This paper looks at the relationship between spacetime functionalism and Harvey Brown’s dynamical relativity. One popular way of reading and extending Brown’s programme in the literature rests on viewing his position as a version of relationism. But a kind of spacetime functionalism extends the project in a different way, by focussing on the account Brown gives of the role of spacetime in relativistic theories. It is then possible to see this as giving a functional account of the concept of spacetime (...) which may be applied to theories that go beyond relativity. This paper explores the way in which both the relationist project and the functionalist project relate to Brown’s work, despite being incompatible. Ultimately, these should not be seen as two conflicting readings of Brown, but two different directions in which to take his project. (shrink)

This investigation places recent research about changes in wives' and husbands' domestic labor in the context of well-known reporting differences between different kinds of housework surveys. An analysis of the “reporting gap” between direct-question reports of housework hours from the National Survey of Families and Households and time-diary reports from Americans' Use of Time, 1985, shows that both husbands and wives overreport their housework contributions. Furthermore, gender attitudes, total housework, class, education, income, family size, and employment status together significantly affect (...) the overreport, although the variables operate in different ways for wives and husbands. It is concluded that changing and uneven social perceptions of the appropriate domestic roles of women and men have resulted in reporting biases that do not necessarily correspond to actual changes in housework behavior. These findings cast doubt on claims that contemporary husbands are doing more housework than their predecessors. (shrink)

Prelinguistic infants must find a way to isolate meaningful chunks from the continuous streams of speech that they hear. BootLex, a new model which uses distributional cues to build a lexicon, demonstrates how much can be accomplished using this single source of information. This conceptually simple probabilistic algorithm achieves significant segmentation results on various kinds of language corpora - English, Japanese, and Spanish; child- and adult-directed speech, and written texts; and several variations in coding structure - and reveals which statistical (...) characteristics of the input have an influence on segmentation performance. BootLex is then compared, quantitatively and qualitatively, with three other groups of computational models of the same infant segmentation process, paying particular attention to functional characteristics of the models and their similarity to human cognition. Commonalities and contrasts among the models are discussed, as well as their implications both for theories of the cognitive problem of segmentation itself, and for the general enterprise of computational cognitive modeling. (shrink)

Psychologists believe grade schoolers' free play in the United States is universally biased toward single-gender groups. In a study of grade schoolers in a children's museum, already-acquainted kindergartners to sixth graders were observed at three exhibits. While boys chose more automobile play and girls more supermarketing, one-quarter of each group played in settings dominated by the other gender. Boys had no group-size preference; girls had a strong preference for small groups. That preference accounts for most of the gender differences found (...) in children's gender sorting in a novel environment. However, the ubiquity of gender segregation in large groups of grade schoolers was disconfirmed for this setting. (shrink)

Miranda Fricker’s influential concept of epistemic injustice has recently seen application to many areas of interest, with an increasing body of healthcare research using the concept of epistemic injustice in order to develop both general frameworks and accounts of specific medical conditions and patient groups. This paper illuminates tensions that arise between taking steps to protect against committing epistemic injustice in healthcare, and taking steps to understand the complexity of one’s predicament and treat it accordingly. Work on epistemic injustice is (...) therefore at risk of obfuscating legitimate and potentially fruitful inquiry. This paper uses Chronic Fatigue Syndrome/Myalgic Encephalomyelitis as a case study, but I suggest that the key problems identified could apply to other cases within healthcare, such as those classed as Medically Unexplained Illnesses, Functional Neurological Disorders and Psychiatric Disorders. Future work on epistemic injustice in healthcare must recognise and attend to this tension to protect against unsatisfactory attempts to correct epistemic injustice. (shrink)

