Adaptive management is commonly identified as a way to address situations where ecological and social uncertainty exists. Two discourses are common: a focus on experimentation, and a focus on collaboration. The roles of experimental and collaborative adaptive management in contemporary practice are reviewed to identify tools for bridging the discourses. Examples include broadening the scope of contributions during the buy-in and goal-setting stages, using conceptual models and decision support tools to include stakeholders in model development, experimentation using indicators of concern (...) to stakeholders, an experimental focus that reflects the level of statistical confidence required by management, and the engagement of stakeholders in data interpretation so that those affected by management outcomes can learn and adapt accordingly. In this context, a framework of questions that managers can use to reflect on both ecological and social uncertainties as they relate to individual management contexts is proposed. (shrink)

Kenneth F. Schaffner compares the practice of biological and medical research and shows how traditional topics in philosophy of science—such as the nature of theories and of explanation—can illuminate the life sciences. While Schaffner pays some attention to the conceptual questions of evolutionary biology, his chief focus is on the examples that immunology, human genetics, neuroscience, and internal medicine provide for examinations of the way scientists develop, examine, test, and apply theories. Although traditional philosophy of science has regarded scientific (...) discovery—the questions of creativity in science—as a subject for psychological rather than philosophical study, Schaffner argues that recent work in cognitive science and artificial intelligence enables researchers to rationally analyze the nature of discovery. As a philosopher of science who holds an M.D., he has examined biomedical work from the inside and uses detailed examples from the entire range of the life sciences to support the semantic approach to scientific theories, addressing whether there are "laws" in the life sciences as there are in the physical sciences. Schaffner's novel use of philosophical tools to deal with scientific research in all of its complexity provides a distinctive angle on basic questions of scientific evaluation and explanation. (shrink)

Caenorhabditis elegans is a tiny worm that has become the focus of a large number of worldwide research projects examining its genetics, development, neuroscience, and behavior. Recently several groups of investigators have begun to tie together the behavior of the organism and the underlying genes, neural circuits, and molecular processes implemented in those circuits. Behavior is quintessentially organismal—it is the organism as a whole that moves and mates—but the explanations are devised at the molecular and neurocircuit levels, and tested in (...) populations using protocols that span many levels of aggregation. Following a brief review of the main relevant features of C. elegans, I describe some of these circuits, and then discuss two contrasting approaches in behavioral genetics and neural network analysis of the worm. Finally, I outline the rudiments of a “field and focus” explanation model using the two contrasting approaches. (shrink)

Early last year, the GenEthics Consortium (GEC) of the Washington Metropolitan Area convened at George Washington University to consider a complex case about genetic testing for Alzheimer disease (AD). The GEC consists of scientists, bioethicists, lawyers, genetic counselors, and consumers from a variety of institutions and affiliations. Four of the 8 co-authors of this paper delivered presentations on the case. Supplemented by additional ethical and legal observations, these presentations form the basis for the following discussion.

The articles collected in this special issue were originally presented at two workshops entitled "Ethical Issues of Animal Research" sponsored by Georgetown University's Kennedy Institute of Ethics and Indiana University's Poynter Center for the Study of Ethics and American Institution. Some of the most prominent and influential thinkers in the field present their diverse views.

Advanced biopreservation technologies using subzero approaches such as supercooling, partial freezing, and vitrification with reanimating techniques including nanoparticle infusion and laser rewarming are rapidly emerging as technologies with potential to radically disrupt biomedicine, research, aquaculture, and conservation. These technologies could pause biological time and facilitate large-scale banking of biomedical products including organs, tissues, and cell therapies.

