The complexity of biobank research raises concerns about individuals’ understanding of the information conveyed in the consent process for such research.. We report the results of a qualitative, cognitive interview study with an ethnically, linguistically, and educationally diverse sample of 43 respondents to assess the clarity and utility of a multimedia tool developed for a biobank. Using weighted randomization, respondents were assigned to either view the multimedia tool or read a written consent document . The study illustrates the utility of (...) cognitive interviews for gaining insights from prospective research participants about the clarity of informed consent tools. Findings suggest that a multimedia tool is useful for communicating key messages but should be combined with a written consent document and personal interaction with the study staff. We recommend that the potential value of multimedia tools should be more rigorously tested in a randomized controlled trial. (shrink)

In this intriguing book, the concept of the soul is thoroughly investigated.

Book Review Reason in the Balance by Sharon Bailin and Mark Battersby Whitby, ON: McGraw-Hill Ryerson, 2010. Pp. xiv, 1-349. Softcover ISBN-13: 978-007-007341-8, ISBN-10: 007007341-4 CDN$ 97.95.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:BALTHASAR'S USE OF THE THEOLOGY OF AQUINAS }AMES J. BUCKLEY Loyola College in Maryland Baltimore, Maryland T HE AIM OF THIS essay is to raise some questions about the internal consistency of Hans Urs von Balthasar's use of the theology of Thomas Aquinas. These are genuine questions. That is, they are not questions ("Is Balthasar's use of Aquinas consistent?") disguising or masking answers ("Balthasar's use of Aquinas is inconsistent"). (...) While I hope the questions set an agenda for disputations between students of these two theologians, my aim is not to settle the many disputations between the theologies of Aquinas and Balthasar, but to propose some quaestiones disputatae. In Balthasar's terms, the aim is to set up the theater and put some characters on the stage, not to stage the drama itself. Why bother? First, Balthasar's theology arises out of a tradition critical of the theology of Aquinas, and students of Aquinas can only ignore such objections at the price of abandoning Aquinas's habit of responding to such criticisms. The locus classicus of this critique is Balthasar's claim that he omits Aquinas from his canon of theological aestheticians because Aquinas is one of those whose "deep and lucid philosophical aesthetics" has "failed to achieve a theological translation, that is, to be seen as the unfolding of a theology based on biblical revelation" (GL II, 21).1 Thomas Aquinas (Balthasar later says) "was more of a philosopher than a theologian" (GL III, 9). We shall see later that ' I shall use the following abbreviations: ST = Summa Theologiae. Latin text and English translation, ed. Thomas Gilby, various translators (New York: McGraw-Hill; London: Eyre & Spottiswoode, 1964-80). GL =The Glory ofthe Lord: A Theological Aesthetic, ed. Joseph Fessio, S.J., and John Riches, various translators, 7 vols. (San Francisco: Ignatius Press; New York: Crossroad Publications, 1982-91). 517 518 JAMES J. BUCKLEY Balthasar also mentions other objections to Aquinas. In fact, part of my argument will be that this central criticism of Thomas's aesthetics is intelligible only against the background of other even more important criticisms of Aquinas's theology. I ought also to note at this early stage, however, that Balthasar 's criticisms of Aquinas are almost always carefully qualified. For example, in the locus classicus just cited, Balthasar objects to Aquinas's aesthetics, not his ethics or metaphysics; indeed, it is a criticism of Aquinas's theological aesthetics, not his philosophical aesthetics. Still further, Balthasar even says it "would perhaps" be possible to develop the "implicit" theological aesthetics in Thomas's philosophical aesthetics; however, Balthasar (inexplicably, some would say at this point) thinks this could only be done "witn uncertain success" (GL II, 21). One reason for the frequent allusiveness of Balthasar's objections to Aquinas is a second reason for bothering with Balthasar's use of Aquinas: in and with the firmness of Balthasar 's criticisms of Aquinas, the vast majority of Balthasar's uses of Aquinas are constructive rather than critical. Indeed, if taking the measure of theological disputation were primarily a matter of weighing quotations, it could easily be shown that Balthasar's use of Aquinas is by far more positive than negative. More importantly, I shall propose that Balthasar notices features of Aquinas's theology not often noted (or still not noted often enough) by many students of Aquinas. This common ground between Balthasar and Aquinas recalls how, among Roman Catholics in the first part of this century, there was a sort of alliance among Catholic reformers-over against strains of Catholic traditionalisms-between some forms of Thomism and TD= Theodramatik, 4 vols. (Einsiedeln: Johannes Verlag, 1973-83). T-D =Theo-drama: Theological Dramatic Theory, various translators, 5 vols. planned (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1988-). TL= Theologik, 3 vols. (Einsiedeln: Johannes Verlag, 1985-87). For a summary of Balthasar's trilogy on beauty and goodness and truth, see his Epilog (Einsiedeln/Trier: Johannes Verlag, 1987) as well as My Work: In Retrospect, trans. Cornelia CapoI (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1993). BALTHASAR'S THEOLOGY OF AQUINAS 519 what was known as la nouvelle theologie (including Balthasar).2 It is this common ground that ought to make us wary of... (shrink)

