Background Older adults, especially those with dementia, are often excluded from health research due to physical and medical comorbidities, and the assumption that those with cognitive impairment won’t be able to consent. Using routinely collected data for research purposes is a way to include older people in research, and therefore the benefits of research. However, very little research has been done to examine the attitudes of older people towards sharing their routinely collected health data for research purposes. Method Twenty-eight semi-structured (...) interviews were conducted with older health service users in the Counties Manukau health district of Auckland, New Zealand. The interviews explored participants’ views around the use of de-identified health data for health service improvement and health services research. Data were analysed using thematic analysis. Results Themes identified were: 1) Benefits: participants believed that there were benefits to sharing their health data such as helping others, improving health services, advancing scientific knowledge, and giving back to the health system; sharing health data was also seen as a reflection of good character, and people felt that their pre-existing views about whether they wished to share health data should be respected even if they were no longer able to consent. 2) Concerns: participants had concerns about sharing data with private companies, the use of inaccurate data, and the potential personal and societal consequences of sharing health data. 3) Expectations: participants encouraged collaboration between institutions in New Zealand, but expected data privacy to be maintained, processes to be transparent and cultural values around data to be respected; there was an expectation those sharing health data (patients or institutions) should benefit from any private sector gains. Conclusion Older people in our study were supportive of sharing their deidentified health data for research purposes provided that the research would benefit others, now and in the future. This provides more confidence in the use routinely collected health data of older people for research, provided that researchers handle data in a respectful way and use it to benefit communities while avoiding potential harms. Trial Registration NA. (shrink)

In the United States National Science Foundation and the National Institutes of Health have mandated training STEM doctoral students in the ethical and responsible conduct of research to improve doctoral students' ethical decision-making skills; however, little is known about the process and factors that STEM faculty and graduate students use in their decision-making. This exploratory case study examined how four triads of chemistry faculty and their doctoral students recruited from three research universities in the eastern United States engaged in ethical (...) decision-making on issues of authorship, assignment of credit, and plagiarism. A mixed-methods approach involving the administration of an online survey consisting of three open-ended case studies followed by a think-aloud interview was utilized. Participants were found to use analogical reasoning and base their decision-making on a common core set of considerations including fundamental principles, social contracts, consequences, and discussion with an advisor, often using prior personal experiences as sources. Co-authorship did not appear to impact the doctoral students' ethical decision-making. Gender may play a role in graduate students' decision-making; female doctoral students appeared to be less likely to consider prior experiences when evaluating the vignettes. Graduate students' lack of knowledge of the core issues in the responsible conduct of research, coupled with their lack of research experience, and inability to identify the core considerations may lead them to make bad judgments in specific situations. Our findings help explain the minimal impact that the current responsible conduct of research training methods has had on graduate students' ethical decision-making and should lead to the development of more effective approaches. (shrink)

Drawing on 75 semi-structured qualitative interviews with Arab, South Asian, and Black Muslim women social justice activists, ages 18–30 years, organizing in the United States and the United Kingdom, I theorize their experiences as the basis of the matrix of gendered Islamophobia. Building upon Jasmine Zine’s concept of gendered Islamophobia, I synthesize this concept with Patricia Hill Collins’s theory of the matrix of domination to give a more in-depth and nuanced structure of how gendered Islamophobia operates and is resisted by (...) Muslim women activists. This article identifies the overlapping configurations of power that affect Muslim women’s lives through structural, disciplinary, hegemonic, and interpersonal domains, countering reductionist accounts of Islamophobia as a universalized, unvariegated social force impacting all Muslims in similar ways. Instead, the matrix of gendered Islamophobia locates Islamophobia within shifting axes of oppression that are simultaneously structured along the lines of gender, race, class, sexuality, and citizenship. The findings of this research reveal a dialectical relationship between Muslim women’s oppression and simultaneous contestation of gendered Islamophobia via their collective remaking of alternative ideas, politics, discourses, and organizing practices. (shrink)

Both the special sciences and ordinary experience suggest that there are metaphysically emergent entities and features: macroscopic goings-on (including mountains, trees, humans, and sculptures, and their characteristic properties) which depend on, yet are distinct from and distinctively efficacious with respect to, lower-level physical configurations and features. These appearances give rise to two key questions. First, what is metaphysical emergence, more precisely? Second, is there any metaphysical emergence, in principle and moreover in fact? Metaphysical Emergence provides clear and systematic answers to (...) these questions. Wilson argues that there are two, and only two, forms of metaphysical emergence of the sort seemingly at issue in the target cases: 'Weak' emergence, whereby a dependent feature has a proper subset of the powers of the feature upon it depends, and 'Strong' emergence, whereby a dependent feature has a power not had by the feature upon which it depends. Weak emergence unifies and illuminates seemingly diverse accounts of non-reductive physicalism; Strong emergence does the same as regards seemingly diverse anti-physicalist views positing fundamental novelty at higher levels of compositional complexity. After defending the in-principle viability of each form of emergence, Wilson considers whether complex systems, ordinary objects, consciousness, and free will are actually metaphysically emergent. She argues that Weak emergence is quite common, and that there is Strong emergence in the important case of free will. (shrink)

