The immune system can generate an almost infinite number of different antibody specificities, the sum of which is the antibody repertoire. This article considers aspects of the mechanism and control of immunoglobulin variable (V) region gene assembly with a focus on how these factors may affect generation of the antibody repertoire in normal and disease states. New model systems to study the mechanism and control of V gene assembly are described, in particular the introduction of V gene recombination substrates into (...) Abelson murine leukemia virus‐transformed pre‐B cells. Finally, a model is presented which suggests that control of V gene assembly is mediated by regulating accessibility of substrate gene segments to recombinational machinery. (shrink)

This book explores the idea that we have two minds - automatic, unconscious, and fast, the other controlled, conscious, and slow. In recent years there has been great interest in so-called dual-process theories of reasoning and rationality. According to such theories, there are two distinct systems underlying human reasoning - an evolutionarily old system that is associative, automatic, unconscious, parallel, and fast, and a more recent, distinctively human system that is rule-based, controlled, conscious, serial, and slow. Within the former, processes (...) the former, processes are held to be innate and to use heuristics that evolved to solve specific adaptive problems. In the latter, processes are taken to be learned, flexible, and responsive to rational norms. -/- Despite the attention these theories are attracting, there is still poor communication between dual-process theorists themselves, and the substantial bodies of work on dual processes in cognitive psychology and social psychology remain isolated from each other. This book brings together leading researchers on dual processes to summarize the state-of-the-art, highlight key issues, present different perspectives, explore implications, and provide a stimulus to further work. It includes new ideas about the human mind both by contemporary philosophers interested in broad theoretical questions about mental architecture and by psychologists specialising in traditionally distinct and isolated fields. For all those in the cognitive sciences, this is a book that will advance dual-process theorizing, promote interdisciplinary communication, and encourage further applications of dual-process approaches. (shrink)

[About the book] This book explores the idea that we have two minds - automatic, unconscious, and fast, the other controlled, conscious, and slow. In recent years there has been great interest in so-called dual-process theories of reasoning and rationality. According to such theories, there are two distinct systems underlying human reasoning - an evolutionarily old system that is associative, automatic, unconscious, parallel, and fast, and a more recent, distinctively human system that is rule-based, controlled, conscious, serial, and slow. Within (...) the former, processes the former, processes are held to be innate and to use heuristics that evolved to solve specific adaptive problems. In the latter, processes are taken to be learned, flexible, and responsive to rational norms. Despite the attention these theories are attracting, there is still poor communication between dual-process theorists themselves, and the substantial bodies of work on dual processes in cognitive psychology and social psychology remain isolated from each other. This book brings together leading researchers on dual processes to summarize the state-of-the-art, highlight key issues, present different perspectives, explore implications, and provide a stimulus to further work. It includes new ideas about the human mind both by contemporary philosophers interested in broad theoretical questions about mental architecture and by psychologists specialising in traditionally distinct and isolated fields. For all those in the cognitive sciences, this is a book that will advance dual-process theorizing, promote interdisciplinary communication, and encourage further applications of dual-process approaches. (shrink)

Mayo Clinic is recognized as a worldwide leader in innovative, high-quality health care. However, the Catholic mission and ideals from which this organization was formed are not widely recognized or known. From partnership with the Sisters of St. Francis in 1883, through restructuring of the Sponsorship Agreement in 1986 and current advancements, this Catholic mission remains vital today at Saint Marys Hospital. This manuscript explores the evolution and growth of sponsorship at Mayo Clinic, defined as “a collaboration between the Sisters (...) of St. Francis and Mayo Clinic to preserve and promote key values that the founding Franciscan sisters and Mayo physicians embrace as basic to their mission, and to assure the Catholic identity of Saint Marys Hospital.” Historical context will be used to frame the evolution and preservation of Catholic identity at Saint Marys Hospital; and the shift from a “sponsorship-by-governance” to a “sponsorship-by-influence” model will be highlighted. Lastly, using the externally-developed Catholic Identity Matrix (developed by Ascension Health and the University of St. Thomas, Minnesota), specific examples of Catholic identity will be explored in this joint venture of Catholic health care institution and a secular, nonprofit corporation (Mayo Clinic). (shrink)

