BackgroundSeveral studies identified low subjective feelings of power in women with anorexia nervosa. However, little is known about implicit power motives and the discrepancy between explicit feelings of power and implicit power motives in AN.AimThe study investigated the discrepancy between explicit feelings of power and implicit power motives and its relationship to anxiety in patients with AN.MethodFifty-three outpatients and inpatients with AN and 48 participants without AN were compared regarding subjective feelings of power and anxiety. Explicit power [investigated with the (...) Personal Sense of Power Scale and a visual analog scale ], implicit power motives [investigated with the Multi-Motive Grid ] and trait anxiety [measured with the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory ], were assessed.ResultsExplicit feelings of power were lower in patients with AN compared to non-AN participants. No differences in implicit power motives were found when comparing the groups against each other. However, looking at the groups separately, women with AN had similar levels of implicit fear of losing power and hope for power, whereas woman without AN had significantly lower fear of losing power than hope for power. Focusing on discrepancies between powerful feelings and power motives, results were mixed, depending on the subscale of the MMG. Lastly, discrepancies between implicit power motives and explicit feelings of power were positively correlated with trait anxiety in AN patients.ConclusionThese findings underline that individuals with AN display significantly lower explicit feelings of power, however, they show similar implicit power motives compared to individuals without AN. The discrepancy between explicit feelings of power and implicit power motives is related to anxiety in AN and may represent a vulnerability factor to illness maintenance. (shrink)

Morality and economic rationality: integrative economic ethics as the rational ethics of economic activity; Part II. Reflections on the Foundations of Economic ...

A technical artefact is often described in two ways: by means of a physicalistic model of its structure and dynamics, and by a functional account of the contributions of the components of the artefact to its capacities. These models do not compete, as different models of the same phenomenon in physics usually do; they supplement each other and cohere. Coherence is shown to be the result of a mapping of role-contributions on physicalistic relations that is brought about by the concept (...) of function. It results a sandwich-like structure of the two models, which can be reconstructed as a two-sorted theory element. (shrink)

Keine ausführliche Beschreibung für "Die dreiwertige Logik der Sprache" verfügbar.

Ein Gespenst geht um in den Wissenschaften - das Gespenst des Gedankenexperiments. Gedankenexperimente verheißen Erkenntnisgewinn ohne empirische Arbeit - was vor dem Selbstverständnis der modernen Naturwissenschaften jedoch einer Unmöglichkeit gleichkommt. Und doch zieht sich das Forschen mit Gedankenexperimenten wie ein roter Faden durch die lange Tradition in den empirischen Wissenschaften von ihren Anfängen bei Stevin, Galilei und Newton bis heute.

Background The COVID-19 pandemic continues to disrupt every society as SARs-CoV-2 variants surge among the populations. Health care providers are exhausted, becoming ill themselves, and in some instances have died. Indeed, hospitals are struggling to find staff to care for critically ill patients most in need. Previous work has reported on the unending work-related conditions that hospital staff are laboring under and their subsequent mental and physical health strains. Health care providers need support, but it is not clear where that (...) support is to come from. While much research has reported on the COVID-19-related fears of nurses and physicians, fewer studies have focused on supportive features of the hospital work environment and how it may provide relief to front-line health care providers.Purpose This purpose of this study was to explore an often-overlooked resource within hospital systems across the United States—clinical ethicists—and examine their many roles during COVID-19 and the types of ethical issues they addressed with nurses, physicians, administrators, and others.Methods This was a primary analysis of semi-structured, qualitative interviews with 23 clinical ethicists across the United States. The interviews were conducted from November 2020–April 2021 and were audiotaped, transcribed verbatim, and de-identified; both inductive and deductive analyses were used to identify qualitative themes.Results Five major themes were identified: ethical issues that were increasingly more complex, moral distress that was “endemic,” shifting ethical paradigms from the focus on the individual to the population, fostering a supportive environment, and organizational ethics: variation in the value, roles, and policy input of clinical ethicists.Conclusions Our findings report on the integral and expanded role of clinical ethicists at an unprecedented time in our nation, and how they stepped forward to support front-line clinicians in hospitals across the country. (shrink)