Where does the mind begin and end? Most philosophers and cognitive scientists take the view that the mind is bounded by the skull or skin of the individual. Robert Wilson, in this provocative and challenging 2004 book, provides the foundations for the view that the mind extends beyond the boundary of the individual. The approach adopted offers a unique blend of traditional philosophical analysis, cognitive science, and the history of psychology and the human sciences. The companion volume, Genes and (...) the Agents of Life, explores the theme in the biological sciences. Written with verve and clarity, this ambitious book will appeal to a broad swathe of professionals and students in philosophy, psychology, cognitive science, and the history of the behavioural and human sciences. You can download the table of contents here. (shrink)

Democracy establishes relationships of political equality, ones in which citizens equally share authority over what they do together and respect one another as equals. But in today's divided public square, democracy is challenged by political thinkers who disagree about how democratic institutions should be organized, and by antidemocratic politicians who exploit uncertainties about what democracy requires and why it matters. Democratic Equality mounts a bold and persuasive defense of democracy as a way of making collective decisions, showing how equality of (...) authority is essential to relating equally as citizens. James Lindley Wilson explains why the US Senate and Electoral College are urgently in need of reform, why proportional representation is not a universal requirement of democracy, how to identify racial vote dilution and gerrymandering in electoral districting, how to respond to threats to democracy posed by wealth inequality, and how judicial review could be more compatible with the democratic ideal. What emerges is an emphatic call to action to reinvigorate our ailing democracies, and a road map for widespread institutional reform. Democratic Equality highlights the importance of diverse forms of authority in democratic deliberation and electoral and representative processes—and demonstrates how that authority rests equally with each citizen in a democracy. (shrink)

In the valence contingency learning task (VCT), participants evaluate target words which are preceded by nonwords. Nonwords are predictive for positive/negative evaluations. Previous studies demonstrated that this results in (a) reliable contingency learning effects, reflected in better performance for highly contingent nonword-valence pairings and (b) less reliable evaluative conditioning (EC) effects, reflected in more positive ratings of nonwords that were highly predictive of positive (vs. negative) evaluative responses. In a highly-powered (N = 129) preregistered study, we investigated both effects and (...) assessed whether they are a consequence of episodic retrieval of incidental stimulus-response (SR) episodes and/or propositional learning (indicated by contingency awareness). Participants were either explicitly instructed about contingencies (instructed learning group) or not (incidental learning group). Both groups then worked through the VCT, an explicit rating task, and a contingency awareness test. Both groups showed contingency learning effects and EC effects for nonwords. Multi-level analyses showed that controlling for previous SR co-occurrences fully accounted for contingency learning effects in the incidental learning group. In the instructed learning group, a residual effect of genuine valence contingency learning remained. Nonword-specific contingency awareness in turn fully accounted for EC effects in both learning groups, indicating that genuine contingency learning effects reflect propositional learning. (shrink)

Within the rough ground that is the field of education there is a complex web of ethical obligations: to prepare our students for their future work; to be ethical as educators in our conduct and teaching; to the ethical principles embedded in the contexts in which we work; and given the Southern context of this work, the ethical obligations we have to this land and its First Peoples. We put out a call to colleagues whose work has been concerned with (...) the pedagogies of professional ethics, the ethical burdens of institutional injustice, and the application of ethical theory to education’s applied fields. In the responses we received it can be seen that ethical concerns in education are broad ranging, covering terrain varying from the preparation of preservice teachers, ethics in higher education, early childhood and care, educational leadership, relational and communicative ethics. Perhaps it could also be argued that this paper demonstrates Gibbon’s observation that ‘Assumptions about the particularity of this time as new and ripe with opportunity to make a difference through philosophy of education are not new and there’s much to learn from the persistence of wanting to imagine that they are’. However, while the field of ethics is perennially concerned with human relations and pedagogical interventions to improve these, the responses collected here show that educational ethics is far from static. Educational ethics is a field that continues to develop in response to changing contexts. (shrink)

