Hisashi Nasu, Lester Embree, George Psathas, and Ilja Srubar (eds.), Alfred Schutz and His Intellectual Partners; Sandra P. Thomas and Howard R. Pollio, Listening to Patients, A Phenomenological Approach to Nursing Research and Practice; Matthew Ratcliffe, Rethinking Commonsense Psychology: A Critique of Folk Psychology, Theory of Mind and Simulation.

Hisashi Nasu, Lester Embree, George Psathas, and Ilja Srubar (eds.), Alfred Schutz and His Intellectual Partners; Sandra P. Thomas and Howard R. Pollio, Listening to Patients, A Phenomenological Approach to Nursing Research and Practice; Matthew Ratcliffe, Rethinking Commonsense Psychology: A Critique of Folk Psychology, Theory of Mind and Simulation.

Freedom of conscience is a core element of human rights respected by most European countries. It allows abortion through the inclusion of a conscience clause, which permits opting out of providing such services. However, the grounds for invoking conscientious objection lack clarity. Our aim in this paper is to take a step in this direction by carrying out a systematic review of reasons by midwives and nurses for declining, on conscience grounds, to participate in abortion. We conducted a systematic review (...) of ethical arguments asking, “What reasons have been reported in the argument based literature for or against conscientious objection to abortion provision by nurses or midwives?” We particularly wanted to identify any discussion of the responsibilities of midwives and nurses in this area. Search terms were conscientious objection and abortion or termination and nurse or midwife or midwives or physicians or doctors or medics within the dates 2000–2016 on: HEIN legal, Medline, CINAHL, Psychinfo, Academic Search Complete, Web of Science including publications in English, German and Dutch. Final articles were subjected to a rigorous analysis, coding and classifying each line into reason mentions, narrow and broad reasons for or against conscientious objection. Of an initial 1085 articles, 10 were included. We identified 23 broad reasons, containing 116narrow reasons and 269 reason mentions. Eighty one narrow reasons argued in favour of and 35 against conscientious objection. Using predetermined categories of moral, practical, religious or legal reasons, “moral reasons” contained the largest number of narrow reasons. The reasons and their associated mentions in this category outnumber those in the sum of the other three categories. We identified no absolute argument either for or against conscientious objection by midwives or nurses. An invisibility of midwives and nurses exists in the whole debate concerning conscientious objection reflecting a gap between literature and practice, as it is they whom WHO recommend as providers of this service. While the arguments in the literature emphasize the need for provision of conscientious objection, a balanced debate is necessary in this field, which includes all relevant health professionals. (shrink)

Social problems such as racism, sexism, and inequality are often cited as structural rather than individual in nature. What does it mean to invoke a social structural explanation, and how do such explanations relate to individualistic ones? This article explores recent philosophical debates concerning the nature and usages of social structural explanation. I distinguish between two central kinds of social structural explanation: those that are autonomous from psychology, and those that are not. This distinction will help clarify the explanatory power (...) that each type of SSE has, points of convergence with methodological traditions such as critical theory and rational choice theory, and the difficulties that each type of SSE faces. (shrink)

To provide rigour when preparing a research design, the researcher needs to carefully consider not only the methodology but also the philosophical intent of the study. This, however, is often absent from reported research and provides the reader with little evidence by which to judge the merits of the chosen methodology and its influence on the study. The purpose of this paper is to set out the case for critical realism as a framework to guide appropriate action in practice development (...) and realistic evaluation for understanding the consequences of those actions.It is evident that critical realism and critical social science share common ground. Emancipatory practice development (ePD) is based on the philosophy of critical social science and therefore by virtue is linked to the tenets of critical realism. Until now, the evaluation of ePD programme has been well served by 4th-generation evaluation. However, this paper outlines the need for a different approach to evaluation, one that is based on critical realism, that is concerned with emancipation, and that can be used in the ever-changing environment of clinical practice. Realistic evaluation not only links strongly to ePD programmes, but also serves as the basis for effective research questions that will test the outcomes of the research and inform the transferability of ePD mechanisms into differing contexts. (shrink)

