This special issue of the Journal of Philosophy of Education is addressed both to philosophers of education and to the many colleagues in the wider educational.

This book evaluates the increasingly wide variety of intellectual resources for research methods and methodologies and investigates what constitutes good educational research. Written by a distinguished international group of philosophers of education Questions what sorts of research can usefully inform policy and practice, and what inferences can be drawn from different kinds of research Demonstrates the critical engagement of philosophers of education with the wider educational research community and illustrates the benefits that can accrue from such engagement.

This publication arises in a context in which policy makers and educational researchers are increasingly vocal in their demands that educational policy and prac.

This is the second of two Special Issues, the first of which appeared as Volume 40, Issue 2 of this year. In the first Issue, our contributors were particularly inclined to question two assumptions that colour thinking about educational research. The first is that educational research is essentially a ‘scientific’ exercise, reaching its apogee in randomised control trials, as if medical research were the ideal to which all other kinds of research should attempt to measure up, and as if education (...) were a process largely analogous to that of administering drugs in order to enhance performance. The second, related assumption is that educational research is to be understood as, at heart, a matter of discovering ‘what works’. This is the background—also explored in other recent publications such as Smeyers and Depaepe (2006)—against which this second Special Issue should be seen. (shrink)

This book evaluates the increasingly wide variety of intellectual resources for research methods and methodologies and investigates what constitutes good educational research. Written by a distinguished international group of philosophers of education Questions what sorts of research can usefully inform policy and practice, and what inferences can be drawn from different kinds of research Demonstrates the critical engagement of philosophers of education with the wider educational research community and illustrates the benefits that can accrue from such engagement.

This publication arises in a context in which policy makers and educational researchers are increasingly vocal in their demands that educational policy and prac.

It has always been recognised that the practice of social work raises ethical questions and dilemmas. Recently, however, traditional ways of addressing ethical issues in social work have come to seem inadequate, as a result of developments both in philosophy and in social work theory and practice. This collection of thought-provoking essays explores the ethics of social work practice on the light of these changes. Ethical Issues in Social Work provides up to date critical analyses of the ethical implications of (...) new legislation in community care and criminal justice, and of trends in social work thought and policy, such as managerialism, user empowerment, feminism and anti-oppressive practice. This study provides important and stimulating reading for social work students and their teachers, and for all practitioners and managers who are concerned about the ethical dimensions of their work. (shrink)

Protein‐carbohydrate interactions have been found to be important in many steps in lymphocyte recirculation and inflammatory responses. A family of carbohydrate‐binding proteins or lectins, termed selectins, has been discovered and shown to be involved directly in these processes. The three known selectins, termed L‐, E‐ and P‐selectins, have domains homologous to other Ca2+‐dependent (C‐type) lectins. L‐selectin is expressed constitutively on lymphocytes, E‐selectin is expressed by activated endothelial cells, and P‐selectin is expressed by activated platelets and endothelial cells. Here, we review (...) the nature of the carbohydrate determinants in tissues recognized by these selectins. The expression of specific sialylated, fucosylated and sulfated carbohydrates in activated endothelium and high endothelial venules promotes interactions with L‐selectin on leukocyte surfaces. In contrast, E‐ and P‐selectins recognize specific carbohydrate determinants related to sialyl Lex antigen on neutrophil and monocyte surfaces. The discovery of the selectins has generated excitemient among glycoconjugate researchers that other carbohydrate‐binding proteins and their cognate ligands will be found to function in regulating many types of cellular interactions. (shrink)

