In this essay, I look back at some of the earliest attempts by the first generation of literature-and-medicine scholars to answer the question: Why teach literature and medicine? Reviewing the development of the field in its early years, I examine statements by practitioners to see whether their answers have held up over time and to consider how the rationales they articulated have expanded or changed in the following years and why. Greater emphasis on literary criticism, narrative ethics, narrative theory, and (...) reflective writing has influenced current work in the field in ways that could not have been foreseen in the 1970s. The extraordinary growth of interest and work in the field nationally and, especially since 1996, internationally has included practitioners in many additional areas such as disability studies, film studies, therapeutic writing, and trauma studies. Along with the emergence of narrative medicine, this diverse community of scholars and practitioners—affiliated more through their use of narrative methodologies than the teaching of literature—makes the perennial challenge of evaluation and assessment even more complicated. (shrink)

The purpose of this article is to encourage and help inform active discussion of authorship policies among members of scientific societies. The article explains the history and rationale of the influential criteria for authorship developed by the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors, examines questions about those criteria that emerge from authorship policies adopted by several U.S. medical schools, and summarizes the arguments for replacing authorship with the contributorguarantor model. Finally, it concludes with a plea for scientific societies to play (...) a prominent role in the ongoing debates about authorship and the alternatives as part of their efforts to encourage ethical conduct among their members. Whether or not scientific societies develop authorship policies of their own, they should undertake vigorous educational efforts to keep their new members adequately informed about the importance of authorship practices in ethical scientific research and publication. (shrink)

By 1999, when Atul Gawande's essay “Whose Body Is It, Anyway?” appeared in The New Yorker, patient autonomy had largely trumped physician paternalism in American medical practice. Gawande uses the stories of actual patients to attempt his counter case for physicians' “talking patients through their decisions.” Toward the end of his essay, Gawande acknowledges that “many ethicists find this line of reasoning disturbing,” but he reassures his readers that “the real task isn't to banish paternalism; the real task is to (...) preserve kindness.”What troubles me, however, is not so much the ethical position Gawande takes but the way he structures his narrative to support his position. “Whose Body Is It, Anyway?” offers an important example for close scrutiny because, in my experience, it so effectively engages readers‐especially medical students‐and persuades them to accept the ethical position it puts forward. Yet Gawande's own reflections about this issue do not stop with this essay. As he has gained clinical experience, he has continued his ethical reflections, and the stories that he tells have changed significantly over the years. I will argue here that close reading and careful narrative scrutiny can alert those who read this essay apart from Gawande's later work to some of the pitfalls in this kind of narrative ethics. (shrink)

As last year's 200th anniversary celebrations of the first publication of Mary Godwin Shelley's novel Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus came to a close, it seemed there could be nothing that remained unsaid about the work and its enduring cultural influence. Academic conferences had begun two years earlier: in June 2016, the Brocher Foundation hosted one of the first international meetings to examine the importance of the novel for our time. The Brocher Foundation, situated in Hermance, Switzerland—just a few miles (...) along Lake Geneva from the Villa Diodati, the site in June 1816 of Mary Godwin's inspiration for her famous gothic tale—was the perfect place for such an event. Since... (shrink)

We consider the moral and social ingredients in physicians' relationships with patients of diminished capacity by considering certain claims made about friendship and the physician's role. To assess these claims we look at the life context of two patients as elaborated examples provided in two novels: Woman on the Edge of Time (1976) by Marge Piercy, a radical feminist; and It's Hard to Leave While the Music's Playing (1977) by I. S. Cooper, a prominent physician-researcher. At issue is how the (...) doctor-patient relationship should be structured. In question is whether the physician's friendship and professional expertise, together with the diminished capacity of the patient, authorize medical paternalism. From our examination, we find compelling insights against appealing to friendship both in good doctor-patient relationships and in more typical, not-so-good ones. (shrink)