Abstract.In Canada, food assistance is provided through a widespread network of extra-governmental, community-based, charitable programs, popularly termed “food banks”. Most of the food they distribute has been donated by food producers, processors, and retailers or collected through appeals to the public. Some industry donations are of market quality, but many donations are “surplus” food that cannot be retailed. Drawing on insights from an ethnographic study of food bank work in southern Ontario, we examined how the structure and function of food (...) banks operate to facilitate the distribution of foods not marketed through the retail system. Our findings indicate that the handling of industry donations of unsaleable products is a labor-intensive activity, made possible by the surfeit of unpaid labor in food banks, the neediness of food bank clients, and clients’ lack of rights in this system. The marshalling of volunteer labor to serve a corporate need might be construed as a “win-win” situation because the work of salvaging edible foodstuffs from among industry “surplus” helps to “feed the hungry” while also diminishing the amount of refuse deposited in landfill sites, sparing corporations disposal costs and landfill tipping fees, and helping them forge an image of good corporate citizenship. However, the reliance of food banks on industry donations means that food assistance becomes defined as that which the corporate sector cannot retail. Moreover, the intertwining of food bank work with corporate needs may function to further entrench this ad hoc secondary food system and mitigate against initiatives to develop more effective responses to problems of hunger and food insecurity in our communities. (shrink)

While the research programs in early cognitive science and artificial intelligence aimed to articulate what cognition was in ideal terms, much research in contemporary computational neuroscience looks at how and why brains fail to function as they should ideally. This focus on impairment affects how we understand David Marr's hypothesized three levels of understanding. In this essay, we suggest some refinements to Marr's distinctions using a population activity model of cortico-striatal circuitry exploring impulsivity and behavioral inhibition as a case study. (...) In particular, we urge that Marr's computational level should be redefined to include a description of how systems break down. We also underscore that feed-forward processing, cognition disconnected from behavioral context, and representations do not always drive cognition in the way that Marr originally assumed. (shrink)

In Plato’s dialogue the Republic, Glaucon challenges Socrates to prove that the just (or moral) life is better or more advantageous than the unjust one. Socrates’s answer to the challenge is notoriously unsatisfying. Could new research on well-being in philosophy and psychology allow us to do better? After distinguishing two different approaches to the question “why be moral?” I argue that while new research on well-being does not provide an answer that would satisfy Glaucon, it does shed light on the (...) topic. Empirical research has different implications for our prudential reasons to be moral depending on which philosophical theory of well-being is accepted. Some well-being theories sustain stronger links to morality than others, but any theory of well-being can make use of empirical research to narrow the gap between prudence and morality to some extent. (shrink)

Using normative correctness as a diagnostic tool reduces the outcome of complex cognitive functions to a binary classification (normative or non-normative). It also focuses attention on outcomes, rather than processes, impeding the development of good cognitive theories. Given that both normative and non-normative responses may be produced by the same process, normativity is a poor indicator of underlying processes.

There is a bias in neuroscience toward localizing and modularizing brain functions. Single cell recording, imaging studies, and the study of neurological deficits all feed into the Gallian view that different brain areas do different things and the things being done are confined to particular processing streams. At the same time, there is a growing sentiment that brains probably don’t work like that after all; it is better to conceive of them as fundamentally distributed units, multi‐tasking at every level. This (...) sentiment, however, is much less congenial to the tried‐and‐true experimental protocols available today and to theorizing about the brain in general. This essay examines the tension between current experimental methods and large-scale views of the brain. We argue that this disconnection between experiment and what really are guiding theoretical metaphors seriously impedes progress in neuroscience. (shrink)

Journal of Political Philosophy, EarlyView.

Purpose– The purpose of this paper is to develop a conceptual framework to contextualize young people’s lived experiences of privacy and invasion online. Social negotiations in the construction of privacy boundaries are theorized to be dependent on individual preferences, abilities and context-dependent social meanings.Design/methodology/approach– Empirical findings of three related Ottawa-based studies dealing with young people’s online privacy are used to examine the benefits of online publicity, what online privacy means to young people and the social importance of privacy. Earlier philosophical (...) discussions of privacy and identity, as well as current scholarship, are drawn on to suggest that privacy is an inherently social practice that enables social actors to navigate the boundary between self/other and between being closed/open to social interaction.Findings– Four understandings of privacy’s value are developed in concordance with recent privacy literature and our own empirical data: privacy as contextual, relational, performative and dialectical.Social implications– A more holistic approach is necessary to understand young people’s privacy negotiations. Adopting such an approach can help re-establish an ability to address the ways in which privacy boundaries are negotiated and to challenge surveillance schemes and their social consequences.Originality/value– Findings imply that privacy policy should focus on creating conditions that support negotiations that are transparent and equitable. Additionally, policy-makers must begin to critically evaluate the ways in which surveillance interferes with the developmental need of young people to build relationships of trust with each other and also with adults. (shrink)

What is required to be an interdisciplinary theory in cognitive science is for it to span more than one traditional domain. Generally speaking, as I discuss ...

