Introduction. Bert HAMMINGA and Neil DE MARCHI: Préface. Bert HAMMINGA and Neil DE MARCHI: Idealization and the Defence of Economics: Notes Toward a History. Part I: General Observations on Idealization in Economics. Kevin D. HOOVER: Six Queries about Idealization in an Empirical Context. Bernard WALLISER: Three Generalization Processes for Economic Models. Steven COOK and David HENDRY: The Theory of Reduction in Econometrics. Maarten C.W. JANSSEN: Economic Models and Their Applications. Adolfo GARCÍA DE LA SIENRA: Idealization and Empirical Adequacy in (...) Economic Theory. Izabella NOWAKOWA and Leszek NOWAK: On Correspondence between Economic Theories. Uskali MÄKI: Isolation, Idealization and Truth in Economics. Part II: Case Studies of Idealization in Economics. Nancy CARTWRIGHT: Mill and Menger: Ideal Elements and Stable Tendencies. Wolfgang BALZER: Exchange Versus Influence: A Case of Idealization. Kees COOLS, Bert HAMMINGA, Theo A.F. KUIPERS: Truth Approximation by Concretization in Capital Structure Theory. Daniel M. HAUSMAN: Paul Samuelson as Dr. Frankenstein: When an Idealization Runs Amuck. Hugo A. KEUZENKAMP: What if an Idealization is Problematic? The Case of the Homogeneity Condition in Consumer Demand. Werner DIEDERICH: Nowak on Explanation and Idealization in Marx's 'Capital'. Gérard JORLAND: Idealization and Transformation. Jack BIRNER: Idealizations and Theory Development in Economics. Some History and Logic of the Logic Discovery. Discussions. Leszek NOWAK: The Idealizational Methodology and Economics. Replies to Diederich, Hoover, Janssen, Jorland and Mäki. (shrink)

Os dois subgêneros epistolares desenvolvidos por Antônio Vieira entre 1646 e 1696, a carta familiar e a carta negocial, reatualizam os preceitos das artes dictaminis antigas. Escritas como imitação verossímil e decorosa de fala de pessoa natural, as canas produzem a presença do corpo e voz do remetente, reativando neo-escolasticamente as técnicas da sermocinatio latina. A comunicação tratará de categorias retóricas e teológico-políticas das articulações dos dois subgêneros: a - a enunciação ou o contrato enunciativo, em que caracteres e afetos (...) constantes qualificam o remetente como tipo discreto que se dirige ao destinatário aplicando decoros específicos da pessoa e da circunstância; b - o enunciado ou a narração, em que as tópicas da invenção e as partes da disposição constituem a verossimilhança adequada ao subgênero e à matéria exposta. (shrink)

Background: Although nurses worldwide are confronted with euthanasia requests from patients, the views of palliative care nurses on their involvement in euthanasia remain unclear.Objectives: In depth exploration of the views of palliative care nurses on their involvement in the entire care process surrounding euthanasia.Design: A qualitative Grounded Theory strategy was used.Setting and participants: In anticipation of new Belgian legislation on euthanasia, we conducted semistructured interviews with 12 nurses working in a palliative care setting in the province of Vlaams-Brabant.Results: Palliative care (...) nurses believed unanimously that they have an important role in the process of caring for a patient who requests euthanasia, a role that is not limited to assisting the physician when he is administering life terminating drugs. Nurses’ involvement starts when the patient requests euthanasia and ends with supporting the patient’s relatives and healthcare colleagues after the potential life terminating act. Nurses stressed the importance of having an open mind and of using palliative techniques, also offering a contextual understanding of the patient’s request in the decision making process. Concerning the actual act of performing euthanasia, palliative care nurses saw their role primarily as assisting the patient, the patient’s family, and the physician by being present, even if they could not reconcile themselves with actually performing euthanasia.Conclusions: Based on their professional nursing expertise and unique relationship with the patient, nurses participating as full members of the interdisciplinary expert team are in a key position to provide valuable care to patients requesting euthanasia. (shrink)

As a contribution to the commemorations of Spinoza's death, this article describes in a few pages the significance of Spinoza in the evolution of Western political thought. Especially in his Political Treatise, Spinoza attempted to elaborate a «scientific» theory of political life, i.e. a closing deductive theory based upon a «true knowledge of the causes and natural bases» of human actions and passions. In his view it can be proved with a rational necessity that democracy - defined as Spinoza defines (...) it - is the best political regime. He strongly emphasizes that democracy and, consequently, a well organized and efficiently functioning life in common, is impossible without real freedom of opinion and speech and a political «neutralization» of religion. (shrink)

We introduce the notion of a dice model as a framework for describing a class of probabilistic relations. We investigate the transitivity of the probabilistic relation generated by a dice model and prove that it is a special type of cycle-transitivity that is situated between moderate stochastic transitivity or product-transitivity on the one side, and Lukasiewicz-transitivity on the other side. Finally, it is shown that any probabilistic relation with rational elements on a three-dimensional space of alternatives which possesses this particular (...) type of cycle-transitivity, can be represented by a dice model. The same does not hold in higher dimensions. (shrink)

There is evidence to the effect that exposing children to alcohol consumption in the media increases the chances that they will consume alcohol as minors or as adults, and since alcohol consumption is associated with numerous public health issues, calls for stricter regulation can be heard from many quarters. This article argues that with the available research we cannot conclude that exposure to portrayals of alcohol consumption plays a genuine causal role in bringing about the things with which it is (...) associated, that the strength of the correlation is too weak to justify regulation and that the sorts of things with which it is associated only rarely count as genuine harms from a liberal point of view. This article also argues that even if genuine harms were caused, no justification for regulation would directly follow because alcohol in the media could still be protected by freedom of speech and expression. Yet, the article argues that regulation is defensible if it can be shown that the harmful consequences arise in ways that bypass autonomy, or if it can be shown that the harmful consequences are unacceptable from the point of view of so-called ‘proleptic’ autonomy. (shrink)

