_K. al-Manām_ by Ibn Abī al-Dunyā is a compendium of 350 Muslim dream narratives in Arabic. The English introduction examines the function of dreams in classical Arabic literature with a focus on dreams as a means of edification.

The authors respond to a letter by Mitchell Berger in the March‐April 2024 issue of the Hastings Center Report concerning their essay “Securing the Trustworthiness of the FDA to Build Public Trust in Vaccines.”.

There has been considerable puzzlement over how to respond to higher-order evidence. The existing dilemmas can be defused by adopting a ‘two-dimensional’ representation of doxastic attitudes which incorporates not only substantive uncertainty about which first-order state of affairs obtains but also the degree of conviction with which we hold the attitude. This makes it possible that in cases of higher-order evidence the evidence sometimes impacts primarily on our conviction, rather than our substantive uncertainty. I argue that such a two-dimensional representation (...) is naturally developed by making use of imprecise probabilities. (shrink)

A summary of Russell’s logical atomism, understood to include both a metaphysical view and a certain methodology for doing philosophy. The metaphysical view amounts to the claim that the world consists of a plurality of independently existing things exhibiting qualities and standing in relations. The methodological view recommends a process of analysis, whereby one attempts to define or reconstruct more complex notions or vocabularies in terms of simpler ones. The origins of this theory, and its influence and reception are also (...) discussed. (shrink)

Bioethicists influence practices and policies in medicine, science, and public health. However, little is known about bioethicists’ views. We recently surveyed 824 U.S. bioethicists on a wide range of ethical issues, including topics related to abortion, medical aid in dying, and resource allocation, among others. We also asked bioethicists about their demographic, religious, academic, and professional backgrounds. We find that bioethicists’ normative commitments predict their views on bioethical issues. We also find that, in important ways, bioethicists’ views do not align (...) with those of the U.S. public: for instance, bioethicists are more likely than members of the public to think abortion is ethically permissible but are less likely to believe compensating organ donors is. Our demographic results indicate the field of bioethics is far less diverse than the U.S. population—less diverse even than other academic disciplines—suggesting far more work needs to be done to build an inclusive field. (shrink)

Twelve years ago the British media got wind of a London gynecologist who performed an elective reduction on a twin pregnancy reducing it to a singleton. Perhaps not surprisingly, opinion on the moral status of twin reductions was divided. But in the last few years new evidence regarding the medical risks of twin pregnancies has emerged, suggesting that twin reductions are relevantly similar to the reductions performed on high‐end multi‐fetal pregnancies. This evidence has appeared to resolve the moral debate.In this (...) paper I look at the role of clinical evidence in medical ethics. In particular I examine the role of clinical evidence in determining what counts as a significant harm or risk. First, I challenge the extent to which these empirical claims are descriptive, suggesting instead that the evidence is to some degree normative in character. Second, I question whether such empirical claims should count as evidence for what are essentially difficult ethical decisions – a role they appear to play in the case of elective reductions. I will argue that they should not, primarily because the value‐laden nature of this evidence conceals much of what is ethically at stake. It is important to recognize that empirical evidence cannot be a substitute for ethical deliberation. (shrink)

Hierarchical Bayesian models (HBMs) provide an account of Bayesian inference in a hierarchically structured hypothesis space. Scientific theories are plausibly regarded as organized into hierarchies in many cases, with higher levels sometimes called ‘paradigms’ and lower levels encoding more specific or concrete hypotheses. Therefore, HBMs provide a useful model for scientific theory change, showing how higher‐level theory change may be driven by the impact of evidence on lower levels. HBMs capture features described in the Kuhnian tradition, particularly the idea that (...) higher‐level theories guide learning at lower levels. In addition, they help resolve certain issues for Bayesians, such as scientific preference for simplicity and the problem of new theories. *Received July 2009; revised October 2009. †To contact the authors, please write to: Leah Henderson, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 77 Massachusetts Avenue, 32D‐808, Cambridge, MA 02139; e‐mail: [email protected]. (shrink)

