Abstract:Therapeutic misconception (TM)—when clinical research participants fail to adequately grasp the difference between participating in a clinical trial and receiving ordinary clinical care—has long been recognized as a significant problem in consent to clinical trials. We suggest that TM does not primarily reflect inadequate disclosure or participants’ incompetence. Instead, TM arises from divergent primary cognitive frames. The researchers’ frame places the clinical trial in the context of scientific designs for assessing intervention efficacy. In contrast, most participants have a cognitive frame (...) that is personal and focused primarily on their medical problems. To illustrate this, we draw on interview material from both clinical researchers and participants in clinical trials. We suggest that reducing TM requires encouraging subjects to adjust their frame, not just add information to their existing frame. What is necessary is ascientific reframingof participation in a clinical trial. (shrink)

This article analyzes the institutionalization of the global organic agriculture field and sheds new light on the conventionalization debate. The institutions that shape the field form a tripartite standards regime of governance that links standard-setting, certification, and accreditation activities, in a layering of markets for services that are additional to the market for certified organic products. At each of the three poles of the TSR, i.e., for standard-setting, certification, and accreditation, we describe how the corresponding markets were constructed over time (...) and the role of the different actors in their evolution. We analyze the politics at stake among the actors at each pole, their competing or cooperative interests and visions, and the tensions between them in the promotion of markets. Through the lens of the TSR heuristic, we show that the institutionalization of the organic field beginning in the 1990s and its de facto inclusion in the broader sustainability field beginning in the 2000s contribute to a progressive distancing between the organic movement and its initial political project of alterity, to which public and private actors both contribute actively. As a set of interlinked market institutions, the TSR orients and narrows the scope of debate, which becomes restricted to “market-compatible” dimensions and objects. We conclude that the TSR is a promising heuristic for analyzing contemporary global regulation. (shrink)

The philosophical literature on scientific explanation contains a striking diversity of accounts. I use novel empirical methods to address this fragmentation and assess the importance and generality of explanation in science. My evidence base is a set of 781 articles from one year of the journal Science, and I begin by applying text mining techniques to discover patterns in the usage of “explain” and other words of philosophical interest. I then use random sampling from the data set to develop and (...) test a classification scheme for scientific explanation. My results show that explanation and inference to the best explanation are ubiquitous in science, that they occur across a wide range of scientific disciplines, and that they are a goal of scientific practise. These explanations and inferences to the best explanation come in a diversity forms, which at least partially justifies the fragmentation of philosophical accounts. I draw two methodological lessons: first that text mining can enhance traditional conceptual analysis by establishing facts about word usage; and second that random sampling of cases can increase our confidence that a philosophical account applies in general. These empirical techniques supplement traditional philosophical methods. (shrink)

From an informal group of a dozen faculty and graduate students at Temple University, the Jean Piaget Society grew in seven years to 500 members who have interests in the application of genetic epistemology to their own disciplines and professions. At the outset Piaget endorsed the concept of a society which bore his name and presented a major address on equilibration at the society's first symposium in May, 1971. Had he not done so the society would no doubt have remained (...) a small parochial group, like so many others throughout the country, interested in Piaget and his theory. With the encouragement of Genevans and the leadership of its first four presidents, Lois Macomber, Barbara Press eisen, Marilyn Appel, and John Mickelson, the society undertook a number of programs to collect and disseminate the results of scholarly work in genetic epistemology. Particular emphasis was placed upon applications of Piaget's theory to developmental psychology, philos ophy, and education. One of these programs was the publication of an annual series on the development of knowing, of which this volume is the first. In 1973, the society asked Hans Furth with the assistance of Willis Overton and Jeanette Gallagher to initiate and plan a series of yearbooks with the result that in addition to this volume, a second volume on education was commissioned, and a third one on the decalage issue was planned. (shrink)

This book offers a new approach to the analysis of the multiple meanings of English modals, conjunctions, conditionals, and perception verbs. Although such ambiguities cannot easily be accounted for by feature-analyses of word meaning, Eve Sweetser's argument shows that they can be analyzed both readily and systematically. Meaning relationships in general cannot be understood independently of human cognitive structure, including the metaphorical and cultural aspects of that structure. Sweetser shows that both lexical polysemy and pragmatic ambiguity are shaped by our (...) metaphorical folk understanding of epistemic processes and of speech interaction. Similar regularities can be shown to structure the contrast among root, epistemic and speech act uses of modal verbs, multiple uses of conjunctions and conditionals, and certain processes of historical change observed in Indo-European languages. Since polysemy is typically the intermediate step in semantic change, the same regularities observable in polysemy can be extended to an analysis of semantic change. (shrink)

