Previously conducted research has determined that physiological and psychophysiological communications evident during pregnancy are vital to the bond formed prenatally. These innate biological responses are further enhanced through psychophysiological factors, such as maternal prenatal stress, which attest to the essential communication between a mother and child in maternal–fetal attachment. A consideration of these factors is necessary with the increase in assisted reproductive technology, such as in vitro fertilization, surrogacy, and elective cesarean section, as this may affect the development of the (...) maternal–fetal bond. It would be of benefit to the child, the mother, and every society to seek a more complete understanding of the intricate maternal–fetal bond, as the first friendship developed at the beginning of human life. (shrink)

Background Protecting a person’s right to privacy and confidentiality is important in healthcare services. As future health professionals, nursing students should bear the same responsibility as qualified health professionals in protecting patient privacy. Objectives To investigate nursing students’ practices of patient privacy protection and to identify factors associated with their practices. Research design A cross-sectional study design was adopted. A two-part survey was used to collect two types of data on nursing students: (1) personal characteristics, including demographics, clinical experience and (...) use of information and communication technology and social media and (2) practice of patient privacy protection, collected using the Patient Privacy Scale. Participants and research context: A total of 319 nursing students aged 18 or above, studying pre-registration nursing programmes and who had attended at least one block of clinical placement, were recruited from a university in Hong Kong. Ethical considerations The study received ethical approval from the Survey and Behavioural Research Ethics Committee of the Chinese University of Hong Kong. The participants were informed of the study aim and written consent was obtained before completing the survey. Findings: The mean total score on the Patient Privacy Scale was 119.7 out of 135. Nursing students who were regular users of Instagram and those who had never taken photographs with patients and hence did not need to obtain patient consent were associated with better practices of patient privacy protection (higher total scores on the Patient Privacy Scale). Conclusions The findings improve our understanding of nursing students’ practice of patient privacy protection and the associated factors. This will inform the development and revision of current strategies to enhance nursing students’ practice of patient privacy protection, especially their use of social media. (shrink)

Plato's use of illustrative material, in the widest sense, is very varied. Parts of the field have had some study—his use of metaphor and simile and his use of proverbs, at least as regards subject-matter and sources. The object of the present article is to consider in general what may already have been catalogued somewhere—his quotations from other writers and his references to myths and to other stories.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:139 HUME'S "DIALECTIC" Hume's treatment of contradiction in his discussion of external existence has generally been understood to resemble the Pyrrhonian model of dialectic; consequently, Hume has been viewed as a sceptic and an irrationalist. According to that model of dialectic, the sceptic, by showing that equally strong arguments can be constructed both for and against a proposition, raises doubts about the ability of reason to determine the truth (...) or falsity of 2 beliefs. However, I will argue that Hume's treatment of contradiction differs significantly from Pyrrhonian dialectic. I will further argue that his treatment of contradiction is strongly analogous to the Kantian model of dialectic. According to Kant, dialectic is a method which not only shows that reason generates contradictions but which also provides a critique of 3 the logic generating those contradictions. The goal of Kant's dialectic is thus distinctly different from the goal of Pyrrhonian dialectic. For Kant, dialectic is a method for resolving scepticism. The parallels between Hume's treatment of contradiction and Kant's dialectic will suffice to show that Hume's "dialectic" is also a method for resolving, rather than generating, scepticism. Two features of Pyrrhonian dialectic have been deemed relevant for Hume's treatment of contradiction in his discussion of external existence. The Pyrrhonist argues that (1) if equally strong arguments can be given for and against a proposition, it is impossible to assess the truth or falsity of the proposition on the basis of any argument; and (2) if it 140 is impossible to assess rationally the truth or falsity of propositions, we must content ourselves in practical life with following custom and convention in all matters of opinion. Hume describes the contradiction in our belief in external existence as an opposition between two equally natural and unavoidable modes of inference. Both modes of inference are operations of the imagination. Hume does not give a special name to the first of these modes of inference, but he describes it as an "irregular" inference based upon the resemblance A of two distinct mental operations (T 203-204). The second is reflective, or causal, inference based on observation of the constant conjunction of like objects. Causal reasoning is reflective insofar as it is regulated by rules and is, consequently, a check or monitor for judgments resulting from the irregular or unchecked operation of the imagination. These two principles of inference lead to two different judgments about the nature of our perceptions: The imagination tells us, that our resembling perceptions have a continu'd and uninterrupted existence, and are not annihilated by their absence. Reflection tells us, that even our resembling perceptions are interrupted in their existence, and different from each other. (T 215) Just as the Pyrrhonian sceptic maintains that the constructibility of equally strong arguments establishing contradictory propositions makes it impossible to decide which proposition is true, Hume similarly maintains that two opposing modes of inference have an equal influence on the mind and therefore are "unable mutually to destroy each other" (T 215). However, Hume's account of this contradiction would be Pyrrhonian only if he argued that these principles, in addition to being equal in psychological 141 force, also have the same epistemic status. Only their having the same epistemic status makes it impossible to decide rationally whether one of the two principles is a reliable guide for making sound empirical inferences. Popkin, a defender of the Pyrrhonian reading of Hume, maintains that this is just what Hume does argue. Reflection for Hume, he maintains, is no more -a rational principle than is unchecked imagination: There is no rational basis for believing that those objects that have constantly been conjoined in the past, will be so conjoined in the future. It is only custom, or "a certain instinct of our nature," that makes us believe that they will be so conjoined, and this instinct which may be hard to resist psychologically, may well be fallacious and deceitful. The basis for all factual and probable reasoning is thus irrational. 5 If reflection is as irrational a principle as unchecked imagination, then the opposition between reflection and unchecked imagination would be an opposition between equally irrational principles. Consequently, a... (shrink)

