The current policy of the National Institute of Health designed to increase the participation of women and minorities is radically different from previous policies designed to protect minorities from abuses in research studies. The principal arguments to support this policy are twofold: 1) Increased representation of minorities and women in research would increase the generalizability of research data and allow for valid analyses of differences in subpopulations; and 2) being in a clinical research study is advantageous to participants regardless of (...) the final research study results. It remains unclear whether minorities find these arguments compelling. Instead of telling minorities that participation in research is good for them, the research community should focus on understanding what minority communities want from clinical research and then tailoring the message to meet this need. Persuasive arguments to promote long-term increased representation of minorities in clinical research must come from within minority communities. (shrink)

In this paper, we develop the notion of a natural convention, and illustrate its usefulness in a detailed examination of indirect requests in English. Our treatment of convention is grounded in Lewis’s seminal account; we do not here redefine convention, but rather explore the space of possibilities within Lewis’s definition, highlighting certain types of variation that Lewis de-emphasized. Applied to the case of indirect requests, which we view through a Searlean lens, the notion of natural convention allows us to give (...) a nuanced answer to the question: Are indirect requests conventional? In conclusion, we reflect on the consequences of our view for the understanding of the semantics/pragmatics divide. (shrink)

The current literature on presupposition focuses almost exclusively on the projection problem: the question of how and why the presuppositions of atomic clauses are projected to complex sentences which embed them. Very little attention has been paid to the question of how and why these presuppositions arise at all. As Kay (1992, p.335) observes, “treatments of the presupposition inheritance problem almost never deal with the reasons that individual words and constructions give rise, in the first place, to the particular presuppositions (...) that they do.”1 This is the question on which this paper will focus. (shrink)

Daniel Garber - Elements, Principles, and Corpuscles: A Study of Atomism and Chemistry in the Seventeenth Century - Journal of the History of Philosophy 40:3 Journal of the History of Philosophy 40.3 400-401 Book Review Elements, Principles, and Corpuscles: A Study of Atomism and Chemistry in the Seventeenth Century Antonio Clericuzio. Elements, Principles, and Corpuscles: A Study of Atomism and Chemistry in the Seventeenth Century. Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 2000. Pp. xi + 223. Cloth, $89.00. Over the last few (...) decades, historians of early-modern philosophy have tried to relate the main figures in the canon to contemporary developments in the sciences. Chief among these scientific developments has been the rise of the mechanical/corpuscular philosophy. On that view, everything in the physical world can be explained in terms of the size, shape, and motion of the tiny.. (shrink)

Grice observes that the primary discourse function of disjunction is the presentation of alternatives, each of which is relevant in the same way to a given topic. After a brief introduction , I offer in Chapter Two an account of Grice's observation and of further felicity conditions on disjunction, for example, the constraint against disjunctions in which one disjunct entails another. Using an enriched version of the Stalnakerian model of assertion, I define two constraints on information update--Relevant Informativity and Simplicity--and (...) show that these suffice to account for the observations. ;I then argue that the requirement to abide by Relevant Informativity and Simplicity provides a basis for an account of two further properties of disjunctive sentences: their presupposition projection properties and the possibility of anaphora between disjuncts. I argue that presuppositions project in disjunction except where projection would lead to infelicity of the kind characterized in Chapter Two. To state this account, a treatment of presupposition which allows projection to be sensitive to considerations of felicity is required. I show that the Stalnakerian view of presupposition, combined with Heim's notion of local accommodation, provides the necessary framework. ;Similarly, I argue that anaphora across disjunction is disallowed only when it leads to an infelicitous disjunction. In certain configurations, anaphora between disjuncts leads to entailment between disjuncts, which is ruled out independently. The account is given using a version of Neale's E-type analysis of unbound anaphora. I show that the analysis has further desirable consequences with respect to more complex examples of inter-disjunct anaphora. ;Throughout Chapters Three and Four, I contrast my own proposals with accounts given in the Dynamic Semantic literature, offering a critique of Dynamic Semantic approaches to the phenomena discussed. ;In Chapter Five, I examine anaphora between NPs contained inside a disjunction and a pronoun in a following sentence. I argue that these pronouns are also E-type, but show that these cases require a reformulation of the E-type analysis. I develop a new account in which the interpretation of E-type pronouns is derived compositionally from the content of the antecedent clause. (shrink)

