Iris Murdoch's famous case of M and D illustrates the moral importance of learning to see others in a more favourable light through renewed attention. Yet if we do not read this case in the wider context of Murdoch's work, we are liable to overlook the attitudes and transformations involved in coming to change one's mind as M does. Stanley Cavell offers one such reading and denies that the case represents a change in M's sense of herself or the possibilities (...) for her world of the kind exemplified by Nora in Ibsen's A Doll's House. In this essay, I challenge Cavell's reading, suggesting that the case, while it may not be an exemplar of the perfectionist outlook as described by Cavell, can and should be interpreted in perfectionist terms. To see this, I reflect on Murdoch's views on the endless perfectibility of language, the importance of humility, and the role of love and attention in moral learning. I conclude that Murdoch's work uniquely sheds light on how we might cultivate a perfectionist outlook in ourselves and others, and describes the distinctive role that some novels can play in moral education. (shrink)

Of the later dialogues of Plato, the Sophists stand out. This article highlights the concept of sophist as propounded by Plato. A didactic approach runs through the text. Socrates harps on the relation between sophist, philosopher and a statesman. Are they three different or they are the same. The basic idea that Plato wants to convey is, both features highlight some of the key enigmas of the dialogue: What is the relation between the outer and middle parts? How seriously are (...) we to take the outer part? And is there a genuine, and successful, attempt to say what the sophist is? The article focuses on two key problems discussed and solved in the middle part: the late-learners' problem, and the problem of false statement. The article also discusses communion of kinds and Plato's idea of the four quartets. (shrink)

In the Nicomachean Ethics Aristotle examines the nature of happiness, which he defines as a specially good kind of life. He considers the nature of practical reasoning, friendship, and the role and importance of the moral virtues in the best life. This new edition features a revised translation and valuable new introduction and notes.

Efforts by governments, firms, and patients to deliver pioneering drugs for critical health needs face a challenge of diminishing efficiency in developing those medicines. While multi-sectoral collaborations involving firms, researchers, patients, and policymakers are widely recognized as crucial for countering this decline, existing incentives to engage in drug development predominantly target drug manufacturers and thereby do little to stimulate collaborative innovation. In this mini review, we consider the unexplored potential within pharmaceutical regulations to create novel incentives to encourage a diverse (...) set of actors from the public and private spheres to engage in the kind of collaborative knowledge exchange requisite for fostering enhanced innovation in early drug development. (shrink)

In the United States today, the human body defines a lucrative site of reusable parts, ranging from whole organs to minuscule and even microscopic tissues. Although the medical practices that enable the transfer of parts from one body to another most certainly relieve suffering and extend lives, they have also irrevocably altered perceptions of the cultural values assigned to the body. Organ transfer is rich terrain to investigate—especially in the American context, where sophisticated technological interventions have significantly shaped understandings of (...) health and well-being, suffering, and death. In _Bodies, Commodities, and Biotechnologies_, Lesley Sharp probes the ideological assumptions underlying the transfer of body parts, the social significance of donors' deaths, and the medico-scientific desires surrounding complex forms of body repair. Sharp also considers the experimental realm, in which nonhuman species and artificial devices present further opportunities for recovery and for controversy. A compelling scientific investigation and social critique, _Bodies, Commodities, and Biotechnologies_ explores the pervasive, and at times pernicious, practices shaping American biomedicine in the twenty-first century. (shrink)

In the United States today, the human body defines a lucrative site of reusable parts, ranging from whole organs to minuscule and even microscopic tissues. Although the medical practices that enable the transfer of parts from one body to another most certainly relieve suffering and extend lives, they have also irrevocably altered perceptions of the cultural values assigned to the body. Organ transfer is rich terrain to investigate—especially in the American context, where sophisticated technological interventions have significantly shaped understandings of (...) health and well-being, suffering, and death. In _Bodies, Commodities, and Biotechnologies_, Lesley Sharp probes the ideological assumptions underlying the transfer of body parts, the social significance of donors' deaths, and the medico-scientific desires surrounding complex forms of body repair. Sharp also considers the experimental realm, in which nonhuman species and artificial devices present further opportunities for recovery and for controversy. A compelling scientific investigation and social critique, _Bodies, Commodities, and Biotechnologies_ explores the pervasive, and at times pernicious, practices shaping American biomedicine in the twenty-first century. (shrink)

One might be inclined to assume, given the mouse donning its cover, that the behavior of interest in Nicole Nelson's book Model Behavior (2018) is that of organisms like mice that are widely used as “stand-ins” for investigating the causes of human behavior. Instead, Nelson's ethnographic study focuses on the strategies adopted by a community of rodent behavioral researchers to identify and respond to epistemic challenges they face in using mice as models to understand the causes of disordered human behaviors (...) associated with mental illness. Although Nelson never explicitly describes the knowledge production activities in which her behavioral geneticist research subjects engage as “exemplary”, the question of whether or not these activities constitute “model behavior(s)”—generalizable norms for engaging in scientific research—is one of the many thought-provoking questions raised by her book. As a philosopher of science interested in this question, I take it up here. (shrink)

