Background Parental refusal of routine childhood vaccination remains an ethically contested area. This systematic review sought to explore and characterise the normative arguments made about parental refusal of routine vaccination, with the aim of providing researchers, practitioners, and policymakers with a synthesis of current normative literature. Methods Nine databases covering health and ethics research were searched, and 121 publications identified for the period Jan 1998 to Mar 2022. For articles, source journals were categorised according to Australian Standard Field of Research (...) codes, and normative content was analysed using a framework analytical approach. Results Most of the articles were published in biomedical journals (34%), bioethics journals (21%), and journals that carry both classifications (20%). Two central questions dominated the literature: (1) Whether vaccine refusal is justifiable (which we labelled ‘refusal arguments’); and (2) Whether strategies for dealing with those who reject vaccines are justifiable (‘response arguments’). Refusal arguments relied on principlism, religious frameworks, the rights and obligations of parents, the rights of children, the medico-legal best interests of the child standard, and the potential to cause harm to others. Response arguments were broadly divided into arguments about policy, arguments about how individual physicians should practice regarding vaccine rejectors, and both legal precedents and ethical arguments for vaccinating children against a parent’s will. Policy arguments considered the normative significance of coercion, non-medical or conscientious objections, and possible reciprocal social efforts to offset vaccine refusal. Individual physician practice arguments covered nudging and coercive practices, patient dismissal, and the ethical and professional obligations of physicians. Most of the legal precedents discussed were from the American setting, with some from the United Kingdom. Conclusions This review provides a comprehensive picture of the scope and substance of normative arguments about vaccine refusal and responses to vaccine refusal. It can serve as a platform for future research to extend the current normative literature, better understand the role of cultural context in normative judgements about vaccination, and more comprehensively translate the nuance of ethical arguments into practice and policy. (shrink)

The purpose of this work is to explain how, with the proposition "cogito ergo sum", Descartes contradicts the A axiom from the Theory of knowledge of Leonardo Polo, by accepting the pasivenness of the knowledge and denying it as an operation of knowing an object, in wich the cognizant and the cognizance are one in act.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Philosophy and Literature 26.2 (2002) 465-468 [Access article in PDF] Cogito Ergo Sum: The Life of René Descartes, by Richard Watson; vii & 375 pp. Boston: David R. Godine, 2002, $35.00. Scholarly in what it delivers, but delightful in how it delivers what it delivers, Cogito Ergo Sum is highly informative and fun to read. Touching on all the key places, players and events in the philosopher's (...) life, Watson tells us (at least) everything we wanted to know about Descartes as he cuts through the myths that have been passed down to us about him. Cutting through the myths meant dissociating his biography ("the first biography of Descartes since 1920 that is based on substantial new research, and the only one ever written for general readers"; p. 23) from the two still-operative hagiographic traditions: the French Catholic apologetic tradition and the scientific apologetic tradition. The result is a skeptical biography, full of distrust toward tradition and authority, written very much in the spirit of methodical doubt practiced by its subject.Descartes emerged from a powerful family tradition of law and medicine but mentions his childhood only six times. With good reason. He didn't like either his father or his brother and his mother died thirteen months after he was born. He was considered the family failure, not only wasting time in philosophy but squandering his share of the family fortune. He received an excellent eight-year education at the outstanding Jesuit school at La Flèche where he was immediately attracted to the certitude that mathematics offered him. He earned a law degree in Poitiers, spent time in the Army, though not in battle, and refused a judgeship.It was Isaac Beeckman who radically influenced Descartes's future when he awakened him to the possibility of applying mathematics to the problems of natural science. Watson examines sympathetically Descartes's eventual revolt against this father figure. Watson humanizes Descartes greatly when he examines both his relationship with his daughter, Francina, who died of scarlatina at the age of five, and his relationship with the child's mother, Helena Jans. He also rehabilitates the reputation of Helena who has been traditionally maligned by biographers of the philosopher. Here, and elsewhere, he speaks out loudly and clearly against "the denizens of the Saint Descartes Protection Society" who purport that Descartes broke his celibacy just this once. "Actually," writes Watson, "I think Descartes was enough of a scientist that he would have repeated the experiment several times, if only to see if the experience was the same the second and a third time" (pp. 181; 182).In 1628, totally unwilling to get involved in religious squabbles in France and desiring to live in "joyful anonymity," Descartes takes off for Friesland. This constituted a flight from family, social responsibility, and royalist Catholic totalitarian oppression. He moved around often to situate himself at universities where he wanted to do research and to avoid the plague. This great mathematical genius and father of modern philosophy wanted to replace [End Page 465] Aristotelian philosophy and science and thought correctly that it would be easier to get his ideas accepted here. He became friendly with Princess Elizabeth of Bohemia who spoke five languages and astutely critiqued his metaphysics. Despite the myths, neither was in love with the other. She inspired him to write The Passions of the Soul, which, oddly enough, he dedicated to Queen Christina of Sweden. He did, however, dedicate his Principles to Elizabeth. Christina was a bookish intellectual who loved the theater. In 1649, even though he had exhibited a clear dislike of court life, he agreed to be her tutor. He died in Sweden in 1650 during one of the coldest winters ever recorded in Europe.Why did he go to Sweden? He was broke and had little chance for a pension in France. In addition, while he knew the value of his work, he began to think his life might have been a failure. Perhaps he might really enjoy being a courtier after all. Certainly he feared that he would end... (shrink)

