A.W. Moore presents eighteen of his philosophical essays, written since 1986, on representing how things are. He sketches out the nature, scope, and limits of representation through language, and pays particular attention to linguistic representation, states of knowledge, the character of what is represented, and objective facts or truths.

The paper begins with a defence of a new definition of privacy as the absence of undocumented personal knowledge. In the middle section, I criticise alternative accounts of privacy. Finally, I show how my definition can be worked into contemporary American Law.

This article examines the implicit promises of fairness in evidence based medicine , namely to avoid discrimination through objective processes, and to distribute effective treatments fairly. The relationship between EBM and vulnerable groups is examined. Several aspects of EBM are explored: the way evidence is created , and the way evidence is applied in clinical care and health policy. This analysis suggests that EBM turns our attention away from social and cultural factors that influence health and focuses on a narrow (...) biomedical and individualistic model of health. Those with the greatest burden of ill health are left disenfranchised, as there is little research that is relevant to them, there is poor access to treatments, and attention is diverted away from activities that might have a much greater impact on their health. (shrink)

The additional data, perspectives, questions, and criticisms contributed by the commentaries strengthen our view that local cortical processors coordinate their activity with the context in which it occurs using contextual fields and synchronized population codes. We therefore predict that whereas the specialization of function has been the keynote of this century the coordination of function will be the keynote of the next.

This paper sketches an account of public health ethics drawing upon established scholarship in feminist ethics. Health inequities are one of the central problems in public health ethics; a feminist approach leads us to examine not only the connections between gender, disadvantage, and health, but also the distribution of power in the processes of public health, from policy making through to programme delivery. The complexity of public health demands investigation using multiple perspectives and an attention to detail that is capable (...) of identifying the health issues that are important to women, and investigating ways to address these issues. Finally, a feminist account of public health ethics embraces rather than avoids the inescapable political dimensions of public health. (shrink)

In his article ‘A Nonce-word in the Iliad’ Maurice Pope argues against the usual modern interpretation of παναώριος, a Homeric παξ λεγόμενον applied by Achilles to himself at Il. 24.540, sc. ‘of all-untimely fate’, ‘doomed to die young’, and the like. The same is also the interpretation of the scholium παντελς ωρον ποθανούμενον, whilst Herodian and Eustathius, respectively with κατ πάντα ωρον and πάντ ωρον, do no more than paraphrase the force of παν- in the compound. Pope tries to establish (...) instead the suitability of the meaning ‘out of season’, i.e. in what Achilles does or fails to do in general. His case rests on the ground of what is appropriate to or required by the context, since, as he himself shows, the word in itself can, on the analogy of closely related forms, notably the adjective ωρος, bear the meaning usually attributed to it, provided the context contains sufficient indication of a reference to death. Accordingly, the validity of his argument depends on his assessment of this context. Pope recognises that throughout the last part of the Iliad, at least starting from the conversation between Achilles and his mother at 18.70ff., Achilles is fully aware of the nearness and unavoidability of his own death, and that ‘from this point on Homer exploits the atmosphere of impending doom’. But after citing several passages in which the approach of Achilles' death is mentioned, Pope continues as follows. (shrink)

I argue that both Kant and, in his later work, Wittgenstein indicate the possibility of just such a transcendental‐idealist response to the Basic Argument. I also argue, however, that transcendental idealism, for all its appeal, is incoherent. This is because its attempt to invoke the ‘transcendent’ is an attempt to invoke that which, by definition, cannot be invoked. So, it does not provide an alternative to unregenerate endorsement of the Basic Argument after all.

I next consider the significance of my question. I give various reasons for thinking that a negative answer would be disquieting. Such an answer would signal limits to how objective we can be; it would discredit the ambitions of science, or at any rate of physics; it would exacerbate certain problems associated with disagreement and relativism; it would pose a threat to our idea of reality; and it would curb a basic aspiration that we have to transcend our own finitude.

Everyone, according to W.A. Mathieu, is musical by nature--it goes right along with being human. And if you don't believe it, this book will convince you. In a series of interrelated short essays, Mathieu takes the reader on a journey through ordinary experiences to open our ears to the rich variety of music that surrounds us but that we are trained to ignore; such as the variety of pitches produced by different objects, like glassware, furniture, drums--anything you can tap; or (...) sounds that hover on the border of music, like laughter, the clinking of glasses in a toast, or the unintentional falsetto produced by yawning. Along the way the author teaches aspects of music theory that nonmusicians might ordinarily shy away from. He reveals the way of music to be a profoundly spiritual path--one that is everyone's birthright. (shrink)

This book brings together essays on themes of human rights and legal history, reflecting the long and distinguished career as academic writer and human rights activist of Brian Simpson. Written by colleagues and friends in the United States and Britain, the essays are intended to reflect Simpson's own legal interests. The collection opens with biography of Simpson's academic life which notes his major contribution to legal thought, and closes with an account of his career in the United States and a (...) bibliography of his writings. As a tribute to Simpson's varied interests in the law, the collection is grouped around themes in human rights, legal philosophy, and legal history. The human rights papers are concerned with the history of the right of individual petition to the European Court of Human Rights, and recent successes in which Brian Simpson played a part; the evolution of a transnational common law of human rights; the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child and the interpretation of the provisions on identity in France and England; the suspension of human rights which would have occurred, had the emergency War Zone Courts scheme been brought into effect during wartime; historical resistance to colonial laws in Papua New Guinea; and the ratio decidendi of the story of the Prodigal Son. Historical themes are found in essays concerned with three nineteenth-century Lord Chancellors; in two essays relating to the fate of the civil jury on either side of the Atlantic which provide a fascinating comparison; in the 'battle of the books' which led to changes in eighteenth-century copyright law; and judicial rivalry between King's Bench and Common Pleas in the early modern period. (shrink)

I identify and discuss three principles that underlie these ideas: first, that we are finite; secondly, that we are self‐conscious about our finitude; and thirdly, that we aspire to be infinite. I argue that the third of these explains the value of certain things to us, and that it leads to our being shown that these things are of unconditioned value. Finally, by addressing the question what value our aspiration to be infinite itself has, I make some suggestions about the (...) relationship between our ineffable knowledge and God. (shrink)

With these ideas in place, I proceed to give further examples of things that we are shown. These concern: the nature and identity of persons; the narrative unity of an individual life; scepticism; the subject matter of mathematics, and more specifically of set theory; and the doctrine that Dummett calls anti‐realism.

OBJECTIVES: To study and report the attitudes of patients and general practitioners (GPs) concerning the obligation of doctors to act for the good of their patients, and to provide a practical account of beneficence in general practice. DESIGN: Semi-structured interviews administered to GPs and patients. SETTING AND SAMPLE: Participants randomly recruited from an age and gender stratified list of GPs in a geographically defined region of South Australia. The sample comprised twenty-one general practitioners and seventeen patients recruited by participating GPs. (...) RESULTS: In practice, acting for the good of the patient not only accommodates the views of patients and GPs on expertise and knowing best, but also responds to the particular details of the clinical situation. Patients had a complex understanding of the expertise necessary for medical practice, describing a contextual domain in which they were expert, and which complemented the scientific expertise of their GPs. General practitioners identified multiple sources for their expertise, of which experience was the most significant. The role of the GP included responding to individual patients and particular clinical problems and ranged from the assumption of responsibility through to the proffering of medical advice. CONCLUSION: This study found that GPs acting for the good of their patients covered a variety of GP actions and patient preferences. Beneficence was not justified by presumed patient vulnerability or the inability of patients to understand medical problems, but furthered through a recognition of the different areas of expertise contributed by both parties to the consultation. (shrink)