The theory of subjective probability and utility recently proposed by professor richard jeffrey has several unique features and appears to be in some ways distinctly more satisfactory than earlier theories. There is, However, One very important class of decision problems which is not discussed by professor jeffrey--Problems concerned with decisions about strategies for using information. The principal task of this paper is to point out some questions which arise in attempting to deal with these decision problems within jeffrey's theory. To (...) do this it will be necessary to examine in some detail jeffrey's discussion of the relation between his theory and those of ramsey and savage. (shrink)

Recent stories of corporate insiders avoiding losses and, in some cases, generating enormous personal profits as their companies crumbled have led investors to question the integrity of American business and the fairness of the United States stock markets. The SEC tries to ensure the fairness of the stock markets by making and enforcing laws against unfair practices such as insider trading. In the United States, when insiders trade stock based on non-public information, they have broken the law and betrayed the (...) trust that has been placed in them.This study used student subjects to test the relationship between the likelihood of trading based on insider information and subjective probabilities of deterrents and motivations for insider trading. Expected gain, guilt, cynicism, and fairness of laws were the determinants that had a significant relationship with the intent to trade based on insider information. This study also found support for prospect theory with regard to insider trading. The results indicate that subjects are more likely to trade based on insider information to avoid a loss than to achieve an abnormal gain. The study also finds evidence of social desirability response bias. (shrink)

A major theme in biological research is the quest for mechanism, embodied in explanatory reductionism: the interpretation of phenomena through links to the entities and laws of more fundamental sciences. For example, the form of Starling's Law of the Heart, relating contractile force to heart volume, follows from the sliding-filament hypothesis of muscle contraction, a molecular concept. Although alternative mechanisms for muscle contraction and cardiac regulation could be deduced from biochemical principles, the formulation provides clear correspondence with the phenomena and (...) a deeper understanding of cardiac function. Moreover, even if the reduction provides no better formulation of the phenomenon, of the macro-regularity, it is still prized as a nearer approach to physical reality, as a step toward realizing fundamental unities and codifying general principles, and as a door to new experimental opportunities. (shrink)

As in other societies, medical professionalism in the Peoples’ Republic of China has been rapidly evolving. One of the major events in this process was the endorsement in 2005 of the document, “Medical Professionalism in the New Millennium: A Physician Charter,” by the Chinese Medical Doctor Association (hereafter, the Charter). More recently, a national survey, the first on such a large scale, was conducted on Chinese physicians’ attitudes toward the fundamental principles and core commitments put forward in the Charter. Based (...) on empirical findings from that study and comparing them to the published results of a similar American survey, the authors offer an in-depth interpretation of significant cross-cultural differences and important transcultural commonalities. The broader historical, socio-economic, and ethical issues relating to salient Chinese cultural practices such as family consent, familism (the custom of deferring decisions to family members), and the withholding of medical information, as well as controversial topics such as not respecting patients’ autonomy, are examined. The Chinese Survey found that Chinese physicians supported the principles of the Charter in general. Here we argue that Chinese culture and traditional medical ethics are broadly compatible with the moral commitments demanded by modern medical professionalism. Methodologically and theoretically—recognizing the problems inherent in the hoary but still popular habit of dichotomizing cultures and in relativism—a transcultural approach is adopted that gives greater (due) weight to the internal moral diversity present within every culture, the common ground shared by different cultures, and the primacy of morality. Genuine crosscultural dialogue, including a constructive Chinese-American dialogue in the area of medical professionalism, is not only possible, but necessary. (shrink)

Solid state physics, the study of the physical properties of solid matter, was the most populous subfield of Cold War American physics. Despite prolific contributions to consumer and medical technology, such as the transistor and magnetic resonance imaging, it garnered less professional prestige and public attention than nuclear and particle physics. Solid State Insurrection argues that solid state physics was essential to securing the vast social, political, and financial capital Cold War physics enjoyed in the twentieth century. Solid state’s technological (...) bent, and its challenge to the “pure science” ideal many physicists cherished, helped physics as a whole respond more readily to Cold War social, political, and economic pressures. Its research kept physics economically and technologically relevant, sustaining its cultural standing and policy influence long after the sheen of the Manhattan Project had faded. (shrink)

The industrial border region between Mexico and the USA is notorious for its physical, social and moral squalor. But is it entirely a matter of total exploitation or is the answer to the title’s question more complex than a simple yes? The author is completing his MBA degree at London Business School, is an American citizen and has a background as a consultant in information technology.