Looking for an adequate explication of the concept of a biological function, several authors have proposed to link function to design. Unfortunately, known explications of biological design in turn refer to functions. The concept of general design I will introduce here breaks up this circle. I specify design with respect to its ontogenetic role. This allows function to be based on design without making reference to the history of the design, or to the phylogeny of an organism, while retaining the (...) normative aspect of function ascriptions. The concept is applicable to the function and design of technical artifacts as well. Several problems well known with other definitions can be overcome by this approach. (shrink)

The discourse on climate politics so far is an expert and elitist discourse in which peoples, societies, citizens, workers, voters and their interests, views and voices are very much neglected. So, in order to turn climate change politics from its head onto its feet you have to take sociology into account. There is an important background assumption which shares in the general ignorance concerning environmental issues and, paradoxically, this is in corporated in the specialism of environmental sociology itself — this (...) is the category of ‘the environment’. If ‘the environment’ only includes everything which is not human, not social, then the concept is sociologically empty. If the concept includes human action and society, then it is scientifically mistaken and politically suicidal. (shrink)

One approach to assess the explanatory power of natural selection is to ask what type of facts it can explain. The standard list of explananda includes facts like trait frequencies or the survival of particular organisms. Here, I argue that this list is incomplete: natural selection can also explain a specific kind of individual-level fact that involves traits. The ability of selection to explain this sort of fact vindicates the explanatory commitments of empirical studies on microevolution. Trait facts must be (...) distinguished from a closely related kind of fact, that is, the fact that a particular individual x has one trait rather than another. Whether or not selection can explain the latter type of fact is highly controversial. According to the so-called ‘Negative View’ it cannot be explained by selection. I defend the Negative View against Nanay’s objection. (shrink)

A central idea of developmental systems theory is ‘parity’ or ‘symmetry’ between genes and non-genetic factors of development. The precise content of this idea remains controversial, with different authors stressing different aspects and little explicit comparisons among the various interpretations. Here I characterise and assess several influential versions of parity.

Fara and Williamson (Mind, 2005) argue that counterpart theory is unable to account for modal claims that use an actuality operator. This paper argues otherwise. Rather than provide a different counterpart translation of the actuality operator itself, the solution presented here starts out with a quantified modal logic in which the actuality operator is redundant, and then translates the sentences of this logic into claims of counterpart theory.

Scientists of many disciplines use theoretical models to explain and predict the dynamics of the world. They often have to rely on digital computer simulations to draw predictions fromthe model. But to deliver phenomenologically adequate results, simulations deviate from the assumptions of the theoretical model. Therefore the role of simulations in scientific explanation demands itself an explanation. This paper analyzes the relation between real-world system, theoretical model, and simulation. It is argued that simulations do not explain processes in the real (...) world directly. The way in which simulations help explaining real-world processes is conceived as indirect, mediated by the theoretical model. Simulacra are characterized further, and turn out to be a priori measurable. This gives a clue to a better understanding of the epistemic role of computer simulations in scientific research. (shrink)

Importance Informed consent is essential to ethical, rigorous research and is important to recruitment and retention in cancer trials.Objective To examine cancer clinical trial (CCT) participants’ perceptions of informed consent processes and variations in perceptions by cancer type.Design and Setting and Participants Cross-sectional survey from mixed-methods study at National Cancer Institute–designated Northeast comprehensive cancer center. Open-ended and forced-choice items addressed: (1) enrollment and informed consent experiences and (2) decision-making processes, including risk-benefit assessment. Eligibility: CCT participant with gastro-intestinal or genitourinary, hematologic-lymphatic (...) malignancies, lung cancer, and breast or gynecological cancer (N = 334).Main Outcome Measures Percentages satisfied with consent process and information provided; and assessing participation’s perceptions of risks/benefits. Multivariable logistic or ordinal regression examined differences by cancer type.Results Most patient-participants felt well informed by the consent process (more than 90% overall and by cancer type) and. most (87.4%) reported that the consent form provided all the information they wanted, although nearly half (44.8%) reported that they read the form somewhat carefully or less. More than half (57.9%) said that talking to research staff (i.e., the consent process) had a greater impact on participation decisions than reading the consent form (2.1%). A third (31.1%) were very sure of joining in research studies before the informed consent process (almost half of lung cancer patients did—47.1%). Most patients personally assessed the risks and benefits before consenting. However, trust in physicians played an important role in the decision to enroll in CCT.Conclusions and Relevance Cancer patients rely less on written features of the informed consent process than on information obtained from the research staff and their own physicians. Research should focus on information and communication strategies that support informed consent from referring physicians, researchers, and others to improve patient risk-benefit assessment and decision-making. (shrink)

