Clinical trials for acute conditions such as myocardial infarction and stroke pose challenges related to informed consent due to time limitations, stress, and severe illness. Consent processes shou...

A variety of studies show that parental absence early in life leads to deleterious effects on the developing CNS. This is thought to be largely because evolutionary-dependent stimuli are necessary for the appropriate postnatal development of the young brain, an effect sometimes termed the “experience-expectant brain,” with parents providing the necessary input for normative synaptic connections to develop and appropriate neuronal survival to occur. Principal among CNS systems affected by parental input are the monoamine systems. In the present study,N= 434 (...) rhesus monkeys (233 males, 201 females) were reared in one of two conditions: as mother-reared controls (MR;n= 269) or without adults with 24-h access to same-aged peers (PR;n= 165). When subjects were six-months-old, they underwent a separation paradigm involving 4, sequential, four-day social separations from their mothers or peers, with each separation followed by three-day reunions with their mothers or their peers. Prior to the separation paradigm, baseline cisternal CSF samples were obtained, as well as at the end of each the four social separations, and after final separation, during a recovery period. CSF was assayed for concentrations of monoamine metabolites and a blood sample was genotyped for the serotonin transporter (5-HTT) genotype. Replicating earlier landmark findings, PR subjects with thesallele exhibited lower baseline concentrations of the serotonin metabolite 5-hydroxyindoleacetic acid (5-HIAA), when compared to PR subjects homozygous for theLallele. MR subjects were undifferentiated by genotype. PR subjects exhibited lower CSF 5-HIAA concentrations during baseline, but higher CSF 5-HIAA during social separations, when compared to MR subjects. There were rearing effects for the dopamine metabolite homovanillic acid (HVA) and for the norepinephrine metabolite 3-methoxy-4-hydroxyphenylglycol (MHPG), with PR subjects showing higher HVA and lower MHPG when compared to MR subjects. These findings indicate that there are long-term deficits in the response of monoamines following early maternal absence. The results of this study confirm and extend earlier findings that early parental absence has deleterious consequences for the development of the monoamine systems, and that these consequences are modulated by the 5-HTT genotype. (shrink)

Senior executives in major corporations have drawn attention in recent years for a range of unethical activities. Despite a rise in measures to protect against such lapses, executives still make decisions whether or not to comply with reporting standards, best practices, industry norms and legislation. The prior literature in this area addresses individual characteristics of decision makers and social networks between executives and boards of directors, but to this point has largely overlooked group dynamics of the executive team. Our study (...) addresses this gap and examines the relationship between an occupational community of top executives and the quality of internal control. We construct a unique measure for the executive occupational community based on CEO and CFO’s joint tenure. Our findings show that the number of years of CEO/cfo’s joint tenure is significantly and negatively associated with internal control weakness, suggesting that the longer the executive relationship, the lower the likelihood of internal control weakness. Our study indicates that the presence of an occupational community contributes to better internal control. (shrink)

This paper explores the potential benefits and obstacles in the incorporation of a critical attitude in a critical thinking curriculum. Critical thinking entails more than just the transfer of information and critical thinking concepts to student within a course. The author suggests that professors should exemplify critical traits in the classroom to students as a means to develop a critical attitude or disposition. The adoption of a critical attitude encourages students to ascertain critical concepts and tools, and cultivate a critical (...) disposition, which would further allow students to internalize the insights and values of critical thought and thus be able to readily apply them to arguments. Despite its perceived benefits, the author is also aware of potential roadblocks in the path of developing a students’ critical disposition, such as different epistemic values and upsetting student psychological well-being. Nevertheless, the author contends that adopting a critical attitude provides students and educators with pedagogical tools and goals that enhance the overall effectiveness of critical theory courses. (shrink)

This paper inquires into the nature and causes of credulous belief and proposes a way of making negative evidence more salient to believers so that they are less likely to fall into the habit of credulous believing. Contrasting the work of Richard Swinburne with recent work in cognitive psychology, the author argues that for the “strong credulity hypothesis”, namely that our comprehension of testimony is closely linked to an initial (albeit temporary) acceptance of what speakers claim. That is, we are (...) literally “set up” to believe irrespective of whether the belief in question is reasonable. In order to “neutralize” the effect of initial credulity, the author describes a pro/con procedure (suitable for a number of classes, e.g. critical thinking) that allows for the systematic analysis of beliefs and testimony. (shrink)

