Purpose Although surrogate decision-making is prevalent in intensive care units and concerns with decision quality are well documented, little is known about how clinicians help family members understand the surrogate role. We investigated whether and how clinicians provide normative guidance to families regarding how to function as a surrogate. Subjects and methods We audiorecorded and transcribed 73 ICU family conferences in which clinicians anticipated discussing goals of care for incapacitated patients at high risk of death. We developed and applied a (...) coding framework to identify normative statements by clinicians regarding what considerations should guide surrogates’ decisions, including whether clinicians explained one or more of Buchanan and Brock’s three standard principles of SDM to family members. Results Clinicians made at least one statement about how to perform the surrogate role in 24 conferences ). We observed three general types of normative guidance provided to surrogates, with some conferences containing more than one type of guidance: counselling about one or more standard principles of SDM ; counselling surrogates to make decisions centred on the patient as a person, without specifying how to accomplish that ; and counselling surrogates to make decisions based on the family’s values. Conclusions Clinicians did not provide normative guidance about the surrogate role in two-thirds of family conferences for incapacitated patients at high risk for death. When they did, clinicians’ guidance was often incomplete and sometimes conflicted with standard principles of SDM. Future work is needed to understand whether providing explicit guidance on how to perform the surrogate role improves decision-making or mitigates surrogates’ psychological distress. (shrink)

Objective: Even when critically ill patients are almost certain to die from their illnesses, there is generally an element of prognostic uncertainty. Little is known about how physicians handle this uncertainty in conversations with surrogate decision makers. We sought to evaluate whether and how physicians discuss prognostic uncertainty with surrogate decision makers of patients who are highly likely, but not certain, to die. Design: We audiotaped and transcribed discussions between clinicians and surrogate decision makers at two major California teaching hospitals (...) from 2006 through 2008. Physicians completed a questionnaire addressing their prognostic estimates for patients' survival to hospital discharge. Participants: We included physicians and surrogates of 12 incapacitated, critically ill patients. Measurements: We analyzed transcripts of discussions in which physicians' estimates of patients' chances of hospital survival were 1% to 5%; we coded whether physicians disclosed the prognostic uncertainty and, if so, how they conveyed that death was highly likely but not certain. Results: Physicians' estimates of short-term survival were 1% to 5% for 12 of the 70 patients enrolled in the original study. In 8 of 12 cases, physicians conveyed prognostic uncertainty by using probabilistic language or by an explicit mention of uncertainty. In four cases, physicians made at least one statement that either implied or was ambiguous about whether death was certain. Conclusion: We observed variability in how physicians handle prognostic uncertainty in their discussions with surrogates of patients who are highly likely, but not certain, to die, including some circumstances in which physicians stated or implied that death was certain. (shrink)

The premier volume in the _Progress in Self Psychology_ Series was completed two years after Heinz Kohut's death in 1981. Hence, this volume has a unique status in the history of self psychology: it bears the imprint of Kohut while charting a course of theoretical and clinical growth in the post-Kohut era. Biographical reminiscences about Kohut and commentaries on Kohut's "The Self-Psychological Approach to Defense and Resistance" [chapter seven of _How Does Analysis Cure?_] are juxtaposed with a section of self-psychological (...) reassessments of interpretations. Clinical papers cover the selfobject transferences, patient compliance, and the "self-pity response", while theoretical contributions present ideas of Stolorow, Bacal, White, and Detrick that are foundational to their subsequent writings. This volume helped to shape the theoretical and clinical agenda of self psychology in the decades following Kohut's death. (shrink)

