But still I think some account has to be given of the application of CM to tides and cannon balls etc. etc. It seems to me that Einstein's and Bohr's analysis was essentially correct: we make the connection, and thus apply the mathematical statements of CM to macroscopic features of the world about us, by constructing, within the mathematical framework,. macroscopic conglomerates of the elementary particles and fields that should have the general appearance of tides and billiard, looked at from (...) a distance, and that would respond to the probings of mathematical models of measuring devices, whose "pointers" we can see from afar, in the ways that waves and billiard balls do. I think a look at how CM has been used and applied since the time of Newton and Galileo shows that the mathematical theory is linked into our experiences of the world in this nonproblematic way, and that this correspondence at this nonproblematic level is part of classical mechanics in the broad sense in which it is understood by people who use it. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Philosophy and Rhetoric 35.1 (2002) 1-21 [Access article in PDF] Turning Kant Against the Priority of Autonomy: Communication Ethics and the Duty to Community Pat J. Gehrke Communication ethics scholars afford Immanuel Kant significantly less attention than one might expect. This may be because, as Robert Dostal notes, Kant argues that rhetoric merits no respect whatsoever (223). This rejection of rhetoric, Dostal writes, is grounded in the significant emphasis (...) given to Kant's concept of autonomy (232). The focus on autonomy and, hence, rhetoricians' relative neglect of Kant's ethical theory are both connected to the separation of Kant's Critique of Pure Reason (hereinafter CPuR) from his subsequent ethical and moral philosophy. Kenneth Burke writes that Kant's first critique has no ethical implications, "no 'wills,' 'oughts,' 'shoulds,' or 'thou shalt nots'... nothing but an inevitable is, a description of conditions as they necessarily are for human experience" (191; emphasis in original). Such readings lose much of the richness and complexity of Kant's thought and tend instead to produce simple moral duties, such as Mike Markel's assertion that technical communicators must be truthful.Perhaps the most critical element of Kant's work lost in our focus on autonomy is his articulation of a ground for a duty to community. While Kant makes clear the importance of community for his metaphysics in the first critique (CPuR), the importance of community in Kant's moral philosophy often is overlooked. Some scholars claim that an ethical duty to community is either rejected by Kant's emphasis on the autonomy of will or simply ignored. This article combines a reading of Kant's metaphysics of experience with his moral philosophy to articulate a communication ethic grounded in community. This argument is made in three parts: first, the community of objects in experience—the Third Analogy of Experience—is an organizing principle of and a necessary condition for the possibility of all experience; second, this metaphysical principle of community is relevant [End Page 1] to community as developed in Kant's ethical writings; and finally, Kant's own work undermines the primacy of autonomy and better supports a communication ethic grounded in a duty to community.Scholars interested in Jurgen Habermas's theory of communicative action have special reason to take note of Kant's work. Kant is not only a figure that Habermas sees reflected in his own work, 1 but a constant point of contrast. Craig Calhoun writes that much of Habermas's own philosophy emerges by rejecting Kant's epistemology and elements of his metaphysics while still giving credence to Kantian moral philosophy (2). However, like most communication scholars and philosophers, Habermas believes that autonomy governs Kantian ethics: "Formalistic ethics (Kant) binds the criterion of generality of norms to the further criterion of autonomy, that is, independence from contingent motives" (Habermas, Legitimation 89). Since autonomy excludes or represses the contingent, if our readings of Kant give primacy to autonomy we leave little room for any notion of community as manifest in experience. In no small part, it is the criticism of Kant for privileging autonomy that has given Habermasians their break from Kantian ethics. However, if we turn to the first critique to guide our reading of the moral philosophy, there is another way to understand the role of autonomy and community in Kant's thought. By linking Kant's metaphysics with his moral philosophy, this article turns Kant away from the primacy of autonomy and uses Kant's own works to argue that autonomy is but one half of an antinomy that is organized under the principle of community. Thus, this article recuperates the possibility of deploying Kantian metaphysics and moral philosophy together as grounds for a communication ethic that privileges community and recovers the value of rhetoric.For rhetorical scholars, the resistance to the priority of autonomy may be related to the frequent expression of community through appeal to commonality, sameness, or identification. Today, feminist, race, postmodern, and poststructural communication scholars are questioning the value of commonality as a ground for ethics (e... (shrink)

Pat White, John White; David Cooper's Illusions, Journal of Philosophy of Education, Volume 14, Issue 2, 30 May 2006, Pages 239–248, https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1.

