Activity in the prefrontal cortex may distinguish the meta-awareness experienced during lucid dreams from its absence in normal dreams. To examine a possible relationship between dream lucidity and prefrontal task performance, we carried out a prospective study in 28 high school students. Participants performed the Wisconsin Card Sort and Iowa Gambling tasks, then for 1 week kept dream journals and reported sleep quality and lucidity-related dream characteristics. Participants who exhibited a greater degree of lucidity performed significantly better on the task (...) that engages the ventromedial prefrontal cortex, but degree of lucidity achieved did not distinguish performance on the task that engages the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, nor did it distinguish self-reported sleep quality or baseline characteristics. The association between performance on the Iowa Gambling Task and lucidity suggests a connection between lucid dreaming and ventromedial prefrontal function. (shrink)

In ‘Discrimination Against the Dying’, Phillip Reed argues that terminally ill patients are subjected to a distinct form of discrimination called ‘terminalism’. One of Reed’s primary examples of terminalism is right to try laws, which offer terminally ill patients the option to request medications that are not FDA-approved and without IRB involvement. In this analysis, we consider additional contextual factors about right to try, suggesting that it may not neatly count as an exemplar of terminalism. When pursued with appropriate protocols (...) and oversight, right to try has the potential to broaden treatment opportunities for the terminally ill by bypassing FDA and IRB restrictions, functioning as a less stringent alternative to expanded access for patients with limited time and dwindling options. Reed acknowledges that differential treatment of patients is not inherently unjust. For instance, Reed praises expanded access laws that grant patients with severe or life-threatening diseases access to treatment options otherwise unavailable. Patients not afflicted by severe illness or who have found success with standard treatment options are unlikely to face discrimination for inability to access nonessential treatment. Conversely, availability of these treatments for the terminally ill could enhance their well-being and prolong their lifespan. It is also significant to highlight important …. (shrink)

In view of conflicting claims about children's sensitivity to the needs of other children in learning situations, the present study was designed to explore the sensitivity of child and adult tutors in one‐to‐one tutoring interactions. Sixteen adults and 31 11‐ and 9‐year‐olds tutored 47 9‐year‐old tutees on an animal classification task. Tutors were tested on their ability to apply the rules and knowledge they had obtained after training, and tutees were tested after being tutored. On all the verbal and nonverbal (...) tutoring indices adult tutors showed greater sensitivity than child tutors: they were more likely to display behaviours which promoted efficient learning in their tutees. Results suggested that tutors operated on the basis of an implicit theory of teaching which involves three types of sensitivity: sensitivity to the learner's need to have sufficient information for understanding the task, coupled with adequate checks on the learner's understanding; sensitivity to the learner's need to participate actively in the learning process; and sensitivity to differences in learning abilities among individual learners, and being able to accommodate to them. (shrink)

Successful tutoring depends in part on child tutors’ ability to recognise and interpret accurately signals of misunderstanding by their tutees. Age- and gender-related differences were investigated in a study which exposed 80 children to a video-recorded episode involving a target child receiving ambiguous instructions in her attempts to move a model car along a designated route on a playmat roadway from one destination to another. The results showed that explicit, general and facial modes of displaying puzzlement by the target child (...) were judged as equally powerful expressions of degree of puzzlement, but 8-10 year olds judged the target child as significantly more puzzled than did 7 year olds. Older children were also more likely to attribute the puzzlement of the target child to the ambiguous instructions than to her verbal or facial expression of puzzlement. Girls were generally more accurate than boys in judging facial expressions and less likely than boys to give wrong or alternatively ambiguous responses when given the opportunity to correct the video-recorded ambiguous instructions. The results throw some light on the developing sensitivities of boys and girls in recognising and attributing failures of understanding by other children. (shrink)

Il faut prendre au sérieux le sous-titre « Histoire documentaire » qui fait l’intérêt essentiel de ce livre : présenter une série de documents écrits et iconographiques originaux et des outils (corpus et biographies de syndicalistes, chronologie et bibliographie). Le travail novateur de dépouillement des archives de la CGT explique cette richesse documentaire. Mais il serait peut-être utile d’aller au-delà de la citation ; par exemple, si on s’intéresse comme l’écrit l’auteur à la perspective...