Valérie Chevassus-Marchionni | : Après une étude de la notion de symptôme en psychanalyse chez Freud et chez Lacan, la paresse est envisagée précisément comme un symptôme. Mais quel peut être le sens de ce symptôme? Quelle est la nature du désir inconscient qui préside à son apparition? Après avoir considéré plusieurs causalités et élaboré quelques interprétations possibles, nous nous intéressons au cas particulier du personnage d’Oblomov dans le roman éponyme d’Ivan Gontcharov. Si la paresse d’Oblomov a un sens qu’il (...) est possible de déterminer à l’aide des outils de la psychanalyse, il est intéressant aussi de ne pas en chercher à tout prix la signification et de l’envisager davantage comme un sinthome au sens lacanien du terme : Oblomov ferait usage de sa paresse comme d’une véritable création visant à contourner son mal-être et à lui permettre de s’accommoder à sa manière des souffrances générées par son existence et sa sensibilité. En conclusion est présenté succinctement le cas de Svevo qui donne de la paresse une illustration bien différente. | : A study of the notion of symptom in psychoanalysis in Freud’s and Lacan’s work shows that laziness can be regarded exactly as a symptom. But what can be the significance of this symptom? What is the nature of the unconscious desire which presides over its appearance? Having considered several causalities and developed some possible interpretations, we’re concerned with the particular case of the character of Oblomov in Ivan Gontcharov’s eponym novel. If Oblomov’s laziness has a significance which it is possible to determine by means of the tools of psychoanalysis, it is also interesting not to look at all costs for the meaning and to envisage it more as a sinthome in the Lacanian sense of the term : Oblomov would make use of his laziness as a real creation to bypass his ill-being and to adapt, in his own way, to the sufferings generated by his existence and sensitivity. In conclusion is briefly presented the case of Svevo which gives of the laziness a very different illustration. (shrink)

Spelling out in detail what we do and do not know about phenomenological experience, this book denies the common view of consciousness as a central decision...

Medical Officer of Health reports for London boroughs, 1900–19, are analysed to determine the incidence of neonatal breast-feeding, duration of lactation, reasons for early supplementation and premature weaning, and their relationship with infant mortality. In a sample of 222,989 infants, breast-feeding rates were very high. Over 90% were breast-fed in the first month, almost 80% at 3 months, and over 70% at 6 months. The poorest boroughs had the highest rates of neonatal breast-feeding, but also a higher incidence of early (...) supplementation and premature weaning. There was a significant positive correlation between breast-feeding and infant mortality due to poor maternal diet and health, poor nutritional quality of supplementary and substitute foods, and the use of an unhygienic feeding bottle. Energetic campaigns to counteract these problems probably contributed to the fall of infant mortality in this period. (shrink)

Through the World Health Organization’s definition of midwifery, midwives are frequently heard to describe themselves as autonomous practitioners. In this article this notion is refuted. An overview of individual and collective autonomy is first presented to contextualize the subsequent discussion. Then the notion of autonomy in relation to midwifery practice in Scotland and New Zealand is critiqued through tracing the history of midwives and midwifery in these two countries. Issues relating to midwifery registration, medicalization of birth and consumerism are discussed. (...) Each of these categories is suggested as limiting to autonomous practice within midwifery. (shrink)

From 1908 to 1916, articles supporting the axiom of choice were scant. The situation changed in 1916, when Wacław Sierpiński published a series of articles reviving the debate. The posterity of the axiom of choice as we know it would be unimaginable without Sierpiński’s efforts.

Some claim that recent work in moral psychology both undermines Kantian moral theory and supports Humean approaches to morality. Does moral psychology undermine Kantian, rationalistic moral theory? After distinguishing various Kantian claims and the evidence against them, I argue that the empirical case against Kantianism as a viable moral theory is not conclusive.

