OBJECTIVES: To study the resources available and resources needed for ethics teaching to medical students in UK medical schools as required by the new GMC core curriculum. DESIGN: A structured questionnaire was piloted and then circulated to deans of medical schools. SETTING: All UK medical schools. RESULTS: Eighteen out of 28 schools completed the questionnaire, the remainder either indicating that their arrangements were "under review" (4) or not responding (6). Among those responding: 1) library resources, including video and information technology (...) were found to be fairly well developed; 2) many schools had a good supply of handouts and sample cases for teaching; 3) most had a written syllabus, and 4) two-thirds examined in the subject. However, many schools indicated that there was an urgent need for: 1) full-time teachers (most ethics teaching is still by part-time and voluntary staff); funding for books and journals, and 3) additional teaching materials (including further case vignettes, handouts and sample exam questions). CONCLUSIONS: There has been a considerable overall improvement in resources for medical ethics teaching since the time of the last national survey (The Pond Report). However, provision varies widely from medical school to medical school. The particular needs identified were for full-time teachers, library resources and teaching materials. Wider use of existing organisations concerned with medical ethics could help to meet these needs. (shrink)

According to dispositionalism about modality, a proposition <p> is possible just in case something has, or some things have, a power or disposition for its truth; and <p> is necessary just in case nothing has a power for its falsity. But are there enough powers to go around? In Yates (2015) I argued that in the case of mathematical truths such as <2+2=4>, nothing has the power to bring about their falsity or their truth, which means they come out (...) both necessary and not possible. Combining this with axiom (T), it is easy to derive a contradiction. I suggested that dispositionalists ought to retreat a little and say that <p> is possible just in case either p, or there is a power to bring it about that p, grounding the possibility of mathematical propositions in their truth rather than in powers. Vetter’s (2015) has the resources to provide a response to my argument, and in her (2018) she explicitly addresses it by arguing for a plenitude of powers, based on the idea that dispositions come in degrees, with necessary properties a limiting case of dispositionality. On this view there is a power for <2+2=4>, without there being a power to bring about its truth. In this paper I argue that Vetter’s case for plenitude does not work. However, I suggest, if we are prepared to accept metaphysical causation, a case can be made that there is indeed a power for <2+2=4>. (shrink)

In his 1926 lectures on metaphysical poetry, T. S. Eliot describes the work of Jules Laforgue as the “nearest verse equivalent to the philosophies of Schopenhauer and Hartmann,” a literary rendition of their philosophies of the unconscious and of annihilation.1 Yet, Eliot suggests, in Laforgue the system of Schopenhauer ultimately collapses; the poet does not find in the philosopher that metaphysical balance between thought and feeling he so desperately craves. Schopenhauer’s philosophy, Eliot asserts, is “muddled by feeling—for what is more (...) emotional than the philosophy of Schopenhauer or Hartmann?”2 Here, as elsewhere, Eliot paints Schopenhauer as a despairing, overwrought romantic. Such a presentation naturally.. (shrink)

Mulhaüsler and Harré contend that pronoun systems set out fields of expression ‘within which people can be... presented as agents of one kind or another’. Despite interest in pronominal forms by various discourse researchers, analysis of pronouns-in-use from this perspective remains underdeveloped. This article undertakes such an analysis, drawing on Rees’s theories about the ‘distance from the self ’ encoded in different pronouns. Our data, from interviews analysed as talk-in-interaction, show participants shifting between pronominal registers as a way of presenting (...) their social world and positioning themselves as agents within it. ‘Fourth-person’ pronouns allow the distancing of reports of lack of agency from the deictic centre of self and express a ‘deontic modality’ through which one can position oneself in relation to moral imperatives. Along with shifts into and out of the first-person register, this is notably used to maintain an agentive self-positioning in talk about situations of relative powerlessness. (shrink)

