Introduces fundamental epistemological and metaphysical issues and concepts. Deals comprehensively with Eastern as well as Western philosophy.

Intuition says that choosing to create a miserable person is wrong, but choosing not to create a happy one is not; this is ‘the Asymmetry’. There is a complete theory which agrees – the ‘Harm Minimization’ theory. A well-known objection is that this theory rejects Parfit’s principle of ‘No Difference’. But No Difference has less intuitive support than the Asymmetry, and there seems to be no complete theory which agrees with both. There is, however, a more serious problem for Harm (...) Minimization: it says it is wrong to create happy people if we could have made some of them happier at the expense of others. The purpose of this note is to describe a complete theory which agrees with the Asymmetry and avoids this unacceptable consequence; like Harm Minimization, it rejects No Difference. (shrink)

In Feel-Bad Postfeminism, Catherine McDermott provides crucial insight into what growing up during empowerment postfeminism feels like, and outlines the continuing postfeminist legacy of resilience in girlhood coming-of-age narratives. McDermott's analysis of Gone Girl (2012), Girls (2012-2017) and Appropriate Behaviour (2012) illuminates a major cultural turn in which the pleasures of postfeminist empowerment curdle into a profound sense of rage and resentment. By contrast, close examination of The Hunger Games (2008-2010), Girlhood (2014) and Catch Me Daddy (2014) reveals (...) that contemporary genres are increasingly constructing girls as uniquely capable of resiliently overcoming and adapting to unforgiving social conditions. She develops an affective vocabulary to better understand contemporary modes of defiant, transformative and relational resilience, as well as a framework through which to expand on further modes that are specific to the genres they emerge within. Overall, the book suggests that exploration of the affective dimensions of girls' and women's culture can offer new insights into how coming-of-age, girlhood and femininity are culturally produced in the aftermath of postfeminism. (shrink)

I. RATNAKIRTI. HIS PHILOSOPHICAL CONGENERS AND ADVERSARIES Ratnakirti flourished early in the 11th century A.D. at the University of Vi kramasila, a member of the Yogacara-Vijnanavada school oflate Buddhist philosophy. Thakur characterizes Ratnakirti's writing as "more concise and logical though not so poetical" 1 as that of his guru, Jfianasrimitra, two of 2 whose dicta are focal points of the present work. From a translogical or absolute point of view, Ratnakirti endorses a form of 3 solipsistic idealism. The Sarhtdndntaradu$alJa, his (...) proof of solipsism written from the standpoint ofthe highest truth, concludes that an exter nal nonmental continuum is impossible. In ultimate reality the cognizing sub ject, its act of awareness, and the cognized object coalesce - all are fabrications superposed on what is really an indivisible evanescent now. 4 As Ratnakirti's predecessors have put it: There is neither an 'I' nor a 'he' nor a 'you' nor even an 'it'; neither the thing, nor the not-thing; neither a law nor a system; neither the terms nor the relations. But there are only the cognitive events of colourless sensations which have forms but no names. They are caught for a moment in a stream and then rush to naught. Even the stream is a fiction. That sensum of the moment, the purest particular, that advaya, the indivisible unit of cognition, that is the sole reality, the rest are all fictions, stirred up by time-honoured 5 convention of language which is itself a grand fiction. (shrink)

Much previous work in artificial intelligence has neglected representing time in all its complexity. In particular, it has neglected continuous change and the indeterminacy of the future. To rectify this, I have developed a first‐order temporal logic, in which it is possible to name and prove things about facts, events, plans, and world histories. In particular, the logic provides analyses of causality, continuous change in quantities, the persistence of facts (the frame problem), and the relationship between tasks and actions. It (...) may be possible to implement a temporal‐inference machine based on this logic, which keeps track of several “maps” of a time line, one per possible history. (shrink)

Genetic testing has historically been performed in the context of chronic disease and cancer diagnostics. The timelines for these tests are typically measured in days or weeks, rather than in minutes. As such, the concept that genetic information might be generated and then used to alter management in the acute setting has, thus far, not been feasible. However, recent advances in genetic technologies have the potential to allow genetic information to be generated significantly quicker. The m.1555A>G genetic variant is present (...) in one in 500 individuals and predisposes to profound hearing loss following the administration of aminoglycoside antibiotics. These antibiotics are used frequently in cases of neonatal sepsis and it is estimated that approximately 180 neonates in the UK are at risk of antibiotic induced hearing loss each year because of this genetic change. Knowledge of this variant in the acute setting would allow clinicians to prescribe alternative antibiotics. The Pharmacogenetics to Avoid Loss of Hearing study will implement a genetic point of care test (POCT) for the m.1555A>G variant within two major UK based neonatal intensive care units. This represents the first trial of a genetic POCT aimed at altering management in the acute setting. This round table discussion outlines the novel ethical issues faced in the development of this trial and the legal barriers to implementation. We ask five stakeholders to provide their opinions on this trial and their perspectives on the concept of genetic testing in the acute setting.Trial registration numberISRCTN-13704894. (shrink)