In an introduction to Louis J. Halle's Civilization and Foreign Policy, Dean Acheson notes with approval that Halle believed a group of men, formerly members of the Policy Planning Staff of the United States State Department, to be seeking a new theory of foreign policy which would lie outside the traditional theory. Halle's work, like that of the others whose names were mentioned (George F. Kennan, Paul Nitze, and C. B. Marshall), represented a serious and searching analysis of the conceptual (...) frame of American foreign policy, a search largely accompanied by a demand for a more realistic consideration of problems of power. The members of the Policy Planning Staff were by no means the only, or even the first, Americans to question American thinking on foreign policy from the standpoint of power politics. Without going back to Alexander Hamilton, we must consider, in particular, Hans J. Morgenthau and Reinhold Niebuhr. This kind of thinking is still being advanced; and, more recently, the warning that Americans misunderstood the problem of power was put with some forcefulness by Robert Endicott Osgood : “More than any other great nation, America's basic predispositions and her experience in world politics encourage the dissociation of power and policy.” There is no doubt that work of recent years has shown the increased seriousness of American interest in the problems of foreign policy and civilization. The contribution which these and other writers have made is a very great one. Despite many differences among themselves, their trend seems to embody a certain oneness, which lies in a perception of the problems of power. Acheson points to the practical experience of the State Department group and their intention to “see life steadily and see it whole,” in Matthew Arnold's famous phrase. Yet, a few years after these writers, whom Acheson so highly regarded, had tried to acquaint the American people with the realities of power in foreign policy, one of them, George F. Kennan, was publicly criticized by Acheson himself for “never having understood the realities of power politics.” Shortly thereafter, Acheson, in his latest book, reiterated the charge that “power politics” was, for Americans, still a derogatory term. Kennan, one of our most thoughtful and sensitive writers on foreign policy, and Acheson, one of our most articulate and eloquent secretaries of state, had failed to satisfy the American people, and Kennan had failed, apparently, to satisfy Acheson regarding the significance and the reality of power politics. Yet in the light of some of the literature which has appeared since the rise of these writers, whom we may call “realists” though they do not necessarily so characterize themselves, one may question whether the danger is still that which Acheson described. One who reads Henry A. Kissinger's Nuclear Weapons and Foreign Policy may wonder not whether Americans understand the realities of power but whether, indeed, some of them understand anything else. We face the danger that the wheel may come full circle, that a naïve idealism may be replaced by a purely methodical realism, and that the very words “politics” and “strategy” may become interchangeable terms. We face that danger, but let no one suspect that Americans, in general, have succumbed to it. (shrink)

In recent years, we have witnessed increased interest in alternatives to the dominant corporate social media sites, such as Facebook, Twitter (now X), and TikTok. Tired of disinformation, harassment, privacy violations, and the general degradation of platforms, users and technologists have looked for non-corporate alternatives. Not-for-profit social media platforms emerging from free/libre and open-source software (FLOSS) communities based on non-centralized infrastructure have emerged as promising alternatives. For applied epistemology of the internet, these alternative social media platforms present an opportunity to (...) study different ways of producing knowledge together online. This paper evaluates the epistemic potential for such alternative, non-corporate social media. I present an epistemological framework for analyzing the epistemic promises and perils of alternative social media. Then I apply this framework to the case of Mastodon, a federated, open-source microblogging platform. Mastodon’s structure and culture of openness present opportunities to avoid many of the epistemic perils of biased and untrustworthy large corporate platforms. However, Mastodon’s risks include techno-elitism, white ignorance, and isolated, epistemically toxic communities. (shrink)

