It is widely believed that the semantic function of an ordinary proper name (e.g. 'Aristotle') is inexplicable in terms of the semantic function of an ordinary definite description (e.g. 'the last great ancient philosopher'), given a Russellian analysis of the latter. This paper questions this belief by suggesting a possible semantic explication. In brief, I propose that an ordinary proper name is a mere placeholder for an arbitrary ordinary definite description true of a given individual. The proposal is set out (...) and justified in detail, as well as compared with both traditional description theories of ordinary proper names and the theory that an ordinary proper name just means its referent. I contend that the proposed theory is better than the former sort of theory, and at least as good as the latter one. (shrink)

Large-scale data systems are increasingly envisioned as tools for justice, with big data analytics offering a key opportunity to advance health equity. Health systems face growing public pressure to collect data on patient “social factors,” and advocates and public officials seek to leverage such data sources as a means of system transformation. Despite the promise of this “data-driven” strategy, there is little empirical work that examines big data in action directly within the sites of care expected to transform. In this (...) article, I present a case study on one such initiative, focusing on a large public safety-net health system’s initiation of sexual orientation and gender identity data collection within the clinical setting. Drawing from ethnographic fieldwork and in-depth interviews with providers, staff, and administrators, I highlight three main challenges that elude big data’s grasp on inequality: provider and staff’s limited understanding of the social significance of data collection; patient perception of the cultural insensitivity of data items; and clinic need to balance data requests with competing priorities within a constrained time window. These issues reflect structural challenges within safety-net care that big data alone are unable to address in advancing social justice. I discuss these findings by considering the present data-driven strategy alongside two complementary courses of action: diversifying the health professions workforce and clinical education reform. To truly advance justice, we need more than “just data”: we need to confront the fundamental conditions of social inequality. (shrink)

Este artículo, producto de un proyecto financiado por la Fundación Cajacanariasy la Asociación Cultural TuSantaCruz, analiza las perspectivas juveniles acerca de la realidad social, política y económica que marcan las diferentes trayectorias de vida de la juventud que habita en Santa Cruz de Tenerife. El uso del concepto de joven que hacemos en este trabajo es más abierto de lo habitual, pues concebimos que la juventud es una categoría social atravesada por cuestiones como el origen social, el nivel (...) de estudios y la clase social, por lo que no es un colectivo caracterizado únicamente por un aspecto biológico-generacional. La metodología utilizada es de tipo cualitativa, concretamente se ha empleado la técnica denominada grupos de discusión.This article, that was a product of a project funded by the Cajacanarias Foundation and the TuSantaCruz Cultural Association, analyzes the youth perspectives of the social, political and economic realities that affect at different life trajectories of youth that lives in Santa Cruz de Tenerife. Note that the use made of the concept of youth is more open than usual, because in this communication we conceive that youth is a social category traversed by issues such as social origin, educational level and social class, so this group is not only a group characterized by biological-generational relationships. The methodology used is qualitative, specifically we have used the technique called focus groups. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Narrative Symposium:Conflicting Interests in MedicineLaura Jean Bierut, Sal Cruz-Flores, Laura E. Hodges, Anthony A. Mikulec, Govind K. Nagaldinne, Erine L. Bakanas, John F. Peppin, Joel S. Perlmutter, William H. Seitz Jr., Edward Diao, Andre N. Sofair, and David M. Zientek• To Recruit or Not to Recruit for a Clinical Trial• An Unexpected Lesson• Am I on call for the entire Midwest?• Why is Medicare Wasting Away?• The Downside (...) of the Informed Consent Juggernaut• Expert Testimony at the Food and Drug Administration: Who Wants the Truth?• Crossroads: The Intersection of Personal, Professional Society, and Industry Relationships• A Change of Heart• The Evolution of Conflicts of Interest in a New Subspecialty: A Case Study of the Development of Interventional CardiologyCopyright © 2011 The Johns Hopkins University Press... (shrink)

