Purpose Prescription stimulant use as “cognitive enhancers” has been described among undergraduate college students. However, the use of prescription stimulants among future health care professionals is not well characterized. This study was designed to determine the prevalence of prescription stimulant misuse among students at an academic health sciences center. -/- Method Electronic surveys were e-mailed to 621 medical, pharmacy, and respiratory therapy students at East Tennessee State University for four consecutive weeks in fall 2011. Completing the survey was voluntary and (...) anonymous. Surveys asked about reasons for, frequency of, and side effects of nonprescription misuse of prescription stimulants. Given the sensitive material, an opportunity to win one of ten $50 gift cards was used as an incentive. -/- Results Three hundred seventy-two (59.9%) students completed the survey from three disciplines (47.6% medical, 70.5% pharmacy, and 57.6% respiratory therapy). Overall, 11.3% of responders admitted to misusing prescription stimulants. There was more misuse by respiratory therapy students, although this was not statistically significant (10.9% medicine, 9.7% pharmacy, 26.3% respiratory therapy; P = .087). Reasons for prescription stimulant misuse included to enhance alertness/ energy (65.9%), to improve academic performance (56.7%), to experiment (18.2%), and to use recreationally/get high (4.5%). -/- Conclusions Prescription stimulant misuse was prevalent among participating students, but further research is needed to describe prevalence among future health care workers more generally. The implications and consequences of such misuse require further study across professions with emphasis on investigating issues of academic dishonesty (e.g., “cognitive enhancement”), educational quality, and patient safety or health care quality. (shrink)

The introduction (about 6,000 words) to _The Cambridge Companion to Utilitarianism_, in three sections: utilitarianism’s place in recent and contemporary moral philosophy (including the opinions of critics such as Rawls and Scanlon), a brief history of the view (again, including the opinions of critics, such as Marx and Nietzsche), and an overview of the chapters of the book.

Amie Thomasson’s work provides numerous ways to rethink and improve our approach to metaphysics. This chapter is my attempt to begin to sketch why I still think the easy approach leaves room for substantive metaphysical work, and why I do not think that metaphysics need rely on any ‘epistemically metaphysical’ knowledge. After distinguishing two possible forms of deflationism, I argue that the easy ontologist needs to accept (implicitly or explicitly) that there are worldly constraints on what sorts of entities could (...) exist, and could co-exist. I argue this leaves room for a substantive role for metaphysics if (following the work of E.J. Lowe) we take metaphysics to be concerned with the possible ways that reality could be. I explain how this conception does not need to appeal to any ‘epistemically metaphysical’ knowledge, and need only make use of conceptual and/or empirical means to arrive at views on what could exist (and co-exist). Thus, the answer I propose to the question posed in the title, at least in my view, is no-one. Or, at least, no-one should be afraid of conceptual analysis. Not even metaphysicians. (shrink)

At Sophist 253d-e the Eleatic Visitor offers a notoriously obscure description of the fields of one-and-many that the dialectician “adequately discerns.” Against the readings of Stenzel, Cornford, Sayre, and Gomez-Lobo, I propose an interpretation of that passage that takes into account the trilogy of Theaetetus-Sophist-Statesman as its context. The key steps are to respond to the irony of Socrates’ refutations at the end of the Theaetetus by reinterpreting the last two senses of logos as directed to forms and to recognize (...) their correlation with the two different modes of diairesis practiced by the Eleatic Visitor. These steps position us to recognize in the Visitor’s remarks at Sophist 253d-e a schematic description of the two kinds of eidetic field that the two modes of diairesis trace. (shrink)

In his “Noesis and Logos in the Eleatic Trilogy, with a Focus on the Visitor’s Jokes at Statesman 266a-d,” Mitchell Miller explores the interplay of intuition and discourse in the Statesman. He prepares by considering the orienting provocations provided by Socrates’ refutations of the proposed definition of knowledge — namely, “true judgment and a logos” — in the closing pages of the Theaetetus, by the Eleatic Visitor’s obscure schematization at Sophist 253d-e of the kinds of eidetic field discerned by (...) dialectic, and by his discussion at Statesman 277a-278e of the use of paradigms. Miller then seeks to show how the Visitor’s odd medley of geometrical and Homeric jokes at Statesman 266a-d aims, in the language of the Seventh Letter, to “spark” an intuition of the nature of statesmanship, an intuition whose “self-nourishing” motivates the subsequent rejection of the initial definition of the statesman as shepherd of the human herd, the turn to the paradigm of the weaver, and the rejection of bifurcatory division in favor of the non-bifurcatory account of the kinds of art that function as the “limbs” of a well-formed city. (shrink)

