Most commonly, the scientific realism debate is seen as dividing those who do and do not think that the striking empirical and practical successes of at least our best scientific theories indicate with high probability that those theories are ‘approximately true’. But I want to suggest that this characterization of the debate has far outlived its usefulness. Not only does it obscure the central differences between two profoundly different types of contemporary scientific realist, but even more importantly it serves to (...) disguise the most substantial points of actual disagreement between these two kinds of realists and those who instead think the historical record of scientific inquiry itself reveals that such realism is untenable in either form. (shrink)

Law, Morality and Society Essays in Honour of H.L.A Hart.

As a preliminary step to beginning to assess the usefulness of clinical vignettes to measure ethical sensitivity in undergraduate medical students, five clinical vignettes with seven to nine ethical issues each were created. The ethical issues in the vignettes were discussed and outlined by an expert panel. One randomly selected vignette was presented to first, second and third year students at the University of Toronto as part of another examination. The students were asked to list the issues presented by the (...) patient problem. Responses from 281 students were obtained. These students identified an average of 2.72 ethical issues per vignette. Each response was classified under the domains of autonomy, beneficence and justice. Comparisons were made between classes and between vignettes. There was considerable variation between classes and the responses to different vignettes seem to indicate that different vignettes measure the various domains in different ways. It does appear that the use of vignettes is one way to measure aspects of ethical sensitivity in medical students but more study is required to clarify exactly what is being measured. (shrink)

An instrument to assess 'ethical sensitivity' has been developed. The instrument presents four clinical vignettes and the respondent is asked to list the ethical issues related to each vignette. The responses are classified, post hoc, into the domains of autonomy, beneficence and justice. This instrument was used in 1990 to assess the ethical sensitivity of students in all four medical classes at the University of Toronto. Ethical sensitivity, as measured by this instrument, is not related to age or grade-point average. (...) Sensitivity increases between the 1st and 2nd year and then decreases throughout the rest of undergraduate medical training, such that the 4th-year students identify fewer issues than those entering medical school. Students expressing a career choice of family medicine identify more issues than their peers. Several problems with the use of the instrument and the interpretation of the data were found. Nonetheless, these findings, if reproducible, are important and their meaning needs further discussion. (shrink)

We look at various notions of a class of definability operations that generalise inductive operations, and are characterised as “revision operations”. More particularly we: (i) characterise the revision theoretically definable subsets of a countable acceptable structure; (ii) show that the categorical truth set of Belnap and Gupta’s theory of truth over arithmetic using \emph{fully varied revision} sequences yields a complete \Pi13 set of integers; (iii) the set of \emph{stably categorical} sentences using their revision operator ψ is similarly \Pi13 and which (...) is complete in Gödel’s universe of constructible sets L; (iv) give an alternative account of a theory of truth—realistic variance that simplifies full variance, whilst at the same time arriving at Kripkean fixed points. (shrink)

We analyse the extent of possible computations following Hogarth ([2004]) conducted in Malament–Hogarth (MH) spacetimes, and Etesi and Németi ([2002]) in the special subclass containing rotating Kerr black holes. Hogarth ([1994]) had shown that any arithmetic statement could be resolved in a suitable MH spacetime. Etesi and Németi ([2002]) had shown that some relations on natural numbers that are neither universal nor co-universal, can be decided in Kerr spacetimes, and had asked specifically as to the extent of computational limits there. (...) The purpose of this note is to address this question, and further show that MH spacetimes can compute far beyond the arithmetic: effectively Borel statements (so hyperarithmetic in second-order number theory, or the structure of analysis) can likewise be resolved: Theorem A. If H is any hyperarithmetic predicate on integers, then there is an MH spacetime in which any query ? n H ? can be computed. In one sense this is best possible, as there is an upper bound to computational ability in any spacetime, which is thus a universal constant of that spacetime. Theorem C. Assuming the (modest and standard) requirement that spacetime manifolds be paracompact and Hausdorff, for any spacetime there will be a countable ordinal upper bound, , on the complexity of questions in the Borel hierarchy computable in it. Introduction 1.1 History and preliminaries Hyperarithmetic Computations in MH Spacetimes 2.1 Generalising SADn regions 2.2 The complexity of questions decidable in Kerr spacetimes An Upper Bound on Computational Complexity for Each Spacetime CiteULike Connotea Del.icio.us What's this? (shrink)

Objective: The objectives of this study are to understand the current functions, structure and operation of hospital ethics committees (HECs) in Shanghai and to facilitate their improvement. Methods: (1) A questionnaire survey, (2) interviews with secretaries and (3) on-site document reviews of HECs in Shanghai were used in the study, which surveyed 33 hospitals. Results: In Shanghai, 57.56% of the surveyed hospitals established HECs from 1998 to 2005. Most HECs used bioethical review of research involving human subjects as well as (...) bioethical review or consultation regarding medical care services and administrative decision- making. Of the surveyed HECs, 14.3% did not provide any formal bioethical training to the HECs’ members and many HECs had no standard operating procedures. Some HECs had no clear definition of what was “conflict of interest” that should be considered by the HECs, while 44.4% of the HECs did not perform continuing review. Discussion: After the issues of related national regulations, more and more hospitals established HECs in Shanghai, but the functions of HECs need to be further developed and formal training on bioethics should be provided to HEC members. To assure the independence and good performance of HECs, the conflict of interest procedure, the standard operating procedures and bioethical review should be improved. Conclusion: HECs in Shanghai had developed in the preceding 10 years and they played great roles in protecting the rights and welfare of human subjects and patients; some areas need improvement. (shrink)

