studies designed to test the existence, prevalence and exact form (...) of an evaluative dimension to the ordinary concept conspiracy theory. These results reveal that, while there is a descriptive concept of conspiracy theory, the predominant use of conspiracy theory is deeply evaluative, encoding information about epistemic deficiency and often also derogatory and disparaging information. On the basis of these results, we present a new strategy for engineering conspiracy theory to promote theoretical investigations and institutional discussions of this phenomenon. We argue for engineering conspiracy theory to encode an epistemic evaluation, and to introduce a descriptive expression—such as ‘conspiratorial explanation’—to refer to the purely descriptive concept conspiracy theory. (shrink)

In metaethics, evolutionary debunking arguments combine empirical and epistemological premises to purportedly show that our moral judgments are unjustified. One objection to these arguments has been to distinguish between those judgments that evolutionary influence might undermine versus those that it does not. This response is powerful but not well understood. In this paper I flesh out the response by drawing upon a familiar distinction in the natural sciences, where it is common to distinguish folk judgments from theoretical judgments. I argue (...) that this in turn illuminates the proper scope of the evolutionary debunking argument, but not in an obvious way: it is a very specific type of undermining argument that targets those theories where theoretical judgments are inferred merely from folk judgments. One upshot of this conclusion is that it reveals a verboten methodology in metaethics. The evolutionary debunking argument is therefore much less powerful than its proponents have supposed, but it nevertheless rules out what is perhaps a common way of attempting to justify moral judgments. (shrink)

In this paper I interrogate the notion of `debunking conspiracy theories’, arguing that the term `debunk’ carries with it pejorative implications, given that the verb `to debunk’ is commonly understood as `to show the wrongness of a thing or concept’. As such, the notion of `debunking conspiracy theories’ builds in the notion that such theories are not just wrong but ought to be shown as being wrong. I argue that we should avoid the term `debunk’ and focus on investigating conspiracy (...) theories. Looking at recent research work in epistemology on conspiracy theory, I argue that the best way to avoid talk of `debunking’ conspiracy theories is by working with a non-pejorative definition of `conspiracy theory’, and forming communities of inquiry which allow us to investigate the warrant of such theories without the prejudice associated with working with a pejorative definition. (shrink)

Looking at the early work in the philosophy of conspiracy theory theory, I put in context the papers in this special issue on new work on conspiracy theory theory (itself the product of the 1st International Conference on the Philosophy of Conspiracy Theory held in February 2022), showing how this new generation of work not only grew out of, but is itself a novel extension of the first generation of philosophical interest in these things called ‘conspiracy theories’.

Research on conspiracy theories has proliferated since 2016, in part due to the US election of President Trump, the COVID-19 pandemic, and increasingly threatening environmental conditions. In the rush to publication given these concerning social consequences, researchers have increasingly treated as definitive a 2016 paper by Michael Wood (Political Psychology, 37(5), 695–705, 2016) that concludes that the phrase “conspiracy theory” has no negative effect upon people’s willingness to endorse a claim. We revisit Wood’s findings and its (re)uptake in the recent (...) literature. Is the label “conspiracy theory” a pejorative? If so, does it sway or affect people’s belief in specific claims of conspiracy (i.e. particular conspiracy theories), or is the effect one that concerns claims of conspiracy more generally (i.e. all conspiracy theories)? Through an examination of the conceptual and methodological scope of Wood’s work and the results of our similar quasi-experimental design, we argue that it is premature to suggest the label “conspiracy theory” has no impact on the believability of a claim, or that it has no rhetorical power. (shrink)

Each of the following papers gives an account of a different UK clinical ethics committee. The committees vary in the length of time they have been established, and also in the main focus of their work. The accounts discuss the development of the committees and some of the ethical problems that have been brought to them. The issues raised will be relevant for other National Health Service (NHS) trusts in the UK that wish to set up such a committee.