The approach taken here is to begin to understand the focus from abstract to concrete in learning to master the principles of methodology, which are different from Western methods and procedures. This methodology is opposed to the empiricist approach of establishing rules and procedures from the concrete to the abstract. The initial discussion revolves around an explanation of the use of metaphor, metatheory, and psychology understood as a non-classical science. There is then a discussion on dialectics, dialectical synthesis, and metafacts. (...) The core of the article is dedicated to a metatheoretical description Vygotsky uses as an abstract outline of possible guidelines in better understanding how to implement a model for non-classical psychology, using the example of a table being reflected in a mirror. A represents the actual table, while a represents the object being reflected in the mirror, and X represents the processes that take place in the mirror . Therefore, Vygotsky concludes that both A and X are real processes and that a is their apparent, i.e., unreal result. The reflection does not exist, but both the table and the light exist. The result is that the objective existence of X and A independent of a is a dogma of materialistic psychology. There is a discussion on the interfunctional relationships of importance in such a model, and the role of consciousness, and language. The focus of this metatheoretical framework supports Vygotsky's intentions of reaching individual inner freedom and freedom of action, together with Spinoza's social determinism. (shrink)

Benedict Spinoza (1634–1677) is feted as the philosopher par excellence of the popular democratic multitude by Antonio Negri and others. But Spinoza himself expresses a marked ambivalence about the multitude in brief asides, and as for his thoughts on what he calls “the rule of (the) multitude,” that is, democracy, these exist only as meager fragments in his unfinished Tractatus Politicus or Political Treatise. This essay addresses the problem of Spinoza’s multitude. First, I reconstruct a vision of power that is (...) found in the Ethics but that tends to be overlooked in the scholarly literature: power is not just sheer efficacy or imposition of will, but rather involves a capacity for being-affected; I call this the conception of power as sensitivity. The second part of my argument shows how, given Spinoza’s emphatic political naturalism, the conception of power as sensitivity can be extended to his political philosophy to shed light on what Spinoza calls potentia multitudinis, or “the power of the multitude”—a term found solely in the Political Treatise and nowhere else in his oeuvre. This juxtaposition reveals significant qualifications to the liberatory potential of the multitude currently claimed in the scholarly literature. (shrink)

This study is the first examination of the works and lives of the women of the St. Louis philosophical movement and Concord School of Philosophy , two branches of the same idealist movement in America that introduced German thinkers to the American reading public, particularly G. W. F. Hegel. The St. Louis branch of the movement focused primarily on education as a civilizing force in society. The concepts of "self-activity" and self-estrangement were seen as integral to the educative process and (...) therefore became predominant themes of the movement. ;Many of the women in this study were contributors to The Journal of Speculative Philosophy, America's first philosophy journal, edited by William Torrey Harris, the recognized leader of the St. Louis and Concord circles. Figures studied include Susan Elizabeth Blow , kindergarten education theorist; Anna Callender Brackett , proponent of higher education for women; Grace C. Bibb , feminist and educator, Ellen M. Mitchell , feminist and Concord School lecturer; and Marietta Kies , a political theorist who posited altruism as a valid ethical principle for use in public life. A number of less prominent women educators and thinkers of the St. Louis movement and Concord School are also discussed. ;All the women in this study were associates of Harris or his colleagues: Thomas Davidson , John Dewey , George H. Howison , George S. Morris , Denton J. Snider , and Louis Soldan. (shrink)

Drawing on accounts of the author's personal responses while undertaking a qualitative study on the norms governing the relationship between nurses and mothers, it is argued that such responses, rather than being seen as a source of bias, have the potential to be a source of insight and interpretation in the research. This paper tells the ‘inside’ story of previously published research that was ‘sanitized’ by the omission of any reference to die researcher's subjective responses. The recognition of such researcher (...) responses has implications for how research is supervised and presented. (shrink)

The article argues that Marx’s use of the concept of ideology in The German Ideology is incidental to a sustained critique of how those he described as the German ideologists think and reason about society and history and that this critique is not simply of an idealist theory that represents society and history as determined by consciousness but of methods of reasoning that treat concepts, even of those of political economy, as determinants. His view of how consciousness is determined historically (...) by our social being does not envisage some kind of mechanical transfer of class status to class consciousness. Rather, he works with an epistemology that takes the concepts foundational to political economy as expressions or reflections of the social relations of a mode of production. The difference between ideology and science is the difference between treating those concepts as the primitives of theory and treating them as sites for exploring the social relations that are expressed in them. Thus, the historical rather than further undermining claims to knowledge, provides both the conditions under which knowledge is possible and its limitations. (shrink)