Estimates of unknown quantities are influenced by both self-generated anchors (SGAs) and externally provided anchors (EPAs; e.g., the advice of others). It was hypothesised that people use the degree of similarity between these anchors to render final responses. Thus we tested predictions drawn from metacognitive accounts of anchoring using procedures similar to the traditional anchoring paradigm. In a single experiment we manipulated SGA–EPA similarity, EPA level, and EPA source credibility. Results showed that the relationship between SGA–EPA similarity and the decision (...) weight given to the EPA, relative to the weight given to the SGA, depended on source credibility. Bolstering the metacognitive framework, participants were most confident about their final responses when their SGA was similar to the EPA and the EPA came from a highly credible source. These results support a metacognitive account of the anchoring heuristic. (shrink)

This book explores the idea that we have two minds - one automatic, unconscious, and fast, the other controlled, conscious, and slow. It brings together leading researchers on dual-process theory to summarize the state of the art highlight key issues, present different perspectives, and provide a stimulus to further work.

A well-developed perspective in the study of urban systems is that cities are complex systems that manifest as networks of interdependent economic units. These units might be occupations, industries, labor skills, patent technologies, etc. Much research has focused on describing the nature of these networks, quantifying their links, and suggesting applications for policymakers. In this paper, we examine the US skill network, focusing on the relationship between network centrality and economic performance. Here, nodes are represented by individual labor skills, and (...) edge weights are derived from the colocation pattern of skill pairs among 384 US metropolitan statistical areas. The centrality of skills, using three centrality measures, is then aggregated to the occupational and metropolitan level. We find that occupations with higher skill centrality are associated with greater annual salaries, and metropolitan areas with higher skill centrality have higher productivity rates. Overall, these results suggest that the application of traditional network metrics to this view of cities as complex networks can offer new insights into the dynamics of regional economies. (shrink)

This paper describes how the physics department of the University of Bristol grew from relative provincial obscurity to international stature. Emphasis is placed on the role of Arthur Tyndall, who as head of the department played a crucial role by attracting external funding to provide for and maintain modern laboratory facilities, through his skill in recruiting staff and his general management of resources. Such essentially entrepreneurial qualities, it is argued, were fundamental to the rapid expansion of Bristol physics and for (...) its emergence as a new centre of excellence. (shrink)

Over two decades ago, Davids et al. (1994) and Handford et al. (1997) raised theoretical concerns associated with traditional, reductionist, mechanistic perspectives of movement coordination and skill acquisition for sport scientists interested in practical applications for training designs. These seminal papers advocated an emerging consciousness grounded in an ecological approach, signalling the need for sports practitioners to appreciate the constraints-led, deeply entangled and non-linear reciprocity between the organism (performer), task and environment subsystems. Over two decades later, the areas of skill (...) acquisition, practice and training design, performance analysis and preparation, and talent development in sport science have never been so vibrant in terms of theoretical modelling, knowledge generation and innovation, and technological deployment. Viewed at an ecological level of analysis, the work of sports practitioners has progressively transitioned toward the facilitation of an evolving relationship between an organism (athlete, team) and its environment (sports competition). This commentary sets out to explore how these original ideas from Davids et al. (1994) and Handford et al. (1997) have been advanced through the theoretical lens of Ecological Dynamics. Concurrently, we provide case study exemplars, from applied practice in high-performance sports organisations, to illustrate how these contemporary perspectives are shaping the work of sports practitioners (sport ecology designers) in practice and performance preparation. (shrink)