Plato's Euthyrphro, Apology, andCrito portray Socrates' words and deeds during his trial for disbelieving in the Gods of Athens and corrupting the Athenian youth, and constitute a defense of the man Socrates and of his way of life, the philosophic life. The twelve essays in the volume, written by leading classical philosophers, investigate various aspects of these works of Plato, including the significance of Plato's characters, Socrates's revolutionary religious ideas, and the relationship between historical events and Plato's texts.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:The Implicit Soul of Charlie Kaufman's AdaptationDavid L. SmithI don't know what else there is to write about other than being human, or, more specifically, being this human. I have no alternative. Everything is about that, right? Unless it's about flowers.—Charlie Kaufman 1There are some things that cannot be observed directly, even in principle: a single quark, the present moment, ones own eye. What Richard Rodriquez calls the (...) "one subject" of literature—"What it feels like to be alive" 2 —is perhaps another one of those things. A writer struggles to be true to something central about life—to catch it on the fly, to get it right. Some have reified this "something" as "the soul" or "the human spirit." Today, though, we mainly rely on placeholders: "it," for example, as in "do you get it?" or "what's it all about?"—a usage that flirts with the vanishing "it" of "it is raining," implying a source or substance behind phenomena in which we do not really believe but without which we cannot do justice to experience. In any case, the writer's attempt to represent this elusive heart of things is typically frustrated, done in by the slipperiness of words, the cludginess of the conventions of communication, and the waywardness of the imagination. Writing inevitably falls short of its deepest aims.Nevertheless, there is something deviously affirmative in this state of affairs. For if life is a thing that refuses to be observed, then isn't the very failure of literature, if consciously acknowledged, a way of staying true to it? Isn't the writer's disappointment an especially telling feature of "what it feels like to be alive?" Emerson, more clearly than most, understood how this trick is turned: "We grant that human life is [End Page 424] mean; but how did we find out that it was mean? What is the ground of this uneasiness of ours; of this old discontent? What is the universal sense of want and ignorance, but the fine innuendo by which the soul makes its enormous claim?" 3 As noted above, "the soul" is a disposable term here. If you prefer, say simply "the human," "life," or "it." The point, in any case, is that the elusive subject which cannot be stated or represented directly may nevertheless be implied. If the human cannot be caught in a formula, it may be embodied or enacted in the ongoing work of creation.Charlie Kaufman's Adaptation is both an argument for and an example of this implicit realization of the human in art. Many viewers and even reviewers might see it as a poor candidate for humanistic interpretation along these lines. Most, in fact, have seen the film as little more than a clever postmodern puzzle-box, albeit one with great acting, deft direction, and a generous sense of humor. Its theme, after all, is the representation of representation. A book is being rewritten or adapted to become the film we are watching. The subject of that film is its own author's struggle to create it. The film further calls attention to its own artificiality by changing the rules of representation on us midway through. Its tone, style, and basic genre conventions shift when the author/protagonist begins to rethink his original purposes, undermining the credibility of all representational schemes in the process. Adaptation, in short, seems to be what the graduate-educated a decade ago might have felt comfortable calling "an endless play of simulacra," a text absorbed in its own textuality, a snake that eats its own tail. 4All of this is true enough, but it is not the whole story. The point of Adaptation, I will argue, is not simply the pleasure it takes in playing with issues of representation, but its clear sense of the human issues at stake in that play. Adaptation, that is, is not only about the way words tend to float free of the world. Rather, it is also a demonstration of the way a writer's basic goal can survive the wreck of her intentions, or the way that failed attempts to be true to life... (shrink)

We highlight the various domains of the flavivirus virulence factor NS1 and speculate on potential implications of the NS1 3D structure in understanding its role in flavivirus pathogenesis. Flavivirus non‐structural protein 1 (NS1) is a virulence factor with dual functions in genome replication and immune evasion. Crystal structures of NS1, combined with reconstructions from electron microscopy (EM), provide insight into the architecture of dimeric NS1 on cell membranes and the assembly of a secreted hexameric NS1‐lipid complex found in patient sera. (...) Three structural domains of NS1 likely have distinct roles in membrane association, replication complex assembly, and immune system avoidance. A conserved hydrophobic inner face is sequestered either on the membrane or in the interior of the secreted hexamer and contains regions implicated in viral replication. The exposed variable outer face is presented to cellular and secreted components of the immune system in infected patients and contains candidate regions for immune system modulation. We anticipate that knowledge of the distinct NS1 domains and assembly will lead to advances in elucidating virus‐host interactions mediated through NS1 and in dissecting the role of NS1 in viral genome replication. (shrink)

