This essay discusses the instructional value of mathematical proofs using different interpretations of the analysis cum synthesis method in Apollonius’ Conics as a case study. My argument is informed by Descartes’ complaint about ancient geometers and William Thurston’s discussion on how mathematical understanding is communicated. Three historical frameworks of the analysis/synthesis distinction are used to understand the instructive function of the analysis cum synthesis method: the directional interpretation, the structuralist interpretation, and the phenomenological interpretation. I apply these interpretations to (...) the analysis cum synthesis method in order reveal how the same underlying mathematical activity occurs at different levels of scale: at the level of an individual proof, at the level of a collection of proofs, and at the level of a single line within a proof. On the basis of this investigation, I argue that the instructive value of mathematical proof lies in engendering in the reader the same mathematical activity experienced by the author themselves. (shrink)

Principle-based formulations of bioethical theory have recently come under increasing scrutiny, particularly insofar as they give prominence to personal autonomy. This essay critiques the dominant conceptualization of autonomy and urges an alternative formulation freed from the individualistic assumptions that pervade the prevailing framework. Drawing on feminist perspectives, I discuss the need for a vision of patient autonomy that joins relational experiences to individuality and acknowledges the influence of patterns of power and authority on the exercise of patient agency. Deficiencies in (...) the current models of science and social relations guiding medical practice are analyzed, particularly (1) the tendency to disregard the patients self-knowledge and (2) failure to recognize limitations on the generalizability of medical knowledge. Models of social relations such as mothering and friendship are explored to advance a conception of autonomy better suited to the practical activities of medicine. In conclusion, I consider how acknowledgement of the specificity and complexity of social relations can contribute to reconfiguration of other principles comprising the standard framework of bioethics, particularly beneficence, justice, and equality. (shrink)

School-based education in England has undergone significant changes since 2010, with a huge expansion of academies, schools outside local authority control, funded directly by central government. Academies and local authority (LA) maintained schools are subject to different legislative and regulatory frameworks. This paper focuses on the governance of LA maintained schools, single academy trusts (SATs) and schools that are part of multi-academy trusts (MATs). The research involved analysing legislative provision, policy documents, and documents addressing the governance arrangements of a sample (...) of 23 secondary schools. Our findings reveal a fragmented state-funded secondary school system as regards overall governance, school admissions, the curriculum, and the use of funding. Significantly schools in MATs, which are governed by the trust board, lack the autonomy of either SATs or maintained schools and are instead under the ultimate control of the trust board. The paper argues that there is a need for greater consistency regarding the governance of state-funded schools. (shrink)

Goffman is credited with enriching our understanding of the details of interaction, but not with challenging our theoretical understanding of social organization. While Goffman's position is not consistent, the outlines for a theory of an interaction order sui generis may be found in his work. It is not theoretically adequate to understand Goffman as an interactionist within the dichotomy between agency and social structure. Goffman offers a way of resolving this dichotomy via the idea of an interaction order which is (...) constitutive of self and at the same time places demands on social structure. This has significant implications for our understanding of social organization in general. (shrink)

This paper is concerned with aspects of responsibility in Norwegian public health nursing. Public health nursing is an expansive profession with diffuse boundaries. The Norwegian public health nurse does not perform ‘hands on’ nursing, but focuses on the prevention of illness, injury, or disability, and the promotion of health. What is the essence of ethical responsibility in public health nursing? The aim of this article is to explore the phenomenon based on the ethics of responsibility as reflected upon by the (...) philosopher Emanuel Levinas (1906–1995). From an ethical point of view, responsibility is about our duty towards the Other, a duty we have not always chosen, are prepared for, or can fully explain; but it is nevertheless a demand we have to live with. Interviews with five experienced Norwegian nurses provide the empirical base for reflection and interpretation. The nurses share stories from their practice. In interpreting the nurses’ stories, the following themes emerge: personal responsibility; boundaries; temporality; worry, fear, and uncertainty; and a sense of satisfaction. As the themes are developed further, it becomes apparent that, despite their diversity, they are all interrelated aspects of ethical responsibility. Responsibility for the Other cannot be avoided, ignored, or transferred. The nurses’ responsibility is personal and infinite. Levinasian ethics can help nurses understand the importance of accepting that being a responsive carer can involve not only contentment in the predictable, but also the fear, worry, and uncertainty of the unpredictable. (shrink)

