Responding to widespread interest within cultural studies and social inquiry, this book addresses the question 'what is a mathematical concept?' using a variety of vanguard theories in the humanities and posthumanities. Tapping historical, philosophical, sociological and psychological perspectives, each chapter explores the question of how mathematics comes to matter. Of interest to scholars across the usual disciplinary divides, this book tracks mathematics as a cultural activity, drawing connections with empirical practice. Unlike other books in this area, it is highly interdisciplinary, (...) devoted to exploring the ontology of mathematics as it plays out in different contexts. This book will appeal to scholars who are interested in particular mathematical habits - creative diagramming, structural mappings, material agency, interdisciplinary coverings - that shed light on both mathematics and other disciplines. Chapters are also relevant to social sciences and humanities scholars, as each offers philosophical insight into mathematics and how we might live mathematically. (shrink)

This is a review of What is a Mathematical Concept? edited by Elizabeth de Freitas, Nathalie Sinclair, and Alf Coles. In this collection of sixteen chapters, philosophers, educationalists, historians of mathematics, a cognitive scientist, and a mathematician consider, problematise, historicise, contextualise, and destabilise the terms ‘mathematical’ and ‘concept’. The contributors come from many disciplines, but the editors are all in mathematics education, which gives the whole volume a disciplinary centre of gravity. The editors set out to explore and (...) reclaim the canonical question ‘what is a mathematical concept?’ from the philosophy of mathematics. This review comments on each paper in the collection. (shrink)

World Athletics have introduced regulations preventing female athletes with certain differences in sex development from competing in the female category. We argue these regulations are not justified and should be removed. Firstly, we examine the reasoning and evidence underlying the position that these athletes have a substantial mean difference in performance from other female athletes such that it constitutes an advantage, and argue it is not sufficient. Secondly, if an advantage does exist, it needs to be demonstrated it is unfair. (...) We argue the advantage would not be unfair because to say otherwise relies on a presupposition about whether these athletes are female, which involves contradictory and inconsistent definitions of sex. Thirdly, we contend that even if it is established that there is an advantage and it is unfair, the response of requiring athletes to take testosterone-suppressing medication is not appropriate and is unfair. (shrink)

BackgroundA patient who fulfils the due diligence requirements for euthanasia, and is medically suitable, is able to donate his organs after euthanasia in Belgium, the Netherlands and Canada. Since 2012, more than 70 patients have undergone this combined procedure in the Netherlands. Even though all patients who undergo euthanasia are suffering hopelessly and unbearably, some of these patients are nevertheless willing to help others in need of an organ. Organ donation after euthanasia is a so-called donation after circulatory death (DCD), (...) Maastricht category III procedure, which takes place following cardiac arrest, comparable to donation after withdrawal of life sustaining therapy in critically ill patients. To minimize the period of organ ischemia, the patient is transported to the operating room immediately after the legally mandated no-touch period of 5 min following circulatory arrest. This means that the organ donation procedure following euthanasia must take place in the hospital, which appears to be insurmountable to many patients who are willing to donate, since they already spent a lot of time in the hospital. Case presentationThis article describes the procedure of organ donation after euthanasia starting at home (ODAEH) following anesthesia in a former health care professional suffering from multiple system atrophy. This case is unique for at least two reasons. He spent his last conscious hours surrounded by his family at home, after which he underwent general anaesthesia and was intubated, before being transported to the hospital for euthanasia and organ donation. In addition, the patient explicitly requested the euthanasia to be performed in the preparation room, next to the operating room, in order to limit the period of organ ischemia due to transport time from the intensive care unit to the operating room. The medical, legal and ethical considerations related to this illustrative case are subsequently discussed.ConclusionsOrgan donation after euthanasia is a pure act of altruism. This combined procedure can also be performed after the patient has been anesthetized at home and during transportation to the hospital. (shrink)