If the opening sequence of a film is a microscopic 'event' that achieves far more than setting the tone and whetting the appetite for what we are about to see, then Todd Haynes' I'm Not There is exemplary. This paper works its way through the conceptually dense and intricately woven textual layers of the film's opening to stage a three-way dialogue between Haynes, Bob Dylan and Jacques Derrida: three mavericks who defy simple categorisation, by transgressing the boundaries of their respective (...) fields (song writing, cinema and philosophy). By introducing Derrida's deconstructive logic of hauntology as a strategy for reading Haynes' biopic on Dylan, the figure of the ghost is called upon to situate the quest for an identity's authenticity as a perennial, irresolvable problem in song, cinema and philosophy. Belonging to a time that is neither past nor present, a place that is neither here nor there, the ghost offers the perfect medium to join Haynes, Dylan and Derrida in (re)thinking identity in terms that respond to a call (in the name of art, justice and truth, among other things) that is not based on an unyielding conception of authenticity. (shrink)

Rationalization in the sense of biased self-justification is very familiar. It's not cheating because everyone else is doing it too. I didn't report the abuse because it wasn't my place. I understated my income this year because I paid too much in tax last year. I'm only a social smoker, so I won't get cancer. The mental mechanisms subserving rationalization have been studied closely by psychologists. However, when viewed against the backdrop of philosophical accounts of the regulative role of truth (...) in doxastic deliberation , rationalization can look very puzzling. Almost all contemporary philosophers endorse a version of the thesis of deliberative exclusivity—a thinker cannot in full consciousness decide whether to believe that p in a way that issues directly in forming a belief by adducing anything other than considerations that he or she regards as relevant to the truth of p. But, as I argue, rationalization involves the weighing of considerations that the thinker kn.. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Feminist Studies 41, no. 2. © 2015 by Feminist Studies, Inc. 409 Ariane Cruz Beyond Black and Blue: BDSM, Internet Pornography, and Black Female Sexuality I have been the meaning of rape I have been the problem everyone seeks to eliminate by forced penetration with or without the evidence of slime and/ but let this be unmistakable in this poem is not consent I do not consent —June (...) Jordan, Poem about My Rights Introduction: The Evidence of Slime Slavery, itself a kind of “slime,” remains an active marketplace for the production of Black female sexuality and its representations.1 The impact of chattel slavery and the pervasive rape of Black female slaves on modern 1. In using the term “Black women,” I am referring to African American women for whom the history of chattel slavery in the Americas has produced the socio-historical conditions that uniquely inform Black female subjectivity and sexual politics. My use of this term is not to essentialize Black American womanhood; rather, like Black feminist scholar Patricia Hill Collins, I use the term to gesture to a Black women’s standpoint influenced by the condition and experience of gendered and racialized abjection, a “common experience of being Black women in a society that denigrates women of African descent.” Patricia Hill Collins, Black Feminist Thought: Knowledge, Consciousness and the Politics of Empowerment (London: Routledge, 1990), 22. In this essay, I focus on Black women who practice BDSM, a small but nonetheless heterogeneous group of women in the already-marginalized larger kink community. 410 Ariane Cruz constructions and representations of Black women has been well theorized, in particular by a number of Black feminist scholars who have worked to rupture what Darlene Clark Hine terms the “culture of dissemblance,” the politics of silence shrouding expressions of Black female sexuality.2 While the antebellum legacy of sexual violence on Black women is substantive, what has not been effectively considered is how Black women deliberately employ the shadows of slavery in the deliverance and/or receiving of sexual pleasure. That is, how the “slime”—a staining sludge of pain and violence—becomes a type of lubricant to stimulate sexual fantasies, access sexual pleasure, and heighten sexual desire. In this paper, I explore how Black women facilitate a complex and contradictory negotiation of pain, pleasure, and power in their performances in the fetish realm of BDSM.3 Situating my analysis in the context of hardcore BDSM Internet pornography and the controversial praxis of race play, I argue that BDSM is a critical site from which to reimagine the formative links between Black female sexuality and violence. Race play is a BDSM practice that explicitly uses race to script power exchange and the dynamics of domination and submission. Most commonly an interracial erotic play, race play employs racism, often involving the exchange of racist language, role-playing, and the construction of racist scenes. Eroticizing not just racism, but the miscegenation taboo, racial difference, and (hyper) 2. See Darlene Clark Hine, “Rape and the Inner Lives of Black Women in the Middle West,” Signs 14, no. 4 (1989): 912–920. For more on Black female slave sexual assault and its aftermath, see Hazel V. Carby, Reconstructing Womanhood: The Emergence of the Afro-American Woman Novelist (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1987); Ann duCille, “‘Othered’ Matters: Reconceptualizing Dominance and Difference in the History of Sexuality in America,” Journal of the History of Sexuality 1, no. 1 (1990): 102–27; Elsa Barkley Brown, “Imaging Lynching: African American Women, Communities of Struggle, and Collective Memory,” in African American Women Speak Out on Anita Hill-Clarence Thomas, ed. Geneva Smitherman (Detroit, MI: Wayne State University Press, 1995), 100–24; and Cheryl Harris, “Whiteness As Property,” Harvard Law Review 106, no. 8 (June 1993): 1707–91. 3. BDSM is an umbrella term that stands in for bondage/discipline (B/D), domination /submission (D/S), and sadism/masochism or sadomasochism (S/M). For the purposes of this paper I exchange S/M, S&M, and/or SM with the more contemporary label BDSM. For more about the terminology of BDSM, see Margot Weiss, Techniques of Pleasure: BDSM and the Circuits of Sexuality (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2011). Ariane Cruz 411 racialization itself... (shrink)