An ongoing debate in the philosophy of action concerns the prevalence of moral luck: instances in which an agent’s moral responsibility is due, at least in part, to factors beyond his control. I point to a unique problem of moral luck for agents who depend upon Brain Computer Interfaces (BCIs) for bodily movement. BCIs may misrecognize a voluntarily formed distal intention (e.g., a plan to commit some illicit act in the future) as a control command to perform some overt behavior (...) now. If so, then BCI-agents may be deserving of punishment for the unlucky but foreseeable outcomes of their voluntarily formed plans, whereas standard counterparts who abandon their plans are not. However, it seems that the only relevant difference between BCI-agents and their standard counterparts is just a matter of luck. I briefly sketch different solutions that attempt to avoid this type of moral luck, while remaining agnostic on whether any succeeds. If none of these solutions succeeds, then there may be a unique type of moral luck that is unavoidable with respect to deserving punishment for certain BCI-mediated behaviors. (shrink)

This paper focuses on a non-volitional account that has received a good deal of attention recently, Angela Smith's rational relations view. I argue that without historical conditions on blameworthiness for the non-voluntary non-volitionist accounts like Smith’s are (i) vulnerable to manipulation cases and (ii) fail to make sufficient room for the distinction between badness and blameworthiness. Towards the end of the paper I propose conditions aimed to supplement these deficiencies. The conditions that I propose are tailored to suit non-volitional accounts (...) of blameworthiness. Unlike some volitional historical conditions on blameworthiness, the conditions that I propose do not require that the person have exercised voluntary control (e.g., via choices or decisions) over the acquisition of her attitudes or values. (shrink)

This paper addresses the ontological status of the ontological categories as defended within E.J. Lowe’s four-category ontology (kinds, objects, properties/relations, and modes). I consider the arguments in Griffith (2015. “Do Ontological Categories Exist?” Metaphysica 16 (1):25–35) against Lowe’s claim that ontological categories do not exist, and argue that Griffith’s objections to Lowe do not work once we fully take advantage of ontological resources available within Lowe’s four-category ontology. I then argue that the claim that ontological categories do not exist has (...) no undesirable consequences for Lowe’s brand of realism. (shrink)

Eyal Shahar’s essay review [1] of James Penston’s remarkable book [2] seems more inspired playful academic provocation than review or essay, expressing dramatic views of impossible validity. The account given of modern biostatistical causation reveals the slide from science into the intellectual confusion and non-science RCTs have created: “…. the purpose of medical research is to estimate the magnitude of the effect of a causal contrast, for example the probability ratio of a binary outcome …” But Shahar’s world is simultaneously (...) not probabilistic, but of absolute uncertainty: “We should have no confidence in any type of evidence ….. We should have no confidence at all”. Shahar’s "Causal contrast" is attractive. It seems to make sense, but bypasses in two words the means of establishing causation by the scientific method. This phrase assumes a numeric statistically significant “contrast” is causal rather than a potential correlation requiring further investigation. The concept of “causal contrast” is a slippery slope from sense into biostatistical non-science. This can be illustrated with an hypothetical RCT where 100% of interventions exhibit a posited treatment effect and 0% of placebo controls. Internal validity is seemingly quite reasonably assumed satisfied (common-sense dictating the likelihood of an awesome magnificent fraud, bias or plain error of the magnitude required is infinitesimal). Scientific method appears satisfied. The RCT demonstrates: (1) strict regularity of outcome in the presence of posited cause; (2) the absence of outcome in its absence and (3) an intervention (experiment) showing the direction of causation is from posited cause to posited effect. Now travel further down the slope from science. Assume 50% of interventions and 0% of controls are positive. We compromise scientific method, but justify this by assuming a large subgroup which we say surely must on these figures be exhibiting the posited treatment effect. But what of 10% of interventions and 9% of placebo controls exhibiting the posited treatment effect? Our biostatistician says the 1% “causal contrast” is statistically significant. But we have: (1) minimal evidence of regularity; (2) the posited outcome irrespective of presence of posited cause and (3) our intervention is at the highest equivocal in demonstrating any form of causation. This is not science. It is, however, where biostatistics has unthinkingly taken us, as Penston has shown comprehensively [2]. We, the audience of published medical research, are now for the 10% / 9% example well down the slope from science. An unattractive hypothesis results requiring numerous assumptions similar to these:- "There is a 'contrast' which is ‘causal’, albeit the method employed is not scientific. An effect of the intervention has been observed in a very small subgroup. This subgroup is susceptible to treatment. The similar number of placebo controls exhibiting the outcome sought is irrelevant, because the 1% difference between intervention and controls is statistically significant. The statistical analysis is valid and reliable. The RCT’s internal validity is sufficiently satisfied. No funding or bias or fraud has affected the results or their analysis.” As Penston notes: “Confirming and refuting the results of research is crucial to science …. But … there’s no way of testing the results of any particular large-scale RCT or epidemiological study. Each study … is left hanging in the air, unsupported.” It gets worse. To identify a rare serious adverse reaction of a frequency of 1:10,000 can require a trial of 200,000 or larger split between controls and interventions. This is not done. But for every 100 who prospectively benefit from the intervention, 9,900 also receive it. And for every 100 benefiting one person (who likely gains no benefit) will suffer a serious unidentified adverse reaction. This is also without taking account of more common adverse reactions whether serious or otherwise. References [1] Shahar, E. (2011) Research and medicine: human conjectures at every turn. International Journal of Person Centered Medicine 1 (2), 250-253. [2] Penston, J. (2010). stats.con: How we’ve been fooled by statistics-based research in medicine. London: The London Press, UK. (shrink)

