Outpatient services are increasingly recognised as an important component of health care provision and may be improved through the application of modern management techniques. We have performed a time and role audit of consultation and waiting times in two medical clinics using different queuing systems: namely, a serial processing clinic where patients wait in a single queue and a quasi-parallel processing clinic where patients are directed to the shortest queue to maintain clinic flow. Data collected were used to construct a (...) computer simulation of patient flows in clinic. Assessment of patient satisfaction in the clinic process was determined using a self-administered questionnaire. Mean waiting time was shorter in the quasi-parallel processing clinic: 26 (SD 17) minutes compared with 36(24) minutes in the serial processing clinic. In the serial processing clinic 61% of patients waited more than 30 minutes compared with 41% in the quasi-parallel processing clinic. In the serial processing clinic 8% of 142 patients surveyed complained of the time spent waiting. The computer simulation we produced was able to determine waiting times with different clinic structures. The simulation showed that reductions in waiting time up to 30% might be achieved by changing our serial processing clinic to a quasi-parallel processing one. Performance of medical outpatient clinics can be improved by examining and changing clinic management. Computer simulation of outpatient clinics offers a means of assessing the impact of such changes on waiting time in clinic and on waiting lists. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:If “Reality is the Best Metaphor,” It Must Be VirtualMarguerite R. Waller (bio)What is the search for the next great compelling application but a search for the human identity?—Doug Coupland, Microserfs... we can look forward to a richly textured and complex cyberspace, where we are at all times human, and can become bits of pixel dust flying through a virtual landscape.—3-D, multiuser, interactive, on-line virtual reality producer“Avatars are Next,” (...) the June 1996 issue of Wired announces on its cover, above a glossy foldout of Bill Gates in bathing trunks floating on a lemon yellow air mattress in a sensuous Hockney-blue swimming pool. “Mr. Bill goes Hollywood! Special Gatesfold Issue,” reads the caption underneath the (photomontaged) naked torso. The United States Congress’s attempt in February 1996 to conceptualize the Internet as an incitement to indecent sexual conduct (in Section 507 of the 1996 Telecommunications Act, the so-called Computer Decency Act) is clearly the lampooned subtext of this juxtaposition of sexualized body with the concept of the avatar. The antithesis of sensuous, avatars are bandwidth-conserving, virtual figures that take the place of users’ physical bodies in the three-dimensional, interactive, multiuser virtual environments that software developers in 1996 insist will be the telos of the development of the World Wide Web. The Wired cover implies that the nerd community finds Congress’s association of digital media with sex ridiculous (however flattering they may find it to be constructed as sexually dangerous). Not unusually, sexuality is being invoked by the state as a justification for extending its own reach (and the corporate interests it represents).But the sex/gender politics of Net free speech advocates are not necessarily more progressive. As feminist commentator Laura Miller argues in “Women and Children First: Gender and the Settling of the Electronic Frontier,” the metaphor of a frontier beyond the jurisdiction of Congress, deployed by opponents of federal regulation, draws upon a conventional construction of gender that threatens to reinscribe women as victims, reinforcing “the power imbalance between the sexes, with its roots in the concept of women as property, constantly under siege and requiring the vigilant protection of their male owners” [53]. The unintended consequence of this conceptualization, she worries, is that “the threat of regulation is built into the very mythos used to conceptualize the Net by its defenders” [50].My worry, therefore, embraces both sides of the debate over free speech on the Net. The skirmish between Big Brother and the software pioneers seems to be shaping up rhetorically as a classic fraternal competition “between men” (Sedgwick). We may read it as a contest between fundamentally congruent “male” subject positions, both of which incline to disempower “female” subject positions and both of which stand to increase their [End Page 90] own political and economic capital by the appearance of a conflict. The power-producing relationality at play in this turf war, however, simultaneously threatens to subvert the claims of each position to its own, independent ontology. Both parties, therefore, can be expected compulsively to deny their relational status. John Perry Barlowe insists, in his “Declaration of Independence in Cyberspace”: “Your legal concepts of property, expression, identity, movement, and context do not apply to us. They are based on matter. There is no matter here.”It is this more subtle metaphysical issue, the occlusion of