Randomised placebo-controlled trials (RPCTs) are the gold standard for evaluating novel treatments. However, this design is rarely used in the context of orthopaedic interventions where participants are assigned to a real or placebo surgery. The present study examines attitudes towards RPCTs for orthopaedic surgery among 687 orthopaedic surgeons across the USA. When presented with a vignette describing an RPCT for orthopaedic surgery, 52.3% of participants viewed it as ‘completely’ or ‘mostly’ unethical. Participants were also asked to rank-order the value of (...) five different types of evidence supporting the efficacy of a surgery, ranging from RPCT to an anecdotal report. Responses regarding RPCTs were polarised with 26.4% viewing it as theleastvaluable (even less valuable than an anecdote) and 35.7.% viewing it as themostvaluable. Where equipoise exists, if we want to subject orthopaedic surgeries to the highest standard of evidence (RPCTs) before they are implemented in clinical practice, it will be necessary to educate physicians on the value and ethics of placebo surgery control conditions. Otherwise, invasive procedures may be performed without any benefits beyond possible placebo effects. (shrink)

Moral problems often prompt emotional responses that invoke intuitive judgments of right and wrong. While emotions inform judgment across many domains, they can also lead to ethical failures that could be avoided by using a more deliberative, analytical decision-making process. In this article, we describe joint evaluation as an effective tool to help decision makers manage their emotional assessments of morality.

Throughout the twentieth century, women's magazines in the United States have socialized their readers to the “proper” expression of love and anger in marriage. Our analysis of a random sample of marital advice articles from 1900 to 1979 examines this cultural convergence of gender, marriage, and emotion. A qualitative analysis identifies techniques for socializing readers to the emotional culture of marriage and shows a historical change toward equating love with self-fulfillment and advocating the expression of anger. A quantitative analysis then (...) specifies the timing of changes in emotion norms and showed an oscillation between modern and traditional norms that is related to waves of political liberation versus oppression. We discuss the relation between emotion norms and behavior and explore the effect of group conflict on the production of emotional culture. Emotion norms have become less rigid and more tolerant of diversity; but gender differences persist, and women are still responsible for maintaining intimate relationships. Historical trends in love and anger norms are nonlinear, not a continuous shift toward individualism, self-development, and free expression, as suggested by recent cultural theories. (shrink)

The paper aims to assess the theory of mind of sexual offenders. We administered to 21 sexual offenders and to 21 nonoffenders two classical first- and second-order ToM tasks, a selection of six Strange Stories, and a semi-structured interview, the Theory of Mind Assessment Scale , which provides a multi-dimensional evaluation of ToM, investigating first- vs. third-person and egocentric vs. allocentric perspectives. Results show that sexual offenders performed worse than controls on second-order ToM tasks, on Strange Stories and on each (...) of the Th.o.m.a.s dimensions, whereas they did as well as the control group on first-order ToM tasks. A detailed analysis of participants’ performance on Th.o.m.a.s. showed that sex offenders performed worse on the third-person than on the first-person ToM scale, and worse on the allocentric than on the egocentric perspective; these findings did not apply to the controls. Implications for future research and treatment are discussed. (shrink)

