This article situates the movement for the legalisation of medicinal cannabis within the bigger picture of the impetus toward recreational cannabis legalisation. It describes the role played by children with epileptic syndromes in the medicinal cannabis law reform campaigns in the United Kingdom, and Queensland, New South Wales and Victoria in Australia. Noting the ‘rule of rescue’ and the prominence in media campaigns of children in Australian and English cases of parental disputation with clinicians about treatment for their children, it (...) reviews whether paediatric epilepsy is a suitable test case for the legalisation of medicinal cannabis. Taking into account the vested commercial interests of Big Cannabis, the current medico-scientific knowledge of the efficacy of medicinal cannabis in controlling paediatric epileptic seizures, and issues of dignity, health privacy, and the enduring digital footprints of media coverage, the article commences discussion about the ethics of the media, parents, politicians and entrepreneurial doctors utilising parents’ testimonials about the effects of medicinal cannabis as part of the cannabis law reform movement. (shrink)

As the burden of misconduct in medical research is increasingly recognised, questions have been raised about how best to address this problem. Whilst there are existing mechanisms for the investigation and management of misconduct in medical literature, they are inadequate to deal with the magnitude of the problem. Journal editors and publishers play an essential role in protecting the veracity of the medical literature. Whilst ethical guidance for journal editors and publishers is important, it is not as readily enforceable as (...) legal obligations might be. This article questions the legal obligations that might exist for journal editors and publishing companies with respect to ensuring the veracity of the published literature. Ultimately, there is no enforceable legal obligation in Australia, the United Kingdom, or the United States. In light of this, more robust mechanisms are needed to deliver greater confidence and transparency in the investigative process, the management of concerns or findings of misconduct and the need to cleanse the literature. We show that the law disincentivises journals and publishers from ensuring truth in their publications. There are harmful consequences for medical care and public confidence in the medical profession and health care system when the foundations of medical science are questionable. (shrink)

O artigo examina o paradoxo cético no chamado “Kripkenstein” à luz da psicologia ecológica, uma teoria cognitiva que tem como base tomar como unidade de análise os organismos juntamente com seus ambientes. O conceito de affordance, também basilar para a psicologia ecológica, oferece uma versatilidade importante para explicações sobre nossa percepção do mundo, e principalmente para a percepção dos aspectos menos tangíveis da realidade, as chamadas “práticas sociomateriais”. Tal abordagem da cognição se mostra valiosa na superação desse paradoxo ao permitir (...) que a mesma seja compreendida como fenômeno coletivo, a linguagem e demais práticas que “seguem regras” estando inseridas nesse contexto como práticas construídas coletivamente que moldam a realidade humana. (shrink)

Esta resenha não faz, como de costume, a divulgação de uma obra recentemente editada no país, e nem resume todos os capítulos do livro; está aqui resenhada a edição original, em inglês, de 1983, e me refiro especialmente a alguns capítulos dela. Pretendo com esta resenha, por um lado, destacar o tema central do livro de Ian Hacking: a questão do realismo científico, e, por outro, criar leitores para uma futura edição em português de Representing and intewening, para cuja tradução (...) me candidato. No Prefácio, Hacking sugere ao leitor que comece a ler seu livro a partir da segunda metade, aquela sobre experimentos. A primeira parte, que trata de teorias, deve interessar mais, supõe o autor, aos filósofos; ao passo que a outra metade agrada mais ao paladar científico. Comentando o subtítulo, o autor adverte que "introdutório" não significa "simplicado": tópicos introdutórios deveriam ser claros e sérios o bastante para cativar uma mente para a qual eles são novos, e também abrasivos o bastante para despertar aqueles que têm pensado sobre essas coisas durante anos”. [...] Palavras-chave: Hacking; Representing; Livro; Pesquisa; Investigação. (shrink)

Introduction -- Evidence from children -- Evidence form infants and non-human animals -- Evidence from neuroimaging and neuropsychology -- Evidence from adults -- The cognitive basis of mindreading -- Elaborating and applying the theory.