In this study, we investigate the use of narrative in online conversations among persons suffering from chronic opiate addiction and evaluate both its positive and negative uses. Illness narratives, as argued by sociologist Arthur Frank and psychiatrist/medical anthropologist Arthur Kleinman, enable patients to give order to life experiences and receive support from others. We wished to explore under what circumstances online support coalesces and breaks apart. The narratives we examined exemplify two topics frequently discussed on the message board: the recovery (...) process and what it means to be ‘clean’. To better understand these narratives from a theoretically based approach, we used the work of rhetorical theorist Kenneth Burke. Burke's description of two human motives, suffering and perfection, led us to an understanding of how unification and division happened within the online community. We found that the recovery narrative primarily embodied the author's suffering and, consequently, received support from other members of the message board. The second narrative centered on what it means to be ‘clean’ through a discussion of the author's desire to court temptation, revealing what Burke calls the rotten nature of perfection. As a result, the author of the narrative provoked disagreements and did not receive support. (shrink)

This multidisciplinary collection explores three key concepts underpinning psychiatry -- explanation, phenomenology, and nosology -- and their continuing relevance in an age of neuroimaging and genetic analysis. An introduction by Kenneth S. Kendler lays out the philosophical grounding of psychiatric practice. The first section addresses the concept of explanation, from the difficulties in describing complex behavior to the categorization of psychological and biological causality. In the second section, contributors discuss experience, including the complex and vexing issue of how self-agency (...) and free will affect mental health. The third and final section examines the organizational difficulties in psychiatric nosology and the instability of the existing diagnostic system. Each chapter has both an introduction by the editors and a concluding comment by another of the book's contributors. Contributors: John Campbell, Ph.D.; Thomas Fuchs, M.D., Ph.D.; Shaun Gallagher, Ph.D.; Kenneth S. Kendler, M.D.; Sandra D. Mitchell, Ph.D.; Dominic P. Murphy, Ph.D.; Josef Parnas, M.D., Dr.Med.Sci.; Louis A. Sass, Ph.D.; Kenneth F. Schaffner, M.D., Ph.D.; James F. Woodward, Ph.D.; Peter Zachar, Ph.D. (shrink)

In this informed and comprehensive assessment of current issues in international policies, Kenneth W. Thompson addresses the role that traditions and values play in shaping change and in helping us to understand its implications. He challenges the idea that the enormous changes in contemporary national and international life have rendered the consideration of traditions and values obsolete. Thompson’s purpose is to illuminate the problems we face and to set forth general principles directed toward an informing theory on traditions and (...) values as they affect politics and diplomacy, while at the same time warning of the pitfalls and limitations of theory. In the first section of this book, Thompson draws on classical and Judaeo-Christian traditions in defining the relationship between philosophy, religion, and politics. He then examines the application of abstract values to such political realities as national interest, and goes on to consider the question of moral values in international diplomacy and politics. In a series of case studies, Thompson reflects on human rights, disarmament and arms control, and human survival. Maintaining that the implementation of traditions and values is sometimes uniquely the task of the American presidency, he studies the administrations of four postwar presidents—Dwight D. Eisenhower, John F. Kennedy, Lyndon B. Johnson, and Richard M. Nixon—in the light of the executives’ attitudes toward ethics and politics. Finally, Thompson considers the implications of national decline and the breakdown of international order for the future of the United States. The vast knowledge of international affairs and the literature of politics that Kenneth W. Thompson brings to this timely and reflective books makes it exceptionally readable as well as intellectually challenging. (shrink)

Central and Eastern Europe, 1944–1993: Detour from the Periphery to the Periphery. By Ivan T. Berend. Cambridge Studies in Modern Economic History, xviii + 414 pp. £45.00 cloth. The Transition in Eastern Europe, vol. 2: Restructuring: A National Bureau of Economic Research Project Report. Edited by Olivier Jean Blanchard, Kenneth A. Froot, and Jeffrey D. Sachs £38.50/$55.25 cloth. Children of Atlantis: Voices from the former Yugoslavia. Edited by Zdenko Lesic. 183 pp. £7.99 paper.