What makes a biological entity an individual? Jack Wilson shows that past philosophers have failed to explicate the conditions an entity must satisfy to be a living individual. He explores the reason for this failure and explains why we should limit ourselves to examples involving real organisms rather than thought experiments. This book explores and resolves paradoxes that arise when one applies past notions of individuality to biological examples beyond the conventional range and presents an analysis of identity and (...) persistence. The book's main purpose is to bring together two lines of research, theoretical biology and metaphysics, which have dealt with the same subject in isolation from one another. Wilson explains an alternative theory about biological individuality which solves problems which cannot be addressed by either field alone. He presents a more fine-grained vocabulary of individuation based on diverse kinds of living things, allowing him to clarify previously muddled disputes about individuality in biology. (shrink)

_A powerful treatise that demonstrates the existence of altruism in nature, with surprising implications for human society_ Does altruism exist? Or is human nature entirely selfish? In this eloquent and accessible book, famed biologist David Sloan Wilson provides new answers to this age-old question based on the latest developments in evolutionary science. From an evolutionary viewpoint, Wilson argues, altruism is inextricably linked to the functional organization of groups. “Groups that work” undeniably exist in nature and human society, although (...) special conditions are required for their evolution. Humans are one of the most groupish species on earth, in some ways comparable to social insect colonies and multi-cellular organisms. The case that altruism evolves in all social species is surprisingly simple to make. Yet the implications for human society are far from obvious. Some of the most venerable criteria for defining altruism aren’t worth caring much about, any more than we care much whether we are paid by cash or check. Altruism defined in terms of thoughts and feelings is notably absent from religion, even though altruism defined in terms of action is notably present. The economic case for selfishness can be decisively rejected. The quality of everyday life depends critically on people who overtly care about the welfare of others. Yet, like any other adaptation, altruism can have pathological manifestations. Wilson concludes by showing how a social theory that goes beyond altruism by focusing on group function can help to improve the human condition. (shrink)

Definition of the problem Digital health technologies have gained significant importance in recent years. These technologies include symptom checker apps which use algorithms or artificial intelligence to provide users with analyses and recommendations based on their symptom input. Despite their widespread recognition, research shows mixed results regarding the accuracy of these apps, thus, limiting their current utility. The interdisciplinary CHECK.APP project examined the ethical, legal, and social aspects associated with symptom checker apps. Arguments The resulting recommendations presented here are directed (...) towards various stakeholders, including users, physicians, developers, and public institutions. It is crucial to adopt a critical stance towards the use of symptom checker apps, promote health literacy and eHealth literacy, and ensure transparency regarding the data basis and user experiences. Moreover, there is a need for reliable and independent information sources that allow users and physicians to stay informed about current developments in the digitalization of healthcare. At the same time, developers are encouraged to follow clear guidelines on transparency, quality assurance, and accessibility. Additionally, policymakers are recommended to ensure the voluntary use of symptom checker apps and to create conditions that strengthen the health literacy of the population. Conclusion The recommendations presented here outline how symptom checker apps can be used responsibly to maximize potential benefits and minimize risks. (shrink)

This study of the metaphysics of G. W. Leibniz gives a clear picture of his philosophical development within the general scheme of seventeenth-century natural philosophy. Catherine Wilson examines the shifts in Leibniz's thinking as he confronted the major philosophical problems of his era. Beginning with his interest in artificial languages and calculi for proof and discovery, the author proceeds to an examination of Leibniz’s early theories of matter and motion, to the phenomenalistic turn in his theory of substance and (...) his subsequent de-emphasis of logical determinism, and finally to his doctrines of harmony and optimization. Specific attention is given to Leibniz’s understanding of Descartes and his successors, Malebranche and Spinoza, and the English philosophers Newton, Cudworth, and Locke. Wilson analyzes Leibniz’s complex response to the new mechanical philosophy, his discontent with the foundations on which it rested, and his return to the past to locate the resources for reconstructing it. She argues that the continuum-problem is the key to an understanding not only of Leibniz’s monadology but also of his views on the substantiality of the self and the impossibility of external causal influence. A final chapter considers the problem of Leibniz-reception in the post-Kantian era, and the difficulty of coming to terms with a metaphysics that is not only philosophically "critical" but, at the same time, “compensatory.” Originally published in 2050. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905. (shrink)

This volume of twelve specially commissioned essays about species draws on the perspectives of prominent researchers from anthropology , botany, developmental psychology , the philosophy of biology and science, protozoology, and zoology . The concept of species has played a focal role in both evolutionary biology and the philosophy of biology , and the last decade has seen something of a publication boom on the topic (e.g., Otte and Endler 1989; Ereshefsky 1992b; Paterson 1994; lambert and Spence 1995; Claridge, Dawah, (...) and Wilson 1997; Wheeler and Meier 1999; Howard and Berlocher 1998). (shrink)

