The close coupling between media and science becomes predominant in the context of public controversies over science during disasters like earthquakes. The paper discusses some crucial aspects of this dynamic by investigating the role of regional press in Kerala, India, in initiating and maintaining a public controversy over a series of micro earthquakes in 2001 amidst growing public skepticism over the competence of Earth Science to convincingly explain the phenomenon. The press employed various strategies to challenge the official scientific explanation (...) of the phenomenon and broke open the ground for a spectrum of alternative interpretations and critical interventions, affirming greater public participation in science. Most of the experts continued to downplay the concerns raised by the media, but closure was attained when a lesser-known team of experts convincingly interpreted the geological events while participating in the deliberations. The paper analyses how the media played a crucial role in revealing and enhancing the entanglement of science with diverse actors and institutions during the controversy. (shrink)

The paper offers a political-philosophical analysis of the state and publics in the age of technoscience to propose three distinct categories of publics: scientific-citizen publics constituted by civil society, quasi-publics that initiate another kind of engagement through the activation of ‘political society,’ and non-publics cast outside these spheres of engagement. This re-categorization is possible when the central role of the state in its citizens’ engagement with technoscience is put upfront and the non-Western empirical contexts are taken seriously by Science, Technology (...) and Policy (STP) studies. The paper argues that in most of the world the state maintains a political contract with technoscience to form a functional coupling as the state-technoscience duo, which shapes public engagement with science through different functional modalities of government. Civil society is the sphere of legitimate engagement and participation in technoscientific issues for the scientific-citizen publics. The quasi-publics choose to be in the shady zone of political society establishing a paralegal relationship with the state-technoscience duo, while the non-publics come into being due to conditions of extra-legality created by the duo. The non-publics are implicated in the political community paradoxically as an excluded category who cannot be included in deliberation because of their status as being expelled from political community in a ‘state of exception.’ The paper proposes that the scientific-citizen publics are mobilized in contrast to the quasi-publics and with reference to the non-publics, helping STP studies to identify the ‘missing masses’ of technoscience. (shrink)

This paper addresses Foucauldian theory and its usefulness to nursing research. It is written in the form of a discussion between the authors on the merits and liabilities of Foucauldian theory as applied to analyses of nursing. As such, it focuses upon some of the more pertinent critiques of both Foucauldian and postmodern theory. By addressing Foucault from two different positions, the discussion seeks to demonstrate the complexity of Foucauldian theory and warns against oversimplification in its application to nursing research. (...) The authors also argue for an awareness of the strengths and weaknesses of any given theoretical stance. (shrink)

Summary This article seeks to address the question how the Tetrarchic system of four rulers could be presented as legitimate in a society that had never seen this political constellation before. What were the different modes of presenting Tetrarchic rule and how did they help in making the new system acceptable? The article argues that new power structures needed to be formulated in familiar terms, not only for the rulers to legitimate their position, but also for the ruled to understand (...) such new systems. As a result, imperial messages during the Tetrarchic period were strongly influenced by traditional modes of representation from earlier periods. Traditions which were inherent in specific media and locations were determining factors for the way in which a new political system could be presented. The result was a much less coherent ideological Tetrarchic message than is often assumed. The image of group identity was regularly lost in a more complex and messy mode of formulating power. The new and innovative aspects of a collegiate rule by four emperors was less important than linking the power of those rulers to what was traditionally expected of the portrayal of Roman emperorship. (shrink)

This article reveals the outcome of a study on the perceptions of elders, family members, and healthcare professionals and administration providing care in a range of different long-term care facilities in Hong Kong with primary focus on the concepts of autonomy and dignity of elders, quality and location of care, decision making, and financing of long term care. It was found that aging in place and family care were considered the best approaches to long term care insofar as procuring and (...) balancing the values of dignity, autonomy, family integrity and social sustainability were concerned. An elder having the final say was generally accepted. The results also initiated the importance of sharing of financial responsibility among elders, children and government albeit the emphasis was placed on individuals. Furthermore, dignity of elders was not considered purely a synonym of autonomy, but it had also to do with respect, family and social connections. (shrink)

