Philosophy of history; the idea of the not-being and the history, by K. M. Jamil.--Philosophy of history, by Khwaja Ashkar Husain.--Philosophy of history, by A. H. Kamali.--Philosophy of history, by B. H. Siddiqi.--Philosophy of history: explanation in history, by Kazi A. Kadir.

The Holy Qur’an relates believers’ pure emotions to brotherhood. From the perspective of Islam, it has been also affirmed that two people have the same thoughts and opinions in one centre point of love in brotherhood, so fraternal feelings are not merely limited to kinship and consanguinity. In this line, the Holy Qur’an states that we have come to make you brothers with each other; not a brotherhood from parents, but an Islamic one, which is highly appreciated in the Islamic (...) society. In addition, a believing brother can never be filled when his fellow believer is hungry, and he cannot be clothed while the other is with nothing on. Islam further considers all Muslims as one family and calls everyone brothers and sisters or siblings. The true Muslims of any race and tribe as well as any language and age thus have a deep sense of brotherhood with each other, even if one lives in the Eastern parts of the world and the other in the West. In sum, this article aimed to investigate the role of religious teachings in strengthening believers’ brotherhood in the Islamic society. For this purpose, firstly, the definition of religious brotherhood was provided; secondly, religious brotherhood has been described based on the Holy Qur’an.Contribution: This article helped gain a new insight into the role of Islamic teachings in strengthening religious brotherhood in the Islamic society. Besides, the indicators of religious brotherhood were extracted and then enlightened according to the Ayat (viz. verses) from the Holy Qur’an. (shrink)

Background The use of lengthy, detailed, and complex informed consent forms is of paramount concern in biomedical research as it may not truly promote the rights and interests of research participants. The extent of information in ICFs has been the subject of debates for decades; however, no clear guidance is given. Thus, the objective of this study was to determine the perspectives of research participants about the type and extent of information they need when they are invited to participate in (...) biomedical research. Methods This multi-center, cross-sectional, descriptive survey was conducted at 54 study sites in seven Asia-Pacific countries. A modified Likert-scale questionnaire was used to determine the importance of each element in the ICF among research participants of a biomedical study, with an anchored rating scale from 1 to 5. Results Of the 2484 questionnaires distributed, 2113 were returned. The majority of respondents considered most elements required in the ICF to be ‘moderately important’ to ‘very important’ for their decision making. Major foreseeable risk, direct benefit, and common adverse effects of the intervention were considered to be of most concerned elements in the ICF. Conclusions Research participants would like to be informed of the ICF elements required by ethical guidelines and regulations; however, the importance of each element varied, e.g., risk and benefit associated with research participants were considered to be more important than the general nature or technical details of research. Using a participant-oriented approach by providing more details of the participant-interested elements while avoiding unnecessarily lengthy details of other less important elements would enhance the quality of the ICF. (shrink)

Ali Kuşçu (ö. 879/1474) Nasîrüddîn Tûsî’nin Tecrîdü’l-i‘tikâd’ına yazdığı şerhte birkaç radikal tutum sergilemiştir. Dikkate değer argümanlarından biri, astronominin Aristotelesçi doğa felsefesine ihtiyaç duymadığı yönündeki ısrarıdır. Bu duruşu ve Arz’ın sükûnette olduğuna dair geçerli ampirik kanıtlar olmadığı konusunda Tûsî ile hemfikir olması sebebiyle Kuşçu, dönen Arz varsayımından “aldatıcı hiçbir sonuç çıkmaz” sonucuna varmıştır. Bir sonraki nesilden Abdülalî el-Bircendî (913/1507’de etkin), hem Aristotelesçi doğa felsefesinin reddi hem de Arz’ın sükûn durumunun ispatlanamazlığı konusunda Kuşçu’yu çürütmeye niyetliydi. Bircendî bunu yapmak için, Tûsî’nin et-Tezkire fî (...) ilmi’l-hey’e adlı eserine yazdığı şerhte, astronomi ile iştigal edenler için Aristotelesçi doğa felsefesi ve metafiziğin gerekliliğine dair güçlü bir savunma takdim eder. Bunu yaparken Tûsî’nin, ampirik kanıtlar eksik olduğu için doğa felsefesi kullanılarak Arz’ın hareketsizliğinin savunulabilir biçimde kanıtlanabileceği, şeklindeki görüşünü teyit etmektedir. Bircendî’nin uzun tartışması epey ikna edicidir ve Arz’ın gerçekten dönüyor olması durumunda “dairesel eylemsizlik” olarak adlandırılabilecek teklifi de dahil olmak üzere bir dizi ilginç fikir içerir. (shrink)

