This paper addresses the problem of ‘premature consent’. The term ‘premature consent’ denotes patient decisions that are: formulated prior to discussion with the appropriate healthcare professional ; based on information from unreliable sources ; and resolutely maintained despite the HCP having provided alternative reliable information. HCPs are not obliged to respect premature consent patients’ demands for unindicated treatments. But why? What is it that premature consent patients do or get wrong? Davis has argued that premature consent patients are incompetent and (...) misinformed. We argue that this view is not sustainable. A more plausible position asserts that premature consent threatens the integrity of the medical profession. We argue that this gives rise to a negative patient duty which premature consent patients fail to honour. We argue for a further positive duty of good faith engagement in shared decision-making. This implies willingness to potentially revise or justify one’s evaluative bases. Fundamentally, the problem with premature consent patients is that certain of their evaluative bases are not open to revision. They therefore fail in their duty to participate faithfully in the shared decision-making process. (shrink)

In drawing on Poincare’s conventionalism, Cassirer’s neo-Kantianism, Duhem’s methodological conservatism, and Russell’s holist doctrine of scientific knowledge, Worrall (1989) launched in his classical paper a new position in realism debate. The champions of structural realism have managed to combine a sense in which the development of science is cumulative with a picture of theory change that coheres with the argument of the “pessimistic meta-induction”. Twenty two years after the publication of Worrall’s paper, the volume under review presents an exciting recapitulation (...) of the structuralist movement’s main achievements. The recapitulation is most welcome, since from the very outset of its development not only did structural realism oppose the forms of logical reductionism, but it also got its emancipation as a philosophical position through suggesting an alternative to van Fraassen’s constructive empiricism, while at the same time provoking a transformation of the latter into structu .. (shrink)

The influence of religious beliefs to several leading mathematicians in early Soviet years, especially among members of the Moscow Mathematical Society, had drawn the attention of militant Soviet marxists, as well as Soviet authorities. The issue has also drawn significant attention from scholars in the post-Soviet period. According to the currently prevailing interpretation, reported purges against Moscow mathematicians due to their religious inclination are the focal point of the relevant history. However, I maintain that historical data arguably offer reasons to (...) cast reasonable doubts on this interpretation. In this paper, by reviewing the relevant literature, I raise some methodological and philosophical concerns, in an attempt to contribute to a better understanding of the issue. I maintain that an efficient line of reasoning is to discuss issues in the context of their making, taking into consideration the specific features of each era’s culture. Thus, by focusing on P.A. Nekrasov’s case, I attempt to point to an alternative interpretation, in which the different treatment of religious inclined mathematicians by Soviet authorities is explained in the context of the ideological confrontation between two contrasting worldviews, as part of the ongoing class war in the several phases of Soviet history. (shrink)

In this paper I point out main shortfalls of the three main families of theories of perception and I propose a sort of inferential realism. In addition, I argue that there cannot be a scientific variant of direct realism and illustrate this point with reference to P.F.Strawson's attempt to reconcile, not naïve realism and the scientific variant as he amounts to, but rather, direct and indirect realism. I draw the distinction between four cases of illusion, and I refer to one (...) of these, namely to the case of veridical illusion, to show that Strawson's view, put in terms of the Fregean sense-reference distinction, fails. As regards indirect realism, I argue against the representationalist account and the Lockean picture of primary and secondary qualities. Phenomenalism is rejected in terms of the impossibility to identify an object throughout different contexts and I suggest that what is for x to be that x in different contexts can be given only by a realist analysis of a material object. Finally, I provide an account of what it is for A to perceive that x with respect to different contexts and I conclude with what conditions should veridical perception meet and therefore propose the framework of a new theory of perception. (shrink)

