This paper takes a critical look at the rise of the practice of philosophy in the market place in late modernity. Two main forms of such practice are identified: the practice of Socratic Dialogue in small groups in organisations and one-to-one philosophical counselling of individual 'clients'. The relevance of professionalism for commercialised applied practical philosophy is discussed. Philosophical counsellors in particular may be at risk of engaging with vulnerable individuals who are in need of protection from practitioners who are not (...) trained to deal with their problems. Psychology is the discipline which is most related to practical philosophy and it is growing in ethical awareness. This paper emphasises the importance of ethics for philosophy in practice. There is a pressing need for eternal vigilance by practitioners from such disciplines, whether professionalised or not, in the complex modern'runaway world'. (shrink)

This paper takes a critical look at the rise of the practice of philosophy in the market place in late modernity. Two main forms of such practice are identified: the practice of Socratic Dialogue in small groups in organisations and one-to-one philosophical counselling of individual 'clients'. The relevance of professionalism for commercialised applied practical philosophy is discussed. Philosophical counsellors in particular may be at risk of engaging with vulnerable individuals who are in need of protection from practitioners who are not (...) trained to deal with their problems. Psychology is the discipline which is most related to practical philosophy and it is growing in ethical awareness. This paper emphasises the importance of ethics for philosophy in practice. There is a pressing need for eternal vigilance by practitioners from such disciplines, whether professionalised or not, in the complex modern'runaway world'. (shrink)

Whether and how music is involved in evoking emotions is a matter of considerable debate. In the target article, Juslin & Vll (J&V) argue that music induces a wide range of both basic and complex emotions that are shared with other stimuli. If such a link exists, it would provide a common basis for considering the interactions among music, emotion, timing, and time perception.

We describe and analyze 13 cases handled by our ethics consultation service (ECS) in which families requested continuation of physiological support for loved ones after death by neurological criteria (DNC) had been declared. These ethics consultations took place between 2005 and 2013. Patients’ ages ranged from 14 to 85. Continued mechanical ventilation was the focal intervention sought by all families. The ECS’s advice and recommendations generally promoted “reasonable accommodation” of the requests, balancing compassion for grieving families with other ethical and (...) moral concerns such as stewardship of resources, professional integrity, and moral distress. In cases we characterized as finitegoal accommodation, a “reasonable accommodation” strategy proved effective in balancing stakeholders’ interests and goals, enabling steady progress toward resolution. When a family objected outright to a declaration of DNC and asked for an indefinite accommodation, the “reasonable accommodation” approach offered clinicians little practical direction, and resolution required definitive action by either the family or the clinical team. Based on our analysis and reflections on these 13 cases, we propose ethically justified and practical guidelines to assist healthcare professionals, administrators, and ECSs faced with similar cases. (shrink)

In general, stimuli that are familiar and recognizable have an advantage of predominance during binocular rivalry. Recent research has demonstrated that familiar and recognizable stimuli such as upright faces and words in a native language could break interocular suppression faster than their matched controls. In this study, a visible word prime was presented binocularly then replaced by a high-contrast dynamic noise pattern presented to one eye and either a semantically related or unrelated word was introduced to the other eye. We (...) measured how long it took for target words to break from suppression. To investigate word-parts priming, a second experiment also included word pairs that had overlapping subword fragments. Results from both experiments consistently show that semantically related words and words that shared subword fragments were faster to gain dominance compared to unrelated words, suggesting that words, even when interocularly suppressed and invisible, can benefit from semantic and subword priming. (shrink)

This book explores Gilles Deleuze's contribution to film theory. According to Deleuze, we have come to live in a universe that could be described as metacinematic. His conception of images implies a new kind of camera consciousness, one that determines our perceptions and sense of selves: aspects of our subjectivities are formed in, for instance, action-images, affection-images and time-images. We live in a matrix of visual culture that is always moving and changing. Each image is always connected to an assemblage (...) of affects and forces. This book presents a model, as well as many concrete examples, of how to work with Deleuze in film theory. It asks questions about the universe as metacinema, subjectivity, violence, feminism, monstrosity, and music. Among the contemporary films it discusses within a Deleuzian framework are Strange Days, Fight Club, and Dancer in the Dark. (shrink)

Concerned with the idea of the self, this text challenges what it perceives to be the bleak deconstructionist views of ceaseless change with a discussion and depiction of the self in new vocabulary - an action-oriented self defined by the ways in which it communicates.