Il XII secolo rappresenta per il mondo monastico un periodo di grande splendore dal punto di vista culturale e filosofico, in particolare grazie a figure come Bernardo di Chiaravalle e Guglielmo di Saint-Thierry, la cui riflessione rappresenta da una parte la maturità della tradizione monastica altomedievale, dall’altra il coronamento e la chiusura di un periodo, più che l’apertura di uno nuovo.Paradossalmente il XII secolo segna anche un periodo di crisi profonda, in cui i monaci, che per secoli sono stati al (...) centro dei dibattiti teologici e filosofici, sembrano lasciare il posto agli ordini mendicanti. Nel secolo successivo i francescani raccolgono in un certo senso l’eredità monastica, riprendendola in modo originale, come Guglielmo ha fatto con Agostino, riuscendo così a renderla capace di partecipare ai nuovi dibattiti filosofici e a trovare posto all’interno degli ambienti universitari. Un esempio chiaro è offerto da Bonaventura da Bagnoregio, uno dei più grandi rappresentanti nel XIII secolo della tradizione agostiniana rivista alla luce dell’ispirazione francescana. Bonaventura riprende dalla tradizione monastica alcuni temi: la superiorità dell’amore, della volontà e del bene sull’intelletto, la centralità della relazione e dell’analogia nel rapporto tra uomo e Dio. Il linguaggio del filosofo francescano è in un certo senso simile a quello usato da Guglielmo: non è semplicemente evocativo, letterario e platonico, in quanto condivide le forti esigenze logiche e la nuova terminologia caratteristica dell’aristotelismo diffuso nell’università parigina.Prendendo in esame la riflessione di Bonaventura, con particolare riferimento a Legenda maior e a Itinerarium mentis in Deum, e prestando attenzione ai temi riconducibili alla tradizione agostiniana e monastica, si può cercare di chiarire fino a che punto esista un legame con tale tradizione e quanto ci sia invece di originale e tipicamente francescano. The twelfth century is a period of great splendor for the monastic world from the cultural and philosophical point of view, thanks to philosophers like Bernard of Clairvaux and William of Saint-Thierry in particular. Their philosophical thought represents not only the maturity of the early medieval monastic tradition and its crowning achievement, but also the closing of a period, rather than the opening of a new one.Paradoxically, the twelfth century is also a period of profound crisis, in which the monks, who for centuries have been at the center of theological and philosophical debates, seem to leave their place to mendicant religious orders. In a sense, during the following century the Franciscans collect the monastic legacy, recovering it in an original way, as William of Saint-Thierry did with Augustine’s philosophy. The Franciscans also succeed in making this inheritance capable of participating in the new philosophical debates, also in university environments. A clear example is Bonaventure from Bagnoregio, one of the most important philosopher in the thirteenth century that recovered the Augustinian tradition reconsidering it thanks to his Franciscan inspiration. Bonaventure picks up from the monastic tradition some themes: the superiority of love, of will and of good over the intellect, the importance of relationship and of analogy in the link between man and God. In a sense we can say that the language of the Franciscan philosopher is similar to William’s language: it isn’t simply evocative, literary and platonic, because it shares the strong logical requirements and the new terminology of Aristotelianism spread in Parisian university.Considering Bonaventure’s philosophy, focusing on Legenda maior and Itinerarium mentis in Deum, and paying attention to the themes related to the Augustinian and monastic tradition, we can try to clarify the link with this tradition and what on the contrary is original and “typically Franciscan”. (shrink)

Félix Aubé Beaudoin | : Le dilemme darwinien, formulé par Sharon Street, somme les réalistes moraux d’expliquer pourquoi de nombreux jugements qui sont des candidats au statut de vérités morales indépendantes sont aussi ceux qui ont une grande valeur sélective. Les réalistes peuvent soit nier, soit affirmer l’existence d’un lien entre pressions évolutionnistes et vérités morales. Selon Street, la première option mène au scepticisme tandis que la seconde est indéfendable sur le plan scientifique. Peter Singer et Katarzyna de Lazari-Radek (...) optent pour la première branche de ce dilemme. Dans cet article, la stratégie argumentative qu’ils adoptent — la réponse naturelle — sera soumise à un examen critique. Deux objections seront formulées. La première est d’ordre épistémologique : l’intuitionnisme philosophique défendu par les auteurs fait face à des difficultés majeures. La seconde, plus fondamentale, est que leur solution ne permet pas d’expliquer autrement que par un heureux hasard l’alignement entre les vérités morales et les jugements ayant une valeur sélective. | : According to Sharon Street’s Darwinian Dilemma, moral realists must explain why many judgments that are likely to be independent moral truths are those it would be evolutionarily adaptive to hold. Realists can either deny or assert the existence of a relation between evolutionary influences and moral truths. The first option leads to skepticism, while the second is unacceptable on scientific grounds, says Street. Peter Singer and Katarzyna de Lazari-Radek take the first horn of this dilemma. In this article, the argumentative strategy they adopt — the Natural Reply - is submitted to critical scrutiny. Two objections are raised. The first objection is epistemological : philosophical intuitionism, as defended by the authors, is an untenable position. The second objection is that their solution must appeal to unlikely coincidences to account for the overlap between independent moral truths and evolutionarily adaptive attitudes. (shrink)