This book aims to develop certain aspects of Gottlob Frege’s theory of meaning, especially those relevant to intensional logic. It offers a new interpretation of the nature of senses, and attempts to devise a logical calculus for the theory of sense and reference that captures as closely as possible the views of the historical Frege. (The approach is contrasted with the less historically-minded Logic of Sense and Denotation of Alonzo Church.) Comparisons of Frege’s theory with those of Russell and others (...) are given. It is in the end shown that developing Frege’s theory in these ways reveals serious problems hitherto largely unnoticed, including those possibly rendering a Fregean intensional logic inconsistent even if his naïve class theory is excluded. (shrink)

Two of the most influential theories about scientific inference are inference to the best explanation and Bayesianism. How are they related? Bas van Fraassen has claimed that IBE and Bayesianism are incompatible rival theories, as any probabilistic version of IBE would violate Bayesian conditionalization. In response, several authors have defended the view that IBE is compatible with Bayesian updating. They claim that the explanatory considerations in IBE are taken into account by the Bayesian because the Bayesian either does or should (...) make use of them in assigning probabilities to hypotheses. I argue that van Fraassen has not succeeded in establishing that IBE and Bayesianism are incompatible, but that the existing compatibilist response is also not satisfactory. I suggest that a more promising approach to the problem is to investigate whether explanatory considerations are taken into account by a Bayesian who assigns priors and likelihoods on his or her own terms. In this case, IBE would emerge from the Bayesian account, rather than being used to constrain priors and likelihoods. I provide a detailed discussion of the case of how the Copernican and Ptolemaic theories explain retrograde motion, and suggest that one of the key explanatory considerations is the extent to which the explanation a theory provides depends on its core elements rather than on auxiliary hypotheses. I then suggest that this type of consideration is reflected in the Bayesian likelihood, given priors that a Bayesian might be inclined to adopt even without explicit guidance by IBE. The aim is to show that IBE and Bayesianism may be compatible, not because they can be amalgamated, but rather because they capture substantially similar epistemic considerations. 1 Introduction2 Preliminaries3 Inference to the Best Explanation4 Bayesianism5 The Incompatibilist View : Inference to the Best Explanation Contradicts Bayesianism5. 1 Criticism of the incompatibilist view6 Constraint - Based Compatibilism6. 1 Criticism of constraint - based compatibilism7 Emergent Compatibilism7. 1 Analysis of inference to the best explanation7. 1. 1 Inference to the best explanation on specific hypotheses7. 1. 2 Inference to the best explanation on general theories7. 1. 3 Copernicus versus Ptolemy7. 1. 4 Explanatory virtues7. 1. 5 Summary7. 2 Bayesian account8 Conclusion. (shrink)

Certain consequentialists have responded to deontological worries regarding personal projects or options and agent-centered restrictions or constraints by pointing out that it is consistent with consequentialist principles that people develop within themselves, dispositions to act with such things in mind, even if doing so does not lead to the best consequences on every occasion. This paper argues that making this response requires shifting the focus of moral evaluation off of evaluation of individual actions and towards evaluation of whole character traits (...) and patterns of behavior. However, this weds consequentialism to a sort of psychological determinism, with which it is incompatible, because it makes any sort of assessment in terms of right or wrong incoherent. The paper concludes by sketching an ethical theory that abandons right and wrong as its organizing concepts, but nevertheless preserves much of the spirit of consequentialism. Relationships between whole patterns of behavior and the production of good and bad consequences can be studied and analyzed, and this information can be used to improve society and ourselves, without it being required that any individual persons acts or dispositions to behave be evaluated as right or wrong. (shrink)

In his recent article “Ethical Criteria for Health-Promoting Nudges: A Case-by-Case Analysis,” Bart Engelen (2019) develops a useful framework for evaluating health-related nudges in an attempt to...

In this paper, we study discourses of emotion management on the reality television show Survivor. We analyze segments of the program that feature emotionally charged interactional moments and examine how these interactions are interwoven with contestants’ confessional interviews and framed by the narrator’s introductions of the segments. In a two part analysis, we first analyze the talk produced by the contestants and the host as individual texts, using a discourse analytic perspective that focuses on the details of the talk itself. (...) We then consider the ways the talk constitutes a series of layered texts and analyze these texts, using a discourse analytic approach that attends to macro-level and critical perspectives. We conclude that Survivor largely reinforces dominant cultural discourses of emotion management as strategic interactional practice that allow a person to be competitive. Furthermore, the analysis links performances of emotion management to representations of specific aspects of contestants’ social identities. (shrink)

Shenker has claimed that Von Neumann's argument for identifying the quantum mechanical entropy with the Von Neumann entropy, S() = – ktr( log ), is invalid. Her claim rests on a misunderstanding of the idea of a quantum mechanical pure state. I demonstrate this, and provide a further explanation of Von Neumann's argument.