Philosophers working on time-biases assume that people are hedonically biased toward the future. A hedonically future-biased agent prefers pleasurable experiences to be future instead of past, and painful experiences to be past instead of future. Philosophers further predict that this bias is strong enough to apply to unequal payoffs: people often prefer less pleasurable future experiences to more pleasurable past ones, and more painful past experiences to less painful future ones. In addition, philosophers have predicted that future-bias is restricted to (...) first-person preferences, and that people’s third-person preferences are time-neutral. Philosophers disagree vigorously about the normative status of these preferences—i.e., they disagree about whether first-person future-bias is rationally permissible. Time-neutralists, for example, have appealed to the predicted asymmetry between first- and third-person preferences to argue for the rational impermissibility of future-bias. We empirically tested these predictions, and found that while people do prefer more past pain to less future pain, they do not prefer less future pleasure to more past pleasure. This was so in both first and third-person conditions. This suggests that future-bias is typically non-absolute, and is more easily outweighed in the case of positive events. We connect this result to the normative debate over future-bias. (shrink)

While every health care system stakeholder would seem to be concerned with obtaining the greatest value from a given technology, there is often a disconnect in the perception of value between a technology’s promoters and those responsible for the ultimate decision as to whether or not to pay for it. Adopting an empirical ethics approach, this paper examines how five Canadian medical device manufacturers, via their websites, frame the corporate “value proposition” of their innovation and seek to respond to what (...) they consider the key expectations of their customers. Our analysis shows that the manufacturers’ framing strategies combine claims that relate to valuable socio-technical goals and features such as prevention, efficiency, sense of security, real-time feedback, ease of use and flexibility, all elements that likely resonate with a large spectrum of health care system stakeholders. The websites do not describe, however, how the innovations may impact health care delivery and tend to obfuscate the decisional trade-offs these innovations represent from a health care system perspective. Such framing strategies, we argue, tend to bolster physicians’ and patients’ expectations and provide a large set of stakeholders with powerful rhetorical tools that may influence the health policy arena. Because these strategies are difficult to counter given the paucity of evidence and its limited use in policymaking, establishing sound collective health care priorities will require solid critiques of how certain kinds of medical devices may provide a better (i.e., more valuable) response to health care needs when compared to others. (shrink)

Block argues for a distinction between phenomenal consciousness [PC] and access consciousness [AC] on the basis of his ‘overflow’ argument. Some have thought that this distinction might limit the possibilities of studying consciousness, as it suggests the existence of conscious mental states whose contents can’t be reported. After distinguishing theoretically between PC and AC, I will summarise Block’s overflow argument for their factual distinction. Highlighting that Block makes two related but separate modal claims about the PC/AC distinction, I will show (...) that the arguments he offers at most support the weak claim that a subject S can have a mental state which is P-conscious but which isn’t A-conscious. But the assumptions on which his argument for the weak claim rest prevent any supporters of his argument from making the strong claim that an individual can have a mental state which is P-conscious but which can’t be A-conscious. And if the overflow argument can’t motivate this stronger claim then there’s no reason to think that any mental state which is P-conscious can’t be made A-conscious given the right circumstances. In which case, even if Block’s argument succeeds, there’s no reason to think that there are inherently inaccessible and thus unreportable conscious mental states. So fears about the limitations of the possibility of the study of consciousness due to the existence of such mental states on the basis of the overflow argument can be allayed. (shrink)