ABSTRACT One of the many philosophical issues discussed throughout Plutarch's Quaestiones convivales has to do with the origin and inner structure of the universe, i.e., cosmological discussions. It would be impossible to discuss in detail every passage of the treatise that deals with cosmological issues. Therefore, I chose to limit my analysis to the concepts of chance, fate, ‘what depends on us ’, and providence. My purpose is to explain these concepts in the QC and to extract from them a (...) cosmological doctrine. RESUMO Entre os vários problemas filosóficos discutidos ao longo das Quaestiones Convivales de Plutarco, um deles tem que ver com a origem e com a estrutura do universo, isto é, discussões de cariz cosmológico. Seria impossível comentar em detalhe todas as passagens do tratado sobre questões cosmológicas. Por isso, preferi limitar a análise aos conceitos de acaso, destino, 'o que depende de nós' eprovidência. O meu objetivo é explicar estes conceitos nas QC e deles inferir uma doutrina cosmológica. (shrink)

The primary objective of this paper is to find out whether there is any possibility of coming up with a philosophy that we can call Filipino. Inspired by the works of Prof. Leonardo Mercado, I suggest an exciting new area of philosophy that can get us to an answer: experimental philosophy. Secondly, I shall bridge the connection between experimental philosophy and the search for Filipino philosophy. More specifically, I shall provide an answer as to how experimental philosophy can be expected (...) to lead to a Filipino philosophy. Then, I shall suggest a novel way in how to do experimental Filipino philosophy, that is, experimental philosophy in the service of discovering a Filipino philosophy, and it is by way of traditional empirical methods in anthropology, such as interviews and focus group discussions. Finally, I introduce the charge of limited applicability inspired by Roland Theuas Pada and respond to the objection. I conclude by inviting Filipino philosophers to integrate experimental philosophy in their search for a Filipino philosophy. (shrink)

Critics have long complained that naive realism cannot adequately account for perceptual illusion. This complaint has a tendency to ally itself with the aspersion that naive realism is hopelessly out of touch with vision science. Here I offer a partial reply to both complaint and aspersion. I do so by showing how careful reflection on a simple, empirically grounded model of illusion reveals heterodox ways of thinking about familiar illusions which are quite congenial to the naive realist.

The impact of the Salters’ Hall Synod went beyond its immediate context in England and spread throughout the British Isles and into Ireland. Ulster Presbyterianism was wracked with debate over confessional subscriptionism and Unitarianism. Two key interlocutors in this debate were the Unitarian theologian William Hamilton Drummond and his orthodox counterpart, Alexander Carson. This essay traces the debate with a particular emphasis on their use of Scottish Common Sense philosophy as a way into or out of heterodox views of the (...) Trinity. (shrink)

Rhetorica approaches armed, sword drawn, announcing the persuasive allure of violence. Whether with real or metaphorical weapons people can be "terrifying and eloquent," to borrow a phrase from Philippe-Joseph Salazar's Words Are Weapons: Inside ISIS's Rhetoric of Terror. The iconic image of Rhetorica's sword emerged from the early modern era of European rhetorical thinking, but the image is one with the violent symbolism that has been attached to rhetoric throughout its history and across cultures. The Greco-Roman rhetorical tradition abounds with (...) examples, deriving in part from the Aristotelian observation that fear can be manipulated for persuasive purposes... (shrink)

Eric Scerri has argued that chemists using ab initio calculations pursue a partial reduction of chemistry to physics, while accepting that full reduction (through axiomatization) is impractical. He characterizes this view as Popperian and naturalistic. However, Popper's position on reduction is not naturalistic, as he rejected axiomatization for different reasons.

This essay was delivered as the third and last paper at Spurgeon’s Annual Theological Conference in the summer of 2015. The theme of the Conference was the nature of the trinitarian God, neatly divided a sequence of papers on the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. In this essay on the person of the Holy Spirit, Stackhouse challenges some of the assumptions we make when we speak of the Spirit as the God who is near. By placing charismatic experience (...) alongside the biblical revelation, he argues for an understanding of the person of the Spirit as no less transcendent as the Father and the Son, and actively engaged not simply in the phenomena of signs and wonders but in drawing the believer into the very life of the trinity. As the essay develops, Stackhouse seeks to draw out the implications of this approach to pneumatology for our notions of identity, holiness, prayer and Christian community. He argues for a much stronger connection in charismatic/pentecostal experience between Christ and the Spirit; and in so doing, he warns against some of the more popular, and somewhat ironic, emphases on power, method and function. As with the first paper of the day by Dr Nigel Wright, Stackhouse draws upon the work of Jewish philosopher Martin Buber. Like Wright, he regards Buber’s I-Thou construct of religious experience as critical for the future of contemporary revivalism. (shrink)