Resumen: Este artículo tiene por objetivo establecer las bases para una comprensión disciplinaria y epistemológica de la geopolítica, considerando su ubicación como campo de estudio y el principal debate entre la perspectiva clásica y crítica de la misma en América del Sur. En este sentido, se efectúa un abordaje histórico sobre la evolución de la geopolítica, decantando en la manera en cómo el conocimiento geopolítico se ha dado en la región mencionada, al tiempo que se señalan las dificultades y propuestas (...) de investigación en el campo señalado. Se concluye que una discusión epistemológica de la geopolítica no solamente ayudará a lograr una mejor construcción y entendimiento del conocimiento geopolítico, desde un punto de vista holístico, sino que ayudará a destacar el rol de la academia en la necesidad de ser el eje articulador de dicha discusión.: This article aims to establish the basis for a disciplinary and epistemological understanding of geopolitics, considering its location as a field of study and the main debate between the classical and critical perspective in South America. In this sense, a historical approach is made on the evolution of geopolitics, decanting in the way in which geopolitical knowledge has been given in the region while pointing out the difficulties and research proposals in the field. It concludes that an epistemological discussion of geopolitics will not only help to achieve a better construction and understanding of geopolitical knowledge, from a holistic point of view, but also highlight the role of academics to articulate the discussion. (shrink)

Evolutionary theories of human cognition should refer to specific times in the primate or hominid past. Though alternative accounts of tool manufacture from Wynn's are possible (e.g., frontal lobe function), Wynn demonstrates the power of archaeology to guide cognitive theories. Many cognitive abilities evolved not in the “Pleistocene hunter-gatherer” context, but earlier, in the context of other patterns of social organization and foraging.

Empirical data from a large sample of Canadian youth aged 13 to 17 years suggest that, although the current privacy policy framework is having a positive effect on the extent to which young people are complying with the types of behavior promoted by adults as privacy protective, its primary focus on parental supervision is inadequate to fully protect children's online privacy. Respondents with high levels of either social interaction or identity play are more likely than those with lower levels to (...) divulge personal identifiers and display privacy-risky behavior, independent of their level of parental supervision. High levels of parental supervision, therefore, do not eliminate but merely reduce privacy-risky behaviors associated with social uses of the Internet. As such, parental supervision cannot adequately protect children who have integrated the Net most fully into their social lives, especially given the high premium that children place on the use of the Net to talk to friends and explore social roles. (shrink)

In this essay, I hope to make clearer what the points of division between the materialists and the sceptics are. I argue that the rifts are quite deep and turn on basic differences in understanding the scientific enterprise. In section I, I outline the disagreements between David Chalmers and me, arguing that consciousness is not a brute fact about the world. In section II, I point out the fundamental difference between the materialists and the sceptics, suggesting that this difference is (...) not something that further discussion or argumentation can overcome. In the final section, I outline one view of scientific explanation and conclude that the source of conflict really turns on a difference in the rules each side has adopted in playing the game. (shrink)

Many existing studies postulate that in developing economies philanthropy tends to dominate in the CSR orientation delivered by organizations and expected by local populations. To assess this in the emerging economy of Dubai in the United Arab Emirates, we conducted a preliminary investigation of how locals are responding to the growing number of CSR initiatives that are being implemented in the Emirate. Moreover, given that scholars have argued that Islamic principles of philanthropy should guide CSR initiatives in Muslim countries, we (...) also consider if our Emirati respondents connect CSR with Islamic philanthropy. Results from our survey of 267 local Muslim consumers in Dubai indicate that CSR is not typically equated with philanthropy. In addition, respondents displayed an appreciation of the economic benefits that CSR can generate. The implication is that organizations in Dubai no longer need to base their CSR on the platform of Islamic philanthropy as many scholars have argued. Our findings are significant for the wider Gulf region in that they suggest that in wealthy emerging nations, CSR may not be predominantly interpreted as the corporate philanthropy which is needed in poorer developing economies for the provision of infrastructure, schools, hospitals, and housing, and which in some Muslim contexts is also implemented because of local religious values. (shrink)

La philosophie de l’action wittgensteinienne, par sa clarification conceptuelle, permet une critique radicale de la métaphysique dualiste impliquée par la psychologie empirique. Si le psychologique est constitué concrètement par nos pratiques, une philosophie wittgensteinienne de l’action peut aider la psychologie à sortir des impasses dues à ses confusions sur la nature de son objet, en substituant à la notion réductrice de comportement le concept d’action.