This practical guide explores professional values in nursing, helping you to develop safe, compassionate, person-centred and evidence-based practice. The fundamental values of equality, anti-discriminatory practice and caring are discussed throughout. Chapters explore person-centred and holistic nursing care. They discuss working in partnership with people and families and working in partnership within the interprofessional team. The book explores vulnerability and safeguarding, challenging poor practice and promoting best practice. Chapters are mapped to NMC Standards for Pre-registration Nursing Education. Strong evidence base to (...) ensure best practice. Accessible style with features including learning outcomes, key points, summary boxes, case studies, reflection points and questions. Relevant to all fields of nursing, with case studies representing patients across the lifespan and with different healthcare needs. Free online resources include PowerPoints, additional scenarios and questions. Professional Values in Nursing is a valuable resource for all nursing students, helping to embed professional values in your everyday practice. (shrink)

"Cult of ugliness," Ezra Pound’s phrase, powerfully summarizes the ways in which modernists such as Pound, T. S. Eliot, Wyndham Lewis, and T. E. Hulme—the self-styled "Men of 1914"—responded to the "horrid or sordid or disgusting" conditions of modernity by radically changing aesthetic theory and literary practice. Only the representation of "ugliness," they protested, would produce the new, truly "beautiful" work of art. They dissociated the beautiful from its traditional embodiment in female beauty, and from its association with Walter Pater (...) and Oscar Wilde. Their cultivation of ugliness displaced misogyny and homophobia. Higgins takes in texts such as John Ruskin’s art criticism, Eliot’s literary journalism, Lewis’s pro-fascism pamphlets, and the poetry of Pound, Conrad Aiken, and Langston Hughes. She demonstrates that even vigorous champions of beauty were committed to aesthetic practices that disempowered female figures in order to articulate new truths of male artistic mastery. (shrink)

This book explores Iris Murdoch as a philosopher who, through her distinctive methodology, exploits the advantages of having a mind on the borders of literature and politics in her early career writings (pre-The Sovereignty of Good). By focusing on a single decade of Murdoch’s early career, Jamieson tracks connections between her views on the state of literature and politics in postwar Britain and her approach to the philosophy of mind and moral philosophy. Furthermore, this close study reveals that, far from (...) a stylistic quirk, Murdoch’s use of metaphors, analogies, and other literary devices is internal to her methodology. Finally, rather than asking what Murdoch’s views are, this work will ask “what is Murdoch trying to achieve with her writings and public lectures, and how does she go about this?” By answering the latter question, we will have a new strategy for interpreting her writings more generally. The book contributes to the growing body of scholarship focusing on Iris Murdoch’s philosophical writings, and on women in the history of analytic philosophy. (shrink)

L'ouvrage revient sur le projet de l'esthétique dite "scientifique", qui se constitue comme telle dans la 2e moitié du XIXe siècle : dépasser les postulats kantiens et spiritualistes au nom d'un rapprochement de l'esthétique avec les sciences expérimentales de son temps (psychologie, physiologie, psychophysique, anthropologie...). Croisant les approches de la philosophie et de l'histoire de l’art, l'ouvrage étudie en outre l'articulation de cette esthétique avec l'art de son temps, du néo-impressionnisme aux débuts de l'abstraction, de l'art nouveau à la géométrie (...) sensible des puristes, et des réformateurs des arts du geste et de la danse aux zélateurs des synesthésies et de l'oeuvre d'art totale. (shrink)

This chapter focuses on the way that cultures change and how cultural diversity is created, maintained and lost. Human culture is the inevitable result of the way our species acquires its behavior. We are extremely social animals and an overwhelming proportion of our behavior is socially learned. The behavior of other animals is largely a product of innate evolved determinants of behavior combined with individual learning. They make quite modest use of social learning while we acquire a massive cultural repertoire (...) from the people we associate with (Richerson & Boyd, 2005: Chapter 2). Expertise in exploiting our environment, values about what matters in life and even feelings about whom to trust and whom to hate are mostly “absorbed” from those around us. (shrink)

I examine Aristotle's brief remarks in N.E. I.3 to the effect that fine and just things – ta kala and ta dikaia – have much diversity and variation and hence are thought to be...