(in lieu of abstract, first paragraphs here) For philosophers, reading Richard Dawkins is often a frustrating experience. Many of Dawkins’ writings treat important philosophical topics, such as the existence of God, the meaning of life, the relationship of randomness to order. Dawkins has original ideas, but he lacks the philosophical training and vocabulary to articulate these ideas properly and to develop them coherently. In Believing in Dawkins, Eric Steinhart sets himself an ambitious task: to use the writings of Dawkins to (...) present a coherent, naturalistic alternative to religious metaphysics, specifically to Christian theism. Using an architectural metaphor, he summarizes the project of Believing in Dawkins as follows -/- It is helpful to think of the Dawkinsian texts in architectural terms. His fragmentary sketches for spiritual naturalism are like architectural drawings. Sometimes they depict little windows, while other times they portray enormous spires reaching towards the stars. The edifice is vast. But these architectural diagrams are often unclear, incomplete, and inconsistent. I want to clarify them, fill in their missing parts, and resolve their conflicts. So I’m using his writings to construct a novel building. … To fit his fragmentary plans into a coherent and self-supporting structure, I will add some large-scale frameworks (10). -/- Steinhart’s wide-ranging book covers many topics: complexity, ontology, possibility, humanity, spirituality, among many others. He does not sneak theism into Dawkins’ writings. In fact, Steinhart argues that many practices and ideas that he uses to construct the edifice of Dawkins’ spiritual naturalism have been hijacked by theism, such as the notion of an afterlife, sacredness, holiness, and even the notion of gratitude. (shrink)

In one of the more compelling introductions to philosophy, Bertrand Russell begins with this question: “Is there any knowledge in the world that is so certain that no reasonable man could doubt it?” (Presumably he means to include women.) “So certain that no reasonable man could doubt it.” And it’s a good question to begin an introduction to philosophy with, because so often, philosophy is in the mode of skepticism, so often it’s in the mode of offering a critical assessment (...) of conventional wisdom. So, Russell wonders, is there anything so certain that no reasonable man could doubt it. And when we embark on this question, I suppose we have to ask about the question itself, we have to wonder what Russell’s talking about—right? We have to wonder what certainty is. So, what is certainty? It can’t merely be powerful confidence, it can’t merely be something like the assurance that we feel for ordinary knowledge claims. After all, there are lots of things that I know: I know that two plus two is four, I know that water is H2O, I know that I’m standing here before you. But I’d balk if you pressed me and asked me whether I was certain about these things—well, I don’t know if I’m certain about these things, I believe them on what I take is good evidence, I have a considerable confidence in these claims, I’d even bet a whole lot on at least some of them, but certain about it? I’m not sure about that. So we have to ask: what more is required than our confidence, then something like reasonable belief on plausible evidence? What’s certainty? (shrink)