Pancreatitis is a complex, progressively destructive inflammatory disorder. Alcohol was long thought to be the primary causative agent, but genetic contributions have been of interest since the discovery that rare PRSS1, CFTR and SPINK1 variants were associated with pancreatitis risk. We now report two associations at genome-wide significance identified and replicated at PRSS1-PRSS2 and X-linked CLDN2 through a two-stage genome-wide study. The PRSS1 variant likely affects disease susceptibility by altering expression of the primary trypsinogen gene. The CLDN2 risk allele is (...) associated with atypical localization of claudin-2 in pancreatic acinar cells. The homozygous CLDN2 genotype confers the greatest risk, and its alleles interact with alcohol consumption to amplify risk. These results could partially explain the high frequency of alcohol-related pancreatitis in men. © 2012 Nature America, Inc. All rights reserved. (shrink)

A letter to The Times of London, May 9, 1992 protesting the Cambridge University proposal to award an honorary degree to M. Jacques Derrida.

According to the PubMed resource from the U.S. National Library of Medicine, over 750,000 scientific articles have been published in the ~5000 biomedical journals worldwide in the year 2007 alone. The vast majority of these publications include results from hypothesis-driven experimentation in overlapping biomedical research domains. Unfortunately, the sheer volume of information being generated by the biomedical research enterprise has made it virtually impossible for investigators to stay aware of the latest findings in their domain of interest, let alone to (...) be able to assimilate and mine data from related investigations for purposes of meta-analysis. While computers have the potential for assisting investigators in the extraction, management and analysis of these data, information contained in the traditional journal publication is still largely unstructured, free-text descriptions of study design, experimental application and results interpretation, making it difficult for computers to gain access to the content of what is being conveyed without significant manual intervention. In order to circumvent these roadblocks and make the most of the output from the biomedical research enterprise, a variety of related standards in knowledge representation are being developed, proposed and adopted in the biomedical community. In this chapter, we will explore the current status of efforts to develop minimum information standards for the representation of a biomedical experiment, ontologies composed of shared vocabularies assembled into subsumption hierarchical structures, and extensible relational data models that link the information components together in a machine-readable and human-useable framework for data mining purposes. (shrink)

Originally published between 1968 and 2009, this collection of 25 pieces includes six interviews translated into English for the first time and a new transcription of a Q&A session with Baudrillard following a lecture he gave in London in 1994. The guiding theme of the collection is Baudrillard's engagement with culture. The implications of the implosion of Western culture are dissected and documented in the rich range of material included here.

Toward A Sociological Imagination builds on the ideas C. Wright Mills expressed in The Sociological Imagination for an approach to the scientific method broad enough to open up to the full range of knowledge within the sociology discipline. In this book, nine sociologists and one philosopher provide detailed tests of the utility of the approach within diverse substantive sociological areas.

BackgroundData processing of health research databases often requires a Data Protection Impact Assessment to evaluate the severity of the risk and the appropriateness of measures taken to comply with the European Union General Data Protection Regulation. We aimed to define and apply a comprehensive method for the evaluation of privacy, data governance and ethics among research networks involved in the EU Project Bridge Health.MethodsComputerised survey among associated partners of main EU Consortia, using a targeted instrument designed by the principal investigator (...) and progressively refined in collaboration with an international advisory panel. Descriptive measures using the percentage of adoption of privacy, data governance and ethical principles as main endpoints were used for the analysis and interpretation of the results.ResultsA total of 15 centres provided relevant information on the processing of sensitive data from 10 European countries. Major areas of concern were noted for: data linkage, access and accuracy of personal data and anonymisation procedures. A high variability was noted in the application of privacy principles.ConclusionsA comprehensive methodology of Privacy and Ethics Impact and Performance Assessment was successfully applied at international level. The method can help implementing the GDPR and expanding the scope of Data Protection Impact Assessment, so that the public benefit of the secondary use of health data could be well balanced with the respect of personal privacy. (shrink)