This discussion article examines narrative positioning related to pain management for people who use substances at the end of life. We explore how dominant narrative genres associated with biomedicine, such as ‘restitution’ and narratives common within the context of drug services such as ‘recovery’ can hinder effective pain management within this population. We argue that these discourses can marginalise the ethical self-identity of patients who use substances at the end of life. It can also trouble health and social care professionals (...) in supporting patients and generating counter-narratives that challenge those often associated with substance use. Stigma is a common experience for this population with stereotyping as ‘junkies’ and associated with criminality. They are positioned as drug-seeking, and this requires more surveillance at the end of life when opioid therapy is potentially more available and authorised. This can make it challenging to generate ‘companion’ stories that are positive and maintain moral adequacy. Dominant biomedical narrative genres often prevent the recognition of the fractured stories that people using substances can often present with. This can lead to narrative silencing and to the under treatment of pain. The person’s self-identity is invested in narratives of recovery, and opioid use symbolises their addicted past because for practitioners, this population is at clinical risk with the potential for drug seeking behaviours. Whilst not requiring formal ethical review this discussion paper was constructed in accordance with good scientific practice with the work of other researchers respected and cited appropriately. (shrink)

Coffee and tea are two beverages commonly-consumed around the world. Therefore, there is much research regarding their physiological effects. However, less is known about their psychological meanings. Derived from a predicted lay association between coffee and arousal, we posit that exposure to coffee-related cues should increase arousal, even in the absence of actual ingestion, relative to exposure to tea-related cues. We further suggest that higher arousal levels should facilitate a concrete level of mental construal as conceptualized by Construal Level Theory. (...) In four experiments, we find that coffee cues prompted participants to see temporal distances as shorter and to think in more concrete, precise terms. Both subjective and physiological arousal explain the effects. We situate our work in the literature that connects food and beverage to cognition or decision-making. We also discuss the applied relevance of our results as coffee and tea are among the most prevalent beverages globally. (shrink)

Cette étude vise à explorer la possibilité d'une pédagogie alternative non fondée sur la subjectivité moderne, basée sur la théorie du deuil de Judith Butler. Le sujet méritocratique favorisé par l'éducation d'aujourd'hui ne peut pas répondre par le deuil à la mort des autres, qui réveille la précarité et la douleur de la vie, pour maintenir un optimisme face à soi et à l'avenir. Selon Judith Butler, les sujets qui pleurent la mort des autres, contrairement aux sujets modernes autonomes, sont (...) des sujets vulnérables et hétéronomes qui émergent de telle sorte que la frontière exclusive avec les autres est brisée, et le deuil qu'ils accomplissent est une cohabitation d'autres vulnérables. Il sert de base à la recherche. Sur cette base, une pédagogie alternative est proposée. La pédagogie du deuil (1) est basée sur la vulnérabilité plutôt que sur l'autonomie ou l'indépendance du sujet, (2) utilise la critique comme outil pour découvrir des vies qui ne peuvent pas être pleurées et crée une politique commune qui les englobe. (3) Le deuil de la mort d'autrui est constamment tenté sur la base de l'éthique de l'échec qui ne peut jamais être achevé. La pédagogie du deuil est une éducation qui restaure les sujets effondrés et épuisés de la société moderne, une éducation qui ravive la valeur des émotions aliénées telles que la tristesse, la douleur et la peur, et qui fait finalement partie de l'éducation démocratique qui cherche à « vivre ensemble ». (shrink)

En este artículo, se examinará la visión de Foucault del cuerpo y el surgimiento del cuerpo como un elemento indispensable del poder político. Por lo tanto, se discutirá cómo se objetiva la organización en períodos de poder disciplinario y regulatorio. En el contexto de la regulación del poder, trataremos de mostrar qué dinámica básica corresponde el alma, que es la prisión del cuerpo, al poder y al cuerpo. En ambos períodos, vemos que el poder elie el cuerpo como espacio. El (...) cuerpo representa el cuerpo de la sociedad y funciona como tal. En el estudio, se examinará la captura del alma como un elemento que afecta, moldea, cambia y transforma el cuerpo en la comprensión del poder regulador después del poder disciplinario. En última instancia, dado que este esfuerzo da como resultado la producción de nuevas dinámicas de poder, se intentará mostrar en un contexto crítico que el poder no permite ningún cambio, transformación y mejora de individuos y criminales a quienes percibe como cuerpos. (shrink)

