Medical students' professional identity formation is an adaptive, developmental process. PIF is shaped by values implicit in educational practices and in the culture of the learning environment. In 2003, educational leaders at Harvard Medical School created the Cambridge Integrated Clerkship as a new model of clinical education to support PIF intentionally. The CIC, a longitudinal integrated clerkship, differs in structure, processes, and venues from traditional block rotations, while...

Doxastic voluntarism is the thesis that our beliefs are subject to voluntary control. While there’s some controversy as to what “voluntary control” amounts to (see 1.2), it’s often understood as direct control: the ability to bring about a state of affairs “just like that,” without having to do anything else. Most of us have direct control over, for instance, bringing to mind an image of a pine tree. Can one, in like fashion, voluntarily bring it about that one believes (...) a specific proposition? Doxastic voluntarists hold that, at least in some circumstances—such as when the evidence is ambiguous—we can. Doxastic involuntarists, in contrast, maintain that we cannot. Some involuntarists hold that the concept of belief itself precludes the possibility of believing voluntarily. Others hold that the impossibility of voluntary belief is a contingent psychological fact. Historically, the issue of doxastic voluntarism has been connected to how many think about religious commitment: a prominent view of faith is that it is a voluntary decision to believe. Furthermore, the issue of voluntarism has also been viewed as having bearing on fundamental questions in epistemology. For example, are epistemic norms duties to believe in certain ways? Are there practical or moral reasons to believe? If the answer to either question is “yes,” it seems some measure of voluntary doxastic control is required. -/- In section 1, we expand on the definition of doxastic voluntarism, and survey various kinds of control (e.g. direct, indirect, long-range) and the doxastic attitudes we might control (e.g. outright belief, withholding, credences). In section 2, we discuss a number of historical views on doxastic voluntarism. In section 3, we survey motivations for rejecting doxastic voluntarism. There are two general strategies: arguments that appeal to psychological considerations, and conceptual arguments regarding the nature of belief. In section 4, we survey five approaches to defending voluntarism: those that appeal to epistemic permissivism, doxastic compatibilism, skepticism, one-off considerations, and non-standard views of belief. In section 5, we cover empirical work on doxastic voluntarism. The last two sections discuss two implications of voluntarism. In section 6, we discuss voluntarism’s implications for the ethics of belief, and in section 7, we discuss issues at the intersection of voluntarism and religious faith. (shrink)

"Williams's masterful translation satisfies (at last!) a long-standing need. There are lots of good translations of Augustine's great work, but until now we have been forced to choose between those that strive to replicate in English something of the majesty and beauty of Augustine's Latin style and those that opt instead to convey the careful precision of his philosophical terminology and argumentation. Finally, Williams has succeeded in capturing both sides of Augustine's mind in a richly evocative, impeccably reliable, elegantly readable (...) presentation of one of the most impressive achievements in Western thought--Augustine's Confessions." --Scott MacDonald, Professor of Philosophy and Norma K. Regan Professor in Christian Studies, Cornell University. (shrink)

In this study we use a computational model of language learning called model of syntax acquisition in children (MOSAIC) to investigate the extent to which the optional infinitive (OI) phenomenon in Dutch and English can be explained in terms of a resource-limited distributional analysis of Dutch and English child-directed speech. The results show that the same version of MOSAIC is able to simulate changes in the pattern of finiteness marking in 2 children learning Dutch and 2 children learning English as (...) the average length of their utterances increases. These results suggest that it is possible to explain the key features of the OI phenomenon in both Dutch and English in terms of the interaction between an utterance-final bias in learning and the distributional characteristics of child-directed speech in the 2 languages. They also show how computational modeling techniques can be used to investigate the extent to which cross-linguistic similarities in the developmental data can be explained in terms of common processing constraints as opposed to innate knowledge of universal grammar. (shrink)

In this article, I survey some of the major arguments against metaphysical indeterminacy and vagueness and outline potential responses.