The shape of the Earth's surface, its topography, is a fundamental dimension of the environment, shaping or mediating many other environmental flows or functions. But there is a major divergence in the way that topography is conceptualized in different domains. Topographic cartographers, information scientists, geomorphologists and environmental modelers typically conceptualize topographic variability as a continuous field of elevations or as some discrete approximation to such a field. Pilots, explorers, anthropologists, ecologists, hikers, and archeologists, on the other hand, typically conceptualize this (...) same variability in terms of hills and valleys, mountains and plains, barrows and trenches, that is, as (special sorts of) objects, with locations, shapes, and often names of their own. In this chapter, we sketch an approach to bridging this fundamental gap in geographic information infrastructure. (shrink)

It is sometimes said that we are strangers to ourselves, bearers of internal alterity, as well as to each other. The profounder this strangeness then the greater the difficulty of giving any systematic account of it without paradox: of supposing that our obscurity to ourselves can readily be illuminated. To attempt such an account, in defiance of the paradox, is to risk knowingness: a condition which, appearing to challenge our alterity but in fact often confirming it, holds an ambiguous place (...) in the ?ethics of belief? and has largely escaped philosophical attention. Like alterity, knowingness can only be approached indirectly. Charles Dickens, in David Copperfield, is exemplary in the way he handles these themes. (shrink)

We would like to thank the commentators for their generous comments, valuable insights and helpful suggestions. We begin this response by discussing the selfishness axiom and the importance of the preferences, beliefs, and constraints framework as a way of modeling some of the proximate influences on human behavior. Next, we broaden the discussion to ultimate-level (that is evolutionary) explanations, where we review and clarify gene-culture coevolutionary theory, and then tackle the possibility that evolutionary approaches that exclude culture might be sufficient (...) to explain the data. Finally, we consider various methodological and epistemological concerns expressed by our commentators. (shrink)

Michael A. PetersBeijing Normal UniversityMy deepest condolences to Pepe, Dom and Marcus and to Jim’s grandchildren. Tina and I spent a lot of time at the Marshall family home, often attending dinn...

We consider approaches to explanation within the cognitive sciences that begin with Marr's computational level or Marr's implementational level and argue that each is subject to fundamental limitations which impair their ability to provide adequate explanations of cognitive phenomena. For this reason, it is argued, explanation cannot proceed at either level without tight coupling to the algorithmic and representation level. Even at this level, however, we argue that additional constraints relating to the decomposition of the cognitive system into a set (...) of interacting subfunctions are required. Integrated cognitive architectures that permit abstract specification of the functions of components and that make contact with the neural level provide a powerful bridge for linking the algorithmic and representational level to both the computational level and the implementational level. (shrink)

Ontologies describe reality in specific domains in ways that can bridge various disciplines and languages. They allow easier access and integration of information that is collected by different groups. Ontologies are currently used in the biomedical sciences, geography, and law. A Biomedical Ethics Ontology would benefit members of ethics committees who deal with protocols and consent forms spanning numerous fields of inquiry. There already exists the Ontology for Biomedical Investigations (OBI); the proposed BMEO would interoperate with OBI, creating a powerful (...) information tool. We define a domain ontology and begin to construct a BMEO, focused on the process of evaluating human research protocols. Finally, we show how our BMEO can have practical applications for ethics committees. This paper describes ongoing research and a strategy for its broader continuation and cooperation. (shrink)

It is remarkable just how often philosophy of education assumes the school or, occasionally, the university as its context. There is very little philosophical work on vocational training or workplace learning; perhaps this is the legacy of an older generation of theorists who assumed that training was somehow inferior to education, and thus automatically beneath notice. Life, Work and Learning: practice in postmodernity, by David Beckett and Paul Hager (Routledge, 2002), is therefore to be welcomed as one of the (...) few texts now offering philosophical discussion of this important area. Beckett and Hager describe themselves as ‘strategic postmodernists’, by which they mean that they do not want to jettison the insights into workplace learning offered by modernist writers, while at the same time they believe modernism itself needs to be held up for scrutiny. (shrink)

