Mr. F. is a fifty‐year‐old father of two school‐aged daughters. Six years ago, he received a double lung transplant because he was suffering from interstitial lung disease, a fatal illness that causes suffocation by progressive scarring of the lungs. He is now experiencing chronic rejection of the transplant and is being considered to receive another. Without it, he is expected to survive only a year and a half. With it, his prognosis will improve, but the numbers are still not good. (...) Three years after his lung transplant, Mr. F. stopped attending his office visits. For a period of sixteen months he went without the studies and attention essential to posttransplant care. He stopped performing the required daily self‐monitoring of his lung function about eight months after his transplant, but he has maintained a regular exercise regimen. While lost to follow‐up, he continued to take his immunosuppressant medications, but he stopped taking medicine to control his high blood pressure because of its expense. (shrink)

Interest in the Buddhist concept of mindfulness has burgeoned over the last few decades as a result of its application as a therapeutic strategy in mind-body medicine, psychotherapy, psychiatry, education, leadership and management, and a wide range of other theoretical and practical domains. Although many commentators welcome this extension of the range and application of mindfulness—drawing parallels between ancient contemplative traditions and modern secular interpretations—there has been very little analysis of either the philosophical underpinnings of this phenomenon or of its (...) implications for education. This article examines the new interpretations of mindfulness in the following areas—meaning and definition, ethical foundations and spiritual ethos—in an attempt to gain a clearer understanding of what is involved in the process of reconstructing the concept of mindfulness. In conclusion, some implications for learning and education are examined in the light of these recent re-interpretations of mindfulness principles and practices. A central thesis throughout is that—although there are many educational benefits of mindfulness in the areas of moral, affective and spiritual education—such potential gains require the maintenance of organic connections between contemporary practices and their foundations in secular Buddhism. (shrink)

The result is a one-dimensional, economistic and bleakly utilitarian conception of the educational task.In Mindfulness and Learning: Celebrating the Affective Dimension of Education, Terry Hyland advances the thesis that education stands in ...

Beth Cykowski offers a fresh reading of Heidegger's discussions of animality, arguing that they point beyond received dualisms back to a more essential way of philosophising about life and the relationship to it of the human. His exploration of animality raises deep questions about the status of the human within nature.

This article examines the role of moral arguments in the delegitimation of transition policies. Previous research has highlighted attitudes and arguments that explain resistance against transition policies, including perceptions of unfairness; inefficiency and effectiveness; lack of trust; and ideology. This article provides further understanding of resistance to climate policies by zooming in on how social movements implicitly and explicitly use moral arguments to delegitimise low-carbon transition policies. Through a qualitative interview study with members of a Swedish social media movement against (...) low-carbon transport policies, we analyse central arguments against policies; how moral considerations figure in them; and how these strengthen argumentative delegitimation practices against transition policies in the transport sector. We show how moral arguments serve to legitimise protests both by instilling an urgency in the cause and generalising the demands to delegitimise mainstream transition policies, and suggest that recognition of this may contribute to both better analysis and policies. (shrink)

Since the establishment of the National Council for Vocational Qualfications (NCVQ) in 1986, the influence of the competence-based approach, which underpins National Vocational Qualifications (NVQs), has spread beyond its original remit and now extends into schools and higher education. Competence strategies are criticised for their conceptual imprecision and their behaviourist, foundation. More significantly, it is argued that the competence approach displays confusion and incoherence in its interpretation and use of the ideas of ‘knowledge’ and ‘understanding’, and so should be challenged (...) and resisted by educators committed to these values. (shrink)

10 engaging and original essays argue that Spinoza is the interdisciplinary thinker for our times.This book brings Spinoza outside the realm of academic philosophy, and presents him as a thinker who is relevant to contemporary problems and questions across a variety of disciplines.Discover how Spinoza's theory of bodies transforms our understanding of music, and how it grounds "collective subjectivity" in contemporary politics. Learn how Spinoza's idea of freedom was instrumental to the Haitian revolution of 1791, and how it inspired Samuel (...) Taylor Coleridge's prose and GeorgeEliot's novels. Find out how early modern physics, contemporary architecture, and ecological activism can be rethought through Spinoza's theory of affectivity. (shrink)

What are the values and policies which are driving the development of Further Education institutions? The rapid expansion and development of the post-compulsory sector of education means that further education institutions have to cope with ever-evolving government policies. This book comprehensively examines the current trends in further education by means of both policy analysis and research in the field. It offers an insightful evaluation of FE colleges today, set against the background of New Labour Lifelong Learning initiatives and, in particular, (...) the links between college and community. This timely investigation of FE and New Labour policy, takes a unique community education perspective to determine whether the social objectives of current policy can be achieved by policy-makers, managers, staff and students in FE institutions. For students, lecturers and educators in the post-compulsory sector, in addition to policy-makers and managers, this is an invaluable source of information on a subject which is still largely under-researched. (shrink)