Exploring online criticisms of the ‘take the knee’ protest during ‘Euro 2020’, this article examines how alt- and far-right conspiracies were both constructed and communicated via the social media platform, Twitter. By providing a novel exploration of alt-right conspiracies during an international football tournament, a qualitative thematic analysis of 1,388 original tweets relating to Euro 2020 was undertaken. The findings reveal how, in criticisms levelled at both ‘wokeism’ and the Black Lives Matter movement, antiwhite criticisms of the ‘take the knee’ (...) protest were embroiled in alt-right conspiracies that exposed an assumed Cultural Marxist, ‘woke agenda’ in the tournament’s organization and mainstream media coverage. In conclusion, it is argued that conspiratorial discourses, associated with the alt-right, provided a framework through which the protest could be understood. This emphasises how the significance of conspiracy functions to promote the wider dissemination of alt-right ideology across popular cultural contexts, such as sport. (shrink)

We bear witness to a sweeping social movement for change—fostered and driven by a powerful group of Black nurses and nursing students determined to call out and dismantle anti‐Black racism and discrimination within the profession of nursing. The Black Nurses Task Force, launched by the Registered Nurses' Association of Ontario (RNAO) in July 2020, is building momentum for long‐standing change in the profession by critically examining the racist and discriminatory history of nursing, listening to and learning from the lived experiences (...) of the Black nursing community, and shaping concrete, actionable steps to confront anti‐Black racism and discrimination in academic settings, workplaces, and nursing organizations. The Black Nurses Task Force and the RNAO are standing up and speaking out in acknowledgment of the magnitude of anti‐Black racism and discrimination that exist in our profession, health system, justice system, and economic system. This social movement is demonstrating, in actions, how individuals and a collective act as change agents to drive meaningful and widespread change for our present and future Black nurses. We also acknowledge the Black nurses who have gone before us. (shrink)

Developing countries face numerous barriers to conducting effective and efficient ethics reviews of international collaborative research. In addition to potentially overlooking important scientific and ethical considerations, inadequate or insufficiently trained ethics committees may insist on unwarranted changes to protocols that can impair a study's scientific or ethical validity. Moreover, poorly functioning review systems can impose substantial delays on the commencement of research, which needlessly undermine the development of new interventions for urgent medical needs. In response to these concerns, the Drugs (...) for Neglected Diseases Initiative, an independent nonprofit organization founded by a coalition of public sector and international organizations, developed a mechanism to facilitate more effective and efficient host country ethics review for a study of the use of fexinidazole for the treatment of late stage African Trypanosomiasis. The project involved the implementation of a novel ‘pre-review’ process of ethical oversight, conducted by an ad hoc committee of ethics committee representatives from African and European countries, in collaboration with internationally recognized scientific experts. This article examines the process and outcomes of this collaborative process. (shrink)

6 and 14 recently proposed taxonomies that distinguish between four processing states, based on bottom-up stimulus strength and top-down attentional amplification. The aim of the present study was to empirically test these processing states using the priming paradigm. Our results showed that attention and stimulus strength significantly modulated priming effects: either receiving top-down attention or possessing sufficient bottom-up strength was a prerequisite for a stimulus to elicit priming. When both top-down attention and sufficient bottom-up strength were present, the priming effect (...) was boosted. The origins of the observed priming effects also varied between different processing states. We can conclude that our empirical study using the priming paradigm confirmed the presence of four processing states, which displayed a differential pattern of response priming effects and differential origins of the response priming effects. (shrink)

The pervasive use of contracts in healthcare is a source of unease for many healthcare ethicists and patient advocates. This commentary examines the use of such contracts with individuals in rehabilitation settings who have complex medical and behavioural issues. The goals of this paper are to examine the many factors that can lead to contract use, to discuss some legal and ethical implications of contract use, and to assess contract use in light of concerns about health equity. The paper concludes (...) with some practical alternatives to the use of such contracts, and refers specifically to tools that might be borrowed from the field of behavioural therapy. (shrink)