We define a notion of projective meaning which encompasses both classical presuppositions and phenomena which are usually regarded as non-presuppositional but which also display projection behavior—Horn’s assertorically inert entailments, conventional implicatures (both Grice’s and Potts’) and some conversational implicatures. We argue that the central feature of all projective meanings is that they are not-at-issue, defined as a relation to the question under discussion. Other properties differentiate various sub-classes of projective meanings, one of them the class of presuppositions according to Stalnaker. (...) This principled taxonomy predicts differences in behavior unexpected on other models among the various conventional triggers and conversational implicatures, while holding promise for a general, explanatory account of projection which applies to all the types of meanings considered. (shrink)

The basic linguistic phenomenon of presupposition is commonplace and intuitive, little different from the relation described by the word presuppose in its everyday usage. In ordinary language, when we say that someone presupposes something, we mean that they assume it, or take it for granted. The term is used in the same way when we talk of a speaker presupposing something, although typically we are interested in those assumptions which are revealed by what the speaker says. To begin with the (...) most venerable case of presupposing, first discussed by Frege 1892, when a speaker makes an assertion, “there is always an obvious presupposition that the simple or compound proper names used have reference.” So a speaker who says. (shrink)

The empirical phenomenon at the center of this paper is projection, which we define (uncontroversially) as follows: (1) Definition of projection An implication projects if and only if it survives as an utterance implication when the expression that triggers the implication occurs under the syntactic scope of an entailment-cancelling operator. Projection is observed, for example, with utterances containing aspectual verbs like stop, as shown in (2) and (3) with examples from English and Paraguayan Guaraní (Paraguay, Tupí-Guaraní).1 The Guaraní example in (...) (2) and its English translation have at least the following implications: (i) Carla has previously smoked, and (ii) Carla stopped smoking. The first but not the second of these implications is also conveyed by the question version of sentence (2), as in (3a), or when (2) is embedded under entailment-cancelling sentential operators, such as negation, as in (3b), the antecedent of a conditional, as in (3c), or an epistemic modal, as in (3d). Hence, by the definition in (14), the first but not the second implication of (2) projects. (shrink)

Unsurprisingly, the negation of sentence (1), shown in (3), does not share this entailment. Neither does the yes/no question formed from this sentence. Similarly, if we add a possibility modal to the sentence, or construct a conditional of which (1) is the antecedent, the resulting sentences do not share the entailment of the original, as we see from the examples below.

Racism is a key driver of the social, political, and economic injustices that cause and maintain health inequities. Over centuries and across continents, racism has become deeply ingrained within societies. Therefore, we believe that it is our professional and ethical obligation as scientists, and public health scholars specifically, to address racism head on in order to ameliorate racialized health disparities. We argue that greater focus is needed on addressing racism rather than race and how race is described or defined. We (...) offer input from public health scholarship to help bioethicists and other scientists contribute to addressing racism. To do so effectively and comprehensively, public health scholars, bioethicists, and other scientists should work together to identify and implement equity-driven collaborations to eliminate the deleterious effects of racism on individuals, families, and communities. (shrink)

This volume collects some of the seminal essays on Descartes by Daniel Garber, one of the pre-eminent scholars of early-modern philosophy. A central theme unifying the volume is the interconnection between Descartes' philosophical and scientific interests, and the extent to which these two sides of the Cartesian program illuminate each other, a question rarely treated in the existing literature. Amongst the specific topics discussed in the essays are Descartes' celebrated method, his demand for certainty in the sciences, his account (...) of the relation of mind and body, and his conception of God's activity on the physical world. This collection will be a mandatory purchase for any serious student of or professional working in seventeenth-century philosophy, history of science, or history of ideas. (shrink)