Increasingly, nurses conduct scientific inquiry into complex health‐care problems by collaborating on teams with researchers from other highly specialized fields. As cross‐disciplinary research proliferates and becomes institutionalized globally, researchers will increasingly encounter the need to integrate their particular research perspectives within inquiries without sacrificing the potential contributions of their discipline‐specific expertise. The work of the philosopher Bernard Lonergan (1904–1984) offers the necessary philosophical grounding. Here, I defend a role for philosophy in cross‐disciplinary research and present selected ideas in Lonergan's work. (...) These include: (1) a dynamic, normative pattern that each inquirer operates uniquely also forms the common core, or unity, in knowing; (2) the possibility of cross‐disciplinary knowledge development is dependent on each researcher's consciousness of her or his attentiveness, intelligence, reasonableness, and responsibleness; and (3) shifts in researchers' viewpoints, or horizons, facilitate their collaborative inquiry and their grasp of the unity in knowing. The desire to know, shared by team members, drives their inquiry. Lonergan's stance is consistent with nursing values because it respects, but does not unconditionally privilege, any researcher or discipline. Arguments support a claim that Lonergan's perspective is well suited to guide nurse researchers participating on cross‐disciplinary health research teams. (shrink)

Dignified care is a central issue in the nursing care of older adults. Nurses are expected to treat older adults with dignity, and older adults wish to be treated in a dignified manner. Researchers have recommended investigating the concept of dignity based on specific contexts and population groups. This meta-synthesis study aims to explore the understandings of dignity from the perspective of older adults in the Nordic countries. Synthesising findings from qualitative studies on older adults’ experiences of dignity has provided (...) important insight into what can be essential for dignified care in a Nordic context. The importance of visibility and recognition for the experience of dignity is an overarching theme in all the studies. The participants’ descriptions mostly implicated an existence dominated by a lack of recognition. The older adults do not feel valued as people or for their contribution to society and strive to tone down their illnesses in an attempt to become more visible and acknowledged as people. Toning down their illnesses and masking their needs can protect their independence. At the same time, becoming less visible can leave them without a voice. The metaphorical phrase protected and exposed by a cloak of invisibility is used to express the authors’ overall interpretation of the findings. Lack of recognition and being socially invisible is a genuine threat to older adults’ dignity. (shrink)

This paper interprets the British legislative process that initiated the first comprehensive national regulation of embryo research and fertility services and examines subsequent efforts to restrain the assisted reproduction industry. After describing and evaluating British regulatory measures, I consider successive failures to control the assisted reproduction industry in the US. I discuss disparities between UK and US regulatory initiatives and their bearing on regulation in other countries. Then I turn to the political and social structures in which the assisted reproduction (...) industry is embedded. I argue that regulatory bodies are seldom neutral arbiters. They tend to respond most readily to special interests and neglect strategies that could more effectively meet the health needs of the people they represent. Neither national nor international bodies have aggressively pursued policies to harness the industry, reduce infertility rates, or meet the needs of people whose fertility is threatened by substandard healthcare and environmental neglect. In conclusion, I consider recent initiatives by activist groups to mount an alternative response to the industry's current practices and build a transnational reproductive justice movement. (shrink)

Representations of the active brain have served to establish a particular domain of competence for brain mappers and to distinguish brain mapping’s particular contributions to mind/brain research. At the heart of the claims about the emerging contributions of functional brain mapping is a paradox: functional imagers seem to reject representations while also using them at multiple points in their work. This article therefore considers a love-hate relationship between scientists and their object: the case of the iconoclastic imager. This paradoxical stance (...) is the result of the formation of an interdisciplinary approach that brings together a number of scientific traditions and their particular standards of what constitutes scientific evidence. By examining the various ways in which images are deployed and rejected, the origins of these conflicting tendencies can be traced to the technological, methodological, and institutional elements in the work of functional imagers. This approach provides insight into the current demarcation of imaging and reflects on features of visual knowledge. (shrink)

Pourquoi faut-il que nous nous interrogions sans relâche? Qu'un seul veille et le monde est sans repos, libre à nouveau de toute réponse, comme si ni l'histoire ni la mémoire n'avaient tracé les signes, multiples et réitérés au long des siècles, de nos balbutiements devant l'énigme de l'être. D'aussi loin que les textes nous parviennent, la philosophie s'est érigée contre la superstition, la croyance vaine, l'opinion. Elle a fait œuvre de discernement en direction de la question de l'être, du monde, (...) du sujet. Pourquoi alors défendre l'idée d'une vocation prophétique de la philosophie? Parce qu'il y aurait à répondre de, avant même que la réflexion philosophique puisse, comme telle, être légitime. La vocation serait l'espace de toute réponse possible. Et la philosophie, dès lors, s'inscrirait à partir de ce lieu où la réponse est toujours différée, parce qu'elle est cette ouverture radicale sur l'absolument autre qui empêche le discours de se clore sur lui-même. Quels penseurs ont anticipé notre présente détresse? A moins que la détresse ne soit elle-même qu'un état transitoire dont il ne faudrait pas s'affliger puisque nos démocraties sont, à tout prendre, les moins barbares des sociétés de droit. Les penseurs prophétiques frayent un chemin de veille, non pour perpétuer une trace, un enseignement, mais pour risquer plus loin la question de l'humanité de l'homme. (shrink)