1 Evidence-based policy requires researchers to provide the answers to ecological questions that are of interest to policy makers. To find out what those questions are in the UK, representatives from 28 organizations involved in policy, together with scientists from 10 academic institutions, were asked to generate a list of questions from their organizations. 2 During a 2-day workshop the initial list of 1003 questions generated from consulting at least 654 policy makers and academics was used as a basis for (...) generating a short list of 100 questions of significant policy relevance. Short-listing was decided on the basis of the preferences of the representatives from the policy-led organizations. 3 The areas covered included most major issues of environmental concern in the UK, including agriculture, marine fisheries, climate change, ecosystem function and land management. 4 The most striking outcome was the preference for general questions rather than narrow ones. The reason is that policy is driven by broad issues rather than specific ones. In contrast, scientists are frequently best equipped to answer specific questions. This means that it may be necessary to extract the underpinning specific question before researchers can proceed. 5 Synthesis and applications. Greater communication between policy makers and scientists is required in order to ensure that applied ecologists are dealing with issues in a way that can feed into policy. It is particularly important that applied ecologists emphasize the generic value of their work wherever possible. (shrink)

ABSTRACT There is limited guidance about whether and how to provide psychological assessment results to research participants. This paper considers several ethical challenges associated with offering individual research results in psychological assessment research. Additionally, the process used to return individual results within a study examining neurodevelopmental effects of anesthesia exposure in children and adolescents is described. Almost all participants requested to know if results were concerning; however, only around a third of those with concerning findings sought additional feedback. Ongoing research (...) and guidance are necessary to establish evidence-based practices and manage challenges that may emerge when disclosing such results. (shrink)

Whilst media and political rhetoric in Britain is sceptical and often outright damning of the (presumed) morals and behaviours of the White marginalized poor, our aim is to explore the conditions under which successful communities are nevertheless built. Specifically, we examine the features of community and stress its importance both for belonging and bonding around shared norms and practices and for fostering the necessary bridging essential for interacting and cooperating with others. In considering what it means to foster a community (...) that acts as a breakwater against the tides of stigma or disadvantage, we pay special attention to what we will call enabling conditions – essential features that communities either can or should be able to provide or that exist independent of communities and are indispensable for accessing opportunities in the wider society. We detail the dynamics of White poverty and exclusion before turning our attention to possible responses to these challenges. In searching for viable responses to stigma and disadvantage, we compare some different typologies of community presently available to the White poor in Britain and examine whether these are sufficient to satisfy the enabling conditions associated with more robust forms of group membership. (shrink)

In reading biographies or accounts of figures with which one agrees and sympathizes, there is a tendency that needs to be avoided, that is, of over -identifying with the figures in question and of too closely mapping one's own life and aspirations onto them.As such, there is some risk involved for a person like me in reading about the friendship between David Hume and Adam Smith. Dennis C. Rasmussen's excellent new volume, The Infidel and the Professor: David (...) Hume, Adam Smith, and the Friendship that Shaped Modern Thought, chronicles that friendship in an engaging and compelling narrative. The work is thoroughly researched and entertainingly written. Rasmussen uses the extant correspondence between Smith and... (shrink)

This book celebrates the work of Patricia Werhane, an iconic figure in business ethics. This festschrift is a collection of articles that build on Werhane’s contributions to business ethics in such areas as Employee Rights, the Legacy of Adam Smith, Moral Imagination, Women in Business, the development of the field of business ethics, and her contributions to such fields as Health Care, Education, Teaching, and Philosophy. All papers are new contributions to the management literature written by well-known business ethicists, (...) such as Norman Bowie, Richard De George, Ronald Duska, Edwin Hartman, Michael Hoffman, Mollie Painter-Morland, Mark Schwartz, Andrew Wicks, and others. The volume is comprised of articles that reflect on Werhane’s work as well as build on it as a way to advance further research. At the end of the festschrift, Pat Werhane provides responses to each chapter. The first chapter of the book also includes the overview of Patricia Werhane’s work and her academic career. The book is written to appeal to management scholars and graduate students interested in the areas of Business Ethics, Modern Capitalism, and Human Rights. Patricia Werhane is one of the most distinguished figures in the field of business ethics. She was a founder of the field, she is one of its leading scholars, and she has had a profound impact on the world of business practice. Among her many accomplishments, Pat is known for her original work on moral imagination, she is an acclaimed authority on employee rights in the workplace, and she is one of the leading scholars on Adam Smith. Having been active in Academia for over 50 years, Werhane is a prolific author of over a hundred articles and book chapters, and the author or editor of twenty-seven books, including Adam Smith and his Legacy for Modern Capitalism, Moral Imagination and Management Decision-Making, and co-authored books Organization Ethics in Health Care, Alleviating Poverty Through Profitable Partnerships, Obstacles to Ethical Decision-Making, Corporate Responsibility: The American Experience, and Research Approaches to Business Ethics and Corporate Responsibility. (shrink)