Philosophers and others have questioned whether or not expertise in morality is possible. This debate is not only theoretical, but also affects the perceived legitimacy of clinical ethicists. One argument against moral expertise is that in a pluralistic society with competing moral theories no one can claim expertise regarding what another ought morally to do. There are simply too many reasonable moral values and intuitions that affect theory choice and its application; expertise is epistemically uniform. In this article, we discuss (...) how similar concerns have recently threatened to undermine expertise in medicine and science. In contrast, we argue that the application of values is needed to exercise medical, scientific, and moral expertise. As long as these values are made explicit, worries about a pretense to authority in the context of a liberal democracy are ill-conceived. In conclusion, we argue for an expertise that is epistemically diverse. (shrink)

Patient-reported outcome measures (PROMs) are increasingly used to assess multiple facets of healthcare, including effectiveness, side effects of treatment, symptoms, health care needs, quality of care, and the evaluation of health care options. There are thousands of these measures and yet there is very little discussion of their theoretical underpinnings. In her 2008 Presidential address to the Society for Quality of Life Research (ISOQoL), Professor Donna Lamping challenged researchers to grapple with the theoretical issues that arise from these measures. In (...) this paper, I attempt to do so by arguing for an analogy between PROMs and Hans-Georg Gadamer’s logic of question and answer. While researchers readily admit that the constructs involved in PROMs are imperfectly understood and lack a gold standard, they often ignore the consequences of this fact. Gadamer’s work on questions and their importance to philosophical hermeneutics helps to show that the questions researchers ask about such constructs are also imperfectly understood. I argue that these questions should not be standardized, and I instead propose a theoretical framework that understands PROMs as posing genuine questions to respondents—questions that are open to reinterpretation. (shrink)

Journal of Political Philosophy, EarlyView.

The need for greater privacy protections in the United States has never been greater. In their work, “Ethical Responsibilities for Companies That Process Personal Data”, McCoy et al. (2023) correct...

ObjectivesTo explore the objectives and outcomes most appropriate for evaluating clinical ethics support services (CESs) in the USA.MethodsA three-round e-Delphi was sent to two professional medical ethics listservs (Medical College of Wisconsin-Bioethics and American Society for Bioethics and Humanities) as well as 19 individual experts. The survey originally contained 15 objectives and 9 outcomes. In round 1, participants were asked to validate the content of these lists. In round 2, we had 17 objectives and 10 outcomes, and participants were asked (...) to rank them for appropriateness in a top 10 list of objectives and a top 5 list of outcomes.ResultsParticipants came to a high(at least 70%) level of agreement on seven objectives: mediate, educate, develop policy, improve the moral quality of a decision or action, counsel, create a moral space and manage moral distress. Participants came to a moderate (at least 51%) level of agreement on three objectives: empower, awareness of ethics and preventative ethics. Participants also came to a moderate (at least 51%) level of agreement on five outcomes: ethical justification, transformation of institution, improvement of quality of life, principled consensus and satisfaction with the expertise of a CES.ConclusionThis e-Delphi identified 10 objectives and 5 outcomes that are a good starting point for developing outcome measures to evaluate CESs in the USA, while reminding us of the diversity of perspectives still evident in the field. (shrink)

These essays engage Jin Y. Park’s recent translation of the work of Kim Iryŏp, a Buddhist nun and public intellectual in early twentieth-century Korea. Park’s translation of Iryŏp’s Reflections of a Zen Buddhist Nun was the subject of two book panels at recent conferences: the first a plenary session at the annual meeting of the Society for Asian and Comparative Philosophy and the second at the Eastern Division of the American Philosophical Association on a group program session sponsored by the (...) International Society for Buddhist Philosophy. This exchange also includes a response from Park. (shrink)

