This is a thesis in three parts. It concerns the normative capacity of attributive goodness. Specifically, it critically evaluates Attributivism, the theory that attributive goodness is fundamentally normative, or that the distribution of that property determines when, whether, and in what way agents ought to act. The first third develops, refines and defends Attributivism. Doing so is, in part, a ground-clearing exercise. I distil that theory from the arguments of many other philosophers. In doing so I isolate and precisify its (...) core commitments. I defend it from a number of objections. The second third analyses fundamental normativity. I stipulate that a standard or property is fundamentally normative if its distribution alone can ground normativity. I argue that for anything to be so fundamentally normative, it must minimally meet two criteria. It must be both authoritative and regulatory. The final third evaluates whether or not attributive goodness satisfies the established criteria, and so whether or not Attributivism is correct. I argue that in its canonical form it isn’t. I then develop a revised view of Attributivism that can satisfy the criteria. I argue, however, that the revised view is unsatisfying in almost every respect. Attributivism, revised or otherwise, should be rejected. (shrink)

Thought: A Journal of Philosophy, EarlyView.

Prima facie the norms of natural-teleology conflict with norms of morality and rationality. Morality often rejects behaviours that can promote natural-success, and we can have reasons to act in ways that conflict with natural-imperatives. That’s a problem for Attributivism, which dictates that what one ought to do is exhausted in satisfying the standards of one’s kind, and thus that members of natural-kinds ought ultimately to do that which is naturally good. I argue that standard responses are inadequate. I argue further (...) however that the impression of conflict owes to a failure to appreciate the context-sensitivity and holistic interdependence of natural-norms. Natural-norms fluctuate relative to circumstance and to the needs of overall flourishing; once that’s clearly understood, not only does the impression of conflict between natural and moral/rational norms resolve, but we find Attributivism plausibly explains many rational/moral practices/intuitions. (shrink)

In their 2010 book, Biology’s First Law, D. McShea and R. Brandon present a principle that they call ‘‘ZFEL,’’ the zero force evolutionary law. ZFEL says (roughly) that when there are no evolutionary forces acting on a population, the population’s complexity (i.e., how diverse its member organisms are) will increase. Here we develop criticisms of ZFEL and describe a different law of evolution; it says that diversity and complexity do not change when there are no evolutionary causes.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Music Education for the New Millennium: Theory and Practice Futures for Music Teaching and LearningSean PenderelMusic Education for the New Millennium: Theory and Practice Futures for Music Teaching and Learning, edited by David K. Lines. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing, 2005, 150 pp., $34.95 paper.Music Education for the New Millennium is a 150-page collection of essays focused mainly upon philosophical introspection into the current condition of the profession. Within (...) this volume there are eight philosophic essays and one quantitative research article, by Alastair McPhee, Peter Stollery, and Ros McMillan. Other essays, beyond the work of the editor, were contributed by Thomas Regelski, Wayne Bowman, Robert Davis, Lucy Green, David Elliott, Constantijn Koopman, and Janet Mansfield. This collection contributes to our contemporary quandaries about aesthetics and praxialism in addition to adding pertinent questions for both philosophy and music education.The overall purpose of this volume is to stimulate thinking in ways not accounted for in the classroom or studio environments and expand upon the broader discourses impacting the profession and society (3). Given that Lines organized this volume as a collection about a specified theme, I will approach this review threefold. First, I will examine overall features that were promising and those that were disappointing. Second, each chapter's contributions will be examined in light of the aim of the volume. Lastly, each essay will also be examined for its contributions apart from the volume, due to the fact that all of the works can stand alone.Within this framework, six themes continually emerged throughout the essays. These themes involved the use and abuse of musical meaning; the construction of musical meaning and understanding; language used within advocacy; the difficulties presented by both aesthetics and praxialism; the problems posed by our focus upon psychology; and lastly, the "what works" mentality of efficient systems. These themes are incredibly relevant to the contemporary discussion surrounding music education in addition to benefiting the whole of the profession. In some fashion or another, each author confronts one to many of these issues efficiently and effectively, to the point that the volume and its aim is solidified within Bowman's essay, "Music Education in Nihilistic Times." As a negative point, however, an internal organization around these themes never seems to appear, and without this the volume lacks a certain flow; each chapter stands alone. Although internal organization is petty globally for this volume, it does affect its readability.Regelski's essay appears first and critiques both traditional aesthetics and praxial philosophy. Interestingly, he weighs the potential dangers posed by both and drifts toward the notion of praxis while maintaining a certain aesthetic influence within his philosophy. Through music education's abuse of aesthetics, Regelski chronicles the elevation of experience beyond societal values of participation, production, and the process of music creation. Due to this, the profession has been subject to a certain dependency upon the positive aesthetic experience rather than on the participatory process of education. Furthermore, he notes that aesthetics, when stretched to its philosophic extreme, has had a tendency to become exclusive and elitist. I liken [End Page 117] this to the Gnostic practices within early Christianity. This sect valued a spiritual/aesthetic experience and its resulting "enlightenment," which occurred during a state of ecstasy, to the point of elevating those who had experienced this moment beyond those who had not.To curb this movement, Regelski suggests redefining aesthetics in the tradition of Dewey and Wittgenstein rather than that of Kant. In the former, the aesthetics are tied directly to the using of the object, or the practice of doing and creating. In contrast, in the Kantian tradition, which has dominated music philosophy, the experience becomes removed from the practice and is elevated to a position of esteem, beyond that of understanding. Likewise, praxialism, when taken to its extreme, has the potential to suffer from breadth without depth, which may result in a loss of content and depth of understanding. Regelski suggests that what needs to occur is a balance of depth and breadth with a focus on the development of musicianship. If this occurs then the experience will become valued as a result of participation in the... (shrink)

