This article explores and defends the claim that addictive desires—for alcohol in particular—are partly explained by the motive of self-escape. We consider how this claim sits with the neurophysiological explanation of the strength of addictive desires in terms of the effect addictive substances have on the dopamine system. We argue that nothing in the neuroscientific framework rules out pluralism about the causes of addictive desire.

This book explores patient safety themes in developed, developing and transitioning countries. A foundation premise is the concept of 'reverse innovation' as mutual learning from the chapters challenges traditional assumptions about the construction and location of knowledge. This edited collection can be seen to facilitate global learning. This book will, hopefully, form a bridge for those countries seeking to enhance their patient safety policies. Contributors to this book challenge many supposed generalisations about human societies, including consideration of how medical care (...) is mediated within those societies and how patient safety is assured or compromised. By introducing major theories from the developing world in the book, readers are encouraged to reflect on their impact on the patient safety and the health quality debate. The development of practical patient safety policies for wider use is also encouraged. The volume presents a ground breaking perspective by exploring fundamental issues relating to patient safety through different academic disciplines. It develops the possibility of a new patient safety and health quality synthesis and discourse relevant to all concerned with patient safety and health quality in a global context. (shrink)

Each contributor to this book has used personal experience as the basis from which to frame his individual sociological perspectives. Because they have personalized their work, their accounts are real, and recognizable as having come from 'real' persons, about 'real' experiences. There are no objectively-distanced disembodied third person entities in these accounts. These writers are actual people whose stories will make you laugh, cry, think, and want to know more.

This book is a rich blend of analyses by leading experts from various cultures and disciplines. A compact introduction to a complex field, it illustrates biotechnology's profound impact upon the environment and society. Moreover, it underscores the vital relevance of cultural values. This book empowers readers to more critically assess biotechnology's value and effectiveness within both specific cultural and global contexts.

This book taps the best American thinkers to answer the essential American question: How do we sustain our experiment in government of, by, and for the people? Authored by an extraordinary and politically diverse roster of public officials, scholars, and educators, these chapters describe our nation's civic education problem, assess its causes, offer an agenda for reform, and explain the high stakes at risk if we fail.

In Discovering Levinas, Michael L. Morgan shows how this thinker faces in novel and provocative ways central philosophical problems of twentieth-century philosophy and religious thought. He tackles this task by placing Levinas in conversation with philosophers such as Donald Davidson, Stanley Cavell, John McDowell, Onora O'Neill, Charles Taylor, and Cora Diamond. He also seeks to understand Levinas within philosophical, religious, and political developments in the history of twentieth-century intellectual culture. Morgan demystifies Levinas by examining his unfamiliar and surprising (...) vocabulary, interpreting texts with an eye to clarity, and arguing that Levinas can be understood as a philosopher of the everyday. Morgan also shows that Levinas's ethics is not morally and politically irrelevant nor is it excessively narrow and demanding in unacceptable ways. Neither glib dismissal nor fawning acceptance, this book provides a sympathetic reading that can form a foundation for a responsible critique. (shrink)

Normal 0 false false false MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 st1:*{behavior:url(#ieooui) } /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-ansi-language:#0400; mso-fareast-language:#0400; mso-bidi-language:#0400;} One of the most celebrated biologists of the past century, Edward O. Wilson has received virtually every scientific award and recognition for his provocative and innovative enquiry into the nature of the relationship between moral behavior and biology which the scientific community can offer. For over twenty-five years, (...) his development of a field of study at Harvard University called sociobiology and the analytical concept he created called conscilience have revolutionized our thinking about ethics and human behavior. Exploring the interrelatedness of the chemistry of the mind and the genetic bases of culture, he has challenged the philosophical, theological, and sociological world to embrace a creatively converging view of science and ethics, of biology and human behavior. This essay is a critical review of Wilson’s major works written during the past three decades which have caused both international exuberance among scientists and an exclamation of outrage among many in the philosophical and theological world. This is the first comprehensive review and critical assessment of his major works. (shrink)

The purpose of this article is to provide a comment on Simone Weil’s brief but seminal essay ‘Reflections on the Right Use of School Studies with a View to the Love of God.’ It complements an earlier one on Weil’s Lectures on Philosophy. The essay was sent via a letter to her friend and mentor, the Catholic priest, and Dominican friar, Father Joseph-Marie Perrin O.P. It set out her belief that school studies should provide the individual pupil or student with (...) an education in the value and acquisition of attention. This, Weil believed, would be of fundamental value when reaching out to God through prayer. Such a capacity for attention would also enhance the student’s general academic and social learning providing a basis for authentic dialogue with others, and not only teachers and schoolfellows. The article introduces her as a religious philosopher, explains the origins of the essay, and Weil’s friendship with Father Perrin, who was her Christian religious mentor, examines the text itself, considers some critical commentaries, and assesses its relevance to the philosophy and practice of education today. (shrink)