This eleventh volume of Collected Papers includes 90 papers comprising 988 pages on Physics, Artificial Intelligence, Health Issues, Decision Making, Economics, Statistics, written between 2001-2022 by the author alone or in collaboration with the following 84 co-authors (alphabetically ordered) from 19 countries: Abhijit Saha, Abu Sufian, Jack Allen, Shahbaz Ali, Ali Safaa Sadiq, Aliya Fahmi, Atiqa Fakhar, Atiqa Firdous, Sukanto Bhattacharya, Robert N. Boyd, Victor Chang, Victor Christianto, V. Christy, Dao The Son, Debjit Dutta, Azeddine Elhassouny, Fazal Ghani, Fazli Amin, (...) Anirudha Ghosha, Nasruddin Hassan, Hoang Viet Long, Jhulaneswar Baidya, Jin Kim, Jun Ye, Darjan Karabašević, Vasilios N. Katsikis, Ieva Meidutė-Kavaliauskienė, F. Kaymarm, Nour Eldeen M. Khalifa, Madad Khan, Qaisar Khan, M. Khoshnevisan, Kifayat Ullah,, Volodymyr Krasnoholovets, Mukesh Kumar, Le Hoang Son, Luong Thi Hong Lan, Tahir Mahmood, Mahmoud Ismail, Mohamed Abdel-Basset, Siti Nurul Fitriah Mohamad, Mohamed Loey, Mai Mohamed, K. Mohana, Kalyan Mondal, Muhammad Gulfam, Muhammad Khalid Mahmood, Muhammad Jamil, Muhammad Yaqub Khan, Muhammad Riaz, Nguyen Dinh Hoa, Cu Nguyen Giap, Nguyen Tho Thong, Peide Liu, Pham Huy Thong, Gabrijela Popović‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬, Surapati Pramanik, Dmitri Rabounski, Roslan Hasni, Rumi Roy, Tapan Kumar Roy, Said Broumi, Saleem Abdullah, Muzafer Saračević, Ganeshsree Selvachandran, Shariful Alam, Shyamal Dalapati, Housila P. Singh, R. Singh, Rajesh Singh, Predrag S. Stanimirović, Kasan Susilo, Dragiša Stanujkić, Alexandra Şandru, Ovidiu Ilie Şandru, Zenonas Turskis, Yunita Umniyati, Alptekin Ulutaș, Maikel Yelandi Leyva Vázquez, Binyamin Yusoff, Edmundas Kazimieras Zavadskas, Zhao Loon Wang.‬‬‬‬. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Journal of the History of Philosophy 41.2 (2003) 277-278 [Access article in PDF] John Hedley Brooke, Margaret J. Osler, and Jitse M. van der Meer, editors. Science in Theistic Contexts: Cognitive Dimensions. Chicago: University of Chicago Press Journals Division, 2001. Pp. xiii + 376. Cloth, $39.00. Paper, $25.00. Some twenty years ago, when I submitted a dissertation proposal to explore connections between theologies of creation and views of scientific (...) knowledge in the seventeenth century, my doctoral committee was not initially enthusiastic—my idea might make a good dissertation in religion, but was it really history of science? I doubt I would have a similar experience today. Not only has the "warfare" thesis of science and religion been laid permanently to rest, historians have begun seriously to question whether it makes sense even to treat "religion" and "science" in an essentialist manner as separate ways of thinking that do not ordinarily interact. Many detailed case studies demonstrating a variety of fascinating, often important connections between science and religion have appeared from leading scholars in the past two decades. This trend continues in the latest volume of Osiris, which contains sixteen essays documenting various ways in which religious beliefs have influenced the actual content and presentation of science.The volume opens with two companion essays laying out the terrain. First, Brooke engages the new methodological and conceptual problems that confront historians following the demise of the "warfare" thesis. Then Stephen Wykstra offers criteria for sorting out the various roles for metaphysical and religious beliefs (which he distinguishes) in shaping scientific knowledge. The case studies begin with E. Jamil Ragep's essay on medieval Islamic astronomy, arguing that religion sometimes had a constructive role—a rather novel claim for Islamic science, he points out. Noah J. Efron and Menachem Fisch show how early modern Jewish exegetical practices influenced David b. Solomon Gans's interpretations of astronomical texts, and quite possibly his interpretation of nature also. A Christian astronomer is next, as Peter Barker and Bernard R. Goldstein detail how Johannes Kepler's theology contributed directly to the discovery of scientific laws. Maurice A. Finnocchiaro then reviews various accounts of the Galileo affair, finding far more conflict in the subsequent historiography of the events than in the trial itself.Moving from astronomy to natural philosophy, Margaret G. Cook's essay on Robert Boyle examines the web of connections between theology, the mechanical philosophy, and [End Page 277] "the Aristotelian philosophy that he sought to replace." She demonstrates that Boyle used the classical art/nature distinction "to interpret the biblical account of the Creation and to argue that chemical techniques offered experimental confirmation that the world, created by art, worked by the same mechanical principles as artificial objects, not by the inherent agency of Aristotelian nature" (136). Margaret J. Osler also writes about Boyle. Contrary to the traditional view that final causes were expunged from science by the mechanical philosophy—a view that originated in the "positivism and scientific optimism" of the postwar period (168)—she proves that final causality remained central to the thought of Boyle and Pierre Gassendi. The essay by Stephen D. Snobelen presents substantial evidence that the famous General Scholium, appended to the second edition of Isaac Newton's Principia, was a carefully worded declaration of Newton's heterodox theology. "A Trinitarian," Snobelen concludes, "could not have written the General Scholium" (186). He also shows the degree to which Newton's theology shaped his overall natural philosophy, decisively debunking the late Richard S. Westfall's view that such influences could not be found.The final seven essays are mainly devoted to nineteenth-century science. Michael J. Crowe documents several ways in which Christian beliefs about divine goodness and the Incarnation affected astronomy. Martin Fichman shows how Alfred Russel Wallace's theism—not merely a vague spiritualism, as traditional accounts claim—"shaped the cognitive content of his mature evolutionary synthesis, which included a theoretical reconceptualization of the scope of natural selection" (227). In a revisionist account of Charles Darwin's philosophy of "nature," Phillip R. Sloan challenges the received view that... (shrink)