In this paper we give a brief treatment of a theory of proofs for a system of Full Intuitionistic Linear Logic. This system is distinct from Classical Linear Logic, but unlike the standard Intuitionistic Linear Logic of Girard and Lafont includes the multiplicative disjunction par. This connective does have an entirely natural interpretation in a variety of categorical models of Intuitionistic Linear Logic. The main proof-theoretic problem arises from the observation of Schellinx that cut elimination fails outright for an intuitive (...) formulation of Full Intuitionistic Linear Logic; the nub of the problem is the interaction between par and linear implication. We present here a term assignment system which gives an interpretation of proofs as some kind of non-deterministic function. In this way we find a system which does enjoy cut elimination. The system is a direct result of an analysis of the categorical semantics, though we make an effort to present the system as if it were purely a proof-theoretic construction. (shrink)

To address growing concerns about academic integrity, college students (n?=?758) at honor system and non-honor system institutions were presented with eight scenarios to determine the influence of an honor system on their perceptions of and responses to academic dishonesty. Main effects for honor code status emerged. Students from traditional honor system schools considered the behaviors to be more dishonest, and were more likely to respond that they would report the incident when compared to students attending modified and non-honor system institutions. (...) Findings suggest traditional honor systems, with specific rules and regulations in place, are more effective at cultivating academic integrity among students; modified honor systems may not be as effective as previous research suggests. (shrink)

Tool use rivals language as an important domain of cognitive phenomena, and so as a source of insight into the nature of cognition in general. But the favoured current definition of tool use is inadequate because it does not carve the phenomena of interest at the joints. Heidegger's notion of equipment provides a more adequate theoretical framework. But Heidegger's account leads directly to a non-individualist view of the nature of cognition. Thus non-individualism is supported by concrete considerations about the nature (...) of tools and tool use. (shrink)

Extending her earlier work on a theory of human rights in her 1993 Operative Rights, Singer (emerita, American philosophy presumably, City U. of New York) critiques philosophies from Rousseau to Kymlicka in clarifying her views--influenced by Dewey and Mead (George Herbert, not Margaret)--and applying them to such issues as multiculturalism, minority rights, and conflict resolution. The analysis pivots on her concept of "a normative community" rather than natural rights. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR.

Mindfulness-based interventions (MBIs) are being actively implemented in a wide range of fields – psychology, mind/body health care and education at all levels – and there is growing evidence of their effectiveness in aiding present-moment focus, fostering emotional stability, and enhancing general mind/body well-being. However, as often happens with popular innovations, the burgeoning interest in and appeal of mindfulness practice has led to a reductionism and commodification – popularly labelled ‘McMindfulness’ – of the underpinning principles and ethical foundations of such (...) practice which threatens to subvert and militate against the achievement of the original aims of MBIs in general and their educational function in particular. It is argued here that mindfulness practice needs to be organically connected to its spiritual roots if the educational benefits of such practice are to be fully realised. (shrink)

Another striking deviation with regard to philosophical tradition consists in the fact that contemporary schools in the philosophy of mathematics, with the exception again of Brouwer's intuitionism, hardly ever refer to mathematical thought.

Drew A. Hyland, one of Continental philosophy's keenest interpreters of Plato, takes up the question of beauty in three Platonic dialogues, the Hippias Major, Symposium, and Phaedrus. What Plato meant by beauty is not easily characterized, and Hyland's close readings show that Plato ultimately gives up on the possibility of a definition. Plato's failure, however, tells us something important about beauty—that it cannot be reduced to logos. Exploring questions surrounding love, memory, and ideal form, Hyland draws out (...) the connections between beauty, the possibility of philosophy, and philosophical living. This new reading of Plato provides a serious investigation into the meaning of beauty and places it at the very heart of philosophy. (shrink)

ABSTRACT The exponential expansion of mindfulness-based applications in education, psychology and psychotherapy, workplace training and mind/body well-being in general over the last few decades has been accompanied by wide-ranging claims about the impact of mindfulness on the brain. Arguments in this sphere have been supported by data taken from neuroscience reporting changes in the brain structure and function of participants following mindfulness-based courses and personal meditation practice. The principal aim of this article is to inspect some of these claims and (...) arguments in the light of Iain McGilchrist’s lifelong work on the asymmetric or divided brain. In particular, the idea of the brain as the sole or main generator of phenomenal consciousness will be questioned, along with the notion of left-brain shifting which mindfulness theorists equate with the mediation of negative emotions. The key ideas of McGilchrist on the nature of mind and consciousness are paralleled by similar perspectives offered by new idealist scientists and philosophers such as Bernardo Kastrup, Donald Hoffman and Steve Taylor, and the article concludes with an examination of the implications of these radical ideas for the spiritual traditions that provide the foundations for mindfulness theory and practice. (shrink)