Most see having their individuality stifled as equivalent to the terrible forced conformity found within speculative fiction like George Orwell's 1984. However, the oppression of others by those in power has often been justified through ideologies of individualism. If we look to animistic traditions, could we bridge the gap between these extremes? What effect would such a reevaluation of identity have on the modern understanding of selfhood? The term ' in-dividual' suggests an irreducible unit of identity carried underneath all of (...) our titles and experiences—the real self. By linking Marilyn Strathern's elaboration of dividualism and Nurit Bird-David's relational epistemology , a clear contrast forms between the animistic sense of self and that of the West. This system of selfhood more readily encourages a life lived in Henri Bergson's sense of duration and sets up a state of dialogical discourse , as seen in Mikhail Bakhtin's work. These concepts challenge the traditional praise for individuality and exposes how individualism can be used as a tool of marginalization as seen in Michel Foucault's critique of authorship. I argue that pursuing a sense of self rooted in these concepts instead of individualism mitigates this marginalization via a more socially aware cultural environment that the traditional Western sense of self fails to create. (shrink)

ABSTRACT David Roberts’ History of the Present asks what comes after the grand narratives of European modernity. Progress is over, but without a past and with no assured future, the present remains in conceptual limbo. For Roberts, we are entering a new stage of a global cultural modernity marked by the end of European modernism. Taking a fresh look at the contested endings of the modern, Roberts suggests that an extended concept of contemporaneity might replace the problematic dualism of past (...) and present, modernity and post-modernity at the end of the twentieth century. This review article discusses Roberts’ argument with reference to the work of Budapest School members, Ágnes Heller and György Markus, with reference more broadly to seminal theorists such as Georg Lukács, Walter Benjamin, Theodor Adorno, Alain Touraine and Guy Debord, and to writers including Marcel Proust, Heinrich Mann, Aldous Huxley and Michel Houellebecq, in relation to the questions of cultural modernity. (shrink)

In this paper I argue that a reimagining of the notion of silence as more than a sonic phenomenon is needed to address the dominant structural apparati of Western discourse. Silence as an existential medium is where the Foucauldian apparatuses that power the status-quo of the world operate. They forge connections between things like ideology and social organization where one falls into the wake of the other and is shaped in a way that is nearly invisible to the passing glance. (...) It is the indeterminacy within silence as explored by John Cage that that allows this to happen, but it also offers the potential to have an active role in the shaping of these apparatuses toward a more beneficial and culturally aware form of society. This new approach is crucial in helping one learn to embrace the indeterminacy of life and the hazy relational structures that drive our existence. (shrink)

THAT DESCARTES WAS INTERESTED from the very start of his philosophic career in developing a method for problem-solving that could be applied generally to the solution of "unknowns" is well known. Also well known is the further development of the method by the introduction of the technique of hyperbolic doubt in his mature, metaphysical works, especially in the Meditations. Perhaps less widely appreciated is the important role that accounts of systems of signs played in the development of his early accounts (...) of a method; it is crucial to the method that the elements of problems be identified and signified by simple and convenient signs that can then be arranged to display the relations among the known elements and the unknown solution. Commentators such as Michel Foucault have brought this interest in signification to our attention and shown the widespread importance of such projects in the seventeenth century. Few, however, have examined the relation between the early projects of signification and the later, metaphysical works. I suggest that one way to understand Descartes' metaphysical turn in his mature work is as an attempt to ground the accounts he has offered of signification in something further: representation, particularly mental representation. From the start, Descartes explains signification by reference to mental representation: a word, figure, or symbol signifies its objects by prompting the mind to think of those objects. Although Descartes offers detailed and comprehensive accounts in works such as the Rules for the Direction of the Mind of what constitutes effective and convenient systems of signification by way of the relations between signifying element, system, and the objects signified thereby, the mental operations that allow signification to operate, especially that of the "intuition of simple natures," is never fully explained. It remains to the mature phase of Descartes' career to crack open the basic operations of our thought by developing the full-fledged doctrine of ideas--a doctrine that makes explicit how an object is represented to a subject. (shrink)