First published in 1995. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

The goal of this paper is to examine whether business performance is affected by the adoption of practices included under the term Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR). To achieve this goal, we analyse the relation between CSR and certain accounting indicators and examine whether there exist significant differences in performance indicators between European firms that have adopted CSR and others that have not. The effects of compliance with the requirements of CSR were determined on the basis of firms included in the (...) Dow Jones Sustainability Index (DJSI), and specific accounting indicators were applied to measure performance. For the purposes of this study, we selected one group of firms belonging to the DJSI and another comprised of firms quoted on the Dow Jones Global Index (DJGI) but not on the DJSI. The sample was made up of two groups of 55 firms, studied for the period 1998–2004. Empirical analysis supports the conclusion that differences in performance exist between firms that belong to the DJSI and to the DJGI and that these differences are related to CSR practices. We find that a short-term negative impact on performance is produced. (shrink)

How ought the historian to reconcile themselves philosophically with the fact of evental contingency and of its relationship to structural determination? Does the existence of contingent causation undermine the very concept of historical necessity, or do the two instead in dialectical entanglement? In this essay, I engage with the problem of historical contingency from a transcendental-materialist perspective informed by the work of Slavoj Žižek, tendering a philosophically serious response to the famous Pascalian conundrum of Cleopatra’s nose and its challenge to (...) structuralist accounts of historical causation. The position associated with Laplace – that is to say, that the course of history would be entirely predictable were one provided with a complete account of initial conditions – is firmly rejected. Instead, I revive Althusser’s attempt to craft a theory of ‘aleatory materialism’, in which the determinative power of structural forces nevertheless leave space for the radical and unpredictable transformation of a situation by the chance crystallisation of events and encounters. In this effort, I recruit conceptual architecture not only from the fields of historiography and philosophy, but also quantum physics, psychoanalysis, and mathematics. (shrink)

Is it possible to establish a line of research that brings Gabriel Marcel and Jean-Paul Sartre closer together? With this article, we will positively support this idea, by distancing ourselves from the overly rigid interpretations that exclusively focus on antinomic elements sliding into a reductionist and nowadays “canonical” presentation of the relationship between these philosophers. Beyond the undeniable and, fortunately, unmediated differences between the two philosophers, this article aims to investigate their positions regarding the concept of “relationship”. In doing so, (...) we will highlight how Gabriel Marcel’s “coesse” and Jean-Paul Sartre’s “being-for-others” have numerous points of contact that place both philosophers, beyond their personal positions in the religious sphere, within the common ground of “existentialism”. (shrink)

This article documents how a serial plagiarism case discovered over a decade ago continues to generate negative effects in the downstream research on medieval and early modern philosophy. The ongoing positive citation of the 40 plagiarizing articles and book chapters – including those retracted by their publishers – affects the reliability of later scholarship in several ways. The present state of affairs is the joint result of authors, editors, peer reviewers, and publishers who continue to allow (and in some cases, (...) support) the publication of new works across a variety of genres that contain positive citations to the 40 plagiarizing articles and book chapters. The problem shows no signs of abating; the plagiarizing articles and book chapters continue to acquire positive citations in new publications, including authoritative reference works. The breach of research standards is further shown by the fact that even a non-existent publication by the plagiarist continues to acquire positive citations. (shrink)

Perhaps more than any philosophy written in the past few centuries, the work of Friedrich Nietzsche has given rise to controversy, misunderstanding, and dissent. Today Nietzsche is remembered as the revolutionary author of such polemical ideas as the death of God, the revaluation of values, the will to untruth, and the Übermensch. Yet is Nietzsche’s philosophy as atheistic, relativistic, nihilistic, and immoral as some commentators have claimed? Or ought we perhaps to give more credence to Nietzsche’s own assertion that one (...) writes books “precisely to conceal what one harbors” (BGE, 9, 289)? If “whatever is profound loves masks” (BGE, 2, 40) then might Nietzsche’s more daring claims be interpreted as clever masks behind which he conceals a deeper philosophy and on which he reveals a hidden truth? Is it not possible that the standard readings of Nietzsche are in fact misreadings—that his work invites misreading, that it is intentionally unclear, deceptive, disguised? The goal of this volume is to reread Nietzsche for all that he shows and all that he hides. It is to dig deeper into his work in order to challenge misreadings of old and invite misreadings anew—as, indeed, his work itself calls for and demands. (shrink)