Currently, Nursing Education draws on a commonly taken‐for‐granted folk psychology of a representational view of how the mind works and how human beings learn. Descartes' representational view of the mind strongly influences pedagogies, theories of learning, curricula, and approaches to testing nursing knowledge and more broadly in academia. A representational view of the mind holds that perception occurs in the mind only through representations in the mind through ideas, concepts, templates and schema. Situated, embodied, and socially embedded cognition is presented (...) as a counter view to a representational view of the mind. (shrink)

There are two prominent viewpoints regarding the nature of rationality and how it should be evaluated in situations of interest: the traditional axiomatic approach and the newer ecological rationality. An obstacle to comparing and evaluating these seemingly opposite approaches is that they employ different language and formalisms, ask different questions, and are at different stages of development. I adapt a formal framework known as SCOP to address this problem by providing a comprehensive common framework in which both approaches may be (...) defined and compared. The main result is that the axiomatic and ecological approaches are in far greater agreement on fundamental issues than has been appreciated; this is supported by a pair of theorems to the effect that they will make accordant rationality judgements when forced to evaluate the same situation. I conclude that ecological rationality has some subtle advantages, but that we should move past the issues currently dominating the discussion of rationality. (shrink)

With the demise of Marxism and socialism, the United States is becoming a model not merely for free enterprise, but also for employment practices worldwide. I believe that free enterprise is the least worst economic system, given the alternatives, a position I shall assume, but not defend, here. However, I shall argue, a successful free enterprise political economy does not entail mimicking US employment practices. I find even today in 1998, as I shall outline in more detail, these practices, when (...) consistently carried out, by and large erode trust in the workplace, they are, on balance unfair to workers and managers, and, if Jeffrey Pfeffer is correct, they do not maximize long-term corporate earnings or growth. Getting clear on US employment practices and their weaknesses may help to shape other models for employment that neither contravene free enterprise nor are degrading to workers. (shrink)

This study developed and tested a model of culture’s effect on budgeting systems, and hypothesized that system variables and reactions to them are influenced by culture-specific work-related and ethical values. Most organizational and behavioral views of budgeting fail to acknowledge the ethical components of the problem, and have largely ignored the role of culture in shaping organizational and individual values. Cross-cultural differences in reactions to system design variables, and in the behaviors motivated or mitigated by those variables, has implications for (...) the design and effectiveness of budgeting systems. The data largely support our research model, demonstrating the hypothesized national cultural differences in system design variables (e.g., participation, standards tightness, budget emphasis, etc. which we characterized as the opportunity and incentives to create budgetary slack), and the expected relationship between incentives (but not opportunity) to create slack and slack creation behavior. The data demonstrate hypothesized cultural differences in ethical ideology but show ethical ideology related to slack creation behavior only for U.S. managers. A discussion of the results and their implications is included. (shrink)

This essay presents some thoughts on schizoanalysis and visual culture around the proposition that cinema survives in the digital age as a type of image that, after the movement-image and the time-image, could be called the neuro-image. By considering clinical schizophrenia as ‘degree zero’ of schizoanalysis in a more critical sense, a reading of The Butterfly Effect unfolds the temporal dimensions of schizoanalysis as typical for a definition of ‘the neuro-image’. The argument is that the neuro-image speaks from the (always (...) speculative) future. (shrink)

Until recently, business issues in healthcare organizations were relatively insulated from clinical issues, for several reasons. The hospital at earlier stages of its development operated on a combination of charitable and equitable premises, allowing for providing care to be separated from financial support. Physicians, who were primarily responsible for clinical care, constituted an independent power nexus within the hospital and were governed by their own professional codes of ethics. In exchange for a great deal of control over their conditions of (...) practice, they took almost complete responsibility for patient care. Thus clinical and professional ethics could to some extent be compartmentalized from the business issues—a much easier feat when, as in much of the last few decades, virtually all care was reimbursed from some source or other. In addition, many HCOs were not categorized or treated as businesses, although of course they were presumed to be governed by the same expectation for good management as any other organization. (shrink)

In his speech at the University of Dakar in July 2007, the French president Nicolas Sarkozy referred to Africa as the continent that has not yet fully entered history. This article takes this obvious reference to Hegel as its starting point and examines the current significance of ‘Hegel’s Africa’. Through a close reading of The Philosophy of History and The Phenomenology of Spirit, it shows that Hegel’s remarks on Africa are by no means incidental. They constitute rem(a)inders of a modernity (...) that is based on the construction of Africa as its own limit. The return of Hegel’s Africa, the article concludes, can thus not be restricted to a problem of the new European right. It is part of an understanding of modernity that remains haunted by the specters of racism. (shrink)