Because psychiatry deals specifically with ‘mental’ suffering, its efforts are always centrally involved with the meaningful world of human reality. As such, it sits at the interface of a number of discourses: genetics and neuroscience, psychology and sociology, anthropology, philosophy, and the humanities. Each of these provides frameworks, concepts, and examples that seek to assist our attempts to understand mental distress and how it might be helped. However, these discourses work with different assumptions, methodologies, values, and priorities. Some are in (...) dispute with one another. At various times in the history of psychiatry, a particular form of understanding has become dominant and worked to marginalize .. (shrink)

Critical analysis of the commercialization and malpractice current in the profession of medicine.

The importance of ethical consumerism to many companies worldwide has increased dramatically in recent years. Ethical consumerism encompasses the importance of non-traditional and social components of a company's products and business process to strategic success - such as environmental protectionism, child labor practices and so on. The present paper utilizes a random utility theoretic experimental design to provide estimates of the relative value selected consumers place on the social features of products.

Nearly all studies of consumers’ willingness to engage in ethical or socially responsible purchasing behavior is based on unconstrained survey response methods. In the present article we ask the question of how well does asking consumers the extent to which they care about a specific social or ethical issue relate to how they would behave in a more constrained environment where there is no socially acceptable response. The results of a comparison between traditional survey questions of “intention to purchase” and (...) estimates of individuals willingness-to-pay for social attributes in products reveal that simple survey questions are too “noisy” to provide operationally meaningful information and overstate intentions to a considerable extent. (shrink)

The evolution of reciprocal altruism probably involved the evolution of mechanisms to detect cheating and remember cheaters. In a well-known study, Mealey, Daood, and Krage (1996) observed that participants had enhanced memory for faces that had previously been associated with descriptions of acts of cheating. There were, however, problems with the descriptions that were used in that study. We sought to replicate and extend the findings of Mealey and colleagues by using more controlled descriptions and by examining the possibility of (...) enhanced altruist recognition. We also examined whether individual differences in cheating tendencies were related to cheater and altruist recognition. In the first experiment, 164 undergraduates saw 40 faces that were paired with character descriptions representing the categories of cheater, trustworthy, altruist, or neutral, for individuals who had either low or high social status. One week later participants reported which faces they recognized from the previous week (among 80 faces). Overall, the results failed to replicate the findings of Mealey and her colleagues, as there was no enhanced memory for cheaters. In addition, there was no enhanced memory for altruists, and no effect of participants’ cheating tendencies. A second experiment using a slightly different methodology produced similar results, with some evidence for enhanced memory for altruists. (shrink)

This article uses causation to show that panpsychism and emergentism share far less than most philosophers suppose. It argues that panpsychism has features, among them its rationalism, that force what the article calls a strong account of causation. And that emergentism entails what the article calls a weak account of causation incompatible with any strong account. The article then ventures that panpsychism and emergentism form parts of two wide-ranging but incompatible metaphysical packages.

The “fearful ape hypothesis” is interesting but is currently underspecified. We need more research on whether it is specific to fear, specific to humans (or even cooperative breeders in general), what is included in “fear,” and whether these patterns would indeed evolve despite arms races to extract help from audiences. Specifying these will result in a more testable hypothesis.

