There has been a long tradition of characterizing man as the animal that talks. However, the remarkable ability of using pictures also only belongs to human beings, after all we know empirically so far. Are there conceptual reasons for that coincidence? Such a question belongs to the philosophy of language just as well as to philosophical visualistics. Comparing the two abilities to use words or pictures yields several similarities as well as distinctions. A well-known conceptual disparity between pictures and words (...) appears in their relation to perception: the difference can be further determined in an act-theoretic manner by four modes of use of the sign vehicles during the corresponding sign acts. Furthermore, the figure/ground dichotomy means something different for language uses and picture uses. In both cases, however, there is a close relation to the function of context building, by which humans are able to communicate not only with respect to the present situation of behavior but with respect to arbitrary contexts as well. Although the structural comparison does clarify the conceptual relations, it cannot explain that the conceptual structure ought to be like that. Therefore, the paper concludes with the programme of a "concept-genetic" consideration of the two abilities (i.e., to use propositional language or to use pictures) that is able to give us such a foundation. (shrink)

Empirical ethics research is increasingly valued in bioethics and healthcare more generally, but there remain as yet under-researched areas such as pharmacy, despite the increasingly visible attempts by the profession to embrace additional roles beyond the supply of medicines. A descriptive and critical review of the extant empirical pharmacy ethics literature is provided here. A chronological change from quantitative to qualitative approaches is highlighted in this review, as well as differing theoretical approaches such as cognitive moral development and the four (...) principles of biomedical ethics. Research with pharmacy student cohorts is common, as is representation from American pharmacists. Many examples of ethical problems are identified, as well as commercial and legal influences on ethical understanding and decision making. In this paper, it is argued that as pharmacy seeks to develop additional roles with concomitant ethical responsibilities, a new prescription is needed for empirical ethics research in pharmacy—one that embraces an agenda of systematic research using a plurality of methodological and theoretical approaches to better explore this under-researched discipline. (shrink)

It is shown how to define forcing semantics within metatheories not containing the power-set construction, in particular, how to construct exponents assuming only (a slightly strengthened form of) exponents in the metatheory. Some straightforward applications (consistency and independence results, and derived rules) are obtained for such systems.

Recent interest in emotion as the basis for moral development began with work involving individuals with psychopathic tendencies, and a recent paper with this population has allowed fresh insights (Glenn, Iyer, Graham, Koleva, & Haidt, 2009). Two main conclusions suggested by this paper are: (i) that systems involved in different forms of morality can be differentiated; and (ii) that systems involved in justice reasoning likely include amygdala and/or ventromedial prefrontal cortex, even if the specifics of their functional contribution to justice (...) development remain unidentified. (shrink)

(1980). Verbaliser‐Imager Learning Style and Children's Recall of Information Presented in Pictorial versus Written Form. Educational Studies: Vol. 6, No. 2, pp. 141-145.

It is commonly supposed that the philosophy of education is not a reputable area of concern for a philosopher. I have never heard a coherent, sustained and successful case made for this view. Only vague remarks about ‘autonomy’ and narrowly protectionist views of philosophy are ventured. So I shall not discuss the matter further. I shall simply be content to side with Plato, Aristotle, Comenius, Locke, Rousseau, Kant, Mill and Dewey, who thought that educational issues fell within the province of (...) philosophy. Kant was so concerned with education that he interrupted his work on the Critique of Pure Reason in order to support Basedow's experimental school, the Philanthropin, and the educational reforms which it intended to institute. Kant says ‘… the greatest and most difficult problem to which man can devote himself is the problem of education.’ But if those who hold that the philosophy of education is unimportant, or even disreputable, have come to that view after examining a good deal of what is currently being said in this field, then their adverse reaction is not hard to understand, because a good deal of contemporary work here is clearly inadequate. I hope to show that the contemporary perspective is too narrow, and to advocate a return to a more traditional view of the philosophy of education in the hope that the subject may once again be given the importance which was formerly attributed to it. (shrink)

It is argued that donald davidson has not succeeded in showing that we need a constructive theory of meaning--A theory for a natural language which davidson considers to have as its base a finite number of semantic primitives--In order to explain language learning and, In particular, Linguistic productivity. This linguistic productivity is the ability of a speaker who has mastered the meaning of a finite stock of words and a finite number of grammatical rules, To produce and understand sentences which (...) he has not constructed or encountered before. (shrink)

Background: Increasing interest in empirical ethics has enhanced understanding of healthcare professionals’ ethical problems and attendant decision-making. A four-stage decision-making model involving ethical attention, reasoning, intention and action offers further insights into how more than reasoning alone may contribute to decision-making.Aims: To explore how the four-stage model can increase understanding of decision-making in healthcare and describe the decision-making of an under-researched professional group.Methods: 23 purposively sampled UK community pharmacists were asked, in semi-structured interviews, to describe ethical problems in their work (...) and how they were resolved. Framework analysis of transcribed interviews utilised the four decision-making stages, together with constant comparative methods and deviant-case analysis.Results: Pharmacists were often inattentive and constructed problems in legal terms. Ethical reasoning was limited, but examples of appeals to consequences, the golden rule, religious faith and common-sense experience emerged. Ethical intention was compromised by frequent concern about legal prosecution. Ethical inaction was common, typified by pharmacists’ failure to report healthcare professionals’ bad practices, and ethical passivity emerged to describe these negative examples of the four decision-making stages. Pharmacists occasionally described more ethically active decision-making, but this often involved ethical uncertainty.Discussion: The four decision-making stages are a useful tool in considering how healthcare professionals try to resolve ethical problems in practice. They reveal processes often ignored in normative theories, and their recognition and the emergence of ethical passivity indicates the complexity of decision-making in practice. Ethical passivity may be deleterious to patients’ welfare, and concerns emerge about improving pharmacists’ ethical training and promoting ethical awareness and responsibility. (shrink)