“Jesus” constitutes the main element of Christian life. Therefore, Christianity is perceived as a Jesus-centered religion. This perception, from the birth of Jesus to his resurrection, clearly reveals itself both in the Christian faith, Christian worship and Iconography. Because, according to Christians, the birth of Jesus is the beginning of the salvation of mankind. The birth of Jesus, which contains a process, was celebrated as a Christmas Festival in Christianity. Christmas is a combination of the words “Noiono, Noio, Neos” and (...) the concepts “hed, hel, Helios”. These words mean “first day, new day of the month” or “new sun”. Today, Christmas has an important place in Christian life as folkloric. In this component, Santa Claus, pine tree and turkey have an important role. The birth of Jesus was reflected in iconography. The birth scene of Jesus was included in the iconography, and it was one of the icons of the twelve yortou (dodekaorthon). In this context, icons are important (especially for Orthodox Christians). The concept of icon comes from the Greek words “eikon, eikein”. In the iconography the birth of Jesus have the birth of Mary, the visit of Elizabeth, the dream of Joseph and the angel to Joseph, the census, the birth of Jesus, the good news of the shepherds and the worship of Kings. The concepts related to icons within these stages were analyzed. In this article, the importance of birth of Jesus in Christian life and iconography is revealed. Then, the birth of Jesus as a holiday has been discussed. And this birth was interpreted in iconographic terms. (shrink)

Support for the proposed dorsal-ventral distinction for the somatosensory system is not yet convincing, nor is the anatomical segregation of its pathways as clearly defined as the visual pathways. Consideration of alternative organizational principles might reveal critical differences across sensory processing systems. The role of attention and manipulations that modulate functional systems might also be worth considering.

An agent is said to be morally weak if and only if and he fails to act, when it is in his power to do so, in conformity with an applicable moral principle he accepts. A full explication of the important concepts employed in this definition would be very lengthy indeed. I shall limit my account to those features of the concepts of 'accepting a moral principle' and 'acting voluntarily' which are relevant to understanding that there are many types of (...) moral weakness. The first two sections of this essay will be devoted to the relevant features of these concepts; the third to expounding eight types of moral weakness. (shrink)

Recently a number of authors have responded to the knowledge argument by suggesting that Mary could learn about new physical facts upon release (Flanagan 1992; Mandik 2001; Stoljar 2001; Van Gulick 1985). A key step in achieving this is a demonstration that there are facts that can be known via color experience that cannot..

Uncountable superperfect forcing is tree forcing on regular uncountable cardinals κ with κ<κ=κ, using trees in which the heights of nodes that split along any branch in the tree form a club set, and such that any node in the tree with more than one immediate extension has measure-one-many extensions, where the measure is relative to some κ-complete, nonprincipal normal filter F. This forcing adds a generic of minimal degree if and only if F is κ-saturated.

The human subjects researchmodel is increasingly invoked in discussions ofethics for Internet research. Here we seek toquestion the widespread application of thismodel, critiquing it through the two themes ofspace and textual form. Drawing on ourexperience of a previous piece ofresearch, we highlightthe implications of re-considering thetextuality of the Internet in addition to thespatial metaphors that are more commonlydeployed to describe Internet activity. Weargue that the use of spatial metaphors indescriptions of the Internet has shaped theadoption of the human subjects research (...) model.Whilst this model is appropriate in some areasof Internet research such as emailcommunication, we feel that researchers, whennavigating the complex terrain of Internetresearch ethics, need also to consider theInternet as cultural production of texts. (shrink)

I argue that our traditional conception of the duties imposed by human rights is unable to acknowledge the nature of many contemporary human rights violations. The traditional conception is based on a broadly deontological view according to which human rights impose primarily negative and perfect duties, and these duties are held to be specific prohibitions on certain kinds of actions . I argue that given this conception of the nature of the duties imposed by human rights, not only claims to (...) aid, but in addition, claims against many of the most serious and prevalent contemporary active harms will not count as genuine human rights claims. These harms increasingly result from extremely complex causal chains involving the behaviour of a huge number of agents, few or none of whom can be singled out as responsible for a serious harm to any specific victim. Institutional structures can have just as central a role to play in specifying and allocating responsibility for fulfilling many of the negative duties imposed by human rights as the positive duties. These structures can therefore be equally important in the realisation of both kinds of rights. Before the necessary institutional reforms have taken place, both kinds of rights are equally genuine, and ground the imperative of justice to reform existing social institutions. (shrink)

This thesis is a systematic investigation of whether there might be conceptual room for the idea that the world itself might be vague, independently of how we describe it. This idea – the existence of so-called ontic vagueness – has generally been extremely unpopular in the literature; my thesis thus seeks to evaluate whether this ‘negative press’ is justified. I start by giving a working definition and semantics for ontic vagueness, and then attempt to show that there are no conclusive (...) arguments that rule out vagueness of this kind. I subsequently establish what type of arguments I think would be most effective in establishing ontic vagueness and provide some arguments of this form. I then highlight a potential worry for this type of argument, but argue that it can be circumvented. Finally, I consider the main ways that the opponent of ontic vagueness would be likely resist the arguments I have offered, and argue that these strategies of response are methodologically problematic. I conclude by claiming that ontic vagueness is a perfectly plausible ontological commitment. (shrink)