relation, implicated in but not reducible to, the constructions of sexuality and gender deployed by both Netizens and Congresspeople, that I find the most pressing issue in designs, uses, and discussions of cyberspace. I will argue that, in fact, the current wave of Internet development (both practically and discursively) is in some sense driven by a desire to make cyberspace safe for essentialist subjectivities of whatever ideological/political persuasion. I will unfold this argument in terms of a certain notion of addiction. My interest is not “cyberaddiction” per se, in the sense of individuals who spend what they or their associates consider too much time on-line, but rather the construction of cyberspace—both rhetorically and electronically—as a clean, clear realm in which we can transcend positionality while remaining (or becoming more fully) “ourselves.” I am not, that... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Avatars of the Word: From Papyrus to CyberspaceJay David BolterJames J. O'Donnell. Avatars of the Word: From Papyrus to Cyberspace. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1998. xiv + 210 pp. 1 ill. Cloth, $24.95.The last chapter of James O'Donnell's thoughtful and highly readable book is entitled "Cassiodorus: Or, The Life of the Mind in Cyberspace." The subtitle made me think of the cyberenthusiast John Perry Barlow's (...) claim that cyberspace is in fact the new home of Mind. In a brief tract published on the Internet a few years ago, "A Declaration of Independence for Cyberspace," Barlow claimed that cyberspace is a new world, freed from the prejudices and traditions of the cultures of our physical world. Barlow is in many ways O'Donnell's opposite number. Where Barlow, like so many other proponents of cyberspace, rejects the relevance of history for our electronic future, O'Donnell anchors every step of his analysis in the history of writing. Where Barlow is frenetic, O'Donnell is calm. O'Donnell considers electronic writing as the latest in a series of technologies of writing, each responding to and shaped by its contemporary culture. The main lines of O'Donnell's argument--his comparison of contemporary literate culture to earlier cultures of the papyrus roll, the codex, and the printed book--are familiar from other sources. But O'Donnell's profound and easy learning enables him to add fresh insights and examples on every issue.O'Donnell's strategy is to explain the meaning of electronic writing today through a series of historical resonances. Early chapters examine the passage from orality to literacy as represented by the contrasting philosophical presences of Socrates and Plato; the changing nature of the library from the Alexandrian through Cassiodorus and the medieval monastic library and on to the hopes for today's "virtual" library; and the techniques of reading and reference [End Page 334] afforded by various technologies from the papyrus roll to the codex to the homepage. In later chapters O'Donnell explores the nature of teaching and of the university today and speculates on their future, as electronic technologies become more important to the curriculum. His specialist's knowledge of late antiquity and the early Middle Ages permits him to concentrate on this crucial period, which witnessed the shift from papyrus roll to codex. The historian of the book Roger Chartier has also argued that this transfer from roll to codex is the most appropriate comparison for the current move from printed book to electronic text. O'Donnell devotes relatively little space to discussing the latest avatar, electronic technology itself; he concentrates instead on establishing the historical parallels.In short, what is usually lacking in discussions of electronic writing, an informed historical sense, is in ample supply in Avatars of the Word. O'Donnell is in general optimistic about the future of literate culture. His optimism seems to come precisely from his long historical view, which mitigates any feeling of panic over the current changes in the forms and practices of literacy. In this respect we might compare his cautious optimism with the less informed pessimism of Sven Birkerts in his Gutenberg Elegies (1994). O'Donnell is also sanguine about the role that electronic technology can play in education--not by replacing teachers, but rather by allowing instruction to become more individual.On the other hand, the historical sophistication of Avatars of the Word both defines and limits its audience. Enthusiasts like John Perry Barlow count their readers in the hundreds of thousands, precisely because they offer a high-energy narrative of the future that does not trouble itself about the past. The leisurely and reflective pace of O'Donnell's book will seem luxurious to most of the new media world. O'Donnell says that his audience are "those who read books and use computers and wonder about the relationship" (ix). But the audience is perhaps narrower: those who, like the readers of this journal, are steeped in literate culture. Even within that group, O'Donnell is really speaking to those who are not intimidated by or disdainful of computer technology.In addition to being a professor of... (shrink)