There has been much philosophical interest regarding the ‘hierarchy of evidence’ used to determine which study designs are of most value for reporting on questions of effectiveness, prognosis, and so on. There has been much less philosophical interest in the choice of outcome measures with which the results of, say, an RCT or a cohort study are presented. In this paper, we examine the FDA’s recently published guidelines for assessing the psychometric adequacy of patient-reported outcome measures. We focus on their (...) recommendations for demonstrating content validity and also for how researchers should weigh up the sum of psychometric evidence when choosing these measures. We argue that questions regarding judgment and understanding meaning of these measures should play a more central role in determining their adequacy. (shrink)

Robert Fogelin has argued that in deep disagreements, resolution cannot be achieved by rational argumentation. In response, Richard Feldman has claimed that deep disagreements can be resolved in a similar way to more everyday disagreements. I argue that Feldman’s claim is based on a relatively superficial notion of “resolution” of a disagreement whereas the notion at stake in Fogelin’s argument is more substantive. Furthermore, I argue that Feldman’s reply is based on a particular reading of Fogelin’s argument. There is an (...) alternative reading, which takes the central concern to be the role of common ground in argumentation. Engaging with this version of Fogelin’s argument is also a worthwhile endeavour. (shrink)

Health-related quality of life measures aim to assess patients’ subjective experience in order to gauge an increasingly wide variety of health care issues such as patient needs; satisfaction; side effects; quality of care; disease progression and cost effectiveness. Their popularity is undoubtedly due to a larger initiative to provide patient-centered care. The use of patient perspectives to guide health care improvements and spending is rooted in the idea that we must respect patients as self-determining agents. In this paper I look (...) at the two main orientations to quality of life measurement: standardized and individualized measures. I argue that while these measures are attempts to provide for patient self-determination, they both fail to do so. In their place I suggest a new approach which overcomes their respective difficulties: a dialogic approach. (shrink)

Certain advocates of the so-called “neo-logicist” movement in the philosophy of mathematics identify themselves as “neo-Fregeans” (e.g., Hale and Wright), presenting an updated and revised version of Frege’s form of logicism. Russell’s form of logicism is scarcely discussed in this literature and, when it is, often dismissed as not really logicism at all (in light of its assumption of axioms of infinity, reducibility and so on). In this paper I have three aims: firstly, to identify more clearly the primary meta-ontological (...) and methodological differences between Russell’s logicism and the more recent forms; secondly, to argue that Russell’s form of logicism offers more elegant and satisfactory solutions to a variety of problems that continue to plague the neo-logicist movement (the bad company objection, the embarrassment of richness objection, worries about a bloated ontology, etc.); thirdly, to argue that neo-Russellian forms of logicism remain viable positions for current philosophers of mathematics. (shrink)

Background In 2001 a report on the provision of clinical ethics support in UK healthcare institutions identified 20 clinical ethics committees. Since then there has been no systematic evaluation or documentation of their work at a national level. Recent national surveys of clinical ethics services in other countries have identified wide variation in practice and scope of activities. Objective To describe the current provision of ethics support in the UK and its development since 2001. Method A postal/electronic questionnaire survey administered (...) to the chairs of all 82 clinical ethics services registered with the UK Clinical Ethics Network in July 2010. Results Response rate was 62% with the majority of responding services situated in acute trusts. All services included a clinical ethics committee with one service also having a clinical ethicist. Lay members were present in 72% of responding committees. Individual case consultation has increased since 2001 with 29% of chairs spending more than 50% of their time on this. Access to and involvement in the process of case consultation is less for patients and families than for clinical staff. There is wide variation in committee processes and levels of institutional support. Over half of the responding committees undertook some form of evaluation. Conclusion Clinical ethics services in the UK are increasing as is their involvement in case consultation. However, the significant variation in committee processes suggests that further qualitative research is needed to understand how these committees function and the role they play in their institution. (shrink)