This essay focuses on conceptual engineers who aim to improve other people's patterns of inference and attention by shaping their concepts. Such conceptual engineers sometimes engage in a form of epistemic paternalism that I call paternalistic cognitive engineering: instead of explicitly persuading, informing and educating others, the engineers non-consultatively rely on assumptions about the target agents’ cognitive systems to improve their belief forming. The target agents could reasonably regard such benevolent exercises of control as violating their sovereignty over their own (...) belief formation. This is a pro tanto reason against such engineering. In addition to the relevant projects of conceptual engineering, paternalistic cognitive engineering plausibly includes certain kinds of nudging and evidence suppression. I distinguish the sovereignty-based concern from other ethical worries about conceptual engineering and discuss how one might justify the relevant conceptual engineering projects despite the sovereignty-based reason against them. (shrink)

I will defend explication, in a Carnapian sense, as a strategy for revisionary ontologists and radical sceptics. The idea is that these revisionary philosophers should explicitly commit to using expressions like “S knows that p” and “Fs exist” differently from how these expressions are used in everyday contexts. I will first motivate this commitment for these revisionary philosophers. Then, I will address the main worries that arise for this strategy: the unintelligibility worry and the topic shift worry. I will focus (...) on the latter worry and provide a solution that makes use of a distinction between practically and theoretically oriented beliefs. On my view, the revisionary philosophers who admit to departing from the everyday language can still criticize everyday knowledge and existence claims, by arguing that while the language embedded in these claims is suitable for beliefs-1, it is not suitable for beliefs-2. (shrink)

This paper surveys preliminary results from the Interdisciplinary Prostate Ontology Project (IPOP), in which ontologies from the OBO Foundry have been used to annotate clinical reports about prosta...

Scientific explanation is an important goal of scientific practise. Philosophers have proposed a striking diversity of seemingly incompatible accounts of explanation, from deductive-nomological to statistical relevance, unification, pragmatic, causal-mechanical, mechanistic, causal intervention, asymptotic, and model-based accounts. In this dissertation I apply two novel methods to reexamine our evidence about scientific explanation in practise and thereby address the fragmentation of philosophical accounts. I start by collecting a data set of 781 articles from one year of the journal Science. Using automated text (...) mining techniques I measure the frequency and distribution of several groups of philosophically interesting words, such as "explain", "cause", "evidence", "theory", "law", "mechanism", and "model". I show that "explain" words are much more common in scientific writing than in other genres, occurring in roughly half of all articles, and that their use is very often qualified or negated. These results about the use of words complement traditional conceptual analysis. Next I use random samples from the data set to develop a large number of small case studies across a wide range of scientific disciplines. I use a sample of "explain" sentences to develop and defend a new general philosophical account of scientific explanation, and then test my account against a larger set of randomly sampled sentences and abstracts. Five coarse categories can classify the explanans and explananda of my cases: data, entities, kinds, models, and theories. The pair of the categories of the explanans and explanandum indicates the "form" of an explanation. The explain-relation supports counterfactual reasoning about the dependence of qualities of the explanandum on qualities of the explanans. But for each form there is a different "core relation" between explanans and explanandum that supports the explain-relation. Causation, modelling, and argument are the core relations for different forms of scientific explanation between different categories of explanans and explananda. This flexibility allows me to resolve some of the fragmentation in the philosophical literature. I provide empirical evidence to show that my general philosophical account successfully describes a wide range of scientific practise across a large number of scientific disciplines. (shrink)

Members of Division 28 generally appear to agree that empirical demonstrations provide the most valid basis for building the sciences of psychopharmacology, neuropharmacology, and neurochemistry. This article discusses some of the beliefs, interests and concerns among members of Division 28. 2012 APA, all rights reserved).

The pipeline framework for identifying ethical issues in machine learning healthcare applications outlined by Char et al. is a very useful starting point for the systematic consideration...