Background People who are at elevated risk of suicide stand to benefit from internet-based interventions; however, research in this area is likely impacted by a range of ethical and practical challenges. The aim of this study was to examine the ethical issues and practical barriers associated with clinical studies of internet-based interventions for suicide prevention. Method This was a mixed-methods study involving two phases. First, a systematic search was conducted to identify studies evaluating internet-based interventions for people at risk of (...) suicide, and information pertaining to safety protocols and exclusion criteria was extracted. Second, investigators on the included studies were invited to complete an online survey comprising open-ended and forced-choice responses. Quantitative and qualitative methods were used to analyse the data. Results The literature search identified 18 eligible studies, of which three excluded participants based on severity of suicide risk. Half of the 15 suicide researchers who participated in the survey had experienced problems obtaining ethics approval, and none had encountered adverse events attributed to their intervention. Survey respondents noted the difficulty of managing risk in online environments and the limitations associated with implementing safety protocols, although some also reported increased confidence resulting from the ethical review process. Respondents recommended researchers pursue a collaborative relationship with their research ethics committees. Conclusion There is a balance to be achieved between the need to minimise the risk of adverse events whilst also ensuring interventions are being validated on populations who may be most likely to use and benefit from them. Further research is required to obtain the views of research ethics committees and research participants on these issues. Dialogue between researchers and ethics committees is necessary to address the need to ensure safety while also advancing the timely development of effective interventions in this critical area. (shrink)

The received view in Thomas Hobbes scholarship is that theindividual rights described by Hobbes in his political writings andspecifically in Leviathan are simple freedoms or libertyrights, that is, rights that are not correlated with duties orobligations on the part of others. In other words, it is usually arguedthat there are no claim rights for individuals in Hobbes''s politicaltheory. This paper argues, against that view, that Hobbes does describeclaim rights, that they come into being when individuals conform to thesecond law of (...) nature and that they are genuine moral claim rights, thatis, rights that are the ground of the obligations of others to forebearfrom interfering with their exercise. This argument is defended againstboth Jean Hampton''s and Howard Warrender''s interpretations of rights inHobbes''s theory. The paper concludes that the theory of rightsunderlying Hobbes''s writing is not taken from Natural Law but isprobably closer to a modern interest theory of rights. (shrink)

In this paper I argue for a special kind of injustice I call “trust injustice.” Taking Miranda Fricker's work on epistemic injustice as my starting point, I argue that there are some ethical constraints on trust relationships. If I am right about this, then we sometimes have duties to maintain trust relationships that are independent of the social roles we play.

Background: There is general consensus internationally that unfair distribution of the benefits of research is exploitative and should be avoided or reduced. However, what constitutes fair benefits, and the exact nature of the benefits and their mode of provision can be strongly contested. Empirical studies have the potential to contribute viewpoints and experiences to debates and guidelines, but few have been conducted. We conducted a study to support the development of guidelines on benefits and payments for studies conducted by the (...) KEMRI-Wellcome Trust programme in Kilifi, Kenya. Methods: Following an initial broad based survey of cash, health services and other items being offered during research by all programme studies (n = 38 studies), interviews were held with research managers (n = 9), and with research staff involved in 8 purposively selected case studies (n = 30 interviewees). Interviews explored how these ‘benefits’ were selected and communicated, experiences with their administration, and recommendations for future guidelines. Data fed into a consultative workshop attended by 48 research staff and health managers, which was facilitated by an external ethicist.FindingsThe most commonly provided benefits were medical care (for example free care, and strengthened quality of care), and lunch or snacks. Most cash given to participants was reimbursement of transport costs (for example to meet appointments or facilitate use of services when unexpectedly sick), but these payments were often described by research participants as benefits. Challenges included: tensions within households and communities resulting from lack of clarity and agreement on who is eligible for benefits; suspicion regarding motivation for their provision; and confusion caused by differences between studies in types and levels of benefits. Conclusions: Research staff differed in their views on how benefits should be approached. Echoing elements of international benefit sharing and ancillary care debates, some research staff saw research as based on goodwill and partnership, and aimed to avoid costs to participants and a commercial relationship; while others sought to maximise participant benefits given the relative wealth of the institution and the multiple community needs. An emerging middle position was to strengthen collateral or indirect medical benefits to communities through collaborations with the Ministry of Health to support sustainability. (shrink)