Le pape François se retrouve à la tête d’une Eglise confrontée à de grandes difficultés. Il a lancé et poursuivi des chantiers que son prédécesseur a eu du mal à faire avancer. Il a su se placer au centre des discussions essentielles de notre époque : la richesse et la pauvreté, l'équité et la justice, la transparence, la modernité, la mondialisation, le rôle de la femme, l’ouverture de la prêtrise aux femmes, la nature du mariage, l’accueil des divorcés remariés, les (...) tentations du pouvoir, les _relations avec l'islam, la lutte contre la pédophilie, les finances du Saint-Siège, _l’abolition du célibat ecclésiastique, _la gouvernance de l'Eglise, la redynamisation de la foi en Europe. Même si nous n’allons pas aborder tous ces thèmes, le pape pour sa part _n’a guère d’autres solutions que de poursuivre dans la route déjà empruntée pour une Église à géométrie variable. Au-delà de sa personne, il s’agit de l’Eglise et, surtout de l’accueille du Christ par notre société contemporaine dans sa diversité culturelle. Ce qui est frappant c’est de voir comment le Pape François catalyseur, conçoit son ministère à travers l’écoute des pasteurs qui ont eux-mêmes écouté le peuple. Il insiste souvent sur l’enjeu de la liberté de parole et de débat. D’où la place que nous avons à la riche culture africaine. (shrink)

Drawing upon five years of experience with an interdisciplinary initiative, colleagues in biology, literary studies, and physics offer a framework by which to understand the nature and value of interdisciplinary work. Effective interdisciplinary exchange depends on a dynamic and mutual interplay that challenges normally unexamined disciplinary assumptions. Effective interdisciplinary exchange can not only reinvigorate the disciplines but also engage them more effectively in a common intellectual enterprise, one that in turn is able to engage more effectively with a wide range (...) of human concerns beyond the academy. (shrink)

In a recent paper titled “Content Preservation”, Tyler Burge argues that certain psychological processes play a purely preservative role, and not a justificatory role. Burge’s claim is that the justificatory force of the beliefs sustained by these processes is independent of features of these processes, such as their reliability. The function of these psychological processes is merely to preserve the beliefs in order to “assure the proper working of other cognitive capacities over time”. In particular, Burge claims that the memory (...) processes underlying deductive reasoning and the psychological processes underlying verbal communication are purely preservative. (shrink)

In an effort to clear away confusions regarding the role of cultural analysis in historical explanation, this paper proposes a new approach to the issue of cultural autonomy. The premise is that there are two forms of cultural autonomy, analytic and concrete. Analytic autonomy posits the independent structure of culture-its elements, processes, and reproduction. It is achieved through the theoretical and artificial separation of culture from other social structures, conditions, and action. Concrete autonomy establishes the interconnection of culture with the (...) rest of social life, and is achieved by fleshing out the historically specific formulation of particular cultural structures. In addition to theoretically specifying the two forms of cultural autonomy, I demonstrate analytic and concrete autonomy in practice by examining two works that incorporate culture into the analysis of the same historical event. The rewards of recognizing both analytic and concrete cultural autonomy are twofold. First, cultural reductionism can be countered by establishing that culture is structural. Second and more important, once the independent nature of a cultural form is established, its causal contribution to concrete historical situations can be assessed accurately and integrated into historical explanation. (shrink)

From its origins in the twelfth century, the rosary grew to become the most popular extraliturgical prayer of the Catholic church. Why this text—of all the medieval experiments in religious exercises—succeeded so dramatically has to do with the form of the text itself and with developments in popular religious piety. Like other medieval texts, the rosary was “written” collectively, that is, by accretion, experimentation, and revision, as users adapted it to evolving spiritual and practical ends. The most significant development in (...) this process was the addition of “mysteries” to the prayer, which profoundly changed its character and created a new religious exercise uniquely suited to the needs of the lay faithful. Ultimately, the devotion shaped, and was shaped by, the demands of the laity for new, more individual and private forms of religious observance. (shrink)

