The present article proposes to study Condillac’s analysis of Spinoza’s Ethics, against the background of the more general criticism that the French abbot makes of the seventeenth-century logique de système. From the Essai sur l’origine des connaissances humaines to the Traité des systèmes to the later texts, Condillac’s theory and critique of systems are crossed by two components: on the one hand, the search for the sensory origin of ideas, that Condillac radicalizes in his Traité des sensations into a theory (...) of knowledge as a ‘transformed sensation’. On the other hand, an operative logic of signs, which from the Essai to the works subsequent to the Traité des sensations translates sensibility into a knowledge, or a ‘well-made language’, whose logic is calculation. My objective is to clarify how the new ‘systematic spirit’, repeatedly invoked by the abbot, departs from the ‘bad metaphysics’ that he claims to liquidate. The comparison with the Spinozist system will be illuminating: in his treatise on the metaphysical systems of the seventeenth century Condillac proposes a critical analysis of the ‘geometrical spirit’; in his latest work, La langue des calculs, he proposes a new logic to which he assigns the task of bringing together the abstract and the concrete, beyond the ruins of classical metaphysics. The ‘systematic spirit’ and ‘spirit of system’ will be revealed, in spite of Condillac’s efforts, as being much closer to what it appears at first sight. (shrink)

This contribution aims to present the different philosophical interpretations of Descartes and Cartesian philosophies in the 17th century within the Revue Internationale de Philosophie. Studies on Descartes and Cartesian philosophies profoundly influenced the scientific orientations of the Revue by promoting the encounter between historical-philosophical and epistemological research. By reconstructing a century of Cartesian interpretations in the Revue, from the 1930s to the present day, the contribution examines the link between the universality of philosophical ideas and the analysis of texts, between (...) the history of ideas and the history of philosophical systems. (shrink)

Interview by Klasien Horstman on gender and genetics. 'Unlike many gender theorists, I do not view the body as socially constructed; nor do I share postmodern and deconstructionist disquiet at the notion of a unified subject. Frankly, I think these constructions get in the way of political action and are bad for women’s rights.' -/- .

Interview on the commodified body with Donna Dickenson by Alana Cattapan.

New developments in biotechnology radically alter our relationship with our bodies. Body tissues can now be used for commercial purposes, while external objects, such as pacemakers, can become part of the body. Property in the Body: Feminist Perspectives transcends the everyday responses to such developments, suggesting that what we most fear is the feminisation of the body. We fear our bodies are becoming objects of property, turning us into things rather than persons. This book evaluates how well-grounded this fear is, (...) and suggests innovative models of regulating what has been called 'the new Gold Rush' in human tissue. This is an up-to-date and wide-ranging synthesis of market developments in body tissue, bringing together bioethics, feminist theory and lessons from countries that have resisted commercialisation of the body, in a theoretically sophisticated and practically significant approach. (shrink)

It is generally thought that suspension of judgment about a proposition p is the doxastic attitude one is rationally compelled to adopt whenever the epistemic reasons for and against p are equipollent or equally credible, that is, whenever the total body of available evidence bearing on p epistemically justifies neither belief nor disbelief in p. However, in a recent contribution to this journal, Jan Wieland proposes “to broaden the conditions for suspension, and argue that it is rational to suspend belief (...) on a certain issue even if one’s current evidence is not neutral (or even close to neutral)”. My aim in this paper is to point to a number of problems in Wieland’s position, some of which in connection with the account of Pyrrhonian skepticism found in the extant works of Sextus Empiricus. (shrink)

This book contributes to the feminist reconstruction of political theory. Although many feminist authors have pointed out the ways in which women have been property, they have been less successful in suggesting how women might become the subjects rather than the objects of property-holding. This book synthesises political theory from liberal, Marxist, Kantian and Hegelian traditions, applying these ideas to history and social policy.

