Sartre’s Critique of Dialectical Reason ranks with Being and Nothingness as a work of major philosophical significance, but it has been largely neglected. The first volume, published in 1960, was dismissed as a Marxist work at a time when structuralism was coming into vogue; the incomplete second volume has only recently been published in France. In this commentary on the first volume, Joseph S. Catalano restores the Critique to its deserved place among Sartre’s works and within philosophical discourse as (...) a whole. Sartre attempts one of the most needed tasks of our times, Catalano asserts—the delivery of history into the hands of the average person. Sartre’s concern in the Critique is with the historical significance of everyday life. Can we, he asks, as individuals or even collectively, direct the course of our history? A historical context for our lives is given to us at birth, but we sustain that context with even our most mundane actions—buying a newspaper, waiting in line, eating a meal. In looking at history, Sartre argues, reason can never separate the historical situation of the investigator from the investigation. Thus reason falls into a dialectic, always depending upon the past for guidance but always being reshaped by the present. Clearly showing the influence of Marx on Sartre’s thought, the Critique adds the historical dimension lacking in Being and Nothingness. In placing the Critique within the corpus of Sartre’s philosophical writings, Catalano argues that it represents a development rather than a break from Sartre’s existentialist phase. Catalano has organized his commentary to follow the Critique and has supplied clear examples and concrete expositions of the most difficult ideas. He explicates the dialogue between Marx and Sartre that is internal to the text, and he also discusses Sartre’s Search for Method, which is published separately from the Critique in English editions. (shrink)

It is time for a new paper about open questions in the currently very active area of randomness and computability. Ambos-Spies and Kučera presented such a paper in 1999 [1]. All the question in it have been solved, except for one: is KL-randomness different from Martin-Löf randomness? This question is discussed in Section 6.Not all the questions are necessarily hard—some simply have not been tried seriously. When we think a question is a major one, and therefore likely to be hard, (...) we indicate this by the symbol ▶, the criterion being that it is of considerable interest and has been tried by a number of researchers. Some questions are close contenders here; these are marked by ▷. With few exceptions, the questions are precise. They mostly have a yes/no answer. However, there are often more general questions of an intuitive or even philosophical nature behind. We give an outline, indicating the more general questions.All sets will be sets of natural numbers, unless otherwise stated. These sets are identified with infinite strings over {0, 1}. Other terms used in the literature are sequence and real. (shrink)

We examine the Dual Ramsey Theorem and two related combinatorial principles VW(k,l) and OVW(k,l) from the perspectives of reverse mathematics and effective mathematics. We give a statement of the Dual Ramsey Theorem for open colorings in second order arithmetic and formalize work of Carlson and Simpson [1] to show that this statement implies ACA 0 over RCA 0 . We show that neither VW(2,2) nor OVW(2,2) is provable in WKL 0 . These results give partial answers to questions posed by (...) Friedman and Simpson [3]. (shrink)

ObjectivesTo compare changes in the number and amount of payments received by orthopedic and non-orthopedic surgeons from industry between 2014 and 2017.MethodsUsing the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) Open Payment database from 2014 to 2017, we conducted a retrospective cohort study of industry payments to surgeons, including general payments and research payments.ResultsAmong orthopedic surgeons, the total number of general payments decreased from 248,698 in 2014 to 241,966 in 2017, but their total value increased from $97.1 million in 2014 (...) to $110.2 million in 2017. Among non-orthopedic surgeons, the total number decreased from 604,884 in 2014 to 582,490 in 2017, while the total value remained stable at approximately $159 million. Between 2014 and 2017, there was a differential increase in the median number of general payments received by non-orthopedic when compared to orthopedic surgeons (incidence rate ratio, 1.09; 95% CI, 1.08–1.09; p < 0.001), but a differential decline in the median value of general payments (− 8.9%; 95% CI, − 9.5%, − 8.4%; p < 0.001). Findings were consistent when stratified by nature of payment. In contrast, between 2014 and 2017, there was neither a differential change in the median number nor median value of research payments received by non-orthopedics.ConclusionExamination of a natural experiment of prior public disclosure of payments to orthopedic surgeons suggests that the Physician Payment Sunshine Act was associated with an increase in the number, but a decline in the value, of general payments received by non-orthopedic surgeons, but not on research payments received. (shrink)

Previous studies of H. Richard Niebuhr's intellectual background have fallen into two groups: those that stress the German and especially Kantian sources of Niebuhr's thought, and those that emphasize the American and especially pragmatic sources of his thought.