The current study examined whether Callous-Unemotional (CU) traits, a core component of psychopathy, modulate neural responses of participants engaged in a social exchange game. In this task, participants were offered an allocation of money and then given the chance to punish the offerer. Twenty youth participated and responses to both offers and the participant’s punishment (or not) of these offers were examined. Increasingly unfair offers were associated with increased dorsal anterior cingulate cortex (dACC) activity but this responsiveness was not modulated (...) by CU traits. Increasing punishment of unfair offers was associated with increased dACC and anterior insula activity and this activity was modulated by CU traits. Higher CU trait participants showed a weaker association between activity and punishment level. These data suggest that CU traits are associated with appropriate expectations of other individual’s normative behavior but weaker representations of such information when guiding behavior of the self. (shrink)

BackgroundThe UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, and the reformed guardianship law in Germany, require that persons with a disability, including people with dementia in Alzheimer’s disease (PwAD), are supported in making self-determined decisions. This support is achieved through communication. While content-related communication is a deficit of PwAD, relational aspects of communication are a resource. Research in supported decision-making (SDM) has investigated the effectiveness of different content-related support strategies for PwAD but has only succeeded in improving understanding, (...) which, although one criterion of capacity to consent, is not sufficient to ensure overall capacity to consent. The aim of the ‘spatial intervention study’ of the DECIDE project is to examine an innovative resource-oriented SDM approach that focuses on relational aspects. We hypothesise that talking to PwAD in their familiar home setting (as opposed to a clinical setting) will reduce the complexity of the decision-making process and enhance overall capacity to consent. MethodsPeople with a suspected or confirmed diagnosis of dementia in Alzheimer’s disease will be recruited from two memory clinics (N = 80). We will use a randomised crossover design to investigate the intervention effect of the decision-making place on capacity to consent. Besides reasoning capacity, which is part of overall capacity to consent and will be the primary outcome, various secondary outcomes (e.g., other aspects of capacity to consent, subjective task complexity, decisional conflict) and suspected moderating or mediating variables (e.g., meaning of home, demographic characteristics) will be assessed.DiscussionThe results of the study will be used to develop a new SDM strategy that is based on relational resources for PwAD. If a change in location achieves the anticipated improvement in capacity to consent, future research should focus on implementing this SDM strategy in a cost-effective manner in clinical practice.Trial registration: DRKS00030799. (shrink)

While methodological individualism is a fundamental approach within the social sciences, it is often misunderstood. This highlights the need for a discursive and up-to-date reference work analyzing this approach’s classic arguments and assumptions in the light of contemporary issues in sociology, economics and philosophy. This two-volume handbook presents the first comprehensive overview of methodological individualism. Chapters discuss historical and contemporary debates surrounding this central approach within the social sciences, as well as cutting edge developments related to the individualist tradition with (...) philosophical and scientific implications. Bringing together multiple contributions from the world’s leading experts on this important tradition of theorizing, this collective endeavor provides teachers, researchers and students in sociology, economics, and philosophy with a reliable and critical understanding of the founding principles, key thinkers and intellectual development of MI since the late 19th century. (shrink)

. The interaction between law and morality in Jewish law in the areas of feticide and killing a terminally ill individual. Criminal Justice Ethics: Vol. 11, No. 2, pp. 76-84.

Through the public debates which are unfolding about Genetically Modified Organisms in Europe, new issues have taken shape. This article attempts to understand the possibility of such novelties in light of the political positions taken by the pragmatist philosopher John Dewey. In order to bring about the necessity of an active public, taking an active part in the definition and realisation of political ends, he makes two radical proposals: a perspective of the emergence of the State, and political experimentation as (...) the method needed by this perspective. The possibility of the emergence of new forms of the State, of new public issues, is the goal of political experimentation. And the formation of a public - a public taking active part in the elaboration of the knowledge needed to decide on issues which are always specific - is the causal event which has to emerge in and through such experimentation. (shrink)