In the classic study Little science, big science (New York: Columbia University Press, 1963), Derek Price traces the historical shift from what he calls little science?exemplified by early?modern ?invisible colleges? of scientific amateurs and enthusiasts engaged in small?scale, informal interactions and personal correspondence?to 20th?century big science, dominated by professional scientists and wealthy institutions, where scientific information (primarily in print form and its analogues) was mass?produced, marketed and circulated on a global scale. This article considers whether the growing use of more (...) participatory, interactive ?Web 2.0? technologies and social media in science today (e.g. wikis, blogs, tagging and bookmarking, conferencing, etc.) may signal a revival of little science modes of communication that contrast with big science conventions that continue to dominate research policy, scientific institutions, and the publishing industry. A brief historical review of responses to the scientific ?information explosion? since the early 1900s is presented, with a particular focus on the idealization of large?scale, automated information systems and the privileging of formal (document?producing) over informal (interpersonal) modes of scientific communication. Alternative frameworks for scientific communication that incorporate both documents and interaction are used to examine contemporary examples of so?called Science 2.0 and citizen science projects to determine whether such projects indicate the emergence of new modes of communication in science that bridge the immediacy and involvement of invisible colleges and the rigor of peer?reviewed publishing. The implications for traditional documentary forms such as the journal article are also discussed. (shrink)

In many countries, health technology assessment organizations determine the economic value of new drugs and make recommendations regarding appropriate pricing and coverage in national health systems. In the US, recent policy proposals aimed at reducing drug costs would link drug prices to six countries: Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Japan, and the UK. We reviewed these countries’ methods of HTA and guidance on price and coverage recommendations, analyzing methods and guidance documents for differences in the methodologies HTA organizations use to conduct (...) their evaluations and considerations they use when making recommendations. We found important differences in the methods, interpretations of HTA findings, and condition-specific carve-outs that HTA organizations use to conduct evaluations and make recommendations. These variations have ethical implications because they influence the recommendations of HTA organizations, which affect access to the drug through national insurance and price negotiations with manufacturers. The differences in HTA approaches result from the distinct political, social, and cultural contexts of each organization and its value judgments. New cost-containment policies in the US should consider the ethical implications of the HTA reviews that they are considering relying on to negotiate drug prices and what values should be included in US pricing policy. (shrink)

Epistemic injustice sits at the intersection of ethics, epistemology, and social justice. Generally, this philosophical term describes when a person is wrongfully discredited as a knower; and within the clinical space, epistemic injustice is the underlying reason that some patient testimonies are valued above others. The following essay seeks to connect patterns of social prejudice to the clinical realm in the United States: illustrating how factors such as race, gender identity, and socioeconomic status influence epistemic credence and associatively, the quality (...) of healthcare a person receives. After describing how epistemic injustice disproportionately harms already vulnerable patients, I propose a narrative therapy intervention. This intervention can help providers re-frame their relationships with patients, in such that they come to view patients as valuable sources of unique knowledge. Though I identify this intervention as a valuable step in addressing clinical epistemic injustice, I call upon medical educators and practitioners to further uplift the voices, perspectives, and stories of marginalized patients. (shrink)

Expanding the scope of existential discourse beyond the Western tradition, this book engages Asian philosophies to reassess vital questions of life's purpose, death's imminence, and our capacity for living meaningfully in conditions of uncertainty. Inspired by European existentialism in theory, the book explores concrete techniques for existential practice via the philosophies of East Asia. The investigation begins with the provocative existential writings of twentieth-century Korean Buddhist nun Kim Iryop, who asserts that meditative concentration conducts a potent energy outward throughout the (...) entire karmic network, enabling the radical transformation of our shared existential conditions. Understanding her claim requires a study of East Asian traditions more broadly. Considering practices as diverse as Song-dynasty Chinese views on mental cultivation, Buddhist merit-making ceremonies, the ritual memorization and recitation of texts, and Yijing divination, the book concludes by advocating a speculative turn. This 'speculative existentialism' counters the suspicion toward metaphysics characteristic of twentieth-century European existential thought and, at the same time, advances a program for action. It is not a how-to guide for living, but rather a philosophical methodology that takes seriously the power of mental cultivation to transform the meaning of the life that we share. (shrink)