This volume addresses the interplay of hadith and ethics and contributes to examining the emerging field of hadith-based ethics. The chapters cover four different sections: noble virtues (Makarim al-akhlaq) and virtuous acts (faḍa 'il al-a'mal); concepts (adab, taḥbib, 'uzla); disciplines (hadith transmission, gender ethics); and individual and key traditions (the hadith of intention, consult your heart, key hadiths). The volume concludes with a chronologically ordered annotated bibliography of the key primary sources in the Islamic tradition with relevance to understanding the (...) interplay of hadith and ethics. This volume will be beneficial to researchers in the fields of Islamic ethics, hadith studies, moral philosophy, scriptural ethics, religious ethics, and narrative ethics, in addition to Islamic and religious studies in general. Contributors Faqihuddin Abdul Kodir, Nuha Alshaar, Safwan Amir, Khairil Husaini Bin Jamil, Pieter Coppens, Chafik Graiguer, M. Imran Khan, Mutaz al-Khatib, Salahudheen Kozhithodi and Ali Altaf Mian. (shrink)

This paper examines the role of reason in Shepherd's account of acquiring knowledge of the external world via first principles. Reason is important, but does not have a foundational role. Certain principles enable us to draw the required inferences for acquiring knowledge of the external world. These principles are basic, foundational and, more importantly, self‐evident and thus justified in other ways than by demonstration. Justificatory demonstrations of these principles are neither required, nor possible. By drawing on textual and contextual evidence, (...) I will show that Shepherd should have said that we know the first principles of any science, in general, and that “everything which begins to exist must have a cause”, in particular, via intuition, not via reason. Reasoning about such principles can help their self‐evidence shine through in certain cases; their justification, and our being justified in believing them, does not come from this reasoning, however. (shrink)