ABSTRACT Current attempts to understand unusually high rates of psychiatric illness in complex, chronic illnesses can be guilty of operating within an explanatory framework whereby there are two options. Either (a) that the psychiatric predicaments are secondary to the bodily condition, and (b) that they are primary. In this paper, I draw upon philosophical work on affect, contemporary empirical work, and qualitative first-person patient data to illustrate a much messier reality. I argue that affective experience is generally more complex in (...) such conditions, and that a variety of pre- and post-morbid causal factors dynamically interact such that the resultant psychiatric predicaments do not permit to classification as strictly primary or secondary to the bodily condition. Affective scaffolding, in my view, provides an apt theoretical framework for capturing this nuance. (shrink)

I argue that the best spacetime setting for Newtonian gravitation (NG) is the curved spacetime setting associated with geometrized Newtonian gravitation (GNG). Appreciation of the ‘Newtonian equivalence principle’ leads us to conclude that the gravitational field in NG itself is a gauge quantity, and that the freely falling frames are naturally identified with inertial frames. In this context, the spacetime structure of NG is represented not by the flat neo-Newtonian connection usually made explicit in formulations, but by the sum of (...) the flat connection and the gravitational field. 1 Introduction2 Newtonian Gravity: The Orthodox Approach3 Newtonian Gravity: Additional Symmetries4 Cosmological Considerations5 A Newtonian Equivalence Principle: Inertial Frames in Newtonian Gravitation6 Theory Equivalence?7 Conclusion. (shrink)

A celebrated orator, historian, philosopher, and statesman, Giannozzo Manetti (1396-1459) was one of the most remarkable figures of the Italian Renaissance. As contemporaries noted, his intellectual versatility--including an interest in architecture--linked him to Leon Battista Alberti, the renowned "universal man" of the Renaissance. Like Alberti, Manetti wrote in both Latin and Italian, and made new translations of canonical texts such as Aristotle, thus replacing the faulty medieval renderings that were the mainstay of Scholastic thought. A pious Christian, he translated the (...) New Testament from Greek into Latin, thus challenging the centuries-old Vulgate; and he was the first scholar since Jerome to translate the Psalms from the original Hebrew. To forestall possible critics, he penned a treatise expounding his philological methods in translating scripture. Delivered over the course of nearly twenty years, his addresses to magistrates, commanders, princes, and popes furnish a vivid picture of Quattrocento politics and diplomacy. This authoritative biography, the first in any modern language, both describes chronologically the events of his extraordinary career, and analyzes his numerous and wide-ranging writings, which confirm Manetti's status as an exemplar of the spirit of the Italian Renaissance. (shrink)

BackgroundThe potential contribution of community engagement to addressing ethical challenges for international biomedical research is well described, but there is relatively little documented experience of community engagement to inform its development in practice. This paper draws on experiences around community engagement and informed consent during a genetic cohort study in Kenya to contribute to understanding the strengths and challenges of community engagement in supporting ethical research practice, focusing on issues of communication, the role of field workers in 'doing ethics' on (...) the ground and the challenges of community consultation.MethodsThe findings are based on action research methods, including analysis of community engagement documentation and the observations of the authors closely involved in their development and implementation. Qualitative and quantitative content analysis has been used for documentation of staff meetings and trainings, a meeting with 24 community leaders, and 40 large public and 70 small community group meetings. Meeting minutes from a purposive sample of six community representative groups have been analysed using a thematic framework approach.ResultsField workers described challenges around misunderstandings about research, perceived pressure for recruitment and challenges in explaining the study. During consultation, leaders expressed support for the study and screening for sickle cell disease. In community meetings, there was a common interpretation of research as medical care. Concerns centred on unfamiliar procedures. After explanations of study procedures to leaders and community members, few questions were asked about export of samples or the archiving of samples for future research.ConclusionsCommunity engagement enabled researchers to take account of staff and community opinions and issues during the study and adapt messages and methods to address emerging ethical challenges. Field workers conducting informed consent faced complex issues and their understanding, attitudes and communication skills were key influences on ethical practice. Community consultation was a challenging concept to put into practice, illustrating the complexity of assessing information needs and levels of deliberation that are appropriate to a given study. (shrink)