Preface Introduction Christopher J. Berry: Adam Smith: Outline of Life, Times, and Legacy Part One: Adam Smith: Heritage and Contemporaries 1: Nicholas Phillipson: Adam Smith: A Biographer's Reflections 2: Leonidas Montes: Newtonianism and Adam Smith 3: Dennis C. Rasmussen: Adam Smith and Rousseau: Enlightenment and counter-Enlightenment 4: Christopher J. Berry: Adam Smith and Early Modern Thought Part Two: Adam Smith on Language, Art and Culture 5: Catherine Labio: Adam Smith's Aesthetics 6: James (...) Chandler: Adam Smith as Critic 7: Michael C. Amrozowicz: Adam Smith: History and Poetics 8: C. Jan Swearingen: Adam Smith on Language and Rhetoric: The Ethics of Style, Character, and Propriety Part Three: Adam Smith and Moral Philosophy 9: Christel Fricke: Adam Smith: The Sympathetic Process and the Origin and Function of Conscience 10: Duncan Kelly: Adam Smith and the Limits of Sympathy 11: Ryan Patrick Hanley: Adam Smith and Virtue 12: Eugene Heath: Adam Smith and Self-Interest Part Four: Adam Smith and Economics 13: Tony Aspromourgos: Adam Smith on Labour and Capital 14: Nerio Naldi: Adam Smith on Value and Prices 15: Hugh Rockoff: Adam Smith on Money, Banking, and the Price Level 16: Maria Pia Paganelli: Commercial Relations: from Adam Smith to Field Experiments Part Five: Adam Smith on History and Politics 17: Spiros Tegos: Adam Smith: Theorist of Corruption 18: David M. Levy & Sandra J. Peart: Adam Smith and the State: Language and Reform 19: Fabrizio Simon: Adam Smith and the Law 20: Edwin van de Haar: Adam Smith on Empire and International Relations Part Six: Adam Smith on Social Relations 21: Richard Boyd: Adam Smith, Civility, and Civil Society 22: Gavin Kennedy: Adam Smith on Religion 23: Samuel Fleischacker: Adam Smith and Equality 24: Maureen Harkin: Adam Smith and Women Part Seven; Adam Smith: Legacy and Influence 25: Spencer J. Pack: Adam Smith and Marx 26: Craig Smith: Adam Smith and the New Right 27: Tom Campbell: Adam Smith: Methods, Morals and Markets 28: Amartya Sen: The Contemporary Relevance of Adam Smith. (shrink)