To explain the phenomenon that certain English verbs resist passivization, Pinker proposed a semantic constraint on the passive in the adult grammar: The greater the extent to which a verb denotes an action where a patient is affected or acted upon, the greater the extent to which it is compatible with the passive. However, a number of comprehension and production priming studies have cast doubt upon this claim, finding no difference between highly affecting agent-patient/theme-experiencer passives and non-actional experiencer theme passives. (...) The present study provides evidence that a semantic constraint is psychologically real, and is readily observed when more fine-grained independent and dependent measures are used. We conclude that a semantic constraint on the passive must be incorporated into accounts of the adult grammar. (shrink)

Focuses on the encounters of feminist and queer theories, on the ways in which basic terms such as - sex, gender, and sexuality change meaning as they move from one body of theory to another. This book includes essays by Judith Butler, Evelynn Hammonds, Biddy Martin, Kim Michasiw, Carole-Anne Tyler, and Elizabeth Weed.

Identifying which nonhuman animal species are capable of feeling pain is important both for understanding pain mechanisms more generally and for informing animal welfare regulations, particularly in genera that are not yet widely protected. A common way to try to provide evidence of pain experiences is through behavioral indicators. In this paper I use a very simple interventionist approach to experimentation, and the contrast case provided by C. elegans, to argue that behavioral indicators commonly used for identifying pain in nonhuman (...) animals are much less robust than typically presented. Indeed, I argue that many behavioral indicators of pain are invalid as they are currently described. More positively, this analysis makes it possible to identify what valid criteria might look like, and where relevant, to identify existing evidence related to them. Based on this I propose that the best way to make progress on questions around animal pain is to clearly ally them with questions about animal consciousness more generally, and to productively use conceptual and empirical work in both areas to develop more theoretically defensible behavioral indicators. (shrink)

Reflective practice is one of the most popular theories of professional knowledge in the last 20 years and has been widely adopted by nursing, health, and social care professions. The term was coined by Donald Schön in his influential books The Reflective Practitioner , and Educating the Reflective Practitioner , and has garnered the unprecedented attention of theorists and practitioners of professional education and practice. Reflective practice has been integrated into professional preparatory programmes, continuing education programmes, and by the regulatory (...) bodies of a wide range of health and social care professions. Yet, despite its popularity and widespread adoption, a problem frequently raised in the literature concerns the lack of conceptual clarity surrounding the term reflective practice. This paper seeks to respond to this problem by offering an analysis of the epistemology of reflective practice as revealed through a critical examination of philosophical influences within the theory. The aim is to discern philosophical underpinnings of reflective practice in order to advance increasingly coherent interpretations, and to consider the implications for conceptions of professional knowledge in professional life. The paper briefly examines major philosophical underpinnings in reflective practice to explicate central themes that inform the epistemological assumptions of the theory. The study draws on the work of Donald Schön, and on texts from four philosophers: John Dewey, Nelson Goodman, Michael Polanyi, and Gilbert Ryle. Five central epistemological themes in reflective practice are illuminated: (1) a broad critique of technical rationality; (2) professional practice knowledge as artistry; (3) constructivist assumptions in the theory; (4) the significance of tacit knowledge for professional practice knowledge; and (5) overcoming mind body dualism to recognize the knowledge revealed in intelligent action. The paper reveals that the theory of reflective practice is concerned with deep epistemological questions of significance to conceptions of knowledge in health and social care professions. (shrink)

Despite the centrality of emotion regulation in psychiatric disorders such as depression, there is a lack of experimental studies examining the psychological factors that influence emotion regulation in individuals with depressive symptoms. Participants with current depressive symptoms were randomly assigned to an experimental manipulation promoting more malleable emotion beliefs or the control condition. Participants underwent a negative emotion induction and reported on their affect and emotion regulation during the induction. Individuals who received the experimental manipulation reported greater cognitive reappraisal and (...) greater emotion recovery. Experimental manipulations that can enhance emotion regulation and emotion recovery possess significant promise as a preliminary step in developing brief interventions that can overcome formal barriers to care. (shrink)