This short essay examines the relationship between academic research and policy with particular emphasis on the question of whether a critical criminology can engage in academic critique at the same time as engaging in policy oriented research. Recognising that critical criminology falls between theory and politics criminologists are urged to adopt pragmatic, strategic positions as they negotiate their role in contentious debates and practical minefields. It is concluded that a critical criminology must try not only to think the unthinkable about (...) crime, but also to speak the unspeakable about the conditions in which and by which it is known. (shrink)

Although not legally established, the idea that every American has a right to some level of health care has gained wide acceptance. Support for this right has developed primarily in the 50 years since the end of World War II. No mention of health care can be found in either the Declaration of Independence or the Constitution; indeed, there was little anyone could to improve health care or health outcomes in colonial times. During the 19th and early 20th centuries a (...) government role in improving public health developed when certain services, such as clean water, or certain demands upon its citizens, such as quarantine for disease, were instituted in order to achieve better and safer conditions for the health of the general populace. (shrink)

One of the sub-branches of Central Semitic, Northwest Semitic, contains a number of languages with no established hierarchical relation among them: Ugaritic, Aramaic, Canaanite, Deir Alla, and Samalian. Over the years, scholars have attempted to establish a more accurate sub-branching for Northwest Semitic or to suggest a different genetic affiliation for some languages, usually Ugaritic. In this paper, we will argue that Aramaic and Canaanite share a direct ancestor, on the basis of a number of morphosyntactic features: the fs demonstrative (...) *ðaˀt, the direct object marker *ˀayāt, the development of dative subjects with adjectival predicates, the use of the construct state with prepositions, the G imperfect inflection of geminate verbs, and the plural form of *bayt. We will also address arguments that Ugaritic is a Canaanite dialect, or that Canaanite and Ugaritic are more closely related. This proposal not only outlines a more coherent family tree for Northwest Semitic, but also accounts for numerous “Aramaic”-like features in some Canaanite dialects, primarily Biblical Hebrew, which have thus far been treated as the result of language contact in the early Iron Age. (shrink)

There would seem to be a great deal of confusion and misunderstanding in the public mind about the life stance of modern humanism and its philosophical underpinnings. As a committed humanist Pat Duffy Hutcheon has made many invaluable contributions to the clarification of the nature and origin of evolutionary naturalism as a necessary component of modern humanism. This collection of topical essays is the most recent addition to her ongoing pursuit, following her analysis of cultural development in Building Character and (...) Culture (Westport, CT: Praeger, 1999) and her earlier seminal work tracing the evolution of the naturalistic basis of social-scientific thought in Leaving the Cave (Waterloo, ON: Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 1996). This, her newest book presents the ideas in the context of their time, of some of the most prominent thinkers who have, in one way or another, shaped the evolving philosophy of humanism over the centuries. It is a much needed and most welcome resource for any thoughtful person who wants to better appreciate the naturalistic view of human existence rather than the supernatural or mystical approaches that so regrettably dominate the current scene. (shrink)

In this paper, I review two related lines of computational research: discovery of scientific knowledge and causal models of scientific phenomena. I also report research on quantitative process models that falls at the intersection of these two themes. This framework represents models as a set of interacting processes, each with associated differential equations that express influences among variables. Simulating such a quantitative process model produces trajectories for variables over time that one can compare to observations. Background knowledge about candidate processes (...) enables search through the space of model structures and associated parameters to find explanations of time-series data. I discuss the representation of such process models, their use for prediction and explanation, and their discovery through heuristic search, along with their interpretation as causal accounts of dynamic behavior. (shrink)

Pat White; Work-place Democracy and Political Education [1], Journal of Philosophy of Education, Volume 13, Issue 1, 30 May 2006, Pages 5–20, https://doi.org/10.

Using touch as a medium for exploring the ways in which it is constructed by nurses, the body is here characterized by a plethora of competing and co‐existing terms: disobedient, obedient, mirroring, stigmatized, sinful, post‐mortem, sanitized, angelic, desexualized, dangerous, dominant, dominating, deceitful, submissive, disciplined, postmodern and communicative. We have tried to be provocative by juxtaposing contradictory messages and evoking conflicting emotions, and we hope that the reader will not assume that we believe everything we write, or that everything may be (...) taken only at face value. There are as many messages and meanings in the paper as each reader thinks there are. (shrink)

