To answer how epidemics end, one must ask two intersecting but separate questions: first, how particular waves of epidemics end, whether of yellow fever, cholera, plague; and second, how epidemic diseases become eradicated-either through scientific intervention, as with smallpox in the 1970s, or simply by disappearing for reasons that remain mysterious, as with the Second Plague Pandemic from ca. 1347. This article challenges two general notions on how epidemics end. First, individual waves of plagues in European municipalities or regional states (...) did not just fade into the sunset. By the late 16th century, their ends were celebrated with artistic displays, musical and poetic performances, ex-voto gifts, and bangs ranging from tambourines to military salutes. Second, the five-century Second Pandemic of plague-that is, the disease-did not end with declarations or scripted performances, but with another sort of bang. Instead of the usual assumption that epidemic diseases decline gradually over time, progressively inflicting lighter loads of virulence and mortality, the last significant plague outbreaks in most regions in Europe returned to heights of mortality not seen since the Black Death of 1347-1351. Finally, this article adds an obvious but rarely mentioned variable for understanding epidemic endings. Before widespread vaccination, the characteristics of these disappearances depended on the type of disease. (shrink)

Can philosophy help ordinary people confront their personal or interpersonal problems of living? Can it help a couple whose marriage is on the rocks, or someone going through a midlife crisis, or someone depressed over the death of a significant other, or who suffers from anxiety about making a life change? These and many other behavioral and emotional problems are ordinarily referred to psychologists, psychiatrists, clinical social workers, or other mental health specialists. Less mainstream is the possibility of consulting a (...) philosophical counselor or practitioner. Yet, there is presently a steadily increasing, world-wide movement among individuals with postgraduate credentials in philosophy to harness their philosophical training and skills in helping others to address their life problems. But is this channeling of philosophy outside the classroom into the arena of life a good idea? Are philosophers, as such, competent to handle all or any of the myriad emotional and behavioral problems that arise in the context of life; or should these matters best be left to those trained in psychological counseling or psychotherapy? Through a diverse and contrasting set of readings authored by prominent philosophers, philosophical counselors, and psychologists, this volume carefully explores the nature of philosophical counseling or practice and its relationship to psychological counseling and psychotherapy. Digging deeply into this relational question, this volume aims to spark more rational reflection, and greater sensitivity and openness to the potential contributions of philosophical practice. It is, accordingly, intended for students, teachers, scholars, and practitioners of philosophy, counseling, or psychotherapy; as well as those interested in knowing more about philosophical counseling or practice. (shrink)

This essay reconstructs the intellectual development of the philosopher of history Louis O. Mink Jr, in order to illuminate the philosophical background to in American historical epistemology. From around 1970, Mink was a prominent and influential defender of the view that historical narratives were imaginative constructions rather than representations of past actuality. This has since been understood as a characteristically postmodern view. Mink's wider sensibility, however, is better described as modernist than postmodernist. The crucial context for his philosophy was a (...) hostility to going back to his graduate years at Yale, and his epistemological views were of a piece with a defence of historical understanding as both distinctive and valuable. In both respects Mink was influenced by the philosophy of R. G. Collingwood, while he was himself an important influence on Hayden White. Mink's case therefore helps bridge the gap between interwar and later twentieth-century versions of Anglophone historical contructivism, while drawing attention to some cultural contexts in which the development of both modernist and postmodernist views of historiography must be understood. (shrink)

The correspondence between G. W. Leibniz and Samuel Clarke on the implications of Sir Isaac Newton’s physics to natural theology was the last battle that Leibniz fought with the Newtonians. That battle, not so famous as the one over the invention of calculus, ended abruptly with the death of Leibniz in November 1716; however, Clarke soon after translated the correspondence into English and published it in 1717. It became one of a relatively tiny number of Leibniz’s writings to be (...) published before the nineteenth century. Thus, besides being a meaningful clash of the rationalist and empiricist traditions, the correspondence between Leibniz and Clarke was one of the few primary sources that eighteenth-century philosophers had of the mature thought of one of Europe’s most celebrated thinkers. Furthermore, it was relevant to the philosophy of that day. Immanuel Kant, for instance, used the correspondence to launch his own formulation of space and considered his theory a resolution of the controversy. (shrink)