This article sketches the broad outlines of Matthew's ironic portrayal of children, examining first the 'lower level' of the narrative and then the 'upper level' of the narrative. When viewed from the 'lower level' of Matthew's narrative, the everyday circumstances of children reflect the nurture of their parents as well as significant challenges: debilitating physical conditions, serious illnesses, military violence and premature childhood death. In addition, children occupy the lowest rung on the 1st-century Mediterranean social ladder, a status they share (...) with slaves. But on the 'upper level' of his narrative, from the 'God's-eye' perspective, Matthew turns everyday reality for children on its head in ironic fashion. Emmanuel, the 'God who is with us', appears as a 'child' who has just 'been born' and who exhibits all the powerlessness and vulnerability of such a 'child'. In a violent showdown between 'King Herod' and the one 'who has been born king of the Jews', it is Herod, the powerful ruler, who dies, while the vulnerable 'child' ends up safely in Nazareth. Throughout his ministry, Jesus heals children along with adults. To the apparent chagrin of his disciples, Jesus lays hands on children in an act of blessing. He commends the messianic praises of children, in contrast to the outrage of the Jewish leadership. Moreover, Jesus proclaims that it is 'to such as these [children] that the kingdom of heaven belongs'. (shrink)

Drawing on the work of Henri Lefebvre and Barbara Adam, Gender, Space, and Time is a brilliant study that offers a unique and original threefold conceptualization of how space and time is developed and applied in an empirical study of women's lives. Moss conceptualizes women as centers of action and demonstrates the ways in which they construct personal pathways, connect different spheres of experience, intergrate new time demands into the multiple rhythms of their everyday lives, and carve out personal space.

The 1981 legislation in Arkansas and Louisiana which required "balanced treatment of creation-science and evolution-science" represents the most ambitious effort of the "scientific creationists" to date to gain equal time for the teaching of the book of Genesis as an alternative and viable scientific theory of origins. The trial testing the constitutionality of the Arkansas law culminated in a powerful and unambiguous decision; however, creationists continue to lobby for similar legislation in many other states. Far from an aberration, today's scientific (...) creationists represent a modern manifestation of a deep fundamentalist current in American social history. (shrink)

The American idealist movement started in St. Louis, Missouri in 1858, becoming more influential as women joined and influenced its development. Susan Elizabeth Blow was well known as an educator and pedagogical theorist who founded the first public kindergarten program in America (1873-1884). Anna C. Brackett was a feminist and pedagogical theorist and the first female principal of a secondary school (St. Louis Normal School, 1863-72). Grace C. Bibb was a feminist literary critic and the first female dean at the (...) University of Missouri, Columbia (1878-84). American idealism took on a new form in the 1880s with the founding of the Concord School of Philosophy in Massachusetts. Ellen M. Mitchell participated in the movement in both St. Louis and Concord. She was one of the first women to teach philosophy at a co-educational college (University of Denver, 1890-92). Lucia Ames Mead, Marietta Kies, and Eliza Sunderland joined the movement in Concord. Lucia Ames Mead became a chief pacifist theorist in the early twentieth century. Kies and Sunderland were among the first women to earn the Ph.D. in philosophy (University of Michigan, 1891, 1892). Kies wrote on political altruism and shared with Mitchell the distinction of teaching at a coeducational institution (Butler College, 1896-99). These were the first American women as a group to plunge into philosophy proper, bridging those years between the amateur, paraprofessional and professional academic philosopher. Dorothy Rogers's new book at last gives them the attention they deserve. America's First Women Philosophers is indexed in H.W. Wilson's Essay and General Literature Index. (shrink)

Fitch’s argument purports to show that for any unknown truth, p , there is an unknowable truth, namely, that p is true and unknown; for a contradiction follows from the assumption that it is possible to know that p is true and unknown. In earlier work I argued that there is a sense in which it is possible to know that p is true and unknown, from a counterfactual perspective; that is, there can be possible, non-actual knowledge, of the actual (...) situation, that in that situation, p is true and unknown. Here I further elaborate that claim and respond to objections by Williamson, who argued that there cannot be non-trivial knowledge of this kind. I give conditions which suffice for such non-trivial counterfactual knowledge. (shrink)

'ground-breaking anthology... wide array of perspectives on WW1, from both sides of the fighting' -B. Adler, Choice 'a very fine anthology' -Times Literary SupplementThe First World War inspired a huge outpouring of writing that, until recently, was thought to be almost the exclusive preserve of men. Yet the war also acted as a catalyst which enabled women writers to find a literary and political voice. This anthology bears witness to the great variety and scope of women's writing about the war. (...) Covering the years 1914-1930, the book brings together little-known writing from across the world, drawing on a wide spectrum of genres from letters and diary entries to essays, novels, and short stories. Among the celebrated writers featured in this anthology are: Radclyffe Hall, Sylvia Pankhurst, Maud Gonne, Rebecca West, May Sinclair, Olive Schreiner, Colette, Vera Brittain, Gertrude Stein, Katherine Mansfield, HD, and Virginia Woolf. (shrink)