A Naive Realist Theory of Colour defends the view that colours are mind-independent properties of things in the environment, that are distinct from properties identified by the physical sciences. This view stands in contrast to the long-standing and wide-spread view amongst philosophers and scientists that colours don't really exist - or at any rate, that if they do exist, then they are radically different from the way that they appear. It is argued that a naive realist theory of colour best (...) explains how colours appear to perceiving subjects, and that this view is not undermined either by reflecting on variations in colour perception between perceivers and across perceptual conditions, or by our modern scientific understanding of the world. A Naive Realist Theory of Colour also illustrates how our understanding of what colours are has far-reaching implications for wider questions about the nature of perceptual experience, the relationship between mind and world, the problem of consciousness, the apparent tension between common sense and scientific representations of the world, and even the very nature and possibility of philosophical inquiry. (shrink)

My focus will be on Richard Feldman’s claim that what we epistemically ought to believe is what fits our evidence. I will propose some potential counter-examples to test this evidentialist thesis. My main intention in presenting the “counter-examples” is to better understand Feldman’s evidentialism, and evidentialism in general. How are we to understand what our evidence is, how it works, and how are we to understand the phrase “epistemically ought to believe” such that evidentialism might make sense as a plausible (...) thesis in light of the examples? Of course, we may decide that there’s no such way to understand evidentialism—that it just isn’t a plausible thesis. I must admit that my suspicions lean in that direction. But the potential counter-examples are put forward, not in a refutational spirit, but as an invitation to evidentialists and potential evidentialists to refine and/or explain their thesis in light of the at least apparent problems that the examples highlight. (shrink)

kind of joke to ask what is the case if the antecedent is false—“And where are the biscuits if I don’t want any?”, “And what’s on PBS if I’m not interested?”, “And who shot Kennedy if that’s not what I’m asking?”. With normal indicative conditionals like.

In epistemology, “contextualism” denotes a wide variety of more-or-less closely related positions according to which the issues of knowledge or justification are somehow relative to context. I will proceed by first explicating the position I call contextualism, and distinguishing that position from some closely related positions in epistemology, some of which sometimes also go by the name of “contextualism”. I’ll then present and answer what seems to many the most pressing of the objections to contextualism as I construe it, and (...) also indicate some of the main positive motivations for accepting the view. Among the epistemologists I’ve spoken with who have an opinion on the matter, I think it’s fair to say a majority reject contextualism. However, the resistance has to this point been largely underground, with little by way of sustained arguments against contextualism appearing in the journals,[i] though I have begun to see various papers in manuscript form which are critical of contextualism. Here, I’ll respond the criticism of contextualism that, in my travels, I have found to be the most pervasive in producing suspicion about the view. (shrink)

In some lottery situations, the probability that your ticket's a loser can get very close to 1. Suppose, for instance, that yours is one of 20 million tickets, only one of which is a winner. Still, it seems that (1) You don't know yours is a loser and (2) You're in no position to flat-out assert that your ticket is a loser. "It's probably a loser," "It's all but certain that it's a loser," or even, "It's quite certain that it's (...) a loser" seem quite alright to say, but, it seems, you're in no position to declare simply, "It's a loser." (1) and (2) are closely related phenomena. In fact, I'll take it as a working hypothesis that the reason "It's a loser" is unassertable is that (a) You don't seem to know that your ticket's a loser, and (b) In flat-out asserting some proposition, you represent yourself as knowing it.1 This working hypothesis will enable me to address these two phenomena together, moving back and forth freely between them. I leave it to those who reject the hypothesis to sort out those considerations which properly apply to the issue of knowledge from those germane to that of assertability. Things are quite different when you report the results of last night's basketball game. Suppose your only source is your morning newspaper, which did not carry a story about the 1 game, but simply listed the score, "Knicks 83, at Bulls 95," under "Yesterday's Results." Now, it doesn't happen very frequently, but, as we all should suspect, newspapers do misreport scores from time to time. On several occasions, my paper has transposed a result, attributing to each team the score of its opponent. In fact, that your paper's got the present result wrong seems quite a bit more probable than that you've won the lottery of the above paragraph. Still, when asked, "Did the Bulls win yesterday?", "Probably" and "In all likelihood" seem quite unnecessary. "Yes, they did," seems just fine.. (shrink)