Many philosophers believe there to be a fundamental difference between the present and past and future times, but they tend to disagree amongst themselves about what this difference is. Some think that the present is singled out by consciousness, while others believe that it marks the position to which the flow of time has advanced. According to presentism, the current moment is ontologically privileged: nothing exists that is not present. My aim in this chapter is to argue that this particular (...) attempt at distinguishing the present from other times is unsuccessful. (shrink)

Niches and mechanisms are two important but contested elements in the study of organism-environment interactions. Although they are closely interrelated, with niches playing a crucial role in theorizing about ecological and evolutionary mechanisms such as niche construction, facilitation, and species invasion, philosophical discussions about each issue have been largely disconnected. This collection addresses this gap, bringing together contributions from philosophers and biologists about the niche concept, niche construction theory, and ecological and evolutionary mechanisms. In this introduction we provide some background (...) to the collection, which arose out of two workshops organized within an interdisciplinary research consortium. We also summarize each contribution, organized roughly into three groups with considerable overlap and interrelations: niche construction and evolutionary theory, niches, and ecological and evolutionary mechanisms. (shrink)

The aim of the paper is this: Instead of presenting a provisional and necessarily insufficient characterization of what mathematical physics is, I will ask the reader to take it just as that, what he or she thinks or believes it is, yet to be prepared to revise his opinion in the light of what I am going to tell. Because this is precisely, what I intend to do. I will challenge some of the received or standard views about mathematical physics (...) and replace them by a more sophisticated picture, which takes into account the methodological and philosophical roots of mathematical physics in Göttingen. (shrink)

Background The field of nursing has long been concerned with ethical issues. The history of the nursing profession has a rich legacy of attention to social justice and to societal questions regarding issues of fairness, access, equity, and equality. Some nurses have found that their clinical experiences spur an interest in ethical patient care, and many are now nurse bioethicists, having pursued additional training in bioethics and related fields (e.g., psychology, sociology). Purpose The authors describe how the clinical and research (...) experiences of nurses give them a unique voice in the field of bioethics. Results Authors present reasons for the relative invisibility of nurse bioethicists, compared with physician, theologian, or philosopher bioethicists, as well as current efforts to increase the visibility of nurse bioethicists. They also describe four specific areas where nurse bioethicists have made and continue to make important contributions: as ethics consultants to colleagues in hospitals and other settings; as bioethics researchers or as advisers to researchers conducting trials with human subjects; as educators of trainees, patients and families, healthcare providers, and the public; and in helping to draft humane and ethical policies for the care of vulnerable patients and underserved populations. Conclusion Nurse bioethicists are central to the future goals of healthcare bringing a unique perspective to the day-to-day ethical challenges of both clinical care and research, as well as to the education of health professionals and the public. (shrink)

Istarted my nursing career as a pediatric nurse working with children and their families at the Children's Hospital National Medical Center in Washington, DC. My first position was a staff nurse on a busy surgical floor called 4 Blue. To some degree, and as I reflect on that time, one is never truly prepared as a newly minted nurse or physician for the realities of becoming a clinician. So it was for me. I initially worked a rotational schedule of two (...) weeks of days and two weeks of nights where textbook pediatric cases became everyday experiences. Caring for the most complex of childhood illnesses included patients with osteosarcoma, Wilms tumor, neuroblastoma, short gut syndrome, biliary... (shrink)

Volume 20, Issue 6, June 2020, Page 68-70.

This paper explains how to obtain quantification over times in a tense logic in which all temporal distinctions are ultimately spelled out in terms of the two simple tense operators “it was the case that” and “it will be the case that.” The account of times defended here is similar to what is known as “linguistic ersatzism” about possible worlds, but there are noteworthy differences between these two cases. For example, while linguistic ersatzism would support actualism, the view of times (...) defended here does not support presentism. (shrink)

This article surveys some of the key issues that arise when one tries to use tense logic as a metaphysical theory of the nature of time. Topics discussed include basic tense logic, tense logic and verb tense, the structure of the time series, instants of time, quantified tense logic, and the expressive resources of tense logic.