Building on contemporary research in embodied cognition, enactivism, and the extended mind, this book explores how social institutions in contemporary neoliberal nation-states systematically affect our thoughts, feelings, and agency. Human beings are, necessarily, social animals who create and belong to social institutions. But social institutions take on a life of their own, and literally shape the minds of all those who belong to them, for better or worse, usually without their being self-consciously aware of it. Indeed, in contemporary neoliberal societies, (...) it is generally for the worse. In The Mind-Body Politic, Michelle Maiese and Robert Hanna work out a new critique of contemporary social institutions by deploying the special standpoint of the philosophy of mind—in particular, the special standpoint of the philosophy of what they call essentially embodied minds—and make a set of concrete, positive proposals for radically changing both these social institutions and also our essentially embodied lives for the better. (shrink)

When a physician employment relationship terminates, the physician–patient relationship may also be terminated by enforcement of a covenant not to compete, which typically forces the physician to leave the geographic area for a period of time. This gives rise to several ethical dilemmas. The public interest is compromised when enforcement of these covenants contributes to the shortage of physicians in the community, and individual patients are harmed when their physicians are no longer available. The authors undertook a unique study to (...) explore physician perspectives concerning the ethics of banning a physician from practice and the impact of the ban on both the physician and the physician’s patients. The results identified harmful effects that have not been raised in prior scholarly articles or reported court opinions. After reviewing the legal background of covenants not to compete, this paper presents the results of that study and concludes that resorting to the legal system for enforcement of covenants not to compete is not always the ethical course of action. (shrink)

Joan Didion uses Biblical analogues in her novel Play It As It Lays (1970) to recount the American western myth she learned in her youth, “the story that the wilderness was and is redemptive” (“Thinking about Western Thinking” 14). Her use of scriptural analogues helps us to understand the moral themes in this novel. Situating her novel in America’s most disappointing frontier —Hollywood, Didion uses the Biblical metaphor of the desert to relate a tale of moral chaos illustrated by failed (...) marriages, sexual adultery, forsaken children, and suicide. In Didion’s scriptural analogues, we see, in this Hollywood story, a contemporary wilderness riven by spiritual despair and moral devastation, but a wilderness that can lead to deliverance. (shrink)

Challenging recent arguments that the implicit poetics of Homeric epic presents a poetry without rhetoric and a view of bards as independent of the context of performance, this article explores the Phaiakian episode in the Odyssey in an effort to demonstrate that the interactions between Odysseus' tale, the songs of Demodokos, and Homer's treatment of his hero reveal the workings of a rhetorical poetics. The predominance of a rhetorical stance in the poem is closely related to skepticism, the chief cognitive (...) state of agents in the Odyssean world, and to the proto-Machiavellian treatment of aretē as a performative excellence combining practical intelligence, a situational approach to speech, and an appreciation for the relativism of value-traits that link rather than alienate the hero and the bard. (shrink)

One of Fichte's most important ideas - that nature can place limits on our ability to govern ourselves, and that anyone who values autonomy is thereby committed to the value of basic research and of the development of autonomy-enhancing technologies - has received little attention in the interpretative literature on Fichte, and has little currency in contemporary ethics. This volume aims to address both deficits. Beginning from a reconstruction of Fichte's theory of rational agency, this volume examines his arguments for (...) the thesis that rational agency must have two constitutive ends: substantive and formal independence. It argues for a novel interpretation of Fichte's conception of substantive independence, and shows how Fichte's account of moral duties is derived from the end of substantive independence on that conception. It also argues for a new interpretation of Fichte's conception of formal independence, and explains why the usual understanding of this end as providing direct guidance for action must be mistaken. It encompasses a systematic reconstruction of Fichte's first-order claims in normative ethics and the philosophy of right. (shrink)