In a pioneering book, Philosophy of Microbiology, Maureen O’Malley argues for the philosophical importance of microbes through an examination of their impact on ecosystems, evolution, biological classification, collaborative behavior, and multicellular organisms. She identifies many understudied conceptual issues in the study of microbes. If philosophers follow her lead, the philosophy of biology will be expanded and enriched.

Of all the themes treated by the mimes, perhaps the one that gave the most delight to their audiences throughout the centuries was that of adultery. References to it, from various parts of the ancient world, are found from the first century before Christ to the sixth century of the Christian era, and in many cases it is spoken of as a theme typical of the mime as a whole. There does not seem to be satisfactory evidence of its existence (...) in a genuinely dramatic form at an earner date. It is reported that the μαγδoί, among other impersonations, mimicked the behaviour of μoιχoί, but their performance, so far as can be discovered, was purely a piece of imitative buffoonery. When the theme of adultery was treated by Greek mimes of a later date, the approach seems to have been rather a psychological study of the adulteress than an attempt to bring out the dramatic possibilities inherent in the situation. This is certainly the case with Herondas' fifth mime, which portrays a lady jealously in love with a slave. Evidence from sources bearing a close relationship to the mime is equally negative. Thus a well-known Egyptian papyrus contains a song, written perhaps in the third or second century B.C., in which Helen complains of Menelaus' indifference to her after bringing her back from Troy; but this is far from constituting a variant on the adultery theme. The wall-song in Marissa, which was composed in the middle of the second century B.C., does indicate a situation in which a woman is trying to keep her lover's presence outside the house from the knowledge of another man with whom she is consorting inside. (shrink)

"_Weaving the World_ is a well-written and lucid overview of Simone Weil's writings on science and mathematics. This book will be of great benefit for anyone who wishes to pursue Weil's thought in depth." —_Eric O. Springsted, President of the American Weil Society_ "_Weaving the World_ is a detailed account of the philosophy of science and knowledge of Simone Weil. It is a very useful contribution to our understanding of one of the deepest and most incandescent thinkers of the twentieth (...) century." —_Martin Andic, University of Massachusetts, Boston_ This clearly written book introduces readers to Simone Weil’s philosophy of science and mathematics. Weil held that, for the ancient Greeks, the ultimate purpose of science and mathematics was the knowledge and love of the divine. Her creative assimilation of this vision led her to a conception of science and mathematics that connects the human person with not only the physical world but also the spiritual and aesthetic aspects of human existence. Vance Morgan sketches an outline of a metaphysical foundation for mathematics and science that, according to Weil, opens the door to a reinvigorated discussion among science, philosophy, art, and religion. (shrink)

Christian ethicists have neglected conscience, understood as an individual's moral self-awareness before a locus of accountability and judgment, over the last few decades. The aim of this essay is to suggest how this neglect came about. I draw on the work of Paul Lehmann and Oliver O'Donovan to illustrate how ethicists in the twentieth century became suspicious of conscience because of its association with the alleged ahistorical individualism of Immanuel Kant's work. I argue that a social-historicist conception of conscience, such (...) as H. Richard Niebuhr offered, attempts to save conscience from this suspicion. Ironically, however, Stanley Hauerwas's development of Niebuhr's historicist, communitarian approach to conscience, appears to have led to a dismissal of conscience. I conclude with a brief comment about what this dismissal has cost contemporary Christian ethics, namely the Christian tradition's basic commitment to the singularity of an individual's accountability before God. (shrink)