Preadolescence is an important period for the consolidation of certain arithmetic facts, and the development of problem-solving strategies. Obese subjects seem to have poorer academic performance in math than their normal-weight peers, suggesting a negative effect of obesity on math skills in critical developmental periods. To test this hypothesis, event-related potentials were collected during a delayed-verification math task using simple addition and subtraction problems in obese [above 95th body mass index percentile] and non-obese preteens with different levels of math skill; (...) thirty-one with low math skills and thirty-one with high math skills. No significant differences between weight groups were observed in task accuracy regardless of their mathematical skill level. For ERPs, electrophysiological differences were found only in the subtraction condition; participants with obesity showed an electrophysiologic pattern associated with a reduced ability to allocate attention resources regardless of their math skill level, these differences were characterized by longer P300 latency than their normal-weight peers. Moreover, the participants with obesity with high math skills displayed hypoactivity in left superior parietal lobule compared with their normal-weight peers. Additionally, obese preteens with low math skills displayed smaller arithmetic N400 amplitude than non-obese participants, reflecting difficulties in retrieving visual, semantic, and lexical information about numbers. We conclude that participants with obesity are less able than their normal-weight peers to deploy their attention regardless of their behavioral performance, which seems to have a greater effect on obese participants with low math skills because they also show problems in the retrieval of solutions from working memory, resulting in a delay in the development of mathematical skills. (shrink)

What happens to the "conversational score" when speakers in a conversation push the score for a context-sensitive term in different directions? In epistemology, contextualists are often construed as holding that both the skeptic ("You don't know!") and her opponent ("Oh, yes I do!") speak truthfully when they debate. This assumes a "multiple scoreboards" version of contextualism. But contextualists themselves typically opt for "single scoreboard" views on which such apparently competing claims really do conflict. This paper explores several single scoreboard options (...) for contextualists, opting in the end for the "gap view," on which neither of our debaters speaks truthfully. (shrink)

fits our evidence.[1] I will propose some potential counter-examples to test this evidentialist thesis. My main intention in presenting the “counter-examples” is to better understand Feldman’s evidentialism, and evidentialism in general. How are we to understand what our evidence is, how it works, and how are we to understand the phrase “epistemically ought to believe” such that evidentialism might make sense as a plausible thesis in light of the examples? Of course, we may decide that there’s no such way to (...) understand evidentialism -- that it just isn’t a plausible thesis. I must admit that my suspicions lean in that direction. But the potential counter-examples are put forward, not in a refutational spirit (though I have nothing against good refutations in philosophy), but as an invitation to evidentialists and potential evidentialists to refine and/or explain their thesis in light of the at least apparent problems that the examples highlight. (shrink)

Thomas Blackson does not question that my argument in section 2 of “Assertion, Knowledge and Context” establishes the conclusion that the standards that comprise a truth-condition for “I know that P” vary with context, but does claim that this does not suffice to validly demonstrate the truth of contextualism, because this variance in standards can be handled by what we will here call Subject-Sensitive Invariantism (SSI), and so does not demand a contextualist treatment. According to SSI, the varying standards that (...) comprise a truth-condition of “I know that P” are sensitive to factors that attach to the speaker as the putative subject of knowledge, rather than as the speaker of the knowledge attribution. That is, according to SSI, these factors of the subject’s context determine a single set of standards that govern when the subject himself, or any other speaker, including those not engaged in conversation with the subject, can truthfully say that the subject “knows.” Thus, we do not get the result that contextualists insist on: that one speaker can truthfully say the subject “knows,” while another speaker, in a different and more demanding context, can say that the subject does “not know”, even though the two speakers are speaking of the same subject knowing (or not knowing) the same proposition at the same time. Given the possibility of SSI, Blackson concludes that I “either assumed without argument that [SSI] is false or failed to distinguish the different ways the standard for knowledge might be determined.” I indeed have long assumed that SSI can’t be right, and so have taken a different form of invariantism to be the real threat to contextualism. But since SSI, and views like it, now seem to be getting considerable attention, it is worth articulating why I find it unpromising. (shrink)