On Humour and the Comic in the Hebrew Bible. Edited by Y. T. Radday and A. Brenner.The Trouble With Kings: The Composition of rhe Book of Kings in the Deuteronomistic History. By Steven L. McKenzie.Sacred Space: An Approach to the Zheology of the Epistle to the Hebrews. By Marie E. Isaacs.Fourth Ezra: A Commentary on the Book of Fourth Ezra. By Michael Edward StonePaul the Convert: iShe Apostolate and Apostasy of Saul the Pharisee. By Alan F. Segal.Creative Biblical Exegesis: Christian (...) and Jewish Hermeneutics through the Centuries. Edited by Benjamin Uffenheimer and Henning Graf Reventlow.The Hope of the Early Church: A Handbook of Patristic Escharology. By Brian E. Daley.The Emergence of the Laity in the Early Church. By Alexandre Faivre, translated by David Smith.Pastoral Life and Practice in the Early Church. By Carl A. Volz.The Making of the Creeds. By Frances Young.La correzione fratenia in s. Agosrino. By Agostino Clerici.Beaup and Revelation in the Thought of St Augustine. By Carol Harrison.Grace, Politics and Desire. Edited by Hugo Meynell.Boerhius and Aquinas. By Ralph McInerny.The Weight of Glory. A Vision and Practice for Christian Faith: The Future of Liberal Theology. Edited by D. W. Hardy and P. H. Sedgwick.Atonenrent and Incarnation. By Vernon White.Tragic Method and Tragic Theology: Evil in Contemporary Drama and Religious Thought. By L. D. Bouchard.Parmenides of Elea, Fragments: A Text and Translation, with an Introduction. By David Gallop.Language, Thought and Falsehood in Ancient Greek Philosophy. By Nicholas Denyer.Weakness of the Will. By Justin Gosling.Knowledge and the Sciences in Medieval Philosophy. Vol. I, edited by Monica Asztalos, John E. Murdoch and Ilkka Niiniluoto.Episcopal Power and Norenrine Sociev. 1000–1320. By George W. Dameron.Matins, Lauds and Vespers for St David's Day. By Owain Tudor Edwards.More's ‘Utopia’. By Dominic Baker‐Smith.Frontiers of Heresy: The Spanish Inquisitionfrom the Basque Lands to Sicily. By William Monter.Inquisition and Society in the Kingdom of Valencia, 1478–1834, By Stephen Haliczer.The Fear of Hell: Images of Damnation and Salvation in Early Modern Europe. By Piero Camporesi, translated by Lucinda Byatt.Lucrecia's Dreams: Politics and Prophecy in Sixteenth‐Centun Spain. By Richard L. Kagan.Heresy and Mysticism in Sixteenth‐Century Spain: The Alumbrados. By Alastair Hamilton.Japan's Encounter with Christianiry: The Catholic Mission in Pre‐Modern Japan. By Neil S. Fujita.Galileo, Bellannine and the Bible. By Richard J.Augustine Baker's Inner Light: A Study in English Recusant Spirituality. By James Gaffney.The Prorestarit Evaqelical Awakening. By W. R. Ward.The Study of Anglicanism. Edited by Stephen Sykes and John Booty.The Anglican Tradition: A Handbook of Sources. Edited by G. R. Evans and J. Robert Wright.The Restoration Church of England, 1646‐1689. By John Spurr.Awash in a Sea of Faith: Christianizing the American People. By Jon Butler.A Woman Styled Bold: The Life of Cornelia Connelly, 1809–1879. By Radegunde Flaxman.Cane Ridge: America's Pentecost. By Paul K. Conkin.Revivalism and Social Change: Christianio, Nation Building and the Market in the Nineteenth‐Century United States. By George M. Thomas.Church and State: The English Experience. By Adrian Hastings.Evelyn Underhill: Artist of the Infinite Life. By Dana Greene.Northern Ireland: Fairh and Faction. By Maurice Irvine.The Tragedy of Belief: Division, Politics, arid Religion in Ireland. By John Fulton.Shattered Vows: Exodus from the Priesthood. By David Rice.Making Saints: Inside the Vatican: Who Become Saints, Who Do Not, and Why. By Kenneth L. Woodward.Ecclesiae Memoria: Miscellanea in onorr del R. P. Josef Metzler, O. M. I. Edited by Willi Henkel. (shrink)

