In the nearshore waters of Alaska's remote and pristine Aleutian Islands is an astoundingly diverse and beautiful undersea world that is captured here for the first time, through color photographs taken by research divers. The photographs in this book convey the awe-inspiring experience of the divers as they encountered the spectacular beauty of the underwater Aleutians ecosystems. Together with an accompanying text that provides natural history information and an overview of the geography, geology, and oceanography of the 1,200-mile archipelago, the (...) images are a powerful vehicle for science education, making apparent the need to preserve the region's natural splendor. (shrink)

Nostalgia, a sentimental longing for one’s past, can serve as a resource for individuals coping with discomforting experiences. The experience of bereavement poses psychological and physical risks....

Dixon, Robert; Reid, Stephen; Connolly, Noel Since the Australian Catholic Bishops Conference established a pastoral research capability in 1996, a great deal of research has been carried out on various aspects of the Catholic community in Australia. This research has been carried out either directly by the Bishops Conference's research staff, or in association with other bodies such as NCLS Research, the Christian Research Association, Australian Catholic University and, most recently, Catholic Religious Australia.

ABSTRACT:This article outlines the policy context for teachers’ learning and continuing professional development in Scotland and considers this in relation to the perspectives of key informants gained through interview. The analysis draws on a triple-lens conceptual framework and points to some interesting contradictions between the policy text and the expressed aspirations of the interviewees. Current policy and the associated structural arrangements are viewed as broadly positive, but interviewees express concerns that an unintended emphasis on contractual arrangements might inhibit the more (...) transformative elements of professional learning. (shrink)

I examine the views of Thomas Reid with respect to a certain version of the problem of induction: Why are inductions using natural kinds successful, and what justifies them? I argue that while both Reid holds a kind of conventionalist view about natural kinds, this conventionalism has a realistic component which allows him to answer both questions.

We present a one per cent measurement of the cosmic distance scale from the detections of the baryon acoustic oscillations in the clustering of galaxies from the Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey, which is part of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey III. Our results come from the Data Release 11 sample, containing nearly one million galaxies and covering approximately 8500 square degrees and the redshift range 0.2 < z < 0.7. We also compare these results with those from the publicly released (...) DR9 and DR10 samples. Assuming a concordance Λ cold dark matter cosmological model, the DR11 sample covers a volume of 13 Gpc3 and is the largest region of the Universe ever surveyed at this density. We measure the correlation function and power spectrum, including density-field reconstruction of the BAO feature. The acoustic features are detected at a significance of over 7σ in both the correlation function and power spectrum. Fitting for the position of the acoustic features measures the distance relative to the sound horizon at the drag epoch, rd, which has a value of rd,fid = 149.28 Mpc in our fiducial cosmology. We find DV = at z = 0.32 and DV = at z = 0.57. At 1.0 per cent, this latter measure is the most precise distance constraint ever obtained from a galaxy survey. Separating the clustering along and transverse to the line of sight yields measurements at z = 0.57 of DA = and H =. Our measurements of the distance scale are in good agreement with previous BAO measurements and with the predictions from cosmic microwave background data for a spatially flat CDM model with a cosmological constant. © 2014 The Author Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Royal Astronomical Society. (shrink)

Thomas Reid was one of the greatest philosophers of the eighteenth century and a contemporary of Kant's. This volume is part of a new wave of international interest in Reid from a new generation of scholars. The volume opens with an introduction to Reid's life and work, including biographical material previously little known. A classic essay by Reid himself - 'Of Power' - is then reproduced, in which he sets out his distinctive account of causality and (...) agency. This is followed by ten original essays exploring different aspects of Reid's philosophy, as well as his relation to other thinkers, such as Kant, Priestley, and Moore. (shrink)

This book is a defence of the philosophy of common sense in the spirit of Thomas Reid and G.E. Moore, drawing on the work of Aristotle, evolutionary biology and psychology, and historical studies on the origins of early modern philosophy. It defines and explores common sense beliefs, and defends them from challenges from prominent philosophers.