If a transformation in medicine occurs in the wake of the Human Genome Project, its likely focus will be prevention, a logical extension of the lessons of variation and individuality inherent in molecular genetics. The transformation of medicine will require a transformation in genetics education as well, focusing on the development of genetic literacy that allows patient and provider to collaborate as partners in health promotion and disease prevention. The components of genetic literacy include new views of genetics and of (...) disease, and attention to the nature of science, the principles of technology, and ethical, legal, and social implications of genetic medicine. (shrink)

Philosophy of science may indeed perform a valuable normative function through historical analyses of characteristic errors, as Bechtel argues. But considerations of the two types of errors elected for this role, and harder looks at some of the historical examples prosecuted for these errors, disclose few helpful hints beyond the wisdom provided in Chapter I of freshman science texts coupled to a clear view of the future. To avoid churlishly spurning at first glance this offer of assistance, however, let us (...) look in turn at the two candidates with their supporting examples. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:The Death of Osiris in Aeneid 12.458Joseph D. ReedAs aeneas ranges the battlefield in search of Turnus and the Aeneid storms toward its close, an odd note sounds. A Trojan named Thymbraeus slays a Rutulian named Osiris. Neither is mentioned before or again. Even when one considers the diversity in this poem of names of Italian warriors, which Virgil takes not just from Italian traditions but from all over (...) the Mediterranean world,1 Osiris is surprising. Why does the name of an Egyptian god intrude into a primeval scene of Roman origins? The reader cannot ignore this provocation, especially on recollecting the rich patterns of meaning that such a contemporary of Virgil as Tibullus works into his elegy on Messalla’s birthday through an invocation of Osiris.2 So unexpected is the name that Bergk emended Osirim to Osinim, recalling the Italian king Osinius mentioned at 10.655.3 But emendation is misguided: as this paper will argue, the suggestiveness of the name is satisfied on the levels of history, ideology, religion, and literary influence, all major domains of Virgil’s epic. And the slaying of Osiris by Thymbraeus can be shown to emblematize both the whole mission of Aeneas and the achievement of Augustus.Aeneas, cured of the wound on his thigh, arms himself and, with some final words of instruction to his son, goes into battle seeking Turnus. In a memorable simile, he is compared to a storm that brings horror to farmers and ruin to their crops. His example rouses his fellow Trojans against the Italians: ferit ense gravem Thymbraeus Osirim, Arcetium Mnestheus, Epulonem obtruncat Achates Ufentemque Gyas; cadit ipse Tolumnius augur, primus in adversos telum qui torserat hostis.(12.458–61)[End Page 399]With his sword Thymbraeus smites the gravem Osiris. The adjective is equivalent to fortis, according to Servius Auctus; Forbiger prefers a denotation of towering size, comparing gravis as epithet of the boxer Entellus at 5.437 and 447.4 “Massive” might capture the sense in English. The effect here is to highlight Thymbraeus’ prowess. Like Osiris, two of the other Italian victims, Arcetius and Epulo, are unknown except for this passage. (The important Ufens received six lines at 7.744–49, in the catalogue of Latin allies,5 and Tolumnius, as line 461 reminds us, began this phase of the battle at 12.257–67.)6 But both their names etiologize some ancestral Italic or Roman institution: Epulo suggests a prototype of the college of epulones, priests of Jupiter Epulo;7 Arcetius invites a connection with the Italian gens Arquitia.8 In this they are like their enemy Mnestheus, supposed eponym of the gens Memmia (5.117). Osiris stands alone among his compatriots in his nomenclatural irrelevance to anything Roman. But Thymbraeus shares the isolation of his victim: he is the only one of the Trojans here who is mentioned nowhere else; not only that, but Mnestheus, Achates, and Gyas are indeed famous, leaders of the Trojans throughout the poem, receiving notice during the introductory storm scene in book 1, the departure from Carthage in book 4, the games in honor of Anchises in book 5, and elsewhere. The catalogue here is introduced by a pair of unknown warriors.The two belong together and give each other meaning. If the name of Osiris applied to a follower of Turnus reduces the critic to perplexity and silence, we can approach its significance through that of the name of Thymbraeus, which has obvious relevance to the whole drift of the epic. Thymbraeus reprises a Thymbraeus killed by Diomedes in Iliad 11.320–21, also mentioned only once. Virgil has revived the obscure Trojan, as it were, to permit him the victory at last; the fact that each Thymbraeus is hapax legomenos in his epic reinforces the reference, especially for such learned readers as Virgil himself was and expected in [End Page 400] his audience.9 The name itself, “the Thymbraean man,” comes from the town Thymbra near Troy (first attested in Il. 10.430),10 and so unmistakably marks the first warrior in Virgil’s catalogue as a representative survivor of the fallen city. In fact, the mythological tradition preserves... (shrink)

