Do we remember what pain feels like? Investigations into this question have sometimes led to ambiguous or apparently contradictory results. Building on research on pain memory by Rohini Terry and colleagues, I argue that this lack of agreement may be due in part to the difficulty researchers face when trying to convey to their study's participants the type of memory they are being tasked with recalling. To address this difficulty, I introduce the concept of 'qualitative memory', which, arguably, is the (...) sort of memory we have of what red looks like yet lack with respect to pain. I also briefly address a number of consequences the acknowledgment of qualitative memory would potentially have for philosophy, arguing that if we fail to have qualitative memories of certain sensations, such as pain, the standard philosophical accounts of experience, rational choice, and the sources of moral action may all need revision. (shrink)

Natural selection is commonly interpreted as the fundamental mechanism of evolution. Questions about how selection theory can claim to be the all-sufficient explanation of evolution often go unanswered by today's neo-Darwinists, perhaps for fear that any criticism of the evolutionary paradigm will encourage creationists and proponents of intelligent design.In Biological Emergences, Robert Reid argues that natural selection is not the cause of evolution. He writes that the causes of variations, which he refers to as natural experiments, are independent of natural (...) selection; indeed, he suggests, natural selection may get in the way of evolution. Reid proposes an alternative theory to explain how emergent novelties are generated and under what conditions they can overcome the resistance of natural selection. He suggests that what causes innovative variation causes evolution, and that these phenomena are environmental as well as organismal.After an extended critique of selectionism, Reid constructs an emergence theory of evolution, first examining the evidence in three causal arenas of emergent evolution: symbiosis/association, evolutionary physiology/behavior, and developmental evolution. Based on this evidence of causation, he proposes some working hypotheses, examining mechanisms and processes common to all three arenas, and arrives at a theoretical framework that accounts for generative mechanisms and emergent qualities. Without selectionism, Reid argues, evolutionary innovation can more easily be integrated into a general thesis. Finally, Reid proposes a biological synthesis of rapid emergent evolutionary phases and the prolonged, dynamically stable, non-evolutionary phases imposed by natural selection. (shrink)

Os Cursos da Sorbonne de Merleau-Ponty tratam da psicologia e pedagogia da criança. Dentre outros tópicos, interessa-nos aqui a perspectiva fenomenológica merleau-pontiana acerca da relação entre intencionalidade e aquisição de linguagem. Ancorado no pensamento de Max Scheler e, sobretudo, Ferdinand de Saussure, Merleau-Ponty apresenta uma noção de linguagem que visa examinar as posições intelectualista e empirista de modo a superar a privacidade do cogito tácito e os limites do alter ego de Husserl, indicando assim uma origem intercorporal do fenômeno linguístico (...) em que outrem opera o descentramento do eu pela fala. (shrink)

On December 7, 1994, the U.S. District Court of the Northern District of Illinois ruled that ERISA preempts a participant in an ERISA plan from suing the plan's administrator under a state common law theory of respondeat superior ) : at 208). On September 12, 1995, the Seventh Circuit of the U.S. Court of Appeals reversed this decision and ordered that the case be tried in state court ). The court held that the case had been improperly removed to federal (...) court. The court of appeals stated that the federal court did not have jurisdiction because the plaintiff's claim did not fall within ERISA's provisions.In this case, plaintiff David Rice brought a medical malpractice suit against two doctors who provided treatment to him in accordance with his ERISA insurance plan. (shrink)

В книге собраны статьи по актуальным вопросам политической теории, которые находятся в центре дискуссий отечественных и зарубежных философов и обществоведов. Книга имеет полемический характер и предназначена всем.

This chapter contains sections titled: I II III IV V VI VII VIII IX X.