Le « cogito, ergo sum » cartésien apparaît depuis quarante ans comme « inférence et performance » (J. Hintikka). Mais de quelle inférence s'agit-il précisément ? Pour le savoir, cet article poursuit deux objectifs : d'abord, montrer que la question pertinente à laquelle il s'agit de répondre ne concerne pas la relation logique interne qui lie le cogito au sum, et qui est une intuition, mais celle, externe, qui lie le « cogito, ergo sum » tout entier au (...) « quicquid cogitat, est ». Ensuite, montrer que cette dernière relation est tout à la fois une induction et une déduction. (shrink)

Analytical philosophy opens new perspectives of studies in the history of philosophy. There are generalized history of analytical interpretations of Cartesian principle cogito ergo sum and analysis of Cartesianism through the prism of contemporary philosophy of action, with special attention to performativity of the mentioned principle. The importance of such research necessarily goes beyond "pure" history of philosophy: it also contributes to revision of traditional approaches to justification of knowledge, which still remain problematic. Attention to performativism of cogito (...) class='Hi'>ergo sum thesis is the key to new convenient interpretation of knowledge justification problem, because it allows for justification as selfjustification in terms of accomplishment. Inevitable accomplishment, peculiar to evidfently performative knowledge, suggests that fundamentalist strategy of knowledge justification, in the perspective of philosophy of action, amounts to a preferable interpretation compared to traditional epistemological approach. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Feminist Studies 41, no. 2. © 2015 by Feminist Studies, Inc. 463 Kawika Guillermo Libido Ergo Sum Sitting atop a red beanbag stained with dark splotches, Kelsey watched the tells from the five boys sitting on the carpet in front of her. One by one they gave away their hands, their eyes dodging hers, perhaps afraid of her female intuition. She loved these surreptitious moments, when her boys (...) tried to fool her, believing that they had her in their clutches, as if she couldn’t help but be pulled by their charms. Kelsey went all in, moving her chips into the middle of the carpet. Kaleb’s mouth grinned to the right while Gabriel impatiently tapped on his knee, keeping beat with the remixed 80’s tune coming from the large boom box behind him. Billy’s face was in a gleeful Leave-It-to-Beaver of daffiness, and Michael’s dumbfounded expression—worn to distract her— was put out by a nervous scratch of his neck. After each had pussied out, Kelsey leaned over to distract them further with her cleavage as she picked up the red playing cards, her hair settling onto the boys’ laps as if to imitate fellatio. “Alright, pussy bitches,” she said, collecting the chips and stirring the toothpick in her mouth like a mortar. “Pass’em down,” pointing to the gold dealer’s piece. “Big blind, little blind.” She watched the world as if from a recliner and saw herself dealing the next hand with the finesse of a professional dealer. Her gaze circled the carpet of poker players. Their eyes never met hers. In every house party Kelsey hosted, she always saw a faint bleakness in her guests. She always cleaned them out, her eyes scanning them like food at a supermarket, unveiling their moves with every glance. She watched them all at once: Jackson wiping his mouth, Michael adjusting his glasses, Gabriel 464 Kawika Guillermo chewing on bubblegum in loud smacks, Billy grinning as he mouthed curse words. Finally, Kelsey took only a glimpse at her own cards before doubling the ante. Tommy shrugged and tossed his cards; Michael met her raise and she went all in. She noticed these patterns all between them. She saw their reactions before they even happened: Michael shaking his head and calling her a bitch as he splashed his cards onto her living room carpet. At two in the morning she drank two tequila shots in the kitchen with Paul, one of the many toxic men that she had invited to her party from work. He was a sturdy baseball player/lightweight alcoholic, toxic in his thoughtless remarks on meeting schedules, upcoming due-dates, and portfolios. “Then you put the salt on your thumb, or whatever,” Paul said, shaking up a bottle of Patrón Silver, as if it needed to be shaken. Kelsey stuck out her shot glass for another. A year ago she would have been doing homework, playfully kicking off the dust of the world with a big biology textbook in her hands. Since then, she had discovered that there was a pattern to debauchery that led to some existential fulfillment—a realizing of herself as a living substance—an uber-debauchery. Refusing to dilute her angst into anything but total surrender, she was still a Vegas girl, willing to throw herself into in the Las Vegas rites of passage of drunk driving, diving nude into neighbor’s pools, and waking up in hotel rooms with a hundred dollar bill on the cupboard, weighted in place by Gideon’s Bible. “Another sausage fest,” said a man in a cowboy hat and vintage overalls. Kelsey didn’t know him. He sat on the countertop like the Cheshire Cat and flipped through a book of bumper stickers. He wore one with the words “Libido Ergo Sum” on his forehead. “All right!” another drunken voice shouldered through waves of sound: “Seize the day!” “James’s baby sure looks cute tonight,” said another drunken voice. “’Course no one would try, except this guy.” The man in the cowboy hat smiled up at her. “How come you don’t invite your girlfriends to your parties?” “I don’t have... (shrink)