Cet ouvrage est né d'une réalité et d'un besoin. La petite Maëlle, enfant autiste, est devenue adolescente, alors il fallait la suivre pour mieux l'accompagner dans cette nouvelle étape de sa vie. Comme cela arrive chez les autres enfants qui entrent dans l'adolescence, tout est remis en question : les idéaux, l'identité, l'amitié, l'amour. Entre-temps, il y a eu la publication de la cinquième version du Manuel diagnostique et statistique des troubles mentaux (DSM-5). Il fallait donc étudier cette entrée dans (...) l'adolescence à partir des données diagnostiques les plus récentes. Autisme et adolescence est la suite de L'autisme, un jour à la fois et d'Accompagner un enfant autiste. Encore ici, la mère Catherine Kozminski et la psychologue Nathalie Poirier entrent en dialogue afin de se mettre à l'écoute des besoins de l'adolescente et d'élaborer les meilleures formes d'accompagnement. Il en résulte un ouvrage plein de sensibilité et rempli de solutions pratiques. (shrink)

Being Inclined is the first book-length study in English of the work of Felix Ravaisson, France's most influential philosopher in the second half of the nineteenth century. Mark Sinclair shows how Ravaisson, in his great work Of Habit, understands habit as tendency and inclination in away that provides the basis for a philosophy of nature and a general metaphysics. In examining Ravaisson's ideas against the background of the history of philosophy, and in the light of later developments in French (...) thought, Sinclair shows how Ravaisson gives an original account of the nature ofhabit as inclination, within a metaphysical framework quite different to those of his predecessors in the philosophical tradition.Being Inclined sheds new light on the history of modern French philosophy and argues for the importance of the neglected nineteenth-century French spiritualist tradition. It also shows that Ravaisson's philosophy of inclination, of being-inclined, is of great import for contemporary philosophy, andparticularly for the contemporary metaphysics of powers given that ideas about tendency have recently come to prominence in discussions concerning dispositions, laws, and the nature of causation. Being Inclined therefore offers a detailed and faithful contextualist study of Ravaisson's masterpiece,demonstrating its continued importance for contemporary thought. (shrink)

Sinclair Goodlad asks: why is it so difficult to define quality; what are the key issues that should be addressed; and what action can and should be taken in the absence of any agreed definition of quality? In so doing, he examines a number of issues concerning the basic stuff of higher education - curriculum, teaching methods, research, college organization - that go deeper than the administrative shell that is the usual focus of the quality debate. At the same (...) time he offers examples and case studies in which broad issues regarding good practice are earthed in particularities. Throughout, his provocative notion of 'heresies' offers grist for discussion wherever the aims, purposes and practices of higher education are being examined. The Quest for Quality sets out the basis for a systematic approach to higher education, and is an important book for anyone who has a serious interest in what modern universities should be and do. (shrink)

Written for non-experts, this volume introduces the mechanisms that underlie reticulate evolution. Chapters are either accompanied with glossaries that explain new terminology or timelines that position pioneering scholars and their major discoveries in their historical contexts. The contributing authors outline the history and original context of discovery of symbiosis, symbiogenesis, lateral gene transfer, hybridization or divergence with gene flow, and infectious heredity. By applying key insights from the areas of molecular (phylo)genetics, microbiology, virology, ecology, systematics, immunology, epidemiology and computational science, (...) they demonstrate how reticulate evolution impacts successful survival, fitness and speciation. Reticulate evolution brings forth a challenge to the standard Neo-Darwinian framework, which defines life as the outcome of bifurcation and ramification patterns brought forth by the vertical mechanism of natural selection. Reticulate evolution puts forward a pattern in the tree of life that is characterized by horizontal mergings and lineage crossings induced by symbiosis, symbiogenesis, lateral gene transfer, hybridization or divergence with gene flow, and infective heredity, making the “tree of life” look more like a “web of life.” On an epistemological level, the various means by which hereditary material can be transferred horizontally challenges our classic notions of units and levels of evolution, fitness, modes of transmission, linearity, communities, and biological individuality. The case studies presented examine topics including the origin of the eukaryotic cell and its organelles through symbiogenesis; the origin of algae through primary and secondary symbiosis and dinoflagellates through tertiary symbiosis; the superorganism and holobiont as units of evolution; how endosymbiosis induces speciation in multicellular life forms; transferrable and non-transferrable plasmids and how they symbiotically interact with their host; the means by which pro- and eukaryotic organisms transfer genes laterally (bacterial transformation, transduction and conjugation as well as transposons and other mobile genetic elements); hybridization and divergence with gene flow in sexually-reproducing individuals; current (human) microbiome and viriome studies that impact our knowledge concerning the evolution of organismal health and acquired immunity; and how symbiosis and symbiogenesis can be modelled in computational evolution. (shrink)