Warum und wie genau darf zu Hause oder auf einer Theaterbühne anders gehandelt werden, als im Büro; wie verändert sich die Bedeutung von Worten, je nachdem wo, von wem und wie sie gesagt werden? Warum und mit welchen Mitteln versuchen wir, höflich zu sein, und inwiefern sind wir von unangemessenem Verhalten anderer bedroht? Welches Weltwissen benötigen Beobachter, um beurteilen zu können, wann Verhalten als angemessen oder unangemessen einzustufen ist? Im vorliegenden Band untersuchen die Beitragenden das Phänomen sozialer Angemessenheit unter anderem (...) aus philosophischer, sozialpsychologischer, soziologischer, kulturtheoretischer, linguistischer und anthropologischer Perspektive. Dabei werden insbesondere Bedingungen und Auswirkungen, Merkmale sowie Wandlungs- und Entstehungsprozesse sozialer Angemessenheit thematisiert. Die Herausgebenden Jacqueline Bellon M.A. promoviert an der TU Darmstadt und arbeitet als Philosophin, Kultur- und Sozialwissenschaftlerin. Dr. Bruno Gransche ist Philosoph am Institut für Technikzukünfte (ITZ) des Karlsruher Instituts für Technologie (KIT). Sebastian Nähr-Wagener M.A. ist wiss. Mitarbeiter am Institut für Technikzukünfte (ITZ) des Karlsruher Instituts für Technologie (KIT). (shrink)

This article argues that Iris Murdoch, who was supervised by John Wisdom during her 1947–48 fellowship at Newnham College Cambridge, went on to practice philosophy in a recognizably Wisdomian manner in her earliest paper, “Thinking and Language” (1951). To do so, I first describe how Wisdom understood philosophical perplexity and paradox. One task that linguistic philosophers should take up is to investigate the concrete cases that give paradoxical philosophical statements their sense and to sift the truth they contain from the (...) distortion. I then show how this vision informed his critical reception of Gilbert Ryle's The Concept of Mind as well as his own investigation of the Hidden Stream Paradox. Finally, I trace a similar approach to Murdoch's discussions of a paradox I call the Coarse Net Paradox. Recognizing Murdoch's intellectual inheritance from Wisdom enables us to see a thus‐far overlooked connection between Murdoch and the tradition of linguistic philosophy. (shrink)

In his correspondence, John Locke described his close friend Damaris Masham as ‘a determined foe to ecclesiastical tyranny’ and someone who had ‘the greatest aversion to all persecution on account of religious matters.’ In her short biography of Locke, Masham returned the compliment by commending Locke for convincing others that ‘Liberty of Conscience is the unquestionable Right of Mankind.’ These comments attest to Masham’s personal commitment to the cause of religious liberty. Thus far, however, there has been no scholarly discussion (...) of the tolerationist ethic underlying Masham’s 1705 publication, Occasional Thoughts. In this chapter, I argue that Masham’s work appeals to three common tolerationist principles of her time: the idea that the authorities should not use coercion and penalties as ways of imposing religious beliefs on others; the view that God requires human beings to attain salvation through their own efforts, and not by blindly following the dictates of the state-established religion; and the idea that the granting of liberty of conscience helps to ensure the peace and stability of political society. I show that Masham goes further than her tolerationist contemporaries by arguing that together these principles imply that a woman’s intellectual education—or the conscious cultivation of a woman’s ability to reflect critically on her religious beliefs—is vital for the good of the commonwealth. (shrink)

Honeybees show lateral asymmetry in both learning about odours associated with reward and recalling memory of these associations. We have extended this research to show that bees exhibit lateral biases in their initial response to odours: viz., turning towards the source of an odour presented on their right side and turning away from it when presented on their left side. The odours we presented were the main component of the alarm pheromone, iso-amyl acetate (IAA), and four floral scents. The significant (...) bias to turn towards IAA odour on the right and away from it on the left is, we argue, a lateralization of the fight-flight response elicited by this pheromone. It contrasts to an absence of any asymmetry in the turning response to an odour of the flowers on which the bees had been feeding prior to testing: to this odour they turned towards when it was presented on either the left or right side. Lemon and orange odours were responded to differently on the left and right sides (towards on the right, away on the left) but no asymmetry was found in responses to rose odour. Our results show that side biases are present even in the initial, orienting response of bees to certain odours. (shrink)

This paper takes as its starting point the special provision made for grant maintained schools through the 1998 School Standards and Framework Act and suggests that the compromise it represented may be considered as an example of New Labour's Third Way in politics. The latter is discussed in terms of general and educational policies with specific regard to the characteristics of self-governing schools.

Beautifully packaged reissue of the vividly lyrical biography of Nietzsche that John Banville called 'a major intellectual event' In 1888, philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche moved to Turin. This would be the year in which he wrote three of his greatest works: Twilight of the Idols, The Antichrist, and Ecce Homo; it would also be his last year of writing. He suffered a debilitating nervous breakdown in the first days of the following year. In this probing, elegant biography of that pivotal year, (...) Lesley Chamberlain undoes popular clichés and misconceptions about Nietzsche by offering a deeply complex approach to his character and work. Focusing as much on Nietzsche's daily habits, anxieties and insecurities as on the development of his philosophy, Nietzsche in Turin offers a uniquely lively portrait of the great thinker, and of the furiously productive days that preceded his decline. (shrink)

A personal glimpse into the life of one of the most influential twentieth-century philosophers covers his involvement with the existentialist movement and false accusations associating him with Hitler and Nazism.