The rapidly changing field of genetics affects society through advances in health-care and through implications of genetic research. This study addresses the impacts of new genetic discoveries and technologies on different segments of today's society. The book begins with a chapter on genetic complexity, and subsequent chapters discuss moral and ethical questions arising from today's genetics from the perspectives of health care professionals, the media, the general public, special interest groups and commercial interests.

It is hard to think of two philosophers less alike than St. Thomas Aquinas and Jean-Paul Sartre. Aquinas, a thirteenth-century Dominican friar, and Sartre, a twentieth-century philosopher and atheist, are separated by both time and religious beliefs. Yet, for philosopher Joseph S. Catalano, the two are worth bringing together for their shared concern with a fundamental issue: the uniqueness of each individual person and how this uniqueness relates to our mutual dependence on each other. When viewed in the context (...) of one another, Sartre broadens and deepens Aquinas’s outlook, updating it for our present planetary and social needs. Both thinkers, as Catalano shows, bring us closer to the reality that surrounds us, and both are centrally concerned with the place of the human within a temporal realm and what stance we should take on our own freedom to act and live within that realm. Catalano shows how freedom, for Sartre, is embodied, and that this freedom further illuminates Aquinas’s notion of consciousness. ​ Compact and open to readers of varying backgrounds, this book represents Catalano’s efforts to bring a lifetime of work on Sartre into an accessible consideration of philosophical questions by placing him in conversation with Aquinas, and it serves as a primer on key ideas of both philosophers. By bringing together these two figures, Catalano offers a fruitful space for thinking through some of the central questions about faith, conscience, freedom, and the meaning of life. (shrink)

BackgroundAlthough the peer review process is believed to ensure scientific rigor, enhance research quality, and improve manuscript clarity, many investigators are concerned that the process is too slow, too expensive, too unreliable, and too static. In this feasibility study, we sought to survey corresponding authors of recently published clinical research studies on the speed and efficiency of the publication process.MethodsWeb-based survey of corresponding authors of a 20% random sample of clinical research studies in MEDLINE-indexed journals with Ovid MEDLINE entry dates (...) between December 1 and 15, 2016. Survey addressed perceived manuscript importance before first submission, approximate first submission and final acceptance dates, and total number of journal submissions, external peer reviews, external peer reviewers, and revisions requested, as well as whether authors would have considered publicly sharing their manuscript on an online platform instead of submitting to a peer-reviewed journal.ResultsOf 1780 surveys distributed, 27 corresponding authors opted out or requested that we stop emailing them and 149 emails failed (e.g., emails that bounced n = 64, returned with an away from office message n = 70, or were changed/incorrect n = 15), leaving 1604 respondents, of which 337 completed the survey (21.0%). Respondents and non-respondents were similar with respect to study type and publication journals’ impact factor, although non-respondent authors had more publications (p = 0.03). Among respondents, the median impact factor of the publications’ journal was 2.7 (interquartile range (IQR), 2.0–3.6) and corresponding authors’ median h-index and number of publications was 9 (IQR, 3–20) and 27 (IQR, 10–77), respectively. The median time from first submission to journal acceptance and publication was 5 months (IQR, 3–8) and 7 months (IQR, 5–12), respectively. Most respondents (62.0%, n = 209) rated the importance of their research as a 4 or 5 (5-point scale) prior to submission. Median number of journal submissions was 1 (IQR, 1–2), external peer reviews was 1 (IQR, 1–2), external peer reviewers was 3 (IQR, 2–4), and revisions requested was 1 (IQR, 1–1). Sharing manuscripts to a public online platform, instead of submitting to a peer-reviewed journal, would have been considered by 55.2% (n = 186) of respondents.ConclusionCorresponding authors have high perceptions of their research and reported requiring few manuscript submissions prior to journal acceptance, most commonly by lower impact factor journals. (shrink)

Argues that the mathematical structure of a tempting or, more generally, risk-taking situation may prove far more dispositive of the choice made than either character or the lure/pull of the subject/object of temptation/risk-taking. -/- Briefly discusses some implications of this.