A sample of 259 South African managers completed a survey originally administered by Nel (1992). The results of the current study indicated a favourable move on four of the 15 questionable actions used to assess each group's ethical predisposition. Furthermore, the grand means for the two temporal-based samples also provided anecdotal evidence of a positive transition. Virtually identical results were in evidence when the segment of 89 top managers was compared to the sample of its higher level peers from the (...) earlier study by Nel. The results support the premise that today's South African managers have a more ethical predisposition than did their peers of some 20 years prior to them. However, the study concurrently documents the reality that there is ample room for further improvement. (shrink)

Journal of International Political Theory, Ahead of Print. This article examines the intersection of biopolitics with diplomacy and engages its dynamic re-envisioning as biodiplomacy. It revisits Michel Foucault’s peripheral attention to diplomacy and his framing of the concept in his writings on raison d’état and the government of the living. The article suggests that biodiplomacy can help us understand better the complexity of global biopolitical projects, moving us beyond governmentality and sensitizing us about the continuous negotiation of the meaning and (...) materiality of particular ways of living vis-à-vis other ways of being. Specifically, the article addresses modes of existence peculiar to the postcolony or encompassing antithetical value systems and argues that biodiplomacy opens up a wider field of ethical and cosmopolitical possibilities by making visible the interconnected plurality of human and non-human forces. (shrink)

Le concept de conflit revêt divers aspects. Entre les litiges, les violences, les différends, les désaccords, les guerres, il importe de définir les éléments de la conflictualité et le caractère institutionnel des recherches en matière de gestion et de résolution des conflits de nos jours. Néanmoins, nous sommes parvenus à percevoir que la clé du succès des résolutions des conflits pour une paix durable réside dans l’expérience humaine de la culpabilité et du pardon. Ce n’est certes pas des éléments nouveaux (...) pour les spécialistes et les diplomates en matière de gestion des conflits. Cependant, Ces deux notions sont reléguées au second plan au profit de compromis et de mesures coercitives à l’encontre des factions en conflits. Notre vision de la résolution des conflits est que sans la mise en exergue de l’expérience de la culpabilité et du pardon, les peuples vivront dans un conflit perpétuel qu’ils transmettront aux générations futures : la haine durable (sustainablehate). Est-il possible d’institutionnaliser le pardon et de mener des actions conduisant à une véritable culpabilité collective et individuelle préalable à toute réconciliation durable des peuples? La nature et la fréquence de nos conflits obligent à reconsidérer les méthodes d’approche jusqu’ici utilisées. En effet, c’est ce que tentent de faire certaines commissions pour la réconciliation appelée pour la plupart « Dialogue – Vérité – Réconciliation ; Dialogue – Justice – Réconciliation ; justice et paix, etc ». où les belligérants, les bourreaux et les victimes sont invités à l’aveu, à la vérité et au pardon pour un re-vivre ensemble. Mais dans l’espace d’un processus de réconciliation engagé à travers desdites commissions, les ballets de confessions aussi bien que les sentiments de victimisation se succèdent avant à l’arrière fond l’amnistie pour les bourreaux et l’octroi du pardon de la part des victimes. Cela, parait peu convainquant pour la raison que ces commissions sont en majeure partie installées par les vainqueurs du moment. Dans une certaine Afrique surtout, ces derniers (les vainqueurs) sont aidés par des alliés occidentaux de hauts niveaux. Il s’agit alors de processus où la paix est provisoire et se maintient au bout de la force ; et où les bourreaux sont toujours les autres. (shrink)

Medical students lack opportunities to have authentic conversations with patients with cancer in busy hospitals. An improved understanding of what such communication might look like may provide a framework for end-of-life curricula. The authors performed thematic analysis using written correspondence between patient and student participants in the University of California, San Francisco’s Firefly Program whose letters discussed death or dying. Four themes emerged: (1) turmoil, (2) grief, (3) making peace, and (4) past, present, and future. Medical students expressed a fifth (...) theme: unmet student expectations. The study provides educators with a unique perspective to help inform curriculum development and patient care. (shrink)

This article analyzes the relationship between the structure of federal Title IX investigations and the existing evidence addressing the emotional and mental health needs of sexual harassment and sexual assault victims. The article argues that federal requirements for investigating sexual harassment should be restructured so as to address the challenges stigma poses for the realization of Title IX's objectives.