In the first full-length study in any modern language dedicated to the Meteorologica, Malcolm Wilson presents a groundbreaking interpretation of Aristotle's natural philosophy. Divided into two parts, the book first addresses general philosophical and scientific issues by placing the treatise in a diachronic frame comprising Aristotle's predecessors and in a synchronic frame comprising his other physical works. It argues that Aristotle thought of meteorological phenomena as intermediary or 'dualizing' between the cosmos as a whole and the manifold world of (...) terrestrial animals. Engaging with the best current literature on Aristotle's theories of science and metaphysics, Wilson focuses on issues of aetiology, teleology and the structure and unity of science. The second half of the book illustrates Aristotle's principal concerns in a section-by-section treatment of the meteorological phenomena and provides solutions to many of the problems that have been raised since the time of the ancient commentators. (shrink)

The debate between exceptionalists and anti-exceptionalists about logic is often framed as concerning whether the justification of logical theories is a priori or a posteriori (for short: whether logic is a priori or a posteriori). As we substantiate (S1), this framing more deeply encodes the usual anti-exceptionalist thesis that logical theories, like scientific theories, are abductively justified, coupled with the common supposition that abduction is an a posteriori mode of inference, in the sense that the epistemic value of abduction is (...) (and, indeed, must be) a posteriori. In past work, however, we have argued that this common supposition is incorrect: abduction is an a priori mode of inference, in the sense that the epistemic value of abduction is (and indeed, must be) a priori (Biggs and Wilson 2017a, 2017b, 2019). After sketching our two main argumentative strategies for this conclusion (S2), we go on (S3) to consider its import on the proper understanding of anti-exceptionalism about logic. (shrink)

National Book Award Finalist. How did humanity originate and why does a species like ours exist on this planet? Do we have a special place, even a destiny in the universe? Where are we going, and perhaps, the most difficult question of all, "Why?" In The Meaning of Human Existence, his most philosophical work to date, Pulitzer Prize–winning biologist Edward O. Wilson grapples with these and other existential questions, examining what makes human beings supremely different from all other species. (...) Searching for meaning in what Nietzsche once called "the rainbow colors" around the outer edges of knowledge and imagination, Wilson takes his readers on a journey, in the process bridging science and philosophy to create a twenty-first-century treatise on human existence—from our earliest inception to a provocative look at what the future of mankind portends. Continuing his groundbreaking examination of our "Anthropocene Epoch," which he began with The Social Conquest of Earth, described by the New York Times as "a sweeping account of the human rise to domination of the biosphere," here Wilson posits that we, as a species, now know enough about the universe and ourselves that we can begin to approach questions about our place in the cosmos and the meaning of intelligent life in a systematic, indeed, in a testable way. Once criticized for a purely mechanistic view of human life and an overreliance on genetic predetermination, Wilson presents in The Meaning of Human Existence his most expansive and advanced theories on the sovereignty of human life, recognizing that, even though the human and the spider evolved similarly, the poet's sonnet is wholly different from the spider's web. Whether attempting to explicate "The Riddle of the Human Species," "Free Will," or "Religion"; warning of "The Collapse of Biodiversity"; or even creating a plausible "Portrait of E.T.," Wilson does indeed believe that humanity holds a special position in the known universe. The human epoch that began in biological evolution and passed into pre-, then recorded, history is now more than ever before in our hands. Yet alarmed that we are about to abandon natural selection by redesigning biology and human nature as we wish them, Wilson soberly concludes that advances in science and technology bring us our greatest moral dilemma since God stayed the hand of Abraham. (shrink)

This paper is an experiment in collective writing conducted in Autumn 2019 at the Faculty of Education at Beijing Normal University. The experiment involves 12 international masters' students readi...

This commentary continues an exchange on eugenics in Monash Bioethics Review between Anomaly (2018), Wilson (2019), and Veit, Anomaly, Agar, Singer, Fleischman, and Minerva (2021). The eponymous question, “Can ‘Eugenics’ be Defended?”, is multiply ambiguous and does not receive a clear answer from Veit et al.. Despite their stated desire to move beyond mere semantics to matters of substance, Veit et al. concentrate on several uses of the term “eugenics” that pull in opposite directions. I argue, first, that Veit (...) et al. (2021) makes much the same error as does Anomaly (2018) in characterizing eugenics; second, that the paper misunderstands the relationship between eugenics and enhancement; and third, that it distorts the views expressed in my “Eugenics Undefended”. (shrink)