'Propositionalism' is the widely held view that all intentional mental relations-all intentional attitudes-are relations to propositions or something proposition-like. Paradigmatically, to think about the mountain is ipso facto to think that it is F, for some predicate 'F'. It seems, however, many intentional attitudes are not relations to propositions at all: Mary contemplates Jonah, adores New York, misses Athens, mourns her brother. I argue, following Brentano, Husserl, Church and Montague among others, that the way things seem is the way they (...) are, and that propositionalism must be abandoned. (shrink)

Violence in psychiatric clinics has been a consistent problem since the birth of modern psychiatry. In this paper, I examine current efforts to understand and reduce both violence and coercive responses to violence in psychiatry, arguing that these efforts are destined to fall short. By and large, scholarship on psychiatric violence reduction has focused on identifying discrete factors that are statistically associated with violence, such as patient demographics and clinical qualities, in an effort to quantify risk and predict violent acts (...) before they happen. Using the work of Horkheimer and Adorno, I characterize the theoretical orientation of such efforts as identity thinking. I then argue that these approaches lead to epistemic imperceptiveness and a subtle form of conceptual restraint on patients. I suggest a reorientation in psychiatric research, away from identity thinking and toward a more productive and just approach to the problem of violence in psychiatric clinics. (shrink)

Background: The ability to consent promotes children’s access to health services. Healthcare providers should assess and arrive at a clinical judgement about the child’s maturity and mental capacity to obtain valid consent. Research objective: The objective of the study was to determine practices employed by South African healthcare providers to obtain consent for treatment from children. Research design: A qualitative, explorative, descriptive research design was used and the study was contextual. Participants and research context: In all, 24 healthcare providers (professional (...) nurses and medical practitioners) were purposively sampled from a hospital and primary health clinics. Semi-structured interviews were used. Ethical consideration: Ethical approval was obtained from the Institutional Review Board and gatekeepers. Written informed consent was obtained from each participant. Findings: Healthcare providers’ current practices in obtaining consent from children revealed inconsistency in implementation as well as the yardstick used to determine children’s mental capacity. Building trust with children, sharing information and assessment were interlinked in obtaining consent. Discussion: The inconsistent practice has implications for children’s access to healthcare services. Conclusion: Inconsistent practices in the implementation of consent laws have the potential to violate children’s rights to bodily and psychological integrity, access to health services and having their opinions heard and be taken into consideration. Through uncovering the current perceptions and practices and a literature review, guidelines intended for use by the Department of Health could be developed. (shrink)

The ethical concept of Informed Consent provides individuals with the right and the opportunity to approve of events that will occur regarding his or her own person. In medicine, informed consent is obtained for treatment and for research participation. However, under some circumstances, prospective informed consent cannot be obtained because of the devastating clinical condition of the patient. In emergency circumstances, treatment is never withheld if obtaining informed consent from a critically ill person is not possible or if a delay (...) while seeking surrogates would further endanger life. In emergency research circumstances, waiving informed consent for study participation is fraught with additional ethical considerations. This article will review a presentation given at the June 2, 2006 conference entitled “The Ethics of Research in Emergency Medicine”. (shrink)

This rich and varied collection of essays addresses some of the most fundamental human questions through the lenses of philosophy, literature, religion, politics, and theology. Peter Augustine Lawler and Dale McConkey have fashioned an interdisciplinary consideration of such perennial and enduring issues as the relationship between nature and history, nature and grace, reason and revelation, classical philosophy and Christianity, modernity and postmodernity, repentance and self-limitation, and philosophy and politics.

We propose six guideposts that states and hospitals should follow to respect disability rights when designing policies for the allocation of scarce, lifesaving medical treatments. Four relate to criteria for decisions. First, do not use categorical exclusions, especially ones based on disability or diagnosis. Second, do not use perceived quality of life. Third, use hospital survival and near-term prognosis (e.g., death expected within a few years despite treatment) but not long-term life expectancy. Fourth, when patients who use ventilators in their (...) daily lives (e.g., home ventilation) present to acute care hospitals, their personal ventilators should not be reallocated to other patients. Fifth, designate triage officers to assess patients individually on the basis of objective medical evidence, not stereotypes or assumptions. Sixth, include disability rights advocates in policy development and dissemination. (shrink)