This journal has frequently taken the position that /consent/, or at least /informed consent/, is all that from a secular viewpoint is necessary for an activity to be ethical. We argue to the contrary, that /consent/ is and /only/ is a /political/ criterion for determining /criminality/—even for a libertarian. Consensual behavior can be /unethical/—although it should not be criminalized—if the consent will never be truly revocable in the future of if such revocability is severely compromised. We give three examples, one (...) from common experience, and two from the areas normally covered in this journal. -/- Note: I was asked my the senior chief editor to limit categories to five, and have never exceeded (below) six, with one exception which has seven; proper fine-grained categorization of this piece would exceed ten categories, so I have done my best with five. (shrink)

Chow's defense of the null-hypothesis significance- test procedure is thoughtful and compelling in many respects. Nevertheless, techniques such as meta-analysis, power analysis, effect size estimation, and confidence intervals can be useful supplements to NHSTP in furthering the cumulative nature of behavioral research, as illustrated by the history of research on the spontaneous recovery of verbal learning.

In dynamic epistemic logic and other fields, it is natural to consider relativization as an operator taking sentences to sentences. When using the ideas and methods of dynamic logic, one would like to iterate operators. This leads to iterated relativization. We are also concerned with the transitive closure operation, due to its connection to common knowledge. We show that for three fragments of the logic of iterated relativization and transitive closure, the satisfiability problems are fi1 11–complete. Two of these fragments (...) do not include transitive closure. We also show that the question of whether a sentence in these fragments has a finite (tree) model is fi0 01–complete. These results go via reduction to problems concerning domino systems. (shrink)

As a consequence of the problems caused by genetic discrimination, federal and state law makers are being pressured to pass a legislative remedy. A primary question is whether the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 applies to individuals with a potentially disabling genetic disorder who are pre-symptomatic or asymptomatic and may never become ill and to healthy individuals who are carriers of genetic conditions. At present, this question has relevance principally for individuals with the genotype for single gene disorders, like (...) Huntington disease and hemochromatosis, and to asymptomatic carriers of single gene disorders such as cystic fibrosis. Although many such single gene conditions exist, the total incidence of these conditions in the U.S. population is less than 0.4 percent. However, the question concerning the applicability of the ADA will become increasingly important because genetic tests will almost certainly be developed in the near future for common multifactorial diseases like diabetes, heart disease, and certain forms of cancer. (shrink)

Article interrelating /de facto/ bribery, public corruption, the disconnect between private life and public life, the disconnect between logic, on the one hand, and politics and ethics, on the other, and the four rationales for the exclusionary rules (in law), using New York City as a case study.

Considers the question of the authorship of the works in the title from a /philosophical/, as opposed to legal, standpoint, using the sense-reference dichotomy, intension-extension dichotomy, and procedural knowledge-declarative knowledge dichotomy. Reaches no conclusion.

A version of nonstandard analysis, Internal Set Theory, has been used to provide a resolution of Zeno's paradoxes of motion. This resolution is inadequate because the application of Internal Set Theory to the paradoxes requires a model of the world that is not in accordance with either experience or intuition. A model of standard mathematics in which the ordinary real numbers are defined in terms of rational intervals does provide a formalism for understanding the paradoxes. This model suggests that in (...) discussing motion, only intervals, rather than instants, of time are meaningful. The approach presented here reconciles resolutions of the paradoxes based on considering a finite number of acts with those based on analysis of the full infinite set Zeno seems to require. The paper concludes with a brief discussion of the classical and quantum mechanics of performing an infinite number of acts in a finite time. (shrink)

The main purpose of this paper is to bring out some significant humanistic characteristics of Chinese religious thought. My account is limited to what is originally and typically Chinese. That is to say, it will exclude what has been influenced by Buddhism from India or Christianity from the Western world. Some of the theses of this paper are based on scholarly works, while others are drawn from the author's primary experience.

See the abstract for the "Abstracts from Logical Form II".

The first issue of Ethics & International Affairs was published in 1987, when the Cold War still dominated international affairs. It was appropriate at that time to launch the journal with an issue devoted in part to the theme "superpower ethics." In his introduction to the topic Nye argues that the challenge of establishing an ethics for the United States and the Soviet Union is not met by any traditional Western system. Aristotle's "virtue," Kant's "good intent," and the "good result" (...) of the consequentialists are inadequate to the task of determining right on the superpower playing field. In reference to this insufficiency, Nye sketches the arguments of the subsequent articles by Mazrui, Hassner, and Hoffman, each of whom offers an instructive picture of the state of superpower ethics. (shrink)