Dixon, Robert; Reid, Stephen Catholics are the largest religious group in Australia. According to the 2011 Australian Census, Catholics made up just over a quarter of the Australian population: there were 5,439,268 Catholics in a total Australian population of 21,507,719. In the five years between the 2006 and 2011 Censuses, the number of Catholics increased by over 312,000, or 6.1 per cent. During the same period, the total Australian population increased by 8.3 per cent. Catholics have continued to (...) grow in numbers at every census, but their percentage in the Australian population has been declining slowly since the peak of 27.3 per cent in 1991. (shrink)

Most of the phenomena described in this book have arisen as a result of various crises, disasters, threats, and forms of violence (such as wars, refugee crises, and political regimes, but also devastating practices of the anthropogenic drive and environmental pollution). Others are a form of response to new political, social and cultural changes that we are experiencing due to the rapid development of technology or progressive economic stratification. The research perspective proposed in Postcollectivity draws on the authors' approaches, combining (...) academic and theoretical discourse with social engagement and artistic practice with critical thought. Contributors are: Harshavardhan Bhat, Stephen Dersley, Adela Goldbard, Carly E. Gray, Agnieszka Jelewska, Peter H. Kahn, Jr., Michał Krawczak, Grant Leuning, Ania Malinowska, Anna Nacher, Andrzej W. Nowak, Julian Reid, Pepe Rojo, Sarena Sabine, Jens Schröter, Jan Stasieńko and Brett Zehner. (shrink)

