Background:Moral distress, moral sensitivity, and moral courage among healthcare professionals have been explored considerably in recent years. However, there is a paucity of studies exploring these topics among baccalaureate nursing students.Aim/objective:The purpose of this study was to explore the relationship between and among moral distress, moral sensitivity, and moral courage of undergraduate baccalaureate nursing students.Research design:The research employed a descriptive-correlational design to explore the relationships between and among moral distress, moral sensitivity, and moral courage of undergraduate nursing students.Participants and research (...) context:A total of 293 baccalaureate Filipino nursing students who have been exposed to various clinical areas participated in the study.Ethical considerations:Institutional review board approval was sought prior to the conduct of the study. Self-determination was assured and anonymity and confidentiality were guaranteed to all participants.Findings:Results indicate that a majority of the nursing students in the clinical areas encounter morally distressing situations that compromise quality patient care. However, despite the fact that they want to do what is in the best interest of their patients, their perception of being the inexperienced among the healthcare team drives the majority of them to ignore morally distressing situations to avoid conflict and confrontation. Another interesting finding is that 79.20% of the respondents hardly consider quitting the nursing profession even if they frequently encounter morally distressing situations. Analysis also shows associations between moral distress intensity and frequency ( r = 0.13, p < 0.05) and moral distress intensity and moral sensitivity ( r = 0.25, p < 0.05). The dimensions of moral courage are also related to both moral distress and moral sensitivity.Conclusion:Results of the study imply that moral distress is a reality among all healthcare professionals including nursing students and requires more consideration by nurse educators. (shrink)

The past decade has seen a burgeoning of scholarly interest in conscientious objection in healthcare. While the literature to date has focused primarily on individual healthcare practitioners who object to participation in morally controversial procedures, in this article we consider a different albeit related issue, namely, whether publicly funded healthcare institutions should be required to provide morally controversial services such as abortions, emergency contraception, voluntary sterilizations, and voluntary euthanasia. Substantive debates about institutional responsibility have remained largely at the level of (...) first-order ethical debate over medical practices which institutions have refused to offer; in this article, we argue that more fundamental questions about the metaphysics of institutions provide a neglected avenue for understanding the basis of institutional conscientious objection. To do so, we articulate a metaphysical model of institutional conscience, and consider three well-known arguments for undermining institutional conscientious objection in light of this model. We show how our metaphysical analysis of institutions creates difficulties for justifying sanctions on institutions that conscientiously object. Thus, we argue, questions about the metaphysics of institutions are deserving of serious attention from both critics and defenders of institutional conscientious objection. (shrink)

本书吸收大量现当代学者的研究成果,意在对管仲其人、管子其书以及管仲纪年等三方面内容进行了梳理。.

Strong non-maximalism holds that some truths require no ontological ground of any sort. Strong non-maximalism allows one to accept that some propositions are true without being forced to endorse any corresponding ontological commitments. We show that there is a version of truthmaker theory available—anti-aboutness truthmaking—that enjoys the dialectical benefits of the strong non-maximalist’s position. According to anti-aboutness truthmaking, all truths require grounds, but a proposition need not be grounded in the very thing(s) that the proposition is about. We argue that (...) if strong non-maximalism can be defended, then so can anti-aboutness truthmaking on the very same basis; one can enjoy the benefits of strong non-maximalism without giving up on the idea that truth is always grounded in being. (shrink)