Les sermons africains d’Albert Schweitzer, édités en 2002, opposent fréquemment les Blancs aux Noirs, dont le prédicateur vise à changer les croyances et le comportement. Dépourvu de préjugé raciste, ce contraste répond au dessein de tout prédicateur – et plus particulièrement du missionnaire : porteur d’une éthique qu’il juge universelle, Schweitzer veut améliorer ses auditeurs, et, pour nourrir leur émulation, il leur propose des modèles . Mais les sermons de Lambaréné témoignent aussi d’une certaine indifférence de Schweitzer à l’égard de (...) la culture africaine ; en cela, ils confirment les conclusions fondées sur les autres écrits du « Grand Docteur » : s’il a donné sans compter à l’Afrique, n’en a-t-il pas trop peu reçu ? The African sermons of Albert Schweitzer, which were published in 2002, often contrast the Whites with the Blacks, whose beliefs and behaviour the preacher wants to change. Without any racist prejudice, this contrast corresponds to the intention of each preacher, and more particularly of the missionary : being the bearer of an ethics which he considers to be universal, Schweitzer wants to improve his listeners, and in order to stimulate their emulation, he furnishes them with models . But the Lambaréné sermons also testify to Schweitzer’s relative indifference toward the African culture ; in this respect, they confirm the conclusions based on other writings of the « Great Doctor » : even though he spared no effort in giving to Africa, did he received enough from it ? (shrink)

Joseph Butler was an Anglican priest and later a bishop who wrote about ethics, religion, and other philosophical themes. He is not well known today. During his lifetime and into the early part of the twentieth century he was better known especially for his major work the Analogy of Religion (1736). Today he is known mostly for his sermons which are interpreted as essays on ethics and for his essay on identity. Butler had a profound effect on J. H. Newman, (...) Matthew Arnold, and W. E. Gladstone and some effect on many other popular, academic, and professional readers. This book is as much about Butler’s sources and his reception as it is about the way he arranged and presented the evidence in the first half of the 18th century. He was a good man and is recognized by the Anglican church as a divine. We have no interest in taking a nostalgic look at a quaint figure in English church history. To those who claim Butler is unknown, that he was “blown out of the water” by John Wesley or Karl Barth, or Cornelius van Til, we can only say Butler is not as well known in the 20th and 21st centuries as in the 19th, but he is certainly not unknown to those who have taken any interest in philosophy, religion, or ethics. Today there has been a revival of interest in Bishop Butler. Our concern is to build and maintain a bridge that will help to keep this momentum. He offers an ethic that is universal and clearly Christian, yet it is based on the nature of man. Kant had a similar project, but in our opinion, Butler makes more compelling arguments. What is of interest to the Christian apologist is Butler’s work in this area. The purpose of this book is to present Butler’s ideas. We believe that his ethics have a universality that is applicable to people of all religious faiths and those that have none. It is common sense way of looking at ethics for everyday interaction. This book is a narrative argument presenting in detail how Butler’s creative arrangement of the evidence served as a bridge between the ancients as known in the Greek, Latin, and Hebrew originals, and the moderns, mostly Anglophone, who constituted Butler’s work environment and his reception in the latter day down to the present. We can hardly expect everyone to agree with Butler on all points, we certainly do not. The point at issue is rather whether he merits a seat at the present-day round table of deliberation on matters pertaining to philosophy, religion, and ethics. (shrink)

In the burgeoning field of whiteness studies, What White Looks Like takes a unique approach to the subject by collecting the ideas of African-American philosophers. George Yancy has brought together a group of thinkers who address the problematic issues of whiteness as a category requiring serious analysis. What does white look like when viewed through philosophical training and African-American experience? In this volume, Robert Birt asks if whites can "live whiteness authentically." Janine Jones examines what it means to (...) be a "goodwill white." Joy James tells of beating her "addiction" to white supremacy, while Arnold Farr writes on making whiteness visible in Western philosophy. What White Looks Like brings a badly needed critique and philosophically sophisticated perspective to central issue of contemporary society. (shrink)

The Euro-American far-right represents a highly diverse political movement comprising numerous ideological tendencies. It includes the European New Right, the US ‘alt-right’ and ‘alt-lite’, far-right accelerationism, traditionalism, and new forms of political misogyny. Despite the diversity in ideas and activities, this article argues that an overarching theme of the ‘fear of white extinction’ travels across and animates each major contemporary far-right tendency. The article explores a variety of older and contemporary metaphysical themes that are deployed in contemporary fascism. These (...) include new configurations of racism, occultist ideas of nature and vitalism, the rendering of culture and civilization in ‘biocultural’ and ‘anthropological’ terms, and ideas about cosmic destiny. The article considers how older ideas from Nietzsche, Schopenhauer, Hans Günther, Ludwig Klages, Arnold Gehlen and others are mobilized in contemporary fascism to generate a critique of liberal modernity, one which leads remorselessly to a logic of white supremacy and apocalyptic violence. (shrink)