BackgroundImportance of awareness of medical ethics and its integration into medical curriculum has been frequently highlighted. Study 1 aimed to assess the knowledge, attitude, and reported practices of medical ethics among clinicians at Patan Academy of Health Sciences, a tertiary care teaching hospital in Nepal. Study 2 was conducted to assess whether there was a difference in knowledge, attitude, and reported practices of medical ethics among doctors who received formal medical ethics education during undergraduate studies and those who did not.MethodsTwo (...) cross-sectional surveys using self-administered questionnaires were conducted. Study 1 included 72 participants; interns, medical officers, and consultants working at Patan Academy of Health Sciences. Study 2 was a comparative study conducted among 54 medical officers who had received formal medical ethics education (Group 1) and 60 medical officers who did not (Group 2).ResultsParticipants who had completed post-graduate education had higher knowledge (p = 0.050), practice (p < 0.001), and overall combined scores (p = 0.011). Participants with ethics education had higher knowledge (p < 0.001), attitude (p = 0.001), practice (p < 0.001), and overall score (p < 0.001). Most participants preferred consulting colleagues if an ethical dilemma arose. Fewer participants had heard of the Declaration of Helsinki. Most participants thought doctors to be most capable of judging what is best for the patient (Study 1: 70.42%, Study 2 Group 1: 42.59%, Group 2: 80%). Case scenarios in which participants demonstrated poor practice were ethical issues concerning truth-telling, end-of-life decisions, treating HIV/aids patients, treating a minor, and reporting colleague’s errors.ConclusionsThis study found that participants who have received medical ethics education have higher knowledge, attitude, and practice scores. The results further justify the need for medical ethics education to be a part of the core medical curriculum. A blame-free environment where seniors can be approached for advice should be created. Research ethics should also be given attention. During medical ethics training, ethical issues where doctors perform poorly should be given more priority and should be discussed in a country-specific context. (shrink)

Depression experienced by older adults is proving an increasing global health burden, with rates generally 7% and as high as 27% in the USA. This is likely to significantly increase in coming years as the number and proportion of older adults in the population rises all around the world. Therefore, it is imperative that the effectiveness of approaches to the prevention and treatment of depression are understood. Creative arts interventions, including art, dance movement, drama and music modalities, are utilised internationally (...) to target depression and depressive symptoms in older adults. This includes interventions led by trained arts therapists as well as other health and arts professionals. However, to date there has not been a systematic review that reports effects and examines the processes (why) and mechanisms (how) of creative arts interventions are used to address depression in this older age group. This systematic review of studies on creative arts interventions for older adults experiencing depression examined: outcomes of four creative arts modalities (art, dance movement, drama, and music); with particular attention paid to processes documented as contributing to change in each modality; and mechanisms considered to result from these processes. Our analysis of 75 articles (17 art, 13 dance, 4 drama and 41 music) indicates mostly significant quantitative or positive qualitative findings, particularly for interventions led by creative arts therapists. Mechanisms of change gleaned from the studies that were common across modalities include physical (e.g. increased muscle strength; neurochemical effects, such as endorphin release), intra-personal (e.g. enhanced self-concept, strengthened agency and mastery; processing and communication of emotions), cultural (e.g. creative expression, aesthetic pleasure), cognitive (e.g. stimulation of memory) and social (e.g. increased social skills and connection), that were all considered to contribute to reduced depression and symptoms. Recommendations for future research include a stronger focus on testing of processes and mechanisms. (shrink)

The aim of this Special Issue is to mobilize the theoretical tools and methods of Wittgenstein’s philosophy within feminist and queer studies. Focusing on Wittgenstein – in contrast to Austin, who has often been mobilized within feminist theories – seems to be helpful to underline the Wittgensteinian understanding of language, distinct from the way some poststructuralist feminisms conceive of “discourse”, ideology or the material dimensions of language.

What is property, and why does our species happen to have it? In The Property Species, the economist Bart Wilson explores how we acquire, perceive, and know the custom of property, and why this might be relevant to social scientists, philosophers, and legal scholars for understanding how property works in the twenty-first century.