This article argues that in Pindar's epinicians first-person statements may occasionally be made in the persona of the chorus and the athletic victor. The speaking persona behind Pindar's first-person statements varies quite widely: from generic, rhetorical poses—a laudator, an aoidos in the rhapsodic tradition (the “bardic first person”), an Everyman (the “first person indefinite”)—to strongly individualized figures: the Theban poet Pindar, the chorus, the victor. The arguable changes in the speaker's persona are not explicitly signalled in the text. This can (...) lead to significant ambiguities concerning the identity of the speaker (“blurred quotation,” “indeterminate speech boundaries”). The lack of a concern always to distinguish clearly the primary from the secondary narrators relates to a desire to confuse diegetic and mimetic forms; the practice of the fifth-century choral lyric poets in this regard is compared to that of other ancient Greek writers. The main challenge is to indicate how it is possible, in theory and in practice, for the athletic victor to be identified as the speaker when this is not explicitly signalled in the text; and, if this is possible, to suggest how it is possible for an audience to recognize when the speaking persona subsequently reverts to laudator or poet. An attempt is made to consider whether any formal, structural, or thematic tendencies can be observed in those passages in choral lyric where the chorus or the victor are tacitly introduced as speaking personae: such effects, it is argued, occur especially when links of ritual or genealogy enable the ode to “zoom” from the mythical past to the present occasion of the performance. The main passages discussed in the article are Pind. P.8.56–60, P.9.89–92, N.7.85, Pae. 2.73–79, and Bacch. 3.84–85. But the phenomena discussed are related broadly to other phenomena in Greek literature, in Latin poetry, and, especially, in Cicero's forensic oratory. (shrink)

The clinical clerkships in medical school are the first formal opportunity for trainees to apply bioethics concepts to clinical encounters. These clerkships are also typically trainees’ first sustained exposure to the “reality” of working in clinical teams and the full force of the challenges and ethical tensions of clinical care. We have developed a specialized, embedded ethics curriculum for Vanderbilt University medical students during their second year to address the unique experience of trainees’ first exposure to clinical care. Our embedded (...) curriculum is centered around core “ethics competencies” specific to the clerkship: for Medicine, advanced planning and end-of-life discussions; for Surgery, informed consent; for Pediatrics, the patient-family-provider triad; for Obstetrics and Gynecology, women’s autonomy, unborn child’s interests, and partner’s rights; and for Neurology/Psychiatry, decision-making capacity. In this paper, we present the rationale for these competencies, how we integrated them into the clerkships, and how we assessed these competencies. We also review the additional ethical issues that have been identified by rotating students in each clerkship and discuss our strategies for continued evolution of our ethics curriculum. (shrink)

Conviction Narrative Theory (CNT) is a theory of choice underradical uncertainty– situations where outcomes cannot be enumerated and probabilities cannot be assigned. Whereas most theories of choice assume that people rely on (potentially biased) probabilistic judgments, such theories cannot account for adaptive decision-making when probabilities cannot be assigned. CNT proposes that people usenarratives– structured representations of causal, temporal, analogical, and valence relationships – rather than probabilities, as the currency of thought that unifies our sense-making and decision-making faculties. According to CNT, (...) narratives arise from the interplay between individual cognition and the social environment, with reasoners adopting a narrative that feels “right” to explain the available data; using that narrative to imagine plausible futures; and affectively evaluating those imagined futures to make a choice. Evidence from many areas of the cognitive, behavioral, and social sciences supports this basic model, including lab experiments, interview studies, and econometric analyses. We identify 12 propositions to explain how the mental representations (narratives) interact with four inter-related processes (explanation, simulation, affective evaluation, and communication), examining the theoretical and empirical basis for each. We conclude by discussing how CNT can provide a common vocabulary for researchers studying everyday choices across areas of the decision sciences. (shrink)

The paper offers an interpretation of thesis 6.01. The treatment touches upon variables, identity, elementary propositions, internal relations. Klammerausdrücke, and operations. Wittenstein's notations are found not to cover the particular form of definition by induction that is used at 6 and 6.01. It is concluded that Wittgenstein's ability to design of a formal system of logic does not match his outstanding logico-philosophical insight.

The genesis of classical science was accompanied by a transition from logical to mathematical analysis. This change did not mean a rejection of Aristotle's canons of logic; it was simply that these canons became inadequate. They underwent a certain generalization and, in the course of this, came closely to approximate mathematical analysis, the foundations of the calculus of the infinitesimal. Classical science no longer took as its point of departure the notion of motion from "something" into "something," as did Peripatetic (...) physics and cosmology . The initial concept is motion, considered from point to point and instant to instant. This kind of differential notion of motion was clearly expressed by Kepler when he wrote: "Where Aristotle sees direct oppositeness between two things, with no mediating links, there I, looking at geometry philosophically, find a mediated opposition; so that where Aristotle employs a single term, ‘other,’ I use two: ‘larger’ and ‘smaller.’". (shrink)