In 1903, in _The Principles of Mathematics_ (_PoM_), Russell endorsed an account of classes whereupon a class fundamentally is to be considered many things, and not one, and used this thesis to explicate his first version of a theory of types, adding that it formed the logical justification for the grammatical distinction between singular and plural. The view, however, was short-lived; rejected before _PoM_ even appeared in print. However, aside from mentions of a few misgivings, there is little evidence about (...) why he abandoned this view. In this paper, I speculate as to what those reasons were, and evaluate them in light of recent work and interest in plural logic. (shrink)

This chapter explores the metaphysical views about higher-order logic held by two individuals responsible for introducing it to philosophy: Gottlob Frege (1848–1925) and Bertrand Russell (1872–1970). Frege understood a function at first as the remainder of the content of a proposition when one component was taken out or seen as replaceable by others, and later as a mapping between objects. His logic employed second-order quantifiers ranging over such functions, and he saw a deep division in nature between objects and functions. (...) Russell understood propositional functions as what is obtained when constituents of propositions are replaced by variables, but eventually denied that they were entities in their own right. Both encountered contradictions when supposing there to exist as many objects as functions, and both adopted views about the meaningfulness of higher-order discourse that were difficult to state from within their own strictures. (shrink)

One of philosophy’s oldest paradoxes is the apparent contradiction between the great triumphs and the dramatic failures of the human mind. The same organism that routinely solves inferential problems too subtle and complex for the mightiest computer often makes errors in the simplest of judgments about everyday events. (Nisbett and Ross 1980, p. xi).

The Covid‐19 pandemic highlighted the need to examine public trust in the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) vaccine approval process and the role of political influence in the FDA's decisions. Ensuring that the FDA is itself trustworthy is important for justifying public trust in its actions, like vaccine approvals, thereby promoting public health. We propose five conditions of trustworthiness that the FDA should meet when it reviews vaccines, even during emergencies: consistency with rules, proper expert or political decision‐makers, proper (...) decision‐making and noninterference, connection to public preference, and transparency of both reasons and procedures. The five conditions provide a road map of procedural and substantive requirements, which the FDA has variably implemented, focused on ensuring appropriate influence of political interests. While being a trustworthy agency cannot guarantee the public's trust, implementing these conditions builds a groundwork for public trust. (shrink)

Recent advances in natural language generation (NLG), such as public accessibility to ChatGPT, have sparked polarised debates about the societal impact of this technology. Popular discourse tends towards either overoptimistic hype that touts the radically transformative potentials of these systems or pessimistic critique of their technical limitations and general ‘stupidity’. Surprisingly, these debates have largely overlooked the exegetical capacities of these systems, which for many users seem to be producing meaningful texts. In this paper, we take an interdisciplinary approach that (...) combines hermeneutics—the study of meaning and interpretation—with prompt engineering—task descriptions embedded in input to NLG systems—to study the extent to which a specific NLG system, ChatGPT, produces texts of hermeneutic value. We design prompts with the goal of optimising hermeneuticity rather than mere factual accuracy, and apply them in four different use cases combining humans and ChatGPT as readers and writers. In most cases, ChatGPT produces readable texts that respond clearly to our requests. However, increasing the specificity of prompts’ task descriptions leads to texts with intensified neutrality, indicating that ChatGPT’s optimisation for factual accuracy may actually be detrimental to the hermeneuticity of its output. (shrink)

While influential works have been devoted to comparative studies of various Asian philosophies and continental philosophers such as Nietzsche, Heidegger, Merleau-Ponty, and Derrida, this collection is the first to fully treat the increased interest in intercultural and interdisciplinary studies related to the work of Emmanuel Levinas in such a context. Levinas and Asian Thought seeks to discover common ground between Levinas’s ethical project and various religious and philosophical traditions of Asia such as Mahāyāna Buddhism, Theravādic Buddhism, Vedism, Confucianism, Daoism, and (...) Islam. -/- In these 13 essays, contributors draw on resources as diverse as the self-sacrificial ethic of bushidō, Islamic jurisprudence, and contemporary research in cognitive science. The essays are organized around three primary themes of enduring ethical, political, and religious importance. The first set of essays considers a dialogue between Levinasian and Asian accounts of the self, others, and the intersubjective relationship. Through a conversation with a variety of non-Western traditions, the second group of essays addresses the question of Levinas’s extreme portrayal of the self’s responsibility to the other and its potential limits. Finally, the collection ends with essays that utilize Asian thought and culture to consider ways in which Levinas’s ethics of alterity might be put into practice in the sphere of politics, social norms, and institutions. -/- Levinas and Asian Thought is not only a comprehensive attempt to bring Levinas into conversation with the philosophies of Asia, but it also represents a focused effort to recognize, address, and overcome Levinas’s own Eurocentrism. Overall, the thoughtful investigations collected here chart new territory, pushing Levinas’s practice of philosophy outside its familiar European and Jewish contexts, expanding our understanding of key Levinasian terms, thus furthering the thinking necessary for ethics as first philosophy. This volume will be of interest to a wide range of scholars and students, as it builds connections among Levinas studies, Asian philosophy, comparative philosophy, continental philosophy, and ethics. (shrink)