Background:Nurses exposed to community health nursing commonly encounter situations that can be morally distressing. However, most research on moral distress has focused on acute care settings and very little research has explored moral distress in a community health nursing setting especially among nursing students.Aim:To explore the moral distress experiences encountered by undergraduate baccalaureate nursing students in community health nursing.Research design:A descriptive qualitative design was employed to explore the community health nursing experiences of the nursing students that led them to have (...) moral distress.Participants and research context:The study included 14 senior nursing students who had their course in Community Health Nursing in their sophomore year and stayed in the partner communities in their junior year for 6 and 3 weeks during their senior year.Ethical considerations:Institutional review board approval was sought prior to the conduct of the study. Self-determination was assured and anonymity and confidentiality were guaranteed to all participants.Findings:Nursing students are vulnerable and likely to experience moral distress when faced with ethical dilemmas. They encounter numerous situations which make them question their own values and ideals and those of that around them. Findings of the study surfaced three central themes which included moral distress emanating from the unprofessional behavior of some healthcare workers, the resulting sense of powerlessness, and the differing values and mindsets of the people they serve in the community.Conclusion:This study provides educators a glimpse of the morally distressing situations that often occurs in the community setting. It suggests the importance of raising awareness and understanding of these situations to assist nursing students to prepare themselves to the “real world,” where the ideals they have will be constantly challenged and tested. (shrink)

Grounded on the social exchange theory (SET), social cognitive theory (SCT), and self-determination theory (SDT), this study aims to explore the mediating role of self-efficacy (SE) and work engagement (WE) on the effect of social support (SS) on job satisfaction (JS) among Chinese ethnic minority kindergarten teachers (KTs). The results show that: (1) SS has a directly significant effect on JS; (2) WE mediates the relationship between SS and JS; and (3) SE mediates the relationship between SS and WE. Although (...) the mediation of SE on the relationship between SS and JS is not found, the posited multiple mediations of SE and WE on the relationship between SS and JS are totally accepted. The results reveal that SS mainland Chinese ethnic minority KTs received can not only have a direct effect on JS but also have an indirect impact through the one-path mediating role of WE and the chain mediating role of SE and WE. The results suggest that governments, supervisors, and sponsors should work together to provide ethnic minority KTs with more prioritized SS from both cultural psychology and financial material and opportunities for facilitating professional knowledge and skills in order to enhance their SE, inspire their WE, and eventually accumulate their JS. (shrink)

Howell Pacific Philosophical Quarterly, 89, 348–358 and Mizrahi and Morrow Ratio, 28, 1–13 offer a group of reductio arguments to rebut the CP thesis, i.e., the hypothesis that ideal conceivability entails possibility. Each of them has a conceivability premise: it is ideally conceivable that CP is false. According to the same CP, one can infer that CP’s being false is possible, from which it follows that CP is false. In other words, CP is shown to be self-defeating and therefore false (...) if any of these reductio arguments is proved sound. In this paper, I aim to disprove these arguments. I first show that neither Howell nor Mizrahi & Morrow provide adequate justification for their conceivability premises. I go on to argue that these reductio arguments face a dilemma: either their conceivability premises cannot be adequately justified, or they are redundant. Finally, I argue that, although this dilemma resists the reductio arguments against CP, on the other hand, it also reveals that CP lacks epistemic fruitfulness: it is of no practical use in the realm of apriority as well as necessity. (shrink)

RÉSUMÉDans l’esprit du scepticisme modal, Peter Hawke propose une épistémologie modale, la théorie de l’explication sûre, qui adopte la forme de l’empirisme modal. Avec la SET, il essaie de défendre l’induction énumérative : on croit raisonnablement que tout X est F sur la base d’un échantillon suffisamment grand dans lequel tout X est F. Dans cet article, je soutiens que l’argmentation de Hawke échoue. De plus, je signale un problème avec la SET, lequel cause cet échec : la SET est (...) trop stricte pour expliquer certaines affirmations possibles que nous avons le droit de croire. (shrink)

RÉSUMÉDans l’esprit du scepticisme modal, Peter Hawke propose une épistémologie modale, la théorie de l’explication sûre, qui adopte la forme de l’empirisme modal. Avec la SET, il essaie de défendre l’induction énumérative : on croit raisonnablement que tout X est F sur la base d’un échantillon suffisamment grand dans lequel tout X est F. Dans cet article, je soutiens que l’argmentation de Hawke échoue. De plus, je signale un problème avec la SET, lequel cause cet échec : la SET est (...) trop stricte pour expliquer certaines affirmations possibles que nous avons le droit de croire. (shrink)