What I say here has been said before on many days and nights by reflective persons, for centuries long and planetary wide. Why, then, say it again, Sam? Is it because Heraclitus was onto something when he told us the Logos speaks but few hear? Or is the situation that of the Hassidic tale as recounted by Martin Buber? A man took it upon himself to convey the message of the high and holy one. He found no response and so (...) went directly, petulantly, to the author of the message. "Why are you here?" asked the high and holy one. "I have offered your message and no one hears me." "But," comes the response, "there is no hearing here for you. I have sunk my hearing in the deafness of mortals." More directly we can recall .. (shrink)

This is a study of how American theologian Jonathan Edwards battled deist arguments about revelation and God's fairness to non-Christians. Author Gerald McDermott argues that Edwards was preparing before his death a sophisticated theological response to Enlightenment religion that was unparalleled in the eighteenth century and surprisingly generous toward non-Christian traditions.

In 2009, with the enactment of the Lisbon Treaty, the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union entered into force. Under Article 8 of the Charter, for the first time, a stand-alone fundamental right to data protection was declared. The creation of this right, standing as a distinct right to the right to privacy, is undoubtedly significant, and it is unique to the European legal order, being absent from other international human rights instruments. This commentary examines the parameters of (...) this new right to data protection, asking what are the principles underpinning the right. It argues that the right reflects some key values inherent in the European legal order, namely: privacy, transparency, autonomy and nondiscrimination. It also analyses some of the challenges in implementing this right in an era of ubiquitous veillance practices and Big Data. (shrink)

A new theory of problem solving is presented, which embeds problem solving in the theory of action; in this theory, a problem is just a difficult action. Making this work requires a sophisticated language for‐talking about plans and their execution. This language allows a broad range of types of action, and can also be used to express rules for choosing and scheduling plans. To ensure flexibility, the problem solver consists of an interpreter driven by a theorem prover which actually manipulates (...) formulas of the language. Many examples of the use of the system six given. including an extended treatment of the world of blocks. Limitations and extensions of the system are discussed at length. It is concluded that a rule‐based problem solver is necessary and feasible, but that much more work remains to be done on the underlying theory of planning and acting. (shrink)

This article extends the Humean example of evolutionary stakeholder theory introduced in Kline and McDermott (2019). In that article, it was established that the Cost of Service Regulation (COSR) rules created by regulatory commissions, courts, and legislation was an example of evolutionary stakeholder theory. Ultimately, the Supreme Court decision in the Hope Natural Gas case established that it was not the method, but the result reach that was important. If the result reach balanced the interests of stakeholders then the (...) outcome was just and reasonable. Kline and McDermott (2019) also established that the COSR process was rather robust in terms of stakeholder participation. The purpose of this article is to extend the analysis to examine one of the most turbulent periods in COSR's history: the Post‐OPEC oil crisis of the 1970s–1980s. The effects of this period called into question the efficacy of the COSR process and led, as evolutionary stakeholder theory predicts, to a series of engagements by stakeholders to modify the rules of the process to achieve a better balance in the publics' interest. While adjudicatory in nature, the COSR process enabled cooperative solutions to redress the imbalances created by the OPEC oil shocks, improvements in information gathering, processing and decision‐making were all products of the evolutionary stakeholder process that regulators engaged in with stakeholders. (shrink)

This book traces the trajectory of John J. McDermott's philosophical career through a selection of his essays. Many were originally occasional pieces and address specific issues in American thought and culture. Together they constitute a mosaic of McDermott's philosophy, showing its roots in an American conception of experience. Though he draws heavily on the thought of William James and the pragmatists, McDermott has his own unique perspective on philosophy and American life. He presents this to the reader (...) in exquisitely crafted prose. Drawing inspiration from American history, from existentialist themes, and from personal experiences, he offers a dramatic consideration of our culture's failures and successes. McDermott crosses disciplinary boundaries to draw on whatever works to help make sense of the issues with which he is dealing--issues rooted in medical practice, political events, pedagogical habits, and the worlds of the arts. His work thus resists simple categorization. It is precisely this that makes his vibrant prose appealing to so many both inside and outside the world of American philosophy. (shrink)

Current approaches to professional ethics emphasise the importance of upholding the ethical duties of autonomy, beneficence, non-maleficence, and justice in practice. All are prima facie duties, meaning that they must be respected on their own and, if the duties conflict, it is assumed that the dilemma can be resolved through rational decision making. There are, however, a number of limitations to this approach to professional ethics. This paper explores these limitations through an empirical study that examined the ethical dilemmas facing (...) 24 professionals in their work with older people who were self-neglecting or living in squalor in Sydney, Australia. The research uncovered that two groups of professionals interpreted autonomy in different ways. Furthermore, when faced with difficult ethical dilemmas, participants agreed that the most satisfactory responses involved strategies that closely mirrored elements of alternative approaches to ethics, particularly the ethics of care and virtue ethics. The findings point to the relevance of a pluralistic approach to ethics in professional practice. (shrink)

Economic exchange constitutes the basis of many, but not all, aspects of human cooperation. The incentives overlap with, but remain distinct in important ways, from other fundamental aspects of cooperation, including the organization of collective violence for combat. The specific alignment of sometimes-conflicting goals helps inform the construction of political ideology.