En un momento de tensión y polémica por la situación que tiene la enseñanza de la filosofía dentro de la l. o. g. s. e., es útil hacer una reflexión comparativa con el modo en el que se esta dando respuesta a la didáctica de la filosofía en otro país europeo, en Italia.

Die Arbeit setzt sich das Ziel, zu zeigen, wie es in der europaischen Geistesgeschichte zur Ausbildung eines <I>personalen Ich gekommen ist. Dadurch kann sich der Mensch als <I>eigenstandige Person erkennen und Eigenverantwortung fur seine Handlungen ubernehmen, deren Auswirkungen auch <I>die anderen betreffen. Um den Anderen in seinen Anspruchen und Bedurfnissen wahrzunehmen, bedarf es nicht nur des Verstandes, sondern auch des Gefuhls. Die moderne -Philosophie der Gefuhle- und die aktuelle Hirnforschung bieten mit ihren Ergebnissen die Chance, zu erkennen, dass dem Menschen (...) aufgrund seiner psycho-physischen Ausstattung die Rucksichtnahme auf den Anderen sowohl moglich als auch fur ihn selbst forderlich ist. Der letzte Abschnitt der Untersuchung zeigt, dass die Anspruche der anderen in der Moral und den Gesetzen verankert werden mussen, um Wirksamkeit zu entfalten.". (shrink)

1. T. Entwicklung bis 1971 -- 2. T. Entwicklung von 1972 bis 1980.

Radical curriculum policy transformations are emerging as a key strategy of universities across different countries as they move to strengthen their competitive position in a global knowledge era. This paper puts forward a ?global case study? research agenda in the under-researched area of university curriculum policy. The particular curriculum policies to be investigated point to potentially new forms of liberal education, and they resonate in varying degrees with contemporary patterns in Europe as well as longer standing patterns in the United (...) States. This research agenda stands to make a unique contribution with its ?whole curriculum? approach to: the examination of the relationship between curriculum content, pedagogy and assessment; the tracking of curriculum policy borrowing across different jurisdictions extending between global and local levels; and the investigation of historical antecedents of contemporary curriculum policy patterns. In particular, the proposed agenda features a rare combination of spatial and temporal dimensions of university curriculum policy flows. This research agenda will provide a strong empirical evidence base for extending theory building about university curriculum policy development, as well as policy ?learning? for policy makers, practitioners and scholars ? globally. (shrink)

Ian Hacking instigated a revolution in 20th century philosophy of science by putting experiments (“interventions”) at the top of a philosophical agenda that historically had focused nearly exclusively on representations (“theories”). In this paper, I focus on a set of conceptual tools Hacking (1992) put forward to understand how laboratory sciences become stable and to explain what such stability meant for the prospects of unity of science and kind discovery in experimental science. I first use Hacking’s tools to understand sources (...) of instability and disunity in rodent behavioral neuroscience. I then use them to understand recent grass-roots collaborative open science initiatives aimed at establishing stability in this research area and tease out some implications for unity of science and kind creation and discovery in cognitive neuroscience. -/- . (shrink)

The average age of women nursing students in Australia is rising. With this comes the likelihood that more now begin university with family responsibilities, and with their lives structured by the roles of mother and partner. Women with more traditionally gendered ideas of these roles, such as nurturing others and self‐sacrifice, are known to be attracted to nursing as a profession; once at university, however, these students can be vulnerable to gender role stress from the competing demands of study. A (...) qualitative research design, guided by Gadamer's hermeneutic philosophy, explored the gendered behaviours and experiences of 22 women nursing students, all of whom had children and began university in a heterosexual intimate relationship. The findings reveal traditional ideas of gender were almost universal among participants, and these ideas had a significant influence on the nursing degree experience. Participants commonly prioritised family over the university and practiced maternal gatekeeping (prevention of male partner involvement in domestic work). These traditionally gendered behaviours, coupled with experiences of gender role stress, had a detrimental impact on participants' capacity to study and their personal wellbeing. The importance of these findings to the burgeoning nursing workforce shortage nursing is considered in terms of student retention and the supply of graduates into the profession. The implications to the nursing profession are also explored against the evidence that nursing students with traditional gender beliefs are less likely to develop as autonomous, critical thinking nurses compared to their gender‐egalitarian peers. The introduction of gender theory via critical pedagogy in the undergraduate nursing degree curriculum is recommended to enlighten and empower women nursing students and promote the competence, agility, and sustainability of the nursing profession. (shrink)