The article, after providing a general survey of prescriptive theories (or theories on rules) in Hellenistic philosophy, tries to offer a detailed analysis of the moral doxography of Philo of Larissa conserved in Stobaeus' Anthology (Stob. Ecl. II 7, 2, pp. 39-40 W.-H. = 25 Wiśniewski, 2 Mette, 32 Brittain). According to this evidence, Philo divided moral philosophy in three parts : hortatory, or protreptic, topos, therapeutic topos, prescriptive topos –; besides, he parted the prescriptive topos into general and particular (...) logos. This doctrine is contextualised in rhetoric reflection of Hermagorean school and also considered in the light of Academic probabilism. In particular, Carneades' theory of the representations attested by Sextus, M VII 184 is the background against which to evaluate Philo's position. (shrink)

The essay aims to disclose British sociologist Ruth Levitas’s proposal regarding the thorny issue of the lack of consensus about the definition of the concept of utopia, a issue which, in the Levitas’s view, results in a widespread terminological confusion and in the omnipresent risk of arbitrary selection of the material. After an accurate analysis of the main theoretical and epistemological approaches on the topic, Levitas suggests an inclusive definition which would allow to cross the boundaries imposed by «restrictive» characterizations, (...) for the purpose of creating a higher degree of agreement with regards to what may be included within the concept of "utopia". Too «limitative» definitions would instead lead to misleading conclusions about the destiny and the function of the utopian genre, among which the widespread belief that utopia is in decline or, even worse, definitively disappeared. Finally, Levitas suggests a «sociology of utopia» through an analysis of the correlations between the two form of knowledge, correlations which, in her view, has been repressed for decades. (shrink)

The main aim of the present essay is to explore Arthur C. Danto’s passionate confrontation with German philosophy. As will emerge, it is neither an analysis planned according to a precise chronological order, nor a rigidly systematic investigation. In a succession of irreverent betrayals, syncretistic appropriations and courageous afterthoughts, Danto will proceed rather backwards, going from Nietzsche to Hegel and from Hegel to Kant. In doing so – during his long and tireless philosophical r...

The use of assistance systems aimed at reducing road fatalities is spreading, especially for car drivers, but less effort has been devoted to developing and testing similar systems for powered two-wheelers. Considering that over speeding represents one of the main causal factors in road crashes and that riders are more vulnerable than drivers, in the present study we investigated the effectiveness of an assistance system which signaled speed limit violations during a simulated moped-driving task, in optimal and poor visibility conditions. (...) Participants performed four conditions of simulated riding: one baseline condition without Feedback, one Fog condition in which visual feedback was provided so as to indicate to the participants when a speed limit was exceeded, and two post-Feedback conditions with and without Fog, respectively, in which no feedback was delivered. Results showed that participants make fewer speeding violations when the feedback is not provided, after 1 month, and regardless of the visibility condition. Finally, the feedback has been proven effective in reducing speed violations in participants with an aggressive riding style, as measured in the baseline session. (shrink)

Proprioception is a crucial sensory modality involved in the control and regulation of coordinated movements and in motor learning. However, the extent to which proprioceptive acuity is influenced by local muscle fatigue is obscured by methodological differences in proprioceptive and fatiguing protocols. In this study, we used high resolution kinematic measurements provided by a robotic device, as well as both frequency and time domain analysis of signals captured via surface electromyography (sEMG) to examine the effects of local muscle fatigue on (...) wrist proprioceptive acuity in 16 physically and neurologically healthy young adults. To this end, participants performed a flexion/extension ipsilateral joint position matching test (JPM), after which a high-resistive robotic task was used to induce muscle fatigue of the flexor carpi radialis (FCR) muscle. The JPM test was then repeated in order to analyze potential changes in proprioceptive acuity. Results indicated that the fatigue protocol had a significant effect on movements performed in flexion direction, with participants exhibiting a tendency to undershoot the target before the fatigue protocol (-1.218°), but overshooting after the fatigue protocol (0.587°). In contrast, in the extension direction error bias values were similar before and after the fatigue protocol as expected (pre = -1.852°, post = -1.237°) and reflected a tendency to undershoot the target. Moreover, statistical analysis indicated that movement variability was not influenced by the fatigue protocol or movement direction. In sum, results of the present study demonstrate that an individual’s estimation of wrist joint displacement (i.e., error bias), but not precision (i.e., variability), is affected by muscular fatigue in a sample of neurologically and physically healthy adults. (shrink)