In The Nature of Selection, Elliott Sober argued that natural selection is in principle powerless to explain why any individual organism has the traits it does rather than the very same individual having different traits. In this note, I argue that in a recent and prominent critique of Sober’s position, Bence Nanay talks past that position rather than addressing it.

Seán O’Casey’s play _The Plough and the Stars_ presents audiences with a view of life in Dublin’s poverty-stricken tenements during the 1916 Easter Rising. Critical consensus holds that it is a play primarily concerned with the Easter Rising set against a backdrop of tenement life. This paper argues instead that this is a play about tuberculosis in Ireland set against the backdrop of the 1916 Easter Rising. The characters in the play place far more importance on tuberculosis and their (...) impoverished state than on politics or even the violence erupting in the streets. The fears and concerns regarding this infectious disease and its impact on poor communities appear in contrast to the characters’ annoyance and dismissal of the political events leading up to and including the Rising. (shrink)

First published in 1979, Irish Identity and the Literary Revival, through the works of W.B. Yeats, James Joyce, J. M. Synge, and Sean O'Casey, documents the complex spectrum of political, social and other pressures that helped fashion modern Ireland. At least three sets of cultural assumptions coexisted in Ireland during the years between 1890 and 1930, -- English, Irish and Anglo-Irish, each united by a common language but divided by considerable tensions and strain. The question of Irish identity (...) forms the central theme of the study, and illustrates how it was a major, even obsessive concern for these writers. Subsidiary and interwoven themes constantly recur. Themes such as the concepts of the peasant and the hero, political nationalism, the meaning of Ireland's history and the validity of her cultural traditions. Rather than use the literature concerned as merely endorsing evidence for a sociological or political thesis, this study allows its major themes and issues to emerge and develop from direct and close study of the work of the writers. This book will be of interest to students of literature and history. (shrink)

Achieving the global benefits of artificial intelligence (AI) will require international cooperation on many areas of governance and ethical standards, while allowing for diverse cultural perspectives and priorities. There are many barriers to achieving this at present, including mistrust between cultures, and more practical challenges of coordinating across different locations. This paper focuses particularly on barriers to cooperation between Europe and North America on the one hand and East Asia on the other, as regions which currently have an outsized impact (...) on the development of AI ethics and governance. We suggest that there is reason to be optimistic about achieving greater cross-cultural cooperation on AI ethics and governance. We argue that misunderstandings between cultures and regions play a more important role in undermining cross-cultural trust, relative to fundamental disagreements, than is often supposed. Even where fundamental differences exist, these may not necessarily prevent productive cross-cultural cooperation, for two reasons: (1) cooperation does not require achieving agreement on principles and standards for all areas of AI; and (2) it is sometimes possible to reach agreement on practical issues despite disagreement on more abstract values or principles. We believe that academia has a key role to play in promoting cross-cultural cooperation on AI ethics and governance, by building greater mutual understanding, and clarifying where different forms of agreement will be both necessary and possible. We make a number of recommendations for practical steps and initiatives, including translation and multilingual publication of key documents, researcher exchange programmes, and development of research agendas on cross-cultural topics. (shrink)

Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE Normal 0 false false false EN-US ZH-TW X-NONE It is commonly believed that impartial utilitarian moral theories have significant demands that we help the global poor, and that the partial virtue ethics of Mencius and Aristotle do not. This ethical partiality found in these virtue ethicists has been criticized, and some have suggested that the partialistic virtue ethics of Mencius and Aristotle are parochial (i.e., overly narrow in their scope of concern). I (...) believe, however, that the ethics of Mencius and Aristotle are both more cosmopolitan than many presume and also are very demanding. In this paper, I argue that the ethical requirements to help the poor and starving are very demanding for the quintessentially virtuous person in Mencius and Aristotle. The ethical demands to help even the global poor are demanding for Mencius’ jun-zi ( 君子 chün-tzu / junzi ) and Aristotle’s megalopsuchos . I argue that both the jun-zi and megalopsuchos have a wide scope of concern for the suffering of poor people. I argue that the relevant virtues of the jun-zi and megalopsuchos are also achievable for many people. The moral views of Mencius and Aristotle come with strong demands for many of us to work harder to alleviate global poverty. . (shrink)

Comparativism is the view that comparative confidences (e.g., being more confident that P than that Q) are more fundamental than degrees of belief (e.g., believing that P with some strength x). In this paper, I outline the basis for a new, non-probabilistic version of comparativism inspired by a suggestion made by Frank Ramsey in `Probability and Partial Belief'. I show how, and to what extent, `Ramseyan comparativism' might be used to weaken the (unrealistically strong) probabilistic coherence conditions that comparativism traditionally (...) relies on. (shrink)

In The Rules of Insanity, Carl Elliott draws on philosophy and psychiatry to develop a conceptual framework for judging the moral responsibility of mentally ill offenders. Arguing that there is little useful that can be said about the responsibility of mentally ill offenders in general, Elliott looks at specific mental illnesses in detail; among them schizophrenia, manic-depressive disorders, psychosexual disorders such as exhibitionism and voyeurism, personality disorders, and impulse control disorders such as kleptomania and pyromania. He takes a (...) particularly hard look at the psychopath or sociopath, who many have argued is incapable of understanding morality. Making extensive use of psychiatric case histories, Elliott explores the various ways in which mental illness can affect a person's intentions and thus excuse him or her from moral responsibility. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reply to My CommentatorsDavid CarrierI am immensely thankful to Rika Burnham and Elliott Kai-Kee, Enrique Martínez Celaya, Klaus Ottmann, and Sean Ulmer for their comments on my book. And to Daniel A. Siedell for organizing this mini-symposium, which really is an author's dream. By gently pressing me to think about important issues, these sympathetic commentators have advanced dialogue.When writing Museum Skepticism I became very aware that there (...) are two kinds of literature that discuss museums. There are memoirs of curators or other museum employees, and there are the commentaries by academics, which usually look at museums from the outside. My ambition was to look at this institution in a way that would both be sympathetic to the practical concerns and embody a theoretical point of view. One otherwise sympathetic reviewer complained that I was only looking at the museum from the outside.1 That certainly is correct, but for obvious reasons people who work in museums are unusually unwilling to describe their inner workings. To have a good theory of the museum, you need to be practical. Often, for example, critics complain about the proliferation of shops and restaurants, urge that admission be free, or say that blockbuster shows are destructive and overcrowded. However one judges such moralizing, the museum director who needs to balance the budget can hardly be guided by such reasoning. One can be critical, as I am, about the power of the super-rich in museum life. But in what other way could funding be found? The history of debates about the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) points to obvious ways in which, in America at least, reliance on public funding poses problems. My goal, then, was to develop a realistic analysis.Sean Ulmer correctly notes that to understand the art in museums, we must consider its prior history. Chinese paintings, Islamic decorations, Maori sculpture, and premodern European art were not made to be displayed in public galleries. And so there are legitimate questions about how to set it alongside modernist art, whose natural home is the art museum. Allowing this much, I am not sure why he thinks it impossible to describe museums in a single book. We need to understand how artifacts with such varied origins can be coherently displayed in one building. Here, then, we get to Ulmer's second concern—museum displays. Recently museums have experimented with thematic displays. The Museum of Modern Art in New York did that before its recent reconstruction; the Tate Modern has such a system; and during summer 2006 the Whitney tried such a plan. I understand the need of museums to experiment, to find new ways to attract visitors to the permanent collection. Still, a straight chronological display has the obvious advantage of presenting that history of art in which, for example, Impressionism leads to Cubism, and then on to Abstract Expressionism. The obvious danger of thematic displays is that they bewilder the larger public. [End Page 22]When I said that museums are top-down institutions, I was thinking of the grander public museums where the function of the trustees is to raise money, either by giving themselves or by networking. These people who provide funding no doubt have their own agendas, but they, in turn, respond to larger economic and political concerns. I would be astonished if the Metropolitan Museum of Art asked Arthur Danto or Leo Steinberg to be a trustee; or, to look closer at hand, if the Carnegie Museum of Art or the Cleveland Museum of Art asked me to play that role. Since we are mere professors, what practical help could we provide? I expect that at smaller museums the situation is different. But here, again, it is important to be realistic. Cleveland's art historians have not had any influence on the rebuilding plan for the Cleveland Museum of Art. Of course I would be flattered if the new director asked for my opinion, but to be honest, I am not sure that I could tell him anything useful. When Ulmer discusses the comparative role of permanent collections and temporary exhibitions, he touches on a very important point. Like him, I... (shrink)