This thesis explores and describes the comic features of Samuel Beckett’s prose works. It explores fundamental questions about Beckett’s humour. On the one hand, it investigates the nature of humour, and, on the other, it investigates what counts as humour in Beckett. This twofold investigation requires ‘attuning’ philosophy and literary criticism, where questions and tools of each discipline mutually sharpen and refine each other. Chapter 1 evaluates philosophical accounts of humour and identifies Incongruity Theory as the theory offering the (...) best account of humour. According to this theory, a necessary and not sufficient condition for comic amusement is the perception of an incongruity. Chapter 2 starts exploring what counts as humour in Beckett by examining where comic incongruities are located. By doing so, this chapter puts the Incongruity Theory to the test, and, evaluates the analytical tools ordinarily used in describing humour. This exploration uses Ruby Cohn’s seminal description of Beckett’s humour as a springboard. This chapter individuates a comic layer which Cohn’s description has overlooked – the ‘comic of language acts’. Chapter 3 analyses Beckett’s texts in order to describe the comic devices that depend on the performance of language acts. In order to do so, the discussion makes use of Austin’s Theory of Speech Acts. As a result, this chapter develops a set of tools able to capture ‘the comic of language acts’, a comic layer which crucially shapes Beckett’s writing. Chapter 4 demonstrates how to make use of the set of tools developed in Chapter 3 by examining three key works of Beckett – More Pricks than Kicks, Watt, and Molloy. This examination leads to the individuation of three movements at the level of illocutionary acts – ‘twists’, ‘convolutions’, and ‘oscillations’ – which are informative of Beckett’s writing and of the experience of reading these works. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:The Spirit-Driven Leader: Seven Keys to Succeeding under Pressure by Carnegie Samuel CalianTodd V. CioffThe Spirit-Driven Leader: Seven Keys to Succeeding under Pressure by Carnegie Samuel Calian Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2010. 125pp. $15.00Great leadership is indispensable to the success of any organization, yet it so often seems in short supply. Carnegie Samuel Calian, former president of Pittsburgh Theological Seminary for more than (...) twenty-five years, seeks to remedy the latter by providing insight into the former. Drawn from his years of experience as a successful leader and based on rigorous research on the subject, [End Page 198] Calian’s helpful volume on leadership should prove valuable for current and potential leaders from all sectors of life. Although this work contains multiple references to biblical texts, theological claims, and pietistic practices, Calian does not limit himself to religious references but draws upon what he deems are, as we often say today, the “best practices” of leadership.Each chapter proceeds by identifying a great leader or leaders (in Calian’s mind), and each example is examined with regard to the questions of what makes this person a great leader and what lessons can be drawn from such a person. Calian’s choice of examples is wide ranging, moving from obvious ones—such as Jim Sinegal (CEO of Costco), Wendy Kopp (founder of Teach for America), Asma Jahangir (a Pakistani lawyer and human rights advocate), and Martin Luther King Jr.—to less obvious ones, such as anecdotal references to Calian’s mother, a childhood pastor, and so forth. In the end, Calian is not satisfied simply to construct a “theory” of leadership; rather, he contends, we must look for approaches to leadership that have been tried, tested, and proven. The result is seven chapters on key leadership qualities: creativity, competence, commitment, character, collegiality, compassion, and courage, and an appendix containing practical resources (discussion starters, diagrams, questionnaires, and the like) for developing leadership vision and goals within an organization.More specifically, as the title suggests, a main theme of the book is to invite readers to consider ways in which religious traditions can provide resources for cultivating not only excellent leaders but also “spirit-driven” leaders. For instance, in a chapter on commitment, Calian writes in direct reference to his own Christian tradition: “My working hypothesis in life is that sustainable and creative leadership is nurtured and maintained by a renewed awakening of faith, hope, and love in our everyday lives” (32–33). Indeed, Calian is set on making a case that great leadership must be “nurtured by our spiritual roots” (36). Consequently, such phrases as “people of faith in almost every religious tradition” (86), “the divine destiny envisioned” (88), or “religious standards in every tradition” (99) are sprinkled throughout the book.It is clear that for Calian great leadership is nurtured by religious traditions. Yet what is not so clear is how exactly this works. In other words, his general claims about religious traditions, life, and practices are often ambiguous and confusing. In fact, what Calian actually means by “spirit-driven” is simply not clear, but given its prominence in the title of the book, it should be. Perhaps one criticism of the book, then, is that its use of religious sources is too superficial to be insightful and thus helpful. [End Page 199]Todd V. CioffCalvin CollegeCopyright © 2013 Society of Christian Ethics... (shrink)