In 1882, the South Australian Baptist Missionary Society sent off its first missionaries to Faridpur in East Bengal. Miss Marie Gilbert and Miss Ellen Arnold were the first of a stream of missionary women who left the young South Australian colony to work in India. Scores of women from other Christian denominations and from other Australian colonies also went to India and indeed to other mission fields in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. As with other western women missionaries, these (...) women intended to save souls and to bring India's daughters to Christ, often by means of medical work. But unlike their British sisters, these women came from the edge of empire to intervene in another, but different, colonial site. These missionary ventures coincided with efforts of the Australian settlers to elaborate for themselves an identity separate from and against that of the metropolitan centre. Within these debates, contestations over the meaning of ‘the colonial girl’ and ‘the Australian girl’ played a key role. The article explores why the women were drawn to India rather than to working with Aboriginal people in Australia. It begins to investigate how in seeking to reconstruct Indian womanhood they elaborated for themselves a separate colonial, Australian identity and how much in their missionary endeavours they affirmed an identity as white, Christian and ultimately British. (shrink)

Cinema is an effective medium for communicating the Platonist attitude toward Beauty as an attribute worthy of moral respect, as case studies can illustrate. Mine focuses on the work of the French actress Carole Bouquet, who launched her career in Buñuel’s Cet obscur objet du désir (That Obscure Object of Desire). Part 1 shows sins against Beauty to be a unifying theme of Bouquet’s films, which leave no doubt as to the appropriate response. Part 2 combines Plato’s distinction in the (...) Phaedrus between erotic and aesthetic vision with insights from Kant and Baudelaire to sketch a course of action that addresses the critical “What is to be done?” question. (shrink)

Introduction -- The mathematical roots of the concept of analogy -- Aristotle : the uses of analogy -- Aristotle : analogy and language -- Thomas Aquinas -- Immanuel Kant -- Karl Barth -- Final reflections.

Brought about through philosophical analysis – a first in the history of art – paradigm shifts in the ontology and epistemology of sculpture are described, motivated, and exemplified with pieces they inspired. Navigating the new aesthetic environment requires an ‘escape from Plato's Cave’ by means of a kind of phenomenological reduction. The new conceptual foundation allows artists unprecedented levels of freedom to explore and innovate, connects sculpture to music, and has the potential to enhance significantly the appreciation of art and (...) its impact on contemporary culture. The algorithmic nature of my paradigms shows that art and science have more in common than previously thought. (shrink)

In this essay I enter into a recently published debate between Stephen Schiffer and Jerry Fodor concerning whether adequate sense can be made of the ceteris paribus conditions in special science laws, much of their focus being on the case of putative psychological laws. Schiffer argues that adequate sense cannot be made of ceteris paribus clauses, while Fodor attempts to overcome Schiffer's arguments, in defense of special science laws. More recently, Peter Mott has attempted to show that Fodor's response to (...) Schiffer fails, and furthermore that further study shows that the logical framework in which Schiffer and Fodor address their issue is susceptible to inconsistency.In this essay I argue that adequate sense can be made of ceteris paribus conditions. Against Mott, I argue that recent work in the model theory of non-monotonic logic indicates how his problem involving logical inconsistencies can be overcome. Against Schiffer, I argue that the claims that he makes against ceteris paribus clauses would lead to a fatal skepticism concerning indefinitely many of the claims we make about the world (and indeed that his claims would be destructive of the view of the special sciences that Schiffer himself presents in his paper), and that the semantical considerations from non-monotonic logic that I present provide a suitable framework for dealing with his complaints. Thus I come out on the whole on Fodor's side of this debate, although for my own reasons, as I argue against much of Fodor's own argumentation. (shrink)