Effective Field Theory (EFT) is the successful paradigm underlying modern theoretical physics, including the "Core Theory" of the Standard Model of particle physics plus Einstein's general relativity. I will argue that EFT grants us a unique insight: each EFT model comes with a built-in specification of its domain of applicability. Hence, once a model is tested within some domain (of energies and interaction strengths), we can be confident that it will continue to be accurate within that domain. Currently, the Core (...) Theory has been tested in regimes that include all of the energy scales relevant to the physics of everyday life (biology, chemistry, technology, etc.). Therefore, we have reason to be confident that the laws of physics underlying the phenomena of everyday life are completely known. (shrink)

At the very heart of the causal theory of perception are the peculiar examples sometimes called veridical hallucinations. These examples originate with Grice, who used them to prove ‘conclusively’ that when we say, for example, ‘Jane saw John’, we mean that John is the cause of certain visual experiences or impressions had by Jane.

Boris Hessen’s ‘The Social and Economic Roots of Newton’s Principia’ (see https://doi.org./10.1163/1569206X-00002041) is considered a pioneering work in the historiography of the natural sciences. For some, it marks the founding moment of the ‘externalist’ approach to this field of study. Previously, Hessen published another paper on Newton entitled ‘Preface to Articles by A. Einstein and J.J. Thomson’, which, some maintain, bears a stronger resemblance to works in the ‘internalist’ camp of the historiography of the natural sciences. For decades, scholars have (...) puzzled over why Hessen chose to argue for, seemingly, diametrically opposed positions. In this paper, however, I argue that Hessen does not advance two different historiographical methods, but a single, dialectical-materialist approach that accounts for the ‘unity in opposition’ of the external and internal dimensions of natural-scientific theory. I draw from Hessen’s two papers on Newton, his previously untranslated writings, as well as selections from the secondary literature. (shrink)

On a charge of murder or manslaughter it must be shown that the person killed was one who was in being. It is neither murder nor manslaughter to kill an unborn child while still in its mother’s womb although it may be the statutory offences of child destruction or abortion. If however the child is born alive and afterwards dies by reason of an unlawful act done to it in the mother’s womb or in the process of birth, the person (...) who committed that act is guilty of murder or manslaughter according to the intent with which the act is done. [Halsbury’s LAWS OF ENGLAND, 4th ed. reissue, Vol. 11 (1). London: Butterworths, 1990.]. (shrink)