In 1978, Carper identified ‘four fundamental patterns of knowing’ that became largely foundational to subsequent epistemological discourse within the nursing discipline. These patterns of empirical, personal, aesthetic, and ethical knowing were presented as conceptually distinct yet related patterns of knowing. In order to provide an alternative conceptualization of aesthetics in nursing, the main tenants of Carper's discussion of aesthetic knowing will be revisited, and the foundations for her arguments will be examined. Specifically, Dewey's Art as Experience will be examined in (...) relation to the ‘holism’ of nursing, and an alternative position on pragmatic aesthetics in nursing will be offered. A preliminary reintegration of the four patterns of knowing will then be presented as will an example of a potential cultivation of aesthetics in nursing, through an example of Rodin's 19th century sculpture, the Burghers of Calais. (shrink)

In this paper, the meanings of sentences containing the word or and a modal verb are used to arrive at a novel account of the meaning of or coordinations. It is proposed that or coordinations denote sets whose members are the denotations of the disjuncts; and that the truth conditions of sentences containing or coordinations require the existence of some set made available by the semantic environment which can be ‘divided up’ in accordance with the disjuncts. The relevant notion of (...) ‘dividing things up’ is made explicit in the paper. Detailed attention is given to the question of how the proposed truth conditions are derived from the syntactic input. The account offered allows for the derivation of both the disjunctive and the nondisjunctive readings of modal/or sentences, including the much-discussed free choice readings of may/or sentences. (shrink)

Oxford Studies in Early Modern Philosophy is an annual series, presenting a selection of the best current work in the history of early modern philosophy. It focuses on the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries--the extraordinary period of intellectual flourishing that begins, very roughly, with Descartes and his contemporaries and ends with Kant. It also publishes papers on thinkers or movements outside of that framework, provided they are important in illuminating early modern thought. The articles in OSEMP will be of importance to (...) specialists within the discipline, but the editors also intend that they should appeal to a larger audience of philosophers, intellectual historians, and others who are interested in the development of modern thought. (shrink)

We trace the use of thermodynamics in meteorology from 1850 to 1900 and show the extent to which physicists initiated important lines of research in the use of thermodynamics in meterology. However, it was not until meteorologists adapted physical arguments to the unique requirements of their data that the full power of thermodynamics was achieved. In tracing these developments we remark upon the boundaries between the sciences in the 19th century and tentatively define the criteria for intellectual independence between one (...) science and the science to which it is indebted for its basic principles. (shrink)

Although relatively neglected, Milton's three Latin poems for his school friend Charles Diodati are arguably amongst the most self-revelatory poems in the 1645 collection. As well as evidence of the strength of their literary friendship, each of these poems adumbrates aspects of Milton's vocational dilemma and provides an intriguing example of how Latin afforded Milton an imaginative freedom that he did not exercise when composing in English at this time. The disillusionment that clouded Milton's first impressions of Cambridge is voiced (...) feelingly in the wittily nuanced Elegia Prima, while Elegia Sexta, for all its affable and accommodating manner, also offers serious reflections on the conditions necessary to nurture poetic creativity, and captures what seems to be a pivotal moment in Milton's understanding of his own poetic vocation. Although both these verse-epistles are directed at Diodati as their immediate recipient, they enabled Milton to engage a European audience when recitations of his Latin verses won him acclaim in the Florentine academies. The Epitaphium Damonis, written after Milton's return from Italy, laments the death of Diodati, his first ?fit audience,? and celebrates the literary fellowship he had enjoyed in Florence. Separated from his school-friend by death and the Florentine literary community by the unbridgeable distance between them, the full force of his isolation found expression in a letter to Carlo Dati in which he described his feelings of inner exile. (shrink)