Byrne has demonstrated that although subjects can make deductively valid inferences of the modus ponens and modus tollens forms, these valid inferences can be suppressed by presenting an appropriate additional premise “If R then Q” with the original conditional “If P then Q”. This suppression effect challenges the assumption of all syntactic theories of conditional reasoning that formal rules of inference such as modus ponens is part of mental logic. This paper argues that both the syntactic and the mental model (...) accounts of the suppression effect are inadequate because they fail to give a principled account of the critical interpretive component involved in reasoning. In contrast, the relative salience model proposed in this study emphasized the centrality of the interpretative processes with the critical component being the relative salience of premises as judged by subjects on the basis of their prior knowledge activated in particular problem situations. Using 120 undergraduates and 120 policemen as subjects, predictions from the model were tested and confirmed in a suppression paradigm and evidence of convergent validity for the construct of salience were obtained. The results cannot be reconciled with either the syntactic view or the mental model view that have dominated theories of conditional reasoning. (shrink)

Clinical ethics consultation service remains undeveloped in developing countries. It is recognised that its introduction poses challenges. Malaysia, a multicultural society with diverse religions, values and perceptions further complicate the introduction of formal clinical ethics consultation service. Clinicians attending a national congress workshop completed a Strengths–Weaknesses–Opportunities–Threats analysis. The aim was to gain insight into clinician’s expectations and promote initiatives leading to the introduction of clinical ethics consultation service. Clinicians agree that clinical ethics consultation service can improve quality of care, reduce (...) healthcare costs and advocate for patients and providers. The analysis highlighted constraints in sufficient critical mass of relevant expertise and restricted opportunities for training. The opportunities lie in education, curriculum development and availability of dedicated proponents. Cultural barriers, limited resources, lack of awareness, differenc... (shrink)

This article advocates further examination of the role decay aesthetics can play in artificial life (ALife or AL) and art. Opening with the poetics of decay and the shadow that decay taboo has cast in western culture, firstly, we reframe decay as a constructive process of transformation. Secondly, we perform a brief historical survey of early artistic developments in the field of ALife, assessing how these early works addressed decay. We follow with a deeper analysis of contemporary artists through a (...) lens of decay and decomposition, identifying new tendencies of ALife art (deep time simulation, slime intelligence, molecular agents, techno resurrection and ecohybridized computation). Finally, we look to the peripheries of ALife to see how decay is rendered in current technical research and examine these projects with an eye for turbulent production in the form of ‘decaying’ matter. We conclude with a number of open questions on decomposition and decay aesthetics, both within the artistic and technical realms of ALife. (shrink)

Xunzi's philosophy provides a rich resource for understanding how ethical relationships between humans and nature can be articulated in terms of harmony. In this paper, I build on his ideas to develop the concept of reciprocal harmony, which requires us to reciprocate those who make our lives liveable. In the context of the environment, I argue that reciprocal harmony generates moral obligations towards nature, in return for the existential debt that humanity owes towards heaven and earth. This can be used (...) as a normative basis for an environmental ethic that enables humanity and nature to flourish together. (shrink)

Potential romantic partners often employ specific communicative strategies in computer-mediated communication based on their anticipation of future interactions. This conversation analytic study examines the practice of assessments used in WeChat conversations between potential romantic partners. We found that people recurrently mobilize the action of assessment to maintain or terminate their relationships. Especially, people tend to provide more assessments after an initial assessment, which we term ‘continuing assessment’. We show that continuing assessments are sequentially organized in conversational context between co-participants and (...) are essential for relational developments. When potential partners aim to maintain or advance their relationships, continuing assessments are used to prevent a structurally integrated conversation from falling into closure. In contrast, continuing assessments are applied to put an end to the dialogue and to manage face work. Our study furthers the understanding of the communicative strategies of online dating. (shrink)