Este artículo intenta reconstruir la obra de Heidegger Ser y tiempo, llamando la atención sobre su concepto hermenéutico de ontología. La ontología fundamental de Heidegger se revela como un esfuerzo por restablecer una ontología que, en sus conceptos pasados, ha olvidado su fundamento específicamente humano. El concepto original de fenomenología permite así un nuevo destino para la comprensión de la ontología. La segunda parte está dedicada a la reconstrucción de la filosofía de Jan Patočka, considerado discípulo indirecto de Heidegger. Se (...) analiza temáticamente: el platonismo negativo, el problema del mundo natural, la existencia como movimiento corporal y una concepción particular de la historia. En el resumen no sólo se destaca la luz que Patočka aportó a la oscura interpretación de Heidegger, sino que también se subraya la contribución de Patočka a la cuestión de una comprensión más concreta del hombre y su relación con la verdad, el mundo y el cuerpo.. Aunque a ambos les une el deseo de evitar la cosificación, la posición de Pato čka es menos unilateral y más constructiva en la cuestión del autodescubrimiento. Sin embargo, debe tenerse en cuenta que el artículo no pretende abordar las complejas cuestiones de las dos filosofías, sino sólo resaltar algunos puntos fundamentales. (shrink)

Cet ouvrage n'est autre qu'une étude a-méthodique sur l'essence phénoménologique humaine appuyée sur la philosophie de Michel Henry. Elle gravite autour de la notion de douleur basée sur la passivité précoce de l'être par rapport à lui-même et dans le cadre révélateur de l'affectivité. En d'autres termes, la révélation de l'être tel qu'il est dépeint dans sa passion. Une nouvelle conception de la corporéité, du temps et du langage vient de la tonalité affective de base de la douleur. Comprendre ces (...) thèmes en les reliant à l'être masculin est crucial pour ne pas le scinder en champs ou dimensions inconciliables qui ne le laisseraient pas comprendre dans ce qu'il fait, dit ou vit, c'est-à-dire sur ce que l'être est vécu -- Contracubierta. (shrink)

This paper, co-authored by undergraduate students and their instructor part of an educational psychology seminar, describes a participatory curriculum design approach for preservice teacher education that focuses on the use of the principles of second-order cybernetics to teach about teaching and learning. Using elements of an Open Source Educational Processes framework, our Spring ESEPSY2309 section created project-based collective hive minds of preservice teachers, relying on a cybernetic approach at the crossroads of Gregory Bateson and Gordon Pask's theories. The classroom community (...) used four innovative tool-mediated pillars to guide collaborative activity: 1) Live-chatting using the Reddit social media platform, 2) observation of the lives, strategies, and practices used by teachers and students in their own social networks through Soundcloud podcasting to expand their own perceptions of pedagogies and best practices that they could employ in their careers, 3) open-ended paper writing, exploring sources beyond the object language provided by the textbook through extensive dyadic conversations with the instructor, and 4) training in the use of the Alice 3 game creation tool for block programming enabling the accumulation of competence in designing classroom systems that may treat students these undergraduates would soon teach as active historical agents in learning environments, combining skills from varied subjects into transdisciplinary educational experiences. We showcase outcomes of our class projects using a narrative inquiry to describe podcast episodes, a topic network analysis to illustrate the expansive nature of Open Source writing activity, and a visual depiction of our class Alice 3 games. (shrink)

Recent commentators have contended that Hume’s skeptical arguments in the Treatise lead him to eschew a traditional epistemic account of justification in favor of a pragmatic account. While this view resolves some textual puzzles, others arise. Instead, Hume should be read as endorsing two completely distinct standards of doxastic normativity: the epistemic and the pragmatic. The epistemic grants beliefs philosophical approval, while the pragmatic circumscribes the domain of investigation to prevent reasoning that leads to extreme skepticism. I argue that the (...) mixed account of justification makes better sense of key passages in the Treatise than either constituent can on its own. One notable virtue of this account is that it explains how Hume can hold that the vulgar can have all things considered warrant. (shrink)