Isaiah Berlin distinguished between negative liberty, which is freedom from external coercion, and positive liberty, the freedom to master oneself. But the schema is too simple. Adam Smith thought that God had harmoniously arranged the world in such a way that the freedom provided by our negative liberty tended to redound to the public good. Mill, worried about the deleterious effects of public ignorance, accorded elites a prominent role in ensuring that negative liberty would lead to positive results. More (...) recently, libertarian paternalists, such as Richard Thaler and Cass Sunstein, have argued that research on biases and heuristics demonstrates the need for psychologically informed elites to direct negative liberty toward positive ends by crafting better ?choice contexts.? In these thinkers one can discern a third version of liberty, where negative liberty is not an end in itself but a means, however insufficient, to positive outcomes. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Setting the Stage for a Dialogue:Aesthetics in Drama and Theatre EducationAlistair Martin-Smith (bio)For us, education signifies an initiation into new ways of seeing, hearing, feeling, moving. It signifies the nurture of a special kind of reflectiveness and expressiveness, a reaching out for meanings, a learning to learn.—Maxine Greene, Variations on a Blue Guitar1Examining the aesthetics of the complementary fields of educational drama and theatre is like looking through (...) a kaleidoscope. If you turn it one way, you see one colorful pattern; if you turn it the other way, you see yet another. The multiplicity of approaches to drama and theatre education, each with its own aesthetic pattern, often obscures the common ground they all share. As a result, in its unique emphasis on art, pedagogy, and society, each may have its own aesthetic pattern; yet only by looking closely at each distinct pattern can we understand more of the power of drama and theatre to develop human consciousness.In Western education, aesthetic learning seems incidental to the assessment of learning. How did this happen? For Descartes, whose Cartesian philosophy dissociated mind from body, aesthetic feelings are irrational, since they originate in the body's senses rather than in the mind. Theories of education focused on the primacy of cognition, denying feelings in the erroneous belief that learning is independent of its context. Conversely, aesthetic education is concerned with the quality of experience, how it is felt. Dewey believed that "learning by doing" was a "consummatory" experience for the learner; it was dramatic, dialogic, and felt. The confusion between subjective and objective aspects of the aesthetic experience makes aesthetic evaluation difficult, and this may be why cognitively dominated education has steered clear of aesthetics. Richard Courtney recognized that there is an important distinction to be made between aesthetic symbols and [End Page 3] artistic symbols: "Aesthetic symbols emphasize feeling; artistic symbols are context-dependent—they only have meaning in the context of art."2David Best argues that "the failure to recognise the distinction between the aesthetic and the artistic contributes largely to the trivialisation of the potential of the arts in education."3 He points out that "... it may often be necessary to take into account, at least implicitly, wider factors... in order to judge whether [an] appraisal was aesthetic or artistic."4 What are these wider factors, and how can audiences attend to them? As Christopher Havell reminds us,There is increasing pressure on drama teachers to use their teaching expertise purely for the development of social and life-skills training. This instrumental work may, at times, closely resemble the drama process, but the intentions will be confined to an experience that simulates or resembles those "real-life situations" that it is expected students will encounter. The aesthetic search for the "universal" at the centre of the particular will not be a relevant aim in any vocational training! One can only hope that the emerging interest in the aesthetic nature of drama and its place in a coherent arts education will encourage teachers and students to reflect on the final inadequacy of any instrumental view.5I believe that it is through the power of aesthetic education that audiences for drama and theatre will come to appreciate the artistic.In Caravaggio's painting David with the Head of Goliath (1606-10), the viewer is confronted with three time periods simultaneously. In his depiction of David, Caravaggio paints the shepherd-king of the Old Testament who prefigures Christ, but he is also modeled on Caravaggio's lover. David holds the severed head of Goliath down low in such a way as to engage the private viewer rather than to evoke the public spectacle.6 As I understood that the head of Goliath was actually a self-portrait of the painter not long before his death, I experienced a moment of instantaneity that shocked me into a new awareness of my own mortality, my relation to life and death. As it is Caravaggio's last journey, so is it our own. While Caravaggio's penultimate painting is recognized in terms of its artistic achievement, the moment of self-recognition on the part of the... (shrink)

'Trade in Health is a timely reflection on the interface of economics with the ethics and public policy facets of the international movement of patients. Health issues such as these are at the forefront of modern political economy."National" health is increasingly less so. Reisman's previous scholarship in this area is brought to bear in an insightful and eminently readable and engaging fashion. In an area where uncovering the facts is more difficult than "decyphering the Dead Sea Scrolls", such a reflective (...) work on the critical aspects of political economy helps to fill a void in considering whether such trade is likely to be in the interests of patients, nations and the global community. In addition to the rosy picture of healthy and wealthy tourists having a sojourn for medical care during a vacation, Reisman is not afraid to tackle the thorny issues concerning trade in organs, eggs and even death, in this sobering and comprehensive volume. It is a rare skill to bring the luminaries of Smith, Marshall, Mill and Confucius to bear on such a contemporary tale! International travel by patients is at the nexus of a revolution in global health. It is driving and affecting aspects of foreign investment, health worker migration and e-health provision. Reisman skilfully links these foundations of health care, and as such provides critical text for consideration by those seeking to build and strengthen future health systems. Trade in Health is an excellent overview. It provides critical insights for those new to the area as well as new information and challenges for those of us involved for a number of years.' - Richard Smith, Professor of Health Ssytem Economics and Dean of Faculty of Public Health and Policy, London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, UK. Once exports and imports meant agriculture and industry. In the global economy and the electronic age, trade is also expanding into the service sector. This timely book closely examines trade in health. It documents the growth of a cross-national service that in the past was mainly consumed at home. Following from his highly successful book Health Tourism, Professor David Reisman offers a comprehensive and searching multidisciplinary account of the way in which medical services, patients, capital and professionals are making up a global healthcare economy that crosses borders. He reflects on their pursuit of lower prices, better quality and a differentiated product, and suggests that public policy is essential if the ethical capital of interdependent societies is not to be eroded by the international market in health and care. Written in a concise and lucid form, this original book will be of great interest to all people interested in the internationalization of health care. Combining theory and empirical evidence from economics, tourism and medical care, scholars involved in health policy and social administration will find much of significance in this authoritative study. (shrink)