According to Hans Kamp and Frank Vlach, the two-dimensional tense operators “now” and “then” are ineliminable in quantified tense logic. This is often adduced as an argument against tense logic, and in favor of an extensional account that makes use of explicit quantification over times. The aim of this paper is to defend tense logic against this attack. It shows that “now” and “then” are eliminable in quantified tense logic, provided we endow it with enough quantificational structure. The operators might (...) not be redundant in some other systems of tense logic, but this merely indicates a lack of quantificational resources and does not show any deep-seated inability of tense logic to express claims about time. The paper closes with a brief discussion of the modal analogue of this issue, which concerns the role of the actuality operator in quantified modal logic. (shrink)

Instead of accepting instants of time as metaphysically basic entities, many philosophers regard them as abstractions from something else. There is the Russell-Whitehead view that times are maximal classes of simultaneous events; the linguistic ersatzer's proposal that times are maximally consistent sets of sentences or propositions; and the view that times are made up of temporal parts of material objects. This paper discusses the advantages and disadvantages of these various proposals and concludes in favor of a particular version of linguistic (...) ersatzism about time. (shrink)

In recent years the works of Friedman, Howard and many others have made obvious what perhaps was always self-evident. Namely, that the philosophy of the logical empiricists was shaped primarily by Einstein and his invention of the theory of relativity, whereas Hilbert and his axiomatic approach to the exact sciences had comparatively little impact on the logical empiricists and their understanding of science — if they had any effect at all. This is in one respect quite astonishing, insofar as Einstein (...) himself confessed 1921 in his famous lecture before the Prussian Academy of Science that “without it [the axiomatic point of view] it would have been impossible for me to propound the theory of relativity”.2 Hence the simple question arises: why didn’t the logical empiricists pay more attention to Hilbert and his axiomatic point of view, than they in fact did? It is an aim of this paper to answer this question and in part to correct this one-sided view in the hypothetical or contra-factual sense that the logical empiricists would have done better, if they had paid somewhat more attention to Hilbert and his axiomatic approach to science. (shrink)

Darwin’s claim about natural selection is reconstructed as an empirical claim about a causal connection leading from the match of the physiology of an individual and its environment to leaving surviving progeny. Variations in this match, Darwin claims, cause differences in the survival of the progeny. Modern concepts of fitness focus the survival side of this chain. Therefore, the assumption that evolutionary theory wants to explain reproductive success in terms of a modern concept of fitness has given rise to the (...) so-called tautology problem. It is shown that the tautology problem reappears in the treatment of fitness proxies in today’s experimental evolutionary biology when these proxies are considered to indicate fitness only. Taking Darwin’s empirical claim seriously suggests, by contrast, that fitness proxies are first of all measures of the match between organism and environment, which I call the organism’s ‘fittedness’. At the same time, they are indeed related to reproductive success. Thus looking in both directions, at fitness and at fittedness, they are janiform. Acknowledging this situation not only allows for rejection of the tautology objection, but also for integration of Darwin’s argument into current evolutionary biology. It is suggested that this helps reframe and alleviate the dispute between the Modern Synthesis and the Extended Evolutionary Synthesis. (shrink)

In contrast to the assumptions of standard economic theory, recent experimental evidence shows that the income of peers has a systematic impact on observed degrees of risk aversion. This paper reports the findings of two experiments examining the impact of income inequality on risk preferences and whether the knowledge of inequality mediates the decisions. In Experiment 1, participants who were recruited for a real-effort task were paid either a low wage or a high wage. Half of the participants were aware (...) of the income inequality, while the other half were not. After completing their task, they were invited to invest a part of their salary in a risky asset. In Experiment 2, we replicated the same experiment in the laboratory with windfall endowments to test the consistency of results in the laboratory settings. The results of the first experiment show that high-wage subjects take higher risks than low-wage participants do if they are aware of the inequality in wages. This finding supports the idea that income comparisons shape risky decisions. In Experiment 2, on the other hand, we did not observe any significant differences in decisions. This may suggest that the income comparison is sensitive to house-money effect. (shrink)