Drawing on contemporary agency theory and the phenomenological-existential tradition, this paper uses Mr. Stevens, the narrator-butler of Kazuo Ishiguro’s The Remains of the Day, to examine the interplay and potential tensions between different aspects (and thus different standards) of human agency. Highlighting the problem of mission creep described by John Martin Fischer, in which a notion expands beyond the original purpose, I use Stevens’s thoughts on dignity to outline three different ways actions can (or can fail to) trace back to (...) agents—autonomy as self-control, authenticity as sincerity, and authenticity as ownership. I then propose that the way Stevens embraces and acts consistently within his subservient professional role (autonomy as self-control) weakens his ability to take responsibility for his life in the sense required by authenticity as ownership. Because the self-responsibility of authenticity requires normative flexibility (the ability to revise and reshape one’s commitments and values), when normatively inflexible agents act in self-controlled ways according to their roles or welfare standards, they may limit their ability to take responsibility for their lives. In addition to illuminating debates about whether robust human agency is compatible with subservience, the normative flexibility involved in authenticity has implications for human agency more broadly. (shrink)

Ce papier présente le corpus des discours du Premier ministre anglais (Tony Blair) prononcés de 1997 à 2004. Avant d'être intégrés dans le corpus, les textes sont corrigés, les graphies sont standardisées. On montre que ce corpus ouvre de nombreuses pistes de recherches. Deux exemples sont donnés : les principales ruptures thématiques et stylistiques permettent de repérer deux grandes périodes dans ces huit années ; on caractérise la richesse du vocabulaire de T. Blair à l'aide des notions de spécialisation et (...) de diversité. (shrink)

This article intervenes in recent formalist and ecocritical debates, drawing on the philosophy of Charles Darwin and Édouard Glissant to develop an ecopoetic theory of relational form. Gathering perspectives from ecocriticism and new materialism, literary criticism and comparative literature, the history and philosophy of science, postcolonial theory, critical race theory, and Black studies, it reads form as an interdisciplinary object that is part of the world, rather than an imposed feature of human language or perception. In this way, it produces (...) a relational theory of form that is not hylomorphic or defined through the relation between form and content but, rather, is defined by the relation between a content and extant and, so, an interaction of relation and repetition. Drawing on the history of ecological science, it further explores how forms combine, how they amplify and interfere with each other, and how they support relations of harm and care. Finally, it uses this ecopoetic theory of form to read the histories of racial violence and migration in Matthew Arnold’s “Dover Beach” (1867) and Helen Oyeyemi’s White Is for Witching (2009). (shrink)

The question that this paper sets out to answer is: How do political processes within the firm structure corporate political strategy? In answering this question thepaper starts to address the research problem of the congruence between processes of consensus building and conflict resolution within the firm and on the other hand corporate attempts to influence political processes taking place outside the firm. The paper argues that power-dependence relations between firm-internal stakeholders are an explanatory factor in examining empirical variation in corporate (...) political behavior. (shrink)

Tackling the question whether beauty is a property as if the problem of universals could safely be ignored leads to confusions exemplified in Scruton 2009, McMahon 2007, Zangwill 2001 and Scarry 1999, among recent writers. I frame the question in the proper context with a measure of precision, clear away misunderstandings, present a logically valid argument for an affirmative answer, list three relevant and four irrelevant ways of countering the argument, and show that well-known views of Hume and Kant yield (...) relevant objections only if construed in Russellian terms, but still fail. Finally, I sketch a realization account of beauty along Platonist lines, similar to Hogarth’s. (shrink)

Revision of thesis (Ph. D.)--U.C.L.A., 1982?Includes index. Bibliography: p. 151-156.