In classical antiquity Propertius' eloquence was renowned. His successor Ovid referred to the blandi praecepta Properti and to blandi…Propertius oris . Quintilian stated that to his taste the most tersus and elegans Latin elegist was Tibullus, but sunt qui Propertium malint. Martial mentioned the facundi carmen iuuenale Properti. Turn now from the opinions of ancient authors to those of some modern commentators as they try to elucidate various passages as presented in the extant manuscripts, and you encounter not the adjectives (...) blandus, tersus, elegans, and facundus, but ‘strange’, ‘obscure’, ‘odd’, ‘slovenly’, and the like. A major reason for such striking differences of opinion should be evident. Ovid, to whom Propertius was blandi oris, read a text separated from Propertius' autograph by at most a few decades. Modern scholars, however, must form their text from a few relatively late manuscripts, none earlier than c. 1200, in which Propertius' eloquence has been obscured by over twelve centuries of careless blundering and deliberate interpolation by a succession of scribes. A generally accepted example of deliberate interpolation in the Propertian archetype is found at 2.32.3-6: nam quid Praenesti dubias, o Cynthia, sortes, quid petis Aeaei moenia Telegoni? cur tua te Herculeum deportant esseda Tibur? Appia cur totiens te uia †ducit anum†? , where the name of some neighbouring town is required in the fourth verse to balance Praeneste, Tusculum, and Herculeum in the preceding three. (shrink)

While Descartes's status as a "representationalist" is often a subject of vehement debate, what exactly he means by "representation" is not. I look to Descartes's early work to show that he first conceives of representation through signification, in which the sign and the signified are isomorphic; on this view, relations of representation can be arbitrary and are to be distinguished from relations of resemblance. I then examine images to show the possibility of an image constructing a relation to its viewer, (...) or "subject-position," in which that subject-position fails to display the attributes of extended things. Such a construction might be applied to the "I" of the Meditations--distinct from all extended substances, it nonetheless has direct access to them through its non-objectified sense-ideas. On this basis, I propose a "model" of representation for ideas: an idea represents its object O to a subject-position S through a vehicle of representation X under some relation R. I argue that this model can explain the uses Descartes makes of "represent," particularly for ideas. But it must be understood properly: Descartes comes to conceive of the vehicle of representation simply as the form taken by the direct interaction of the mind and the things objectively present to it--but a form that can take on a life of its own, giving rise to the possibilities of clarity and distinctness or of confusion in ideas. But what is truly novel about Descartes's conception is the mind's ability to form higher-order representations that represent the conditions of representation itself, thereby achieving certainty for some mental representations without starting from any incorrigible, immediate perceptions. This possibility is realized most clearly in the understanding of my nature as a thinking and representing being, where I can represent myself as the subject-position distinct from all extended things, but also can represent myself as joyfully and representatively united with a body all my own. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:An Egg Takes Flight: The Once and Future Life of the National Bioethics Advisory Commission*Alexander Morgan Capron (bio)Attempting to describe the National Bioethics Advisory Commission (NBAC) is comparable to the surreal feat performed by the artist in a famous painting by René Magritte. The artist (Magritte himself) sits with his back to the viewer, a palette in his left hand. The brush in his right hand is raised (...) to a canvas, blank except for a bird in flight that he is in the process of painting. The artist is looking to his left at a tabletop, bare except for a single, plain egg.Having held its second formal meeting in mid-January, NBAC is certainly still embryonic, its future mysterious within its shell. Yet answers to four major questions that will determine not just what kind of bird the Commission turns out to be but the heights to which it will fly should be evident by April or May 1997. First, will the White House take the sort of interest in NBAC that is needed if it is to succeed? Second, will the Commission’s term be extended beyond October 1997—and will the decision come early enough to allow it to start soon on projects that will take more than a single year to complete? Third, will the Commission take a broad view of the issues it addresses, reexamining widely accepted assumptions and going back to basic premises, or will it respond primarily in bureaucratic terms, guided by its charter’s focus on improving the policies and practices of federal departments and agencies? Fourth, will the Commission move beyond its initially mandated topics—the rights and welfare of human research subjects and the management and use of genetic information—and become what its name promises, the nation’s advisory body on the full range of bioethical issues that arise in the organization and management of health services and research?The Origins of the Egg: NBAC’s PredecessorsThe creation of a national bioethics commission has been demanded for years, at the least since its most recent predecessor, the Biomedical Ethics [End Page 63] Advisory Committee (BEAC) finally expired in 1990. BEAC’s statutory authority lapsed after the hapless committee had spent several years itself like an in vitro embryo in a vat of liquid nitrogen. BEAC’s opponents in Congress froze its appropriation and forbad it to meet until the Biomedical Ethics Board of six senators and six representatives to which it was supposed to report resolved the chaos resulting from the Board members’ ideological differences and personal distrust; this never occurred, and the Board proved unable even to choose its chairman. 1 BEAC, which met only twice, had laid preliminary plans to study the issues raised by the new genetics, but the politics of abortion—which had greatly complicated and slowed the Board’s naming of the BEAC members—was strong enough to interfere even with the topic of genetics, on which the difference among committee members actually gave no sign of dividing on pro-life/pro-choice grounds.The disappearance of BEAC left the nation without a mechanism for “public bioethics,” and several efforts were undertaken in the early 1990s to generate a new commission that could carry on in the tradition of the two previous, successful bioethics commissions. (The National Commission for the Protection of Human Subjects of Biomedical and Behavioral Research operated under a Congressional mandate in the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare from 1974 to 1978, and the President’s Commission for the Study of Ethical Problems in Medicine and Biomedical and Behavioral Research, which had been authorized by Congress in 1978, actually operated as an independent body with government-wide purview from January 1980 to March 1983.) The Institute of Medicine established a committee to assess the mechanisms available not only to the federal government but also to states, professional bodies, and the public for deliberating about and resolving ethical issues stemming from developments in biomedicine (Bulger, Bobby, and Fineberg 1995). In September 1992, Senators Mark O. Hatfield (R-OR), Edward M. Kennedy (D-MA), and Dennis DeConcini (D-AZ) requested that the Office of Technology Assessment (OTA) evaluate the... (shrink)