A new collection of John Perry's work celebrating his contributions to the philosophy of language.

John Perry offers a rethinking of Frege's seminal contributions to philosophy of language, which had a dominant influence on the subject in the twentieth century. He argues that Frege's famous doctrine of indirect reference led philosophers on a detour, and he advocates a move to a new framework for understanding reference.

RECENT STUDIES OF CHRISTIANITY'S RELATION TO LIBERAL POLITICS HAVE recognized the importance of specifying clearly what type of liberalism is being considered. Jeffrey Stout's critique is one such example. Unfortunately, Stout fails to engage the one thinker who arguably is the most influential in how Americans relate Christianity and politics: John Locke. Political arguments of today's Christians are premised, often unconsciously, on rival interpretations of Locke's political theology.

John Perry--author of the acclaimed _Dialogue on Personal Identity and Immortality_ --revisits Gretchen Weirob in this lively and absorbing dialogue on good, evil, and the existence of God. In the early part of the work, Gretchen and her friends consider whether evil provides a problem for those who believe in the perfection of God. As the discussion continues they consider the nature of human evil—whether, for example, fully rational actions can be intentionally evil. Recurring themes are the distinction (...) between natural evil and evil done by free agents, and the problems the Holocaust and other cases of genocide pose for conceptions of the universe as a basically good place, or humans as basically good beings. Once again, Perry’s ability to get at the heart of matters combines with his exemplary skill at writing the dialogue form. An ideal volume for introducing students to the subtleties and intricacies of philosophical discussion. (shrink)

This is a volume of philosophical studies, centred on problems of personal identity and extending to related topics in the philosophy of mind and moral philosophy.

No word in English is shorter than the word I.' And yet no word is more important in philosophy. When Descartes said I think therefore I am' he produced something that was both about himself and a universal formula. The word I' is called an indexical' because its meaning always depends on who says it. Other examples of indexicals are you,' here,' this' and now.' John Perry discusses how these kinds of words work, and why they express important (...) philosophical thoughts. He shows that indexicals pose a challenge to traditional assumptions about language and thought. Over the years a number of these papers, now included in this book, have sparked lively debates and have been influential in philosophy, linguistics and other areas of cognitive science. With seven new papers, including the previously unpublished What Are Indexicals?,' the present volume expands on an earlier version of this book published in the early nineties. Also included are the well-known papers Frege on Demonstratives,' Cognitive Significance and New Theories of Reference,' Evading the Slingshot,' The Prince and the Phone booth', Fodor on Psychological Explanations', and related papers on situation semantics, direct reference, and the structure of belief. This book also includes afterwords written by the author that discuss responses to his work by Gareth Evans, Robert Stalnaker, Barbara Partee, Howard Wettstein and others. (shrink)

John Perry revisits the cast of characters of his classic _A Dialogue on Personal Identity_ and Immortality in this absorbing dialogue on consciousness. Cartesian dualism, property dualism, materialism, the problem of other minds... Gretchen Weirob and her friends tackle these topics and more in a dialogue that exemplifies the subtleties and intricacies of philosophical reflection. Once again, Perry’s ability to use straightforward language to discuss complex issues combines with his mastery of the dialogue form. A Bibliography lists (...) relevant further readings keyed to topics discussed in the dialogue. A helpful Glossary provides a handy reference to terms used in the dialogue and an array of clarifying examples. (shrink)