The traditional philosophy of science approach to prediction leaves little room for appreciating the value and potential of imprecise predictions. At best, they are considered a stepping stone to more precise predictions, while at worst they are viewed as detracting from the scientific quality of a discipline. The aim of this paper is to show that imprecise predictions are undervalued in philosophy of science. I review the conceptions of imprecise predictions and the main criticisms levelled against them: (i) that they (...) cannot aid in model selection and improvement, and (ii) that they cannot support effective interventions in practical decision making. I will argue against both criticisms, showing that imprecise predictions have a circumscribed but important and legitimate place in the study of complex, heterogeneous systems. The argument is illustrated and supported by an example from conservation biology, where imprecise models were instrumental in saving the kōkako from extinction. (shrink)

A correction to this paper has been published.

_Slow Cures and Bad Philosophers_ uses insights from the philosophy of Ludwig Wittgenstein to rethink bioethics. Although Wittgenstein produced little formal writing on ethics, this volume shows that, in fact, ethical issues permeate the entirety of his work. The scholars whom Carl Elliott has assembled in this volume pay particular attention to Wittgenstein’s concern with the thick context of moral problems, his suspicion of theory, and his belief in description as the real aim of philosophy. Their aim is not (...) to examine Wittgenstein’s personal moral convictions but rather to explore how a deep engagement with his work can illuminate some of the problems that medicine and biological science present. As Elliott explains in his introduction, Wittgenstein’s philosophy runs against the grain of most contemporary bioethics scholarship, which all too often ignores the context in which moral problems are situated and pays little attention to narrative, ethnography, and clinical case studies in rendering bioethical judgments. Such anonymous, impersonal, rule-writing directives in which health care workers are advised how to behave is what this volume intends to counteract. Instead, contributors stress the value of focusing on the concrete particulars of moral problems and write in the spirit of Wittgenstein’s belief that philosophy should be useful. Specific topics include the concept of “good dying,” the nature of clinical decision making, the treatment of neurologically damaged patients, the moral treatment of animals, and the challenges of moral particularism. Inspired by a philosopher who deplored “professional philosophy,” this work brings some startling insights and clarifications to contemporary ethical problems posed by the realities of modern medicine. _Contributors._ Larry Churchill, David DeGrazia, Cora Diamond, James Edwards, Carl Elliott, Grant Gillett, Paul Johnston, Margaret Olivia Little, James Lindemann Nelson, Knut Erik Tranoy. (shrink)

The COVID-19 pandemic has increased demand for physicians, leading to widespread redeployment of specialty physicians to care for patients with COVID-19. These redeployments highlight an important question: How do physicians balance competing obligations to their own health, their own patients, and society during a public health crisis? How can physicians, specifically subspecialists, navigate this tension? In this article, we analyse a clinical scenario in which an orthopaedic sports surgeon is redeployed to care for patients with COVID-19. This case raises questions (...) about physicians’ obligations to their own patients compared with society at large, the relative value of specialty physicians during a global pandemic, and the ethical permissibility of compulsory redeployment. Using the orthopaedic surgery specialty as a model, we build a redeployment framework for surgical specialists that is both ethical and equitable. We argue that although orthopaedic surgeons have a moral obligation to participate in physician redeployment schemes, the scope of this obligation is limited and contingent on the following conditions: (1) the number of local COVID-19 cases is high; (2) obligations to their own patients or orthopaedic patients requiring urgent or emergency care have been fulfilled; (3) their value as physicians exceeds their value as specialists because of the pandemic climate; (4) voluntary redeployments are exhausted before compulsory redeployments are implemented; and (5) redeployment would not put the physicians at unreasonable risk of harm. (shrink)

Chemical engineering - as a recognised skill in the workplace, as an academic discipline, and as an acknowledged profession - is scarcely a century old. Yet from a contested existence before the First World War, chemical engineering had become one of the 'big four' engineering professions in Britain, and a major contributor to Western economies, by the end of the twentieth century. The subject had distinct national trajectories. In Britain - too long seen as shaped by American experiences - the (...) emergence of recognised chemical engineers was the result of professional aspirations and contingency, and shaped by a shifting ecology of institutions, firms and government. Drawing upon extensive archival research, this book examines the evolution of technical practice, working environment and social interactions of chemical engineering. It will be of considerable interest to historians, sociologists of the professions, and to practitioners themselves. (shrink)