The recent revival of scholarly interest in Suetonius provides a good occasion to emend a long-standing crux in Joannes Lydus' description of Suetonius' dedication of his Vitae Caesarum to his friend the praetorian prefect Septicius Clarus. The codex unicus Caseolinus has Τράγκυλλος τοίνυν τος τν Καισάων βίους ν γράμμασιν † ποτίνων † Σεπτικί, ς ν παρχος τν πραιτωριανν σπειρν πì ατο. The conjectures ποτείνων by J. D. Fuss and ποτείνων by I. Bekker do little to improve the sense, and although (...) W. Kroll's προτείνων gives the meaning required by the context , προ- would not easily have been misread as πο-. For ποτίνων read νατείνων. For parallels compare BGU ii , 613.3–4 'Ανέτινα βιβλ[ίδι]α τλαμπροτάτ [γεμόνι] in a papyrus from the reign of Antoninus Pius cited by LSJ, and several other passages, most of which I owe to the supplement to Preisigke and Kiessling's Wörterbuch der griechischen Papyrusurkunden and to Dr Francisco R. Adrados of the Diccionario Griego-Español: Sammelbuch x , 10527.5–7 ['Ανέτε]ινά σοι, κ[ύριε,]…ναφόρ[ιον… of a.d. 152–3, P. Fouad iii , 26.5–10 , 8252.5–10) Ο νέτινάσυ τ κυρί βιβλιδίου…ντίγραφον πέταξα of a.d. 157–9, P. Oslo. iii , 80.21 ο νέτιναν βιβλιδί[ου…written sometime after March 7, a.d. 161, Sammelbuch iv 7472.3 'Ανέτεινά [σοι, κύριε πίτροπε, βιβλείδιον of a.d. 164, Sammelbuch vi.3 9339.24–7 13.5–7) ο νετείναμεν τ [κρατίσ τρχιερε O]λπί Σερηνιαν βιβλιδίου…[…] ντίγραφον πετάξαμεν from a.d. 178 or a little later, P. Mich. xii 616.13–14 τ δίκαιά μου βιβλειδί νγράψασ νέτεινα Νεμεσιαν πωσ τα[]τα διαπέμψηται[τ ]πιτρόπ from ca. a.d. 182, P. Cornell 14.2–4 ο νέτει[να τ κρατίστ πιστρ]ατηγ Κλαυδί [Ξενοφντι βιβλδίο]υ from a.d. 180–92, Wilcken, Chrestomathie 461.3–5 О[ νέ]τεινα τ λαμπροτάτ [γεμόνΚ]υίντω[ι] Μαικίωι λαιτίωι βιβλιδίου…ντίγραφον [ποτάξασ] from the beginning of the third century, and Sammelbuch v , 8246.3–4 α συνηγερούμεναι λιβέλλον νέτιναν π τν παρχον ξουσίαν from a.d. 340. (shrink)