The philosophical implication that guides the issue addressed here is the following: how does the principle of the common constitute a frontal apophasis to the principle of property in contemporary democracies? I do not pretend to offer an exhaustive answer to this problem. However, I use the argumentative strategy of dividing this paper into three sections: (i) theoretically investigate the dialectical tension between the principle of the common and the principle of property; (ii) analytically observe the premise that the behavioral (...) practices of exacerbated individualism contribute as an act of aversion to the principle of the common and (iii) dwell on the articulation of the notion of the principle of the common as a factor that is present on the threshold between the philosophical vulgar and philosophical universal. Finally, I form some considerations that problematize the naturalized notion of the principle of property in current democracies, in view of the constituent power that the principle of the common holds in the perspective of achieving the well-being of human agents in contemporary community life. (shrink)

This essay is a critical notice of David Dyzenhaus's book, The Long Arc of Legality. I argue that Dyzenhaus’s criterion for distinguishing legal pathologies that undermine law's contractarian claim to legitimacy and political pathologies that do not is unsustainable. It relies on a categorical distinction between the threat to law's legitimacy posed by treating some subjects as de jure second-class citizens, whose formal legal status is compromised, and other threats to political legitimacy grounded in the treatment of some subjects as (...) de facto second-class citizens, who retain full formal legal equality but suffer from thoroughgoing substantive subordination. But some forms of de facto second-class citizenship are a greater threat to contractarian legitimacy than some forms of full formal equality. So formal equality for subjects and legal legitimacy come apart. I consider and respond to several responses on Dyzenhaus's behalf, and conclude by proposing a version of his jurisprudential theory that relaxes this distinction. (shrink)

Master Sorai's Responsals was to eighteenth-century Japan what The Prince was to Renaissance Italy. Like Machiavelli, Ogyu Sorai was a humanist scholar who served a prince and drew on his experiences as a house philosopher and on his vast knowledge of history and political affairs in his work. In 1720, when he began to write the letters that comprise this text, the Tokugawa regime was more than a hundred years old and beset with grave administrative and fiscal problems, about which (...) Sorai had much to say.Samuel Yamashita's impressive translation of this work offers modern readers a rare glimpse of the prevailing political discourse of the day and the specific concepts that rulers had at their disposal as they struggled to manage their domains, find talented men for their bureaucracies, create new sources of revenue, and keep their subjects well fed and happy.Sorai himself, of course, is a presence in the text. He is by tunes earnest, frank, impatient, utterly confident, and occasionally condescending. Unlike his Renaissance counterpart, he is something of an optimist: he was convinced that the introduction of archaic Chinese culture and institutions to Japan would solve its myriad problems.Well-versed in Chinese history, philosophy, religion, medicine, and belles lettres, Sorai holds forth on everything from archaic Chinese divination to Sung poetry and prose. He offers advice on how to become a Confucian gentleman, how to learn to read classical Chinese, and which books to read and which to avoid. He even discusses his belief in a sentient, Chinese-style "heaven," a topic not well understood by modern scholars. Long regarded as one of Sorai's best works, Master Sorai's Reponsals bristles with the sharp and clear opinions of the most influential thinker of Tokugawa Japan. (shrink)

The allocation of scarce health care resources such as flu treatment or organs for transplant presents stark problems of distributive justice. Persad, Wertheimer, and Emanuel have recently proposed a novel system for such allocation. Their “complete lives system” incorporates several principles, including ones that prescribe saving the most lives, preserving the most life-years, and giving priority to persons between 15 and 40 years old. This paper argues that the system lacks adequate moral foundations. Persad and colleagues' defense of giving priority (...) to those between 15 and 40 leaves them open to the charge that they discriminate unfairly against children. Second, the paper contends that the complete lives system fails to provide meaningful practical guidance in central cases, since it contains no method for balancing its principles when they conflict. Finally, the paper proposes a new method for balancing principles of saving the most lives and maximizing life-years. (shrink)

Chapter 1 Introduction How are participants associated with the eventualities they participate in? Are there events? Thematic roles? ...