This fourteenth volume of Collected Papers is an eclectic tome of 87 papers in Neutrosophics and other fields, such as mathematics, fuzzy sets, intuitionistic fuzzy sets, picture fuzzy sets, information fusion, robotics, statistics, or extenics, comprising 936 pages, published between 2008-2022 in different scientific journals or currently in press, by the author alone or in collaboration with the following 99 co-authors (alphabetically ordered) from 26 countries: Ahmed B. Al-Nafee, Adesina Abdul Akeem Agboola, Akbar Rezaei, Shariful Alam, Marina Alonso, Fran Andujar, (...) Toshinori Asai, Assia Bakali, Azmat Hussain, Daniela Baran, Bijan Davvaz, Bilal Hadjadji, Carlos Díaz Bohorquez, Robert N. Boyd, M. Caldas, Cenap Özel, Pankaj Chauhan, Victor Christianto, Salvador Coll, Shyamal Dalapati, Irfan Deli, Balasubramanian Elavarasan, Fahad Alsharari, Yonfei Feng, Daniela Gîfu, Rafael Rojas Gualdrón, Haipeng Wang, Hemant Kumar Gianey, Noel Batista Hernández, Abdel-Nasser Hussein, Ibrahim M. Hezam, Ilanthenral Kandasamy, W.B. Vasantha Kandasamy, Muthusamy Karthika, Nour Eldeen M. Khalifa, Madad Khan, Kifayat Ullah, Valeri Kroumov, Tapan Kumar Roy, Deepesh Kunwar, Le Thi Nhung, Pedro López, Mai Mohamed, Manh Van Vu, Miguel A. Quiroz-Martínez, Marcel Migdalovici, Kritika Mishra, Mohamed Abdel-Basset, Mohamed Talea, Mohammad Hamidi, Mohammed Alshumrani, Mohamed Loey, Muhammad Akram, Muhammad Shabir, Mumtaz Ali, Nassim Abbas, Munazza Naz, Ngan Thi Roan, Nguyen Xuan Thao, Rishwanth Mani Parimala, Ion Pătrașcu, Surapati Pramanik, Quek Shio Gai, Qiang Guo, Rajab Ali Borzooei, Nimitha Rajesh, Jesús Estupiñan Ricardo, Juan Miguel Martínez Rubio, Saeed Mirvakili, Arsham Borumand Saeid, Saeid Jafari, Said Broumi, Ahmed A. Salama, Nirmala Sawan, Gheorghe Săvoiu, Ganeshsree Selvachandran, Seok-Zun Song, Shahzaib Ashraf, Jayant Singh, Rajesh Singh, Son Hoang Le, Tahir Mahmood, Kenta Takaya, Mirela Teodorescu, Ramalingam Udhayakumar, Maikel Y. Leyva Vázquez, V. Venkateswara Rao, Luige Vlădăreanu, Victor Vlădăreanu, Gabriela Vlădeanu, Michael Voskoglou, Yaser Saber, Yong Deng, You He, Youcef Chibani, Young Bae Jun, Wadei F. Al-Omeri, Hongbo Wang, Zayen Azzouz Omar. (shrink)