Genes adjacent to species-specific loci are 6.2% older than genes adjacent to other dynamic loci (P < 10−2 by randomization; gray bars in Fig. 3); thus, species-specific genes are not randomly distributed but are found preferentially in the older regions, indicating that the incipient Escherichia and Salmonella lineages continued to participate in recombination at loci unlinked to lineage-specific genes.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:W. T. Jones SOMNIO ERGO SUM: DESCARTES'S THREE DREAMS What is remarkable about Descartes's dreams is not that he dreamed (for even philosophers presumably dream), but that he wrote down a description of his dreams and of his interpretation of them and then kept this record for more than thirty years, until his death.* What is remarkable, in a word, is that this thinker, who prided himself on (...) his rationalism and who has come to represent, at least to philosophers, the very spirit of rationalism, should have taken his dreams so seriously. Philosophers—perhaps because the dreams conflict with their view of Descartes, perhaps because they conflict with their view of themselves and their discipline—have tended to play down the dreams or to ignore them altogether. Thus, though Bernard Williams, the author of a recent volume on Descartes, refers to the dreams as "a significant event," he proceeds in a footnote to undercut the adjective by quoting Christiaan Huygens, apparently with approval, to the effect that the dreams show "a great weakness [in Descartes], and I think that it will seem much the same to Catholics who have freed themselves from bigotry." If we try to free ourselves from what seems to be a standing philosophical prejudice against dreams and dreaming, what can Descartes's dreams tell us about his theories? That is the topic of this article. But first a caveat concerning my position on the interpretation of dreams generally. The interpreter of a dream, like the interpreter of other cultural products, has to try to steer a course between the Scylla of overinterpretation (reading into the dream something that is not expressed in it) and the Charybdis of underinterpretation (missing something that is actually expressed in the dream). My own bias leads me to fear overinterpretation more than underinterpretation; I had?Descartes's original Latin record of the dreams no longer survives. A new English translation by my colleague, John F. Benton, of a late seventeenth-century paraphrase of a portion of Descartes's text appears as an appendix to this article. 145 146Philosophy and Literature rather go aground on Charybdis than be shipwrecked on the Scylla of the Freudians and the Jungians.2 I am skeptical of interpretations of Descartes's dreams that are not supported by nondream materials—on the assumption that any dynamic element expressed in the dreams that is not also expressed in nondream materials is unlikely to be of much importance for understanding Descartes's thought. Therefore, instead of beginning with the dreams and then looking here and there in nondream materials for supporting evidence, I shall begin with nondream materials and only later turn to the dreams. In a word, I shall try to read back both from nondream material and from dream material to dynamic elements which may be present in, and shaping, both. My hope is that the uncovering of these elements will result in a better understanding of nondream and dream material alike. I Accordingly, I shall begin with a brief account of some of the themes of two of Descartes's best known philosophical writings, The Discourse on Method (1637) and the Meditations on First Philosophy (1641). The Discourse is particularly relevant to our inquiry because it "covers" the period in which the dreams occur, but in a very different medium from that of the Olympica and at a later date. The Discourse was in fact a discreet, as it were sanitized, version of the whole long voyage of discovery in which the dreams were but one, if nonetheless a critical, episode. Descartes tells us he had been educated "at one of the most celebrated schools in Europe" and had not beenjudged by his instructors "inferior" to his fellow students. Yet, on completing his course of study, he found himself "embarrassed with so many doubts and errors" that the only result of his efforts to instruct himself had been the "increasing discovery" of his own ignorance. Having gone through all the sciences of his time—languages, literature, rhetoric, theology, philosophy—without learning anything of consequence, he had then turned to travel, to seeing courts and armies, hoping thereby to discover the answers he sought "in... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Cogito, Ergo Sum: The Life of René DescartesDennis Des CheneRichard Watson. Cogito, Ergo Sum: The Life of René Descartes. Boston: David R. Godine, 2002. pp. viii + 375. Cloth, $35.00.Somewhere between hagiography and debunking lies truth. Or so we may think: the biographer's sources are almost always tipped one way or the other, and it is his or her job to establish, or divine, the way (...) of authentic fact and, if facts fall short, then of sturdy sober hypothesis. In general the debunker has more fun, especially when the weight of tradition favors the ennobling, if not the beatification, of its subject.Descartes is a case in point. Until a few years ago, there was in English no satisfactory biography. Now there are three: an "intellectual biography" by Stephen Gaukroger, the Descartes of Geneviève Rodis-Lewis, and Watson's. Gaukroger dwells on Descartes's natural philosophy, especially in the early years. Only after 300 pages does he reach the period of the Discourse, Descartes's first published work. Rodis-Lewis offers a more even-handed treatment, the fruits of a lifetime of study. Her Descartes resembles, not the modern scientist or professional philosopher, but the ancient sage for whom metaphysics is a once-in-a-lifetime affair, and even natural philosophy subordinate to wisdom. Watson's Descartes is an altogether more worldly type, born into a family of lawyers, well-connected, touchy [End Page 113] about his place in social and scientific circles, and not all that interested in what we think of now as philosophy. Nor, for that matter, is Watson: you will look in vain for an analysis of the Meditations, a discussion of method, or a definition of générosité. (Watson does conclude, I should note, with a discussion of Descartes's doctrine on the soul, whose title might well have been "The future of an illusion" if Freud had not used it already.)If you like your philosophy uncluttered by context, if you find it worthwhile to read or write about "Cartesian skepticism" or "Cartesian dualism" without troubling yourself to understand who the historical Descartes was, or what might have moved him to confront the skeptics and save the soul, then Watson is not for you. It is emphatically a Life, not a Life and Works. It is, moreover, a life in the manner of many modern biographers, in which the biographer, rather than conceal himself behind the curtains of scholarly convention, figures into the narrative, retracing the steps of Descartes's passage to Italy, examining the baptismal certificate of Descartes's illegitimate daughter Francine, and eating lunch at the Queen Kristina restaurant "next door to the house in which Descartes died" (303). The quality of a biography thus written depends in part on the personality of its author (and in the case of Cogito Ergo Sum, the author's wife, who intervenes more than once on the side of common sense during their peregrinations). Watson is, to my mind, an agreeable companion, dedicated to the search for biographical truth, impatient with hagiographic fog and time-hallowed error, down-to-earth in his assessment of Descartes's motives and circumstances.One example to show the differences among the three biographies. In November 1618 Descartes met the future Latin schoolmaster Isaac Beeckman in Breda. Beeckman records with enthusiasm their joint endeavors in physico-mathematics over the next few months (Gaukroger has the details). It seems clear that the impetus for studying the various problems mentioned in Beeckman's Journal came from Beeckman, who had been pondering physical questions since 1613 or before. Descartes's contribution, at least at first, was his immense mathematical skill. Their interests lay largely within the "mixed mathematics" of the period, especially hydrostatics and mechanics. They also discussed music, an aspect of the "new science" now often neglected (but see H. F. Cohen, Quantifying Music [Dordrecht, 1984]). On New Year's day 1619 Descartes presented Beeckman with his Compendium musicæ (Gaukroger 74, Rodis-Lewis 51/29). A decade later, Descartes, having heard that Beeckman had appropriated the Compendium to himself, became angry and eventually, late in 1630, dismissed Beeckman with a masterpiece of de haut... (shrink)