In recent years a number of scholars have argued that Faraday's theories of matter and force were founded on concepts which were derived from Boscovich'sTheoria Philosophiae Naturalis(1758). The notion that Faraday's ideas display Boscovichean tendencies is not a new one: it was proposed by several of Faraday's immediate successors and has been noted by more recent commentators. Statements of this kind are not implausible as assertions of a general correspondence between Faraday's views on matter, as expressed in the “Speculation touching (...) Electric Conduction and the Nature of Matter” of 1844, and Boscovich's theory of point atomism, but Professor L. Pearce Williams has made much stronger claims for the dependence of Faraday's ideas on Boscovich's theory of matter. Williams' interpretation has been questioned by recent scholarship, and in this paper I wish to advance an alternative interpretation of Faraday's ideas on electricity and the nature of matter. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:P. Christopher Smith HEIDEGGER'S MISINTERPRETATION OF RILKE Certainly one of Heidegger's most important accomplishments is to have reminded us of the original unity of poetry and philosophy. The "metaphysical" philosophy which Heidegger calls into question is characterized by its sharp separation of itself from what it calls "unscientific" modes of discourse. But that, Heidegger shows, is a limitation which comes from its narrowed conception of itself as strict, methodical (...) science, and one need only turn to Parmenides before the tradition of metaphysics or Nietzsche at the end of that tradition to see that in fact Heidegger is right: philosophy and poetry are not necessarily to be dissociated. Indeed, the former can and should grow out of the soil of the latter. The point here is one which Heidegger might be said to have learned by experience: he found that the poetry of Hölderlin opened a way for philosophy out of the cul de sac into which phenomenological science had led it. And of course not only Hölderlin: Rilke was obviously important too. In fact to some, myself included, it seems that certainly as much as Hölderlin and perhaps even more, Rilke is the poet who displays the pre-metaphysical unity of poetry and philosophy. But that is not how Heidegger views Rilke. In respect to its philosophical value, Rilke's poetry, we are told, is inferior to Hölderlin's. There is, I suggest, a most puzzling blend of attraction and suspicion in Heidegger's interpretation of Rilke. On the one hand, Heidegger, perhaps better than anyone, is able to make clear the philosophical importance of Rilke's poetry and yet, having done that and having shown thereby the greatest sympathy for Rilke's thought, Heidegger goes on to portray Rilke as "metaphysical" and to claim for that reason that he is not the poet Hölderlin is. Is that assessment valid? And how did Heidegger arrive at it? It is to these questions that the following study is addressed. On my reading of "Wozu Dichter"1 the charge that Rilke persists in "metaphysical" thought has three dimensions. To begin with, the overriding consideration in the whole of the essay is that, like all "metaphysicians," Rilke is oblivious to the Being event. There are in 4 Philosophy and Literature turn two consequences which follow from that obliviousness: first, Rilke grounds all of what is in some highest existent, namely nature taken as will, and second, in turning inwards to consciousness he re-presents the original presencing of existents. The theme of grounding in a highest existent is worked out from page 256 (p. 100) to page 281 (p. 126) and that of the re-presentation in consciousness, from page 281 (p. 126) to page 294 (p. 141). It will become evident, I think, that the discussions of two other apparently separate questions, that of the Open and that of saying and singing, fit respectively into each of these major sections of the essay. Let us now consider the aspects of the charge that Rilke is "metaphysical" one by one. Just what does obliviousness to Being mean? It means obliviousness to the clearing or lighting {Lichtung). Heidegger, it must be kept in mind, distinguishes between what is and the event in which what is comes to be displayed as such. He refers to the event itself as the lighting and it is only in the light of the lighting, he tells us, that what is can be. Obliviousness to Being is obliviousness, not to some highest existent or even to the whole of beings, but to the Being event, to the lighting. "Metaphysics," in seeking the ontos on, the being which in being most truly underlies all other existents, forgets the event in which any being, even the highest, comes to be. Consequently, instead of experiencing temporal presencing, arising out of non-presence, das Nichts, "metaphysics" reduces anything which comes to be to something which always is in steady presence. Obliviousness to Being is, if seen in this way, obliviousness to the nicht-ist, das Nichts from which any ist originates. That shows up in Rilke in that for him beings are not "dissolved in void... (shrink)

Studies in Stoicism contains six unpublished and seven republished essays, the latter incorporating additions and changes which Brunt wished to be made. The papers have been integrated and arranged in chronological order by subject matter, with an accessible lecture to the Oxford Philological Society serving as Brunt's own introduction.

The article is a critique of malcolm and the wittgensteinians and their criticisms of russell which the author finds to be "prosecuting russell on false charges." (staff).

The basic notions of the theory of term rewriting are defined for terms that may involve function letters of infinite arity. A sufficient condition for completeness is derived, and its use demonstrated by the example of abstract clones over infinitary signatures.