This twelfth volume of Collected Papers includes 86 papers comprising 976 pages on Neutrosophics Theory and Applications, published between 2013-2021 in the international journal and book series “Neutrosophic Sets and Systems” by the author alone or in collaboration with the following 112 co-authors (alphabetically ordered) from 21 countries: Abdel Nasser H. Zaied, Muhammad Akram, Bobin Albert, S. A. Alblowi, S. Anitha, Guennoun Asmae, Assia Bakali, Ayman M. Manie, Abdul Sami Awan, Azeddine Elhassouny, Erick González-Caballero, D. Dafik, Mithun Datta, Arindam Dey, (...) Mamouni Dhar, Christopher Dyer, Nur Ain Ebas, Mohamed Eisa, Ahmed K. Essa, Faruk Karaaslan, João Alcione Sganderla Figueiredo, Jorge Fernando Goyes García, N. Ramila Gandhi, Sudipta Gayen, Gustavo Alvarez Gómez, Sharon Dinarza Álvarez Gómez, Haitham A. El-Ghareeb, Hamiden Abd El-Wahed Khalifa, Masooma Raza Hashmi, Ibrahim M. Hezam, German Acurio Hidalgo, Le Hoang Son, R. Jahir Hussain, S. Satham Hussain, Ali Hussein Mahmood Al-Obaidi, Hays Hatem Imran, Nabeela Ishfaq, Saeid Jafari, R. Jansi, V. Jeyanthi, M. Jeyaraman, Sripati Jha, Jun Ye, W.B. Vasantha Kandasamy, Abdullah Kargın, J. Kavikumar, Kawther Fawzi Hamza Alhasan, Huda E. Khalid, Neha Andalleb Khalid, Mohsin Khalid, Madad Khan, D. Koley, Valeri Kroumov, Manoranjan Kumar Singh, Pavan Kumar, Prem Kumar Singh, Ranjan Kumar, Malayalan Lathamaheswari, A.N. Mangayarkkarasi, Carlos Rosero Martínez, Marvelio Alfaro Matos, Mai Mohamed, Nivetha Martin, Mohamed Abdel-Basset, Mohamed Talea, K. Mohana, Muhammad Irfan Ahamad, Rana Muhammad Zulqarnain, Muhammad Riaz, Muhammad Saeed, Muhammad Saqlain, Muhammad Shabir, Muhammad Zeeshan, Anjan Mukherjee, Mumtaz Ali, Deivanayagampillai Nagarajan, Iqra Nawaz, Munazza Naz, Roan Thi Ngan, Necati Olgun, Rodolfo González Ortega, P. Pandiammal, I. Pradeepa, R. Princy, Marcos David Oviedo Rodríguez, Jesús Estupiñán Ricardo, A. Rohini, Sabu Sebastian, Abhijit Saha, Mehmet Șahin, Said Broumi, Saima Anis, A.A. Salama, Ganeshsree Selvachandran, Seyed Ahmad Edalatpanah, Sajana Shaik, Soufiane Idbrahim, S. Sowndrarajan, Mohamed Talea, Ruipu Tan, Chalapathi Tekuri, Selçuk Topal, S. P. Tiwari, Vakkas Uluçay, Maikel Leyva Vázquez, Chinnadurai Veerappan, M. Venkatachalam, Luige Vlădăreanu, Ştefan Vlăduţescu, Young Bae Jun, Wadei F. Al-Omeri, Xiao Long Xin.‬‬‬‬‬‬. (shrink)

Richard Kraut’s intriguing and provocative book, The Quality of Life, offers a sustained defence of strong experientialism (perhaps also a surprising defence, f.

This volume contains 45 papers, written by the author alone or in collaboration with the following co-authors: Mumtaz Ali, Said Broumi, Sukanto Bhattacharya, Mamoni Dhar, Irfan Deli, Mincong Deng, Alexandru Gal, Valeri Kroumov, Pabitra Kumar Maji, Maikel Leyva-Vazquez, Feng Liu, Pinaki Majumdar, Munazza Naz, Karina Perez-Teruel, Rıdvan Sahin, A. A. Salama, Muhammad Shabir, Rajshekhar Sunderraman, Luige Vladareanu, Magdalena Vladila, Stefan Vladutescu, Haibin Wang, Hongnian Yu, Yan-Qing Zhang.

Information processing theories in psychology give rise to executive theories of consciousness. Roughly speaking, these theories maintain that consciousness is a centralized processor that we use when processing novel or complex stimuli. The computational assumptions driving the executive theories are closely tied to the computer metaphor. However, those who take the metaphor serious — as I believe psychologists who advocate the executive theories do — end up accepting too particular a notion of a computing device. In this essay, I examine (...) the arguments from theoretical computational considerations that cognitive psychologists use to support their general approach in order to show that they make unwarranted assumptions about the processing attributes of consciousness. I then go on to examine the assumptions behind executive theories which grow out of the computer metaphor of cognitive psychology and conclude that we may not be the sort of computational machine cognitive psychology assumes and that cognitive psychology''s approach in itself does not buy us anything in developing theories of consciousness. Hence, the state space in which we may locate consciousness is vast, even within an information processing framework. (shrink)