David B. Wong’s 2006 monograph, Natural Moralities: A Defense of Pluralistic Relativism,1 presents and defends a sophisticated and nuanced form of moral relativism that has been in development since his 1984 work, Moral Relativity. The present volume, Moral Relativism and Chinese Philosophy, is a collection of six critical essays focused on Natural Moralities, which are followed by Wong’s responses to each of his critics. I see the greater contribution of this volume, when we consider the title’s conjuncts, to be the (...) discussion of moral relativism, so in this review I will leave aside the debates over how best to interpret various Chinese philosophers.In Natural Moralities, Wong draws... (shrink)

A model is presented to show how the existence of physical law could be a reasonable consequence of Divine Immanence in the world of natural phenomena. Divine Immanence is seen as the continual production of the principal causes or dispositions which enable created things to act and change. It..

A wealth of cases – most notably blindsight and priming under inattention or suppression – have convinced philosophers and scientists alike that perception occurs outside awareness. In recent work (Phillips 2016a, 2018; Phillips and Block 2017, Peters et al. 2017), I dispute this consensus, arguing that any putative case of unconscious perception faces a dilemma. The dilemma divides over how absence of awareness is established. If subjective reports are used, we face the problem of the criterion: the concern that such (...) reports underestimate conscious experience (Eriksen 1960, Holender 1986, Peters and Lau 2015). If objective measures are used, we face the problem of attribution: the concern that the case does not involve genuine individual-level perception. Quilty-Dunn (2019) presents an apparently compelling example of unconscious perception due to Mitroff et al. (2005) which, he contends, evades this dilemma. The case is fascinating. However, as I here argue, it does not escape the dilemma’s clutches. (shrink)

ABSTRACT: This article discusses, principally from an English perspective, globalisation, global citizenship and two forms of education relevant to those developments (global education and citizenship education). We describe what citizenship has meant inside one nation state and ask what citizenship means, and could mean, in a globalising world. By comparing the natures of citizenship education and global education, as experienced principally in England during, approxim-ately, the last three decades, we seek to develop a clearer understanding of what has been done (...) and what might be done in the future in order to develop education for global citizenship. We suggest that up to this point there have been significant differences between the characterisations that have been developed for global education and citizenship education. These differences are revealed through an examination of three areas: focus and origins; the attitude of the government and significant others; and the adoption of pedagogical approaches. We suggest that it would be useful to look beyond old barriers that have separated citizenship education and global education and to form a new global citizenship education. Their separation has in the past only perpetuated the old understandings of citizenship and constructed a constrained view of global education. (shrink)

This introduction to the philosophy of Jean-Luc Nancy gives an overview of his philosophical thought to date and situates it within the broader context of contemporary French and European thinking. The book examines Nancy’s philosophy in relation to five specific areas: his account of subjectivity; his understanding of space and spatiality; his thinking about the body and embodiment; his political thought; and his contribution to contemporary aesthetics. In each case it shows the way in which Nancy develops or moves beyond (...) some of the key concerns associated with phenomenology, post-structuralism, and what could broadly be termed the “post-modern.”. (shrink)

The moment when a person’s actual relationships fall short of desired relationships is commonly identified as the etiological moment of chronic loneliness, which can lead to physical and psychological effects like depression, worse recovery from illness and increased mortality. But, this etiology fails to explain the nature and severe impact of loneliness. Here, we use philosophical analysis and neuroscience to show that human beings develop and maintain our world-picture (our sense of what is true, important, and good) through joint attention (...) and action, motivated by friendship, in the Aristotelian sense of “other selves” who share a sense of the true and the good, and desire the good for each other as much as for themselves. The true etiological event of loneliness is the moment one’s world-picture becomes unshared. The pathogenesis is a resultant decay of our world-picture, with brain and behavior changes following as sequelae. (shrink)