Any panpsychism building complex consciousness out of basic atoms of consciousness needs a theory of ‘mental chemistry’ explaining how this building works. This paper argues that split-brain patients show actual mental chemistry or at least give reasons for thinking it possible. The paper next develops constraints on theories of mental chemistry. It then puts forward models satisfying these constraints. The paper understands mental chemistry as a transformation consistent with conservation of consciousness rather than an aggregation perhaps followed by the creation (...) of something in addition. The paper suggests that this kind of mental chemistry alone yields a workable panpsychism. (shrink)

This study uses best–worst scaling experiments to examine differences across six countries in the attitudes of consumers towards social and ethical issues that included both product related issues (such as recycled packaging) and general social factors (such as human rights). The experiments were conducted using over 600 respondents from Germany, Spain, Turkey, USA, India, and Korea. The results show that there is indeed some variation in the attitudes towards social and ethical issues across these six countries. However, what is more (...) telling are the similarities seen and the extent to which individual variation dominates observable demographics and country-based variables. (shrink)

Study of the Advaita system of Indian philosophy.

We are very grateful to both Matthew Ratcliffe and Thomas Szasz for taking the time to read and respond to our paper. Ratcliffe is broadly sympathetic to our efforts and provides a very convincing argument against mind–body dualisms by drawing on work from the phenomenological tradition. His comments extend rather than challenge our central thesis. Szasz, however, is dismissive of our position. As a result, most of our response is directed to his commentary. Ratcliffe uses the work of van der (...) Berg to make the case that any easy distinction between bodily and mental illness or suffering is false to our lived reality as human beings. Of course, in the day-to- day world of contemporary medical practice .. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Organ Transplant AllocationPat Milmoe McCarrick (bio)The introduction of the antibiotic, cyclosporin, which enhances the success rate of transplantation surgery, has resulted in the steady growth of organ transplantation since the mid-1980s. This growth increasingly focuses ethical interest on both the procurement and the allocation of human organs. Not everyone who might benefit from organ transplants can receive them since the number of patients in need of organs far exceeds (...) the number of organs available. Each year the waiting list for transplants increases by 20 percent, but the number of donated organs has remained stable for the past five years (Lawry 1994).Organ transplantation surgery performed on rock stars, sports heroes, politicians, and television celebrities brings questions about the fair allocation of scarce resources to the attention of everyone. Abigail Trafford, editor of Washington Post Health, wonders whether "new livers for hard livers" can be deserved when not enough organs are available for everyone who needs them. Writing about the dilemma of just allocation of organs, she calls famous recipients "poster patients" or "health care celebrities of medical catastrophe" (Trafford 1994). Personal responsibility—the viewpoint that "medical treatment should not be an entitlement program for profligate living"—is an emerging moral consideration according to Trafford. Deciding whose standards and values should apply to the allocation of organs raises many questions. Popular arguments for keeping the current criteria for allocation include: these patients are sick and therefore should be treated, regardless of the cause of their illness; former substance abusers should be able to benefit from their present abstention; physicians should treat anyone who is ill; and although many human illnesses may be caused by individual behavior, such behavior is not always used as a reason to deny care (Trafford 1995).Prior to 1984, when the government established regulations governing organ transplantation, organs routinely were given to the patients of the surgeons who excised them (Prottas 1994). In an effort to achieve a more equitable method of distribution, Congress passed the National Organ Transplant Act of 1984 (Pub. [End Page 365] L. No. 98-507, amended by Pub. L. No. 100607 and Pub. L. No. 101-616), which established a national Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network (OPTN) to improve the effectiveness of organ procurement, organ distribution, and transplant activities. The United Network for Organ Sharing (UNOS) received the federal government contract to be the OPTN.UNOS and its 66 regional organ procurement organizations (OPOs) around the nation have carried out the mandate since 1986. It requires hospitals that receive Medicare or Medicaid funds and perform transplants to belong to the network and to allocate organs according to network policies. UNOS maintains the national computer registry to match donor organs with individual recipients. In distributing organs, UNOS is required by law to use a fair and equitable system based on accepted medical criteria. UNOS regularly reevaluates its policies to ensure that organ donation and recipient selection meet criteria of efficiency and equity (UNOS Update 11 (8), 1995).At the end of June 1995, 278 transplant centers were in operation in the United States: almost all of them (247 centers) transplanted kidneys; 167 did hearts; 119, pancreases; 114, livers; 93, heart-lung; 88, lungs; 26, intestines; and only 19 centers performed pancreas islet cell transplants (UNOS Update 11 (8): 28, 1995). The number of patients waiting for organ transplants in July 1995 totalled 41,075: 29,274 were waiting for a kidney transplant; 4,937, liver; 3,298, heart; 1,816, lung; 1,223 kidney-pancreas; 240, pancreas; and 211, heart-lung (UNOS Update 11 (8): 40-41, 1995).OPOs are located in different geographic areas across the country, each with different organ needs, lengths of waiting lists, or with lists in areas with large older populations making it more difficult to find suitable donors. Black recipients often wait longer due to complex reasons including sensitization or rarer blood and antigen types (UNOS 11 (8): 31-32, 1995). When an organ becomes available, the OPO involved identifies a potential recipient from the UNOS list and offers it to the patient's surgeon. If no match can be made locally, the organ is next offered within a UNOS region, and finally, to... (shrink)