Guided by the APA Ethics Code and social justice, this book helps psychologists solve ethical dilemmas while empowering those impacted by their work.

This paper proposes a refocusing of consent for clinical genetic testing, moving away from an emphasis on autonomy and information provision, towards an emphasis on the virtues of healthcare professionals seeking consent, and the relationships they construct with their patients. We draw on focus groups with UK healthcare professionals working in the field of clinical genetics, as well as in-depth interviews with patients who have sought genetic testing in the UK’s National Health Service. We explore two aspects of consent: first, (...) how healthcare professionals consider the act of ‘consenting’ patients; and second how these professional accounts, along with the accounts of patients, deepen our understanding of the consent process. Our findings suggest that while healthcare professionals working in genetic medicine put much effort into ensuring patients’ understanding about their impending genetic test, they acknowledge, and we show, that patients can still leave genetic consultations relatively uninformed. Moreover, we show how placing emphasis on the informational aspect of genetic testing is not always reflective of, or valuable to, patients’ decision-making. Rather, decision-making is socially contextualised – also based on factors outside of information provision. A more collaborative on-going consent process, grounded in virtue ethics and values of honesty, openness and trustworthiness, is proposed. (shrink)

I argue that high level causal relationships are often more fundamental than low level causal relationships. My argument is based on some general principles governing when one causal relationship will metaphysically ground another—a phenomenon I term derivative causation. These principles are in turn based partly on our intuitive judgments concerning derivative causation in a series of representative examples, and partly on some powerful theoretical considerations in their favour. I show how these principles entail that low level causation can derive from (...) high level causation, and in particular that neural causation can derive from mental causation. I then draw out several important consequences of this result. Most immediate among these are the implications the result has for aspirations to reduce high level causation to its low level counterpart. But the result also bears on the possibility of downward causation, the relationship between counterfactuals and causation, and the idea—familiar from both the literature on the exclusion problem and the literature on proportionality constraints on causation—that causal relationships at different levels compete for their existence. (shrink)

Recent theories of the state often draw attention to states’ autonomy from social preferences. This paper suggests that the phenomenon of public ignorance is the primary mechanism responsible for state autonomy in democratic polities. Such theorists as Skocpol and Poulantzus, who do not take account of public ignorance, either underestimate the state's autonomy or stress causal mechanisms that are necessary but not sufficient conditions for its autonomy. Gram‐sci's concept of ideological hegemony is promising, even though it is far too insistent (...) on the penetration of ideology of any kind beyond relatively small numbers of political sophisticates. (shrink)

One of the more interesting philosophical debates in the seventeenth century concerned the nature and explanation of qualities. In order to understand these debates, it is important to place them in their proper historical-philosophical context. This book chapter starts with theoretical background in the work of Aristotle and the atomists, and then moves on to survey various theories of motion and rest, light, color, and sound, as well as the distinction between primary and secondary qualities, as represented in the work (...) of such figures as Berkeley, Boyle, Charleton, Cordemoy, Descartes, Desgabets, Galileo, Gassendi, Hobbes, Locke, Malebranche, Newton, Régis, Rohault, and Sennert. (shrink)

Public health and service delivery programmes, interventions and policies (collectively, ‘programmes’) are typically developed and implemented for the primary purpose of effecting change rather than generating knowledge. Nonetheless, evaluations of these programmes may produce valuable learning that helps determine effectiveness and costs as well as informing design and implementation of future programmes. Such studies might be termed ‘opportunistic evaluations’, since they are responsive to emergent opportunities rather than being studies of interventions that are initiated or designed by researchers. However, current (...) ethical guidance and registration procedures make little allowance for scenarios where researchers have played no role in the development or implementation of a programme, but nevertheless plan to conduct a prospective evaluation. We explore the limitations of the guidance and procedures with respect to opportunistic evaluations, providing a number of examples. We propose that one key missing distinction in current guidance is moral responsibility: researchers can only be held accountable for those aspects of a study over which they have control. We argue that requiring researchers to justify an intervention, programme or policy that would occur regardless of their involvement prevents or hinders research in the public interest without providing any further protections to research participants. We recommend that trial consent and ethics procedures allow for a clear separation of responsibilities for the intervention and the evaluation. (shrink)