Something important is happening in applied, interdisciplinary research, particularly in the field of applied health research. The vast array of papers in this edition are evidence of a broad change in thinking across an impressive range of practice and academic areas. The problems of complexity, the rise of chronic conditions, over-diagnosis, co- and multimorbidity are serious and challenging, but we are rising to that challenge. Key conceptions regarding science, evidence, disease, clinical judgement, health and social care, are being revised and (...) their relationships reconsidered: boundaries are indeed being redrawn; reasoning is being made 'fit for practice'. Ideas like 'person-centred care' are no longer phrases with potential to be helpful in some yet-to-be-clarified way: theorists and practitioners are working in collaboration to give them substantive import and application. (shrink)

There is now broad agreement that ideas like person-centred care, patient expertise and shared decision-making are no longer peripheral to health discourse, fine ideals or merely desirable additions to sound, scientific clinical practice. Rather, their incorporation into our thinking and planning of health and social care is essential if we are to respond adequately to the problems that confront us: they need to be seen not as “ethical add-ons” but core components of any genuinely integrated, realistic and conceptually sound account (...) of healthcare practice. This, the tenth philosophy thematic edition of the journal, presents papers conducting urgent research into the social context of scientific knowledge and the significance of viewing clinical knowledge not as something that “sits within the minds” of researchers and practitioners, but as a relational concept, the product of social interactions. It includes papers on the nature of reasoning and evidence, the on-going problems of how to 'integrate' different forms of scientific knowledge with broader, humanistic understandings of reasoning and judgement, patient and community perspectives. Discussions of the epistemological contribution of patient perspectives to the nature of care, and the crucial and still under-developed role of phenomenology in medical epistemology, are followed by a broad range of papers focusing on shared decision-making, analysing its proper meaning, its role in policy, methods for realising it and its limitations in real-world contexts. (shrink)

When the editorial to the first philosophy thematic edition of this journal was published in 2010, critical questioning of underlying assumptions, regarding such crucial issues as clinical decision making, practical reasoning, and the nature of evidence in health care, was still derided by some prominent contributors to the literature on medical practice. Things have changed dramatically. Far from being derided or dismissed as a distraction from practical concerns, the discussion of such fundamental questions, and their implications for matters of practical (...) import, is currently the preoccupation of some of the most influential and insightful contributors to the on‐going evidence‐based medicine debate. Discussions focus on practical wisdom, evidence, and value and the relationship between rationality and context. In the debate about clinical practice, we are going to have to be more explicit and rigorous in future in developing and defending our views about what is valuable in human life. (shrink)

Despite its potential hazards, the activity of questioning theoretical frameworks and and proposing solutions is necessary if progress is even to be possible. Intellectual history has by no means ended so we cannot expect to have all the answers, and from time to time the activity of critical questioning will be frustrating. But intellectual progress requires us to continue the process of asking fundamental questions. The alternative to thinking in this way is indeed unthinkable.

Editors' introduction to 3rd thematic issue on philosophy of medicine.

Last year saw the 20th anniversary edition of JECP, and in the introduction to the philosophy section of that landmark edition, we posed the question: apart from ethics, what is the role of philosophy ‘at the bedside’? The purpose of this question was not to downplay the significance of ethics to clinical practice. Rather, we raised it as part of a broader argument to the effect that ethical questions – about what we should do in any given situation – are (...) embedded within whole understandings of the situation, inseparable from our beliefs about what is the case, what it is that we feel we can claim to know, as well as the meaning we ascribe to different aspects of the situation or to our perception of it. Philosophy concerns fundamental questions: it is a discipline requiring us to examine the underlying assumptions we bring with us to our thinking about practical problems. Traditional academic philosophers divide their discipline into distinct areas that typically include logic: questions about meaning, truth and validity; ontology: questions about the nature of reality, what exists; epistemology: concerning knowledge; and ethics: how we should live and practice, the nature of value. Any credible attempt to analyse clinical reasoning will require us to think carefully about these types of question and the relationships between them, as they influence our thinking about specific situations and problems. So, the answers to the question we posed, about the role of philosophy at the bedside, are numerous and diverse, and that diversity is illustrated in the contributions to this thematic edition. (shrink)