This article treats of whether scepticism, in particular Pyrrhonian scepticism, can be said to deploy a method of any kind. I begin by distinguishing various different notions of method, and their relations to the concept of expertise. I then consider Sextus’s account, in the prologue to Outlines of Pyrrhonism, of the Pyrrhonist approach, and how it supposedly differs from those of other groups, sceptical and otherwise. In particular, I consider the central claim that the Pyrrhonist is a continuing investigator, who (...) in spite of refusing to be satisfied with any answer, none the less still achieves tranquillity, and whether this can avoid being presented as a method for so doing, and hence as compromising the purity of sceptical suspension of commitment. In doing so, I relate—and contrast—the Pyrrhonists’ account of their practice to the ‘Socratic Method’, as well as to the argumentative practice of various Academics, and assess their claim in so doing to be offering a way of instruction. I conclude that there is a consistent and interesting sense in which Pyrrhonian scepticism can be absolved of the charge that it incoherently, and crypto-dogmatically, presents itself as offering a method for achieving an intrinsically desirable goal. (shrink)

(1979). The Effect of Extraversion, Detail Importance and Interference on the Recall of Prose by Eleven‐year Old Children. Educational Studies: Vol. 5, No. 1, pp. 15-22.

(1980). The Relationship Between Dark Interval Threshold, Sex and Reading Performance in Nine‐year‐old Children. Educational Studies: Vol. 6, No. 3, pp. 211-216.

It is usual to interpret Mill's understanding of liberty in terms deriving from his distinction in On Liberty between self-regarding and other-regarding conduct. Granted this distinction and Mill's genuine concern to define and defend it, it remains a relevant question why he attached so much importance to it. This raises a less familiar theme in Mill, namely the inter-connection of self-regarding and other-regarding conduct. An uncommitted reading of the main texts suggests an equivalent value is attached to this. Mill clearly (...) and constantly asserts a close connection between each person's own attempt to improve himself, to cultivate his ‘affections and will’, and the social and political structure in which he acts. Self-regarding virtue and responsible social conduct are interdependent; the quality of each depends upon the quality of the other. A fuller recognition of this and its central place in Mill's revision of Bentham may be of help in examining some of the particular problems raised by recent scholarship on Mill. (shrink)

NCMRD initiated the Women in Management Research Program in January 1988. One of the objectives of the program is to help managers and policy makers deal with issues arising from women's increased participation in managerial and professional jobs backing research to help arrive at solutions to the problems being encountered both by institutions and by women themselves. Significant research funds have been raised from the private sector and ten projects have been funded to date. This article describes the early development (...) of the Program and its research mandate. (shrink)

This paper attempts to explore the position that A. N. Whitehead's ultimate principle of creativity may be identified explicitly as an eternal object. Such an interpretation seems to lend greater coherence to the categoreal scheme in Process and Reality and establish Whitehead's metaphysics as more of a rationalistic enterprise than most commentators are willing to admit. It would be rationalistic to the extent that its ultimate principle illustrates one of the categories of existence. That is, creativity may be viewed as (...) an eternal object rather than a surd element which falls outside the categoreal scheme. As eternal object, creativity would serve as the very foundation of rationality in Whitehead's metaphysical system. (shrink)

This paper first identifies briefly several interpretations of the nature of the general order of eternal objects in the Primordial Nature of God (PNG). W.A. Christian describes the timeless ordering in terms of a “general scheme of relatedness,” or “matrix,” or “reservoir of potentiality.” Others, like Hartshorne, introduce the“continuum” concept. Unfortunately, none of the above terms has strict technical or categoreal meaning in Whitehead’s metaphysics. I try to remedy this defect by utilizing the Whitehead ian notions of abstractive hierarchies and (...) contrast. My interpretation supports the idea that there is one fixed and necessary order of eternal objects in PNG. (shrink)

This paper uses the case of solo doctors to explore whether working in relative isolation from one’s peers may be detrimental to ethical decision-making. Drawing upon the relevance of communication and interaction for ethical decision-making in the ethical theories of Habermas, Mead and Gadamer, it is argued that doctors benefit from ethical discussion with their peers and that solo practice may make this more difficult. The paper identifies a paucity of empirical research related to solo practice and ethics but draws (...) upon more general medical ethics research and a study that identified ethical isolation among community pharmacists to support the theoretical claims made. The paper concludes by using the literary analogy of Soderberg’s Doctor Glas to illustrate the issues raised and how ethical decision-making in relative isolation may be problematical. (shrink)

This is a section of Mr. Gray's recent paper read before The Philosophers' Academy covering "The Catholic Movement in France and the Philosophy of de Lamennais".Complete ignorance of the system of the Medieval Schoolmen seems responsible for the contempt in which he held Scholasticism, and indirectly for the vagaries of his own philosophy, and the ultimate shipwreck of his faith.