Peter Abelard (1079–1142 ce) was the most wide‐ranging philosopher of the twelfth century. He quickly established himself as a leading teacher of logic in and near Paris shortly after 1100. After his affair with Heloise, and his subsequent castration, Abelard became a monk, but he returned to teaching in the Paris schools until 1140, when his work was condemned by a Church Council at Sens. His logical writings were based around discussion of the “Old Logic”: Porphyry's Isagoge, aristotle'S Categories and (...) On Interpretation and boethius'S textbook on topical inference. They comprise a freestanding Dialectica (“Logic”; probably c.1116), a set of commentaries (known as the Logica [Ingredientibus], c. 1119) and a later (c. 1125) commentary on the Isagoge (Logica Nostrorum Petititoni Sociorum or Glossulae). In a work Abelard called his Theologia, issued in three main versions (between 1120 and c.1134), he attempted a logical analysis of trinitarian relations and explored the philosophical problems surrounding God's claims to omnipotence and omniscience. The Collationes (“Debates,” also known as “Dialogue between a Christian, a Philosopher and a Jew”; probably c.1130) present a rational investigation into the nature of the highest good, in which the Christian and the Philosopher (who seems to be modeled on a philosopher of pagan antiquity) are remarkably in agreement. The unfinished Scito teipsum (“Know thyself,” also known as the “Ethics”; c.1138) analyses moral action. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:"The Fittest Man in the Kingdom":Thomas Reid and the Glasgow Chair of Moral PhilosophyPaul Wood (bio)Paul Wood Paul Wood is at the Department of History, University of Victoria, PO Box 3045, MS 7381, Victoria BC V8W 3P4 Canada. email: pbwood@uvvm.uvic.caReceived August 1996Revised January 1997Notes. An earlier version of this paper was delivered at a plenary session of the 23rd International Hume Conference held at the University of Nottingham. (...) For comments and/or references, the author wishes to thank Roger Emerson, Carol Gibson-Wood, Knud Haakonssen, Ian Simpson Ross, Stephen Snobelen, M. A. Stewart, and the anonymous Hume Studies referees. For permission to cite and quote from manuscripts, he is grateful to the Keeper of the Manuscripts of Scotland as well as to the Librarians of Aberdeen University Library, Edinburgh University Library, Glasgow University Archives and Business Records Centre, Glasgow University Library (Department of Special Collections), the Mitchell Library Glasgow, and Dr. Williams' Library.1. Although little information survives regarding Law's teaching, we do know that he discussed Pufendorf in his classes; see Christine Mary King [Shepherd], "Philosophy and Science in the Arts Curriculum of the Scottish Universities in the Seventeenth Century," (Unpublished Ph.D. Dissertation, University of Edinburgh, 1974), 177. Carmichael's edition of Pufendorf first appeared in Glasgow in 1718, and a second edition was published in Edinburgh in 1724 while Hume was still a student there.2. The surviving correspondence between the two men from this period is to be found in The Letters of David Hume, ed. J.Y.T. Greig, 2 vols. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1932), I 32-35; 36-40; 45-48 (hereafter abbreviated as HL).3. The first detailed discussion of the 1745 election appeared in the introduction to David Hume, A Letter from a Gentleman to His Friend in Edinburgh, edited by Ernest C. Mossner and John V. Price (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1967). This account has recently been challenged in Roger L. Emerson, "The 'Affair' at Edinburgh and the 'Project' at Glasgow: The Politics of Hume's Attempts to become a Professor," in Hume and Hume's Connexions, edited by M. A. Stewart and John P. Wright (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1994), 1-22; and M. A. Stewart, The Kirk and the Infidel (Lancaster: Lancaster University Publications Office, 1995). For historically sensitive contextual analysis of Hume's philosophical relations with Hutcheson, see inter alia James Moore, "Hume and Hutcheson," in Stewart and Wright, 23-57, and M. A. Stewart, Warmth in the Cause of Virtue (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, forthcoming).4. In January 1752, "Mr. Smith read an Account of some of Mr. David Hume's Essays on Commerce" to the Society, and Hume was elected a member in 1753; see Notices and Documents Illustrative of the Literary History of Glasgow, During the Greater Part of Last Century, edited by W. J. Duncan (Glasgow: T. D. Morison, 1886), 132-133. Hume's failed candidacy is discussed in Emerson, "The 'Affair' at Edinburgh," 14-16, and Ian Simpson Ross, The Life of Adam Smith (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1995), 112-113. Smith's Glasgow colleague from 1751 to 1755, William Cullen, was also sympathetic to Hume's philosophy, as was John Millar, who was elected Professor of Law in 1761. On Cullen and Hume see J.R.R. Christie, "Ether and the Science of Chemistry: 1740-1790," in Conceptions of Ether: Studies in the History of Ether Theories 1740-1900, edited by G. N. Cantor and M.J.S. Hodge (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981), 90-96.5. David Hume to William Strahan, 26 October 1775, HL II 301.6. See, for example, The Works of Thomas Reid, D.D., edited by Sir William Hamilton, 4th ed. (Edinburgh: Maclachlan and Stewart, 1854), 30n; James McCosh, The Scottish Philosophy, Biographical, Expository, Critical, from Hutcheson to Hamilton (London: Macmillan, 1875), 36; James Veitch, "Philosophy in the Scottish Universities," Mind 2 (1877): 207-234 (209).7. John Rae, Life of Adam Smith (London and New York: Macmillan, 1895); William Robert Scott, Francis Hutcheson: His Life, Teaching and Position in the History of Philosophy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1900); idem., Adam Smith as Student and Professor (Glasgow: Jackson... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:BOOK REVIEWS 533 Grammar of Assent. Yet whereas Reid had urged a fundamental agree· ment on first principles on the intuitive basis of common sense, Newman thought such principles were discovered inductively and that there might he much disagreement. It was the disagreement itself that led to the need for a better understanding of the reasoning process. In place of common sense, Newman appealed to the illative sense. (...) In l:his regard, Newman directly rejeots Locke's distinction between demon· stration and probability. Various kinds of probabilistic reasoning for Newman can lead to a certainty beyond reasonable doubt. Ferreira claims that in this regard Newman is following a strategy not unlike l:hat of Reid. Both Reid's common sense and Newman's illative sense are natural. However, the former can discover only self-evident 'truths while the latter is part of the process of reasoning itself. Ferreira pro· vides a very full discussion of the manner in which these outlooks led Newman into the tradition of a naturalistic response to scepticism. Both philosophers and intellectual historians will find Professor Ferreira's volume useful and informative. In a very sprightly man· ner she has explored a tradition of British intellectual life that often has remained ignored. She has displayed very considerable daring in attempting to cover two centuries of thought. The most valuable sec· tions are no doubt those on Reid and Newman where she has care· fully illuminated a major intelleotual path not.taken hy most late nine· teenth· and twentieth-century British philosophers hut which exerted very considerable influence during the first three-quarters of rthe nine· teenth century. The volume also prepares the way for intellectual his· torians to examine what were the social and struotural reasons within British intellectual life for these particular anti-sceptical strategies. FRANK M. TURNER Yale University New Haven, Connecticut The Later Wittgenstein: The Emergence of a New Philosophical Meth· od. By S. STEPHEN HILMY. Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1987. Pp. viii+ 340. This is a hook of extraordinary scholarly density. Its 226 pages of text are complemented hy 94 pages of notes, 6 pages of bibliography, and 14 pages of indices. A heavy texture of relentlessly documented argument, Hilmy's hook is neither for philosophical novices nor for!:hose whose interest in Wittgenstein is merely moderate. To profit from 534 BOOK REVIEWS this hook, the reader must share the intense concern that led the author to plough through Wittgenstein's vast Nachlass. But readers must also he willing to contend with a style of writing that is often forbiddingly and needlessly convoluted, and with a tone that is sometimes snide. More will he said about these problems below, after a discussion of the hook's purposes. Hilmy believes Wittgenstein scholarship to he in a sorry state. The problem stems, he thinks, from blunders committed hy the literary executors. He writes, " The unhappy state of Wittgenstein scholarship is in large part due to the fragmented and ahistorical character of the potpourri of published remarks wirth which scholars have been work· ing" (viii). Indeed, his confidence in the published materials is so low that he often refers to them as Wittgenstein's "works" (in quotation marks) to signal his disdain for the editors' selections and arrange· ments. The scope of this volume is intentionally limited; little or no assess· ment of Wittgenstein's conclusions is offered. But Hilmy does claim to he taking a necessary first step which, he says, "much of the volumin· ous literature... has dismally failed to take" (3); namely, an examination of.the historical development of Wittgenstein's later way of thinking (Denkweise) as chronicled in the Nachlass. His appeal to the manuscript material is based on his belief that rthe "conglomerated fragments" (9) in the published works are best understood in their original contexts and in light of later contexts into which Wittgenstein placed them in the process of revision. Much of the stylistic character of Hilmy's hook stems from.the necessarily laborious nature of trac· ing these origins and transpositions, and from his sense of getting Witt· genstein right for the first time. After sorting through some preliminary issues concerning Wittgenstein 's compositional style, Hilmy produces an... (shrink)