David Horner has recently offered a medieval argument for an Anglophilic pronunciation of the name of St. Augustine. I claim his disputatious account fails, both on an account of interlinguistic phonological equivalence, and on a Kripkean-style rigid-designator theory of reference. It turns out, surprisingly, that Floridians are closer to the truth about the correct pronunciation of the medieval saint’s name than are Englishmen.

RésuméSelon Descartes, la force démonstrative d'une argumentation peut résulter ou bien de l'application des règles universelles de la logique ou bien d'une intuition particulière. Cette doctrine permet d'éviter le reproche de circularité qui est souvent fait à l'égard de certaines argumentations épistémologiques. D'autre part, elle implique le rejet de la méthode du contre‐exemple. L'acception de certaines argumentations en vertu d'une intuition particulière ne crée pas une situation définitive; elle constitue une phase dans la genèse de ce que Bernays a caractérisé (...) comme une évidence acquise.ZusammenfassungNach Descartes kann die Beweiskraft einer Argumentation entweder von der Anwendung der allgemeingültigen Regeln der Logik oder von einer besonderen Anschauung herrühren. Diese Ansicht erlaubt uns, dem Einwand der Zirkelhaftigkeit zu entgehen, welcher öfters gegen gewisse erkenntnistheoretische Argumentationen erhoben wird. Sie erfordert anderseits den Verzicht auf die Methode der Gegenbeispiele. Die Hinnahme gewisser Argumentationen auf Grund einer besonderen Anschauung schafft niemals eine bleibende Situation; sie bildet eine Phase im Zustandekommen dessen, was Bernays als eine erworbene Evidenz charakterisiert hat.According to Descartes, the demonstrative power of an argumentation may result either from the application of the universal rules of logic or from a particular intuition. This doctrine permits us to avoid the reproach of circularity which is often raised as an objection to certain argumentations in epistemology. On the other hand, it implies the rejection of the method of the counter‐example. The acceptance of certain argumentations based on a particular intuition never creates a permanent situation; it rather constitutes a stage in the genesis of what Bernays has characterized as an évidence acquise. (shrink)

A survey of current attitudes towards the concept of intentionality provides for an interesting sociology of philosophers. One group regards the notion as a kind of ghost-in-the-machine redivivus, come back to haunt them. The spectral threats posed to a seamless materialist ontology by such things as immateriality, incorrigibility and privacy had seemed exorcised in the first round, at the hands of Ryle and Wittgenstein. But now it appeared that their opponents had been holding in reserve a much more sophisticated concept (...) of mind that required such intractables as mental states that derive their identity from their meanings, meanings themselves as abstract and intensional entities, intentional as opposed to real objects, and the like. (shrink)

At first sight one might be tempted to regard Descartes' "cogito ergo sum" as logically true by existential generalisation. This however would neither exhaust the specific epistemic content of "cogito" nor reveal the philosophical peculiarities of "sum" which the author takes to have two ontologically different meanings. The full sense of "cogito ergo sum" finally turns out to be "Credo* me* cogitare ergo scio* me* $\text{esse}_{1/2}$ ". Furthermore this proposition can formally be proved to be true by (...) means of epistemic logic. (shrink)

Abstract:This article aims to explore the idea that enhancement technologies have been and will continue to be an essential element of what we might call the “human continuum,” and are indeed key to our existence and evolution into persons. Whereas conservative commentators argue that enhancement is likely to cause us to lose our humanity and become something other, it is argued here that the very opposite is true: that enhancement is the core of what and who we are. Using evidence (...) from paleoanthropology to examine the nature of our predecessor species, and their proclivities for tool use, we can see that there is good reason to assume that the development ofHomo sapiensis a direct result of the use of enhancement technologies. A case is also made for broad understandings of the scope of enhancement, based on the significant evolutionary results of acts that are usually dismissed as “unremarkable.” Furthermore, the use of enhancement by modern humans is no different than these prehistoric applications, and is likely to ultimately have similar results. There is no good reason to assume that whatever we may become will not also consider itself human. (shrink)