Most opponents of somatic cell nuclear transfer and embryonic stem cell technologies base their arguments on the twin assertions that the embryo is either a human being or a potential human being, and that it is wrong to destroy a human being or potential human being in order to produce stem cell lines. Proponents’ justifications of stem cell research are more varied, but not enough to escape the charge of obsession with the status of the embryo. What unites the two (...) warring sides in ‘the stem cell wars’ is that women are equally invisible to both: ‘the lady vanishes.’ Yet the most legitimate property in the body is that which women possess in their reproductive tissue and the products of their reproductive labour. By drawing on the accepted characterisation in the common law of property as a bundle of rights, and on a Hegelian model of contract as mutual recognition, we can lessen the impact of the tendency to regard women and their ova as merely receptacles and women’s reproductive labour as unimportant. (shrink)

Abstract Gender and Ethics Committees: Where’s the Different Voice? -/- Prominent international and national ethics commissions such as the UNESCO Bioethics Commission rarely achieve anything remotely resembling gender equality, although local research and clinical ethics committees are somewhat more egalitarian. Under-representation of women is particularly troubling when the subject matter of modern bioethics so disproportionately concerns women’s bodies, and when such committees claim to derive ‘universal’ standards. Are women missing from many ethics committees because of relatively straightforward, if discriminatory, demographic (...) factors? Or are the methods of analysis and styles of ethics to which these bodies are committed somehow ‘anti-female’? It has been argued, for example, that there is a ‘different voice’ in ethical reasoning, not confined to women but more representative of female experience. Similarly, some feminist writers, such as Evelyn Fox Keller and Donna Haraway, have asked difficult epistemological questions about the dominant ‘masculine paradigm’ in science. Perhaps the dominant paradigm in ethics committee deliberation is similarly gendered? This article provides a preliminary survey of women’s representation on ethics committees in Eastern and Western Europe, a critical analysis of the supposed ‘masculinism’ of the principlist approach, and a case example in which a ‘different voice’ did indeed make a difference. (shrink)

Critical examination of the concept of property in the body, with particular relevance to Stephen Munzer's work on umbilical cord blood.

The rise of personalised medicine can be seen as an extension of individualism and as a threat to the common good.

This paper argues for the following three claims. First, the Agrippan mode from disagreement does not play a secondary role in inducing suspension of judgment. Second, the Pyrrhonist is not committed to the criteria of justification underlying the Five Modes of Agrippa, which nonetheless does not prevent him from non-doxastically assenting to them. And third, some recent objections to Agrippan Pyrrhonism raised by analytic epistemologists and experimental philosophers fail to appreciate the Pyrrhonist's ad hominem style of argumentation and the real (...) challenge posed by the mode from disagreement. (shrink)

Three-parent IVF is proceeding towards partial legalisation in the UK, but is this process too hasty?

How can we allocate scarce health care resources justly? In particular, are markets the most efficient way to deliver health services? Much blood, sweat and ink has been shed over this issue, but rarely has either faction challenged the unspoken assumption behind the claim made by advocates of markets: that efficiency advances the interests of both individuals and society. Whether markets actually do increase efficiency is arguably a matter for economists, but the deeper ethical question is whether efficiency is the (...) correct criterion, in terms of social justice and individual needs. (shrink)

An objection that has been raised to the conciliatory stance on the epistemic significance of peer disagreement known as the Equal Weight View is that it is self-defeating, self-undermining, or self-refuting. The proponent of that view claims that equal weight should be given to all the parties to a peer dispute. Hence, if one of his epistemic peers defends the opposite view, he is required to give equal weight to the two rival views, thereby undermining his confidence in the correctness (...) of the Equal Weight View. It seems that the same objection could be leveled against those who claim to suspend judgment in the face of pervasive unresolvable disagreements, as do the Pyrrhonian skeptics. In this paper, I explore the kind of response to the objection that could be offered from a neo-Pyrrhonian perspective, with the aim of better understanding the intriguing character of Pyrrhonian skepticism. (shrink)

This book examines the moral luck paradox, relating it to Kantian, consequentialist and virtue-based approaches to ethics. It also applies the paradox to areas in medical ethics, including allocation of scarce medical resources, informed consent to treatment, withholding life-sustaining treatment, psychiatry, reproductive ethics, genetic testing and medical research. If risk and luck are taken seriously, it might seem to follow that we cannot develop any definite moral standards, that we are doomed to moral relativism. However, Dickenson offers strong counter-arguments to (...) this view that enable us to think in terms of universal standards. (shrink)

In his account of Pyrrhonism, Sextus Empiricus talks about the disturbance concerning matters of opinion that afflicts his dogmatic rivals and that he himself was afflicted by before his conversion to Pyrrhonism. The aim of the present paper is to identify the distinct sources of doxastic disturbance that can be found in that account, and to determine whether and, if so, how they are related. The thesis to be defended is that it is possible to discern three sources of doxastic (...) disturbance and that two of them are to be explained by reference to the third, which is the real cause of mental distress. The paper also considers whether the thesis in question entails that there is no reason for the Pyrrhonist to suspend judgment across the board, but only to suspend judgment about evaluative matters. (shrink)

