Patients who are dying of cancer usually give up eating and then stop drinking. This raises ethical dilemmas about providing nutritional support and fluid replacement. The decision-making process should be based on a knowledge of the risks and benefits of giving or withholding treatments. There is no clear evidence that increased nutritional support or fluid therapy alters comfort, mental status or survival of patients who are dying. Rarely, subcutaneous fluid administration in the dying patient may be justified if the family (...) remain distressed despite due consideration of the lack of medical benefit versus the risks. Some cancer patients who are not imminently dying become dehydrated from reversible conditions such as hypercalcaemia. This may mimic the effects of advanced cancer. These conditions should be sought and fluid replacement therapy should be given along with the specific treatments for the condition. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: Faith and Reason God's Existence The Names of God Theology and Metaphysics How We Know Universals Individuation Conclusion.

Purpose Medical students receive a varying amount of training in medical ethics and are expected to navigate clinical ethical dilemmas innately. There is little literature on attempts to navigate ethical dilemmas experienced during early clinical experiences and whether current curricula prepare students for these dilemmas. This study explores the different ethical dilemmas experienced by medical students on their third-year clerkships and analyzes the factors, sources, and resolutions proposed by them.Methods From 2016 to 2018, third-year medical students completed a written assignment (...) to describe, analyze, and reflect on a clinical situation in which they experienced an ethical dilemma. They identified specific ethical dilemmas present, potential preventative and aftermath solutions, and reflected on their professional development from their experience. The research team utilized applied thematic analysis to identify themes and patterns in the data. A thematic matrix was utilized to examine similarities and differences across medical students.Results Of the 162 reflections, 144 (88.9%) students indicated an ethical dilemma that included issues related to autonomy and beneficence. Of these, 116 (71.6%) students found the two ethical principles in direct conflict. Students identified three common sources of this conflict: lack of communication; unclear understanding of clinical policies regarding family authority and psychiatric capacity; and medical negligence. Lastly, students suggested different solutions for dealing with and preventing this conflict.Conclusion Our findings suggest that an overwhelming number of students face ethical challenges when confronted with medical situations that raise conflicts between autonomy and beneficence. Their recommended solutions reveal an appeal among students to have tools and strategies in place to ease the need to make difficult decisions. Medical students might be better served by learning about the complexities of ethical decision-making and the likelihood of experiencing moral distress when they feel an inability to implement what they envision as the best solution. (shrink)

This is a critical review of Robert Innis’ Pragmatism and the Forms of Sense: Language, Perception, Technic. In this book, one of Michael Polanyi’s key preoccupations is related to the ideas of a number of thinkers, including Charles Peirce, John Dewey and Ernst Cassirer.

This is a very informative and lucid account of the career of a central philosophical topic in eighteenth‐century Britain, the debate between libertarians and necessitarians, from Locke to Dugald Stewart. The work has many strengths, and I learnt much from it. It will be of great interest to historians of the period, but the readership should be wider than that. Those working on the debate today should also read this book. Harris (quite legitimately) does not see his task as that (...) of a historian of philosophy, mining old texts in pursuit of contemporary discussion. Instead he seeks to understand the philosophers and their problems on their own terms. In doing so, however, he offers an alternative perspective that may be enlightening to those in the thick of present‐day trench warfare. He not only discusses some neglected figures but also changes our understanding of those with whom we are familiar, especially Hume. I begin by laying out the main themes of the book and its contents. I then discuss Harris' treatment of Hume in more detail. (shrink)

At the time of his death in 1982, at the age of forty-five, and after a short career of only fifteen years, Jan Pinborg had established himself as one of the most important historians of medieval philosophy of the past quarter of a century. His contributions, scattered in more than ninety publications, including books and articles, were primarily in the areas of logic, semantics, and linguistics. This volume is a fitting memorial to his achievements both because it reflects the areas (...) where Pinborg made contributions to the history of medieval philosophy and because the ten articles it contains illustrate the various historiographical genres to which Pinborg contributed: translations, editions, comprehensive historical accounts of the development of certain issues and concepts, general expositions of the overall philosophical doctrine of a particular author, specific studies of the positions of individual authors on a given problem, and detailed analytical discussions of pointed philosophical problems or texts. (shrink)

This book is available either individually, or as part of the specially-priced Arguments of the Philosphers Collection.

Limits to Action: The Allocation of Individual Behavior presents the ideas and methods in the study of how individual organisms allocate their limited time and energy and the consequences of such allocation. The book is a survey of individual resource allocation, emphasizing the relationships of the concepts of utility, reinforcement, and Darwinian fitness. The chapters are arranged beginning with plants and general evolutionary considerations, through animal behavior in nature and laboratory, and ending with human behavior in suburb and institution. Topics (...) discussed include operant conditioning; the principle of diminishing returns; and issues in relation to mating strategies. Biologists, sociologists, economists, and psychologists will find the book interesting. (shrink)

This study considers Newton's views on space and time with respect to some important ontologies of substance in his period. Specifically, it deals in a philosophico-historical manner with his conception of substance, attribute, existence, to actuality and necessity. I show how Newton links these “features” of things to his conception of God's existence with respect of infinite space and time. Moreover, I argue that his ontology of space and time cannot be understood without fully appreciating how it relates to the (...) nature of Divine existence. In order to establish this, the ontology embodied in Newton's theory of predication is analysed, and shown to be different from the presuppositions of the ontological argument. From the historical point of view Gassendi's influence is stressed, via the mediation of Walter Charleton. Furthermore, Newton's thought on these matters is contrasted with Descartes's and Spinoza's. In point of fact, in his earliest notebook Newton recorded observations on Descartes's version of the ontological argument. Soon, however, he was to oppose the Cartesian conception of the actuality of Divine existence by means of arguments similar to those of Gassendi. Lastly, I suggest that the nature and extent of Henry More's influence on Newton's conception of how God relates to absolute space and time bears further examination. (shrink)

Isaac Newton wrote the manuscript Questiones quaedam philosophicae at the very beginning of his scientific career. This small notebook thus affords rare insight into the beginnings of Newton's thought and the foundations of his subsequent intellectual development. The Questiones contains a series of entries in Newton's hand that range over many topics in science, philosophy, psychology, theology, and the foundations of mathematics. These notes, written in English, provide a very detailed picture of Newton's early interests, and record his critical appraisal (...) of contemporary issues in natural philosophy. Written predominantly in 1664-5, they give a significant perspective on Newton's thought just prior to his annus mirabilis, 1666. This volume provides a complete transcription of the Questiones, together with an 'expansion' into modern English, and a full editorial commentary on the content and significance of the notebook in the development of Newton's thought. It will be essential reading for all those interested in Newton and the intellectual foundations of science. (shrink)