Gilbert and Mulkay, in their paper ‘Experiments Are the Key’, present responses of scientists to questions about the development of the chemiosmotic hypothesis of energy coupling in oxidative and photophosphorylation, and infer from these responses both the meaninglessness of the concept ‘key experiment’ and the hopelessness of searching for any data as a bedrock for historical analysis. Gilbert and Mulkay's nihilism is, however, rooted in a lack of understanding of the specific scientific issues involved. A closer look at a proposed (...) ‘key experiment’ shows certain obvious characteristics that could be criteria for a ‘key experiment’ moreover, the actual scientific response to that experiment demonstrates its pivotal role in the development of the field. Instead of demonstrating the lack of empirical bases for scientific judgment, Gilbert and Mulkay demonstrate the necessity for identifying the crucial issues and pursuing them, in questioning the scientists as well as in examining other sources. (shrink)

This paper is a review of 39 years of SIGCAS publications in Computers and Society, the newsletter of ACM SIGCAS. The publication is archived in the ACM Digital Library [12]. I set out to examine SIGCAS through its publications.

Recent years have witnessed the publication of numerous articles that draw a critical alignment between ethics and caring. In essence, this theme suggests that caring is a moral pursuit centred on the beneficent attention of one person shown to another. Yet, if such language is to have real poignancy, it must be geared towards an inclusive agenda that meets the needs of all within the community. Research evidence suggests that this is not always the case, especially in terms of the (...) care offered to members of minority ethnic groups. This article will focus on the findings of a qualitative research study that explored the expectations and perceived experiences of nursing care among members of the Pakistani community in Bradford, West Yorkshire, UK. The findings suggest that nurses should develop a more informed narrative that readily reflects the needs of the Pakistani community. (shrink)

This article develops a sociological reading of Walter Benjamin’s ‘Arcades Project’, or Passagen-werk . Specifically, the essay seeks to make explicit Benjamin’s non-dualistic account of structure and agency in the urban milieu. I characterize this account as the ‘dialectic of urbanism’, and argue that one of the central insights of Benjamin’s Passagen-werk is that it locates an emergent and innovative cultural form - a distinctive ‘street culture’ or jointly shared way of modern urban life - within haussmannizing techniques of architectural (...) administration and spatial domination. In the modern metropolis, Benjamin sees a new kind of collective - an embedded and effervescent sociocultural group held together not by the functionalist imperatives of capitalist urban planning but by an improvisational mode of street life. Key Words: agency • culture • embeddedness • structure • urbanism. (shrink)

When the late Heinz Kohut defined psychoanalysis as the science of empathy and introspection, he sparked a debate that has animated psychoanalytic discourse ever since. What is the relationship of empathy to psychoanalysis? Is it a constituent of analytical technique, an integral aspect of the therapeutic action of analysis, or simply a metaphor for a mode of observation better understood via ‘classical’ theory and terminology? The dialogue about empathy, which is really a dialogue about the nature of the analytic process, (...) continues in this two-volume set, originally published in 1984. In Volume I, several illuminating attempts to define empathy are followed by Kohut’s essay, ‘Introspection, Empathy, and the Semicircle of Mental Health.’ Kohut’s paper, in turn, ushers in a series of original contributions on ‘Empathy as a Perspective in Psychoanalysis.’ The volume ends with five papers which strive to demarcate an empathic approach to various areas of artistic endeavour, including the appreciation of visual art. Volume II continues the dialogue with a series of developmental studies which explore the role of empathy in early child care at the same time as they chart the emergence of the young child’s capacity to empathize. In the concluding section, ‘Empathy in Psychoanalytic Work,’ contributors and discussants return to the arena of technique. They not only theorize about empathy in relation to analytic understanding and communication, but address issues of nosology, considering how the empathic vantage point may be utilized in the treatment of patients with borderline and schizophrenic pathology. In their critical attention to the many dimensions of empathy – philosophical, developmental, therapeutic, artistic – the contributors collectively bear witness to the fact that Kohut has helped to shape new questions, but not set limits to the search for answers. The product of their efforts is an anatomical exploration of a topic whose relevance for psychoanalysis and psychotherapy is only beginning to be understood. (shrink)

In this response to Paul Gaffney’s “The Nature and Meaning of Teamwork,” I draw on recent work in analytic social philosophy to provide a more robust vocabulary for understanding teamwork as a distinctly social fact. I argue that teamwork entails complex reflexive social cooperation aimed at achieving shared excellence within constraints of various kinds.

The Eroticization of Distance engages with the theme of eroticism in Blanchot’s writings, and uncovers the nature of Nietzsche’s influence upon Blanchot’s writings of the 1940s and early 1950s.