This article discusses the role of moment-to-moment affect dynamics in mental disorder and aims to integrate recent literature on this topic in the context of complex dynamical system theory. First, we will review the relevance of temporal and contextual aspects of affect dynamics in relation to psychopathology. Related to this, we will discuss recent insights resulting from a network view on affect dynamics in psychopathology. Next, we explore how we can reconcile literature findings from a perspective of complex dynamical system (...) theory. Finally, future directions with regard to personalized assessment of risk and diagnostic use are discussed. (shrink)

Although all mathematical truths are necessary, mathematicians take certain combinations of mathematical truths to be ‘coincidental’, ‘accidental’, or ‘fortuitous’. The notion of a ‘ mathematical coincidence’ has so far failed to receive sufficient attention from philosophers. I argue that a mathematical coincidence is not merely an unforeseen or surprising mathematical result, and that being a misleading combination of mathematical facts is neither necessary nor sufficient for qualifying as a mathematical coincidence. I argue that although the components of a mathematical coincidence (...) may possess a common explainer, they have no common explanation ; that two mathematical facts have a unified explanation makes their truth non-coincidental. I suggest that any motivation we may have for thinking that there are mathematical coincidences should also motivate us to think that there are mathematical explanations, since the notion of a mathematical coincidence can be understood only in terms of the notion of a mathematical explanation. I also argue that the notion of a mathematical coincidence plays an important role in scientific explanation. When two phenomenological laws of nature are similar, despite concerning physically distinct processes, it may be that any correct scientific explanation of their similarity proceeds by revealing their similarity to be no mathematical coincidence. (shrink)

This paper examines the structure of moral responsibility for outcomes. A central feature of the analysis is a condition that we term the ‘avoidance potential’, which gives precision to the idea that moral responsibility implies a reasonable demand that an agent should have acted otherwise. We show how our theory can allocate moral responsibility to individuals in complex collective action problems, an issue that sometimes goes by the name of ‘the problem of many hands’. We also show how it allocates (...) moral responsibility in the classic Frankfurt example. (shrink)

Despite the promise of international collaboration and sharing by bringing together bioethicists from throughout the world at the 2024 IAB conference in Qatar, I will not be attending. The authors...

A deaf lesbian couple who chose to have a deaf child receive a lot of criticismA deaf lesbian couple in the US deliberately tried to create a deaf child. Sharon Duchesneau and Candy McCullough hoped their child, conceived with the help of a sperm donor, would be deaf like the rest of the family. Their daughter, five year old Jehanne, is also deaf and was conceived with the same donor. News of the couple choosing to have a deaf child has (...) only been revealed with the birth of their son Gauvin.1–4To increase their chance of having a deaf baby the women sought a deaf sperm donor from a sperm bank but were told that congenital deafness is “precisely the sort of condition” that disqualifies would-be donors. Rather than dismiss the idea they found their own sperm donor by asking a deaf friend who comes from a family with five generations of deafness.1The women, both professionals in the mental health field, insist that they would still love …. (shrink)

Mathematics and logic are indispensable in science, yet how they are deployed and why they are so effective, especially in the natural sciences, is poorly understood. In this paper, I focus on the how by analysing Jean Piaget’s application of mathematics to the empirical content of psychological experiment; however, I do not lose sight of the application’s wider implications on the why. In a case study, I set out how Piaget drew on the stock of mathematical structures to model psychological (...) content, namely, the operations of thought involved in reasoning. In particular, I show how operations of thought form structured wholes that initially resisted modelling by either lattices or groups but could be modelled adequately by modifications of these mathematical structures. Piaget coined the term ‘grouping’ for the modified structure, and I conclude that it represents a non-canonical application of mathematics to the empirical content of experimental psychology. I also touch on the role external factors played in Piaget’s development of the grouping. According to the genetic epistemology conceived by Piaget, the origin of intelligence lies in the biological organism and develops in stages over time, and, via the grouping, Piaget established a genetic relationship between two stages of reasoning. I show how this relationship explains why mathematics and logic fit the psychological content of reasoning whilst simultaneously making their successful deployment in the natural sciences more mysterious. Finally, I turn to the explanation Piaget envisaged for the unreasonable effectiveness of mathematics in the natural sciences and consider some consequences for naturalism and Pythagoreanism. (shrink)