Machamer, Darden, and Craver's account of the nature and role of mechanisms in the special sciences has been very influential. Unfortunately, a confusing array of ontic, epistemic, and pragmatic distinctions is required to individuate their mechanisms, mechanism schemata, and mechanism sketches. I diagnose this as a conflation of token-level causal relations with type-level relations. I propose instead that a mechanism is an abstraction that relates entity types and activity types on the model of a directed graph. Mechanisms have an ontic (...) status distinct from the causal chains of token entities and token activities that instantiate them. (shrink)

Folk ontology seems baroque, compared to the austere ontology of many philosophers. Plausibly, the issue comes down to a choice between existence concepts: the folk and the austere philosophers employ different quantifier meanings. This paper aims to clarify and defend this hypothesis and explore its upshots. How do we choose between the alternative existence concepts; is the austere philosophers’ concept better than the folk’s undiscriminating one? I will argue that contrary to what Ted Sider suggests, the austere existence concept and (...) the corresponding austere answers to existence questions do not prevail in the context of “inquiry”, i.e. the context of practically disinterested pursuit of epistemic excellence. Sider’s suggestion relies on a one-sided idea of epistemic excellence, as beliefs’ conforming to the world. Once we recognize another epistemic aim, namely the agent understanding connections between known facts, ordinary objects will be back in the game. (shrink)

This paper considers whether we have any reason to forgive the perpetrators of the most terrible atrocities, such as the Holocaust. On the face of it, we do not have reason to forgive in such cases. But on examination, the principal arguments against forgiveness do not turn out to be persuasive. Two considerations in favour of forgiveness are canvassed: the presence of rational agency in the perpetrators, and the common human nature which they share with us. It is argued that (...) the presence of rational agency does not generate a reason to forgive. However, our common human nature may be sufficient to provide such a reason, and evidence for its general reason-giving power can be seen in phenomena such as vicarious shame, and the moral significance which we attach to the notion of crimes against humanity. A reason for forgiveness based on common human nature will not be a strong one, but a weak reason still has some force. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:The Clinical Ethics Consult: Transforming Ambivalence to ActionEve MakoffAs palliative care practitioners, we’re good at diffusing explosive family dynamics and holding space for patients and families in emotional crises. We also help everyone involved with the care of seriously ill patients focus on what is best based on the values of the most important person in the room; the one in the hospital bed. So, when we call for (...) a bioethics consultation from a clinical ethicist, it’s because something has gotten stuck or, perhaps, we could benefit from a reframe—or a new set of eyes to ground the scenario or the emotional miasma that tends to linger and drift when on the cusp between life and death.In the 1990s, at least in my medical school and residency programs, medical ethicists in the hospital were not often a part of direct patient care. They were like philosophers, available to curbside and advise on ethically murky cases but at a distance from the trenches. These wise, generally older men with white beards parceled out all potential ethical sides of the case, leaving us to decide the best way forward. The Socratic Method1 was often employed, so we were left to grapple with the ambiguity that exists in most issues about what’s right or wrong. It sometimes felt frustrating but now I realize the importance of honing the skill of tolerating the feeling of not immediately knowing the best way to proceed in the practice of medicine. As it turned out, by the time I started practicing palliative care in 2013 and began to regularly collaborate with what was then our clinical ethics partners in care, our ethics director Dr. F was also a wise older man with a white beard. But he and the rest of his (non-male, un-bearded) team didn’t have that untouchable ivory tower kind of protection around them. They were accessible. They dug into the hard stuff right alongside us when they were asked to get involved.One time when I consulted ethics on a case, I’d been navigating a switch from practicing internal medicine to palliative care. At the time I was dealing with personal ambivalence—feeling mired in the heaviness that infused my workdays and unsure if I could take it. It turned out that a clinical consultation, and a family meeting with Dr. F, helped in more ways than one.That day, we gathered in the medical intensive care unit conference room. It doubled as a storage closet, so the team, including our patient’s family, dragged in chairs and stools and crowded around the oblong melamine table next to the whiteboard with half-erased arterial blood gas calculations. We hunched together to see where things stood and make some essential decisions.As we do in family meetings, we reconfirmed our roles on the team: ICU fellow, resident, and medical student. Nurses fluttered in and out as their patient care allowed. The patient’s daughter with silver-streaked hair was in attendance, as well as her son, who was slumped in his seat. Both looked sleepless and frazzled. And finally, Dr. F and myself—clinical ethicist and palliative care doctor—gathered. Dr. F then took the lead, announcing our intention to come together and discuss what was best for our patient—their mother. Dr. F then requested a medical update from the ICU team.“Mrs. Lyons is on a ventilator. She’s sedated and medicated for pain. But her organs aren’t doing well. She’s not getting better,” the resident read off of his white paper of scribbles. [End Page 12]Suspended between her life and her death, Mrs. Lyons lay unperturbed but unreachable, and her family was agonizing about what to do. For days our palliative team had discussed the options with the family—we could cut back on the medications and try to wake her up, knowing she’d likely have considerable pain, and to what end? We could reconsider that surgery for her infected bowels, but she’d likely not survive.Or we could let her go—discontinue the ventilator and likely let her die.They could not decide... (shrink)