After presenting a variety of arguments in support of the idea that ordinary names are indexical, I respond to John Perry's recent arguments against the indexicality of names. I conclude by indicating some connections between the theory of names defended here and Wittgenstein's observations on naming, and suggest that the latter may have been misconstrued in the literature.

Looking at set of 76 representative articles published by social psychologists between 2017 and 2023 (reviewed between December 2022 and February 2023), I examine the role of motivating examples---a kind of illustrative example, typically used by researchers at the beginning of their work to motivate the issue or problem they want to resolve or address in that work---in the social psychological work on conspiracy theory. Through an examination of the language around how motivating examples are introduced and used in the (...) social psychological literature, I argue that the abstract and vague way that social psychologists employ such examples ends up relying on what Joseph Uscinski and Adam Enders deem as an unviable and easily abused `I-know-it-when-I-see-it' standard. As will be demonstrated, much of the recent work in the social psychology of conspiracy theory assumes and thus fails to establish what is supposedly problematic about belief in the conspiracy theories used as motivating examples. As a consequence the surveyed work typically fails to adequately capture belief in actual conspiracy theories, let alone establish a case for a general suspicion of such beliefs. This work, then, adds to and extends upon existing critiques of the social psychology of conspiracy theory by members of the wider community of scholars studying conspiracy theories. The upshot of this research is that if social psychologists want their work to be of use to the broader scholarly community studying these things called `conspiracy theories', then they need to connect their work on the problems of conspiracy beliefs or mindsets to concrete examples of belief in unwarranted conspiracy theories. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Opining the articuli fidei:Thomas Aquinas on the Heretic’s Assent to the Articles of FaithM. V. DoughertyTHOMAS AQUINAS’S ACCOUNT of the infused virtue (habitus) of faith presupposes that some intrinsically intelligible truths are beyond the range of the natural cognitive abilities of human beings. The possession of the virtue of faith allows the believer to transcend certain natural epistemic limitations so that he can assent to truths that are necessary (...) for salvation. Consonant with the Catholic theological tradition, Aquinas refers to such truths as the articles of faith (articuli fidei), and stock examples include propositions concerning the Trinity and the Incarnation.1In light of the many and well-known texts from the Corpus Thomisticum that highlight the disproportion or incommensurability between the articles of faith and the natural cognitive abilities of human beings, it would not be unreasonable for one to assume that faith is required to assent to such articles of faith [End Page 1] in this life. Such an interpretive assumption could be expressed as:A1: A human being can assent to the articles of faith in this life if and only if the human being is fortified with the infused virtue of faith.One might be led to ascribe A1 to Aquinas when one considers that he criticizes the Pelagians precisely for maintaining that the assent to matters of faith is caused by nothing other than free will.2 Still further, one might think that strong evidence for A1 is Aquinas’s claim that “free will does not suffice for believing, since those things that are of faith are above reason.”3I argue, however, that A1’s identification of the virtue of faith as a necessary condition for the assent to the articles of faith does not adequately reflect Aquinas’s position, despite the many texts that may suggest such a view.4 That Aquinas does not endorse A1 can be made evident by examining his largely overlooked account of the epistemic state of the heretic (haereticus). To be sure, most commentators who explore the Thomistic treatment of heresy focus on the psychology of error underlying the heretic’s denial of one or more of the articles of faith.5 In the present paper I take an alternate path, however, focusing on those epistemic acts whereby the heretic gets its [End Page 2] right, so to speak, by correctly assenting to some of the articles of faith. Aquinas maintains that the heretic does not possess the infused virtue of faith yet still assents to all the articles of faith except for the one or more articles that he denies. Bereft of faith, the heretic “holds those things that are of faith by another mode than through faith.”6 This seemingly anomalous epistemic condition deserves consideration.7I. Intellects without FaithThe heretic appears to be cognitively privileged, since without faith he assents to the things that are of faith, seemingly overcoming without divine assistance the aforementioned disproportion between the limited range of reason and the articles of faith. Aquinas is aware of the apparent difficulty; in the Summa theologiae he defuses the rather unusual objection that heretics appear to have greater cognitive capacities than the faithful, since heretics routinely and