Given the importance of cross-disciplinary research, facilitating CDR effectiveness is a priority for many institutions and funding agencies. There are a number of CDR types, however, and the effectiveness of facilitation efforts will require sensitivity to that diversity. This article presents a method characterizing a spectrum of CDR designed to inform facilitation efforts that relies on bibliometric techniques and citation data. We illustrate its use by the Toolbox Project, an ongoing effort to enhance cross-disciplinary communication in CDR teams through structured, (...) philosophical dialogue about research assumptions in a workshop setting. Toolbox Project workshops have been conducted with more than 85 research teams, but the project's extensibility to an objectively characterized range of CDR collaborations has not been examined. To guide wider application of the Toolbox Project, we have developed a method that uses multivariate statistical analyses of transformed citation proportions from published manuscripts to identify candidate areas of CDR, and then overlays information from previous Toolbox participant groups on these areas to determine candidate areas for future application. The approach supplies 3 results of general interest: A way to employ small data sets and familiar statistical techniques to characterize CDR spectra as a guide to scholarship on CDR patterns and trends. A model for using bibliometric techniques to guide broadly applicable interventions similar to the Toolbox. A method for identifying the location of collaborative CDR teams on a map of scientific activity, of use to research administrators, research teams, and other efforts to enhance CDR projects. (shrink)

The European Legacy, Volume 17, Issue 3, Page 415-416, June 2012.

This classic introduction to one of the most influential modern thinkers, G.W.F. Hegel has been made even more comprehensive through the addition of four new chapters. New edition of a classic introduction to Hegel. Enables students to engage with many aspects of Hegel’s philosophy. Covers the whole range of Hegel’s mature thought. Relates Hegel’s ideas to other thinkers, such as Luther, Descartes and Kant. Offers a distinctive and challenging interpretation of Hegel’s work.

Did post-Enlightenment philosophers reject the idea of original sin and hence the view that life is a quest for redemption from it? In Philosophical Myths of the Fall, Stephen Mulhall identifies and evaluates a surprising ethical-religious dimension in the work of three highly influential philosophers--Nietzsche, Heidegger, and Wittgenstein. He asks: Is the Christian idea of humanity as structurally flawed something that these three thinkers aim simply to criticize? Or do they, rather, end up by reproducing secular variants of the (...) same mythology? Mulhall argues that each, in different ways, develops a conception of human beings as in need of redemption: in their work, we appear to be not so much capable of or prone to error and fantasy, but instead structurally perverse, living in untruth. In this respect, their work is more closely aligned to the Christian perspective than to the mainstream of the Enlightenment. However, all three thinkers explicitly reject any religious understanding of human perversity; indeed, they regard the very understanding of human beings as originally sinful as central to that from which we must be redeemed. And yet each also reproduces central elements of that understanding in his own thinking; each recounts his own myth of our Fall, and holds out his own image of redemption. The book concludes by asking whether this indebtedness to religion brings these philosophers' thinking closer to, or instead forces it further away from, the truth of the human condition. (shrink)

Our current intellectual system provides us with a far more complete and accurate understanding of nature and ourselves than was available in any previous society. This gain in understanding has arisen from two sources: the use of the 'scientific method', and the breaking up of our intellectual enterprise into increasingly narrower disciplines and research programmes. However, we have failed to keep these narrow specialities connected to the intellectual enterprise as a whole. The author demonstrates that this causes a number of (...) difficulties. We have no viewpoint from which we can understand the relationships between the disciplines and lack a forum for adjudicating situations where different disciplines give conflicting answers to the same problem. We seriously underestimate the differences in methodology and in the nature of principles in the various branches of science. This provocative and wide-ranging book provides a detailed analysis and possible solutions for dealing with this problem. (shrink)

Evolutionary psychology and social constructionism are widely regarded as fundamentally irreconcilable approaches to the social sciences. Focusing on the study of the emotions, we argue that this appearance is mistaken. Much of what appears to be an empirical disagreement between evolutionary psychologists and social constructionists over the universality or locality of emotional phenomena is actually generated by an implicit philosophical dispute resulting from the adoption of different theories of meaning and reference. We argue that once this philosophical dispute is recognized, (...) it can be set to the side. When this is done, it becomes clear that the two approaches to the emotions complement, rather than compete with, one another. (shrink)