Neuroenhancement offers the prospect of improving the cognitive, emotional and motivational functions of healthy individuals. Of all the conceivable interventions, psychopharmacology provides the most readily available ones, such as antidepressants which are thought to make people “better than well”. However, up until now, whether they possess such an enhancing ability remains controversial and therefore in this systematic review we will evaluate the effect and safety of modern antidepressants in healthy individuals. A search of MEDLINE and EMBASE databases and cross-references was (...) carried out and the pharmaceutical industry was contacted for suitable data. Trials published in any language through the third week of July 2007 were regarded. Included were single or double blind randomised or quasi-randomised controlled trials that compared a placebo to one or more of the following antidepressants: bupropion, citalopram, duloxetine, escitalopram, fluoxetine, fluvoxamine, moclobemide, paroxetine, reboxetine, sertraline or venlafaxine in any dose or dosing schedule. Eligible studies were those involving healthy people of any age and either sex who showed no evidence of a psychiatric disorder, cognitive decline or other disease. One hundred thirty-five articles met our inclusion criteria reporting single dose trials and trials with repeated drug administration. Sixty-five of these articles were eligible for a statistical analysis. Based on a linear mixed model, a meta-analysis and a fixed effects meta-regression were performed. Pooling of results by meta-analysis was stratified by the outcome measures mood, emotional processing, wakefulness, attention, memory, and executive functions. On a significance level of p < 0.05 the following significant results emerged: After a single dose of an antidepressant, a significant effect was shown in two of the analysed outcomes. Firstly, there was a small yet significant negative effect on wakefulness. On memory, a positive effect after several measurements was found, but this result could be traced to the results of the one study out of all included studies, which had that many assessment points. The analysis of trials with repeated drug administration yielded the following effects: on mood, a non-significant positive effect was detected that was continuously increasing and reached significance at the last assessment point. Regarding attention, a fluctuating effect was found, while for memory, the fact that the two groups started with a group difference confounded the results. For wakefulness there was no significant effect in any particular assessment point, while for emotional processing and executive functions, the small number of studies did not allow for any effect to emerge. In summary, no consistent evidence for enhancing effects of antidepressants could be found. There is little evidence so far to support the popular opinion that antidepressants have a positive effect on the mood of healthy individuals after repeated administration. No evidence of a significant adverse event profile could be found. The studies included in this systematic review not only provide insufficient evidence for or against any effect in healthy people, but they are inapt to be used for answering this question. This may be explained by the fact that most of them were not designed to examine neuroenhancement effects. The growing public interest in neuroenhancement stands in stark contrast to the paucity of data on enhancement effects of available psychopharmacological agents. (shrink)

The Byzantine dreambook known in the tradition as The Oneirocriticon of Achmet has had a long and influential history both in its field and in scholarship. It is the longest of the eight surviving Byzantine books on dream interpretation, and most likely also the oldest. It was compiled during the Macedonian renaissance—specifically, the two termini of 843 and 1075 can be established—possibly in the reign of Leo VI (r. 886–912), to whom it may have been dedicated, and possibly through the (...) influence of his Arab minister Samonas. It was translated early into Latin, in 1176 (by contrast, the famous ancient dreambook of Artemidorus was not translated until 1539), and “through this translation found its way into several European and vernacular languages from the late thirteenth century onward” (p. 4). The scholarly study of the work began in 1577, with the preface Johann Loewenklau wrote for his Latin translation of the Greek text, and continued apace to this day. The book by Maria Mavroudi under review here, from which this information is taken (chapter 1), is the latest in a long series of studies. It is also the most exhaustive and meticulous in its research and the first fully to take into account, in a professional and exemplary manner, the Arabic sources of the work. Exhaustive, but perhaps also exhausting—one may object that 471 pages of text (exclusive of prefatory material and bibliographies and indices) for a study of a mere dreambook may be too many, though apparently necessary, for Mavroudi's book contends against the weight of previous scholarship and offers much needed correctives. (shrink)

Extensive research has demonstrated that rs1360780, a common single nucleotide polymorphism within the FKBP5 gene, interacts with early-life stress in predicting psychopathology. Previous results suggest that carriers of the TT genotype of rs1360780 who were exposed to child abuse show differences in structure and functional activation of emotion-processing brain areas belonging to the salience network. Extending these findings on intermediate phenotypes of psychopathology, we examined if the interaction between rs1360780 and child abuse predicts resting-state functional connectivity (rsFC) between the amygdala (...) and other areas of the salience network. We analyzed data of young European adults from the general population (N = 774; mean age = 18.76 years) who took part in the IMAGEN study. In the absence of main effects of genotype and abuse, a significant interaction effect was observed for rsFC between the right centromedial amygdala and right posterior insula (p <.025, FWE-corrected), which was driven by stronger rsFC in TT allele carriers with a history of abuse. Our results suggest that the TT genotype of rs1360780 may render individuals with a history of abuse more vulnerable to functional changes in communication between brain areas processing emotions and bodily sensations, which could underlie or increase the risk for psychopathology. (shrink)