unassistedly assent to those higher truths without possessing the virtue of faith.8 Aquinas concludes that the heretic holds the articles of faith by opinion (opinio), not faith.What makes one a heretic? Frequently Aquinas identifies obstinacy (pertinacia, instantia) as a necessary condition for heresy.9 The cause of heresy is at times identified with pride [End Page 3] (superbia).10 On Aquinas’s account, heresy is a species of unbelief (infidelitas) and every heretic is a schismatic.11 But the heretic does get many things right. If one were to deny all of the articles of faith, one would not qualify as a heretic, but would simply be a nonbeliever or an apostate. So, apart from the denial of an article (or a few articles) that specifies heretics as the distinct kind of heretic they happen to be, heretics for the most part succeed in assenting to most—but not all—of the articles of faith.Although the... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:BOOK REVIEWS 331 The Great Dissent: John Henry Newman and the Liberal Heresy. By ROBERT PATTISON. New York: Oxford University Press, 1991. Pp. xiii +231. $29.95. This extremely provocative and elegantly written study of John Henry Newman's struggle with "liberalism" argues that Newman was a genuine rebel whose solitary voice needs to be heard, as much today as then, but whose project was, in the end, eminently unsuccessful. The (...) preface announces that the purpose of the book is to " establish Newman 's impeccable credentials as a failure," and the suggestion that " the totality of his failure is the measure of his grandeur as a critic of our culture" leads to the appraisal that Newman's true "intellectual counterparts " were Marx and Nietzsche and Lenin, rather than Arnold or Carlyle (vi-viii, 53). As "the single unwavering but articulate voice raised against liberalism in all its incarnations," Newman indirectly offers an " invaluable " description of the thought against which he battled, but his importance, the author suggests, lies in his utter failure to make a dent in the century of thought following him: " the victory of everything Newman despised makes his defeated and unfashionable view of Western civilization interesting not merely as a consistent critique of what has come to pass, hut as one of the few intelligible alternatives to the ideological monopoly of liberalism " (53). That alternative, a " consistent view of the world opposed to liberalism root and branch, sharing none of its premises and despising all of its works is an inestimable benefit, for no one more than the liberal himself," for without an "honest and unforgiving voice" like Newman's, the liberal " would smugly assume that the paradoxical tenets of his creed are... self-evident truths" (215). On the one hand, Newman's value lies in challenging liberalism's complacency, and treating "the ugliest manifestations of liberalism with the contempt they deserve but rarely provoke" (215). Moreover, Pattison allows that Newman offers an " acute refutation of its [liberalism's] major premises " (53) (if " refutation " is the ' achievement ' word I think it is, this seems inconsistent on Pattison's part). On the other hand, Newman's value lies precisely in failing to undermine liberalism-while he reminds liberalism that it is a heresy, thus provoking its vitality, it is only insofar as liberalism remains vital that " the possibilities of relative decency and tolerant forbearance remain alive" (216). The author argues, in other words, that Newman's attack on liberalism hits the mark with respect to liberalism's "ugliest manifestations," hut it is, unfortunately, tied to a theory of belief which entails an intolerant dogmatism. Newman is, in the end, a peculiar figure, described as 332 BOOK REVIEWS important and valuable (and even possibly correct-189), yet, none· theless, insignificant, "trivial" (8), and even "absurd" (143); like the Oxford Movement with which he is associated, he said to have made an "impression" without making an "impact" (25), and that, according to Pattison, is a blessing for those care about the liberal cause oftoleration (65, 178). Pattison begins in earnest his exploration of Newman's response to his age by examining his particular response to one critical, yet typical, opponent: "The combat with Renn Dickson Hampden epitomizes the process by which Newman determined the narrow compass of truth and formed his reply to the heresies of liberalism " (60). The " almost pathological detestation " of Hampden which the author attributes to Newman (77, n.40) is the response to principles put forth by Hampden which Newman saw as "the social expression of Socinianism," which was itself only a reincarnation of the Ari.an heresy (76). Hampden's heresy, on this view, grew out of Arianism-to understand that "is to see how Newman formed the standards of truth by which he condemned the modern world" (76). For Newman, "the modern world is a realization of Socinian beliefs," " the complex of contemporary civilization originated in the distorted beliefs of Arius" (198-99), and Arianism (Hampden's heresy, liberalism) raised the pressing question "what kind of truth could words express" (107). Pattison presents Newman's understanding of liberalism from two somewhat different perspectives-HberaHsm is not only anti-dogmatic, it also claims that one... (shrink)