It seems that you can be in a position to rescue people in mortal danger and yet have no obligation to do so, because of the sacrifice to you that this would involve. At the same time, if you do save anyone, then you must not leave anyone to die whom it would cost you no additional sacrifice to save. On the basis of these claims, Theron Pummer and Joe Horton have recently defended a ‘conditional obligation of effective altruism’, which (...) requires one to give to the most cost-effective charity if one is going to make a charitable donation at all, all other things equal. Appealing to a distinction between 'thoroughgoing' and 'half-hearted' non-consequentialism, I argue that their inferences don’t go through, and moreover that this sort of argument in general is unlikely to work as a way to defend effective altruism. (shrink)

Deep ethical interpretivism has been the standard view of the nature of sport in the philosophy of sport for the past seventeen years or so. On this account excellence assumes the role of the foundational, ethical goal that justice assumes in Ronald Dworkin’s interpretivist model of law. However, since excellence in sports is not an ethical value, and since it should not be regarded as an ultimate goal, the case for the traditional account fails. It should be replaced by the (...) shallow interpretivist model that I begin to sketch out and defend here. (shrink)

Western metaphysics has long privileged solidity, presence, fixity, and substance, over the fluid, moving, intangible, and diffuse, that is, over water.1 Emmanuel Levinas noted that Western philosophy seems so incapable of thinking the liquid, moving, and dispersed, that even when we try, we only reduce the elemental to a multiplicity of solids.2 The problem, he concludes, is that water and other elements are "content without form," denying our metaphysical preferences for solidity and fixed shape, even as they are not mere (...) absence or nothingness.3 And still the elemental is our home, our condition of being.Luce Irigaray further notes a "historical lag in... (shrink)

This article examines whether and how the participation of women in the firm’s board of directors and senior management enhances financial performance. We use the Fama and French (1992, 1993) valuation framework to take the level of risk into consideration, when comparing firm performances, whereas previous studies used either raw stock returns or accounting ratios. Our results indicate that firms operating in complex environments do generate positive and significant abnormal returns when they have a high proportion of women officers. Although (...) the participation of women as directors does not seem to make a difference in this regard, firms with a high proportion of women in both their management and governance systems generate enough value to keep up with normal stock-market returns. These findings tend to support the policies currently being discussed or implemented in some countries and organizations to foster the advancement of women in business. (shrink)

An Eternity 1988 Book of the Year! Since its publication, the New Dictionary of Theology has rapidly established itself as a standard, authoritative reference work in systematic and historical theology. More than 630 articles cover a variety of theological themes, thinkers and movements: from creation to the millennium from Abelard to Zwingli from Third World liberation theology to South African Dutch Reformed theology Firmly anchored in the evangelical tradition, the NDOT is nevertheless wide-ranging in its scope. Over 200 contributors, experts (...) in their individual fields, offer both Western and international perspective. Concise and comprehensive, biblically grounded and historically informed, even-handed and free from unduly technical language, this dictionary has been praised by general readers, pastors and scholars. (shrink)

Presents a step-by-step action plan to take ownership of your happiness through simple but effective changes to the way you approach health, love, presence, and prosperity.