The score was tied in the bottom of the ninth, I was on third base, and there was only one out when Bubba hit a towering fly ball to deep left-center. Although I’m no speed-demon, the ball was hammered so far that I easily could have scored the winning run if I had tagged up. But I didn’t. I got caught up in the excitement and stupidly played it half way, standing between third and home until I saw the center (...) fielder make his spectacular catch, after which I had to return sheepishly to third. The next batter grounded out, and we lost the game in extra innings. (shrink)

When Wet’suwet’en matriarch Freda Huson declared that ‘reconciliation is dead’ and called on supporters to ‘Shut Down Canada’, activists responded with a nationwide series of blockades and occupations. Many commenters, even those sympathetic to the Wet’suwet’en, rushed to defend the idea of reconciliation. Such responses fail to take the contributions this movement offers to decolonial thought seriously. Drawing on interviews with movement participants, I explore what participants mean by reconciliation and what they intend by declaring it dead, showing how participants (...) reject forms of decolonization that center the needs of the settler state. I also explore Land Back as an emerging, grassroots alternative to reconciliation that centers the resurgence of Indigenous governance systems in place of the settler state. Finally I explore settlers’ place within this project and considers its relation to the resurgence school of thought. (shrink)

Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) can provide a number of measurements relevant to sport-related concussion (SRC) symptoms; however, most studies to date have used a single MRI modality and whole-brain exploratory analyses in attempts to localize concussion injury. This has resulted in highly variable findings across studies due to wide ranging symptomology, severity and nature of injury within studies. A multimodal MRI, symptom-guided region-of-interest (ROI) approach is likely to yield more consistent results. The functions of the cerebellum and basal ganglia transcend (...) many common concussion symptoms, and thus these regions, plus the white matter tracts that connect or project from them, constitute plausible ROIs for MRI analysis. We performed diffusion tensor imaging (DTI), resting-state functional MRI, quantitative susceptibility mapping (QSM), and cerebral blood flow (CBF) imaging using arterial spin labeling (ASL), in youth aged 12-18 years following SRC, with a focus on the cerebellum, basal ganglia and white matter tracts. Compared to controls similar in age, sex and sport (N = 20), recent SRC youth (N = 29; MRI at 8 ± 3 days post injury) exhibited increased susceptibility in the cerebellum (p = 0.032), decreased functional connectivity between the caudate and each of the pallidum (p = 0.035) and thalamus (p = 0.021), and decreased diffusivity in the mid-posterior corpus callosum (p < 0.038); no changes were observed in recovered asymptomatic youth (N = 16; 41 ± 16 days post injury). For recent symptomatic-only SRC youth (N = 24), symptom severity was associated with increased susceptibility in the superior cerebellar peduncles (p = 0.011) and reduced activity in the cerebellum (p = 0.013). Fewer days between injury and MRI were associated with reduced cerebellar-parietal functional connectivity (p < 0.014), reduced activity of the pallidum (p = 0.002), increased CBF in the caudate (p = 0.005), and reduced diffusivity in the central corpus callosum (p < 0.05). Youth SRC is associated with acute cerebellar inflammation accompanied by reduced cerebellar activity and cerebellar-parietal connectivity, as well as structural changes of the middle regions of the corpus callosum accompanied by functional changes of the caudate, all of which resolve with recovery. Early MRI post-injury is important to establish objective MRI-based indicators for concussion diagnosis, recovery assessment and prediction of outcome. (shrink)

"It’s a beautiful thing, the destruction of words. Of course the great wastage is in the verbs and adjectives, but there are hundreds of nouns that can be got rid of as well. It isn’t only the synonyms; there are also the antonyms. After all, what justification is there for a word which is simply the opposite of some other word? A word contains its opposite in itself. Take “good”, for instance. If you have a word like “good”, what need (...) is there for a word like “bad”? “Ungood” will do just as well — better, because it’s an exact opposite, which the other is not." (Syme, in George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four) This chapter is about opposites and Newspeak in Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four. (shrink)