In the United States, property rights are afforded protection, but moral rights are not. Up until 1989, the United States adamantly refused to join the Berne Copyright Convention, the first multilateral copyright treaty, now ratified by seventy-eight countries. The American government refused to comply because the Berne Convention grants moral rights to authors. This international policy was—and is—incompatible with United States copyright law, which recognizes only economic rights. Although ten states have enacted some form of moral rights legislation, federal copyright (...) laws tend to prevail, and those are still wholly economic in their motivation. Indeed, the recent pressure for the United States to agree, at least in part, to the terms of the Berne Convention came only as a result of a dramatic increase in the international piracy of American records and films.In September 1986, Senator Edward M. Kennedy of Massachusetts first introduced a bill called the Visual Artists Rights Act. This bill attempts to amend federal copyright laws to incorporate some aspects of international moral rights protection. The Kennedy bill would prohibit the intentional distortion, mutilation, or destruction of works of art after they have been sold. Moreover, the act would empower artists to claim authorship, to receive royalties on subsequent sales, and to disclaim their authorship if the work were distorted.4 This legislation would have prevented Clement Greenburg and the other executors of David Smith’s estate from authorizing the stripping of paint from Several of Smith’s later sculptures so that they would resemble his earlier—and more marketable—unpainted sculptures. Such moral rights legislations would have prevented a Japanese bank in New York from removing and destroying a sculpture by Isamu Noguchi simply because the bank president did not like it. And such legislation would have prevented the United States government from destroying Tilted Arc. 4. Although this section appeared in the original version of Kennedy’s bill, the current version provides for a study of resale royalties. Richard Serra is known for his large-scale site-specific works in landscapes, urban environments, and museums. (shrink)

Despite a recent revival of interest in pragmatist philosophy, most work in the analytic philosophy of language ignores insights offered by classical pragmatists and contemporary neopragmatists. In Pragmatism and Reference, David Boersema argues that a pragmatist perspective on reference presents a distinct alternative--and corrective--to the prevailing analytic views on the topic. Boersema finds that the pragmatist approach to reference, with alternative understandings of the nature of language, the nature of conceptualization and categorization, and the nature of inquiry, is suggested (...) in the work of Wittgenstein and more thoroughly developed in the works of such classical and contemporary pragmatists as Charles Peirce and Hilary Putnam. Boersema first discusses the descriptivist and causal theories of reference--the received views on the topic in analytic philosophy. Then, after considering Wittgenstein's approach to reference, Boersema details the pragmatist approach to reference by nine philosophers: the "Big Three," of classical pragmatism, Peirce, William James, and John Dewey; three contemporary American philosophers, Putnam, Catherine Elgin, and Richard Rorty; and three important continental philosophers, Umberto Eco, Karl-Otto Apel, and Jürgen Habermas. Finally, Boersema shows explicitly how pragmatism offers a genuinely alternative account of reference, presenting several case studies on the nature and function of names. Here, he focuses on conceptions of individuation, similarity, essences, and sociality of language. Pragmatism and Reference will serve as a bridge between analytic and pragmatist approaches to such topics of shared concern as the nature and function of language. (shrink)