What is the potential significance of community in a prolonged dieta (10-day restricted diet with regular ritual consumption of ayahuasca and other medicinal plants) in a remote jungle location in the Amazon basin of Peru? Pre-dieta experiences including how participants join the community, cleansing routines prior to departure to Peru, sharing with the shaman one's personal intentions and health history, and prior experience with medicinal and entheogenic plants are introduced. Dieta rituals such as tambo housing, meals, hygiene and maintenance, music, (...) ceremony preparations, ceremonial and everyday dieta etiquette, and post-ceremony ritual and day of rest are considered. Bonding with the local support community and those who harvested and crafted the medicinal plant mixtures are evaluated in the context of both dieta and traditional indigenous goals of creating a spiritual practice community of love and trust that embraces people, plants, and all of earth and beyond. (shrink)

Function theorists routinely speculate that a viable function theory will be equally applicable to biological traits and artifacts. However, artifact function has received only the most cursory scrutiny in its own right. Closer scrutiny reveals that only a pluralist theory comprising two distinct notions of function--proper function and system function--will serve as an adequate general theory. The first section describes these two notions of function. The second section shows why both notions are necessary, by showing that attempts to do away (...) with one of them fail. This demonstration draws on examples from the artifactual realm to motivate major points of the argument. The third section is an outline of artifact function. It confirms the conclusions of the second section, and also begins the task of describing some of the special features of artifact function needing accommodation within the general theory. (shrink)

This biography provides a stimulating and coherent blend of scientific and personal narratives describing the many achievements of the theoretical physicist Herbert Fröhlich. For more than half a century, Fröhlich was an internationally renowned and much respected figure who exerted a decisive influence, often as a 'man ahead of his time', in fields as diverse as meson theory and biology. Although best known for his contributions to the theory of dielectrics and superconductivity, he worked in many other fields, his most (...) important legacy being the pioneering introduction quantum field-theoretical methods into condensed matter physics in 1952, which revolutionised the subsequent development of the subject. Gerard Hyland has written an absorbing and informative account, in which Herbert Fröhlich's magnetic personality shines through. (shrink)

This book focuses on material culture as a subject of philosophical inquiry and promotes the philosophical study of material culture by articulating some of the central and difficult issues raised by this topic and providing innovative solutions to them, most notably an account of improvised action and a non-intentionalist account of function in material culture. Preston argues that material culture essentially involves activities of production and use; she therefore adopts an action-theoretic foundation for a philosophy of material culture. Part 1 (...) illustrates this foundation through a critique, revision, and extension of existing philosophical theories of action. Part 2 investigates a salient feature of material culture itself—its functionality. A basic account of function in material culture is constructed by revising and extending existing theories of biological function to fit the cultural case. Here the adjustments are for the most part necessitated by special features of function in material culture. These two parts of the project are held together by a trio of overarching themes: the relationship between individual and society, the problem of centralized control, and creativity. (shrink)

A great deal of research has now established that written texts embody interactions between writers and readers. A range of linguistic features have been identified as contributing to the writer's projection of a stance to the material referenced by the text, and, to a lesser extent, the strategies employed to presuppose the active role of an addressee. As yet, however, there is no overall typology of the resources writers employ to express their positions and connect with readers. Based on an (...) analysis of 240 published research articles from eight disciplines and insider informant interviews, I attempt to address this gap and consolidate much of my earlier work to offer a framework for analysing the linguistic resources of intersubjective positioning. Attending to both stance and engagement, the model provides a comprehensive and integrated way of examining the means by which interaction is achieved in academic argument and how the discoursal preferences of disciplinary communities construct both writers and readers. (shrink)

Baruch Spinoza was born in Amsterdam during a period of unprecedented scientific, artistic, and intellectual discovery. Upon its release, Spinoza’s Ethics was banned; today it is the quintessential example of philosophical method. Although acknowledged as difficult, the book is widely taught in philosophy, literature, history, and politics. This introduction is designed to be read side by side with Spinoza's work. As a guide to the style, vocabulary, and arguments of the Ethics, it offers a range of interpretive possibilities to prepare (...) students to become conversant with Spinoza's philosophical method and his challenge to conventional thinking. (shrink)

The purpose of this article is to examine whether patient/client autonomy is always compatible with the nurse’s role of advocacy. The author looks separately at the concepts of autonomy and advocacy, and considers them in relation to the reality of clinical practice from professional, ethical and legal perspectives. Considerable ambiguity is found regarding the legitimacy of claims of a unique function for nurses to act as patient advocates. To act as an advocate may put nurses at personal and professional risk. (...) It may also be deemed arrogant and insulting to other health care professionals. Patient autonomy can be seen as a subcategory of the right of every individual to self-determination, and as such is protected by law. However, it is questionable whether the traditionally paternalistic approach to health care provision truly respects the autonomous rights of each patient. The author considers examples and cases from the literature that resulted in professional and/or personal difficulties for the nurses involved, and also reflects on an incident from her own practice where a positive outcome was achieved that demonstrated compatibility between the concepts under consideration. (shrink)