The conception of thought as a kind of argumentative dialogue has been influential in curricula designed to promote the development of thinking skills. Educators have sought to “teach” this kind of thinking by providing their students with opportunities to participate in argumentative exchange. This practice is based on the belief that thinking processes will mirror or mimic the interpersonal exchanges in which the thinker engages. In this article, another approach to teaching argumentative thought is developed. It is argued that while (...) training and practice in interpersonal argumentation increases students’ overall argumentation skills, it is not particularly effective in helping students to develop the practice of engaging dialogically with their own beliefs. On this other approach, students are required to engage in “metacognitive inquiry” in which their own judgments in respect of curriculum materials, and in respect of the various strategies they have deployed to generate these judgments, become a subject matter for reflection and critical evaluation. The article concludes with the discussion of an in-class experiment in using the metacognitive approach. (shrink)

RÉSUMÉ: L'idée que les images mentales sont des tableaux ou des objets dans l'esprit joue un rôle extrêmement important dans la conception que David Hume se fait de l'esprit et dans sa doctrine générale quant à la nature de la pensée. La question que veut explorer le présent article est la suivante: la doctrine humienne des images mentales comme objets-dans-l'esprit est-elle viable? On soutiendra qu'une défense très forte de la conception de Hume peut être aujourd'hui développée sur la base de (...) données relatives à la nature de l'imagerie mentale qui ont été récemment avancées dans le domaine de la psychologie cognitive. (shrink)

It is commonplace for undergraduate students to find certain concepts inherent to the disciplines of study troublesome. While some concepts are troublesome simply because they represent new vocabulary for the students, other concepts are troublesome in a more significant sense. Concepts of this kind are troublesome because they highlight an aspect of the deep structure of the discipline, a way of thinking and inquiry, that the students are likely to find strange and even, counter-intuitive, relative to their own pre-existing conceptual (...) frameworks. In this paper, I will argue that the concept of ‘argument’ in the discipline of philosophy, is one such concept. To make the case for this, I will be drawing upon a relatively new and important framework for inquiry into troublesome disciplinary concepts, known as “threshold concept theory” (Meyer and Land 2006, 2008). In addition, I propose to consider the implications, in terms of the design of curriculum and pedagogy for the philosophy classroom, of conceiving argument in threshold concept terms. (shrink)

This work makes available to readers without specialized training in mathematics complete proofs of the fundamental metatheorems of standard (i.e., basically ...

Hunter McEwan; Teaching as Pedagogic Interpretation, Journal of Philosophy of Education, Volume 23, Issue 1, 30 May 2006, Pages 61–71, https://doi.org/10.1111/j.

In this essay, I draw out some implications of a position called “Wittgensteinian Quasi-Fideism” for the theory and practice of interreligious communication. After setting out the main tenets of that position, I articulate what its theoretical and practical implications in this area would be if it were true. I thereby sketch a new, Wittgensteinian model of interreligious communication, concluding with a number of suggestions as to some points of focus for further work in this area.

This chapter contains sections titled: Do Christmas Mythologies Even Exist? The Secular Christmas Mythology: The Santa Story A Sacred Christmas Mythology: The Virginal Conception The Problem of Literal Truth The Philosophical Case Against Literal Truth: Russell's Teapot The Religious Case Against Literal Truth: Tillich's Broken Myths.

Ethics is enabling of agency, but also normative and conventional. At the moment a gendered ethics, or the gendering of ethics, is a helpful approach because it is concerned with issues to do with people often peripheral to and excluded from power. At the moment it can work to keep ethics responsive, but how do we halt the drift into the normative, both as prescriptive and as ideological? A feminist ethics maintains the responsive and undermines prescriptive categories, and is committed (...) to involving disempowered voices in the conversation. The article is particularly concerned with the articulation of the situated, and raises questions about attending to, learning how to listen to and learning how to speak, so that many people from different places can get involved in ethics. Otherwise ethics isn’t ethical. (shrink)

This article develops an interdisciplinary theoretical method for assessing the environmental values articulated and practised by dispersive or ‘mobile’ film production practices, aiming toward applicable strategies to make media practices more environmentally conscientious and sustainable. Providing a social and environmental study of the local relational values, political economy and ecosystem ramifications of runaway productions and film incentive programmes, this study draws on contemporary international green production practices as entryways into environmentally positive film industry change. Offering an overview of the potential (...) use of a relational values approach to media production cultures, the essay uses two opposing models (the Michigan film incentive and the underwater cinematography culture of South Florida) in order to assess the political dynamics, social consequences and environmental threats of Hollywood's mobile practices – as well as their potential as sites, beyond Hollywood, to converge environmental values with local media culture. (shrink)