In 1811, Sydney Owenson (Lady Morgan) published a novel set in India, The Missionary: An Indian Tale, arguably the first Irish Orientalist text. If, as Madeline Dobie has recently argued, the discourse of Orientalism in France was used to avoid moral questions about colonialism and slavery, Owenson used the genre in order to confront the brutalities of British colonialism. Owenson's intertextuality drew on not only other works about the east, but also her own literary productions and experience of authorship (...) as an Irish woman of undistinguished background performing for an imperial audience. As she did in The Wild Irish Girl: A National Tale, her first publishing success, in The Missionary Owenson exploits just those equivalences imperialism posits among its peripheries. This essay examines The Missionary's intervallic position between the Irish novels The Wild Irish Girl and O’Donnel, and its possible role in the oft-noted shift in Owenson's practice of textualist history. (shrink)

O climatério/menopausa é caracterizado por intensas alterações morfofisiológicas e comportamentais. O objetivo foi identificar os sinais e sintomas do climatério/menopausa e a sua relação com a Imagem corporal de mulheres ribeirinhas de uma região da Amazônia Brasileira. Estudo incluiu 100 mulheres de seis comunidades ribeirinhas de Itaituba/Pará. Os instrumentos utilizados foram: o questionário sociodemográfico, a Escala dos Sinais e Sintomas da Menopausa (MRS) e a Escala de Silhuetas de Stunkard. Para avaliar as associações entre as variáveis categóricas, o teste qui-quadrado (...) de Pearson e teste exato de Fisher foram utilizados, (p≤0,05). Os resultados indicaram que 76% das mulheres estavam insatisfeitas com a sua imagem corporal, seja porque queriam ter corpos menores ou corpos maiores. Em relação aos sintomas do climatério/menopausa, estes são percebidos de forma moderada pelas mulheres. Conclusão: Se faz necessário levar as mulheres o conhecimento desta fase da vida e assim promover saúde neste importante período da vida. (shrink)

O objetivo do estudo foi investigar a prevalência e motivos do uso de álcool, tabaco e outras drogas por acadêmicos. A amostra foi composta por 560 estudantes, entre 17 e 74 anos ( M = 31,16, DP = 11,10). As substâncias com maior prevalência de uso na vida foram álcool e tabaco. Dentre as drogas ilí..

<P>Experimental philosophy is one of the most active and exciting areas in philosophy today. In <EM>Current Controversies in Experimental Philosophy</EM>, Elizabeth O’Neill and Edouard Machery have brought together twelve leading philosophers to debate four topics central to recent research in experimental philosophy. The result is an important and enticing contribution to contemporary philosophy which thoroughly reframes traditional philosophical questions in light of experimental philosophers’ use of empirical research methods, and brings to light the lively debates within experimental philosophers’ intellectual community. (...) Two papers are dedicated to the following four topics:</P> <P></P> <UL> <LI>Language (Edouard Machery & Genoveva Martí)</LI> <LI>Consciousness (Brian Fala, Adam Arico, and Shaun Nicols & Justin Sytsma)</LI> <LI>Free Will and Responsibility (Joshua Knobe & Eddy Nahmias and Morgan Thompson)</LI> <LI>Epistemology and the Reliability of Intuitions (Kenneth Boyd and Jennifer Nagel & Joshua Alexander and Jonathan Weinberg).</LI></UL> <P></P> <P>Preliminary descriptions of each chapter, annotated bibliographies for each controversy, and a supplemental guide to further controversies in experimental philosophy (with bibliographies) help provide clearer and richer views of these live controversies for all readers.</P> <P></P> <P> </P>. (shrink)

Este artigo propõe o exercício de apresentar os nexos que se colocam na leitura crítica que Marx fez de Morgan nos chamados Cadernos Etnológicos acerca de questões relativas ao que Morgan tratou como pertencente ao campo da “organização social”, como direito, parentesco, religião e política. A partir de um exercício de análise imanente dos escritos de Marx, em comparação ao texto de Morgan, concluiu-se que a posição de Marx em relação ao expoente da etnologia estadunidense, embora respeitosa, (...) é absolutamente crítica, endossando a insuficiência das conclusões de Morgan e os riscos de adesão irrestrita a seus esquemas e formulações teóricas. (shrink)

DeMorgan lattice logic is the consecution version of Anderson/Belnap’s calculus of First Degree Entailments [1]. Theorems of DML are of the form Γ ` A, where Γ is a non-empty set of formulae. Let Γ = {A1, . . . , An}, then Γ ` A is a theorem of DML if and only if A1& . . . &An → A is a theorem of F DE. The Gentzenization of DML offered in this paper, LDML, derives from the worlds (...) semantics for F DE, first presented in [3]. It is for this reason that LDML may be called a “Gentzen semantics” for DML. (shrink)