AimsThis study evaluates a protocol for early, routine ethics consultation for patients on extracorporeal membrane oxygenation to support decision-making in the context of clinical uncertainty with the aim of mitigating ethical conflict and moral distress.MethodsWe conducted a single-site qualitative analysis of EC documentation for all patients receiving ECMO support from 15 August 2018 to 15 May 2019. Detailed analysis of 20 ethically complex cases with protracted ethics involvement identifies four key ethical domains: limits of prognostication, bridge to nowhere, burden of (...) treatment and system-level concerns. There are three subthemes: relevant contextual factors, the role of EC and observed outcomes. Content analysis of transcripts from interviews with 20 members of the multidisciplinary ECMO team yields supplemental data on providers’ perceptions of the impact of the early intervention protocol.ResultsLimited outcome data for ECMO, unclear indications for withdrawal, adverse effects of treatment and an obligation to attend to programme metrics present significant ethical challenges in the care of this patient population. Upstream EC mitigates ethical conflict by setting clear expectations about ECMO as a time limited trial, promoting consistent messaging among multiple services and supporting surrogate decision-makers. When ECMO becomes a ‘bridge to nowhere’, EC facilitates decision-making that respects patient values yet successfully sets limits on non-beneficial use of this novel therapy.ConclusionData from this study support the conclusion that ECMO poses unique ethical challenges that necessitate a standardised protocol for early, routine EC—at least while this medical technology is in its nascent stages. (shrink)

Quantum mechanical measurements on a physical system are represented by observables - Hermitian operators on the state space of the observed system. It is an important question whether all observables may be realized, in principle, as measurements on a physical system. Dirac’s influential text ( [1], page 37) makes the following assertion on the question: The question now presents itself – Can every observable be measured? The answer theoretically is yes. In practice it may be very awkward, or perhaps even (...) beyond the ingenuity of the experimenter, to devise an apparatus which could measure some particular observable, but the theory always allows one to imagine that the measurement can be made. This Letter re-examines the question of whether it is possible, even in principle, to measure every quantum mechanical observable. Unexpectedly, ideas from com-. (shrink)

“Futility” is a word which means the absence of benefit. It has been used to describe an absence of utility in resuscitation endeavours but it fails to do this. Futility does not consider the harms of resuscitation and we should consider the balance of benefit and harm that results from our resuscitation endeavours. If a resuscitation is futile then any harm that ensues will bring about an unfavourable benefit/harm balance. However, even if the endeavour is not futile, by any definition, (...) the benefit/harm balance may still be unfavourable if the harms that ensue are great.It is unlikely that we will ever achieve a consensus definition of futility and certainly not one that is applicable to every patient undergoing resuscitation. In the meantime our use of the term “futile”, in the mistaken belief that it tells us whether it is worth resuscitating or not, has no utility as it will never succeed in telling us this. Furthermore we risk causing offence by use of the term and we risk harming the patient's autonomy by using futility as an overriding force. Instead we should consider the utility of our endeavours, for which an assessment of the harms of resuscitation should be added to our considerations of its benefit. This balance of benefit and harm should then be evaluated as best it can be from the patient's perspective. The words futile and futility should be abandoned by resuscitationists. (shrink)

Special groups [M. Dickmann, F. Miraglia, Special Groups : Boolean-Theoretic Methods in the Theory of Quadratic Forms, Memoirs Amer. Math. Soc., vol. 689, Amer. Math. Soc., Providence, RI, 2000] are a first-order axiomatization of the theory of quadratic forms. In Section 2 we investigate reduced special groups which are a lattice under their natural representation partial order ; we show that this lattice property is preserved under most of the standard constructions on RSGs; in particular finite RSGs and RSGs of (...) finite chain length are lattice ordered. We prove that the lattice property fails for the RSGs of function fields of real algebraic varieties over a uniquely ordered field dense in its real closure, unless their stability index is 1 . We show that Open Problem 1 has a positive answer for the RSG of the field Q . In the final section we explore the meaning of Open Problem 1 for formally real fields, in terms of their orders and real valuations; we introduce the notion of “parameter-rank” of a positive-primitive first-order formula of the language for special groups. (shrink)

