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Various grounds for methodological differences between the natural and social sciences have been suggested in recent philosophical literature. It is said, for example, that the natural sciences deal with verifiable hypotheses, “exact” findings, measurable phenomena and invariable observations, whereas the social sciences do not. One of the most plausible of all such contentions is the suggestion that the natural sciences produce theories which correctly predict future events, whereas in the social sciences, there are cases in which correct prediction of future (...) events is, in principle, impossible. If such a case is to be found in the social sciences, it must, of course, be further demonstrated that an analogous case is not to be found in the natural sciences. If such a case is not to be found in the social sciences, the contention rests unverified. (shrink)

This paper examines potential ethical and legal issues arising during the research, develop- ment and clinical use of a proposed strategy in personalized medicine (PM): using human induced pluripotent stem cell (iPSC)-derived tissue cultures as predictive models of individ- ual patients to inform treatment decisions. We focus on epilepsy treatment as a likely early application of this strategy, for which early-stage stage research is underway. In relation to the research process, we examine issues associated with biological samples; data; health; vulnerable (...) populations; neural organoids; and what level of accuracy justifies using the iPSC-derived neural tissue system. In relation to clinical use, we examine potential uses in pre-natal screening, and effects on clinical decision-making. Although our focus is providing recommendations for researchers developing work in this area, we identify the novel issue of deciding on an acceptable accuracy level for the system. We also emphasize an issue thus far neglected in the ethics of PM: PM tends to represent treatment decisions as though they should be directed solely by biomedical information, but this in itself could be detri- mental to best personalizing treatment decisions in the clinic. (shrink)

Mastery imagery has been shown to be associated with more positive cognitive and emotional responses to stress, but research is yet to investigate the influence of mastery imagery ability on imagery’s effectiveness in regulating responses to acute stress, such as competition. Furthermore, little research has examined imagery’s effectiveness in response to actual competition. This study examined (a), whether mastery imagery ability was associated with stress response changes to a competitive stress task, a car racing computer game, following an imagery intervention, (...) and (b), the effects of different guided imagery content on pre-task cognitive and emotional responses. In Session 1, 78 participants (M age = 20.03 years, SD = 1.28) completed ratings of pre-task anxiety intensity and direction, confidence, and perceived control. Imagery ability was also assessed before completing the task. In Session 2, participants were randomly allocated to an imagery condition (positive mastery, negative mastery, relaxation) or control group (no imagery) before completing the task and outcome measures again. For the negative mastery group, greater positive mastery imagery ability was associated with greater perceived control and perceiving anxiety as more facilitative. Furthermore, mastery imagery ability moderated the relationship between anxiety intensity and direction. Altogether, results suggest that positive mastery imagery ability may act as a potential buffer against the effects of negative images. (shrink)

Canadian and American population-based research concerning sexual and/or gender minority populations provides evidence of persistent breast and gynecologic cancer-related health disparities and knowledge divides. The Cancer's Margins research investigates the complex intersections of sexual and/or gender marginality and incommensurabilities and improvisation in engagements with biographical and biomedical cancer knowledge. The study examines how sexuality and gender are intersectionally constitutive of complex biopolitical mappings of cancer health knowledge that shape knowledge access and its mobilization in health and treatment decision-making. Interviews were (...) conducted with a diverse group of sexual and/or gender minority breast or gynecologic cancer patients. The LGBQ//T2 cancer patient narratives we have analyzed document in fine grain detail how it is that sexual and/or gender minority cancer patients punctuate the otherwise lockstep assemblage of their cancer treatment decision-making with a persistent engagement in creative attempts to resist, thwart and otherwise manage the possibility of discrimination and likewise, the probability of institutional erasure in care settings. Our findings illustrate the demands that cancer places on LGBQ//T2 patients to choreograph access to, and mobilization of knowledge and care, across significantly distinct and sometimes incommensurable systems of knowledge. (shrink)

Newman’s dramatic poem, “The Dream of Gerontius”, was set to music by Edward Elgar in 1900. This essay brings out the sympathy of mind and heart between poet and composer, and perhaps between them both and the listener of today, as well as the universality and depth of the human stake in some kind of personal and peopled life after death.

Neil Levy argues that while addicts who believe they are not addicts are self-deceived, addicts who believe they are addicts are just as self-deceived. Such persons accept a false belief that their addictive behaviour involves a loss of control. This paper examines two implications of Levy's discussion: that accurate self-knowledge may be particularly difficult for addicts; and that an addict's self-deceived belief that they cannot control themselves may aid their attempts at self-control. I argue that the self-deceived beliefs of addicts (...) in denial and of self-described addicts differ in kind. Unlike the self-deception of an addict in denial, that of the self-described addict allows them to acknowledge their behaviour. As such, it may aid an addict to develop more self-control. A paradoxical implication is that this self-deception may allow an addict more self-knowledge. (shrink)

Although very young children have unprecedented access to touchscreen devices, there is limited research on how successfully they operate these devices for play and learning. For infants and toddlers, whose cognitive, fine motor, and executive functions are immature, several basic questions are significant: Can they operate a tablet purposefully to achieve a goal? Can they acquire operating skills and learn new information from commercially available apps? Do individual differences in executive functioning predict success in using and learning from the apps? (...) Accordingly, 31 2-year-olds were compared with 29 3-year-olds using two commercially available apps with different task and skill requirements: a shape matching app performed across 3 days, and a storybook app with performance compared to that on a matched paper storybook. Children also completed the Minnesota Executive Functioning Scale. An adult provided minimal scaffolding throughout. The results showed: toddlers could provide simple goal-directed touch gestures and the manual interactions needed to operate the tablet after controlling for prior experience with shape matching, toddlers’ increased success and efficiency, made fewer errors, decreased completion times, and required less scaffolding across trials, they recognized more story content from the e-book and were less distracted than from the paper book, executive functioning contributed unique variance to the outcome measures on both apps, and 3-year-olds outperformed 2-year-olds on all measures. The results are discussed in terms of the potential of interactive devices to support toddlers’ learning. (shrink)

This volume explores two questions of interest to a larger intellectual community: (1) what constituted knoweldge in the context of early modern Germany and (2) how knowledge was gathered, assembled, organized, deployed, and interpreted. The perspective is interdisciplinary and the contributions represent several fields of scholarly inquiry.