Young netizens are an emerging generator of online content, engaging in an increasing number of online flaming interactions. This shortened communication mode has incorporated power amplifiers, enabling the inclusion of both verbal and non-verbal triggers, thereby initiating abuses akin to cyberbullying. Cyberbullying has emerged as an extremely unstable hot issue, which is difficult to regulate upstream, severely impacting inexperienced young netizens. This Machiavellian apparatus proves to be sophisticated, given its powerful nature, and results in its victims being ensnared in a (...) cyber net from which they see very little escape. Laws have been enacted to combat cyberbullying, which is rampant among netizens, highly naive or actively aggressive in their use of various social media platforms. (shrink)

OverviewEn 1979, la revue Meta publiait, sous la direction de Jean-Claude Gémar, un numéro spécial consacré, pour une première fois, à la traduction juridique comme activité et discipline autonomes au sein de la jeune traductologie [8]. Ce numéro reste une référence devant la persévérance et la rigueur manifestées par le Bureau des traductions d’alors et l’action, inspirée et audacieuse, du ministère de la Justice du Canada , qui laissaient entrevoir l’avènement d’une «jurilinguistique» en gestation. Cette tentative de refrancisation du langage (...) du droit canadien par le biais de lois bilingues, corédigées et non plus traduites, allait connaître une fortune peu commune. L’exemple canadien et son modèle de «lisibilité» de la loi se sont en effet répandus, inspirant de nombreux États aux quatre coins du monde. Quelques années plus tard, en 1982, le Conseil de la langue française du Québec publiait, sous la direction de J-C Gémar, un ouvrage collectif bilingue trai .. (shrink)

While many scholars join in the call for an experiential shift in thinking and living, it is not always clear how it could be done. Recent environmental philosophy has illuminated the significance of re-animating human–environment relations on an experiential level for endeavouring a new (or renewed) ethical, experiential, and, indeed, existential stance of the human as part of the environed embodiment. In relation to this call, I explore embodied critical thinking (ECT) as a tool for recognising, revitalising, and reflecting embodied, (...) enactive, and embedded thinking that comes from a felt sense. Thus, this chapter employs some of the TAE (Thinking at the Edge) steps for ECT research as a practical approach to facilitating and embracing a new way of thinking that is crucial for reconnecting humans with their lived environments, but also for emancipating research practices to enable research that goes out from such a renewed connectivity. In particular, the chapter traces the application of Eugene Gendlin’s move of instancing to showcase the use of embodied knowing and felt sense in environmental contexts. Thus, it showcases how, in fundamental ways that speak directly to and from our embodied embeddedness, ECT has an emancipatory impact in ways that resonate with lived experiences. (shrink)

The principled approach to theory building that has been a conspicuous mark of bioethical theory for the past generation has in recent years fallen under considerable critical scrutiny. Although some critics have confined themselves to reordering the dominant principles, others have rejected a principled approach entirely and turned to alternative paradigms. Prominent among critics are antiprin-ciplists, who want to jettison the principle-based approach altogether and adopt a casuistic model, and communitarians, who favor an eclectic model combining features of both the (...) casuistic model and a modified principled approach. Particularly conspicuous in virtually all such critiques is their challenge to the preeminence of the principle of autonomy. Critical barbs have been aimed not only at theories favoring a hierarchical ordering of moral principles that give first place to autonomy, but also at those that include autonomy among a set of ostensibly coequal principles. Though these critics have performed a valued function by displacing bioethical principles from their Olympian perch beyond actual decision-making contexts, some version of the principle of autonomy may, nonetheless, be well worth defending but for very different reasons than those put forward by its supporters. (shrink)

Reaction time to detect a phoneme target in a sentence was found to be faster when the word in which the target occurred formed part of the semantic focus of the sentence. Focus was determined by asking a question before the sentence; that part of the sentence which comprised the answer to the sentence was assumed to be focussed. This procedure made it possible to vary position of focus within the sentence while holding all acoustic aspects of the sentence itself (...) constant. It is argued that sentence understanding is facilitated by rapid identification of focussed information. Since focussed words are usually accented, it is further argued that the active search for accented words demonstrated in previous research should be interpreted as a search for semantic focus. (shrink)

Recently a number of philosophers have argued for a kind of encroachment of the practical into the epistemic. Fantl and McGrath, for example, argue that if a subject knows that p, then she is rational to act as if p. (Fantl and McGrath 2007) In this paper I make a preliminary case for what we might call encroachment in, not knowledge or justification, but epistemic excellence, recent accounts of which include those of Roberts and Wood (2007), Bishop and Trout (2005), (...) and Baehr (2011). I believe that practical considerations bear on whether a disposition is an epistemic excellence, and I propose a practical condition on epistemic excellence that is roughly analogous to the practical condition on knowledge proposed by Fantl and McGrath. Since the view is also an epistemic analogue to a kind of moral rationalism in ethics, we might also call it a variety of ‘epistemic rationalism’. (shrink)