One of the central elements of John Rawls’ argument in support of his two principles of justice is the intuitive normative ideal of citizens as free and equal. But taken in isolation, the claim that citizens are to be treated as free and equal is extremely indeterminate, and has virtually no clear implications for policy. In order to remedy this, the two principles of justice, together with the stipulation that citizens have basic interests in developing their moral capacities and pursuing (...) their conceptions of the good life, are meant to provide a more precise interpretation of what is involved in treating citizens as free and equal. Rawls’ critics, however, have argued that satisfying the two principles of justice is not the most appropriate or plausible way to respect the status of citizens as free and equal. In relation to this debate, the present paper has two aims. The first is to examine Rawls’ account of the type of freedom that a just society must guarantee equally to its citizens. I will argue that those who think of Rawls as a theorist of freedom as non-interference are mistaken, because his notion of liberty resembles in important respects the republican notion of freedom as non-domination. Second, I will consider the extent to which Rawls’ principles of justice successfully protect the freedom as non-domination of all citizens so as to effectively treat them as free and equal. (shrink)

"The availability of a paperback version of Boyle's philosophical writings selected by M. A. Stewart will be a real service to teachers, students, and scholars with seventeenth-century interests. The editor has shown excellent judgment in bringing together many of the most important works and printing them, for the most part, in unabridged form. The texts have been edited responsibly with emphasis on readability.... Of special interest in connection with Locke and with the reception of Descarte's Corpuscularianism, to students of the (...) Scientific Revolution and of the history of mechanical philosophy, and to those interested in the relations among science, philosophy, and religion. In fact, given the imperfections in and unavailability of the eighteenth-century editions of Boyle’s works, this collection will benefit a wide variety of seventeenth-century scholars." --Gary Hatfield, University of Pennsylvania. (shrink)

The development of human genetics raises a wide range of important ethical questions for us all. The interpersonal dimension of genetic information in particular means that genetics also poses important challenges to the idea of patient-centredness and autonomy in medicine. How ought practical ethical decisions about the new genetics be made given that we appear, moreover, no longer to be able to appeal to unquestioned traditions and widely shared communitarian values? This paper argues that any coherent ethical approach to these (...) questions must be able both to uphold the moral status of the individual and at the same time recognise the communitarian, interpersonal dimensions both of the world in which we live and of personal autonomy itself. The paper then goes on to propose an approach to the resolution of the ethical questions raised by the use of the new genetics in reproductive choice through the development of a coherent and principled process of public reason and justification oriented towards the support and development of personal autonomy. (shrink)

Autonomy has been the central principle underpinning changes which have affected the practice of medicine in recent years. Medical education is undergoing changes as well, many of which are underpinned, at least implicitly, by increasing concern for autonomy. Some universities have embarked on graduate courses which utilize problem-based learning (PBL) techniques to teach all areas, including medical ethics. I argue that PBL is a desirable method for teaching and learning in medical ethics. It is desirable because the nature of ethical (...) enquiry is highly compatible with the learning processes which characterize PBL. But it is also desirable because it should help keep open the question of what autonomy really is, and how it should operate within the sphere of medical practice and medical education. (shrink)

We demonstrate that the key components of cognitive architectures (declarative and procedural memory) and their key capabilities (learning, memory retrieval, probability judgment, and utility estimation) can be implemented as algebraic operations on vectors and tensors in a high‐dimensional space using a distributional semantics model. High‐dimensional vector spaces underlie the success of modern machine learning techniques based on deep learning. However, while neural networks have an impressive ability to process data to find patterns, they do not typically model high‐level cognition, and (...) it is often unclear how they work. Symbolic cognitive architectures can capture the complexities of high‐level cognition and provide human‐readable, explainable models, but scale poorly to naturalistic, non‐symbolic, or big data. Vector‐symbolic architectures, where symbols are represented as vectors, bridge the gap between the two approaches. We posit that cognitive architectures, if implemented in a vector‐space model, represent a useful, explanatory model of the internal representations of otherwise opaque neural architectures. Our proposed model, Holographic Declarative Memory (HDM), is a vector‐space model based on distributional semantics. HDM accounts for primacy and recency effects in free recall, the fan effect in recognition, probability judgments, and human performance on an iterated decision task. HDM provides a flexible, scalable alternative to symbolic cognitive architectures at a level of description that bridges symbolic, quantum, and neural models of cognition. (shrink)