This book is an interdisciplinary study of the forms and uses of doubt in works by Homer, Sophocles, Aristophanes, Cicero, Machiavelli, Shakespeare and Montaigne. Based on close analysis of literary and philosophical texts by these important authors, Michelle Zerba argues that doubt is a defining experience in antiquity and the Renaissance, one that constantly challenges the limits of thought and representation. The wide-ranging discussion considers issues that run the gamut from tragic loss to comic bombast, from psychological collapse to (...) skeptical dexterity and from solitary reflection to political improvisation in civic contexts and puts Greek and Roman treatments of doubt into dialogue not only with sixteenth-century texts but with contemporary works as well. Using the past to engage questions of vital concern to our time, Zerba demonstrates that although doubt sometimes has destructive consequences, it can also be conducive to tolerance, discovery and conversation across sociopolitical boundaries. (shrink)

Traditionally economists have based their economic predictions on the assumption that humans are super-rational creatures, using the information we are given efficiently and generally making selfish decisions that work well for us as individuals. Economists also assume that we're doing the very best we can possibly do - not only for today, but over our whole lifetimes too. But increasingly the study of behavioural economics is revealing that our lives are not that simple. Instead, our decisions are complicated by our (...) own psychology. Each of us makes mistakes every day. We don't always know what's best for us and, even if we do, we might not have the self-control to deliver on our best intentions. We struggle to stay on diets, to get enough exercise and to manage our money. We misjudge risky situations. We are prone to herding: sometimes peer pressure leads us blindly to copy others around us; other times copying others helps us to learn quickly about new, unfamiliar situations. This Very Short Introduction explores the reasons why we make irrational decisions; how we decide quickly; why we make mistakes in risky situations; our tendency to procrastination; and how we are affected by social influences, personality, mood and emotions. The implications of understanding the rationale for our own financial behaviour are huge. Behavioural economics could help policy-makers to understand the people behind their policies, enabling them to design more effective policies, while at the same time we could find ourselves assaulted by increasingly savvy marketing. Michelle Baddeley concludes by looking forward, to see what the future of behavioural economics holds for us.ABOUT THE SERIES: The Very Short Introductions series from Oxford University Press contains hundreds of titles in almost every subject area. These pocket-sized books are the perfect way to get ahead in a new subject quickly. Our expert authors combine facts, analysis, perspective, new ideas, and enthusiasm to make interesting and challenging topics highly readable. (shrink)

Prenatal genetic testing is becoming available for an increasingly broad set of diseases, and it is only a matter of time before parents can choose to test for hundreds, if not thousands, of genetic conditions in their fetuses. Should access to certain kinds of fetal genetic information be limited, and if so, on what basis? We evaluate a range of considerations including reproductive autonomy, parental rights, disability rights, and the rights and interests of the fetus as a potential future child. (...) We conclude that parents should be able to access information that could be useful during pregnancy, but that testing for non-medical information should be limited. Next, we argue that the government lacks a compelling state interest in regulating prenatal genetic testing and propose that regulation should occur through medical professional organizations. Finally, we present a framework for determining what testing physicians should recommend, offer neutrally, or not offer at all. (shrink)

This work aims to contribute to reflection on the epistemological elements present in the philosophy of Hans Jonas. The interpretative key provided by the author with the notion of Homo Pictor and the importance of images, symbols, imagination and memory in the evolution of human freedom within the scope of life, which resulted in the current human being, provide a fruitful field for exploration of the attributes of the epistemic subjects pointed out by the philosopher. In this sense, we propose (...) a reading that considers the possible elements of a theory of knowledge by Jonas based on the texts Image Making and the Freedom of Man (1966), with emphasis on the appendix of the essay, entitled On the Origins of the Experience of Truth and from the text Tool, Image, and Grave (1986). (shrink)

Most people agree that murder is wrong. Yet, within computer games virtual murder scarcely raises an eyebrow. In one respect this is hardly surprising, as no one is actually murdered within a computer game. A virtual murder, some might argue, is no more unethical than taking a pawn in a game of chess. However, if no actual children are abused in acts of virtual paedophilia (life-like simulations of the actual practice), does that mean we should disregard these acts with the (...) same abandon we do virtual murder? In this paper I shall outline several arguments which attempt to permit virtual murder, whilst prohibiting virtual paedophilia. (shrink)

