This paper examines the ethics of using assistive technology such as video surveillance in the homes of people living with dementia. Ideation and concept elaboration around the introduction of a camera-based surveillance service in the homes of people with dementia, typically living alone, is explored. The paper reviews relevant literature on surveillance of people living with dementia, and summarises the findings from ideation and concept elaboration workshops, designed to capture the views of those involved in the care of people living (...) with dementia at home. The research question relates to the ethical considerations of using assistive technologies that include video surveillance in the homes of people living with dementia, and the implications for a person living with dementia whenever video surveillance is used in their home and access to the camera is given to the person’s family. The review of related work indicated that such video surveillance may result in loss of autonomy or freedom for the person with dementia. The workshops reflected the findings from the related work, and revealed useful information to inform the service design, in particular in fine-tuning the service to find the best relationship between privacy and usefulness. Those who took part in the workshops supported the concept of the use of camera in the homes of people living with dementia, with some significant caveats around privacy. The research carried out in this work is small in scale but points towards an acceptance by many caregivers of people living with dementia of surveillance technologies. This paper indicates that those who care for people living with dementia at home are willing to make use of camera technology and therefore the value of this work is to help shed light on the direction for future research. (shrink)

Le présent essai examine d'abord les notions newtoniennes d'espace et de temps absolus en elles-mêmes et dans leurs relations réciproques, puis ensuite dans leurs rapports avec d'autres notions connexes comme celles de lieu et de mouvement, en prenant pour base le Scholium qui fait suite aux définitions formulées au début des Principia mathematica philosophiae naturalis. La seconde partie analyse les arguments et precédés utilisés par Newton pour identifier des mouvements absolus, et prouver ainsi que de tels mouvements existent. La troisième (...) partie montre en quel sens il faut entendre que ces mouvements sont « absolus », et pourquoi on ne peut en tirer une preuve ultérieure de l'existence d'un temps et d'un espace absolus et subsistants. (shrink)

Pour Répondre à la question qui constitue le titre de cet essai, il faut d'abord répondre à une autre question, à savoir: qu'est-ce que la philosophie de la nature? De quoi parlons-nous au juste quand nous parlons de philosophie de la nature?

This book collects a renowned scholar's essays from the past five decades and reflects two main concerns: an approach to logic that stresses argumentation, reasoning, and critical thinking and that is informal, empirical, naturalistic, practical, applied, concrete, and historical; and an interest in Galileo’s life and thought—his scientific achievements, Inquisition trial, and methodological lessons in light of his iconic status as “father of modern science.” These republished essays include many hard to find articles, out of print works, and chapters which (...) are not available online. The collection provides an excellent resource of the author's lifelong dedication to the subject. Thus, the book contains critical analyses of some key Galilean arguments about the laws of falling bodies and the Copernican hypothesis of the earth’s motion. There is also a group of chapters in which Galileo’s argumentation is compared and contrasted with that of other figures such as Socrates, Karl Marx, Giordano Bruno, and his musicologist father Vincenzo Galilei. The chapters on Galileo’s trial illustrate an approach to the science-vs-religion issue which Finocchiaro labels “para-clerical” and conceptualizes in terms of a judicious consideration of arguments for and against Galileo and the Church. Other essays examine argumentation about Galileo’s life and thought by the major Galilean scholars of recent decades. The book will be of interest to scholars in philosophy, logic, philosophy of science, history of science, history of religion, philosophy of religion, argumentation, rhetoric, and communication studies. (shrink)

For example, from the point of view of pure conceptual analysis, since the reduction of what is not understood to what is understood is new understanding, explanation seems to involve growth of understanding. But is it the only kind of growth of understanding? It seems that explanation is quantitative growth of understanding. Could there be a qualitative growth of understanding and if so what would it be? And how would qualitative growth of understanding relate to explanation?

Everyone is talking about the environment. But what do we mean by it? This is the subject of this perceptive and provocative book. The author argues that the environmental crisis is engrained in the language of our political, social and econpomic structures. In his search foer the hidden agenda of the Green movement, he shows the need for us to include the reality of the spirit. Only by doing so, and re-establishing the importance of local life, may be hope to (...) maintain the fabric of the world, and cease exploiting it for our own ends. (shrink)

Although the fallacy of composition is little studied and trivially illustrated, some view it as ubiquitous and paramount. Furthermore, although definitions regard the concept as unproblematic, it contains three distinct elements, often confused. And although some scholars apparently claim that fallacies are figments of a critic’s imagination, they are really proposing to study fallacies in the context of meta-argumentation. Guided by these ideas, I discuss the important historical example of Michels’s iron law of oligarchy.

Le concept de plan utilisé en planification socialiste est rapproché du concept de plan invoqué par diverses philosophies de l'histoire. Pour ce faire, la notion de « plan divin » est analysée à l'aide d'une structure à sept termes qui, s'appliquant également au concept socialiste de plan, permet de fonder ce rapprochement. Les avatars du concept de plan en philosophie de l'histoire sont ensuite examinés de manière à faire ressortir un parallèle entre les dilemmes de cette philosophie et ceux de (...) la planification soviétique, yougoslave ou chinoise.The concept of planning used in socialist experiences is approached by the "plan" concept put forward by diverse philosophies of history. In order to do this, the notion of "divine plan" is analysed with the help of a structure of seven terms which, being equally applied to the socialist concept of planning, allows the foundation of this "rapprochement" . The transformations of the concept of plan in the philosophy of history are next examined in such a manner to manifest a parallel between the dilemmas of this philosophy and those of Soviet, Yugoslav or Chinese planning. (shrink)