On Indian saints, Indic philosophy, yoga, and the Indian way of life.

This essay argues that the Putnam-Nussbaum thesis that modern functionalism is Aristotelian is false. It fails as an interpretation of Aristotle since it fails to notice that Aristotle’s conception of the material or physical side of the soul-body relation is one which no modern functionalist could share. The Putnam-Nussbaum thesis is examined within the context of the theory of perception. This involves the need to understand one of the most mysterious Aristotelian doctrines – the doctrine that in perception, the sense-organ (...) assumes the sensible form of the object perceived without its matter. (shrink)

Kant understands human dignity (Würde) as the dignity of a person. His definitions imply that if a human being has dignity, then she is a person and vice versa. Yet he also defines personality in juridical terms: a person is someone to whom actions can be imputed. Since any obligation presupposes imputability, personality is a condition of both ethical and juridical lawgiving. I maintain that asserting oneself as a person in relation to others implies taking legal responsibility for one’s free (...) actions and not pretending that these were determined by other circumstances. My main point is that honeste vive presupposes moral personality, which is then given juridical form. Moral personality as the freedom of morally practical reason is what ties the two parts of The Metaphysics of Morals together. This shows that honeste vive requires that moral personality be translated into legal responsibility in our relations with others. (shrink)

Overzicht van het leven en de filosofische ideeën en betekenis van de Griekse wijsgeer (469-399 voor Chr.).

Este artículo expone el resultado de la puesta en práctica de una metodología docente novedosa a través de la que se busca superar las dificultades que el proceso de enseñanza/aprendizaje encuentra en las asignaturas jurídicas que forman parte de los grados universitarios no jurídicos. Comienza destacando el papel que tienen las tecnologías de la información y la comunicación en dicho proceso y, significativamente, el campus virtual. Seguidamente, desgrana cada uno de los elementos de la metodología docente aplicaba, entre los que (...) encuentra la gamificación. Concluye con la determinación de las consecuencias de la experiencia desarrollada. (shrink)

Abstractabstract:Paolo Bacigalupi’s The Windup Girl (2009) is set in twenty-third-century Thailand, in a world in which climate change and the depletion of the oil supply have led to a collapse of the global economic system. Disease and famine are rampant. And yet, in this seemingly postapocalyptic world, there are numerous signs of hope. This text, in fact, contains strong utopian energies, driven partly by the motif of genetic engineering, which suggest the possibility of rebuilding the world in a way that (...) overcomes many of the limitations of the past in terms of the politics of race, gender, and class, but also in terms of more enlightened attitudes toward the relationship between humans and the natural world. (shrink)

Philosopy; Avicenna, 980-1037; criticism.