This book is a defence of the philosophy of common sense broadly in the spirit of Thomas Reid and G.E. Moore. It breaks new ground by drawing on the work of Aristotle, contemporary evolutionary biology and psychology, and historical studies on the origins of early modern philosophy. Part One offers new answers to the questions: What counts as a common sense belief? Why should common sense beliefs be considered default positions?, and Why is it that philosophers so frequently end (...) up denying what we all know to be true? Part Two defends common sense beliefs from specific challenges from prominent philosophers on topics from metaphysics to ethics. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:CONRAD'S REPLY TO KIERKEGAARD by Jerry S. Clegg Varied answers to a fixed question have often guided interpretations of Conrad's novella, Heart ofDarkness. Who, that question has been, was Conrad's model for the enigmatic colonial official he calls Kurtz? Hannah Arendt has speculated that it was Carl Peters, an early explorer of east Africa.1 Norman Sherry has picked Arthur Hodister, a Belgian officer, as his candidate.2 Ian Watt has (...) likewise suggested historical figures: Henry M. Stanley and King Leopold of Belgium.3 Since all these men had a reputation for cruelty, those thinking that Conrad had them in mind when describing Kurtz have stressed the political message of his story; for them it is basically an indictment of colonialism. Stephen Reid has argued for a mythic model. Kurtz, he holds, was meant to be seen as one of the man-gods of Frazer's Golden Bough—a primitive king who is obliged to maintain his political position by engaging in certain bestial rites.4 Kenneth Bruffee has recendy cast Kurtz as Conrad's version of Byron's Childe Harold, arguing that the eventualjudgment on him by the character Marlow represents the effort of a squire-narrator to free himself from the pernicious influence of his knight-hero.5 For Bruffee Heart of Darkness is the prototype of a genre oftwentieth-century literature thatrejects the values ofaristocratic romance in favor of democratic norms. There may be truth in all these associations of Kurtz with known colonizers, mythical kings, and fictional knights, but they share a pair of deficiencies. They do not clarify the argument of Heart ofDarkness and so do not dojustice to its copious philosophical content. They also 280 Jerrys. Clegg281 fail to note those features ofKurtz that identify his model most precisely. The prototype of Conrad's famous character is biblical. He is a modern version of Abraham, and the work most intimately related to Heart of Darkness is Kierkegaard's panegyric on Abraham: Fear and Trembling. Conrad's story is, in fact, an addendum to Fear and Trembling written from the point of view of a poet-narrator—Marlow—who has accepted some, but not all, of the tenets of Kierkegaard's own poet-narrator, Johannes de Silentio. It is Marlow's quarrel with de Silentio that explains the structure of Heart ofDarkness, that constitutes its deepest message, and that tells the reader who the model for Kurtz was. An appreciation of that quarrel also helps clarify other matters. It makes plain, for example, the symbolism of light and dark that Conrad uses as an accompaniment to his argument.6 Heart of Darkness is, unarguably, a meditation on several subjects. It is about the Belgian Congo under the administration of King Leopold. It is also about European colonialism in general. It may be about other matters as well. Its primary subject, however, is the relationship of the religious to the ethical and the aesthetic. Since for Conrad the ethical and the aesthetic were allied, this subject may be best cast as the relationship ofreligion to art. It is introduced at the very start ofthe novella. Conrad's primary narrator there offers a theme for his seafaring friend, Marlow, to meditate on aloud: the great English knights-errant of the sea who, like "jewels flashing in the night of time," have born the torch of civilization into the mystery of an unknown earth.7 As this theme is announced, what was a mournful gloom that had hung over London becomes a lurid glare under the stars, and Marlow begins to talk of these, and still other, kinds of light and their relationship to the dark. The primary narrator has already identified what the dark stands for: time. Marlow does not challenge that equation. He only asks who, and with the aid of what kind of light, effectively combats "the night of time." During his meditation he considers four answers to his question, three of which are of primary importance. Certain "redeeming facts," illustrated by the restraint shown by hungry cannibals, quietly dazzle with reassurance, and so what mightbe called the person ofethical conduct— when stripped bare of pretense and the opaque "cloak of time... (shrink)