Following his recently expanded _The Problem of the Essential Indexical and Other Essays,_ John Perry develops a reflexive-referential' account of indexicals, demonstratives and proper names. On these issues the philosophy of language in the twentieth century was shaped by two competing traditions, descriptivist and referentialist. Oddly, the classic referentialist texts of the 1970s by Kripke, Donnellan, Kaplan and others were seemingly refuted almost a century earlier by co-reference and no-reference problems raised by Russell and Frege. Perry's theory, (...) borrowing ideas from both traditions as well as from Burks and Reichenbach, diagnoses the problems as stemming from a fixation on a certain kind of content, coined referential or fully incremental. Referentialist tradition is portrayed as holding that indexicals contribute content that involves individuals without identifying conditions on them; descriptivist tradition is portrayed as holding that referential content does not explain all of the identifying conditions conveyed by names and indexicals. Perry reveals a coherent and structured family of contents — from reflexive contents that place conditions on their actual utterance to fully incremental contents that place conditions only on the objects of reference — reconciling the legitimate insights of both traditions. (shrink)

As the expansion of the Internet and the digital formatting of all kinds of creative works move us further into the information age, intellectual property issues have become paramount. Computer programs costing thousands of research dollars are now copied in an instant. People who would recoil at the thought of stealing cars, computers, or VCRs regularly steal software or copy their favorite music from a friend's CD. Since the Web has no national boundaries, these issues are international concerns. The contributors-philosophers, (...) legal theorists, and business scholars, among others-address questions such as: Can abstract ideas be owned? How does the violation of intellectual property rights compare to the violation of physical property rights? Can computer software and other digital information be protected? And how should legal systems accommodate the ownership of intellectual property in an information age? Intellectual Property is a lively examination of these and other issues, and an invaluable resource for librarians, lawyers, businesspeople, and scholars. (shrink)

This volume collects a number of Perry's classic works on personal identity as well as four new pieces, 'The Two Faces of Identity', 'Persons and Information', 'Self-Notions and The Self' and 'The Sense of Identity'. Perry's Introduction puts his own work and that of others on the issues of identity and personal identity in the context of philosophical studies of mind and language over the past thirty years.

In this paper, I shall defend Russell's view that Mont Blanc, with all of its snow elds, is a component part" or constituent of what is actually asserted when one utters Mont Blanc is more than 4000 meters high," and of what one believes, when one believes that Mont Blanc is 4000 meters high. I also claim, however, that a proposition that does not have Mont Blanc as a constituent plays an important role in the assertion and the belief that (...) Mont Blanc is more than 4000 meters high. Taken somewhat out of context, the quotes from Frege and Russell express insights that pull in di erent directions in the contemporary philosophy of language. Behind Frege's remark is the insight that reference is not direct but mediated. When we think and talk about things, our thoughts and words are not in direct contact with the things thought about and talked about. The meanings of our words, and the cognitive roles of our ideas, do not in and of themselves determine their reference. They get at objects via some aspects of.. (shrink)

A collection of twelve essays by John Perry and two essays he co-authored, this book deals with various problems related to "self-locating beliefs": the sorts of beliefs one expresses with indexicals and demonstratives, like "I" and "this." Postscripts have been added to a number of the essays discussing criticisms by authors such as Gareth Evans and Robert Stalnaker. Included with such well-known essays as "Frege on Demonstratives," "The Problem of the Essential Indexical," "From Worlds to Situations," and "The (...) Prince and the Phone Booth" are a number of important essays that have been less accessible and that discuss important aspects of Perry's views, referred to as "Critical Referentialism," on the philosophy of language and the philosophy of mind. (shrink)

En este libro, John Perry elabora una teoria "reflexivo-referencial" de los indexicos, los demostrativos y los nombres propios. La Filosofia del Lenguaje del siglo veinte se vio condicionada por dos tradiciones enfrentadas en torno a esos temas: el descriptivismo y el referencialismo. Los textos referecialistas clasicos de, entre otros, Saul Kripke, Keith Donnellan y David Kaplan son de los anos 70. Curiosamente, parece que ya habian sido refutados casi un siglo antes por los problemas de co-referencia y no-referencia (...) planteados por Frege y Russell. La teoria de Perry, que toma prestadas ideas de ambas tradiciones asi como de Burks y Reichenbach, situa el origen de los problemas en la atencion exclusiva a un tipo de contenido: el contenido llamado referencial o completamente incremental. La tradicion referencialista se caracteriza por la tesis de que los indexicos proporcionan un contenido que involucra a individuos pero no a sus condiciones de identificacion. La tradicion descriptivista se caracteriza por la tesis de que el contenido referencial no explica todas las condiciones de identificacion que ofrecen los nombres y los indexicos. Perry nos propone una familia coherente y estructurada de contenidos -desde contenidos reflexivos que imponen condiciones a la proferencia hasta contenidos completamente incrementales que ponen condiciones solo a los objetos de la referencia-que sirve para reconciliar lo mejor de ambas tradiciones. Book jacket. (shrink)