Given their physical realization, what causal work is left for functional properties to do? Humean solutions to the exclusion problem (e.g. overdetermination and difference-making) typically appeal to counterfactual and/or nomic relations between functional property-instances and behavioural effects, tacitly assuming that such relations suffice for causal work. Clarification of the notion of causal work, I argue, shows not only that such solutions don't work, but also reveals a novel solution to the exclusion problem based on the relations between dispositional properties at (...) different levels of mechanism, which involves three central claims: (i) the causal work of properties consists in grounding dispositions, (ii) functional properties are dispositions, and (iii) the dispositions of mechanisms are grounded in the dispositions of their components. Treating functional mental properties as dispositions of components in psychological mechanisms, I argue that such properties do the causal work of grounding agent-level dispositions. These dispositions, while ultimately grounded in the physical realizers of mental properties, are indirectly so grounded, through a hierarchy of grounding relations that extends upwards, of necessity, through the mental domain. (shrink)

Yates has recently argued that modal dispositionalism invalidates the axiom. Both Yates and Allen have advanced responses to the objection: Yates’s response proposes installing truth into the possibility biconditional, and Allen’s response requires that all properties be construed as being essentially dispositional. I argue that supporters of Borghini and Williams’s modal dispositionalist theory cannot accept these responses, given critical tenets of their theory. But, since these responses to the objection are the most plausible in the literature, I (...) conclude that the threat that Borghini and Williams’s modal dispositionalist theory invalidates the axiom still looms large. (shrink)

In this review I take to task the related views of E.J. Lowe, John Heil and Peter Simons according to which relations don't exist because they're dispensable qua truth-makers. I argue that this view is methodologically unstable because we also have reason to believe that relations exist because our best mathematical and scientific theories say so, i.e. quantify over them.

Part I: The Life of Cognitive Science:. William Bechtel, Adele Abrahamsen, and George Graham. Part II: Areas of Study in Cognitive Science:. 1. Analogy: Dedre Gentner. 2. Animal Cognition: Herbert L. Roitblat. 3. Attention: A.H.C. Van Der Heijden. 4. Brain Mapping: Jennifer Mundale. 5. Cognitive Anthropology: Charles W. Nuckolls. 6. Cognitive and Linguistic Development: Adele Abrahamsen. 7. Conceptual Change: Nancy J. Nersessian. 8. Conceptual Organization: Douglas Medin and Sandra R. Waxman. 9. Consciousness: Owen Flanagan. 10. Decision Making: J. Frank (...) class='Hi'>Yates and Paul A. Estin. 11. Emotions: Paul E. Griffiths. 12. Imagery and Spatial Representation: Rita E. Anderson. 13. Language Evolution and Neuromechanisms: Terrence W. Deacon. 14. Language Processing: Kathryn Bock and Susan M. Garnsey. 15. Linguistics Theory: D. Terence Langendoen. 16. Machine Learning: Paul Thagard. 17. Memory: Henry L. Roediger III and Lyn M. Goff. 18. Perception: Cees Van Leeuwen. 19. Perception: Color: Austen Clark. 20. Problem Solving: Kevin Dunbar. 21. Reasoning: Lance J. Rips. 22. Social Cognition: Alan J. Lambert and Alison L. Chasteen. 23. Unconscious Intelligence: Rhianon Allen and Arthur S. Reber. 24. Understanding Texts: Art Graesser and Pam Tipping. 25. Word Meaning: Barbara C. Malt. Part III: Methodologies of Cognitive Science:. 26. Artificial Intelligence: Ron Sun. 27. Behavioral Experimentation: Alexander Pollatsek and Keith Rayner. 28. Cognitive Ethology: Marc Bekoff. 29. Deficits and Pathologies: Christopher D. Frith. 30. Ethnomethodology: Barry Saferstein. 31. Functional Analysis: Brian Macwhinney. 32. Neuroimaging: Randy L. Buckner and Steven E. Petersen. 33. Protocal Analysis: K. Anders Ericsson. 34. Single Neuron Electrophysiology: B. E. Stein, M.T. Wallace, and T.R. Stanford. 35. Structural Analysis: Robert Frank. Part IV: Stances in Cognitive Science:. 36. Case-based Reasoning: David B. Leake. 37. Cognitive Linguistics: Michael Tomasello. 38. Connectionism, Artificial Life, and Dynamical Systems: Jeffrey L. Elman. 39. Embodied, Situated, and Distributed Cognition: Andy Clark. 40. Mediated Action: James V. Wertsch. 41. Neurobiological Modeling: P. Read Montague and Peter Dayan. 42. Production Systems: Christian D. Schunn and David Klahr. Part V: Controversies in Cognitive Science:. 43. The Binding Problem: Valerie Gray Hardcastle. 44. Heuristics and Satisficing: Robert C. Richardson. 45. Innate Knowledge: Barbara Landau. 46. Innateness and Emergentism: Elizabeth Bates, Jeffrey L. Elman, Mark H. Johnson, Annette Karmiloff-Smith, Domenico Parisi, and Kim Plunkett. 47. Intentionality: Gilbert Harman. 48. Levels of Explanation and Cognition Architectures: Robert N. McCauley. 49. Modularity: Irene Appelbaum. 50. Representation and Computation: Robert S. Stufflebeam. 51. Representations: Dorrit Billman. 52. Rules: Terence Horgan and John Tienson. 53. Stage Theories Refuted: Donald G. Mackay. Part VI: Cognitive Science in the Real World:. 54. Education: John T. Bruer. 55. Ethics: Mark L. Johnson. 56. Everyday Life Environments: Alex Kirlik. 57. Institutions and Economics: Douglass C. North. 58. Legal Reasoning: Edwina L. Rissland. 59. Mental Retardation: Norman W. Bray, Kevin D. Reilly, Lisa F. Huffman, Lisa A. Grupe, Mark F. Villa, Kathryn L. Fletcher, and Vivek Anumolu. 60. Science: William F. Brewer and Punyashloke Mishra. Selective Biographies of Major Contributors to Cognitive Science: William Bechtel and Tadeusz Zawidzki. (shrink)