The integrity of research findings and the safety of participants who voluntarily consent to participate in research studies must be assured through ethical approaches. Additionally, ethical guidelines and the ethics committee protect participants from unfair practices by the research team. Therefore, this study aims to assess the knowledge and attitudes toward the ethics committee and research ethical practices among the researchers of a diabetes institute in Kuwait. An anonymous survey was conducted through an online questionnaire using Microsoft Forms. The study (...) had a response rate of 86%. Among the 55 participants in this study, 43 (78%) had ethics training. Researchers involved in more than four research projects were shown to have a much higher awareness of the ethics committee and its role than researchers involved in no projects. Approximately 90% of researchers had training in research ethics and were knowledgeable about informed consent forms and assent, as well as additional protections for vulnerable populations. Ninety-eight percent of respondents were of the view that an ethics committee was necessary. Our study concluded that most of the researchers at the institute were aware of the role of the ethics committee, and ethical principles. However, we recommend that continuous and customized training on research ethics should be provided. (shrink)

El artículo expone algunos temas presentes en la doctrina agustiniana de la predestinación. Demuestra que ésta no contradice a la salvación universal ni disminuye la importancia de Cristo ni la de la Iglesia.

The end of nature problem can be framed as a dilemma: either all human intentional actions are natural or they are all unnatural and destroy nature as an effect. Given the scope of human influence, the latter entails that there is no nature left on Earth. Therefore, the environmentalist project of protecting nature is either unnecessary or futile. Prevailing attempts to forge a middle path – by, for example, distinguishing natural from unnatural human activities – struggle to find metaphysical grounding. (...) I argue that the biological concept of human proper functioning can ground the relevant distinction between natural and unnatural human activities. Only unnatural activities can destroy nature; specifically, those activities that trace back to beliefs about value that diverge from the human lifeform. (shrink)

Think of a number, any number, or properties like fragility and humanity. These and other abstract entities are radically different from concrete entities like electrons and elbows. While concrete entities are located in space and time, have causes and effects, and are known through empirical means, abstract entities like meanings and possibilities are remarkably different. They seem to be immutable and imperceptible and to exist "outside" of space and time. This book provides a comprehensive critical assessment of the problems raised (...) by abstract entities and the debates about existence, truth, and knowledge that surround them. It sets out the key issues that inform the metaphysical disagreement between platonists who accept abstract entities and nominalists who deny abstract entities exist. Beginning with the essentials of the platonist–nominalist debate, it explores the key arguments and issues informing the contemporary debate over abstract reality: arguments for platonism and their connections to semantics, science, and metaphysical explanation the abstract–concrete distinction and views about the nature of abstract reality epistemological puzzles surrounding our knowledge of mathematical entities and other abstract entities. arguments for nominalism premised upon concerns about paradox, parsimony, infinite regresses, underdetermination, and causal isolation nominalist options that seek to dispense with abstract entities. Including chapter summaries, annotated further reading, and a glossary, _Entities_ is essential reading for anyone seeking a clear and authoritative introduction to the problems raised by abstract entities. (shrink)

Psychiatric researchers typically assume that the modelling of psychiatric symptoms is not influenced by psychiatric categories; symptoms are modelled and then grouped into a psychiatric category. I highlight this primarily through analysing research domain criteria. RDoC’s importance makes it worth scrutinizing, and this assessment also serves as a case study with relevance for other areas of psychiatry. RDoC takes inadequacies of existing psychiatric categories as holding back causal investigation. Consequently, RDoC aims to circumnavigate existing psychiatric categories by directly investigating the (...) causal basis of symptoms. The unique methodological approach of RDoC exploits the supposed lack of influence of psychiatric categories on symptom modelling, taking psychiatric symptoms as the same regardless of which psychiatric category is employed or if no psychiatric category is employed. But this supposition is not always true. I will show how psychiatric categories can influence symptom modelling, whereby identical behaviours can be considered as different symptoms based on an individual’s psychiatric diagnosis. If the modelling of symptoms is influenced by psychiatric categories, then psychiatric categories will still play a role, a situation which RDoC researchers explicitly aim to avoid. I discuss four ways RDoC could address this issue. This issue also has important implications for factor analysis, cluster analysis, modifying psychiatric categories, and symptom based approaches. (shrink)