This article continues the dialogue with Pat Werhane, responding to her “Embedding Means and Ends: A Response to David Wilson.” First, I address her discussion of social constructionism. Because she agrees that teleology is essential to leadership—though she did not mention it, assuming it could be taken for granted—I argue that we share the same concept of leadership. Our disagreement, I suggest, arises because she offers a model of leadership that she believes universally preferable, whereas I am not proposing (...) a model at all. Rather, I aim to clarify the concept of leadership in a way that leaves room for multiple models suited to different circumstances. Second, I argue that my account is not distinctively Western, and that I agree with her in rejecting the claim that followers are conceptually necessary for leadership. Third, I take up the “Hitler problem,” contending that if leadership is understood as a functional role, then Hitler was indeed a leader—but a catastrophically bad one. To those who object that “leadership” often implies good leadership, I reply that this is a case of the common phenomenon of linguistic ellipsis: the evaluative qualifier is omitted when it is conversationally implied. At the same time, I formulate a more challenging version of the Hitler problem. Finally, I acknowledge that I overstated her reliance on naturalism, though I argue that without it her commitment to self-organization lacks what may be its strongest theoretical support. (shrink)

In this introduction to a classic philosophical text, Catherine Wilson examines the arguments of Descartes' famous Meditations, the book which launched modern philosophy. Drawing on the reinterpretations of Descartes' thought of the past twenty-five years, she shows how Descartes constructs a theory of the mind, the body, nature, and God from a premise of radical uncertainty. She discusses in detail the historical context of Descartes' writings and their relationship to early modern science, and at the same time she introduces (...) concepts and problems that define the philosophical enterprise as it is understood today. Following closely the text of the Meditations and meant to be read alongside them, this survey is accessible to readers with no previous background in philosophy. It is well-suited to university-level courses on Descartes, but can also be read with profit by students in other disciplines. (shrink)

It is sometimes said that the philosophy of education is not a serious and coherent philosophical area of inquiry. John Wilson examines this argument, taking it as the starting point for his book. He believes that most 'philosophy of education' until now has been little more than the promotion of particular ideologies, and that progress can be made only by a more analytical approach. The central problems lies in establishing a few basic concepts, principles and categories and questions which (...) will form the skeleton of the subject. He therefore outlines the nature of 'philosophy of education' and defines some of its major problems by examining key notions such as the value of education, the nature and implications of learning and what should be learned. (shrink)

Epicureanism is commonly associated with a carefree view of life and the pursuit of pleasures, particularly the pleasures of the table. However it was a complex and distinctive system of philosophy that emphasized simplicity and moderation, and considered nature to consist of atoms and the void. Epicureanism is a school of thought whose legacy continues to reverberate today.In this Very Short Introduction, Catherine Wilson explains the key ideas of the School, comparing them with those of the rival Stoics and (...) with Kantian ethics, and tracing their influence on the development of scientific and political thought from Locke, Newton, and Galileo to Rousseau, Marx, Bentham, and Mill. She discusses the adoption and adaptation of Epicurean motifs in science, morality, and politics from the 17th Century onwards and contextualises the significance of Epicureanism in modern life. ABOUT THE SERIES: The Very Short Introductions series from Oxford University Press contains hundreds of titles in almost every subject area. These pocket-sized books are the perfect way to get ahead in a new subject quickly. Our expert authors combine facts, analysis, perspective, new ideas, and enthusiasm to make interesting and challenging topics highly readable. (shrink)

Definition of the problem Digital health technologies have gained significant importance in recent years. These technologies include symptom checker apps which use algorithms or artificial intelligence to provide users with analyses and recommendations based on their symptom input. Despite their widespread recognition, research shows mixed results regarding the accuracy of these apps, thus, limiting their current utility. The interdisciplinary CHECK.APP project examined the ethical, legal, and social aspects associated with symptom checker apps. Arguments The resulting recommendations presented here are directed (...) towards various stakeholders, including users, physicians, developers, and public institutions. It is crucial to adopt a critical stance towards the use of symptom checker apps, promote health literacy and eHealth literacy, and ensure transparency regarding the data basis and user experiences. Moreover, there is a need for reliable and independent information sources that allow users and physicians to stay informed about current developments in the digitalization of healthcare. At the same time, developers are encouraged to follow clear guidelines on transparency, quality assurance, and accessibility. Additionally, policymakers are recommended to ensure the voluntary use of symptom checker apps and to create conditions that strengthen the health literacy of the population. Conclusion The recommendations presented here outline how symptom checker apps can be used responsibly to maximize potential benefits and minimize risks. (shrink)

It is essential to engage the public in conservation measures to conserve insects. We investigate the Protection Motivation Theory, as well as knowledge, attitudes, and sociodemographic variables as predictors of willingness to donate and actual donations to insect conservation for a representative German sample. The PMT subcomponents severity, self-efficacy, and response efficacy, as well as attitudes toward insects, income, and education level, significantly predicted WTD. In contrast, severity, response barriers, age, gender, and the WTD significantly influenced actual donations. Overall, components (...) of the PMT have high predictive power for both dependent variables. Our results suggest that an intention-behavior gap exists between the intention to donate and the actual donation toward insect conservation. Measures to increase WTD and actual donations for insect conservation are discussed. (shrink)