Culture can be defined as “group typical behaviour patterns shared by members of a community that rely on socially learned and transmitted information”. Once thought to be a distinguishing characteristic of humans relative to other animals it is now generally accepted to exist more widely, with especially abundant evidence in non-human primates, cetaceans, and birds. More recently, cumulative cultural evolution has taken on this distinguishing role. CCE, it is argued, allows humans, uniquely, to ratchet up the complexity or efficiency of (...) cultural traits over time. This “ratchet effect” gives the capacity to accumulate beneficial modifications over time beyond the capacities of a single individual. Mesoudi and Thornton define a core set of criteria for identifying CCE in humans and non-human animals that places emphasis on some performance measure of traits increasing over time. They suggest this emphasis is also pertinent to cultural products in the aesthetic domain, but is this the case? Music, art and dance evolve over time, but can we say they gain beneficial modifications that increase their aesthetic value? Here we bring together perspectives from philosophy, musicology and biology to build a conceptual analysis of this question. We summarise current thinking on cumulative culture and aesthetics across fields to determine how aesthetic culture fits into the concept of CCE. We argue that this concept is problematic to reconcile with dominant views of aesthetics in philosophical analysis and struggles to characterise aesthetic cultures that evolve over time. We suggest that a tension arises from fundamental differences between cultural evolution in aesthetic and technological domains. Furthermore, this tension contributes to current debates between reconstructive and preservative theories of cultural evolution. (shrink)

This text is an introduction to the new English translation of critical theorist René Zavaleta Mercado’s Towards a History of the National-Popular in Bolivia: 1879–1980. It surveys principal themes in the book and discusses why Zavaleta is a pertinent thinker for the global South and capitalist periphery today.

Upton Sinclair, one of America's foremost and most prolific authors, addresses the cultivation of the mind and the body in this 1922 volume. Sinclair's goal was to attempt to tell the reader how to live, how to find health, happiness and success, and how to develop fully both the mind and the body. Part One: The Book of the Mind covers such subjects as faith, reason, morality, and the subconscious. Part Two: The Book of the Body develops such (...) subjects as errors in diet, the fasting cure, food and poisons, work and play, and diseases and their cures . (shrink)

My main goal here is to develop a functional analysis of cheating and corruption in sports, and to differentiate cheating within the broader category of corruption. Whereas officials can act corruptly, they cannot cheat. In contrast, sports participants, since they occupy two roles, can do both. I argue that although acts of cheating are acts of corruption, not all corrupt acts by competitors are acts of cheating. I also respond to some skeptical challenges and criticisms of the concept of ‘cheating’ (...) by providing some opposing arguments and a provisional definition. I argue that cheating in sports occurs in the context of a complex institutional practice. It transpires due to some failing in the efforts and/or limitations of sports officials to prohibit it. In central cases it consists in both the functional and ethical violation of the constitutional norms of a sport in the service of obtaining unearned victory for the cheater. (shrink)

This paper explores connections between theories of morality and theories of properties. It argues that (1) moral realism is in tension with predicate, class and mereological nominalism; (2) moral non-naturalism is incompatible with standard versions of resemblance nominalism, immanent realism and trope theory; and (3) the standard semantic arguments for property realism do not support moral realism. I also raise doubts about trope-theoretic explanations of moral supervenience and argue against one version of the principle that we should accept theories that (...) maintain neutrality. (shrink)

In this chapter Nathalie Sigot argues that Bentham’s interest in international trade lies in the consideration of the redistributive effects of trade and its consequences on happiness for one’s society. Sigot demonstrates that Bentham’s view on international trade changed between 1786 and 1821, when the principle of the limitation of industry by capital disappeared from his writings. Sigot explains how Bentham’s approach is driven by a focus on security and on a calculus of gains and losses in terms of (...) happiness. (shrink)

Nel presente contributo proponiamo un’intervista a Nathalie Simondon, responsabile dell’edizione dell’opera di Gilbert Simondon, al fine di fare luce sui temi di ecologia, enciclopedismo, transdisciplinarità e umanismo nella produzione filosofica di Gilbert Simondon.