In §8 of his Begriffsschrift (1879), Gottlob Frege discusses issues related to identity. Frege begins his most famous essay, “On Sense and Denotation” (1892), published 13 years later, by criticizing the view advocated in §8. He returns to these issues in the concluding paragraph. Controversies continue over these important passages. We offer an interpretation and discuss some alternatives. We defend that in the Begriffsschrift, Frege does not hold that identity is a relation between signs. §8 of the Begriffsschrift is motivated (...) by the conflict between two different criteria for sameness of conceptual content of sentences. To resolve that conflict, Frege introduces ‘≡’ in §8 and, thus, circumstances with names as constituents. To the same end, in “On Sense and Denotation,” Frege introduces senses and Thoughts and abandons both ‘≡’ and circumstances. He solves what we call the Co-instantiation problem, and disregards, but does not solve, the Name problem. (shrink)

Perry argues that certain sorts of indexicals are 'essential', in the sense that they cannot be eliminated in favor of descriptions. This paper also introduces the influential idea that certain sorts of indexicals play a special role in thought, and have a special connection to action.

A defense of antecedent physicalism, which argues against the idea that if everything that goes on in the universe is physical, our consciousness and feelings ..

Contents PART I: INTRODUCTION 1 John Perry: The Problem of Personal Identity, 3 PART II: VERSIONS OF THE MEMORY THEORY 2 John Locke: Of Identity and ...

A frequent criticism of Richard Vallee’s “pluri-propositionalism” is that it multiplies propositions beyond necessity. I argue that this criticism, recently voiced by Robert Stanton and Arthur Sullivan, is based in misconceptions about propositions are and how they help us classify utterances and the mental states and events that lead to them, relying for the most part on extended discussions of examples.

Critical Pragmatics develops three ideas: language is a way of doing things with words; meanings of phrases and contents of utterances derive ultimately from human intentions; and language combines with other factors to allow humans to achieve communicative goals. In this book, Kepa Korta and John Perry explain why critical pragmatics provides a coherent picture of how parts of language study fit together within the broader picture of human thought and action. They focus on issues about singular reference, (...) that is, talk about particular things, places or people, which have played a central role in the philosophy of language for more than a century. They argue that attention to the 'reflexive' or 'utterance-bound' contents of utterances sheds new light on these old problems. Their important study proposes a new approach to pragmatics and should be of wide interest to philosophers of language and linguists. (shrink)

I argue for the consistency of frege's treatments of identity and number. Specifically, I argue that geach is wrong in suggesting that frege's insights about number should have led him to the doctrine of relative identity.

Recent critiques of methodological naturalism (MN) claim that it fails by conflicting with Christian belief and being insufficiently humble. We defend MN by tracing the real history of the debate, contending that the story as it is usually told is mythic. We show how MN works in practice, including among real scientists. The debate is a red herring. It only appears problematic because of confusion among its opponents about how scientists respond to experimental anomalies. We conclude by introducing our preferred (...) approach, Science‐Engaged Theology. (shrink)

Words stand for things of various kinds and for various kinds of things. Because words do this, the sentences made up of words mean what they do, and are capable of expressing our thoughts, our beliefs and conjectures, desires and wishes. This simple idea seems right to me, but it flies in the face of formidable authority. In a famous passage in “Reality without Reference,” Donald Davidson criticizes what he calls the “building-block theory:”.

Using an inductive methodology based on one key component of transitional justice--namely, truth commissions--African Truth Commissions and Transitional Justice attempts to place them within the context of other elements such as trials of human rights abusers, the strengths and weaknesses of amnesty, and the importance of memorialization.