Previous research on associative learning has uncovered detailed aspects of the process, including what types of things are learned, how they are learned, and where in the brain such learning occurs. However, perceptual processes, such as stimulus recognition and identification, take time to unfold. Previous studies of learning have not addressed when, during the course of these dynamic recognition processes, learned representations are formed and updated. If learned representations are formed and updated while recognition is ongoing, the result of learning (...) may incorporate spurious, partial information. For example, during word recognition, words take time to be identified, and competing words are often active in parallel. If learning proceeds before this competition resolves, representations may be influenced by the preliminary activations present at the time of learning. In three experiments using word learning as a model domain, we provide evidence that learning reflects the ongoing dynamics of auditory and visual processing during a learning event. These results show that learning can occur before stimulus recognition processes are complete; learning does not wait for ongoing perceptual processing to complete. (shrink)

The Appearance of Ignorance develops and champions contextualist solutions to the puzzles of skeptical hypotheses and of lotteries. It is argued that, at least by ordinary standards for knowledge, we do know that skeptical hypotheses are false, and that we’ve lost the lottery. Accounting for how it is that we know that skeptical hypotheses are false and why it seems that we don’t know that they’re false tells us a lot, both about what knowledge is and how knowledge attributions work. (...) Along the way, the following are all explained and defended: Moorean methodological approaches to skepticism, on which one seeks to defeat, rather than refute, the skeptic; contextualist responses to skepticism; contextualist substantive Mooreanism; the basic safety approach to knowledge and the double-safety picture of what knowledge is; insensitivity accounts of various appearances of ignorance; the closure principle for knowledge; and the claim that our knowledge that we are not brains in vats is a priori, despite its being knowledge of a deeply contingent fact. (shrink)

Background Following passage of the Patient Self Determination Act in 1990, health care institutions that receive Medicare and Medicaid funding are required to inform patients of their right to make their health care preferences known through execution of a living will and/or to appoint a surrogate-decision maker. We evaluated the impact of external factors and perceived patient preferences on physicians’ decisions to honor or forgo previously established advance directives (ADs). In addition, physician views regarding legal risk, patients’ ability to comprehend (...) complexities involved with their care, and impact of medical costs related to end-of-life care decisions were explored. Methods Attendees of two Mayo Clinic continuing medical education courses were surveyed. Three scenarios based in part on previously court-litigated matters assessed impact of external factors and perceived patient preferences on physician compliance with patient-articulated wishes regarding resuscitation. General questions measured respondents’ perception of legal risk, concerns over patient knowledge of idiosyncrasies involved with their care, and impact medical costs may have on compliance with patient preferences. Responses indicating strength of agreement or disagreement with statements were treated as ordinal data and analyzed using the Cochran Armitage trend test. Results Three hundred eighty-eight of 951 surveys were completed (41% response rate). Eighty percent reported they were likely to honor a patient’s AD despite its 5 year age. Fewer than half (41%) would honor the AD of a patient in ventricular fibrillation who had expressed a desire to “pass away in peace.” Few (17%) would forgo an AD following a family’s request for continued resuscitative treatment. A majority (52%) considered risk of liability to be lower when maintaining someone alive against their wishes than mistakenly failing to provide resuscitative efforts. A large percentage (74%) disagreed that patients could not appreciate complexities surrounding their care while 69% agreed that costs should never impact a physician’s decision as to whether to comply with a patient’s AD. Conclusions Our findings highlight the impact, albeit small, external factors have on physician AD compliance. Most respondents based their decision on the clinical situation at hand and interpretation of the patient’s initial wishes and preferences expressed by the AD. (shrink)

This article explores situational determinants and psychological consequences of counterfactual excuse-making - denying responsibility by declaring `I couldn’t have known.’ Participants who were made accountable for a stock investment decision that resulted in an outcome caused by unforeseeable circumstances were particularly likely to generate counterfactual excuses and, as a result, to deny responsibility for the outcome of their choices and minimize their perceptions of control over the decision process. The article discusses the implications of these findings for structuring accountability reporting (...) relationships in business and, more generally, stresses the benefits of counterfactual denials of responsibility for maintaining self-esteem and a desired self-identity. (shrink)

