Pain, suffering and positive emotions in patients in vegetative state/unresponsive wakefulness syndrome (VS/UWS) and minimally conscious states (MCS) pose clinical and ethical challenges. Clinically, we evaluate behavioural responses after painful stimulation and also emotionally-contingent behaviours (e.g., smiling). Using stimuli with emotional valence, neuroimaging and electrophysiology technologies can detect subclinical remnants of preserved capacities for pain which might influence decisions about treatment limitation. To date, no data exist as to how healthcare providers think about end-of-life options (e.g., withdrawal of artificial nutrition (...) and hydration) in the presence or absence of pain in non-communicative patients. Here, we aimed to better clarify this issue by re-analyzing previously published data on pain perception (Prog Brain Res 2009 177, 329–38) and end-of-life decisions (J Neurol 2010 258, 1058–65) in patients with disorders of consciousness. In a sample of 2259 European healthcare professionals we found that, for VS/UWS more respondents agreed with treatment withdrawal when they considered that VS/UWS patients did not feel pain (77%) as compared to those who thought VS/UWS did feel pain (59%). This interaction was influenced by religiosity and professional background. For MCS, end-of-life attitudes were not influenced by opinions on pain perception. Within a contemporary ethical context we discuss (1) the evolving scientific understandings of pain perception and their relationship to existing clinical and ethical guidelines; (2) the discrepancies of attitudes within (and between) healthcare providers and their consequences for treatment approaches, and (3) the implicit but complex relationship between pain perception and attitudes toward life-sustaining treatments. (shrink)

Pain, suffering and positive emotions in patients in vegetative state/unresponsive wakefulness syndrome (VS/uws) and minimally conscious states (MCS) pose clinical and ethical challenges. Clinically, we evaluate behavioural responses after painful stimulation and also emotionally-contingent behaviours (e.g., smiling). Using stimuli with emotional valence, neuroimaging and electrophysiology technologies can detect subclinical remnants of preserved capacities for pain which might influence decisions about treatment limitation. To date, no data exist as to how healthcare providers think about end-of-life options (e.g., withdrawal of artificial nutrition (...) and hydration) in the presence or absence of pain in non-communicative patients. Here, we aimed to better clarify this issue by re-analyzing previously published data on pain perception (Prog Brain Res 2009 177, 329–38) and end-of-life decisions (J Neurol 2010 258, 1058–65) in patients with disorders of consciousness. In a sample of 2259 European healthcare professionals we found that, for VS/uws more respondents agreed with treatment withdrawal when they considered that VS/uws patients did not feel pain (77%) as compared to those who thought VS/uws did feel pain (59%). This interaction was influenced by religiosity and professional background. For MCS, end-of-life attitudes were not influenced by opinions on pain perception. Within a contemporary ethical context we discuss (1) the evolving scientific understandings of pain perception and their relationship to existing clinical and ethical guidelines; (2) the discrepancies of attitudes within (and between) healthcare providers and their consequences for treatment approaches, and (3) the implicit but complex relationship between pain perception and attitudes toward life-sustaining treatments. (shrink)

Concept of ethics in Ādi-Granth, Sikh canon.

T. 1. Ot antichnoĭ fiziki do Mendeleeva.

Aṣṭāvakragītā, Hindu philosophical work; retold.

This article must open with a Warning. In face of the positive information which the sciences supply, the philosophical contribution to this problem will seem disappointingly negative, or at least mine will do so. For I shall insist, and I think we can only rightly insist, that the philosopher is not yet in a position to produce a satisfactory positive theory of the relation between mind and body. And I shall annoy many of you further by insisting that the old-fashioned (...) “dualism” has not really been disproved. However, even if you do not agree with me, it is at any rate a good general piece of advice that, when we are confronted with a philosophical view which has maintained its ground for a very long time but seems to ourselves or to our generation very unreasonable, we should look specially carefully to find the positive grounds which have made so apparently unplausible a doctrine seem true to so many competent thinkers. (shrink)

At least for those who uphold the rationality of morality, ethics and practical reason are not two distinct topics: an ethically sound agent is one whose practical reason functions as it should. Take, for instance, the greatest historical figures. Aristotle claimed that no virtue of character can exist without practical wisdom—the excellence of practical, deliberative reason. And Kant thought that the categorical imperative, the ultimate moral principle that governs a good will, was at the same time the fundamental principlof practical (...) reasoning because the will simply ispractical reason. Even before any philosophical theory of the connection between acting well and the exercise of a rational power is in view, our moral practices strongly suggest that there is one. For we take it for granted that, in an important range of cases, when an agent fails to act as she should, something has gone awry with the agent and not just with her acts, and, furthermore, that the agent herself may be held responsible for this. In calling an agent who acts unethically "irrational," we are saying these two things. (shrink)