In children’s learning subjects, English courses has its relative particularity compared with Chinese courses and the mathematics. Children’s English teaching is often inefficient because of the lack of students’ timely consolidation after class. Given this, the present work starts with the analysis of the current situation of children’s learning, and introduces the film-assisted English teaching. In the specific teaching links, English teaching is carried out in a three-dimensional teaching mode. Before that, topics of the films are selected for the English (...) teaching, and the films are edited and processed. Initially, the present work expounds the English children’s films and their educational functions. Then, children can obtain teaching effect from the films. An English questionnaire is designed to analyze the application effect of English films in children’s English teaching. The results show that the film teaching mode improves children’s learning interest and motivation, and English film teaching can stimulate students’ learning interest. Students are also more active to participate in teaching activities, thus improving their language skills. Under the teaching in the scenes of films, students can perceive the functions of language in certain contexts. Comprehensible language input promotes students’ English listening ability and oral expression ability. The films can intuitively show the humanistic style, historical geography, cultures, and customs of English countries, and then cultivate students’ western cultural literacy. Practice has proved that the method proposed here can achieve good teaching effect, and it provides certain references for children’s English education. (shrink)

The purpose of this study is to analyze the relationship between psychology and modern art design education in colleges, and to provide the basis for improving the quality of art education in colleges. Based on the relevant theory, the characteristics of educational psychology and art psychology and the correlation between them were analyzed from the angle of art education. According to the characteristics of college students' psychological development, the significance of art psychology-related courses was analyzed. Through the form of questionnaire, (...) a total of 200 students were randomly selected from Xi'an Academy of Fine Arts and Xi'an University of Science and Technology, respectively. A total of 400 questionnaires were issued, and 382 valid questionnaires were recovered. The results show that almost all students in two colleges think pedagogy and educational psychology are the theoretical basis for art teachers, while less than one-third of students in Xi'an University of Science and Technology think that art psychology is the theoretical basis for art teachers. The difference between the students' aesthetic and life values in the two colleges is significant. In the 15 directions of life values, there are significant differences in five directions: spirit—material, enrichment—emptiness, enthusiasm—apathy, hope—despair, and dedication—acceptance. It shows that the psychological and values of college students are changeable, and the educators should pay attention to the education in the related fields of psychology. This exploration was conducted based on educational psychology, which is of great significance for improving the educational level of art psychology in colleges and enable students to form correct aesthetic standards and life values. (shrink)

Several ethicists have defended the use of responsibility-based criteria in healthcare rationing. Yet in this article we outline two challenges to the implementation of responsibility-based healthcare rationing policies. These two challenges are, namely, that responsibility for past behavior can diminish as an agent changes, and that blame can come apart from responsibility. These challenges suggest that it is more difficult to hold someone responsible for health related actions than proponents of responsibility-sensitive healthcare policies suggest. We close by discussing public health (...) policies that could function as an alternative to contentious, responsibility-sensitive rationing policies. (shrink)

Conventional wisdom holds that the von Neumann entropy corresponds to thermodynamic entropy, but Hemmo and Shenker (2006) have recently argued against this view by attacking von Neumann's (1955) argument. I argue that Hemmo and Shenker's arguments fail due to several misunderstandings: about statistical-mechanical and thermodynamic domains of applicability, about the nature of mixed states, and about the role of approximations in physics. As a result, their arguments fail in all cases: in the single-particle case, the finite particles case, and the (...) infinite particles case. (shrink)

In Everettian quantum mechanics, justifications for the Born rule appeal to self-locating uncertainty or decision theory. Such justifications have focused exclusively on a pure-state Everettian multiverse, represented by a wave function. Recent works in quantum foundations suggest that it is viable to consider a mixed-state Everettian multiverse, represented by a (mixed-state) density matrix. Here, we develop the conceptual foundations for decoherence and branching in a mixed-state multiverse, and extend the standard Everettian justifications for the Born rule to this setting. This (...) extended framework provides a unification of 'classical' and 'quantum' probabilities, and additional theoretical benefits, for the Everettian picture. (shrink)