Cet ouvrage porte sur l'homme et sur sa quête de sens. Dans une perspective philosophique, nous y examinons les grands types de discours qui organisent notre rapport au monde et qui contribuent ainsi à la recherche humaine d'une vie plus sensée: la philosophie, la mythologie, la religion et la science. Ces discours offrent à la conscience des peuples et des civilisations leurs repères culturels fondamentaux. Ils déterminent les croyances partagées, les savoirs admis et les valeurs sacrées, d'où l'intérêt de les (...) examiner et de voir comment ils contribuent à nous guider. Cela nous permet bien sûr de circonscrire l'apport singulier de la philosophie à la question du sens de la vie. Nous nous arrêterons en particuliers à cet égard à la contribution que nous ont léguée trois grands philosophes de l'Antiquité grecque, Platon, Aristote et Epicure. (shrink)

In order to stress their Socratic inheritance, the Stoics, in their writings - dialogues, collections of maxims or « memorabilia » –, either drew upon the ancient Socratic literature or quoted Socratic sayings in their own moral treatises. Their authorities were not only Xenophon and Plato’s dialogues, but the works of Antisthenes and Aeschines of Sphettos, minor trends in ancient Socratic literature, such as Phaedo or Simon, and part of the later Socratic literature, in particular Diogenes of Sinope and Crates (...) fof Thebes. (shrink)

Il contributo intende ricostruire il dibattito storiografico intorno all’eredità di Averroè a partire dalla sua nascita, con la riscoperta di Averroè da parte dell’orientalismo francese arrivando fino agli intellettuali arabo-musulmani contemporanei, che hanno fatto del filosofo di Cordoba un rappresentante dell’illuminismo ante litteram. Scopo del saggio è dunque quello di ripercorrere brevemente la storia di questo dibattito per mettere in luce l’uso esplicitamente politico e ideologico di un autore medievale e, in ultima analisi, sottolineare che ogni storia delle filosofia porta (...) con sé uno sguardo orientato e mai neutro sulla propria tradizione. This paper aims to outline the historical debate about the Averroes’ heritage since its beginning, with the revival of Averroes by French Orientalism coming up to contemporary Arab-Muslim intellectuals, who made this author an Enlightenment’s representative before its time. The aim of the contribution is therefore to recall briefly the history of this debate to highlight the political and ideological utilization of a medieval author and, ultimately, to emphasize that every history of philosophy implies a view oriented and never neutral on its tradition. (shrink)

This double issue of the journal of hermeneutics and philosophical criticism “Trópos” stems from a workshop held in Padua on November 8th and 9th, 2021, entitled “The Universal and Philosophy,” organized by the Mushin'en Research Group in Intercultural Philosophy (無心円)3, of which the two publishers are founding members.

This double issue of the journal of hermeneutics and philosophical criticism “Trópos” stems from a workshop held in Padua on November 8th and 9th, 2021, entitled “The Universal and Philosophy,” organized by the Mushin'en Research Group in Intercultural Philosophy (無心円)3, of which the two publishers are founding members.

Obiettivo del presente contributo è un esame dei riferimenti al tema del silenzio in alcuni “luoghi” della letteratura socratica. Più particolarmente, l’analisi si concentra sull’importanza riconosciuta alla virtù del σιωπᾶν in due specifici ambiti: 1) l’educazione dei giovani e 2) lo scambio dialogico. Il primo aspetto è indagato soprattutto a partire dal Milziade di Eschine di Sfetto, che presenta positivamente la capacità di tacere nei giovani e che permette di istituire, a questo riguardo, alcuni paralleli con opere non socratiche. Il (...) secondo aspetto, non privo di connessioni con il primo, è invece approfondito soprattutto a partire da un riferimento al ruolo del silenzio nel Protagora platonico, che consente di indagarne la funzione più specificamente anti-sofistica. (shrink)

Les Stoïciens formulent une conception de la «substance», ou ousia, qui tient un rôle très important dans différentes parties de leur système, parmi lesquelles la cosmologie, la psychologie et l'éthique. Au concept de substance est liée ce qu.on appelle la table des quatre 'catégories'. Cette dernière est considéréepar certains interprètes récents comme l'issue d'un processus historique relativement long, qui trouve sa formulation achevée seulement avec Chrysippe. Les sources relatives à la théorie des quatre catégories forment, comme on le sait, une (...) tradition indirecte et dans une large mesure également hostile, parce qu'elle est transmise surtout par Plutarque, Plotin et les commentateurs aristotéliciens des Catégories. Pourtant, ces sources permettent de saisir certaines des questions qui sont au centre de la réflexion stoïcienne sur l'être. Parmi les plus significatives, il y a la question du rapport entre substance et matière, et la question de la signification de la substance individuelle. (shrink)