A defense of the thoughtfulness of domestic work, with help from Heidegger.

Julia Ward Howe, author of the lyrics to “The Battle Hymn of the Republic,” remains known as a poet, abolitionist, and founding member of the antiracist organization American Woman Suffrage Association, but her work on political philosophy and her foundational sense of the necessity for justice and suffrage for all without exception are still unexplored. Howe's speech, “The Position of Women in Plato's Republic” provides a window into the philosophy that shaped the second half of her life and her political (...) organizing. Howe explores problems feminist scholars have often had with Socrates's plans to educate and enfranchise women of the ruling class, analyzes the rhetoric behind Socrates's successful persuasion of reluctant interlocutors, and transforms Plato's arguments into overwhelming rhetorical support for universal suffrage. Howe's intellectual conversion to the cause of suffrage, which occurred later in life and after her support for the 15th Amendment, comes into focus as she wrestles with the questions fundamental to her change of heart: women's moral relationship to human excellence, whether suffrage would destabilize family life, the relationship of gender to divine genderless unity, and the relationship of the Platonic principle of the Good to practical political policy. (shrink)

Why should anybody take an interest in philosophy? Is it just another detailed study like metallurgy? Or is it similar to history, literature and even religion: a study meant to do some personal good and influence our lives? In her last published work, Mary Midgley addresses provocative questions, interrogating the various forms of our current intellectual anxieties and confusions and how we might deal with them. In doing so, she provides a robust, yet not uncritical, defence of philosophy and (...) the life of the mind. This defence is expertly placed in the context of contemporary debates about science, religion, and philosophy. It asks whether, in light of rampant scientific and technological developments, we still need philosophy to help us think about the big questions of meaning, knowledge, and value. (shrink)

After the Supreme Court overturned Roe in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, legal commentators and bioethicists asked whether other constitutional rights were on the chopping block (Coh...

Volume 25, Issue 3, September 2019, Page 203-206.

The argument from analogy is examined from the standpoint of Carnap's confirmation theory. Carnap's own discussion of analogy in relation to his c*— function is restricted to cases where the analogues are known to be similar, but not known to be different in any respect. It has been argued by the author in a previous work,, and by P. Achinstein, that typical analogy arguments involve known differences between the analogues as well as similarities. Achinstein shows that for such arguments none (...) of Carnap's Δ— system of conflrmation functions gives satisfactory values, and it is further shown in the present paper that for these arguments the confirmation never rises above its initial value, irrespective of evidence drown from an analogue. it is argued that even if inductive arguments are to be applicable to the real world, they must in principle be capable of taking into account known differences between the instances of an inductive generalization. Hence Carnap's Δ— system is inadequate as an explication of both induction and analogy.Three conditions are stated as necessary for any confirmation theory which gives a satisfactory explication of analogical inference:I. If two individuals a and b are known to agree in certain properties and differ in others, and if in addition a has a further property, then the confirmation of the hypothesis that b also has this property is greater than its initial confirmation, at least if the weight of the similarities is sufficiently great compared with the weight of the differences.II. The confirmation‐value increases or decreases with the weight of the similarities between the analogues compared with the weight of their differences.III. The confirmation that b has a certain property is greater if a has that property than if a does not have it.The Δ— system sastisfles none of these conditions. Carnap and Stegmüller have now, however, presented a new anxiom system for confirmation functions. the — system, Which is introduced primarily to deal with languages whose primitive predicates fall into families such that each individual can only be qualified by one predicate of each family. They construct a c‐ function which, as well as dealing with a language having two families of such predicates, also depends, unlike the functions in the Δ— system, on similarities between otherwise different individuals. The system is not developed far enough in this Appendix to enable the authors to discuss the confirmation in analogy arguments satisfying conditions I — III above, but it is shown in the present paper that, with a simple generalization of the measure‐function defined by Carnap and Stegmüller, and in the simplest non‐trivial case, condition I — III are all satisfied, indeed a stronger form of condition I is satisfied, in which no known similarity of the analogues is postulated.Finally it is remarked that Carnap and Stegmüller's method of introducing their Δ— system is extremely arbitrary and ad hoc, and an alternative method of introducing is suggested. Bearing in mind the fundamental nature of the argument from analogy in all application of induction to the real world, it is suggesetd that the fundamental inductive inference needing explication is not the inference of‘P1b, from ‘P,1a, but the analogical infeence of‘P2b, from‘P1P2a.P1b,. It is posinitial confirmation of‘P2b, and the confirmation of‘P2b, given‘P2a” and that the later two confirmation‐values are equivalent to those in the Δ— system. It is then shown that Carnap and Stegmüller's new measure‐function follows from their axiom system together with these postulates. Thus some of the arbitrariness of the — system is removed by general considérations regarding inductive and analogical inference. (shrink)

Adolescence, defined in the US as 11–21 years of age, is a critical period for prevention, as it marks the onset of risk behaviors. Minor (<18 years) self-consent and inclusion in biomedical resear...