Is appealing to emotions in argumentation ever legitimate and, if so, what is the best way to analyze and evaluate such appeals? After overviewing a normative pragmatic perspective on appealing to emotions in argumentation, I present answers to these questions from pragma-dialectical, informal logical, and rhetorical perspectives, and note positions shared and supplemented by a normative pragmatic perspective. A normative pragmatic perspective holds that appealing to emotions in argumentation may be relevant and non-manipulative; and that emotional appeals may be analyzed (...) as strategies that create pragmatic reasons and assessed by the standard of formal propriety or reasonability under the circumstances. I illustrate the explanatory power of the perspective by analyzing and evaluating some argumentation from Frederick Douglass’s “What to the Slave is the Fourth of July.” I conclude that a normative pragmatic perspective offers a more complete account of appealing to emotions in argumentation than a pragma-dialectial, informal logical, or rhetorical perspective alone, identifies a range of norms available to arguers, and explains why appealing to emotions may be legitimate in particular cases of argumentation. (shrink)

Ambitious targets to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from agriculture have been set by both national governments and their respective livestock sectors. We hypothesize that farmer self-identity influences their assessment of climate change and their willingness to implement measures which address the issue. Perceptions of climate change were determined from 286 beef/sheep farmers and evaluated using principal component analysis. The analysis elicits two components which evaluate identity, and two components which evaluate behavioral capacity to adopt mitigation and adaptation measures. Subsequent Cluster (...) Analyses reveal four farmer types based on the PCA scores. ‘The Productivist’ and ‘The Countryside Steward’ portray low levels of awareness of climate change, but differ in their motivation to adopt pro-environmental behavior. Conversely, both ‘The Environmentalist’ and ‘The Dejected’ score higher in their awareness of the issue. In addition, ‘The Dejected’ holds a high sense of perceived risk; however, their awareness is not conflated with an explicit understanding of agricultural GHG sources. With the exception of ‘The Environmentalist’, there is an evident disconnect between perceptions of agricultural emission sources and their contribution towards GHG emissions amongst all types. If such linkages are not conceptualized, it is unlikely that behavioral capacities will be realized. Effective communication channels which encourage action should target farmers based on the groupings depicted. Therefore, understanding farmer types through the constructs used in this study can facilitate effective and tailored policy development and implementation. (shrink)

There is increasing interest in artifacts among philosophers. The leading edge is the metaphysics of artifacts and artifact kinds. However, an important question has been neglected. What is the ontological status of the category ‘artifact’ itself? Dan Sperber (2007) argues against its theoretical integrity for the purposes of naturalistic social sciences. In Section 2, I lay out Sperber’s argument, which is based on the observed continuum between natural objects and artifacts. I also review the implicit support for this continuum argument (...) in the philosophical literature on artifacts. In Section 3, I diagnose the fatal weakness affecting continuum-based arguments about categories. They fail to take into account recent thinking about classification in philosophy of science, which has been forced to accommodate continua in biology. In Section 4, I focus specifically on the species problem in philosophy of biology, and on pluralism about species concepts as a response to it. I then identify an analogous artifact problem, and argue that pluralism about artifact concepts is an appropriate and defensible response here as well. Finally, in Section 5, I show that just as species pluralism leads to skepticism about the species category, so artifact pluralism leads to skepticism about the artifact category. I thus arrive at Sperber’s conclusion by an alternate route that does not run afoul of the weakness affecting continuum-based arguments about categories. (shrink)

This book explains how to read Plato, emphasizing the philosophic importance of the dramatic aspects of the dialogues, and showing that Plato is an ironic thinker and that his irony is deeply rooted in his philosophy.

De minimis defenses are an understudied aspect of law, appearing in legal practice more often than in legal theory but rarely garnering any type of extensive analysis in either. This has led to an unfortunate state of affairs in which one term is applied to a set of practices that are, at best, only loosely connected. Using Paul Robinson’s system of defense types, this paper will illustrate the various roles and functions the de minimis defense plays in our legal system. (...) In doing so, it will highlight the dangers of viewing the defense as monolithic and suggest that our terminology surrounding de minimis ought to be revised due to the differing justifications that support the application of each de minimis type. (shrink)

_Wittgenstein's Art of Investigation_ is one of the first to focus on and provide an original and detailed analysis of Wittgenstein's grammatical investigations. Beth Sarkey offers us new insight into the historical context and influences on method which will help students understand the intricacies and depth of his work.