Abstract“Science Is Politics By Other Means” (SIPBOM) was coined in The Pasteurization of France, Latour’s 1984 empirical study of the birth of microbiology. Yet, it encapsulates an outstanding political theory of science that Latour has never formalized and that has remained unnoticed to this day. The theory is comprised of two dimensions. The first one is the ontological labor performed by science, that is, the laboratory production of new nonhumans. The second one is the ability of science to devise and (...) implement novel policies targeted at the new beings it produces. These “other means” are incorporated in political projects and contribute to the shaping of society. Fifteen years later, Latour published Politics of Nature ([1999] 2004), a full-blown political treatise equally devoted to the political character of science. It would be mistaken, however, to assume that it falls in the same SIPBOM paradigm as the Pasteur study. The compositionist theory it offers redefines politics as the institution of the nonhumans that make up external reality, a task that has traditionally been monopolized by Science. In this sense, “science is politics by other means” has become “politics is science by other means,” these “other means” now referring to “cosmopolitics,” that is, the due process advocated by compositionism. The first claim of the present paper is that the respective weight ascribed to politics and ontology is different in The Pasteurization of France and in Politics of Nature. The second claim is that compositionism is not as successful as Latour’s early theory to account for the politicity of science. (shrink)

I will argue that those thinking about conceptual engineering should think more about ways of believing. When we talk about what someone “believes”, we could be talking about how they are inclined to act, or what they have put forth as their position on a matter, or what gives rise to a feeling of endorsement when they reflect on the matter. If we further recognize that the contents of our beliefs are at least sometimes framed in certain concepts and that (...) projects of conceptual engineering at least sometimes aim to change our beliefs by changing the concepts they are framed in, the question arises: which beliefs does conceptual engineering target? Is it always “belief” in the same sense? I will argue that it is not, using examples from feminist and mainstream metaphysics. Suppose that revisionary ontologists call on us to eliminate the non-joint-carving concept TABLE from our beliefs about the world. They then plausibly have in mind only “belief” in the sense of practically detached reflective assent: they want the concept eliminated from the content of such assent. On the other hand, when feminist metaphysicians of gender call on us to ameliorate the ethically problematic concept WOMAN, they target our “beliefs” in a sense that encompasses both the content of our everyday observations and experiences and what might be called practically engaged reflective assent; but they do not target the practically detached assent. (shrink)

Introduction -- The perceptual part of the soul -- Human perception -- The duality of the human soul -- Phronesis -- Conclusion.

Xenophon (430—354 B.C.E.) Xenophon was a Greek philosopher, soldier, historian, memoirist, and the author of numerous practical treatises on subjects ranging from horsemanship to taxation. While best known in the contemporary philosophical world as the author of a series of sketches of Socrates in conversation, known by their Latin title Memorabilia, Xenophon also wrote a […].

This article examines a particular shipboard newspaper situated within the centuries- long hunt for the Northwest Passage. The newspaper existed in both an original handwritten form produced on a ship in the Arctic and as a printed edition in London. An examination of the newspaper in both versions suggests the ways in which the same text can be transformed by variations on its physical form, its readers, and its temporal situation. This study shows the ways that a focus on print (...) culture and books as objects can be used to interpret primary historical sources, revealing the value of dealing with primary sources in a personal way. (shrink)

Looks at animal welfare in society and the sciences, including laboratory animals, pets, and the effect of climate change.

This article focuses on the theological journeying of women ordinands in the Church of England, who have had to negotiate their belonging in the ‘pathway’ to Priesthood in ordination training. Attention is given to the extent to which the personhood of women is enabled to truly flourish in a theological education system that is dominated by men and predominantly patriarchal and Western theologising. It suggests that a gendered politics of belonging has been used and maintained through the socio-religious construct of (...) ‘shame’ in order to maintain the boundaries of belonging within the formation process, and therefore calls for an en-gendered ‘pathway to the priesthood’. This is exemplified in a re-reading of the bleeding woman who dares to challenge the hegemonies of patriarchy and purity by touching the cloak of Christ in Luke 8:40-48. This research is part of an ongoing project with Common Awards at Durham University that explores barriers to belonging in theological education for those in training for ordination. It has therefore received ethical approval for interviews and participant observations. (shrink)

This article addresses the question of how, by Aristotle’s lights, we apprehend concrete individuals, the objects of incidental perception. The author argues (a) that the incidental perceptible is indeed perceived and not interpreted, and (b) that what is perceived incidentally is an object as it bears significance to the projects and aims of the perceiver, rather than what the object is in itself (as it is commonly taken to be). Finally, the author argues (c) that this new way of understanding (...) what the incidental object of perception is provides a unified account of incidental perception that accommodates both animal and human incidental perception, while at the same time allowing that human perception is significantly different from that of nonrational animals. The article maintains that human perception is conditioned, but not interpreted, by intellect, and offers an account of the relationship between the two faculties that supports this interpretation of incidental perception. (shrink)