Analytical study of theories of inference in Nyāyabhūṣaṇa of Bhāsarvajña, 10th cent., work on Nyaya philosophy.

The purpose of this paper is to analyse the concept of 'best interest' in order to give nurses, who use it to justify their actions, a clear picture of what this means, and to identify the skills needed for doing so. The process for concept analysis developed by Walker and Avant was used in the analysis of data generated from the literature. Themes were identified from which the defining attributes, antecedents and consequences emerged. The congruence of the findings with current (...) values in nursing, such as promotion of patient autonomy, and the nurse as advocate, are discussed, together with the underpinning ethics theory. The skills needed for nursing practice are identified and recommendations for nurse education are made. (shrink)

Pat White; Education, Democracy and the Public Interest, Journal of Philosophy of Education, Volume 5, Issue 1, 30 May 2006, Pages 7–28, https://doi.org/10.1111.

If children could ask God one question, what would it be? Johns Hopkins pediatrician Pat Fosarelli surveyed 9,000 children over a fifteen-year period, and their responses illuminate the hopes, dreams, anxieties, and fears of a future generation.

This book is for postgraduate students working for research degrees in institutions of higher education wherever the language of instruction is English. Irrespective of field of study, it will make their work and life more productive, effective and enjoyable. The Research Student's Guide to Success: identifies the skills and strategies which make for success as a postgraduate research student; offers practical advice which can be readily adapted to meet individual needs; provides essential support for all research students; encourages research students (...) to take responsibility for their own progress; acknowledges both the hardships and the pleasures of being a research student; and builds confidence throughout. The book is easy to dip into and is written in conversational style. Interest and realism are added through anecdotes, extracts from literature and pithy quotations. The book will also be useful to undergraduate, diploma and taught masters students doing projects and dissertations. (shrink)

Phenomenology has contributed to healthcare by providing resources for understanding the lived experience of the patient and their situation. But within a burgeoning literature on the characteristic features of illness, there has not yet been an account appropriate to describe congenital illnesses: conditions which are present from birth and cause suffering or medical threat to their bearers. Congenital illness sits uncomfortably with standard accounts in phenomenology of illness, in which concepts such as loss, doubt, alienation and unhomelikeness presuppose prior health. (...) These accounts reflect, in different ways, Maurice Merleau-Ponty’s assumption that the ways of living of the ill contain allusions to fundamental, healthy functions. The originality of congenital illness complicates this assumption and demands its own original phenomenology. In this paper, I sketch my personal experience living with a single-ventricle heart condition. While some of this story may reflect my own idiosyncratic experience, I hope that much of it will resonate with the congenital illness experience. I argue that the phenomenological literature on illness, grounded in the notion of loss, does not describe the congenital illness experience. I show how a number of other patient-centred theories of health and illness which have been influential on phenomenology can and cannot elucidate congenital illness. In particular, I consider Georges Canguilhem’s account of the normal and the pathological; debates in disability; and the notion of illness as biographical disruption. I show that congenital illness results in the preadmission of its patients to a paradoxical logic of medical palliation, one product of which is existential maturity. (shrink)