A variety of semiotic resources makes the construction of scientific knowledge possible and meaning-making resources are conveyed by certain semiotic modes. Next, numerous studies have demonstrated the pedagogical importance of gestures in the demonstration of scientific knowledge in the classroom. Drawing on social semiotic systemic functional theory and legitimation code theory, this study explores the types and the role of gestures in the semiotic construction of scientific knowledge in pedagogic semiosis and their pedagogical values for the meaning-making of science content. (...) With this aim, a gesture observation protocol (GOP) is developed to annotate and analyze data. Two science lectures, which are broadcast remotely for middle school students including gifted students, are observed. Systemic Functional Multimodal Discourse Analysis (SF-MDA) method is employed to analyze and evaluate data. Results demonstrated that the deployment of gestures that contributes to the construction of scientific knowledge is low and deployed gestures mostly do not have pedagogical value. It is recommended that teachers should be more conscious and educated about deploying gestures to present scientific knowledge efficiently. (shrink)

We propose that the pragmatic factors that mediate everyday deduction, such as alternative and disabling conditions (e.g. Cummins et al., 1991) and additional requirements (Byrne, 1989) exert their effects on specific inferences because of their perceived relevance to more general principles, which we term SuperPs. Support for this proposal was found first in two causal inference experiments, in which it was shown that specific inferences were mediated by factors that are relevant to a more general principle, while the same inferences (...) were unaffected by factors not relevant to the general principle. These results were extended to deontic inferences in two further experiments. Taken together, these findings show that unstated superordinate principles play a significant role in certain types of reasoning. Questions raised by the findings for the main theoretical approaches are discussed. (shrink)

I argue that there is a version of (quasi-Armstrongian) weak illusionism that intelligibly relates phenomenal concepts and introspective opacity, accounts for the (hard) problem intuitions Chalmers highlights (modal, epistemic, explanatory, and metaphysical), and undermines the most important arguments Chalmers deploys against type-B and type-C materialisms. If this is successful, we can satisfactorily account for the meta-problem of consciousness, mollify our hard problem intuitions, and remain genuine realists about phenomenal experience.

Objective To study how doctors care for their patients, both medically and as fellow humans, through observing their conduct in patient–doctor encounters. Design Qualitative study in which 101 videotaped consultations were observed and analysed using a Grounded Theory approach, generating explanatory categories through a hermeneutical analysis of the taped consultations. Setting A 500-bed general teaching hospital in Norway. Participants 71 doctors working in clinical non-psychiatric departments and their patients. Results The doctors were concerned about their patients' health and how their (...) medical knowledge could be of service. This medical focus often over-rode other important aspects of the consultations, especially existential elements. The doctors actively directed the focus away from their patients' existential concerns onto medical facts and rarely addressed the personal aspects of a patient's condition, treating them in a biomechanical manner. At the same time, however, the doctors attended to their patients with courteousness, displaying a polite and friendly attitude and emphasising the relationship between them. Conclusions The study suggests that the main failing of patient–doctor encounters is not a lack of courteous manners, but the moral offence patients experience when existential concerns are ignored. Improving doctors' social and communication skills cannot resolve this moral problem, which appears to be intrinsically bound to modern medical practice. Acknowledging this moral offence would, however, be the first step towards minimising the effects thereof. (shrink)

Background: Theoretically, the principle of justice is strong in healthcare priorities both nationally and internationally. Research, however, has indicated that questions can be raised as to how this principle is dealt with in clinical intensive care. Objective: The objective of this article is to examine how significant others may affect the principle of justice in the medical treatment and nursing care of intensive care patients. Method: Field observations and in-depth interviews with physicians and nurses in intensive care units (ICU). Emphasis (...) was placed on eliciting the underlying rationale for prioritisations in clinical intensive care with particular focus on clinicians’ considerations when limiting ICU treatment. Results: Significant others could induce an unintentional discrimination of ICU patients. Family members who were demanding received more time and attention for both the patient and themselves. Patients’ and families’ status and position and/or an interesting medical diagnosis seemed to govern the clinicians’ priorities of patients and families—consciously as well as unconsciously. The clinicians emphasised that patient information given through families was important. However, patients’ preferences and values conveyed to clinicians through their families were not always taken seriously. This even applied in cases with very serious prognoses and an explicit patient wish to forego life-prolonging treatment. Conclusion: The principle of justice was violated when qualified attention was given to significant others, and through this also to patients. Attention given to significant others was influenced by the healthcare workers’ professional and personal values, attitudes and interests. (shrink)

Back in Ancient India, Shankaracharya postulated a philosophy which is now known as Advaita. According to Advaita philosophy, the ‘jivãtma’ (individual soul) and ‘Brahmãtma’ (universal soul) are one and the same and these are the only ‘real’ things that exist. Everything else is an illusion. To challenge this almost unshakeable viewpoint, I bring to the fore a book authored by a Nobel Laureate. In 1935, Alexis Carrel’s revolutionary book entitled “Man the Unknown” was published. Though controversial in terms of its (...) content, it delineates the unexplored aspects of the human being – the understanding of mental processes and consciousness, which he claims humans have not mastered. Throughout the book, Carrel suggests that there is something that is unknown in the homo sapiens and hence he titles his work “Man the Unknown.” Based on this, I argue that both the esoteric East and the pragmatic West have not uncovered something “hidden” –the unknown factor/element. Substantial evidence exists for this contention in the scientific community. For example, questions such as among identical twins diagnosed with depression, why does one medication cure depression for one twin and have no effect on the other twin? Ceteris paribus, why does therapy work for one client but not for another client with the same disorder? These questions do not have clear, crystallized answers. Perhaps, if such a thing like an unknown element exists, it would pave the way for the postulation of the Grand Theory of the behavioural sciences. (shrink)