In this article we critically evaluate an argument against state‐sanctioned euthanasia made by David Velleman in his 1992 paper ‘Against the right to die’. In that article, Velleman argues that legalizing euthanasia is morally problematic as it will deprive eligible patients of the opportunity of staying ‘alive by default’. That is to say, those patients who are rendered eligible for euthanasia as a result of legislative reform will face the burden of having to justify their continued existence to their epistemic (...) peers if they are to be perceived as ‘reasonable’. We discuss potential criticisms that could be made of the argument, and consider how a defender of the view might respond. Velleman’s argument is particularly interesting as it is a consequentialist argument against state‐sanctioned euthanasia, challenging the many consequentialist arguments that have been made in favour of legalizing the procedure. We conclude by suggesting that further research on the question of unfair burdens is important to adequately evaluating the potential harms of legalizing euthanasia for patients at the end of life. (shrink)

Taking the formal analogies between black holes and classical thermodynamics seriously seems to first require that classical thermodynamics applies in relativistic regimes. Yet, by scrutinizing how classical temperature is extended into special relativity, I argue that the concept falls apart. I examine four consilient procedures for establishing the classical temperature: the Carnot process, the thermometer, kinetic theory, and black-body radiation. I argue that their relativistic counterparts demonstrate no such consilience in defining the relativistic temperature. As such, classical temperature doesn’t appear (...) to survive a relativistic extension. I suggest two interpretations for this situation: eliminativism akin to simultaneity, or pluralism akin to rotation. (shrink)

Several bioethicists have recently discussed the complexity of defining human death, and considered in particular how our definition of death affects our understanding of the ethics of vital organ procurement. In this brief paper, we challenge the mainstream medical definition of human death—namely, that death is equivalent to total brain failure—and argue with Nair-Collins and Miller that integrated biological functions can continue even after total brain failure has occurred. We discuss the implications of Nair-Collins and Miller’s argument and suggest that (...) it may be necessary to look for alternative biological markers that reliably indicate the death of a human being. We reject the suggestion that we should abandon the dead-donor criteria for organ donation. Rather than weaken the ethical standards for vital organ procurement, it may be necessary to make them more demanding. The aim of this paper is not to justify the dead donor rule. Rather, we aim to explore the perspective of those who agree with critiques of the whole brain and cardiopulmonary definitions of death but yet disagree with the proposal that we should abandon the dead-donor rule. We will consider what those who want to retain the dead-donor rule must argue in light of Nair-Collins and Miller’s critique. (shrink)

The purpose of this essay is to explore, and clarify, some key features in Aquinas’ account of the virtue of temperance, with an eye to answering some common objections raised against a positive evaluation of temperance. In particular, I consider three features of Aquinas’ understanding of temperance: First, the role of the rational mean in temperance; second, the role of rightly ordered passions in temperance; and third, the ‘despotic’ control of reason over the passions in temperance. Along the way I (...) consider three common objections to Aquinas’ account of temperance: the objection that temperance can be misused for evil, the objection that temperance devalues effort, and the objection that temperance devalues strong passions and thereby implicitly devalues the goodness of sexuality. In responding to these objections on behalf of Aquinas, I take the opportunity to clarify and slightly extend Aquinas’ account of temperance. (shrink)

Prior studies have provided explanations for the presence, use and dissemination of codes of corporate ethics or codes of corporate conduct of business corporations. Most such explanations are functional in nature, and are descriptive as they are derived from the codes and their associated documents. We search for more underlying explanations using two complementary theories: first, social contract theories explaining the exogenous and endogenous reasons of organizational behavior, and then institutional theory explaining why organizations take similar measures in response to (...) institutional pressures. Based on our explanations, we contend that the codes and their use and dissemination are arising from underlying social and institutional pressures for firms to continuously validate their existence in the face of increasing changes and recurrent uncertainties. (shrink)

Programs in quantum gravity often claim that time emerges from fundamentally timeless physics. In the semiclassical time program time arises only after approximations are taken. Here we ask what justifies taking these approximations and show that time seems to sneak in when answering this question. This raises the worry that the approach is either unjustified or circular in deriving time from no–time.