Filósofos e historiadores da ciência oferecem explicações para cientistas aceitarem ou rejeitaremuma dada hipótese ou teoria, mas, de um modo geral, não apresentam critérios que permitamdeterminar de maneira clara o que seja aceitação e o que seja rejeição. Com o intuitode contribuir para elucidar este problema, foi proposto um método de análise em Martinse Martins, exemplificado pelo posicionamento do naturalista inglês William Bateson diante da teoria cromossômica, no período compreendido entre 1902 e 1926.O objetivo deste artigo é aplicar o método (...) de análise acima mencionado para esclarecer aposição adotada pelo zoólogo Thomas Hunt Morgan diante da hipótese/teoriacromossômica, no período compreendido entre 1903 e 1910-1911. Nossa análise mostraque Morgan rejeitou a teoria cromossômica no período considerado e que sua mudançarepentina de opinião se deveu a uma estratégia profissional. (shrink)

Many philosophers and psychologists have attempted to elucidate the nature of mental representation by appealing to notions like isomorphism or abstract structural resemblance. The ‘structural representations’ that these theorists champion are said to count as representations by virtue of functioning as internal models of distal systems. In his 2007 book, Representation Reconsidered, William Ramsey endorses the structural conception of mental representation, but uses it to develop a novel argument against representationalism, the widespread view that cognition essentially involves the manipulation of (...) mental representations. Ramsey argues that although theories within the ‘classical’ tradition of cognitive science once posited structural representations, these theories are being superseded by newer theories, within the tradition of connectionism and cognitive neuroscience, which rarely if ever appeal to structural representations. Instead, these theories seem to be explaining cognition by invoking so-called ‘receptor representations’, which, Ramsey claims, aren’t genuine representations at all—despite being called representations, these mechanisms function more as triggers or causal relays than as genuine stand-ins for distal systems. I argue that when the notions of structural and receptor representation are properly explicated, there turns out to be no distinction between them. There only appears to be a distinction between receptor and structural representations because the latter are tacitly conflated with the ‘mental models’ ostensibly involved in offline cognitive processes such as episodic memory and mental imagery. While structural representations might count as genuine representations, they aren’t distinctively mental representations, for they can be found in all sorts of non-intentional systems such as plants. Thus to explain the kinds of offline cognitive capacities that have motivated talk of mental models, we must develop richer conceptions of mental representation than those provided by the notions of structural and receptor representation. (shrink)

Objective: To assess the opinions and practice patterns of obstetrician-gynaecologists on acceptance and use of free drug samples and other incentive items from pharmaceutical representatives.Methods: A questionnaire was mailed in March 2003 to 397 members of the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists who participate in the Collaborative Ambulatory Research Network.Results: The response rate was 55%. Most respondents thought it proper to accept drug samples , an informational lunch , an anatomical model or a well-paid consultantship from pharmaceutical representatives. A (...) third of the respondents thought that their own decision to prescribe a drug would probably be influenced by accepting drug samples. Respondents were more likely to think the average doctor’s prescribing would be influenced by acceptance of the items than theirs would be . Respondents who distributed drug samples to patients indicated doing so because of patients’ financial need and for their convenience and less so as a result of knowledge of the efficacy of the sample product . A third of respondents agreed that interactions with industry should be more strictly regulated.Conclusion: Obstetrician-gynaecologists largely indicated that they would act in accordance with what they think is proper regarding accepting incentive items from pharmaceutical representatives. Although accepting free drug samples was considered to be appropriate more often than any other item, samples were most commonly judged to be influential on prescribing practices. The widely accepted practice of receiving and distributing free drug samples needs to be examined more carefully. (shrink)

In this wide-ranging interview Priscilla Alderson discusses how she came to research parental and childhood consent and became a sociologist and how, late in her career, she became convenor of the critical realism group started by Roy Bhaskar at the Institute for Education in London. She discusses aspects of her seminal research over the years on multiple subjects, such as the rights of children, and reflects on what critical realism has added to her social research.