Bringing human–robot interaction (HRI) into conversation with scholarship from human geography, this paper considers how socially interactive robots become important agents in the production of social space and explores the utility of core geographic concepts of _scale_ and _place_ to critically examine evolving robotic spatialities. The paper grounds this discussion through reflections on a collaborative, interdisciplinary research project studying the development and deployment of interactive museum tour-guiding robots on a North American university campus. The project is a collaboration among geographers, (...) roboticists, a digital artist, and the directors/curators of two museums, and involves experimentation in the development of a tour-guiding robot with a “socially aware navigation system” alongside ongoing critical reflection into the socio-spatial context of human–robot interactions and their future possibilities. The paper reflects on the tensions between logics of control and contingency in robotic spatiality and argues that concepts of scale and place can help reflect on this tension in a productive way while calling attention to a broader range of stakeholders who should be included in robotic design and deployment. (shrink)

This essay examines the role of place in painting. This role is multiple – at once attracting our look but also locatory of whatever is displayed in the painting itself and attracting our attention to it as a place distinct from the place where we are painting it or viewing it. Examined here is also the role of the lived body in the apprehension of place in painting: a corporeal animating force that animates a genuinely lived place as it is (...) set forth or intimated in paintings of seen, remembered, or imagined places. Such placially specific paintings are at once a commentary and a continuation on how we experience places in the context of the lived world. Included are analyses of three placially oriented paintings of my own as well as one by de Kooning – all in an effort to show the multivalence of place in painting. (shrink)

"We are omniscient but confused," says Leibniz. He also says that we live in the best of all possible worlds, yet do not causally interact. So what are we? Leibniz is known for many things, including the ideality of space and time, calculus, plans for a universal language, theodicy, and ecumenism. But he is not known for his ideas on the self and personal identity. This book shows that Leibniz offers an original, internally coherent theory of personal identity, a theory (...) that stands on its own even next to Locke's contemporaneous and more famous version. This book will appeal not only to students of Leibniz's thought but also to philosophers and psychologists interested in methodological problems in understanding or formulating theories of self and personal identity. (shrink)

The second half of the twentieth century offers distinct perspectives for the historian of science. The role of the State, the expansion of certain industries and the cultural engagement with science were all transformed. The foregrounding of certain strands of physical science in the public and administrative consciousness – nuclear physics and planetary science, for example – had a complement: the ‘backgrounding’ or institutional neglect of a number of other fields. My work in the history of the physical sciences has (...) focused on this little-noticed intellectual terrain, and could be categorised into several types of case study that share distinct research questions, conceptual understandings and historiographical ramifications. -/- My focus is physical sciences that have been identified as peripheral, if categorised at all, by a previous generation of historians of physics. By this I do not mean peripheral in the geographic sense, but marginal, interstitial or boundary-crossing in the context of occupations, disciplines and professions. The types of case study investigated include (i) scientific instruments; (ii) emergent professions or would-be professions; and, (iii) subject areas falling between academic science, industrial application and State interests. (shrink)

The social model of disability claims that disadvantage from disability is primarily a result of the social response to bodily difference. Social modellers typically draw two normative conclusions: first, that society has a responsibility to address disability disadvantage as a matter of justice, not charity; second, that the appropriate way of addressing this disadvantage is to change social institutions themselves, to better fit for bodily difference, rather than to normalize bodies to fit existing institutions. This paper offers a qualified defense (...) of both inferences. Social institutions have reasons of justice to fix disability disadvantage, because the choice of institutions that contingently favor those whose bodies are statistically typical incurs responsibilities to compensate those who disfavored, in that choice. Among other things, this responsibility implies that societies should not simultaneously materially disadvantage disabled people, and also withhold symbolic resources, by demanding a presumption in favor of personal transformation – thereby, undermining the social conditions for disability pride. (shrink)