Was Hume here claiming or implying that propositions about what men ought to do are radically different from purely factual propositions, and that they cannot ever be entailed by any purely factual propositions? No, despite Mr Hare, Professor Nowell-Smith, Professor Ayer, Miss Murdoch, Professor Flew, Mr Basson, and The Observer's Brief Guide to philosophy.

Hunter Brown shows that Henry James's views of religious experience do not in fact lapse into subjectivismor fideism that critics have accused him of but occasions hardships and self-sacrifice which James describes.

Widescopism, as I call it, holds that names are synonymous with descriptions that are required to take wide scope over modal adverbs. Scott Soames has recently argued that Widescopism is false. He identifies an argument that is valid but which, he claims, a defender of Widescopism must say has true premises and a false conclusion. I argue, first, that a defender of Widescopism need not in fact say that the target arguments conclusion is false. Soames argument that she must confuses, (...) I claim, modal adverbs and modal predicates. I then argue that even if she did reject the conclusion, she could nonetheless hold that the target arguments first premise is ambiguous as between a true reading, on which the argument is invalid, and a false reading, on which the argument is valid. I conclude that Soames argument against Widescopism fails. (shrink)

We explore how principles predicting the success of a medical information commons advantaged or disadvantaged three MIC initiatives in three Canadian provinces. Our MIC case examples demonstrate that practices and policies to promote access to and use of health information can help improve individual healthcare and inform a learning health system. MICs were constrained by heterogenous health information protection laws across jurisdictions and risk-averse institutional cultures. A networked approach to MICs would unlock even more potential for national and international data (...) collaborations to improve health and healthcare. (shrink)

“Guy Bennett-Hunter dans «Tillich and Divine lneffabililty» affirme l‘étroite correlation entre l’affirmation tillichienne de l’ineffabilité divine et le rejet de l’ontothéologie. L’affirmation de leur incompatibilité lui semble une contribution majeure de Tillich à la pensée religieuse. Guy Bennett-Hunter part des déclarations bien connues où Tillich affirme que l’on ne saurait, à proprement parler, attribuer l’existence a Dieu puisque Dieu est «être même au-delà de l’essence et de l’existence». En d’autres termes, Dieu «mystére de l’être», «fondement et abîme de (...) la raison», résiste à la connaissance coneeptuelle et à l’articulation linguistique.” — Anne Marie Reijnen & France Farago. (shrink)

In their development of causal decision theory, Allan Gibbard and William Harper advocate a particular method for calculating the expected utility of an action, a method based upon the probabilities of certain counterfactuals. Gibbard and Harper then employ their method to support a two-box solution to Newcomb’s paradox. This paper argues against some of Gibbard and Harper’s key claims concerning the truth-values and probabilities of counterfactuals involved in expected utility calculations, thereby disputing their analysis of Newcomb’s Paradox. If we are (...) right, then Gibbard and Harper’s method of calculating expected utility does not adequately represent rational choice. (shrink)

Coordination problems, problems in which each agent's expected utility depends upon what other agents do, pose a problem for act utilitarianism. When the agents are act utilitarians and know of each other that they are so, they seem unable to achieve optimal outcomes in certain coordination problems. I examine various ways the act utilitarian might attempt to solve this problem, where act utilitarianism is interpreted within the framework of subjective expected utility theory. In particular, a new method for computing expected (...) utility,dynamic deliberation, deserves examination as a possible act utilitarian solution to coordination problems. I argue that even dynamic deliberation fails to give the act utilitarian what he needs in coordination problems, and that the failure of act utilitarianism for such problems suggests the need for an alternative theory of moral choice along rule utilitarian lines. (shrink)

This paper examines the debate that has arisen in connection with J. L. Schellenberg's work on divine hiddenness. It singles out as especially deserving of attention Paul Moser's proposal that the debate distinguish more clearly between classical theism and Hebraic theisms. This worthwhile proposal, I argue, will be unlikely to exert its full potential influence upon the debate unless certain features of Christian incarnation belief are recognized and addressed in connection with it.