Even in the increasingly individualized American medical system, advocates of 'personalized medicine' claim that healthcare isn't individualized enough. With the additional glamour of new biotechnologies such as genetic testing and pharmacogenetics behind it, 'Me Medicine'-- personalized or stratified medicine-- appears to its advocates as the inevitable and desirable way of the future. Drawing on an extensive evidence base, this book examines whether these claims are justified. It goes on to examine an alternative tradition rooted in communitarian ideals, that of the (...) common good as a goal in medicine. (shrink)

Pyrrhonism was one of the two main ancient skeptical traditions. In this second paper of the three‐part series devoted to ancient skepticism, I present and discuss some of the issues on Pyrrhonian skepticism which have been the focus of much attention in the recent literature. The topics to be addressed concern the outlooks of Pyrrho, Aenesidemus, and Sextus Empiricus.

In his Pyrrhonian Outlines , Sextus Empiricus employs an argument based upon the possibility of disagreement in order to show that one should not assent to a Dogmatic claim to which at present one cannot oppose a rival claim. The use of this argument seems to be at variance with the Pyrrhonian stance, both because it does not seem to accord with the definition of Skepticism and because the argument appears to entail that the search for truth is doomed to (...) failure. In the present paper, I examine the passages in which Sextus utilizes the argument from possible disagreement and offer an interpretation that makes the use of this argument compatible with the Pyrrhonian outlook. (shrink)

In this introductory chapter, I first offer an overview of the two themes addressed in the present collection - namely, disagreement and skepticism - and their connection, then present the purpose and content of the volume.

The purpose of the present paper is twofold. First, to examine what beliefs, if any, underlie (a) the Pyrrhonist’s desire for ataraxia and his account of how this state may be attained, and (b) his philanthropic therapy, which seeks to induce, by argument, ejpochv and ataraxia in the Dogmatists. Second, to determine whether the Pyrrhonist’s philanthropy and his search for and attainment of ataraxia are, as scholars have generally believed, essential aspects of his stance.

It is sometimes claimed that conciliatory views on disagreement ultimately lead to either global or widespread scepticism. This is deemed to be a serious problem for conciliationism either because scepticism of either kind is a patently untenable stance or because it poses a serious threat to our intellectual and social lives. In this paper, I first argue that the alleged untenability of both types of scepticism is far from being obvious and should therefore be established rather than taken for granted, (...) and then that those who reject them because of the threat they pose surprisingly confuse pragmatic reasons with epistemic reasons. (shrink)

In this paper, I critically engage with Casey Perin's interpretation of Sextan Pyrrhonism in his book, The Demands of Reason: An Essay on Pyrrhonian Scepticism. From an approach that is both exegetical and systematic, I explore a number of issues concerning the Pyrrhonist's inquiry into truth, his alleged commitment to the canons of rationality, and his response to the apraxia objection.

Review of Margit Shildrick, Leaky Bodies and Boundaries: Feminism, Postmodernism and (Bio)Ethics.

Objectives—To assess whether UK and US health care professionals share the views of medical ethicists about medical futility, withdrawing/withholding treatment, ordinary/extraordinary interventions, and the doctrine of double effectDesign, subjects and setting–A 138-item attitudinal questionnaire completed by 469 UK nurses studying the Open University course on “Death and Dying” was compared with a similar questionnaire administered to 759 US nurses and 687 US doctors taking the Hastings Center course on “Decisions near the End of Life”.Results–Practitioners accept the relevance of concepts widely (...) disparaged by bioethicists: double effect, medical futility, and the distinctions between heroic/ordinary interventions and withholding/ withdrawing treatment. Within the UK nurses' group a “rationalist” axis of respondents who describe themselves as having “no religion” are closer to the bioethics consensus on withholding and withdrawing treatment.Conclusions—Professionals' beliefs differ substantially from the recommendations of their professional bodies and from majority opinion in bioethics. Bioethicists should be cautious about assuming that their opinions will be readily accepted by practitioners. (shrink)