Post in 1944 began studying properties of a computably enumerable set A such as simple, h-simple, and hh-simple, with the intent of finding a property guaranteeing incompleteness of A . From the observations of Post and Myhill , attention focused by the 1950s on properties definable in the inclusion ordering of c.e. subsets of ω, namely E = . In the 1950s and 1960s Tennenbaum, Martin, Yates, Sacks, Lachlan, Shoenfield and others produced a number of elegant results relating ∄-definable (...) properties of A , like maximal, hh-simple, atomless, to the information content of A . Harrington and Soare gave an answer to Post's program for definable properties by producing an ∄-definable property Q which guarantees that A is incomplete and noncomputable, but developed a new Δ 3 0 -automorphism method to prove certain other properties are not ∄-definable. In this paper we introduce new ∄-definable properties relating the ∄-structure of A to deg, which answer some open questions. In contrast to Q we exhibit here an ∄-definable property T which allows such a rapid flow of elements into A that A must be complete even though A may possess many other properties such as being promptly simple. We also present a related property NL which has a slower flow but fast enough to guarantee that A is not low, even though A may possess virtually all other related lowness properties and A may simultaneously be promptly simple. (shrink)

Transplantation is a medically successful and cost-effective way to treat people whose organs have failed--but not enough organs are available to meet demand. T. M. Wilkinson explores the major ethical problems raised by policies for acquiring organs. Key topics include the rights of the dead, the role of the family, and the sale of organs.