Newton’s famous Hypotheses non fingo raises many questions. While he castigated the Cartesians for their vortex hypothesis, and his follower Cotes attacked mechanical chemistry, Newton himself ventured many hypotheses, notably in his Opticks, the Queries to the Opticks and in the last book of the Principia. Although it is true that Newton, unlike Descartes, fit his data to mathematical models, what he said about hypotheses seems straightforwardly false. To explain this situation, Wilson explores the web of associations between Cartesianism, (...) hypotheses, ‘speculation’ and ‘vain philosophy’ in the Pauline sense. She shows how Cartesian hypotheses concerning the origins of the world were understood as dangerously pagan, and how Newton and his supporters took pains to distinguish their brand of science from his by denying that they were engaged in any form of speculative or ‘vain’ philosophy. (shrink)

The narrow question of the genesis (Entstehung) of Kant’s anthropology lecture has been captivating German scholarship on his anthropology for more than a century. Sides have been taken and disputes have arisen, but a final determination has yet to be reached. Partly this is so, because Kant did not tell us why he began to teach anthropology, and partly this is so, because there is so much ambiguity in the sources. An argument can be made for any number of reasons (...) for the inception of his anthropology lectures. I made a strong case for the inception of the anthropology lectures in Kant’s physical geography lectures (Wilson 2007: 8-26). In this paper, I will make an argument for the varied sources that influenced Kant in the development of the anthropology lecture. There is not just one source but several sources that influenced Kant. He was influenced by his physical geography lectures, his own precritical writings, his metaphysics lecture, Baumgarten, and finally also by the Thomasius school’s Klugheitslehre (theory of prudence). All of these sources can be found in the earliest writings and student notes we have from Kant. It can be established that all of these sources influenced the lectures as they developed over time and even the book that he published in 1798. (shrink)

So far, there is little evidence of a negativity bias in evaluative conditioning. In evaluative conditioning, neutral stimuli (conditioned stimuli; CSs) are paired with stimuli of either positive or negative valence; as a result, the initially neutral stimuli change their valence in the direction of the paired valent stimuli. We investigated if a negativity bias occurs when a CS is paired with both negative and positive stimuli, in sequence, in an evaluative counter-conditioning procedure. In three experiments (N = 100, N (...) = 362, N = 120), conditioned stimuli (CSs) were paired with either positive or negative stimuli in an evaluative conditioning phase; then in an evaluative counter-conditioning phase, the same CSs were paired with stimuli of the opposite valence. We tested whether counter-conditioning is more effective when positively conditioned CSs are negatively counter-conditioned than when negatively conditioned CSs are positively counter-conditioned. We found this to be the case. There was no evidence that this negativity bias was driven by differences in memory. Furthermore, we found no evidence that a negativity bias (nor a positivity bias) occurs in a typical (initial) evaluative conditioning procedure. We discuss implications for understanding evaluative conditioning and negativity biases. (shrink)

PurposeThis study aims to describe the adverse events following immunization of SARS-CoV-2 vaccination in cancer patients/survivors associated with their psychological distress.MethodsA cross-sectional study was conducted to assess AEFIs after the receipt of SARS-CoV-2 vaccines in cancer patients/survivors attending a university hospital in Malaysia. Psychological distress was measured using the Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale before and after the first and second doses of COVID-19 vaccine.ResultsA total of 217 complete responses were received. Compared with before vaccination, both HADS Anxiety and HADS (...) Depression scores were significantly reduced after the first and second dose of the SARS-CoV-2 vaccine. Most of the participants had mild-or-moderate systemic and local AEFIs, with the most common being pain at the injection site, tiredness, and headache for both the first and second doses of the vaccine. Positive correlations between the total AEFI score and HADS-A and HADS-D scores were observed after the first dose of the SARS-CoV-2 vaccine. Similarly, positive associations were observed between the total AEFI score and HADS-A and HADS-D scores after the second dose of the SARS-CoV-2 vaccine.ConclusionMild-to-moderate AEFIs found in this study help address vaccine hesitancy in cancer patients/survivors. Receiving the SARS-CoV-2 vaccine had a positive effect on decreasing psychological distress in cancer patients/survivors. High severity of an AEFI was associated with higher anxiety and depressive symptoms. (shrink)

Im Folgenden werden in einem Dreischritt zunächst 1) die Perspektiven aus einem Rückblick auf unsere Arbeitsweise, 2) weiterführende Gedanken zu Rhythmuskonzepten sowie 3) ein methodischer Ausblick auf die künftige Zusammenarbeit präsentiert.

This is the full book symposium on Jessica Wilson's _Metaphysical Emergence_, including a Precis, comments by seven commentators (Francesca Bellazzi, Karen Bennett, Claudio Calosi, Nina Emery, Simone Gozzano, Brian McLaughlin, Michele Paolini Paoletti), and Wilson's replies.