In this article I evaluate a resurrected French resistance movement--to biotechnological commodification. The official French view that ‘the body is the person’ has been dismissed as a ‘taboo’ by the French political scientist Dominique Memmi . Yet France has indeed resisted the models of globalised commodification adopted in US bioechnology, as, for example, when the government blocked a research collaboration between the American firm Millennium Pharmaceuticals and a leading genomics laboratory, le Centre d’Etude du Polymorphisme Humain, on the grounds the (...) ‘French DNA’ should not be given away. -/- This example, however, itself suggests why the ‘new French Resistance’ is not altogether liberating. The absolutist conception of all bodies as belonging to the French state—indeed, as constituting the body politic —is so potentially invasive that a counter-ideology of inviolability of the body is maintained assiduously. This inviolability is defended particularly strongly against commercialisation, but only at the moment when tissue is taken from the individual subject, who is not to be paid or compensated-- although commercial enterprises who subsequently use the tissue are not similarly constrained. -/- . (shrink)

My purpose in this article is to revisit an issue concerning the state of undisturbedness or tranquility (ἀταραξία) in ancient Pyrrhonism as this skeptical stance is depicted in Sextus Empiricus’s extant works. The issue in question is whether both the pursuit and the attainment of undisturbedness in matters of opinion should be regarded as defining features of Pyrrhonism not merely from a systematic standpoint that examines Pyrrhonism as a kind of philosophy, but mainly according to Sextus’s own account of that (...) skeptical stance. In exploring this issue, I will develop an interpretation defended in previous work, responding to some objections, discussing alternative interpretations, offering further textual support, and putting forward new arguments. It is my contention that examining whether both the pursuit and the attainment of undisturbedness in matters of opinion are essential to Pyrrhonism will make it possible to gain a more accurate understanding of this brand of skepticism. (shrink)

This article, arising from a comparative European Commission project, analyses different national perspectives on bioethics issues.

Until very recently the question of who owns embryonic or fetal tissue was of limited importance to clinicians, but advances in stem cell research have made such tissue commercially valuable. This chapter examines the legal and ethical basis of claims to property in embryonic or fetal tissue, taking a critical stance.

The Pyrrhonian skeptic’s stance, as described by Sextus Empiricus, is in good part defined by his suspending judgment or belief about all the matters he has so far investigated. Most interpreters of Pyrrhonism maintain that it is a mistake to understand this form of skepticism in terms of doubt because suspension as conceived of by the Pyrrhonist is markedly different from the state of doubt. In this article, I expound the reasons that have been offered in support of that prevailing (...) view and assess their strength. (shrink)

Is skeptical theism tenable once one acknowledges, as proponents of that view do, one's cognitive limitations vis-à-vis religious matters? In this article, I aim to answer that question both by examining the apparent radical skeptical implications of the skeptical component of skeptical theism and by comparing this view with fideism and Pyrrhonism, which also lay emphasis on our cognitive limitations. My ultimate purpose is to determine which of the three stances it makes more sense to adopt once the limitations of (...) human cognitive powers are recognized. (shrink)

A multidisciplinary study of trust. The papers in this publication address the question of what generates, maintains, substitutes or collapses trusting relations.

La présente étude a deux objectifs. Le premier est d’examiner les différentes formulations de l’objection de l’ἀπραξία telle qu’elle fut soulevée contre le scepticisme académicien et le pyrrhonisme, ainsi que les réponses à cette objection proposées par Arcésilas et Sextus Empiricus. Le second objectif consiste à évaluer la force de la version de l’objection de l’ἀπραξία selon laquelle le sceptique ne peut réaliser les actions rationnelles propres à l’être humain.

The present paper has two, interrelated objectives. The first is to analyze the different senses in which arguments are characterized as persuasive in the extant writings of Sextus Empiricus. The second is to examine the Pyrrhonist’s therapeutic use of arguments in the discussion with his Dogmatic rivals – more precisely, to determine the sense and basis of Sextus’ distinction between therapeutic arguments that appear weighty and therapeutic arguments that appear weak in their persuasiveness.