Since the 1970’s epidemiological measures focusing on “health-related quality of life” or simply “quality of life” have figured increasingly as endpoints in clinical trials. Before the 1970’s these measures were known, generically, as performance measures or health status measures. Relabeled as “quality of life measures” they were first used in cancer trials. In the early 2000’s they were relabeled again as “patient-reported outcome measures” or PROMs, in their service to the FDA to support drug labeling claims. To the limited degree (...) that the philosophical literature addresses these measures, it tends to associate them with two major theories of well-being: subjective well-being and the capabilities approach. In this paper, I argue that philosophers ought to treat quality of life measures/proms as a distinct from these theories. I argue that quality of life/proms serve healthcare as vehicles for patient-centered care and this has important consequences for how we theorize these measures. To this end, two requirements set them apart from measures of subjective well-being and the capabilities approach: quality of life/proms need to be patient-directed and inclusive. (shrink)

BackgroundThe main purpose of this study was to describe the latent structure of pregnancy perception by investigating the role of risks and medical examinations in pregnancy perception across the sexes and pregnancy status.MethodsStudy 1 developed a questionnaire based on the responses of 29 young adults on their perception of pregnancy. Study 2 consisted of distributing the questionnaire among 290 participants.ResultsThe statistical clustering analysis revealed three major clusters of pregnancy perceptions: “evaluative,” “physio-medical,” and “future considerations,” each of them encompassing several meaningful (...) sub-clusters. This structure of pregnancy perceptions supports Beck and Beck-Gernsheim’s modernization approach. Negative emotions toward pregnancy were related to social cognitions, whereas thoughts about risks were included in the medical sub-cluster. After reliability analyses, comparisons of scale scores revealed that women experienced more positive emotions, thought more about physical symptoms and about future issues compared to men.ConclusionPregnant participants felt less ambivalence toward pregnancy, thought more about risks and medical examinations and less about parents’ duties than non-pregnant participants. (shrink)

This paper proposes that Dickens’s Bleak House is symptomatic of a so-called social realm, in which neither oikos nor polis exists as a distinct, autonomous entity; therefore, neither can offer sanctuary or adequately discharge the historical role of the household – maintaining life. In this zone of indistinction, the symbolic structures of London’s law have become the city’s physical structures, leading to symptoms like Jo the outlaw, whose illness and death is attributed to the failure of both the polis and (...) the oikos – the city’s legal housekeeping and the law-as-house, respectively – to maintain life. London’s law has become so immanent that it takes on the role of religion, thus precluding God’s transcendence. Ultimately, the novel recoils from London’s threatening presence and attempts to inter the nineteenth-century anxieties associated with the city – anxieties centering around the law both as structure and religion – through redemptive repetition: Bleak House attempts to wrest the oikos from the clutches of the polis. But despite the novel’s efforts, as the divisions between oikos and polis collapse, it is ultimately impossible for either sphere to retain any semblance of itself. As a result, retreat from the polis to the oikos is impossible: there are no longer well-defined domains – of oikos or polis – into which to retreat in the growing indistinction of the social realm. (shrink)

Volume 19, Issue 7, July 2019, Page 64-65.

Although the two opening chapters of Diana Arghirescu’s Interrelatedness in Chinese Religious Traditions cover Western theorists of religion from Emile Durkheim and Max Weber to John Hick and Ninia...