Resistance to contextualism comes in the form of many very different types of objections. My topic here is a certain group or family of related objections to contextualism that I call “Now you know it, now you don’t” objections. I responded to some such objections in my “Contextualism and Knowledge Attributions” a few years back. In what follows here, I will expand on that earlier response in various ways, and, in doing so, I will discuss some aspects of David Lewis’s (...) recent paper, “Elusive Knowledge.”. (shrink)

BackgroundStructured, systematic methods to formulate consensus recommendations, such as the Delphi process or nominal group technique, among others, provide the opportunity to harness the knowledge of experts to support clinical decision making in areas of uncertainty. They are widely used in biomedical research, in particular where disease characteristics or resource limitations mean that high-quality evidence generation is difficult. However, poor reporting of methods used to reach a consensus – for example, not clearly explaining the definition of consensus, or not stating (...) how consensus group panellists were selected – can potentially undermine confidence in this type of research and hinder reproducibility. Our objective is therefore to systematically develop a reporting guideline to help the biomedical research and clinical practice community describe the methods or techniques used to reach consensus in a complete, transparent, and consistent manner.MethodsThe ACCORD project will take place in five stages and follow the EQUATOR Network guidance for the development of reporting guidelines. In Stage 1, a multidisciplinary Steering Committee has been established to lead and coordinate the guideline development process. In Stage 2, a systematic literature review will identify evidence on the quality of the reporting of consensus methodology, to obtain potential items for a reporting checklist. In Stage 3, Delphi methodology will be used to reach consensus regarding the checklist items, first among the Steering Committee, and then among a broader Delphi panel comprising participants with a range of expertise, including patient representatives. In Stage 4, the reporting guideline will be finalised in a consensus meeting, along with the production of an Explanation and Elaboration document. In Stage 5, we plan to publish the reporting guideline and E&E document in open-access journals, supported by presentations at appropriate events. Dissemination of the reporting guideline, including a website linked to social media channels, is crucial for the document to be implemented in practice.DiscussionThe ACCORD reporting guideline will provide a set of minimum items that should be reported about methods used to achieve consensus, including approaches ranging from simple unstructured opinion gatherings to highly structured processes. (shrink)

Consent's capacity to legitimise actions and claims is limited by conditions such as coercion, which render consent ineffective. A better understanding of the limits to consent's capacity to legitimise can shed light on a variety of applied debates, in political philosophy, bioethics, economics and law. I show that traditional paternalist explanations for limits to consent's capacity to legitimise cannot explain the central intuition that consent is often rendered ineffective when brought about by a rights violation or threatened rights violation. I (...) argue that this intuition is an expression of the same principles of corrective justice that underlie norms of compensation and rectification. I show how these principles can explain and clarify core intuitions about conditions which render consent ineffective, including those concerned with the consenting agent's option set, his mental competence, and available information. (shrink)

The Appearance of Ignorance develops and champions contextualist solutions to the puzzles of skeptical hypotheses and of lotteries. It is argued that, at least by ordinary standards for knowledge, we do know that skeptical hypotheses are false, and that we’ve lost the lottery. Accounting for how it is that we know that skeptical hypotheses are false and why it seems that we don’t know that they’re false tells us a lot, both about what knowledge is and how knowledge attributions work. (...) Along the way, the following are all explained and defended: Moorean methodological approaches to skepticism, on which one seeks to defeat, rather than refute, the skeptic; contextualist responses to skepticism; contextualist substantive Mooreanism; the basic safety approach to knowledge and the double-safety picture of what knowledge is; insensitivity accounts of various appearances of ignorance; the closure principle for knowledge; and the claim that our knowledge that we are not brains in vats is a priori, despite its being knowledge of a deeply contingent fact. (shrink)