L S Penrose’s Limit Theorem – which is implicit in Penrose [7, p. 72] and for which he gave no rigorous proof – says that, in simple weighted voting games, if the number of voters increases indefinitely and the relative quota is pegged, then – under certain conditions – the ratio between the voting powers of any two voters converges to the ratio between their weights. Lindner and Machover [4] prove some special cases of Penrose’s Limit Theorem. They give a (...) simple counter-example showing that the theorem does not hold in general even under the conditions assumed by Penrose; but they conjecture, in effect, that under rather general conditions it holds ‘almost always’ – that is with probability 1 – for large classes of weighted voting games, for various values of the quota, and with respect to several measures of voting power. We use simulation to test this conjecture. It is corroborated with respect to the Penrose–Banzhaf index for a quota of 50% but not for other values; with respect to the Shapley–Shubik index the conjecture is corroborated for all values of the quota. (shrink)

This book is born out of two contradictions: first, it explores the making of meaning in a musical form that was made to lose its meaning at the turn of the nineteenth century; secondly, it is a history of a music that claims to have no history - absolute music. The book therefore writes against that notion of absolute music which tends to be the paradigm for most musicological and analytical studies. It is concerned not so much with what music (...) is, but with why and how meaning is constructed in instrumental music and what structures of knowledge need to be in place for such meaning to exist. From the thought of Vincenzo Galilei to that of Theodore Adorno, Daniel Chua suggests that instrumental music has always been a critical and negative force in modernity, even with its nineteenth-century apotheosis as 'absolute music'. (shrink)

Life history theory is a fruitful source of testable hypotheses about human individual differences. However, this field of study is beset by unresolved debates about basic concepts and methods. One of these controversies concerns the usefulness of instruments that purport to tap a unidimensional life history factor based on a set of self-reported personality, social, and attitudinal variables. Here, we take a novel approach to analyzing the psychometrics of two variants of the Arizona Life History Battery: the Mini-K and the (...) K-SF-42. Psychological network analysis generates models in which psychological variables comprise the nodes of a network, while partial correlation coefficients between these variables comprise the edges of the network. Centrality indices operationalize each node’s importance based on the pattern of the connections in which that node plays a role. Because childhood environments are hypothesized to influence adult LH, we tested the hypothesis that among the Mini-K items, and the K-SF-42 scales, those that tap relationships with parents are central to the networks constructed from these instruments. In an MTurk sample and an undergraduate sample that completed the Mini-K, and an MTurk sample that completed the K-SF-42, this hypothesis was falsified. Indeed, the “relationships with parents” items were among the most peripheral in all three networks. We propose that network analysis, as an alternative to latent variable modeling, offers considerable potential to test hypotheses about the input-output mappings of specific evolved psychological mechanisms. (shrink)

In this paper I argue that Aquinas’ account of analogy provides resources for resolving the prima facie conflict between his claims that (1) the divine relations constituting the persons are “one and the same” with the divine essence; (2) the divine persons are really distinct, (3) the divine essence is absolutely simple. Specifically, I argue that Aquinas adopts an analogical understanding of the concepts of being and unity, and that these concepts are implicit in his formulation of claims about substance (...) and relation in the Trinity. I then show how Aquinas appeals to key structural features of analogical concepts, notably, the simpliciter/secundum quid characterization, to resolve apparent conflicts between the unity of substance and distinction of relations in the Trinity. (shrink)