In this paper, the principal objections to unconditional forgiveness are canvassed, primarily that it fails to take wrongdoing seriously enough, and that it displays a lack of self-respect. It is argued that these objections stem from a mistaken understanding of what forgiveness actually involves, including the erroneous view that forgiveness involves some degree of condoning of the offence, and is incompatible with blaming the offender or punishing him. Two positive reasons for endorsing unconditional forgiveness are considered: respect for persons and (...) human solidarity; and it is argued that the latter provides more plausible grounds for it than the former. (shrink)

Sustaining hope in patients is an important element of health care, allowing improvement in patient welfare and quality of life. However in the palliative care context, with patients who are terminally ill, it might seem that in order to maintain hope the palliative care practitioner would sometimes have to deceive the patient about the full nature or prospects of their condition by providing a ‘false hope’. This possibility creates an ethical tension in palliative practice, where the beneficent desire to improve (...) patient welfare through sustaining hope appears to be in conflict with an autonomy-based requirement not to deceive patients about their condition. In order to resolve this ethical tension, we provide an analysis of the concept of hope and argue that there is at least one conception – the ‘absolute’ conception of hope – which when properly understood allows practitioners to foster hope in terminally-ill patients while avoiding any need to deceive them about their condition. Practitioners therefore do not need to shy away from using the language of hope in the palliative setting, as on this understanding of hope it can be used in a way that both promotes patient welfare and respects patient autonomy. (shrink)

In "The Nature of Evil"2 I offer an analysis of evil action, in a sense distinct from merely very wrong action, in which I claim that the evil act is one in which the agent silences overwhelming considerations against performing the act. Christopher Hamilton 's interesting commentary raises five objections against my account of evil in terms of silenced reasons I shall argue that all five objections can be met.

This dissertation intends to contribute to the discussion about the asymmetry W. V. Quine sees between indeterminacy of translation and underdetermination of theory. Quine often formulates the asymmetry by saying that there is a fact of the matter to physics but none to translation. The first chapters of the dissertation constitute an attempt of clarification of that notion of fact of the matter. They contain an analysis of the relations between Quine's notion of fact of the matter, his physicalism, and (...) his conception of truth. The main conclusion of those chapters is that the notion of fact of the matter is physicalistic, which means that it is what, according to Quine, embodied the nature of extralinguistic reality that determines truth. The next chapters contain an analysis of Quine's indeterminacy of translation thesis and underdetermination of theory. The main conclusions of those chapters are the following: indeterminacy of translation is an ontological thesis, and its content has not changed through Quine's writings, although the formulations of the thesis have varied; Quine's definitive arguments for indeterminacy of translation are not to be found in his physicalism, but in his behaviorism; underdetermination of theory is a methodological doctrine, for it concerns the evidential link between observation and theory; there is an asymmetry between indeterminacy of translation and underdetermination of theory. The remaining chapters of the dissertation constitute a review of the main texts by other authors addressing Quine's claim that there is an asymmetry between indeterminacy of translation and underdetermination of theory. The positions of Noam Chomsky, Richard Rorty, and Micheal Friedman are analyzed and criticized. The positions of Dagfinn Follesdal and Roger Gibson have appeared to our lights as the ones that should be taken most seriously. Follesdal is the one who seems to have accomplished the last progresses in the discussion over the asymmetry between underdetermination of theory and indeterminacy of translation by distinguishing clearly Quine's epistemological arguments for indeterminacy of translation thesis from the ontological content of that thesis. (shrink)

This article questions educational practices that undermine ‘being’ musical. Where Western misconceptions about the nature of human musicality distance many individuals from meaningful engagement with an intrinsic part of their humanity, I challenge the status quo to argue for an inclusive educational practice which gives everyone an opportunity to ‘be’ musical. Despite evidence from neuroscience now supporting the understanding that humans are a musical species, the widespread neo-liberal oriented focus on vocational training fails to recognise music as an essential aspect (...) of healthy human being. Where current polarised music education provision supports a discriminatory system that leads to widespread underdeveloped musicality, I draw on Gadamer and Dewey to explore how musicking integrates cultural development and to question the value of a practice that leaves many of us musically disabled. Including examples of teaching practices that engage and transform, I argue the case for an enriched, broader curriculum that no longer sees music as a ‘frill’. (shrink)