This is a collection of invited papers from the 1975 International Sym posium on Multiple-valued Logic. Also included is an extensive bib liography of works in the field of multiple-valued logic prior to 1975 - this supplements and extends an earlier bibliography of works prior to 1965, by Nicholas Rescher in his book Many-Valued Logic, McGraw-Hill, 1969. There are a number of possible reasons for interest in the present volume. First, the range of various uses covered in this collection (...) of papers may be taken as indicative of a breadth which occurs in the field of multiple-valued logic as a whole - the papers here can do no more than cover a small sample: question-answering systems, analysis of computer hazards, algebraic structures relating to multiple-valued logic, algebra of computer programs, fuzzy sets. Second, a large part of the interest in such uses and applications has occurred in the last twenty, even ten years. It would be too much to expect this to be reflected in Rescher's 1969 book. Third, in the 1970's a series of annual symposia have been held on multiple-valued logic, which have brought much of this into a sharp focus. * The 1971 and 1972 symposia were held at the SUNY at Buffalo, the 1973 symposium at the Uni versity of Toronto, and the 1974 symposium at West Virginia Uni versity. Papers from these symposia are included in the bibliography which may be found in an appendix of this book. (shrink)

Title: The Politics of Culture Publisher: Grove Press ISBN: 039447824X Author: Antonin J. Liehm Title: From the Diary of a Counterrevolutionary Publisher: McGraw-Hill ISBN: 0070352968 Author: Pavel Kohout.

We can contrast rationalising explanations of the form S φs because p with those of the form S φs because S believes that p. According the Common Kind View, the two sorts of explanation are the same. The Disjunctive View denies this. This paper sets out to elucidate the sense in which the Common Kind Theorist asserts, but the Disjunctivist denies, that the two explanations are the same. I suggest that, in the light of the distinction between kinds of explanation (...) and particular explanations, the relevant sameness thesis is ambiguous, thus giving us two distinct versions of the Common Kind View. I then argue that the only direct arguments for Disjunctivism available in the literature fail because they only succeed in undermining one version of the Common Kind View. I finish, however, by providing a fresh argument for the Disjunctive View which aims to undermine both versions of its competitor. (shrink)

Here is a surprisingly neglected question in contemporary epistemology: what is it for an agent to believe that p in response to a normative reason for them to believe that p? On one style of answer, believing for the normative reason that q factors into believing that p in the light of the apparent reason that q, where one can be in that kind of state even if q is false, in conjunction with further independent conditions such as q’s being (...) a normative reason to believe that p. The primary objective of this paper is to demonstrate that that style of answer cannot be right, because we must conceive of believing for a normative reason as constitutively involving a kind of rationality-involving relation that can be instantiated at all only if there is a known fact on the scene, which the agent treats as a normative reason. A secondary objective, achieved along the way, is to demonstrate that in their Prime Time Errol Lord and Kurt Sylvan do not succeed in undermining the factoring picture in general, only a simple-minded version of it. (shrink)

This paper begins with a Davidsonian puzzle in the epistemology of perception and introduces two solutions to that puzzle: the Truth-Maker View (TMV) and the Content Model. The paper goes on to elaborate (TMV), elements of which can be found in the work of Kalderon (2011) and Brewer (2011). The central tenant of (TMV) is the claim that one's reason for one's perceptual belief should, in all cases, be identified with some item one perceives which makes the proposition believed true. (...) I defend an argument against (TMV) which appeals to (a) the claim that the reason for which one believes should always to be identified with the explanans of the rationalising explanation to which one's belief is subject and (b) the claim that the explanantia of rationalising explanations must be identified with truths. I finish by replying to two objections to the argument. (shrink)

Bringing together specialists in various fields, this volume shows that the transformation from the scholastic to more empirical approaches to psychology was a gradual process.