Although modern conveniences and scientific progress have significantly improved our quality of life, many of the problems faced by ancient Greeks -- love, money, family, politics -- remain with us in new forms. To overcome these obstacles, the Epicureans adopted a philosophy that emphasised reflective 'choice and avoidance', the observation and interpretation of nature, and the avoidance of harm to others, while recognising finitude and change as inevitable. By applying this ancient wisdom to a range of modern problems, from self-care (...) routines and romantic entanglements to issues of public policy and social justice, Wilson shows us how we can all fill our lives with purpose and pleasure. (shrink)

Variability is pervasive in spoken language, in particular if one is exposed to two varieties of the same language. Unlike in bilingual settings, standard and dialectal forms are often phonologically related, increasing the variability in word forms. We investigate whether dialectal variability in children’s input affects their ability to recognize words in Standard German, testing non-dialectal vs. dialectal children. Non-dialectal children, who typically grow up in urban areas, mostly hear Standard German forms, and hence encounter little segmental variability in their (...) input. Dialectal children in turn, who typically grow up in rural areas, hear both Standard German and dialectal forms, and are hence exposed to a large amount of variability in their input. We employ the familiar word paradigm for German children aged 12–18 months. Since dialectal children from rural areas are hard to recruit for laboratory studies, we programmed an App that allows all parents to test their children at home. Looking times to familiar vs. non-familiar words were analyzed using a semi-automatic procedure based on neural networks. Our results replicate the familiarity preference for non-dialectal German 12–18-month-old children. Non-dialectal children in the same age range, on the other hand, showed a novelty preference. One explanation for the novelty preference in dialectal children may be more mature linguistic processing, caused by more variability of word forms in the input. This linguistic maturation hypothesis is addressed in Experiment 2, in which we tested older children. These children, who are not exposed to dialectal forms, also showed a novelty preference. Taken together, our findings show that both dialectal and non-dialectal German children recognized the familiar Standard German word forms, but their looking pattern differed as a function of the variability in the input. Frequent exposure to both dialectal and Standard German word forms may hence have affected the nature of lexical representations, leading to more mature processing capacities. (shrink)

AbstractmRNA stability is increasingly recognized as being essential for controlling the expression of a wide variety of transcripts during neuronal development and synaptic plasticity. In this context, the role of AU‐rich elements (ARE) contained within the 3′ untranslated region (UTR) of transcripts has now emerged as key because of their high incidence in a large number of cellular mRNAs. This important regulatory element is known to significantly modulate the longevity of mRNAs by interacting with available stabilizing or destabilizing RNA‐binding proteins (...) (RBP). Thus, in parallel with the emergence of ARE, RBP are also gaining recognition for their pivotal role in regulating expression of a variety of mRNAs. In the nervous system, the member of the Hu family of ARE‐binding proteins known as HuD, has recently been implicated in multiple aspects of neuronal function including the commitment and differentiation of neuronal precursors as well as synaptic remodeling in mature neurons. Through its ability to interact with ARE and stabilize multiple transcripts, HuD has now emerged as an important regulator of mRNA expression in neurons. The present review is designed to provide a comprehensive and updated view of HuD as an RBP in the nervous system. Additionally, we highlight the role of HuD in multiple aspects of a neuron's life from early differentiation to changes in mature neurons during learning paradigms and in response to injury and regeneration. Finally, we describe the current state of knowledge concerning the molecular and cellular events regulating the expression and activity of HuD in neurons. BioEssays 28: 822–833, 2006. © 2006 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. (shrink)

Beschaffungspolitisches Handeln trägt maßgeblich zum Unternehmenserfolg bei. Traditionell versteht sich diese Funktion aber als 'Kostenoptimierer', strategisches Handeln setzt sich nur langsam durch. Dieser Sammelband beleuchtet den gesamten strategischen nachhaltigen Beschaffungsprozess und zeigt anhand praktischer Unternehmensbeispiele auf, wo CSR eine Rolle spielt und welche Lösungsansätze implementiert werden können. Dabei werden nicht nur ökologische und soziale Gesichtspunkte in der Beschaffer-Lieferanten-Beziehung, sondern auch effizientes Lieferanten-Auditing besprochen. Zahlreiche theoretische und praktische Handlungsanweisungen für die erfolgreiche Umsetzung von Nachhaltigkeit in der Beschaffung unterstützen die Umsetzung im (...) Betrieb. (shrink)

The American Journal of Bioethics, Volume 11, Issue 11, Page 42-43, November 2011.