Birth order has been examined over a wide variety of dimensions in the context of modern populations. A consistent message has been that it is better to be born first. The analysis of birth order in this paper is different in several ways from other investigations into birth order effects. First, we examine the effect of birth order in an egalitarian, small-scale, kin-based society, which has not been done before. Second, we use a different outcome measure, fertility, rather than outcome (...) measures of social, psychological, or economic success. We find, third, that being born late in an egalitarian, technologically simple society rather than being born early has a positive outcome on fertility, and fourth, that number of older siblings and sibling set size are even stronger predictors of fertility, especially for males. (shrink)

The era of high colonialism in South Asia coincided with the period when eugenics came to dominate much of the scientific discourse in Europe and America. Such attitudes were naturally transplanted into the colonial world where medical researchers helped to establish a pathological “difference” between Europeans in India and the colonial “Other,” thus creating a medical discourse dominated by racial segregated treatment regimes. With the growth of trans-national transfer of scientific knowledge, this colonial “research” began to underpin racially constructed medical (...) practices wherever they occurred. (shrink)

No presente ensaio, discute-se o impacto do negacionismo na Educação escolar. Essa ideologia é baseada em falsos argumentos, cujos protagonistas negam evidências cientificamente comprovadas, como forma de fortalecer seus anseios pelo poder. A narrativa negacionista atinge pessoas que aceitam acriticamente e replicam esses argumentos como se fossem verdades absolutas. Um dos resultados da disseminação e aceitação dessa ideologia é o estímulo a ações extremistas, como vimos acontecer recentemente no Brasil. A negação fomenta intencionalmente os analfabetismos histórico, social e científico. As (...) pessoas "contaminadas" por essa ideologia extremista ignoram os argumentos lógicos e permanecem alheias ao avanço da Ciência. Acreditam em disparates, como o chamado “terraplanismo”; são disseminadores de informações falsas; promovem “cruzadas” antivacinação; defendem o uso de medicamentos ineficazes; e fomentam o descrédito da democracia. As ideias de Paulo Freire, que estimulam o cultivo do pensamento crítico e emancipatório, é o aporte teóricometodológico que norteia este ensaio, contextualizado na prática docente dos autores, que consideram a Educação como uma prática de liberdade. (shrink)

The exportation of Western biomedicine throughout the world has not resulted in a systematic homogenization of scientific ideology but rather in the proliferation of many forms and practices of biomedicine. Similarly, in the last decade, bioethics has become increasingly an international enterprise. Although there may be consensus regarding the inherent value of ethical discourse as it relates to health and medical care, there are disagreements about the nature and parameters of medical morality. This lack of consensus exists because our beliefs (...) about morality are culturally constituted, embedded in social, religious, and political ideologies that influence particular individuals and communities at specific historical moments. (shrink)

Locke's moral theory consists of two explicit and distinct elements — a broadly rationalist theory of natural law and a hedonistic conception of moral good. The rationalist account, which we find most prominently in his early Essays on the Law of Nature, is generally taken to consist in three things. First, Locke holds that our moral rules are founded on universal, divine natural laws. Second, such moral laws are taken to be discoverable by reason. Third, by dint of their divine (...) authorship, moral laws are obligatory and rationally discernible as such. Locke's hedonism, which is developed most fully in his later Essay Concerning Human Understanding, consists in the view that all good amounts to pleasure, with specifically moral good taken to consist in the pleasurable consequences of discharging one's moral duties. (shrink)

Locke's moral theory consists of two explicit and distinct elements — a broadly rationalist theory of natural law and a hedonistic conception of moral good. The rationalist account, which we find most prominently in his early Essays on the Law of Nature, is generally taken to consist in three things. First, Locke holds that our moral rules are founded on universal, divine natural laws. Second, such moral laws are taken to be discoverable by reason. Third, by dint of their divine (...) authorship, moral laws are obligatory and rationally discernible as such. Locke's hedonism, which is developed most fully in his later Essay Concerning Human Understanding, consists in the view that all good amounts to pleasure, with specifically moral good taken to consist in the pleasurable consequences of discharging one's moral duties. (shrink)