In this enlightening book, Sam Harris argues that free will is an illusion but that this truth should not undermine morality or diminish the importance of social and political freedom; indeed, this truth can and should change the way we think about some of the most important questions in life.

Hume notoriously pursues a constructive science of human nature in the Treatise while raising serious skeptical doubts about that project and leaving them apparently unanswered. On the perspectivalist reading, Hume endorses multiple incommensurable epistemic perspectives in the Treatise. This reading faces two significant objections: that it renders Hume’s epistemology inconsistent (or at least highly incoherent) and that it is ad hoc. In this paper, I propose a perspectivalist account of epistemic justification in the Treatise that addresses, to a significant degree, (...) these concerns. Hume has available to him an account—what I will call epistemic dispositionalism—that is internally consistent, allows for epistemic continuity between perspectives, and is thoroughly grounded in his naturalism. (shrink)

Sam Harris dismantles the most common justification for religious faith--that a moral system cannot be based on science.

What exactly are comics? Can they be art, literature, or even pornography? How should we understand the characters, stories, and genres that shape them? Thinking about comics raises a bewildering range of questions about representation, narrative, and value. Philosophy of Comics is an introduction to these philosophical questions. In exploring the history and variety of the comics medium, Sam Cowling and Wesley D. Cray chart a path through the emerging field of the philosophy of comics. Drawing from a diverse range (...) of forms and genres and informed by case studies of classic comics such as Watchmen, Tales from the Crypt, and Fun Home, Cowling and Cray explore ethical, aesthetic, and ontological puzzles, including: -/- - What does it take to create-or destroy-a fictional character like Superman? - Can all comics be adapted into films, or are some comics impossible to adapt? - Is there really a genre of “superhero comics”? - When are comics obscene, pornographic, and why does it matter? -/- At a time of rapidly growing interest in graphic storytelling, this is an ideal introduction to the philosophy of comics and some of its most central and puzzling questions. (shrink)

We give a uniform proof of the theorems of Yao and Beigel–Tarui representing ACC predicates as constant depth circuits with MODm\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \usepackage{amsmath} \usepackage{wasysym} \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{amsbsy} \usepackage{mathrsfs} \usepackage{upgreek} \setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \begin{document}$$\hbox {MOD}_{m}$$\end{document} gates and a symmetric gate. The proof is based on a relativized, generalized form of Toda’s theorem expressed in terms of closure properties of formulas under bounded universal, existential and modular counting quantifiers. This allows the main proofs to be expressed in terms of formula classes instead of Boolean circuits. (...) The uniform version of the Beigel–Tarui theorem is then obtained automatically via the Furst–Saxe–Sipser and Paris–Wilkie translations. As a special case, we obtain a uniform version of Razborov and Smolensky’s representation of AC0[p]\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \usepackage{amsmath} \usepackage{wasysym} \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{amsbsy} \usepackage{mathrsfs} \usepackage{upgreek} \setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \begin{document}$$\hbox {AC}^{0}[p]$$\end{document} circuits. The paper is partly expository, but is also motivated by the desire to recast Toda’s theorem, the Beigel–Tarui theorem, and their proofs into the language of bounded arithmetic. However, no knowledge of bounded arithmetic is needed. (shrink)

I share my experiences teaching Practical Logic with a focus on good reasoning as eliminating alternative conclusions. This unites the various topics traditionally taught in such courses in a way that I have found to be extremely effective.