Penser la guerre, c'est se placer dans l'effort philosophique qui se conçoit comme élucidation et affirmation rationnelles des différentes manières dont l'option humaine pour la raison et contre la violence se réalise dans l'histoire. Cette thèse fournit le point de vue à partir duquel l'auteur épouse la pensée de Kant, von Clausewitz et Hegel, en essayant ensuite d'en tirer des leçons possibles en vue des discussions actuelles dans la philosophie politique en tant que réflexion sur la guerre et la paix. (...) Von Clausewitz, penseur de la guerre après la « révolution » militaire depuis Napoléon, n'est pas seulement le « militariste » s'appliquant à la rationalité qui se déploie dans la violence guerrière elle-même, mais a surtout montré comment la guerre doit emprunter sa rationalité spécifique à la rationalité supérieure et englobante qui est celle de la politique , selon sa célèbre formule: la guerre est la continuation de la politique avec d'autres moyens. Mais il s'agit de bien comprenre cette formule. Dans la philosophie politique hégélienne, qui veut «saisir en pensée» le système d'une pluralité d'États indépendants et également souverains, la guerre a le caractère d'une «nécessité» rationnelle. Dans la philosophie du droit de Kant, la paix stable est l'objet d'un devoir impératif de la pure raison pratique, mais la guerre semble, de fait, inévitable, et ceci encore pour longtemps. C'est dans son projet philosophique intitulé Vers la paix perpétuelle que Kant essaie de penser les conditions politiques nécessaires pour établir une paix durable et juste entre les nations. L'auteur montre que ce projet est moins irréaliste qu'on ne le pense le plus souvent, si on veut l'interpréter à la lumière de la philosophie de l'histoire de Kant. On peut se demander néanmoins si Hegel ne continue pas à avoir raison contre Kant. Mais pour Hegel aussi l'histoire est un apprentissage. Au philosophe qui la comprend elle prouve, dit-il, la perfectibilité de l'éducation du genre humain. Il est possible de trouver, de ce point de vue, une convergence de la philosophie de l'histoire de Hegel avec celle de Kant. Une importance spécifique est donnée ici à l'interprétation du dictum de Hegel, que dans la guerre elle-même la guerre est déterminée comme devant être passagère . S'il est vrai que l'histoire de la dialectique de guerre et de paix peut nous rendre plus „sages”, qu'est-ce qu'elle nous a appris ? L'auteur souligne plus spécialement deux éléments: nous comprenons peut-être mieux la signification de la liberté et de ce qu'implique „libération”; nous voyons plus clairement l'importance à donner aux droits de l'homme comme expression de la justice. Il conclut que la philosophie comme „pensée de guerre” peut éclairer la politique dans son effort tendant à définir la justice qui peut établir la paix, afin de rendre superflue la guerre qui doit établir la justice. (shrink)

'Thanks to sound methodology and fidelity to the orignal text, this will be an invaluable asset to the scholar.' Bulletin SpinozisteSpinoza's Ethics is a classic philosophy text but it is also one of the most difficult to understand. This latest text in the Oxford Philosophical Texts series includes a new, lucid translation of Ethics in which Parkinson provides a comprehensive guide to the understanding of Spinoza's work. An extensive introduction includes a short biography of Spinoza himself; the form of his (...) writing including his own particular uses of definitions; an introductory guide through the philosophy of Ethics; and a summary of the contents of Ethics itself. Further aids include a glossary of terms, notes to the text, and notes to the translation. (shrink)

Background: Although nurses worldwide are confronted with euthanasia requests from patients, the views of palliative care nurses on their involvement in euthanasia remain unclear.Objectives: In depth exploration of the views of palliative care nurses on their involvement in the entire care process surrounding euthanasia.Design: A qualitative Grounded Theory strategy was used.Setting and participants: In anticipation of new Belgian legislation on euthanasia, we conducted semistructured interviews with 12 nurses working in a palliative care setting in the province of Vlaams-Brabant .Results: Palliative (...) care nurses believed unanimously that they have an important role in the process of caring for a patient who requests euthanasia, a role that is not limited to assisting the physician when he is administering life terminating drugs. Nurses’ involvement starts when the patient requests euthanasia and ends with supporting the patient’s relatives and healthcare colleagues after the potential life terminating act. Nurses stressed the importance of having an open mind and of using palliative techniques, also offering a contextual understanding of the patient’s request in the decision making process. Concerning the actual act of performing euthanasia, palliative care nurses saw their role primarily as assisting the patient, the patient’s family, and the physician by being present, even if they could not reconcile themselves with actually performing euthanasia.Conclusions: Based on their professional nursing expertise and unique relationship with the patient, nurses participating as full members of the interdisciplinary expert team are in a key position to provide valuable care to patients requesting euthanasia. (shrink)

We introduce two extreme methods to pairwisely compare ordered lists of the same length, viz. the comonotonic and the countermonotonic comparison method, and show that these methods are, respectively, related to the copula T M (the minimum operator) and the Ł ukasiewicz copula T L used to join marginal cumulative distribution functions into bivariate cumulative distribution functions. Given a collection of ordered lists of the same length, we generate by means of T M and T L two probabilistic relations Q (...) M and Q L and identify their type of transitivity. Finally, it is shown that any probabilistic relation with rational elements on a 3-dimensional space of alternatives which possesses one of these types of transitivity, can be generated by three ordered lists and at least one of the two extreme comparison methods. (shrink)