Placing Bruno—both advanced philosopher and magician burned at the stake—in the Hermetic tradition, Yates's acclaimed study gives an overview not only of Renaissance humanism but of its interplay—and conflict—with magic and occult practices. "Among those who have explored the intellectual world of the sixteenth century no one in England can rival Miss Yates. Wherever she looks, she illuminates. Now she has looked on Bruno. This brilliant book takes time to digest, but it is an intellectual adventure to read (...) it. Historians of ideas, of religion, and of science will study it. Some of them, after reading it, will have to think again.... For Miss Yates has put Bruno, for the first time, in his tradition, and has shown what that tradition was."—Hugh Trevor-Roper, _New Statesman_ "A decisive contribution to the understanding of Giordano Bruno, this book will probably remove a great number of misrepresentations that still plague the tormented figure of the Nolan prophet."—Giorgio de Santillana, _American Historical Review_ "Yates's book is an important addition to our knowledge of Giordano Bruno. But it is even more important, I think, as a step toward understanding the unity of the sixteenth century."—J. Bronowski, _New York Review of Books_. (shrink)

Partial grounding is often thought to be formally analogous to proper parthood in certain ways. Both relations are typically understood to be asymmetric and transitive, and as such, are thought to be strict partial orders. But how far does this analogy extend? Proper parthood is often said to obey the weak supplementation principle. There is reason to wonder whether partial grounding, or, more precisely, proper partial grounding, obeys a ground-theoretic version of this principle. In what follows, I argue that it (...) does not. The cases that cause problems for the supplementation principle for grounding also serve as counterexamples to another principle, minimality, defended by Paul Audi. (shrink)

A very clear and powerfully argued defence of a most important and surprisingly neglected view."--Derek Parfit, All Souls College, Oxford. "If Dr. Olson is right, we are living animals and what goes on in our minds is wholly irrelevant to questions about our persistence through time....[Should] transform philosophical thinking about personal identity."--Peter van Inwagen, University of Notre Dame.

Though it enjoys widespread support, the claim that perceptual experiences possess nonconceptual content has been vigorously disputed in the recent literature by those who argue that the content of perceptual experience must be conceptual content. Nonconceptualism and conceptualism are often assumed to be well-defined theoretical approaches that each constitute unitary claims about the contents of experience. In this paper I try to show that this implicit assumption is mistaken, and what consequences this has for the debate about perceptual experience. I (...) distinguish between two different ways that nonconceptualist (and conceptualist) proposals about perceptual content can be understood: as claims about the constituents that compose perceptual contents or as claims about whether a subject. (shrink)

Neuroscience cannot and should not be allowed to replace normative questions with scientific onesOver the past few years considerable attention has been paid to a variety of issues that are now placed collectively under the heading of “Neuroethics”. In both the academic and the popular press there have been discussions about the possibilities and problems offered by cognitive enhancement and neuroimaging as well as debate about the implications of these emerging “neurotechnologies” for morality and the law. This issue of the (...) journal contains eight papers that discuss a broad range of important topics in neuroethics, from cognitive enhancement and the moral status of animals and cyborgs, to the challenges of neurological consults in end of life cases. As these papers demonstrate, advances in neuroscience raise a number of important ethical questions, but can neuroscience help provide any answers?FACT AND VALUEAccording to the received philosophical wisdom, there is a fundamental distinction between fact and value—between how things are and how they ought to be. On the basis of this distinction one cannot draw normative conclusions from descriptive premises because there is nothing in the premises that would warrant such conclusions: from the fact that happiness is desired it does not follow that it ought to be. This received wisdom applies to neuroethics in the following way: whereas neuroscience might be able to identify the neurophysical correlates for evaluative notions such as preferences and attitudes,1,2 lying,3 and the distinction between in control and out of control behaviour,4 neuroscience cannot, in and by itself, provide the basis for their evaluation. The reason for this is that, in the absence of factors external to these neurophysical states, one neurophysical state is no better or worse than another—internal neurophysical states are logically …. (shrink)