_ Source: _Volume 5, Issue 2, pp 323 - 343 The following article attempts to bring critical realism to bear on the changing nature of aesthetic value. Beginning with the transitive-intransitive distinction, it is advised that we withhold judgment on the possibility of aesthetic judgment, lest we commit the epistemic fallacy. Without hoping to attain a form of aesthetic value absolutism, a strategy of ‘eliminative realism’ is introduced, which seeks to remove false causes of apparent judgmental relativism. Then a rough (...) sketch of the ontology of art works and art practices is made in order to provide sufficient complexity for the changing aspects of value from different points of view and assumptions. Finally, a case study is given, in the creation of a market of African slingshots in the 1908s, and the theory is tested. The article closes with a plea to take aesthetic value seriously, as a requirement of ideological discussion. (shrink)

Environmental groups have worked tirelessly to save several species of endangered fish along the Colorado River, including the humpback chub (Gila cypha). The humpback chub does not seem to have any significant instrumental goods, but these environmentalists have championed its cause nonetheless. If the humpback chub has no instrumental goods, then appealing to another kind of goods is needed to show that it should be preserved. Some environmental ethicists have suggested appealing to the intrinsic goods of a species (or, alternatively, (...) its intrinsic value or inherent value). Drawing on and going beyond John O’Neill’s work, it can be argued that all currently existing (biological) species have their own goods, or intrinsic goods. In terms of the notion of flourishing, the intrinsic goods of a species consist in its abilities to flourish. These goods can be used to construct a defense of the view that a species, even a species such as the humpback chub, ought to be preserved. One way to construct this defense is to appeal to virtue ethics, specifically the virtue of humility. Exercising the virtue of humility in our relations with species that we human beings have endangered involves preserving them along with preserving their intrinsic goods. (shrink)

The findings identified by Zuk et al. (2023) demonstrate the importance of understanding personality, mood, and behavior (PMB) as theory and value-laden concepts. Although their research covered bo...

The aim of this paper is to use Sir William Crookes‘ researches into psychical phenomena as a sustained case study of the role of epistemic virtues within scientific enquiry. Despite growing interest in virtues in science, there are few integrated historical and philosophical studies, and even fewer studies focusing on controversial or ‗fringe‘ sciences where, one might suppose, certain epistemic virtues (like open-mindedness and tolerance) may be subjected to sterner tests. Using the virtue of epistemic courage as my focus, it (...) emerges that Crookes‘ psychical researches were indeed epistemically courageous, but that this judgment must be grounded in sensitivity to the motivational complexity and context-sensitivity of the exercise of epistemic virtues. The paper then considers Crookes‘ remarks on the relationship between epistemic virtuousness and the intellectual integrity and public duties of scientists, thereby placing epistemic virtues in the context of wider debates about the authority of science in late modern societies. I conclude that Crookes‘ researches into psychical phenomena offer instructive lessons for historians of science and virtue epistemologists concerning the complexity and contextuality of epistemic virtues, and the profitable forms that future studies of virtues in science could take. (shrink)

In this paper, we show how the problem of accounting for the semanticsof temporal preposition phrases (tPPs) leads us to some surprisinginsights into the semantics of temporal expressions ingeneral. Specifically, we argue that a systematic treatment of EnglishtPPs is greatly facilitated if we endow our meaning assignments with context variables, a device which allows a tPP to restrict domainsof quantification arising elsewhere in a sentence. We observe that theuse of context variables implies that tPPs can modify expressions intwo ways, and (...) we use this observation to predict the behaviour of tPPswhose complements are themselves modified by other tPPs. (shrink)

This paper presents a calculus for mereotopological reasoning in which two-dimensional spatial regions are treated as primitive entities. A first order predicate language ℒ with a distinguished unary predicate c(x), function-symbols +, · and - and constants 0 and 1 is defined. An interpretation ℜ for ℒ is provided in which polygonal open subsets of the real plane serve as elements of the domain. Under this interpretation the predicate c(x) is read as 'region x is connected' and the function-symbols and (...) constants are given their meaning in terms of a Boolean algebra of polygons. We give an alternative interpretation ������ base on the real closed plane which turns out to be isomorphic to ℜ. A set of axioms and a rule of inference are introduced. We prove the soundness and completeness of the calculus with respect to the given interpretation. (shrink)