This chapter introduces the edited volume, The Oxford Handbook of Philosophy and Psychiatry. Published in 2013, the centenary of Karl Jaspers' General Psychopathology, the chapter draws lessons from the last hundred years for the coming century. No predictions are made. Instead, five 'conditions for flourishing' are set out: 1) Particular Problems - the importance of focussing on well-defined particular problems rather than general theory building, 2) Product- orientation - remaining always responsibly product oriented in the specific sense that both sides (...) put in the work necessary to 'go deep' with each other's fields, 3) Partnership - working in partnerships of one kind or another, 4) Process - constant reflection on process based on peer review but leaving scope for the occasional rogue voice to cut innovatively against the grain, and 5) Q - a condition of a different kind, Q is an empirically derived measure of the balance between in-group cohesion and out-group openness required to support creativity. Illustrations are given of how these five conditions for flourishing have underpinned the rapid expansion of philosophy and psychiatry in the closing decades of the twentieth century, and, correspondingly, are also reflected in the Handbook as a whole. Overviews and commentaries on individual contributions to the Handbook are given in extended editorial introductions to each of its eight sections. (shrink)

This book provides a defence of epistemological relativism against its most powerful opponents.

Index to the Mahaniddesa. L. S. Cousins. Pali Text Society, Oxford 1995. £13. ISBN 0-86013-310-9.

This collection by a distinguished group of philosophers, psychologists, and physiologists reflects an interdisciplinary approach to the central question of cognitive science: how do we model the mind? Among the topics explored are the relationships (theoretical, reductive, and explanatory) between philosophy, psychology, computer science, and physiology; what should be asked of models in science generally, and in cognitive science in particular; whether theoretical models must make essential reference to objects in the environment; whether there are human competences that are resistant, (...) in principle, to modelling; whether simulated thinking and intentionality are really thinking and intentionality; how semantics can be generated from syntactics; the meaning of the terms "representations" and "modelling;" whether the nature of the "hardware" matters; and whether computer models of humans are "dehumanizing." Contributors include Donald Davidson, Daniel C. Dennett, Margaret A. Boden, Adam Morton, Dennis Noble, T. Poggio, Colin Blakemore, K.V. Wilkes, P.N. Johnson-Laird, and Jonathan St. B.T. Evans. (shrink)

The lepidopteral imaginary that animates Nabokov's relationship to translation can be understood in light of Deleuze and Guattari's notions of ‘apparatus of capture’ and ‘rhizomatic becomings’. On the one hand, Nabokov's scientific fascination with butterflies frames his radically literal approach to translation. The scientific dissection of texts and butterflies ‘captures’ an original and singular content as it flutters, reducing it to the homogenised content of a target source. On the other hand, in Speak, Memory's engagement with ‘multiple metamorphoses, familiar to (...) butterflies’, Nabokov as both literary artist and autobiographical personage becomes-butterfly with translation itself, entering into affective intensities with butterflies that include lepidopteral relations of movement and rest, speed and slowness. (shrink)

Journal of the Pali Text Society, Volume XXVI. Edited by O. von Hinüber and R.F. Gombrich. Pali Text Society, Oxford 2000. 234 pp. £15.00. ISBN 0 86013 391 5.

Linguistic Approach to Buddhist Thought. Genjun H. Sasaki. Motilal Banarsidass, Delhi 1986. x, 194 pp. Rs. 125.

The Casket of Medicine. Trans. Jinadasa Liyanaratne. Pali Text Society, Oxford 2002. xviii, 197 pp. £12.10. ISBN 0 86013 4003 2.

The History of the Buddha's Religion (Sasanavamsa). Translated by Bimala Churn Law, Bibliotheca Indo-Buddhica No. 29. Sri Satguru Publications, Delhi 1986. xvii, 174 pp. Rs 120.

The Mahasudarsanavadana and The Mahasudarsanasutra. Hisashi Matsumura. Bibliotheca Indo-Buddhica 47, Indian Books Centre, Delhi 1988. lvii, 142 pp. Rs.350.

Therigatha-atthakatha. W. Pruitt. Pali Text Society, Oxford 1998. vii, 414 pp. £17.00 ISBN 0 86013 352 5.

Philosophical Investigations, EarlyView.

Summary Some case studies in elementary particle physics are presented in this work, that can be used for the critical appraisal of specific criteria which were proposed to account for the development of Heisenberg's work. It is attempted to define the philosophical problems associated with and emerging from the structures of theories, rather than analyse the philosophical aspects of concepts used in elementary particle physics. This necessitates the discussion of the relationship between theory and experiment, and the role of the (...) mathematical framework being used. The question of elementarity is studied in this connection. Popper's tetradic schema and his concept of world three are modified, and it is shown that the new schema can accommodate the development of certain research programs in a much more satisfactory manner. As a result of the systematic treatment of specific research programs, the principle of contextual re-interpretation is expanded by specifying the different kinds of interpretations at the various stages of development of theories. It is also shown that principles such as those of simplicity and beauty can be understood in terms of the mathematical structure of the theories, and their methodological importance is emphasized. (shrink)