En accompagnement de la reprise des fouilles, nous présentons de nouvelles données relatives aux trois monuments les plus occidentaux de la terrasse de la Marmaria, obtenues à l’occasion de l’inventaire des blocs hors œuvre, présents sur le site, et d’une relecture des sources textuelles antiques. La fonction d’hestiatorion de SD 44 est ainsi confirmée. Une nouvelle datation est proposée pour l’édifice de calcaire SD 43 dont l’architecture ne correspond pas à celle d’un temple, mais plutôt à celle d’une salle d’assemblée. (...) La date de la tholos SD 40 est également abaissée, ce qui la met en relation avec le Philippéion d’Olympie. Ces acquis auront à être précisés par la poursuite de l’étude architecturale, mais ils invitent déjà à réévaluer la place que la Macédoine des Argéades tenait à Delphes. (shrink)

This study in the context of short-stay surgery is based on a definition according to which informed consent consists of five elements: consent, voluntariness, disclosure of information, understanding and competence. The data were collected in four district hospitals in southern Finland by using a structured questionnaire. The population consisted of short-stay and one-day surgery patients (n = 107). Data analysis was based on statistical methods. The results indicated some problems in the realization of informed consent. Most commonly, consent was expressed (...) by voluntary admission. Most patients had indicated their voluntary consent by making their decision independently. There were also certain problems with information. The respondents were least well informed about the drawbacks of anaesthesia and about alternative forms of treatment. The patients had not understood all the information they had received; problems of understanding were greatest with information about the advantages and disadvantages of anaesthesia. Problems were also reported with competence. These patients had the most difficulty in assessing the advantages and drawbacks of different treatments and anaesthesia. (shrink)

Read again in light of the current French social conflict around the part-time theater and cinema workers, the book by L. Boltanski and E. Chiapello, Le nouvel esprit du capitalisme, seems to have been quite prescient when describing work as organized store and more through short-term projects. But the lack of social security in this system is supposed by the authors to conte front the artist-critics who were interested mostly in individual freedom and expressivity, store than from the infrastructural organization (...) of capitalism. Solutions are sought by analogy with the rides that protect salaried workers, particularly the idea of a guaranteed income or social wage. (shrink)

This paper focuses on the reforms made to the quasi-market in school-based education in England that occurred between May 1997 and May 2001. It discusses the changes that have taken place in relation to parental choice, admissions to schools, school diversity, funding and examination 'league tables'. The Labour Government can be seen as having embraced the quasi-market with a similar enthusiasm to that of its Conservative predecessors although it has tended to emphasise social inclusion as opposed to competition. While it (...) has attempted to soften the edges of the quasi-market it has not tackled some of its major deficiencies such as the power that schools that are their own admission authorities have to distort the admissions process. (shrink)

In the midst of the recent Ebola outbreak, scientific developments involving infection challenge experiments on nonhuman primates (NHPs) sparked hope that successful treatments and vaccines may soon become available. Yet these studies pose a stark ethical quandary. On the one hand, they represent an important step in developing novel therapies and vaccines for Ebola and the Marburg virus, with the potential to save thousands of human lives and to protect whole communities from devastation; on the other hand, they intentionally expose (...) sophisticated animals to severe suffering and a high risk of death. Other studies that infect NHPs with a lethal disease in order to test interventions that may prove beneficial for humans pose the same ethical difficulty. Some advocates have argued that all research on primates should be phased out, and ethicists have questioned whether a moral justification of primate research is possible. A 2010 European Union directive banned virtually all research on great apes, and 2013 guidelines from the National Institutes of Health (NIH), based upon recommendations in an influential 2011 Institute of Medicine (IOM) report, eliminated most biomedical research with chimpanzees in the United States. But studies involving other NHPs face no comparable restrictions.Should research on NHPs other than great apes be subject to tighter restrictions than it currently is? In this article, we explore this general question in the context of one particular type of biomedical research: infection challenge studies. We advocate a presumptive prohibition on infection challenge experiments in NHPs, but we also argue that exceptions to this prohibition are permissible, subject to strict substantive and procedural safeguards, when necessary to avert substantial loss of human life or severe morbidity for a substantial number of people. (shrink)

This paper examines the impact of education reforms on school admissions policies and practices. It discusses the changes that are needed to improve the current system, especially in areas where the market is highly developed. It is concluded that the new legislation to be enacted by the current Labour Government should be beneficial, but that more far-reaching changes are needed for the admissions process to be equitable, transparent and accountable.