It is clearly impermissible to kill one person because his organs can be used to save five others who are in need of transplants. It has seemed to many that the explanation for this lies in the fact that in such cases we would be intending the death of the person whom we killed, or failed to save. What makes these actions impermissible, however, is not the agent's intention but rather the fact that the benefit envisaged does not justify an (...) exception to the prohibition against killing or the requirement to give aid. The difference between this explanation and one appealing to intention is easily overlooked if one fails to distinguish between the prospective use of a moral principle to guide action and its retrospective use to appraise the way an agent governed him or herself. Even if this explanation is accepted, however, it remains an open question whether and how an agent's intention may be relevant to the permissibility of actions in other cases. \\\ [Jonathan Dancy] My first four sections concentrate on the second section of Professor Scanlon's contribution, where he lays out his conception of moral principles and of the role they play in theory and practice. I will raise questions on the following issues: 1. Scanlon's initial introduction of the notion of a principle. 2. His rejection of the standard view that principles are concerned with the forbidding, permitting and requiring of actions. 3. His rejection of pro tanto conceptions of principles in favour of a conception of them as conclusive. 4. The resulting account of what it is for a principle to face and survive exceptions. Scanlon's discussion of these matters here both appeals to and is in some respects more detailed than the relevant section of his recent What We Owe to Each Other. The topic is interesting both for the role played by principles in Scanlon's present discussion of intention and permissibility, and more generally because of his account of wrongness: an act is wrong iff it is ruled out by principles that nobody could reasonably reject. The remainder of my contribution is concerned with the ostensible focus of IP, namely the relevance of agent-intentions to the permissibility of what is done. (shrink)

The following points, which represent a path to a semiotics of being, are pertinent to various sub-fields at the conjunction of semiotics of nature (biosemiotics, ecosemiotics, zoosemiotics) and semiotics of culture—semioethics and existential semiotics included. 1) Semiotics of being entails inquiry at all levels of biological organization, albeit, wherever there are individuals, with emphasis on the living qua individuals (integrated biological individualism). 2) An Umwelt is the public aspect (cf. the Innenwelt, the private aspect) of a phenomenal/experienced world that is (...) organism-specific (rather than species-specific) and ultimately refers to an existential realm. 3) Existential universals at work on Earth include seeking out the edible, dwelling in a medium, holding a phenomenal world (possibly an Umwelt) and being endowed with life, and consequently being mortal. 4) Human Umwelten include speechless Umwelten, spoken Umwelten and alphabetic Umwelten. 5) An Uexküllian phenomenology—stating that semiotic states represent the general class to which all mental/cognitive states belong—can draw on the works of the phenomenologists David Abram and Ted Toadvine (The notion of semiotic states is treated in Tønnessen 2009a: 62–63. For an introduction to eco-phenomenology, see Brown and Toadvine (eds.) 2003). 6) A task for such a phenomenology is to portray the natural history of the phenomenal world. 7) An imperative task in our contemporary world of faltering biological diversity is that of Umwelt mapping, i.e. a mapping of ontological niches. 8) The ecological crisis is an ontological crisis with historical roots in humankind’s domestication of animals and plants, which can be taken as archetypical for our attempted planet-scale taming of the wild. 9) The process of globalization is expressed by correlated trends of depletion of semiotic diversity and semiotic diversification. 10) Semiotic economy is a field which task it is to map the human ontological niche insofar as its semiotic relations are of an economic nature. All ten points will be commented (explicitly or implicitly) in due time. (shrink)

Classical text on Nyaya and Vaiśeṣika philosophy; with Āloka Sanskrit commentary.

Critical edition with eight commentaries, on Nyaya and Vaiśeṣika philosophy.

Classical work on the basic concepts and terminology of Nyaya and Vaiśeṣika school in Hindu philosophy; includes Phakkikā commentary by Kṣamākalyāṇagaṇi, 18th cent.

Aphoristic work on Nyāya and Vaiśeṣika school of Hindu philosophy; includes Sanskrit commentary with Hindi translation.

Aphoristic work on Nyaya and Vaiśeṣika school of Hindu philosophy; includes two Sanskrit commentaries.

Discourses on the Bhagavadgītā, Bhakti, and Hindu ethics.