Behaving presents an overview of the recent history and methodology of behavioral genetics and psychiatric genetics, informed by a philosophical perspective. Kenneth F. Schaffner addresses a wide range of issues, including genetic reductionism and determinism, "free will," and quantitative and molecular genetics. The latter covers newer genome-wide association studies that have produced a paradigm shift in the subject, and generated the problem of "missing heritability." Schaffner also presents cases involving pro and con arguments for genetic testing for IQ and (...) for Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder. Schaffner examines the nature-nurture controversy and Developmental Systems Theory using C. elegans or "worm" studies as a test case, concluding that genes are special and provide powerful tools, including "deep homology," for investigating behavior. He offers a novel account of biological knowledge emphasizing the importance of models, mechanisms, pathways, and networks, which clarifies how partial reductions provide explanations of traits and disorders. The book also includes examinations of personality genetics and of schizophrenia and its etiology, alongside interviews with prominent researchers in the area, and discusses debates about psychosis that led to changes in the DSM-5 in 2013.Schaffner concludes by discussing additional philosophical implications of the genetic analyses in the book, some major worries about "free will," and arguments pro and con about why genes and DNA are so special. Though genes are special, newer perspectives presented in this book will be needed for progress in behavioral genetics- perspectives that situate genes in complex multilevel prototypic pathways and networks. With a mix of optimism and pessimism about the state of the field and the subject, Schaffner's book will be of interest to scholars in the history and philosophy of science, medicine, and psychiatry. (shrink)

_A study of the first half of Kant’s Critique of Judgment._.

It seems that the above account of explanation-strategy in the area of temperature adaptation underscores many of the points made earlier. First, it discloses the fruitful interaction of classical, evolutionary, and molecular approaches. Secondly, it indicates that biological characterizations are not rival accounts to chemical ones. Thirdly, it stresses the importance of the DNA sequence order in chemical explanations of biological organisms.One feature which this area does not seem to reveal, which genetics does, is the development of a biological (that (...) is, non-chemical) theory which would explain temperature adaptation in nonchemical terms. What this shows is that one should not always expect systematization at the biological level, in the sense of being able to refer many phenomena to a small number of basic principles. The future development of laws and theories in biological terms in this area is, of course, not precluded by the fact that none have yet been discovered. The case does indicate that physical and chemical language and theories are extremely useful in biological investigations, and the physicochemical approach may well be the best approach in this area. In any event, ultimate reduction of the biological to the chemical seems to be a foregone non-controversial conclusion here as elsewhere. (shrink)

This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press's mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1985.

This study addresses the question of justice in health care. Increasing numbers of Americans are uninsured, the cost of health care is escalating, and is projected to continue doing so. In response to these and other concerns, Americans have looked to their neighbor to the north, Canada, for possible help in treating the ills of America's health care system. In addition to offering a comparative analysis of the Canadian and American health care systems, we have sought to identify the facts (...) that motivate concerns on both sides of the border. It is within this larger context, we argued, that the question of justice in health care must be answered. ;We consider two alternative answers that have been advanced in response to the question of justice in health care, Norman Daniels' fair equality of opportunity argument and Allen Buchanan's enforced beneficence arguments for a right to a decent minimum of health care. After subjecting these arguments to critical scrutiny, we found that they could not bear the moral weight that the authors thought they could. ;We then considered an alternative account that might be used to address the question of justice in health care, David Gauthier's theory of justice. We concluded, among other things, that under his theory people would have a right to a just minimum of health care. In addition, we argued that a just minimum of health care would resolve the theory-dependent version of the bottomless pit problem. (shrink)

I have not attempted to provide here an analysis of the methodology of molecular biology or molecular genetics which would demonstrate at what specific points a more reductionist aim would make sense as a research strategy. This, I believe, would require a much deeper analysis of scientific growth than philosophy of science has been able to provide thus far. What I have tried to show is that a straightforward reductionist strategy cannot be said to be follwed in important cases of (...) theory development in molecular biology, and that in at least one important case, the Jacob-Monod operon theory, the methodology followed was more biological than chemical. It should be noted in closing, however, that since biological systems are thought by molecular biologists to be nothing but chemical systems, in the long run detailed investigations of such systems will be in full accord with the dictates suggested by the general reduction model. (shrink)