This is a short precis of my 2014 book Confusion of Tongues: A Theory of Normative Language, accompanying my Reply to Worsnip, Dowell, and Koehn in the same volume.

This essay falls into three parts. Section 1 describes how Politics Book I, which includes Aristotle’s famous claims that the human being is by nature a political animal (politikon zōon) and that the polis (city-state) is natural and naturally prior to the individual, and his infamous claim that it is just to enslave those who are slaves by nature, may be connected with the rest of the Politics, which is about politeiai (constitutions). Section 2 examines Aristotle’s ideal politeia in Politics (...) VII-VIII in the light of his criticisms of other politeiai in Book II. Section 3 discusses non-ideal constitutions in Politics III-VI. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Journal of the History of Philosophy 41.4 (2003) 561-562 [Access article in PDF] Gianni Paganini, Miguel Benítez, and James Dybikowski, editors. Scepticisme, Clandestinité et Libre Pensée. Paris: Honoré Champion, 2002. Pp. 382. Cloth, €60.00. This book consists of papers from two Tables rondes held in Dublin in 1999 on the occasion of the Tenth International Congress on the Enlightenment. The contributors are: Paganini, Benítez, Dybikowski, Alan Charles Kors, Winfried (...) Schröder, José R. Maia Neto, Adam Sutcliffe, Justin Champion, Antony McKenna, Lorenzo Bianchi, Christine Berkvens-Stevelinck, Pierre Lurbe, Stephen David Snobelen, Nigel Aston, and Stuart Brown. There is remarkably little overlap among the papers and Paganini has clearly insisted on very [End Page 561] high standards. Because of space limitations, I shall focus on several of the general themes which run through the book rather than on individual contributions.Despite the phenomenal success Richard Popkin and collaborators like the late Charles B. Schmitt, Giorgio Tonelli, and Ezequiel de Olaso have had in documenting the amazing impact of skepticism in the Renaissance and in the years up to the Enlightenment, this volume demonstrates that skepticism, that many-faceted force, continued throughout the eighteenth-century Enlightenment. After Bayle, and the application of his special forms of skepticism to theological topics—forms which were often employed, contrary to Bayle's probable intentions, in defense of atheism—skepticism went "underground." A large variety of literature was circulated in manuscript form, the clandestine literature of the period. The lesson which this conference celebrates is that skepticism did not cease being a major cultural force. Thus there is, thanks to the philosophical dimension of the clandestine literature in the eighteenth century, a transition from Christian rationalism to an anti-Christian rationalism.Major figures of the Enlightenment were, of course, well-acquainted with skepticism, e.g., Berkeley, Voltaire, Hume, Crousaz, Condillac, Reid, and Kant. Not surprisingly, the major topics discussed in these papers center around skepticism, fideism and atheism, proofs for the existence of God, and the status of the "preambles" to the faith. These all receive careful attention. The tension between the arguments for Christian Pyrrhonism versus anti-Christian rationalism runs through many of these papers. And of course Bayle's points of view on both sides of the Christian debate appear in much of the clandestine literature. The matter of the immortality of the soul is carefully discussed. What is the status of this doctrine? Is it a question of Church dogma or is it another belief to be discarded in the light of reason?The connection perceived to hold between atheism and political legitimacy are explored in several papers. In the seventeenth century, Locke would exclude atheists from the body politic, in part because they were unable to truthfully swear an oath. Atheists were perceived as a danger for many eighteenth-century figures and the political need to suppress atheism was widely understood and accepted by those in the various religious establishments. Bayle's two-century-old attempt to break the putative logical tie between morality and religion failed in his own day, and despite the efforts of the authors of clandestine philosophical literature, the intimate link Bayle tried to break seems to be stronger than ever in much of the world today. It is interesting that the United States is virtually the only industrial and democratic society in which atheists are virtually precluded from being political candidates in federal, and probably most local, elections. Among other things, the papers in this volume help one to understand just how difficult breaking free from theological constraints in the interest of political freedom has proved to be. Harry McFarland Bracken Arizona State University, Tempe... (shrink)

Stephen R. L. Clark; XV*—God, Good and Evil, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Volume 77, Issue 1, 1 June 1977, Pages 247–264, https://doi.org/10.1093/ar.

Formal principals are isolated to reveal a structure embedded in a wide range of studies, each of which partitions a domain of individuals into types and categories. It is thought that any reasonable theory of types should include these principles.