Support for independence in Catalonia has been rapidly increasing since 2010. Civil organisations have been instrumental in the secessionist movement and have used social media to mobilise the Catalan public and raise national consciousness. Drawing on theories of national identity, gender and nation, and the discursive construction of national identity, this article examines constructions of national identity and the gendered dimensions of these constructions in a Twitter corpus collected in the week up to the public consultation on independence held in (...) Catalonia in November 2014. Analysis of the contrasting representations of men and women found in the data suggests that, among both the elites and the public, the contemporary Catalan nationalist project continues to be built on traditional gender normative models of nationalism. The study concludes that this type of nationalism has now become so banal that it has been naturalised and suggests that a more inclusive approach may be needed in future campaigns or in the Catalan nationalist project as a whole. (shrink)

A radical polemic like Intercourse and a Hollywood hit like Fatal Attraction may seem bizarre objects of comparison. Where Andrea Dworkin's study outraged male reviewers, Adrian Lyne's film infuriated their feminist counterparts. But despite the political differences, the two contemporary projects offer a surprisingly similar vision of sex.

_The Empirical Science of Religious Education_ draws together a collection of innovative articles in the field of religious education which passed the editorial scrutiny of Professor Robert Jackson over the course of his impactful fourteen year career as editor of the British Journal of Religious Education. These articles have made an enormous contribution to the international literature establishing of the empirical science of religious education as a research field. The volume draws together, organises and illustrates the contours of this emerging (...) field and is an essential compendium which covers work in: teacher education and teacher experience; student understanding, attitudes and values; varieties of religious schooling, and; worldview and life interpretation Organised into ten thematic sections the contributors cover the field comprehensively and bring with them an international and reflexive approach to their research. It is an essential resource for those practitioners and researchers who wish to access original and innovative research undertaken by way of ethnographic fieldwork, practitioner research, life-history approaches to research, psychological scales and measures, and large surveys. Particularly interested readers will be studying PGCE and masters level programmes in religious education, as well as qualified religious educators undertaking continuing professional development. (shrink)

In this issue, our contributors demonstrate how art in the city, art “about” the city, art compared to the city, can bring to attention the insidious forces underlying every city’s gleaming, wide-awake veneer.

Reading is an affective and reflective relationship with a text, whether it is a new, groundbreaking monograph or one of those books that keeps getting pulled off the shelf year after year. Unlike traditional reviews, the pieces in this section may veer off in new directions as critical reading becomes an extended occurrence of thinking, being, and creation. The Highest Poverty: Monastic Rules and Form-of-Life, by Giorgio Agamben.Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2013.

This introduction highlights the themes that arise from The Missed: the productivity and negativity of unrealized potential and missed opportunity.

Background Nurses play an integral role in the care of children hospitalised with a serious illness. Although information about diagnostics, treatments, and prognosis are generally conveyed to parents and caregivers of seriously ill children by physicians, nurses spend a significant amount of time at the child’s bedside and have an acknowledged role in helping patients and families understand the information that they have been given by a doctor. Hence, the ethical role of the nurse in truth disclosure to children is (...) worth exploring. Methods A systematic academic database and grey literature search strategy was conducted using CINAHL, Medline Psych Info, and Google Scholar. Keywords used included truth, children, nurse, disclosure, serious illness, and communication. A total of 17 publications of varying types were included in the final data set. Ethical Considerations As this was a review of the literature, there were no direct human participants. Empirical studies included in the review had received ethics approval. Results Of the 17 articles included in the review, only one directly reported on the experiences of nurses asked to withhold the truth from patients. Empirical studies were limited to HIV-positive children and children diagnosed with cancer and the dying child. Conclusion A paucity of literature exploring the experiences, attitudes, and beliefs of nurses with regard to truth-telling to seriously ill children is evident. Little consideration has been given to the role nurses play in communicating medical information to children in a hospital setting. The 17 articles included in the review focused on cancer, and HIV, diagnosis, and end-of-life care. Further research should be undertaken to explore the experiences and attitudes of nurses to clinical information sharing to children hospitalised with a wide range of serious illnesses and in diverse clinical scenarios. (shrink)