Sabine Fourrier et al. Le dépot archaïque d'Amathonte, III. Les petits objets p. 67-118 Cet article présente les petits objets découverts dans un remblai d'époque archaïque, déposé contre le rempart Nord de la ville basse d'Amathonte. Le matériel, riche et varié, reflète les différentes fonctions du palais, dont il provient. Plusieurs types sont inédits ou seulement attestés parmi les trouvailles du palais de l'acropole. Certaines catégories, comme les figurines de terre cuite ou les marques incisées sur vases, sont particulièrement bien (...) représentées. Malgré leur aspect souvent fragmentaire, ces objets donnent une vue d'ensemble du mobilier que contenait le palais archaïque d'Amathonte. (shrink)

Bullying often results in negative coping in victims, including an increased consumption of alcohol. Recently, however, an increase in alcohol use has also been reported among perpetrators of bullying. The factors triggering this pattern are still unclear. We investigated the role of empathy in the interaction between bullying and alcohol use in an adolescent sample (IMAGEN) at age 13.97 (±0.53) years (baseline (BL), N = 2165, 50.9% female) and age 16.51 (±0.61) years (follow-up 1 (FU1), N = 1185, 54.9% female). (...) General empathic distress served as a significant moderator of alcohol use in perpetrators (F9, 493 = 17.978, p < 0.01), which was specific for males and FU1. Male perpetrators, who are generally less sensitive to distress, might thus be more vulnerable to alcohol abuse. (shrink)

Keith Thomas: Gerald Edward Aylmer, 1926-2000 Adrian Hollis: William Spencer Barrett, 1914-2001 Bruce Williams: Charles Frederick Carter, 1919-2002 Malcolm Mackintosh: John Erickson, 1929-2002 J. H .R. Davis: Raymond William Firth, 1901-2002 F. M. L. Thompson: Hrothgar John Habakkuk, 1915-2002 A. W. Price: Richard Mervyn Hare, 1919-2002 Hugh Lloyd-Jones: Geoffrey Stephen Kirk, 1921-2003 Michael Lapidge and Peter Matthews: Vivien Anne Law, 1954-2002 Ann Moss: John Lough, 1913-2000 Terence Cave: Ian Dalrymple McFarlane, 1915-2002 Ludwig Paul: David Neil MacKenzie, 1926-2001 Peter Birks: John (...) Kieran Barry Moylan Nicholas, 1919-2002 Jonathan Shepard: Dimitri Dimitrievich Obolensky, 1918-2001 David Cannadine: John Harold Plumb, 1911-2001 Daniel Waley: Nicolai Rubinstein, 1911-2002 Ian Wood: John Michael Wallace-Hadrill, 1916-1985 R. G. M. Nisbet: William Smith Watt, 1913-2002 G. W. Bernard: Richard Bruce Wernham, 1906-1999. (shrink)

Last June, Moscow was the setting for a Russian‐sponsored conference on business ethics. One of the participants from the USA, Professor Thomas W. Dunfee, here gives his impressions of what was clearly an instructive occasion. Professor Dunfee is Kolodny Professor of Social Responsibility at the Wharton School of Business of the University of Pennsylvania and is an international authority on business ethics.“Older people have an ethics problem. By that, I mean they have ethics. To survive, I can break a law (...) if I need to and if the risks aren't too large. Older people wouldn't even think in such a way.” Dimitri Zotov, explaining why young people are in high professional demand in the new Russia, Wall Street Journal, p.A5, Col.1, 8/2/93.“Shell‐shocked men and women spend their days hacking through the post‐Soviet wilderness in search of a near‐mythical creature, an honest joint‐venture partner.” David Brooks, “Cracking That Post‐Soviet Market”, Wall Street Journal, editorial page, 8/24/93. (shrink)