In this article we attempt to complicate traditional--and, we argue, limited and exclusionary--definitions of interdisciplinarity as the bringing into dialogue of established disciplines without questioning the parameters and practices of those disciplines. We propose that interdisciplinarity instead might mean teaching and learning among, between, and in the midst of those of innate or learned capacities--not only college faculty but also students and staff. To illustrate this more radical iteration of interdisciplinarity, we draw on a range of definitions of the key (...) terms, “discipline” and “faculty,” and we offer a case study of a workshop we co-facilitated in which we brought differently positioned individuals together to engage in the educational process and the production of knowledge. We hope that this discussion contributes to expanding the notions and practices of interdisciplinarity. (shrink)

Background: Despite procedural innovations and increasing numbers of uterus transplant attempts worldwide, the perspectives of uterus transplant (UTx) trial participants are lacking. Methods: We conducted a mixed-methods study with women with absolute uterine factor infertility (AUFI). Participants included women who had previously contacted the Cleveland Clinic regarding the Uterine Transplant Trial and met the initial eligibility criteria for participation. In-depth interviews were conducted in conjunction with FertiQoL, a validated and widely used tool to measure the impact of infertility on the (...) quality of life of infertility patients. Results: All (n = 19) rated their overall health as good; some experienced grief and social isolation. AUFI is a life-framing experience that influences acceptance by family, partners, peers, and one’s self. UTx is a means to gain control of reproductive autonomy. UTx allows family-building and the ability to play an active role in prenatal health and well-being. Establishing and maintaining a supportive relationship is a key issue of AUFI and when considering UTx. Risks of UTx are perceived relative to risks to self/child/family posed by adoption/surrogacy. Participants had no overall preference regarding living or deceased donor. Conclusions: The ways in which women with AUFI conceptualize this condition in their lives and choices around UTx and participating in a study of the procedure are multifaceted and textured. These perspectives are critical to understanding its ethical, legal, and social implications. (shrink)

In this paper, I begin by showing that for Spinoza, it is unclear how the human mind can have a true idea of God. I first provide an explanation of Spinoza’s theory of parallelism of the mind and the body, followed by showing how this doctrine seems to undermine the mind’s ability to have an adequate idea of God. From there, I show that the idea of God presents a problem for Spinoza’s theory of the parallelism of the attributes in (...) general. To resolve the tension, I argue that Spinoza’s theory of parallelism does not entail a one-to-one correspondence between the modes of different attributes. From here, I show that the human mind can have an adequate idea of God, because the mind can have an idea of its own formal essences and the idea of a formal essence is itself an idea of God. (shrink)

This article builds on the recent Special Interest issue of this journal on ‘Philosophy for Children in Transition’ and the way that the debate about philosophy in schools has now shifted to whether or not it ought to be a compulsory part of the curriculum. This article puts the spotlight on Catholic schools in order to present a different argument in favour of introducing compulsory philosophy lessons into the curriculum. It is explained that in faith schools, such as Catholic ones, (...) there is an additional need or imperative to have compulsory philosophy as part of the curriculum. This is because it serves as an effective way of avoiding the inherent dangers of confessional education, particularly the indoctrination challenge. It is argued that Catholic schools also have some intriguing theological reasons that can be used to justify the inclusion of compulsory philosophy in the school curriculum. It is proposed that when it comes to philosophy in schools there is a distinctive Catholic school perspective. As part of this it is explained why Catholic schools, perhaps more than others, need philosophy to be a compulsory part of the curriculum. (shrink)

In this paper, I address the problem of generation and destruction in Spinoza’s philosophical system. I approach this problem by providing an account of how Spinoza can maintain that contrary finite modes cannot inhere in the same substance, while substance itself does not change. One must distinguish between the formal essence of a mode and the existence of a mode and how these two entities are “in” substance. Formal essences are eternal and are in substance in a Platonic sense, while (...) existent modes are temporal and are in substance insofar as they are parts of the whole of nature, or facies totius universi. Furthermore, the former are modes understood as pure relations, while the latter are modes understood as finite individuals. Formal essences are relations that specify how finite individuals will behave once they come into existence, while existent modes are individuals that express the relations defined by formal essences, as forces that possess a capacity to act and to be acted upon. According to these distinctions, I maintain that it is possible to develop a coherent account of contrariety and, consequently, of generation and destruction in Spinoza’s system. (shrink)