The Primary and Secondary Handbooks on the National Curriculum for England state that children ‘should learn how to forgive themselves and others’. But what is involved in forgiveness? It is suggested that there is a strict view, which is shown to involve some ethically questionable attitudes, and a more relaxed view. Schools, it is suggested, need to introduce their students to an understanding of the complexities of these notions of forgiveness and other possible attitudes to wrongdoers. In the life and (...) organisation of the school, however, it is argued that the more generous-spirited attitude should prevail. (shrink)

What value does genomics hold for industry? Ten years after the White House Press conference where the human genome sequence was first presented, we ask in which ways and to what extent the developments in genomics have been integrated into industry. This enables us to assess whether this integration has been as successful as expected, but also which unexpected developments in genomics advances have triggered additional benefits for industry. Genomics has contributed to the beginning of a global transition to a (...) bio-based economy, but there have been and there still are hurdles to be cleared. The hurdles are not merely of a technological nature, since the objectives are a complex between economic progress, environmental and global climate concerns, and energy security. Therefore, they are at the same time technological, societal and environmental in nature. These categorisations fall short of articulating the many issues that arise, such as economic development (for emerging economies), public opinion formation and scientific and technological progress. We argue that to make this transition happen, industrialists, policy makers and the wider public have to be prepared to be more actively involved in the debate, weighing the pros and cons and taking responsibility in creating the desired sustainable world.This paper will examine the advances of genomics in the industrial context, the role of these advances in current attempts to find sustainable solutions to a variety of problems, the enthusiasm with which they have been picked up, the implications for industrial innovation and the accompanying discussion about possible consequential social and ethical issues. It will also sketch out the nature of this ongoing establishment of a bio-based economy, the parties that are currently at the negotiation table, and whether the current situation has an impact on the way societal debates emerge. (shrink)

. Current debates concerning the concept of mental disorder involve many different philosophical issues. However, it is not always clear from these discussions how, or whether, these issues relate to one another, or in exactly what way they are important for the definition of disorder. This article aims to sort through some of the philosophical issues that arise in the current literature and provide a clarification of how these issues are related to one another and whether they are necessary for (...) defining disorder. I argue that the main concern in defining disorder, namely demarcation, is obscured by a number of these other philosophical issues and that a focus on demarcation gives us a means of placing these other issues in a clarifying context. (shrink)

The Telecommunications Act of 1996 is considered landmark legislation, especially in the area of universal service. However, the FCC performed even more groundbreaking activity. The FCC was given wide latitude by the Act to interpret the universal service provisions of the Act either narrowly or broadly; the FCC chose the latter. The FCC's interpretation of the Act will have a significant impact on the level of technology implementation and use in American classrooms and libraries. In March 1996, the FCC issued (...) a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking on Universal Service. The NPRM also established a Federal-State Joint Board composed of three FCC Commissioners, four state public service commission representatives nominated by the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners, and one utility consumer advocate nominated by the National Association of State Utility Consumer Advocates. On November 8, 1996, the Joint Board released its Recommended Decision and the FCC adopted its rules based on that recommendation in May 1997. The FCC ruled that all eligible schools and libraties should receive discounts of between 20 and 90 percent on all telecommunications services, Internet access, and internal connections, subject to a $2.25 billion annual cap. In addition, any funds not disbursed in a given year may be carried forward and disbursed in subsequent years without regard to the cap. This provision, according to the FCC, will provide schools and libraries with the maximum flexibility to purchase the services that will meet their communications needs most effectively. In a separate section of the rules, the FCC defined "core services" as: • Voice-grade access to the public switched network, with the ability to place and receive calls • Dual Tone Multifrequency signaling or its functional equivalent • Single-party service • Access to emergency services • Access to operator services • Access to interexchange services • Access to directory assistance. • Support for toll limitation services for low-income consumers. However, as stated in the Act, the FCC was given the latitude to include additional services for schools and libraries. It could have chosen to provide schools and libraries with discounts on only core telecommunications services; core services plus some complement of additional services; or all telecommunications services. The FCC adopted the third option, that discounts be provided on all telecommunications services. It stated that this guideline would provide schools and libraries the maximum flexibility to purchase whatever package of telecommunications services they believe would meet their telecommunications service needs most effectively and efficiently. _Current Status:_ The FCC ruled that it will permit schools to begin using discounted services on January 1, 1998. The presentation will discuss the current status of this legislation. (shrink)