The concept of representation has become almost inextricably bound to the concept of symbol systems. the concepts is nowhere more prevalent than in descriptions of "internal representations." These representations are thought to occur in an internal symbol system that allows the brain to store and use information. In this paper we explore a different approach to understanding psychological processes, one that retains a commitment to representations and computations but that is not based on the idea that information must be stored (...) and manipulated in symbol systems. In particular, we suggest that the notion of a symbol system as currently understood construes psychological processes in terms of a specific type of computational system, in which a control function "reads," "interprets," and manipulates discrete entities called "symbols." We argue that other types of computational systems may provide a more appropriate characterization of psychological processes. One implication of our argument is the need to consider the constraints placed on computational theories in psychology by the nature of the computing device itself, the human brain. Perhaps surprisingly, this implication leads us to the conclusion that a "functionalist" conception of psychological processes (discussed below) does not entail that physiology is irrelevant to psychology, as has been maintained by prominent adherents of the symbol-systems approach. (shrink)

The rise of cognitive neuroscience is the most important scientific and intellectual development of the last thirty years. Findings pour forth, and major initiatives for brain research continue. The social sciences have responded to this development slowly--for good reasons. The implications of particular controversial findings, such as the discovery of mirror neurons, have been ambiguous, controversial within neuroscience itself, and difficult to integrate with conventional social science. Yet many of these findings, such as those of experimental neuro-economics, pose very direct (...) challenges to standard social science. At the same time, however, the known facts of social science, for example about linguistic and moral diversity, pose a significant challenge to standard neuroscience approaches, which tend to focus on "universal" aspects of human and animal cognition. A serious encounter between cognitive neuroscience and social science is likely to be challenging, and transformative, for both parties. Although a literature has developed on proposals to integrate neuroscience and social science, these proposals go in divergent directions. None of them has a developed conception of social life. This book surveys these issues, introduces the basic alternative conceptions both of the mental world and the social world, and show how, with sufficient modification, they can be fit together in plausible ways. The book is not a "new theory " of anything, but rather an exploration of the critical issues that relate to the social aspects of cognition which expands the topic from the social neuroscience of immediate interpersonal interaction to the whole range of places where social variation interacts with the cognitive. The focus is on the conceptual problems produced by any attempt to take these issues seriously, and also on the new resources and considerations relevant to doing so. But it is also on the need for a revision of social theoretical concepts in order to utilize these resources. The book points to some conclusions, especially about how the process of what was known as socialization needs to be understood in cognitive science friendly terms. But there is no attempt to resolve the underlying issues within cognitive science, which will doubtless persist. (shrink)

This chapter provide an introductory portrait of global media ethics as an evolving discipline in broad strokes—its motivating questions, its distinct concerns and methods, how the discipline is related to other forms of ethics, and why we need a global media ethics. Since our global world is linked by many forms of media, the chapter argues that we need an accompanying global media ethics that challenges the use of media to promote racism, xenophobia, extreme nationalism, and the denial of human (...) rights. The chapter explores the types of research and writing that comprise global media ethics and concludes with an outline of how a global media ethics can be realized in practice. (shrink)

In an earlier paper, Stephen Kershnar argued for the following thesis: An instance of trash-talking is permissible if and only if the relevant sports organization’s system of rules permits the expression. One person trash-talks a second if and only if the first intentionally insults the second during competition. The above theory sounds implausible. Surely, the conditions under which a player may insult another do not depend on what the owners arbitrarily decide. Such an approach doesn’t appear to be true (...) in the workplace, bar, or sandlot, so it is hard to see why it should be true in sport. With this general skepticism in mind, this paper evaluates Nicholas Dixon’s objections. Dixon rejects Kershnar’s argument because trash-talking conflicts with the internal value of a sport, violates a right, and degrades the person toward whom the trash-talking is directed. (shrink)

It is commonly claimed that Kant's critical philosophy aims to limit reason's speculative use and its metaphysical pretensions. This paper argues that such claims should be amended in light of a technical distinction between negative limits and positive boundaries that Kant held throughout his career. Kant's only extended discussion of this distinction appears in §§57–60 of the Prolegomena, a division entitled “On pure reason's boundary‐determination”. I examine these sections in detail in order to elucidate the account of the limits and (...) boundaries of the activity of different cognitive faculties in the Critique of Pure Reason. I argue that once we understand a key ambition of the Critique to be the positive determination of the boundary between objects of experience and things in themselves, we gain insight into the essential contribution that Kant's theory of the positive utility of ideas of reason makes to the critical philosophy. (shrink)