THE OPENING OF MARTIN HEIDEGGER'S summer of 1928 Marburg lectures on logic is, to use a word he himself invokes elsewhere about these matters, "dismaying"--providing perhaps additional evidence for the perennial charge that aspects of his work contain tendencies toward irrationalism, mysticism, and forms of nostalgic romanticism. In fact, the lectures show Heidegger calling for nothing less than a "destruction of logic," a move not only consistent with a similar destruction in Being and Time, published a year previously, but also (...) consistent with a context which its author describes as one in which "the inner rebellion against knowledge, the revolt against rationality, and the struggle against intellectualism have become fashionable." His ensuing condemnation of "the widespread sterility of academic courses" in this area and the call for "loosening up traditional logic," would seem to lead directly to the proclamation which would issue from Heidegger's struggle with Nietzsche in the decade thereafter, that "reason, glorified for centuries, is the most stiff-necked adversary of thought." The question of Heidegger's account in this regard has continually troubled those writing in its wake--not only in the continental traditional, such as Gadamer, Adorno, Habermas, Merleau-Ponty, or Derrida, but also those "beyond" it, such as Carnap, Ryle, Rorty, or Putnam. And yet, such claims seem only to provide added weight to the concern that the "retrieval of metaphysics" thought to be essential to these issues based upon the Daseinanalytik of Being and Time would only lead the classical issues in philosophy associated with justification and decidability into a quagmire. Its emphasis upon the conjunct in its title, being and time, could only lead, on the one hand, to anthropological reductionism--since it returned the interrogation of Being back to the commitments of the being through whom the questioning arose-and on the other hand, to a new version of historicism--since it claimed that questions concerning "truth" were tied essentially to time, and specifically, to the latter's appearance within the temporal horizon of the being to whom they appeared. Moreover, that even those closest to Heidegger viewed the matter similarly is clear, for example, in the criticisms his mentor, Edmund Husserl voiced in the 1931 response, "Phenomenology and Anthropology." There the strategy Husserl used in arguing against Dilthey's flirtation with relativism in a Logos essay of 1911 was reinvoked against Heidegger himself. In this regard, far from contributing to a retrieval of classical issues in philosophy, Heidegger would be simply guilty of effecting their ultimate dissolution, a claim which, like that of irrationalism, has accompanied his works ever since. (shrink)

Substantial efforts have recently been made to reform the physician-patient relationship, particularly toward replacing the `silent world of doctor and patient' with informed patient participation in medical decision-making. This 'new ethos of patient autonomy' has especially insisted on the routine provision of informed consent for all medical interventions. Stronly supported by most bioethicists and the law, as well as more popular writings and expectations, it still seems clear that informed consent has, at best, been received in a lukewarm fashion by (...) most clinicians, many simply rejecting what they commonly refer to as the `myth of informed consent'. The purpose of this book is to defuse this seemingly intractable controversy by offering an efficient and effective operational model of informed consent. This goal is pursued first by reviewing and evaluating, in detail, the agendas, arguments, and supporting materials of its proponents and detractors. A comprehensive review of empirical studies of informed consent is provided, as well as a detailed reflection on the common clinician experience with attempts at informed consent and the exercise of autonomy by patients. In the end, informed consent is recast as a management tool for pursuing clinically and ethically important goods and values that any clinician should see as meriting pursuit. Concurrently, the model incorporates a flexible, anticipatory approach that recognizes that no static, generic ritual can legitimately pursue the quite variable goods and values that may be at stake with different patients in different situations. Finally, efficiency of provision is addressed by not pursuing the unattainable and ancillary. Throughout, the traditional principle of beneficence is appealed to toward articulating an operational model of informed consent as an intervention that is likely to change outcomes at the bedside for the better. (shrink)

The American Journal of Bioethics, Volume 11, Issue 12, Page 17-20, December 2011.

The paper advances an interpretation of political scandal and its place in democratic politics, taking the scandals of the ‘Watergate era’ in American politics as its evidential basis. The interpretation focuses on an aspect of political scandal that has been neglected in existing treatments, namely the politically constructed rather than epistemologically simple nature of scandalous ‘exposure’. The career of the ‘smoking gun’ in the Watergate era provides illustration. The paper goes on to relate political scandal as both symptom and stimulus (...) to trends in late-modern democratization concerning ‘hyperpolitics’ and ‘metainformation’ . On this basis, the generalization of scandal politics as a typical mode of democratic politics is suggested. (shrink)