Much of twentieth- and twenty-first-century theorizing about cognitive processes, whether in philosophy of mind, cognitive science, cognitive psychology, or related disciplines, spins accounts of cognition totally devoid of any consideration of cognition as an attribute of animals making a living (or not) in various habitats. A significant shift in discussions of mind and cognition follows if we take seriously the fact that humans are animals, products of evolutionary processes and situated squarely within suites of ecosystems. Ignoring evolutionary history is an (...) easy step to take when the starting places for understanding mind and cognition are relatively “sophisticated” mental accomplishments such as .. (shrink)

In Philosophy 51, October 1976, 471–472, Professor Tom Regan takes ud to task for our attack on Kant's theory concerning the moral status of animals. The ground of Regan's criticism is that ‘… it is clear that Kant does not suppose, as… Broadie and Pybus erroneously assume that he does, that the concept of maltreating an animal, on the one hand, and, on the other, the concept of using an animal as a means, are the same or logically equivalent concepts’ (...) . Regan argues that Kant does not say that we should avoid treating animals as a means. Rather, he claims, Kant's view is that we have an indirect duty not to maltreat animals, since in maltreating them we treat, or run the risk of treating, as a mere means rationality in ourselves or in others. (shrink)

This study aims to disentangle the often-confounded effects of input frequency and morphophonological complexity in the acquisition of inflection, by focusing on simple and complex verb forms in Japanese. Study 1 tested 28 children aged 3;3–4;3 on stative and simple past forms, and Study 2 tested 30 children aged 3;5–5;3 on completive and simple past forms, with both studies using a production priming paradigm. Mixed effects models for children's responses were built to test the prediction that children's verb use is (...) explained by the relative bias in input frequency between the two inflectional forms. Although Study 1 did not show a significant effect of input bias, Study 2, which corrected for this problem, yielded the predicted relationship. These findings suggest that input frequency effects, at the level of different inflectional forms of the same verb stem, hold even after controlling for morphophonological complexity. (shrink)

The broad objective of this paper is to examine the evolution of gendered aspects of livelihood strategies and their interaction with various development interventions. Central to this is an empirical analysis of gendered divisions of labor in the context of rapidly changing pastoralist livelihoods. The paper begins with a literature review on gender roles in pastoralist societies. Two important gaps in the existing literature are identified. First, studies on gender roles are too often studies on women’s roles as men’s roles (...) are rarely included. Secondly, despite a recognition that pastoral livelihoods are rapidly changing, much of the research has ignored the gendered impacts of this change. The study area is Loitokitok Division, Kajiado District, Kenya. Field data were collected in an extensive household survey, key informant interviews, and group discussions held in two field seasons between 2001 and 2004. Results indicate that development interventions led to land use encapsulation, sedentarization, new ways of accessing dry season grazing areas, new land uses, new livestock breeds, and increased school enrollment. In the context of these livelihood changes and increasing drought, a fundamental shift in gendered roles in livestock production has occurred. Maasai women in the study area contribute more labor to livestock production than men do. Various efforts to modernize the livestock sector are leading to a loss of women’s control of milk resources. This finding has important implications for current and future development interventions in pastoralist communities and their ability to improve livelihoods of the most vulnerable sections of the population. (shrink)

Snodgrass et al.’s commentary makes explicit one of the major problems in consciousness research; that there seem to be just as many definitions of basic terms are there are people in the field. Although Snodgrass et al.’s position appears at odds with the views expressed in Irvine , many of their arguments are actually consistent with the proposed views, or else fail to engage with them as a consequence of the shifting goal posts of what basic terms mean.

Drawing on the work of Jurgen Habermas, Seyla Benhabib has developed a system of communicative or discourse ethics. Her approach is said to respect differences and to count context as important but she also claims that it is postmetaphysical. I dispute this claim on two grounds. First, I argue that any system of ethics must be grounded by metaphysical commitments. Second, I show that in using elements of both Kantian and Aristotelian theory, Benhabib has imported metaphysical underpinnings into her theory (...) and that these implicit understandings of what the moral enterprise is about, ought to be made explicit. Finally, a brief exploration of some contemporary ethical reflection and problem solving suggests that a shared metaphysical foundation is essential to ethical discourse. (shrink)

Deals with issues including - Euthansia - Organ transplantation - Experimentation and research - Genetic manipulation - Embryo experiments - Surrogacy - Contraception - Abortion - HIV/AIDS - Resource allocation.