This collection of current research on logic programming languages presents results from a three-year, ESPRIT-funded effort to explore the integration of the foundational issues of functional, logic, and object-oriented programming. It offers valuable insights into the fast-developing extensions of logic programming with functions, constraints, concurrency, and objects. Chapters are grouped according to the unifying themes of functional programming, constraint, logic programming, and object-oriented programming.

Was die Frage nach der Funktion der Sprache im Erkenntnisprozeß betrifft, haben wir zuerst die verschiedenen Theorien dargestellt. Nach einer Reihe alleinstehender Personen wie Derbolav, Bühler, Jost, Glinz behandeln wir die Strömungen der symbolischen Logik und der linguistic analysis. Die symbolische Logik will das Denken in einer logischen Modellsprache analysieren. Die linguistic Analysis betrachtet die gewöhnliche Umgangssprache als Trägerin des Denkens und will, daß alle Philosophen und Wissenschaftler sich in dieser gewöhnlichen Umgangssprache ausdrücken, die bei guter Analyse für jeden intelligenten (...) Menschen verständlich ist. Die Strömungen der Phänomenologie und des Existentialismus äußern die Erfahrung, daß der Mensch seine Existenz ganz in einer sprechenden Welt erfährt und daß sich seine Existenz in der Sprache vollzieht : die Sprache ist das Haus seines Daseins. Keine Sache kann in unserem Bewußtsein zur Existenz gelangen, wenn wir sie nicht zu Wort bringen können. Die Ethnolinguisten und Psycholinguisten sind zu dem Ergebnis gekommen, daß die Formen, in denen ein Mensch jeweils denkt, von den unerbittlichen und unentrinnbaren Strukturen der Wörter mit ihren Bedeutungen und den Strukturen der Wortkombinationen kontrolliert werden. Diese Strukturen sind die Strukturen der jeweiligen Muttersprache. Das Denken eines Menschen vollzieht sich in seiner Sprache. Die Strukturen der Sprache liefern die Modelle für das Denken, für die Analyse der Eindrücke. Unser ganzes Denken bewegt sich in einer denkerisch-sprachigen Welt. Jedes Denken muß sich in Sprachstrukturen kanalisieren lassen. Die Sprache ist das formgebende Organ des Denkens. Die Denkanalyse vollzieht sich in Sprache. In einem bestimmten Augenblick der Entwicklung des Kindes begegnen sich Sprache und Denken ; dann wird das Denken „sprachig” und das Sprechen „denkerisch”. Von nun an werden die meisten Reize der physischen Welt durch ein sprachiges zweites Reizsystem gefiltert ; die Reize werden „in Sprache übersetzt”. Dieser Sprachfilter ist auch in der Analyse nach der dynamischen Erfassung der Reize vorhanden. Diese Daten aus den Theorien der Linguistic Analysis, der Phänomenologie, des Existentialismus, der Ethnolinguistik und Psycholinguistik kann man in direkte Verbindung bringen mit der neoklassischien Theorie, die über ein Erfassen von Erkenntnis-Daten in einer Intuition spricht, die implizit die Möglichkeit zu einem Explizitieren und Analysieren enthält. Somit kommen wir zu folgendem Schema : Reize, sprachiger Empfangsapparat ↓ Erfassung der Reize, Konzeption, Sicht ↓ Denk-Sprachanalyse ↓ Die phonische Äußerung der Denk-Sprachanalyse. Zum Schluß geben wir noch ein Beispiel für eine Kons ta tierungs-Sicht, Ihre Denk-Sprachanalyse und die phonische Äußerung ihrer Denk-Sparchanalyse. (shrink)

I come to praise contemporary French philosophy not to bury it. My aim is not to hail the appearance in France of a native brand of analytic philosophy—in itself an important event in the last decade—but to describe the indirect and selective importation of certain Anglo-Saxon concepts by French philosophers whose practice is far from analytic; and also to describe the resultant misunderstanding. In this paper I shall analyse the use of pragmatic concepts—and of the concept ‘pragmatics’—in the recent work (...) by Deleuze and Guattari, Mille Plateaux, and I shall try to show that these concepts are the object of a creative misunderstanding, of a misprision. (shrink)