In November of 2019, the University of California Santa Cruz hosted a 3-day interdisciplinary conference to commemorate the 200th anniversary of the publication of Frankenstein, by Mary Shelley. A panel of senior researchers convened to discuss the impact of the novel on modern discussions of scientific ethics. The panel featured Nandini Bhattacharya, George Blumenthal, Michael M. Chemers, David Haussler, and Jenny Reardon. In the process, the panelists acted as the Institutional Review Board for a proposal from Victor Frankenstein (...) himself. (shrink)

En este artículo trato de mostrar la diferencia entre el concepto de tò posón, la cantidad determinada o proporción matemática, válida en el terreno de las realidades cuantificables, y el concepto de tò métrion, la justa medida, válida en el terreno de las acciones humanas, no cuantificables. Argume..

This paper purports toshow that it is not necessary to read the early Platonic dialogues starting from the "classic" theory of Forms. It argues, instead, that it is possibleto analyze them and, above all, to explain the use of the vocabulary of "presence" starting from the more general and prior possibility of distinguishing a subject from its accidental predicates, especially quality. The relation of "present in" or "being in" to which Plato recurs. is inherited by Aristotle. The distinction between "being (...) said about something as asubject" and "being in something as in a subject" (Categories 2) seems to be a"natural" development of Platonic ontology. It is argued that the Aristotelian conception is closer to the earlier than to the intermediate dialogues. (shrink)

Les écrits d'extrême droite, voire favorables à l'Allemagne nazie, du Cioran des années 30 ne laissent pas de nourrir la stupéfaction chez le lecteur admiratif de son œuvre française. Julien Santa Cruz établit ici les faits et les dires en analysant une centaine d'articles, publiés avant la guerre, et les premiers ouvrages du philosophe. L'orientation fascisante du jeune Cioran ne saurait être réduite à l'immaturité ou aux circonstances, et relève d'un goût bien affirmé pour la démesure, renforcée par (...) une pensée ambiante hostile à la démocratie. Certes, il ne s'agit pas vraiment d'une adhésion idéologique aux thèses hitlériennes, mais d'une réponse par la violence du verbe au sentiment du vide, aux tourments identitaires et même métaphysiques qui l'assaillent alors. Julien Santa Cruz voit dans ce moment exalté, et parfois hystérique, de la biographie de l'écrivain, l'origine et la clef de son fameux nihilisme. Ainsi se comprennent mieux la profondeur de son scepticisme, et le choix éthique de sa renonciation ultérieure à toute forme d'engagement pour une idée, quelle qu'elle soit."--Page 4 of cover. (shrink)

In this paper I shall examine creation and annihilation in time rather than solipsism of the moment. The argument will focus upon a difficulty raised by the creationist's qualification of the solipsist's denial of past and future. The solipsist maintains that the words "past" and "future" have no object of reference; hence, statements denying their existence, like such statements as "Fairies do not exist" and "Santa Claus does not exist," convey the idea that there simply are no existents to (...) which the subject terms refer. At no point can we accuse the solipsist of making the absurd claim that some existents do not exist, and yet that is precisely the claim which the creationist makes; for his subject term refers to some existent—something which does exist or did exist—and then he denies the existence of that existent. Indeed, he cannot express himself without granting existence, on the one hand, and denying it, on the other, so that he appears at the very outset to be involved in a contradiction. If the following argument is correct, it will prove that the contradiction is not merely apparent but real, and that the creationist is confronted by it as soon as he says what he wants to say in whatever idiom he chooses to say it. (shrink)