In an original and provocative study of suicide, Ian Marsh examines the historical and cultural forces that have influenced contemporary thought, practices and policy in relation to this serious public health problem. Drawing on the work of French philosopher Michel Foucault, the book tells the story of how suicide has come to be seen as first and foremost a matter of psychiatric concern. Marsh sets out to challenge the assumptions and certainties embedded in our beliefs, attitudes and practices (...) concerning suicide and the suicidal, and the resulting account unsettles and informs in equal measure. The book will be of particular interest to researchers, professionals and students in psychology, history, sociology and the health sciences. (shrink)

Combining insights from narrative analysis in sociology and trope theory in anthropology, this article develops a theory of tropes that emphasizes their historical production and political effects. Tropes function politically to enable some narratives, identities and resolutions while foreclosing others. As a powerful tool for socio-historical analysis, a consideration of tropes is crucial for deconstructing the taken-for-granted predicates and the `dangerous' consequences of political narratives. To illustrate the argument, the trope of `the Sixties' is analyzed as a case study.

It is well-known that Newton’s theory of gravity, commonly held to describe a gravitational force, can be recast in a geometrical form: Newton- Cartan theory. It is less well-known that general relativity, an apparently geometrical theory, can be reformulated in such a way that it resembles a force theory; teleparallel gravity does just this. This raises questions. One of these concerns theoretical underdetermination. I argue that these theories do not, in fact, represent cases of worrying underdetermination. On close examination, the (...) alternative formulations are best interpreted as postulating the same spacetime ontology. In accepting this, we see that the ontological commitments of these theories cannot be directly deduced from their mathematical form. The geometrical nature of a gravitational theory is not a straightforward consequence of anything internal to that theory as a theory of gravity. Rather, it essentially relies on the rest of nature (the nongravitational interactions) conspiring to choose the appropriate set of inertial frames. (shrink)

In response to a series of allegations of scientific misconduct in the 1980’s, a number of scientific societies, national agencies, and academic institutions, including Harvard Medical School, devised guidelines to increase awareness of optimal scientific practices and to attempt to prevent as many episodes of misconduct as possible. The chief argument for adopting guidelines is to promote good science. There is no evidence that well-crafted guidelines have had any detrimental effect on creativity since they focus on design of research studies, (...) documentation of research findings, assignment of credit through authorship, data management and supervision of trainees, not on the origin and evolution of ideas. This paper addresses a spectrum of causes of scientific misconduct or unacceptable scientific behavior and couples these with estimates of the potential for prevention if guidelines for scientific investigation are adopted. The conclusion is that clear and understandable guidelines should help to reduce the chance that flawed research will escape from our institutions. However, they cannot be relied upon alone to prevent all instances of scientific misconduct and should be regarded rather as one means of bolstering the integrity of the entire scientific enterprise. (shrink)

Increasing complexities facing physicians negotiating the bedside decision continue to fuel the debate over who is the appropriate party to offer ethics consults, should one be needed, during the decision-making process. Some very good arguments have been put forth on behalf of clinical ethicists as being the proper and best party to engage in ethics consultations. However, serious questions remain about the role of the clinical ethicist and his ability to provide the necessary level of objectivity called for in an (...) ethics consult.I argue that the clinician's professional psyche, or mode of thinking as a professional, leaves him little room to maneuver as an objective and detached third party ethics consultant. Several factors are cited and discussed that greatly influence the analyses applied to a case problem by physicians. The most formidable of these factors are habits and the practice of defensive medicine. I conclude that clinical ethicists are less suited for the overall tasks required of an objective consultant in medical cases that appear to involve insurmountable ethical issues. (shrink)