The question of whether the Pyrrhonist adheres to certain logical principles, criteria of justification, and inference rules is of central importance for the study of Pyrrhonism. Its significance lies in that, whereas the Pyrrhonist describes his philosophical stance and argues against the Dogmatists by means of what may be considered a rational discourse, adherence to any such principles, criteria, and rules does not seem compatible with the radical character of his skepticism. Hence, if the Pyrrhonist does endorse them, one must (...) conclude that he is inconsistent in his outlook. Despite its import, the question under consideration has not received, in the vast literature on Pyrrhonism of the past three decades, all the attention it deserves. In the present paper, I do not propose to provide a full examination of the Pyrrhonist’s attitude towards rationality, but to focus on the question of whether he endorses the law of non-contradiction (LNC). However, I will also briefly tackle the question of the Pyrrhonist’s outlook on both the canons of rational justification at work in the so-called Five Modes of Agrippa and the logical rules of inference. In addition, given that the LNC is deemed a fundamental principle of rationality, determining the Pyrrhonist’s attitude towards it will allow us to understand his general attitude towards rationality. (shrink)

In Two Minds is a practical casebook of problem solving in psychiatric ethics. Written in a lively and accessible style, it builds on a series of detailed case histories to illustrate the central place of ethical reasoning as a key competency for clinical work and research in psychiatry. Topics include risk, dangerousness and confidentiality; judgements of responsibility; involuntary treatment and mental health legislation; consent to genetic screening; dual role issues in child and adolescent psychiatry; needs assessment; cross-cultural and gender issues; (...) rational and irrational suicide; shared decision making in multi-agency teams, and the growing role of the user's voice in psychiatry. Key ethical concepts are carefully introduced and explained. The text is richly supported by detailed guides for further reading. There are separate chapters on teaching psychiatric ethics, including a sample seminar, and on writing a research ethics application. Each case history and discussion is followed by a critical commentary from a practitioner with relevant experience. Jim Birley adds a comparative international perspective on psychiatric ethics. Cartoons by Johnny Cowee provide punchy counterpoint! In Two Minds is the sister volume to the third edition of Sidney, Paul Chodoff and Steven Green's highly successful Psychiatric Ethics. In providing a bridge between theory and practice, it will be essential reading for everyone concerned with improving standards in mental health care. (shrink)

The purpose of this paper is twofold: to discuss some challenging issues concerning Sextus’ works and outlook, and to offer an overview of the influence exerted by Sextan Pyrrhonism on both early modern and contemporary philosophy.

This paper approaches the current epistemological debate on peer disagreement from a neo-Pyrrhonian perspective, thus adopting a form of skepticism which is more radical than those discussed in the literature. It makes use of argumentative strategies found in ancient Pyrrhonism both to show that such a debate rests on problematic assumptions and to block some maneuvers intended to offer an efficacious way of settling a considerable number of peer disputes. The essay takes issue with three views held in the peer (...) disagreement debate: there is an objective fact of the matter about at least most controversial questions; we possess theory-neutral evidence bearing on those questions which grants us access to the truth of the matter; and many peer controversies are resolved by attending to which disputant has correctly evaluated the objective evidence. With respect to the first two views, it is argued that the belief in both objective facts and theory-neutral evidence is subject to fierce dispute, and should not therefore be taken for granted in the discussion of peer disagreement. As for the third view, it is argued that from either a first- or a third-person perspective, there seems to be epistemic symmetry between the disputants which makes it necessary to suspend judgment. (shrink)

Sextus Empiricus associates the skeptical stance with the activity of inquiry or investigation. My purpose in this paper is to examine the Pyrrhonist's involvement in that activity because getting an accurate understanding of the nature and purpose of skeptical inquiry makes it possible to delineate some of the distinctive traits of Pyrrhonism as a kind of philosophy. I defend the minority view among specialists according to which (i) Sextus describes both the prospective Pyrrhonist and the full-fledged Pyrrhonist as inquirers into (...) truth, and (ii) the full-fledged Pyrrhonist can, without inconsistency, engage in truth-directed inquiry. (shrink)

When involved in a disagreement, a common reaction is to tell oneself that, given that the information about one’s own epistemic standing is clearly superior in both amount and quality to the information about one’s opponent’s epistemic standing, one is justified in one’s confidence that one’s view is correct. In line with this natural reaction to disagreement, some contributors to the debate on its epistemic significance have claimed that one can stick to one’s guns by relying in part on information (...) about one’s first-order evidence and the functioning of one’s cognitive capacities. In this article, I argue that such a manoeuvre to settle controversies encounters the problem that both disputants can make use of it, the problem that one may be wrong about one’s current conscious experience, and the problem that it is a live possibility that many of one’s beliefs are the product of epistemically distorting factors. I also argue that, even if we grant that personal information is reliable, when it comes to real-life rather than idealized disagreements, the extent of the unpossessed information about one’s opponent’s epistemic standing provides a reason for doubting that personal information can function as a symmetry breaker. (shrink)