This valuable resource provides academic and student affairs practitioners with the tools to make informed legal and ethical decisions in their college and university contexts. Law is constantly changing and is interpreted differently from campus to campus based on institutional culture and history. This text provides higher education practitioners with tools to anticipate practical and responsible action, engaging readers in anticipatory and reflective practice. In this text, Boettcher and Salinas introduce the Institutional Intelligence Model, a helpful framework that guides practitioners (...) in examining a wide variety of campus issues. Throughout the book, readers can explore perspectives from current practitioners and utilize case studies to examine specific topics including admissions, academics, student living, confidential resources, and graduate student experiences. By using the strategies in this book, practitioners will be equipped to successfully navigate legal and ethical issues on their campuses. This text is ideal for graduate students, student and academic affairs professionals, and those in leadership positions responsible for working with and supporting students and staff teams. (shrink)

This paper argues that diversity and uptake are required for objectivity. In philosophy, women are underrepresented with respect to teaching, publishing, and citations. This undermines the objectivity of our research output. To improve women’s representation and objectivity in philosophy, we should take steps to increase women’s numbers and institute uptake-conducive conditions. In concrete terms, this means fostering an appreciation for diversity, diversifying evaluators, integrating women’s contributions into mainstream discourse, and reducing implicit bias.

This article explores some conceptual issues regarding criminalization at the domestic and international levels. It attempts to explain what it means to say that a particular kind of conduct has been criminalized, and considers how the processes of criminalization differ in domestic and international law. In unpacking these issues, the article takes the examples of rape and sex trafficking in domestic and international legal systems, explores whether these offenses are criminalized more broadly in international criminal law as compared to domestic (...) criminal law, and briefly outlines possible explanations for this disparity. (shrink)

In this paper we reflect upon our multi-year reading group as a site of decolonial feminist praxis that motivates reading in a different register from how we were trained to read as academics in the humanities. In collaborative study we willingly open ourselves to change, to being worked on by one another and by the texts we read. Our reading together has initiated the undoing of settler colonial academic subjectivity and the co-creation of new forms of scholarly subjectivity grounded in (...) relations of care, openness to transformation, and a growing commitment to epistemic justice. In giving an account of our group history and process we reflect on our complicities with settler-colonialism in the university and consider the ways that reading together has cultivated our capacities to listen to counter-narratives, formulate institutional and self critique, and engage in epistemic reparations. (shrink)

The idea for this special issue came from our mutual interest in research education and the development of future researchers. Our shared program of research has led us to discover the potentials, complexities, and dilemmas associated with research assistantships where newcomers assist more experienced researchers to conduct research projects. We considered a wide range of proposals and papers addressing different aspects of research assistantships. The resulting collection includes self-studies and analyses of others, as well as policy reviews and recommendations. The (...) pieces consider research assistantships involving bachelor's, master's, and doctoral students in four different countries (Canada, Denmark, South Africa, United States) and across a range of disciplines. (shrink)

January 2018, the American College of Obstetrics and Gynecology issued a position statement opposing the punishment of women for self‐induced abortion. To those unfamiliar with emerging trends in abortion in the United States and worldwide, the need for the declaration might not be apparent. Several studies suggest that self‐induced abortion is on the rise in the United States. Simultaneously, prosecutions of pregnant women for behavior thought to harm the fetus are increasing. The ACOG statement responds to both trends by urging (...) doctors to honor the integrity and confidentiality inherent in the doctor‐patient relationship. Seen in the context of the larger battle over legal abortion, the statement has far broader implications. By acknowledging the role doctors play in enforcing pregnancy‐related crimes, the ACOG position statement wisely anticipates the ways in which doctors will be implicated should access to legal abortion be further restricted. To understand the need for the ACOG directive, you must first understand that the story of what will happen if abortion becomes a crime in the United States is not to be found in history books; it is staring at us across our southern border. (shrink)