Predictive processing accounts of neural function view the brain as a kind of prediction machine that forms models of its environment in order to anticipate the upcoming stream of sensory stimulation. These models are then continuously updated in light of incoming error signals. Predictive processing has offered a powerful new perspective on cognition, action, and perception. In this chapter we apply the insights from predictive processing to the study of emotions. The upshot is a picture of emotion as inseparable from (...) perception and cognition, and a key feature of the embodied mind. (shrink)

Some critics argue that the types of psychiatric diagnosis found in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders and International Classification of Disease are superfluous and should be abandoned. These are known as categorical polythetic psychiatric diagnoses. To receive a categorical polythetic psychiatric diagnosis an individual need only exhibit some, rather than all, of the symptoms on the diagnostic criteria. Consequently, categorical polythetic psychiatric diagnoses only associate an individual with a range of symptoms rather than specify which symptoms they (...) have. Drawing on Giere’s account of scientific models, I portray categorical polythetic psychiatric diagnoses as abstract models that guide the building of less abstract models. These models can specify which symptoms a particular individual has. Additionally, categorical polythetic psychiatric diagnoses can guide investigation of symptoms towards difficult to spot symptoms, guide investigation towards changing symptoms, and guide investigation towards how symptoms manifest. These important roles mean categorical polythetic psychiatric diagnoses should not be abandoned. (shrink)

Panpsychism, an increasingly popular competitor to physicalism as a theory of mind, faces a famous difficulty, the ‘combination problem’. This is the difficulty of understanding the composition of a conscious mind by parts which are themselves taken to be phenomenally qualitied. I examine the combination problem, and I attempt to solve it. There are a few distinct difficulties under the banner of ‘the combination problem’, and not all of them need worry panpsychists. After homing in on the genuine worries, I (...) identify some disputable assumptions that underlie them. Doing away with these assumptions allows us to make a start on a working conception of phenomenal combination. (shrink)

Young adults are currently the loneliest group in Western countries. In particular, young adults of lower socio-economic status living in the most deprived areas are loneliest in the United Kingdom. This mixed-methods study explored the experience of loneliness among this under-explored demographic in London. Using a novel free association technique, the experience of loneliness was found to be characterized by: a sense of isolation, negative emotions and thoughts, coping and a positive orientation to aloneness. An exploration of these themes revealed (...) that: one can feel isolated or excluded even when surrounded by people; the experience of loneliness is accompanied by a set of interrelated feelings and thoughts like rumination; and technological and/or non-technological outlets can be used to cope. Social media play both a positive and negative role in loneliness, and loneliness is not always experienced negatively. The quantitative data indicated that this sample was lonely. By providing insight into young adults’ loneliness, the findings indicate what types of interventions are likely to diminish it. (shrink)

This article provides a non-technical overview of the conflict between the special theory of relativity and the dynamic theories of time. The chief argument against dynamic theories of time from relativistic mechanics is presented. The space of current responses to that argument is subsequently mapped.

Volume 20, Issue 4, May 2020, Page 44-45.

We argue that explanations appealing to logical impossibilities are genuine explanations. Our defense is based on a certain picture of impossibility. Namely, that there are impossibilities and that the impossibilities have structure. Assuming this broad picture of impossibility we defend the genuineness of explanations that appeal to logical impossibilities against three objections. First, that such explanations are at odds with the perceived conceptual connection between explanation and counterfactual dependence. Second, that there are no genuinely contrastive why-questions that involve logical impossibilities (...) and, third, that explanations appealing to logical impossibilities rule nothing out. (shrink)

The argument that nurses should be Marxists is made by looking at the primary areas of nursing activity in turn, giving an example of how capitalist economic relations negatively impact upon that activity, and providing a Marxist explanation of the reasons why it has that impact. In relation to the nursing activity of health promotion, it is argued that capitalism's generation of social inequality undermines the health of the population. In relation to curative activities, the focus is on how capitalism's (...) reckless pursuit of profit has subverted the sustainability of bactericidal interventions. The argument in relation to comforting and assistive care is that the ownership and control of health services by capitalist corporations undermines therapeutic relationships. Finally, in relation to supportive care, it is contended that capitalism's requirement for a disciplined workforce can compromise healthcare professionals’ support of employees. It is concluded that if nurses aspire to have some control over their activities, then it is a good idea for them to avail of Marxism's capacity to identify the socio‐economic mechanisms by which capitalism affects nursing care. (shrink)