Assume que o estudo da produção científica pode oferecer entendimento sobre os temas abordados, tendências da comunidade, autores mais citados, indicação de maturação da área e consolidação ou silenciamento da área. Tem como objetivo mapear como a Filosofia está contida na Ciência da Informação brasileira. Coleta os dados dos artigos científicos publicados entre 1972 e 2018 na Coleção de Publicações Brasileiras em Ciência da Informação - BRAPCI. Analisa uma amostra de 300 artigos e deriva algumas questões descritivas. Conclui que a (...) Ciência da Informação brasileira mantém um discurso filosófico ocidental canônico com uso equilibrado de autores e principais correntes filosóficas. Não aponta ao uso de pensadores e temas periféricos. Propõe a continuidade desse tipo de pesquisa para incentivar debates sobre uma relação interdisciplinar saudável entre Ciência da Informação e Filosofia. (shrink)

Este trabalho tem por objetivo a compreensão da ação em Aristóteles. Para este fim será utilizado o livro III da Ética a Nicômaco, passando antes por uma breve definição da virtude, tal como aparece no livro II, a qual, pode-se dizer ser o bem para a ação, na medida em que é aquilo que se deve alcançar com ela. No campo específico da ação será visto como ela pode ser distinguida entre voluntária, involuntária e não-voluntária. Neste espectro insere-se igualmente a (...) discussão sobre o que significa agir por e na ignorância. Além disso, se abordará também a questão relacionada à deliberação e à escolha.: This study aims to understand the action in Aristotle. For this purpose, we will use the book III of the Nicomachean Ethics, after doing a brief definition of virtue, as it appears in the Book II, which can be said to be the good for the action, as that is what should be reached by her. In the specific field of action, it will be seen how she can be distinguished between voluntary, involuntary and non-voluntary. This spectrum is also part of the discussion about what it means to act by and in the ignorance. In addition, the study will also address the issue related to deliberation and choice. Keywords: Deliberation, Choice, Action, Nicomachean Ethics. (shrink)

In this essay, I consider an evolutionary debunking argument (EDA) that purports to undermine the epistemic justification of the belief in the reliability of our belief-forming processes, and an evolutionary vindicating argument (EVA) that seeks to establish that such a belief is epistemically justified. Whereas the EDA in question seems to fall prey to crippling self-defeat, the EVA under consideration seems to fall prey to vicious circularity. My interest in those arguments and the problems they face lies in what they (...) might tell us about the possibly aporetic nature of reason. For, if we take the EDA and the EVA in question to consist of true or plausible premises and valid inferences at which we arrive through a meticulous use of reason, then their falling victim to either crippling self-defeat or vicious circularity might be regarded as a sign that, when we push rational reflection on the reliability, or lack thereof, of our belief-forming capacities to the limit, we end up in a situation of aporia from which there seems to be no escape. (shrink)

Justice is about political ideals on how to accommodate differences that are natural among basically heterogeneous human beings. In many ways, justice is remarkably complicated because of the alleged conflict between the demands of equality and the concern that people should have as much liberty available. The author argues in this essay that the ideal of equality and liberty can be reconciled into the liberal ideal of fairness. This compromise view accounts as a justification for coercive institutions and obligations and (...) a tenable basis for a practical definition of rights and justice in general. The author does this by going through the philosophical presuppositions of the different theories of justice. His examination focuses on rendering analytic clarity to the ideal of equality, liberty, and the value of community. (shrink)

It is generally agreed that one of the key differences between ancient skepticism and modern and contemporary skepticism is that the ancient skeptic does not call into question the existence of the external world, but only our ability to know the properties or qualities of external objects. In this paper, I argue that in Sextus Empiricus's attack on the Epicurean criterion of truth one finds evidence that the ancient Pyrrhonist also suspends judgment about the existence of external objects.

'An alarming and illuminating book. The story of how we have allowed private corporations to patent genes, to stockpile human tissue, and in short to make profits out of what many people feel ought to be common goods is a shocking one. No one with any interest at all in medicine and society and how they interact should miss this book, and it should be required reading for every medical student,'--Philip Pullman.