Good communication between healthcare providers and patients is vital to effective healthcare. In order to understand patients’ complaints, make accurate diagnoses, obtain informed consent and explain treatment regimens, clinicians must communicate well with their patients. This can be challenging when treating patients from unfamiliar cultural backgrounds, such as the Deaf. Not only are they a linguistic and cultural minority, they are also members of the world’s largest and oft-forgotten minority group: the disability community. Under Article 25 of the United Nations (...) Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, persons with disabilities have rights to the same range, quality and standard of free or affordable healthcare and programmes as provided to other people. Yet communication barriers and healthcare providers’ lack of familiarity with Deaf culture can impair the quality and accessibility of healthcare for the Deaf. This essay analyses the scope of this issue in Singapore: a state party to the CRPD which has a vibrant Deaf community, and yet no legislative or constitutional guarantees of the rights of persons with disabilities. In addition to exploring the communication barriers faced by Deaf patients in Singapore, this essay highlights ways in which healthcare providers and the state can support community-based initiatives to overcome these barriers. (shrink)

Abstractabstract:This article presents previous attempts to map Utopia, a fictional island in the book Utopia by Thomas More, and proposes another possibility, based on the assumption that Utopia is an enclosed garden on an artificial island that is not flat, but has piedmont slopes of 2.5:1. Our mapping experiment is founded on the Renaissance analogy between the domestication of wild nature, and the civilization of the human beings in More’s enclosed garden; and on the anecdotal similarities between the Inca Empire (...) and Utopia. This approach is not only consistent with the island’s dimensional specifications, which have hampered previous mapping attempts due to their mathematical incompatibility, but it also addresses the educative capacity of utopian life not considered by previous mapping efforts. Utopia, as a result, is to be understood as a series of performative spatial arrangements where the physical and geographical specifications would inform the vernacular life of its inhabitants in the direction of self-enhancement. (shrink)

The laws of classical logic are taken to be logical truths, which in turn are taken to hold objectively. However, we might question our faith in these truths: why are they true? One general approach, proposed by Putnam [8] and more recently Dickson [3] or Maddy [5], is to adopt empiricism about logic. On this view, logical truths are true because they are true of the world alone – this gives logical truths an air of objectivity. Putnam and Dickson both (...) take logical truths to be true in virtue of the world’s structure, given by our best empirical theory, quantum mechanics. This assumes a determinate logical structure of the world given by quantum mechanics. Here, I argue that this assumption is false, and that the world’s logical structure, and hence the related ‘true’ logic, is underdetermined. This leads to what I call empirical conventionalism. (shrink)

[Accepted for publication in Lakatos's Undone Work: The Practical Turn and the Division of Philosophy of Mathematics and Philosophy of Science, special issue of Kriterion: Journal of Philosophy. Edited by S. Nagler, H. Pilin, and D. Sarikaya.] Lakatos’s analysis of progress and degeneration in the Methodology of Scientific Research Programmes is well-known. Less known, however, are his thoughts on degeneration in Proofs and Refutations. I propose and motivate two new criteria for degeneration based on the discussion in Proofs and Refutations (...) – superfluity and authoritarianism. I show how these criteria augment the account in Methodology of Scientific Research Programmes, providing a generalized Lakatosian account of progress and degeneration. I then apply this generalized account to a key transition point in the history of entropy – the transition to an information-theoretic interpretation of entropy – by assessing Jaynes’s 1957 paper on information theory and statistical mechanics. (shrink)

In this ground-breaking work, Deborah Cowen makes the first book-length critical intervention into the field of business logistics. Tracing the social, spatial and political transformations wrought by the ‘logistics revolution’, Cowen argues that logistical systems have blurred the boundaries between production and circulation, civilian and military life, and geopolitics and geo-economics, constructing an architecture of the supply chain animated by both the art of war and the science of business. This review considers the political stakes of Cowen’s argument that logistics (...) has reconfigured capitalist social relations of production, especially in relation to the securitisation of spatial mobility and the restructuring of the labour process. In particular, Cowen’s wager that logistical supply-chains are characterised by their vulnerability – and that attendant possibilities for building solidarity emerge out of movements that disrupt such flows – is interrogated in order to question whether such interruptions effectively produce challenges to value-in-motion, or actually become integral to processes of value production. (shrink)