This paper explores the process by which new technologies supplant or constrain cultural scaffolding processes and the consequences thereof. As elaborated by William Wimsatt and James Griesemer, cultural scaffolds support the acquisition of new capabilities by individuals or organizations. When technologies displace scaffolds, those who previously acquired capabilities from them come to rely upon the new technologies to complete tasks they could once accomplish on their own. Therefore, the would-be beneficiaries of those scaffolds are deprived of the agency to exercise (...) the capabilities the scaffolds supported. Evaluating how technologies displace cultural scaffolds can ground philosophical assessments of the cultural value of technologies. (shrink)

Why do similar scientific enterprises garner unequal public approbation? High energy physics attracted considerable attention in the late-twentieth-century United States, whereas condensed matter physics – which occupied the greater proportion of US physicists – remained little known to the public, despite its relevance to ubiquitous consumer technologies. This paper supplements existing accounts of this much remarked-upon prestige asymmetry by showing that popular emphasis on the mundane technological offshoots of condensed matter physics and its focus on human-scale phenomena have rendered it (...) more recondite than its better-known sibling field. News reports about high energy physics emphasize intellectual achievement; reporting on condensed matter physics focuses on technology. And whereas frontier-oriented rhetoric of high energy physics communicates ideals of human potential, discoveries that smack of the mundane highlight human limitations and fail to resonate with the widespread aspirational vision of science – a consequence I call “the purloined letter effect.”. (shrink)

This article is an analysis of Anthony Giddens' attempt to articulate a globalization-friendly alternative to traditional social democracy (the `old' Left) and neo-liberal market fundamentalism (the `new' Right). Specifically, I focus on Giddens' insistence that globalization is not merely an economic phenomenon but also, and more profoundly, a political and cultural force of `time-space distanciation'. Whereas Giddens conceives of a direct causal connection between the disembedding forces of globalization and outcomes of democratization, I argue that such a conception is deeply (...) flawed. Indeed, rather than develop a politically useful explanatory social theory of the complex relationship between globalization and democracy, Giddens' `third way' theorizing merely hypostatizes the former by invoking it as a cause of the latter. I provide a series of arguments designed to highlight the weaknesses of Giddens' position, and conclude by questioning the general thesis that underlies Giddens' account of globalization. (shrink)

In psychoanalysis, enlivenment is seen as residing in a sense of self, and this sense of self is drawn from and shaped by lived experience. _Enlivening the Self: The First Year, Clinical Enrichment, and the Wandering Mind _describes the vitalizing and enrichment of self-experience throughout the life cycle and shows how active experience draws on many fundamental functional capacities, and these capacities come together in support of systems of motivation; that is, organized dynamic grouping of affects, intentions, and goals. The (...) book is divided into three essays: Infancy – _Joseph Lichtenberg_ presents extensive reviews of observation and research on the first year of life. Based on these reviews, he delineates twelve foundational qualities and capacities of the self as a doer doing, initiating and responding, activating and taking in. Exploratory therapy – _James L. Fosshage _looks where therapeutic change is entwined with development. There are many sources illustrated for enhancing the sense of self, and _Frank M. Lachmann _pays particular attention to humor and to the role that the twelve qualities and capacities play in the therapeutic process. The wandering mind – _Frank M. Lachmann _covers the neuroscience and observation that "mind wandering" is related to the immediacy of the sense of self linking now with past and future. Throughout the book the authors’ arguments are illustrated with rich clinical vignettes and suggestions for clinical practice. This title will be a must for psychoanalysts, including trainees in psychoanalysis, psychiatry residents and candidates at psychoanalytic institutes and also graduate students in clinical and counselling psychology programs. (shrink)

Body-politic metaphors served historically as figurative vehicles to transmit assorted socio-political messages. Through an examination of the metaphors la mollesse and Adam Smith’s impartial spectator, this article will show that the language of eighteenth-century French and British writers was not simply heuristic or metaphorical. Contemporaries reacted to the growth of commerce and luxury, and the concomitant creation of new public spaces and forms of social interaction, by arguing that the corporeal mediated the social. I want to introduce the concept of (...) corporeal sociability: cognitive physiology and the network of the senses, contemporaries argued, contained the information necessary to assess novel forms of commerce and revealed that sociability was congenitally embodied. (shrink)

Placed in a historical context, sexuality was once so prominent in psychoanalytic writing that sexual drive and psychoanalysis were synonymous. The exciting discovery of childhood sexuality filled the literature. Then other discoveries came to the fore until sexuality slipped far in the background. This book evokes the excitement of the original discoveries of childhood sexual experience while linking childhood sensuality and sexuality to adult attachment, romantic, and lustful love. This revised perspective offers the general reader insight into contemporary psychoanalytic thought, (...) and presents clinicians with a perspective for exploring their patients sensuality and sexuality with renewed interest and knowledge. (shrink)