The desire to see a sign phenomenon in different ways always has a reason to interpret it in an unbiased, panoramic way, and in some places - even allowing for contradictions in its understanding by different participants in the interpretative process. For modern humanities, this disposition is quite understandable, since it follows from its very postmodern nature, thereby defining the semantic semantic fields of the leading humanities. True, it is not so wide-spread, but instead, it is evident that Ukrainian religious (...) thinkers of the Middle Ages and Baroque have interpreted the iconic phenomena more deeply. In the story of Petro Mohyla "On the Wonderful Elder Grigory Mezhyhirsky" the metropolitan Mohyla clearly expresses the need to build before the thinking gaze of the reader his own, immanently religious-philosophical conception of the Divine, which every time would present him not just as an act of manifestation, otherwise he appears before the person, while remaining alone. The contemporary study of this issue in order to integrate its leading concepts in the religious-philosophical and general cultural discourse of the postmodern era has largely determined the relevance of the proposed article. The study of the phenomenon of "leaving" by itself in changing forms of the phenomenon of the Divine is also one of the key ones in the proposed studio, because it expresses the very meaning of the Divine as a religious, and therefore a cultural phenomenon. (shrink)

Given a physical system, one knows that there is a logical duality between its properties and its states. In this paper, we choose its states as the undefined notions of our axiomatic construction. In fact, by means of well-motivated assumptions expressed in terms of a transition probability function defined on the set of all pure states of the system, we construct a system of elementary propositions, i.e., a complete orthomodular atomic lattice satisfying the covering law. We also study in this (...) framework the important notion of compatibility of propositions, and we define the superpositions and the mixtures of the states of the physical system. (shrink)

Richard Taylor was born in Charlotte, Michigan on 5 November 1919. He received his A. B. from the University of illinois in 1941, his M. A. from Oberlin College in 1947, and his Ph. D. from Brown University in 1951. He has been William H. P. Faunce Professor of Philosophy at Brown University, Professor of Philosophy (Graduate Faculties) at Columbia University, and Professor of Philosophy at the University of Rochester. He is the author of about fifty articles and of five (...) philosophical books. This volume consists of essays presented to Richard Taylor on the occa sion of his sixtieth birthday. Some of the contributors have been Taylor'S students; some have been his colleagues; and all have been, and continue to be, his admirers. I have made several attempts to articulate what it is I (I would not presume to speak for anyone else) admire about Richard Taylor: (1) There is a particular 'flavor' to Taylor's philosophical writing and con versation that is wholly delightful. Like any other flavor, it can be tasted and enjoyed and remembered but never adequately described. (If there should be someone who has picked up this book who does not know what I mean, I recommend that he read the chapter on 'God' in Taylor's Metaphysics. ) (2) Taylor is a masterful dialectician. (shrink)

P.M.S. Hacker 1. _The problems of Intentionality_ The problems of intentionality have exercised philosophers since the dawn of their subject. In the last century they were brought afresh into the limelight by Brentano. Famously he remarked that.

‘To Gödel via Babel’, MIND, July 1966.In (1), the last clause should read: ‘then the GN of the resulting P-sentence is x100.y’ In (21), the expression in Roman numerals should read: ‘$$Y.\frac{\hbox{ L }Y}{\hbox{ XIX }}$$’ In (25) and (27), the expression in Roman numerals should read: ‘$${(\hbox{ C }}^{\hbox{ XVII }}.\hbox{ D })\hbox{ . }\frac{\hbox{ L }\left({\hbox{ C }}^{\hbox{ XVII }}.\hbox{ D }\right)}{\hbox{ XIX }}$$’.

This essay engages Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein or The Modern Prometheus as a salient intervention into modern political theory. I analyze the work as a cipher for the tensions inhabiting Euro-modernity’s stitched together fictions of racial determinism and racial dynamism legible in slavery, assimilationist projects and White fears reverberating throughout. Adapting the mythical ancient Prometheus as one who steals fire from the gods to create humans and civilization, Frankenstein dramatizes the risks and monstrous results of White imperial masculinity as a Euro-colonial (...) Promethean project of subject formation and race-making. Viewed through the prism of the Modern Prometheus, modernity in general and liberal humanism in particular are recast as monster-making projects. The European “discovery” of Indigenous peoples amplified Promethean aspirations to create subjects through civilizational processes of religious conversion, the infusion of Enlightenment rationality, and assimilation into whiteness. Politically, the Promethean capacity to engineer humans and proto-humans using Native peoples as raw material allowed progressives to argue against outright extermination in favor of cultural genocide. Seeking to create a subserviant species, Victor Frankenstein confronts a revolting insurrection of his own making—a Creature who refuses slavery, claims mastery over his creator and demands a female companion. Yet Frankenstein’s fear of creating “a race of devils” betrays a terror of what Whites know, but refuse to acknowledge, about themselves and racial others. (shrink)