Standard philosophical explanations of the concept of knowledge invoke a personal goal of having true beliefs, and explain the other requirements for knowledge as indicating the best way to achieve that goal. In this highly original book, Steven L. Reynolds argues instead that the concept of knowledge functions to express a naturally developing kind of social control, a complex social norm, and that the main purpose of our practice of saying and thinking that people 'know' is to improve our (...) system for exchanging information, which is testimony. He makes illuminating comparisons of the knowledge norm of testimony with other complex social norms - such as those requiring proper clothing, respectful conversation, and the complementary virtues of tact and frankness - and shows how this account fits with our concept of knowledge as studied in recent analytic epistemology. His book will interest a range of readers in epistemology, psychology, and sociology. (shrink)

Sensory substitution devices provide through an unusual sensory modality (the substituting modality, e.g., audition) access to features of the world that are normally accessed through another sensory modality (the substituted modality, e.g., vision). In this article, we address the question of which sensory modality the acquired perception belongs to. We have recourse to the four traditional criteria that have been used to define sensory modalities: sensory organ, stimuli, properties, and qualitative experience (Grice, 1962), to which we have added the criteria (...) of behavioral equivalence (Morgan, 1977), dedication (Keeley, 2002), and sensorimotor equivalence (O’Regan & Noe¨, 2001). We discuss which of them are fulfilled by perception through sensory substitution devices and whether this favors the view that perception belongs to the substituting or to the substituted modality. Though the application of a number of criteria might be taken to point to the conclusion that perception with a sensory substitution device belongs to the substituted modality, we argue that the evidence leads to an alternative view on sensory substitution. According to this view, the experience after sensory substitution is a transformation, extension, or augmentation of our perceptual capacities, rather than being something equivalent or reducible to an already existing sensory modality. We develop this view by comparing sensory substitution devices to other ‘‘mind-enhancing tools’’ such as pen and paper, sketchpads, or calculators. An analysis of sensory substitution in terms of mind-enhancing tools unveils it as a thoroughly transforming perceptual experience and as giving rise to a novel form of perceptual interaction with the environment. (shrink)

"One of the expected fruits of Descartes' philosophical enterprise is "the highest and most perfect moral system," a system which, organically developed from its metaphysical and physical foundations, will provide the moral agent with direction and purpose in each of life's contingencies. Yet, Descartes' published work contains no such moral system, and commentators have generally agreed that Descartes "has entered the history of philosophy as perhaps the only systematic philosopher of the first rank who failed to provide any methodical treatment (...) of moral problems."" "Through a careful investigation of primarily Descartes' Correspondence and his final treatise, The Passions of the Soul, Vance Morgan here constructs the framework of a working ethical system, consistent with the spirit of Cartesian metaphysics and physics. He finds that while Descartes' metaphysics are remarkable for their insistence on indubitably clear and distinct principles, his ethic is equally remarkable in its conclusion that indubitably certain, inviolable principles are not available in the realm of morals and human activity. Virtue is not defined with reference to the results of one's actions, nor to one's faithful adherence to a set of rationally derived moral directives. Rather, virtue consists in the moral attitude with which one lives one's life, the psychological conviction that one has always resolutely acted upon the best intellectual activity of which one is capable."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved. (shrink)

We aim, in this paper, to discuss how far the ethical framework for assessing medical research, generalized into other institutional settings, is also appropriate for social science research, particularly qualitative research. Recently, researchers have raised concerns about ‘ethics creep’, incompatibility with participatory methodologies and the exclusion of service users. Researchers are increasingly raising questions as to whether the processes of governance and the paradigmatic assumptions pervading research ethics committees are fit for purpose when they deliberate on non-clinical research that uses (...) social science methods. We review whether ethical scrutiny by research ethics committees is asking the wrong questions and holding research to the wrong standards. (shrink)