Introducción a la lógica matemática que se diferencia de los textos estándar que presuponen la verdad o la validez incuestionables de la lógica clásica o aristotélica (la que no admite grados de verdad ni contradicciones). Con este libro el estudiante se adentra en la lógica sin tener que presuponer nada en ese sentido; va descubriendo paulatinamente un abanico de lógicas, de las cuales la clásica es una de ellas, la más simple. El lector va así vislumbrando una inagotable pluralidad de (...) lógicas posibles, algunas de las cuales vienen desarrolladas sintáctica y semánticamente. (shrink)

What significance does the body have in the process of teaching and learning? In what way can the thoughts of a contemporary junior-level teacher in this regard be connected to the theory of the lived body formulated by the French phenomenologist philosopher Maurice Merleau-Ponty (1908-1961), and vice versa? The aim of this paper is to illuminate, enable understanding and discuss the meaning of the body in the learning process, with specific focus on the learning of writing as embodied experience. In (...) the process, the boundaries of learning are also explored. While understanding the significance both of learning as embodied experience and of the boundaries of learning is essential within the educational field, in this paper the discussion is limited to exploring how learning as embodied experience and the boundaries of learning can be viewed by taking Merleau-Ponty's notions as theoretical starting points. In an attempt to answer the aim and connect the paper's theoretical point of departure with a voice from a teacher, an interview with a junior-level teacher was conducted. The paper thus offers a theoretical contribution to the field of educational research, but one in which the theory is exemplified by, and connected to, a teacher's voice. Accordingly, the paper concludes by summarising the common understandings of learning held theoretically by Merleau-Ponty and made real in the activities of the contemporary junior-level teacher. (shrink)

Following lesions to the primary visual cortex, some patients maintain visual capacities within areas of the visual field in which they are defined as clinically blind by static field perimetry. Blindsight describes the ability to discriminate visual stimuli in the absence of awareness of the stimuli in such patients. Some patients exhibit blindsight, but others are aware of the stimuli with which they are presented, a response mode that has been referred to as residual vision. The two response modes are (...) of great interest as they are capable of providing us with information concerning the conscious and unconscious processing of visual signals in humans. However, determining consciousness in these patients is a difficult task and relies on the patient assessing and then reporting on his awareness. In this paper, an experiment is described which is capable of demonstrating conscious visual processing of motion under conditions where the observer is not required to assess his level of awareness. In applying this technique to a human hemianope, GY, it is demonstrated that GY has veridical and conscious perception of visual motion presented to his blind hemifield. Although previously reported, this result can be derived without any reference to GY's commentary on his blind field perception. (shrink)

The Digital Dictionary of Buddhism [DDB] (http://buddhism-dict.net/ddb), now on the Web for more than 15 years, has become a primary reference work for the field of Buddhist Studies. Containing over 53,000 entries, it is subscribed to by more than 30 university libraries (http://www.buddhism-dict.net/ddb/subscribing_libraries.html), and supported by the contributions of over 70 specialists, many of these recognized leaders in the field. It can perhaps be described as example of the type of web resource that has reached a degree of status and (...) sustainability such that it has been able to grow and thrive as a collaborativelydeveloped online reference—despite having little funding or the support of a major organization or team of programmers—in the age where such resources are so readily washed away by the combination of Wikipedia and Google. Thus, the field of Buddhist Studies has its own reliable, scholarly-edited, fully documented and responsible resource that has developed a center of gravity sufficient for it to continue to grow as the resource that specialists turn to first without hesitation, and to which they may contribute knowing that they will be clearly accredited, and that what they write will not be deleted or changed in the following moment by, for example, a junior high school student. Recently, the technical advisor to the DDB, Michael Beddow, has completed a full overhaul of the supporting structure of the DDB and CJKV-E dictionaries, which will include a broad range of enhanced functions, both internal to the dictionary and in terms of interoperation with other lexicons and web corpora. This presentation will start off with a demonstration of the most advanced functions of the DDB, to be followed by a brief overview of its technical framework (P5-influenced XML, delivered through XSL and Perl). We will then outline the key factors of the management of the DDB that we believe have most directly contributed to its success. (shrink)