Can groups of people possess epistemic virtues? There has been some attention to this question in recent years in social epistemology and ethics. Interestingly, most defenses and criticisms of collective virtues so far have focused on proving or disproving that groups can have collective versions of individual virtues. Trying to or disprove that a group can have a good motivation that supervenes motivations of individuals, for example, is a typical strategy. But maybe group virtues are a completely different kind of (...) animal. Does it make sense to demand that they resemble individual virtues? I propose that group virtues can be something different that individual virtues, and whether this is plausible or not depends on the theory we adopt about how virtues are grounded. (shrink)

In recent years philosophers of science have turned away from positivist programs for explicating scientific rationality through detailed accounts of scientific procedure and turned toward large-scale accounts of scientific change. One important motivation for this was better fit with the history of science. Paying particular attention to the large-scale theories of Lakatos and Laudan I argue that the history of science is no better accommodated by the new large-scale theories than it was by the earlier positivist philosophies of science; both (...) are, in their different ways, parochial to our conception of rationality. I further argue that the goal of scientific methodology is not explaining the past but promoting good scientific practice, and on this the large-scale methodologies have no obvious a priori advantages over the positivist methodologies they have tried to replace. (shrink)

Over the past four decades, software engineering has emerged as a discipline in its own right, though it has roots both in computer science and in classical engineering. Its philosophical foundations and premises are not yet well understood. In recent times, members of the software engineering community have started to search for such foundations. In particular, the philosophies of Kuhn and Popper have been used by philosophically-minded software engineers in search of a deeper understanding of their discipline. It seems, however, (...) that professional philosophers of science are not yet aware of this new discourse within the field of software engineering. Therefore, this article aims to reflect critically upon recent software engineers’ attempts towards a philosophy of software engineering and to introduce our own philosophical thoughts in this context. Finally, we invite the professional philosophers of science to participate in this interesting new discourse. (shrink)

En Freud y la escena de la escritura Derrida analiza de una forma original cómo los problemas de la escritura y de la memoria fueron tratados por Freud a lo largo de treinta años, respetando el desarrollo cronológico de su obra. El filósofo analiza en su ensayo los textos freudianos: Proyecto de una psicología para neurólogos, La interpretación de los sueños y Nota sobre el Bloc mágico, con el fin de comprobar sus planteamientos. El pensamiento derrideano y el psicoanálisis poseen (...) muchos puntos en común, sin embargo existen también algunas diferencias abordadas a lo largo de la presentación. (shrink)

These volumes contain Descartes's main works in their first English translations, as well as critiques of his philosophy both in English and translated from other languages. Other works in the set bring together writings by Cartesians in English translation, works by English thinkers influenced by Descartes, and the standard seventeenth-century Descartes biographies in their English translations. As a whole, this set provides a group of rare and largely inaccessible works vital to understanding the impact of Cartesian thought on his contemporary (...) Anglophone world. (shrink)

It is difficult to overestimate the influence of Descartes on his contemporaries and following generations. While still alive he had followers and detractors, and after his death, numerous books and pamphlets, with his name prominently featured in their titles, adopted and developed his ideas, twisted them to fit into a wide variety of intellectual agendas, or argued passionately against them. While he may not deserve the title of father of modern philosophy, in many circles he was considered the iconic modern (...) philosopher from the 1640s on.The subject of Tad Schmaltz's book is Cartesianism, philosophy and science as done by Descartes and his followers. But from the beginning, Schmaltz appreciates the difficulty... (shrink)

Paul Robeson was a remarkable singer, a brilliant actor, and an engaged political activist. In his college years he was a football star. Throughout his life he campaigned for the rights the poor, the disadvantaged, and the oppressed. His most famous theatrical role was Othello; when he played the part in London and in New York he was one of the first black actors to do so. The New York production ran on Broadway longer than any other William Shakespeare play (...) had done. But Robeson’s life, which included political and racial attacks, the loss of his US passport, and claims that he was “un-American” (he visited the Soviet Union and compared its treatment of minorities favorably to that of the United States) led to a series of encounters in which Othello, both the role and the play, was in effect reenacted in public, culminating in Robeson’s eloquent testimony before the House Un-American Activities Committee. This essay traces the connections, and the sometimes-uncanny crossovers, between Robeson’s life and Shakespeare’s play. (shrink)