In the present article I have surveyed several approaches to modeling the clinical diagnostic process. I have argued that at this point of the field's development, logics which simulate the reasoning patterns and knowledge base of expert clinicians represent research programs that are most likely to succeed. No logic of diagnosis has yet attained the status of being definitive; in spite of striking progress much more research and testing is required. On the basis of various existing logics, I have attempted (...) to articulate a number of desiderata which an ideal diagnostic logic should satisfy. In spite of these criticisms, I would maintain that programs such as MYCIN and INTERNIST have already matured to the point where they are useful both in consultations and in teaching diagnostic reasoning. (shrink)

This paper attempts to address the general questionwhether information technologies, as applied in thearea of medicine and health care, have or are likelyto change fundamental concepts regarding disease andhealth. After a short excursion into the domain ofmedical informatics I provide a brief overview of someof the current theories of what a disease is from amore philosophical perspective, i.e. the ``valuefree'' and ``value laden'' view of disease. Next, Iconsider at some length, whether health careinformatics is currently modifying fundamentalconcepts of disease. To (...) this question I will answerlargely in the negative, and I will provide the sketchof some arguments from current research programs inmedical informatics why I think this is the case. Thisargumentation is supported by a detailed account ofhow the disease profile for beriberi heart disease,used in one of the major medical informaticsdiagnostic programs, QMR (and its ancestorINTERNIST-1), was developed, and why at least thisprogram essentially follows received views oftraditional medicine.The one main exception to theconformity of this program to ``received'' views of adisease occurs when the program's designers need tofine-tune a disease definition. This fine-tuning is tocomport with the expert's perspective on the disease,including his or her epistemic values, as well as theprogram's other resources for diagnosing components ofa disease. (shrink)

the structure of medical science with a special focus on the role of generalizations and universals in medicine, and (2) philosophy of medicine's relation with the philosophy of science. I argue that a usually overlooked aspect of Kuhnian paradigms, namely, their characteristic of being "exemplars", is of considerable significance in the biomedical sciences. This significance rests on certain important differences from the physical sciences in the nature of theories in the basic and the clinical medical sciences. I describe those differences (...) and maintain that they are these differentiating features that require the use of more comparative and analogical reasoning in medicine. I suggest that Kitcher's recent introduction of the notion of a ‘practice’ may have similar implications if it is construed to contain more analogical elements than he appears to recognize in his initial formulation. Finally I argue that though Gorovitz and MacIntyre's characterization of medicine as a "science of particulars" bears some similarities with my thesis, I maintain that such a position without careful qualification can lead to ignoring both the nature of generalizations in these sciences and their role as positive analogies tying together a family of overlapping models. Keywords: medical reasoning, biomedical theories/paradigms, science of particulars, philosophy of medicine CiteULike Connotea Del.icio.us What's this? (shrink)

Assessing the normative status of concepts of health and disease involves one in questions regarding the relationship between fact and value. Some have argued that Christopher Boorse's conception of health and disease lacks such a valuational element because it cannot account for types of harms which, while disvalued, do not have evolutionarily dysfunctional consequences. I take Boorse's account and incorporate some Humean-like sociobiological assumptions in order to respond to this challenge. The possession of moral sentiments, I argue, offers an evolutionary (...) advantage (thus falling within Boorse's definition of normal functional abilities). However, this does not amount to emotivism: on the contrary, these sentiments can be the basis of a value system. This value structure introduces the concept of sympathizing with a fellow being's suffering as the basis of a normative dimension to disease. For example, it holds the disvalue of disease to lie in the fact that disease involves suffering and functional limitations.The naturalistic Humean type of account presented here thus jumps the normative-descriptive divide. When Boorse's account is extended to include social sentiments and behaviors, a conception of health emerges which is broader than Boorse's or Kass's, but narrower than the WHO's. (shrink)

In this rejoinder to the three preceding comments, I provide some additional philosophical warrant for the biomedical sciences' focus on model organisms. I then relate the inquiries on model systems to the concept of 'deep homology', and indicate that the issues that appear to divide my commentators and myself are in part empirical ones. I cite recent work on model organisms, and especially C. elegans that supports my views. Finally, I briefly readdress some of the issues raised by Developmental Systems (...) Theory. (shrink)