“I often said before starting, that I had no doubt I should frequently repent of the whole undertaking.” So wrote Charles Darwin aboard The Beagle , bound for the Galapagos Islands and what would arguably become the greatest and most controversial discovery in scientific history. But the theory of evolution did not spring full-blown from the head of Darwin. Since the dawn of humanity, priests, philosophers, and scientists have debated the origin and development of life on earth, and with modern (...) science, that debate shifted into high gear. In this lively, deeply erudite work, Pulitzer Prize–winning science historian Edward J. Larson takes us on a guided tour of Darwin’s “dangerous idea,” from its theoretical antecedents in the early nineteenth century to the brilliant breakthroughs of Darwin and Wallace, to Watson and Crick’s stunning discovery of the DNA double helix, and to the triumphant neo-Darwinian synthesis and rising sociobiology today. Along the way, Larson expertly places the scientific upheaval of evolution in cultural perspective: the social and philosophical earthquake that was the French Revolution; the development, in England, of a laissez-faire capitalism in tune with a Darwinian ethos of “survival of the fittest”; the emergence of Social Darwinism and the dark science of eugenics against a backdrop of industrial revolution; the American Christian backlash against evolutionism that culminated in the famous Scopes trial; and on to today’s world, where religious fundamentalists litigate for the right to teach “creation science” alongside evolution in U.S. public schools, even as the theory itself continues to evolve in new and surprising directions. Throughout, Larson trains his spotlight on the lives and careers of the scientists, explorers, and eccentrics whose collaborations and competitions have driven the theory of evolution forward. Here are portraits of Cuvier, Lamarck, Darwin, Wallace, Haeckel, Galton, Huxley, Mendel, Morgan, Fisher, Dobzhansky, Watson and Crick, W. D. Hamilton, E. O. Wilson, and many others. Celebrated as one of mankind’s crowning scientific achievements and reviled as a threat to our deepest values, the theory of evolution has utterly transformed our view of life, religion, origins, and the theory itself, and remains controversial, especially in the United States (where 90% of adults do not subscribe to the full Darwinian vision). Replete with fresh material and new insights, Evolution will educate and inform while taking readers on a fascinating journey of discovery. (shrink)

Comparative ethics raises theoretical and methodological problems important for all ethical studies. Five essays in this focus section provide introductions to the ethics of specific indigenous cultures and suggest implications for further comparative studies. In this introduction, we review these findings and discuss their relevance to the concept of ethical naturalism which we have previously offered as a basis for comparative work.

Landmarks? Content Type Journal Article Category Editorial Pages 5-12 Authors Jamie Morgan, Leeds Metropolitan University Journal Journal of Critical Realism Online ISSN 1572-5138 Print ISSN 1476-7430 Journal Volume Volume 12 Journal Issue Volume 12, Number 1 / 2013.

A significant methodological difference between analytic and continental philosophers comes out in their differing attitudes to transcendental reasoning. It has been an object of concern to analytic philosophy since the dawn of the movement around the start of the twentieth century, and although there was briefly a mini-industry on the validity of transcendental arguments following Peter Strawson’s prominent use of them, discussion of their acceptability – usually with a negative verdict – is far more common than their positive use within (...) a philosophical system or to justify a specific claim. By contrast, in the continental traditions starting with Kant but enduring throughout the twentieth century and beyond, some form of transcendental reasoning is close to ubiquitous, notwithstanding that what one means by the transcendental is significantly reconfigured by phenomenology, and then the genealogical turn, as well as by a more constructivist understanding of philosophy. Concerns about the status of transcendental reasoning certainly exist for continental philosophers, but continued creative use persists, and there is no general agreement that transcendental argumentation is especially problematic. In fact, it is more commonly claimed, and it is certainly frequently implied, that a transcendental dimension is of the essence of philosophy. Any philosophical activity that does not reflect on its own conditions of possibility is naïve, or pre-critical, and the sometimes pilloried continental enquiries into the ‘problem of modernity’ are but one way of attempting to reflect on the conditions of contemporary philosophical discourse, subjectivity, and cultural life more generally. Much of this chapter will hence be concerned to offer both an explicit and implicit rationale for the divergent attitudes of analytic and continental philosophers vis-à-vis transcendental reasoning. We give an incomplete account of what transcendental arguments are, review the major analytic criticisms of them, gesture towards some of the recent continental appropriations of such arguments (focusing on the themes of embodiment and time), consider the extent to which analytic criticisms apply to such usages, and attempt to bring to the fore the differing explanatory norms that justify these divergent practices. (shrink)

While there have been many essays devoted to comparing the work of Maurice Merleau-Ponty with that of Jacques Derrida, there has been no sustained book-length treatment of these two French philosophers. Additionally, many of the essays presuppose an oppositional relationship between them, and between phenomenology and deconstruction more generally. -/- Jack Reynolds systematically explores their relationship by analyzing each philosopher in terms of two important and related issues—embodiment and alterity. Focusing on areas with which they are not commonly associated (...) (e.g., Derrida on the body and Merleau-Ponty on alterity) makes clear that their work cannot be adequately characterized in a strictly oppositional way. Merleau-Ponty and Derrida: Intertwining Embodiment and Alterity proposes the possibility of a Merleau-Ponty-inspired philosophy that does not so avowedly seek to extricate itself from phenomenology, but that also cannot easily be dismissed as simply another instantiation of the metaphysics of presence. Reynolds argues that there are salient ethico-political reasons for choosing an alternative that accords greater attention to our embodied situation. (shrink)