This volume, along with Volume V, completes the edition of the long English Wycliffite sermon cycle and two related tracts; the first three volumes, published in 1983, 1987 and 1990, contained the texts of the 294 sermons, together with variants and some introductory material. This volume contains a review of the evidence concerning the date, authorship and audience of the sermons, followed by a survey of the main polemical issues repeatedly under discussion in the sermons and by a commentary on (...) the text, which is continued in Volume V. The material here, along with the introductions to the three text volumes, will enable scholars to assess the background and importance of this extensive body of vernacular preaching. In particular, the discussion traces the large debt of the sermons to a wide range of Wyclif's own Latin works, and shows their relationship to other works of the Wycliffite movement. (shrink)

This volume completes the edition of the long English Wycliffite sermon cycle and two related tracts; This final volume contains a detailed commentary on the text, essential for the study of the earlier text volumes. The material here, along with the introductions to the three text volumes and the survey of the main polemical issues repeatedly under discussion in the sermons in Volume IV, will enable scholars to assess the background and importance of this extensive body of vernacular preaching, tracing (...) the sermons, debt to a wide range of Wyclif's own Latin works, and reveals their relationship to other works of the Wycliffite movement. (shrink)

This third volume completes the text of the cycle of 294 English Wycliffite sermons; the first two volumes appeared in 1983 and 1987 respectively. The 120 sermons here were intended to provide material for all the weekday occasions for which the Sarum rite offers a separate gospel reading; such complete coverage of ferial days is unparalleled in English medieval homiliaries, and seems unknown elsewhere in contemporary European cycles of sermons. The introduction to the present book, which is intended to be (...) used along with the material in the previous volumes, describes the state of the text in these manuscripts and their relation to each other. Two further chapters consider questions relating to the whole cycle: the fidelity of the biblical translation in the sermons to the Vulgate texts; and the complicated issue of the relation between these English sermons and the Latin sermons of John Wyclif himself. A fourth volume will provide a commentary on the individual sermons, consider the recurrent issues discussed within them, and offer suggestions concerning the origins of the collection. (shrink)

There have been and continue to be disagreements about how to consider the traditional square of opposition and the traditional inferences of obversion, conversion, contraposition and inversion from the perspective of contemporary quantificational logic. Philosophers have made many different attempts to save traditional inferences that are invalid when they involve empty classes. I survey some of these attempts and argue that the only satisfactory way of saving all the traditional inferences is to make the existential assumption that both the subject (...) and predicate classes and their complement classes are non-empty for all the propositions we admit. I briefly indicate the room for continued controversy over how properly to interpret Aristotle?s statements regarding these inferences, but find some plausibility in the views of Manley Thompson and A.N.Prior that Aristotle had in mind a particular arrangement of existential import unfamiliar to most contemporary logicians. (shrink)

Dans la genese de sa constitution, la philosophie n'a pu faire l'economie d'une confrontation avec la musique qui fournissait aux anciens Grecs les schemes fondamentaux de la culture. De cette confrontation Platon est le temoin. Scindant la musique, il privilegie l'Harmonique, qui en est la partie theorique, sans toutefois lui reconnaitre la titre de science supreme. Correlativement, il condamne comme dysharmonie, tumulte fracassant et perturbateur de l'ordre cosmique, l'harmonie chromaticiste dont il s'emploie, non sans paradoxe, a decrire le detail. Par (...) cette lecture en filigrane des Dialogues de Platon, l'auteur se propose de reconstruire la pensee qui procede de l'harmonie chromaticiste et de montrer son importance dans l'elaboration de la philosophie fondatrice. Au carrefour des disciplines du savoir antique, ce livre s'adresse non seulement aux philosophes, mais aussi a tous ceux qui, musiciens ou stylisticiens, s'interessent a la forme musicale. (shrink)

(2003). Intellectuals for our times. Critical Review of International Social and Political Philosophy: Vol. 6, The Public Role of Intellectuals, pp. 33-50. doi: 10.1080/1369823042000241258.