With this book we see a philosopher well steeped in the Western tradition thinking through ancient Eastern disciplines, meditating on what it means to learn to breathe, and urging us all at the dawn of a new century to rediscover indigenous Asian cultures. Yogic tradition, according to Irigaray, can provide an invaluable means for restoring the vital link between the present and eternity -- and for re-envisioning the patriarchal traditions of the West. Western, logocentric rationality tends to abstract the teachings (...) of yoga from its everyday practice -- most importantly, from the cultivation of breath. Lacking actual, personal experience with yoga or other Eastern spiritual practices, the Western philosophers who have tried to address Hindu and Buddhist teachings -- particularly Schopenhauer -- have frequently gone astray. Not so, Luce Irigaray. Incorporating her personal experience with yoga into her provocative philosophical thinking on sexual difference, Irigaray proposes a new way of understanding individuation and community in the contemporary world. She looks toward the indigenous, pre-Aryan cultures of India -- which, she argues, have maintained an essentially creative ethic of sexual difference predicated on a respect for life, nature, and the feminine. Irigaray's focus on breath in this book is a natural outgrowth of the attention that she has given in previous books to the elements -- air, water, and fire. By returning to fundamental human experiences -- breathing and the fact of sexual difference -- she finds a way out of the endless sociologizing abstractions of much contemporary thought to rethink questions of race, ethnicity, and globalization. (shrink)

The incorporation of neural-based technologies into psychiatry offers novel means to use neural data in patient assessment and clinical diagnosis. However, an over-optimistic technologisation of neuroscientifically-informed psychiatry risks the conflation of technological and psychological norms. Neurotechnologies promise fast, efficient, broad psychiatric insights not readily available through conventional observation of patients. Recording and processing brain signals provides information from ‘beneath the skull’ that can be interpreted as an account of neural processing and that can provide a basis to evaluate general behaviour (...) and functioning. But it ought not to be forgotten that the use of such technologies is part of a human practice of neuroscience informed psychiatry. This paper notes some challenges in the integration of neural technologies into psychiatry and suggests vigilance particularly in respect to normative challenges. In this way, psychiatry can avoid a drift toward reductive technological approaches, while nonetheless benefitting from promising advances in neuroscience and technology. (shrink)

Heinrich Schenker: A Research and Information Guide is an annotated bibliography concerning both the nature of primary sources related to the composer and the scope and significance of the secondary sources which deal with him, his compositions, and his influence as a composer and theorist.

Presentations of Gricean semantics, including Stephen Neale’s in “Silent Reference,” totally ignore vagueness, even though virtually every utterance is vague. I ask how Gricean semantics might be adjusted to accommodate vague speaker-meaning. My answer is that it can’t accommodate it: the Gricean program collapses in the face of vague speaker-meaning. The Gricean might, however, find some solace in knowing that every other extant meta-semantic and semantic program is in the same boat.

Attention is drawn to the movements of the body and to the ethical imperative that emerges in compelling, flowing moments of teaching. Such moments of teaching are not primarily intellectual, discursive events, but physical, sensual experiences in which the body surrenders to its own movements. Teaching is recognized momentarily as a carnal intensity embedded in and emerging from the flesh. The ethical imperative to this teaching is felt proprioceptively and kinaesthetically when one holds in self-motion the well-being of another as (...) being of the same flesh. The teaching caress offers a primary example. This gesture of intimacy discloses an embodied ethic that contrasts with the transcendental ethics of curricular prescriptions, professional codes of conduct, and the presumptions of self-monitoring behavior. It is a gesture of care for another person, without fastidious carefulness. It is a gesture of pure duration, without sanctimonious purity, in its contact with the beauty, truth and value of the teachable moment. From earliest engagements with children to the dynamics of the university classroom, what makes for good teaching is essentially attentiveness to intimate gestures, such as the caress, that guide teachers kinethically in the moment. (shrink)

The concepts of form and function have traditionally been defined in terms of biology and then extended to other disciplines. Stephen T. Asma examines the various interpretations of form and function in science and philosophy, reflecting on the philosophical presuppositions underlying the work of Geoffroy, Cuvier, Darwin, and others. -/- In the continental tradition of Canguilhem and Foucault, Asma's treatment of the historical form/function dispute analyzes the complex interactions among ideologies, metaphysical commitments, and research programs. Following Form and Function (...) is a significant contribution to the history of science, history of philosophy, and disputes within contemporary biology. (shrink)