L'A. se penche sur la pensée de saint Thomas d'Aquin pour en lever les ambiguïtés apparentes, notamment au sujet de l'âme. Il définit cette dernière comme forme du corps mais elle subsiste en elle-même. Comprendre se fait sans organe corporel en la conversio ad phantasma. L'abstraction appréhende la forme pure et aussi l'essence avec la matière commune. La substance est à la fois individuelle et universelle. La conversio ad phantasma décrit l'abstraction initiale. L'A. définit ainsi aussi l'intelligere, la ratio et (...) l'intellectus en en levant les ambiguïtés. Saint Thomas d'Aquin passait facilement d'un ordre à l'autre, essentiel ou existentiel, parce que dans sa vision hiérarchique de l'univers chaque unité se transcende vers une unité ultérieure jusqu'à ce que Dieu soit atteint. (shrink)

Tropologies is the first book-length study to elaborate the medieval and early modern theory of the tropological, or moral, sense of scripture. Ryan McDermott argues that tropology is not only a way to interpret the Bible but also a theory of literary and ethical invention. The "tropological imperative" demands that words be turned into works--books as well as deeds. Beginning with Augustine, Jerome, and Gregory the Great, then treating monuments of exegesis such as the Glossa ordinaria and Nicholas of (...) Lyra, as well as theorists including Thomas Aquinas, Erasmus, Martin Luther, and others, Tropologies reveals the unwritten history of a major hermeneutical theory and inventive practice. Late medieval and early Reformation writers adapted tropological theory to invent new biblical poetry and drama that would invite readers to participate in salvation history by inventing their own new works. Tropologies reinterprets a wide range of medieval and early modern texts and performances--including the Patience-Poet, Piers Plowman, Chaucer, the York and Coventry cycle plays, and the literary circles of the reformist King Edward VI--to argue that "tropological invention" provided a robust alternative to rhetorical theories of literary production. In this groundbreaking revision of literary history, the Bible and biblical hermeneutics, commonly understood as sources of tumultuous discord, turn out to provide principles of continuity and mutuality across the Reformation's temporal and confessional rifts. Each chapter pursues an argument about poetic and dramatic form, linking questions of style and aesthetics to exegetical theory and theology. Because Tropologies attends to the flux of exegetical theory and practice across a watershed period of intellectual history, it is able to register subtle shifts in literary production, fine-tuning our sense of how literature and religion mutually and dynamically informed and reformed each other. "This is an original book. It draws confidently on a wide range of medieval critical and scholarly work, as well as on a cogent body of contemporary theory and theology. It not only moves easily and eloquently between the fourteenth and the sixteenth centuries but also delves back into the 'tropological' Christian thought of the previous thousand years." --Nicolette Zeeman, University of Cambridge. (shrink)

De Lubac a sans doute emprunté beaucoup à Rousselot. A côté du désir naturel de la vision béatifique, Rousselot postulait une compréhension plus statique de la nature, représentée par un «Adam primordial», comme fondement de la connaissance conceptuelle. Tout en ignorant l'«Adam primordial» et rejetant l'«ordre naturel possible» de Rousselot, de Lubac a développé une double notion de nature comme dynamisme nécessaire et libre. A cela correspond sa compréhension du surnaturel comme à la fois exigence humaine et don libre de (...) Dieu. Une connaissance naturelle conceptuelle du Dieu inconnaissable est également nécessaire pour fonder la liberté de l'homme devant l'offre surnaturelle de Dieu. Cependant, un tel ordre conceptuel, même relatif, reconduit de Lubac à Rousselot : ou bien la possibilité d'une béatitude naturelle, ou bien, avec le Rousselot plus tardif, une compréhension de la personne comme Action-Pensée au-delà des polarités paradoxales de la nature, qui offrent un eventail de choix possibles. Selon cette dernière vision le «surnaturel» est défini d'abord comme nouveauté historique en contraste avec la création, qui inclut liberté aussi bien que nature. (shrink)

In a contemporary developed economy, the production of labor-power is not left to the "laborer's instincts for selfpreservation and of propagation," as in Capital, but is made subject to large-scale institutional investment and control within, primarily, the educational system. Some therefore of the laborer's consumption of goods and services has no longer a "final" character but directly enters into the production of the most important producer commodity, labor-power itself. This constitutes a partial closure of the circuit of producers' capital and, (...) as corollary to the latter, a significant absorption of the once distinct sphere of circulation, or exchange, into that of production, and with it a historical change in the relationships holding between the overall sphere of production and society itself. (shrink)