During the mid-nineteenth century, the eminent British zoologist Alfred Newton recognized that some of the ideas embedded in Origin of Species provided new scientific rationales for the preservation of endangered species. He then embarked on a twenty-five-year-long campaign for law reforms and successfully lobbied Parliament to enact three new statutes for the preservation of endangered wild birds that gave priority to the scientific value of rare species. The account of Newton’s campaign presented in this article helps to locate Newton in (...) the nineteenth century conservation movement, while also shining a side light on the relationship between conservation science and policy-making more generally, including the variety of voices and approaches taken to conservation in the UK and US. Today, as we pursue new regulatory responses to critical environmental issues, such as biodiversity loss and climate change, the history of Newton’s campaign offers an early example of a successful approach to science-based law reform. It also shows how some of the issues that Newton and his contemporaries confronted at the science-policy interface in the nineteenth century are enduring and remain relevant today, including debates about; the role of scientist-advocates in policy-making, the criteria that make science advice effective, and whether the “democratization” of science leads to better policy decisions. (shrink)

In this paper, I take a critical look at Sartorio’s book Causation and Free Will (2016). Sartorio offers a rich defence of an actual-sequence view of freedom, which pays close attention to issues in the philosophy of causation and how they relate to freedom. I argue that although this focus on causation is illuminating, Sartorio’s project nevertheless runs into some serious difficulties. Perhaps most worrying amongst them is whether the agent-based reason-sensitivity account, offered by Sartorio, is consistent with Frankfurt-style cases (...) – the very cases which are provided as the sole reason to endorse an actual-sequence view of freedom. I suggest that given that powers and causation are so intimately bound together, the debate is skewed somewhat by thinking of these as rivals. (shrink)

_A portion of the revenue from this book’s sales will be donated to Doctors Without Borders to assist the humanitarian work of nurses, doctors, and other health care providers in the fight against COVID-19 and beyond._ _Concepts and Cases in Nursing Ethics_ is an introduction to contemporary ethical issues in health care, designed especially for Canadian audiences. The book is organized around six key concepts: beneficence, autonomy, truth-telling, confidentiality, justice, and integrity. Each of these concepts is explained and discussed with (...) reference to professional and legal norms. The discussion is then supplemented by case studies that exemplify the relevant concepts and show how each applies in health care and nursing practice. This new fourth edition includes an added chapter on end-of-life issues, and it is revised throughout to reflect the latest developments on topics such as global health ethics, cultural competence, social media, and palliative sedation, as well as ethical issues relating to COVID-19. (shrink)

This essay uses Garland’s framework from The Culture of Control to suggest an agenda for critical penology. This includes, as well as the analysis of choices actually made and the cultural repertoire actually available, describing and advocating other possible choices, and analysing the conditions of possibility for the adoption of other (better) policies and practices; and examining the implications for the future of choices which are currently being made. Carlen’s Women and Punishment: The Struggle for Justice and Garland’s edited collection (...) Mass Imprisonment in the USA are examples of these penologies. Another way in which penologists, social theorists and philosophers can attempt to influence policy choices is to contribute to enlargement of the available cultural repertoire. The development and promotion of restorative justice is given as one example of this; another is work by philosophers such as Duff, Matravers and Norrie which addresses questions such as the source, nature and limits of penal communities; the basis of political obligation, and the relational nature of responsibility for crime. (shrink)

In his recent article, Nicolas Rasmussen (2001) is harshly critical of what he terms 'empirical philosophy of science', a philosophy that takes seriously the history of science in advancing philosophical pronouncements about science. He motivates his criticism by reflecting on recent history in microbiology involving the 'discovery' of a new bacterial organelle, the mesosome, during the 1950's and 1960's, and the subsequent retraction of this discovery by experimental microbiologists during the late 1970's and early 1980's. In particular, he argues that (...) there was a lack of constancy in the methods microbiologists used in approaching the issue of the existence of mesosomes, and that in fact a similar sort of 'methodological flux' pervades all experimental work. My goal here is to refute Rasmussen's doctrine of flux, and in turn to re-establish order in our understanding of the methods and strategies of experimenters. My strategy in achieving this goal is to re-visit the same crucial research articles in the history of the mesosome episode that Rasmussen (2001) visits; and what I find upon returning to this literature is not flux, as Rasmussen seems to find, but a constancy of method in experimental reasoning, a constancy codified by what I call 'reliable process reasoning'. (shrink)

This Is A New Release Of The Original 1896 Edition.