The same research proposal was submitted to 24 district health authority (DHA) research ethics committees in different parts of the country. The objective was to obtain permission for a multi-centre research project. The study of neonatal care in different types of unit (regional, subregional and district), required that four health authorities were approached in each of six widely separated health regions in England. Data were collected and compared concerning aspects of processing, including application forms, information required, timing and decision-making. The (...) key finding was that ethics committees received and processed the applications variably, reflecting individual factors and local problems. To improve consensus and facilitate multicentre studies, standard forms and instructions are suggested and the establishment of a national committee or advisory group advocated. (shrink)

The practice of evidence based medicine has changed the role of the physician from information dispenser to gatherer and analyser. Studies and controlled trials that may contain unknown errors, or uncertainties, are the primary sources for evidence based decisions in medicine. These sources may be corrupted by a number of means, such as inaccurate statistical analysis, statistical manipulation, population bias, or relevance to the patient in question. Regardless of whether any of these inaccuracies are apparent, the uncertainty of their presence (...) in physician information should be disclosed to the patient. These uncertainties are not, however, shared by physicians with patients, and have caused a direct increase in patient responsibilities and mistrust. Only when disclosure of uncertainty becomes commonplace in medical practice will the physician/patient relationship evolve to a level of greater understanding and satisfaction for both the physician and patient. (shrink)

Pure Type Systems, PTSs, were introduced as a generalization of the type systems of Barendregt's lambda cube and were designed to provide a foundation for actual proof assistants which will verify proofs. Systems of illative combinatory logic or lambda calculus, ICLs, were introduced by Curry and Church as a foundation for logic and mathematics. In an earlier paper we considered two changes to the rules of the PTSs which made these rules more like ICL rules. This led to four kinds (...) of PTSs. Most importantly PTSs are about statements of the form M:A, where M is a term and A a type. In ICLs there are no explicit types and the statements are terms. In this paper we show that for each of the four forms of PTS there is an equivalent form of ICL, sometimes if certain conditions hold. (shrink)

I shall argue for two complementary theses: firstly that ‘Homer’ was not the name of a historical poet, but a fictitious or constructed name, and secondly that for a century or more after the composition of the Iliad and Odyssey there was little interest in the identity or the person of their author or authors. This interest only arose in the last decades of the sixth century; but once it did, ‘Homer’ very quickly became an object of admiration, criticism, and (...) biographical construction. (shrink)

Within the moral/social order maintained and reproduced by biomedical ethics (i.e., the “peaceable community”), suffering is a senseless accident with no value. Insofar as suffering compromises the fundamental pillar of this order, namely, autonomy, it threatens the existence of the “peaceable community”. Consequently, biomedical ethics is only able to offer those who suffer one moral or practical response: that of elimination, embodied most vividly in the increasingly approved practice of assisted-suicide. Another moral/ social order, however, the “peaceable Kingdom” or the (...) “Body of Christ”, provides an alternative understanding of the meaning, purpose, and significance of suffering, through the Roman Catholic sacrament of anointing of the sick. Recognizing the power of sickness and suffering to “dis-inscribe” bodies of their normative self-understandings, the Church responds with a set of liturgical practices which intend to respond to the dynamics of suffering, re-inscribe these bodies, and assist persons in fulfilling the vocation of “participating in Christ's suffering for the salvation of the world”. (shrink)

The following definition of “objective” is proposed: A statement S is objective if and only if in S all parameters that are relevant to its truth value are made explicit. The objectivity of predicates and relations can be defined in a similar manner. This simple conception of objectivity-which could be called “explicitness conception of objectivity”-can be found in Hermann Weyl and plays a central part in the natural sciences. There are grades of objectivity depending on the ‘quality’ and the number (...) of parameters our predicates are relativized to A relativistic Ockham principle has to be recognized: Relativization parameters are not to be multiplied beyond necessity. The explicitness conception of objectivity is accessible to mathematical specifications, is the core of the idea of invariance, has a lot of philosophical applications and leads to precise notions of ‘subjectivity’ and a precise formulation of the problem of the limits of objectivity. (shrink)

It is easy to create classroom discipline problems. By following the ten simple rules listed below you should be able to substantially improve your skill at this popular teacher pastime.