The Mondragon Corporation, a group of cooperatives, is a thriving example of how cooperatives can succeed. The authors describe six features of the corporation and five 'successful cooperative actions' that they consider to be crucial in explaining its accomplishments. Both the specific features and the successful actions are contrasted with those of standard capitalist companies, to show how this case is unique in the field of corporate organization and management. Through a combination of democratic principles, the values of solidarity, and (...) strong competitiveness, Mondragon has simultaneously achieved both efficiency and equity and has become an alternative to the organizational and governance models of traditional capitalist firms. (shrink)

Este artículo analiza un grupo de producciones audiovisuales latinoamericanas a la luz del problema de lo “necropolítico” de Achile Mbembe. Estas películas y series de televisión se han producido desde los años noventa del siglo xx hasta la actualidad, y tienen como universo temático el mundo delincuencial de ciudades latinoamericanas, corpus que he conceptualizado anteriormente dentro de la estética audiovisual como Noir Lumpen latinoamericano. Dentro de esto, nos posibilitará pensar un problema extracinematográfico: cómo las formas “necropolíticas” son el régimen biopolítico (...) en que viven vastos sectores de las sociedades latinoamericanas y que sus espacios urbanos no toman las formas de la cárcel panóptica foucaultiana, sino las formas de los pabellones penitenciarios latinoamericanos. (shrink)

On Sikh ethics; includes brief biographies of Sikh religious leaders.

The article devoted to the analysis of theoretical and conceptual developments of the Russian Social Democrats in the emigrant period. The authors note that the concept of democratic socialism, which began to be formed in 1917, was considerably amended and deepened when the Mensheviks created a new party program developed in 1922-1924. The significance of this program of the RSDLP is practically not evaluated in the science literature. In the analysis of Soviet historiography, the authors of the article outlined the (...) lack of attention to the projects of the Mensheviks in emigration, as the researchers insisted on the collapse of the RSDLP in post-October period. Some of modern researchers are highly skeptical about the intellectual developments of the Russian Social Democrats after the events of October 1917. However, the authors identified a number of innovative elements in the projects of the Mensheviks in this time. The new party program is an original stage in the formation of the concept of post-revolutionary development of Russia. In the course of the inner-party discussion, the differences in assessing the degree of Russia’s readiness for socialist transformation, as well as the Bolshevik experiment with various internal political trends, were sharply denoted. The article analyzes the positions of representatives of the official Mensheviks and the right wing of the party. The authors acknowledge the significant transformation of the political attitudes of the Mensheviks, pointing to some delusional and utopian nature of a number of program theses. (shrink)

Background The post-trial period is the time period after the end of study drug administration. It is unclear whether post-trial arrangements for patient surveillance are routinely included in study protocols and consents, and whether research ethics boards (REB) consider the post-trial period. Objectives The objective was to determine whether trial protocols and consent forms reviewed by the REB describe procedures for post-trial period surveillance. Methods An observational study of protocols of randomised trials of chronic therapies for cardiac conditions, approved by (...) the REB of two academic institutions affiliated with the University of Toronto in Canada (University Health Network and Mount Sinai Hospital) from 1995 to 2007. Plans for patient surveillance in the post-trial period described in the protocol or in the consent form before and after REB approval were recorded. Results 42 studies were identified including 18 heart failure and 15 coronary artery disease trials. Only four studies planned a clinical visit after trial termination, and an additional three planned a telephone contact after trial completion. Five trials submitted consent forms to the REB with a discussion of the post-trial period. Conclusions The majority of protocols and consent forms did not discuss plans for post-trial period surveillance. The post-trial period and the REB approval process could be improved by systematic follow-up being described in the protocol and consent form. The small number of trial protocols evaluated in the study may impair the degree to which the results can be generalised. (shrink)