Abstract. In this article we developed scientific and applied foundations of commercialization of the nature-resource potential of anthropogenic objects, on the example of exhausted mines. It is determined that the category of “anthropogenic object” can be considered in a narrow-applied sense, as specific anthropogenic objects to ensure the target needs, and in a broad theoretical sense, meaning everything that is created and changed by human influence, that is the objects of both artificial and natural origin. It was determined that problems (...) of commercialization of the natural-resource potential of anthropogenic objects are most often considered by researchers for specific objects, without having complex methodological coverage from the point of view of combining environmental, technical, economic and managerial components. When studying the substantiation of the scientific base, the authors confirmed the feasibility of the commercialization of natural-resource potential of anthropogenic objects on the example of a number of theoretical scientific studies in reclamation, reconstruction, recreation, remediation, restoration of biological productivity and economic value of land disturbed by economic activity. The considered examples of exhausted mines in the 21st century in the USA, Canada, Germany, Romania, and Poland indicate a wide range of opportunities for their commercialization. The study of the potential for commercialization of exhausted mines in the post-Soviet countries testified to the underused reserves for the commercialization of their nature-resource potential and their high potential for further development. The authors proposed the identification of anthropogenic objects on the basic livelihood spheres of society. There were identified the main system (natural, biological, technical, economic, social, managerial) and structural (subjects, trends, threats, risks, problems, challenges) factors of diagnosing the state of an anthropogenic object. A set of measures has been developed for commercialization of an anthropogenic object in functional and production activities, product policy, financial and investment spheres, pricing and sales policies, promotion, management and determination of property rights. Recommendations were provided on optimizing the management decision-making process based on a set of positivistic development principles, methods, and management functions. The study allows international organizations, state and local authorities, territorial communities, owners and potential investors to see new opportunities and make mutually beneficial decisions on the rational use of the nature-resource potential of anthropogenic objects. (shrink)

We present a deductive theory of space-time which is realistic, objective, and relational. It is realistic because it assumes the existence of physical things endowed with concrete properties. It is objective because it can be formulated without any reference to cognoscent subjects or sensorial fields. Finally, it is relational because it assumes that space-time is not a thing but a complex of relations among things. In this way, the original program of Leibniz is consummated, in the sense that space is (...) ultimately an order of coexistents, and time is an order of succesives. In this context, we show that the metric and topological properties of Minkowskian space-time are reduced to relational properties of concrete things. We also sketch how our theory can be extended to encompass a Riemannian space-time. (shrink)

We present an axiomatization of non-relativistic Quantum Mechanics for a system with an arbitrary number of components. The interpretation of our system of axioms is realistic and objective. The EPR paradox and its relation with realism is discussed in this framework. It is shown that there is no contradiction between realism and recent experimental results.

The objectives of the study are to determine the main trends and characteristics of the provision of services by Ukrainian travel companies over the past 10 years. Ukraine is explored in terms of domestic and international tourism (inbound and outbound). The study uses the data of the World Tourism Organization (UNWTO), the State Statistics Service of Ukraine, the data of the regional statistical offices, as well as the results of the author's calculations. Modern methods of global clustering and marketing segmentation, (...) using statistically significant data of quantitative and qualitative expert assessments, allow us to identify the development trend of the service of Ukrainian travel agencies. Завдання дослідження - визначення основних тенденції і характерних особливостей надання послуг українськими туристичними компаніями за останні 10 років. Досліджується Україна в розрізі внутрішнього та міжнародного туризму (в'їзного та виїзного). У дослідженні використовуються дані Всесвітньої організації туризму, Державної служби статистики України, дані регіональних управлінь статистики, а також результати авторських розрахунків. Сучасні методи глобальної кластеризації і маркетингової сегментації, з використанням статистично значущих даних кількісних і якісних експертних оцінок, дозволяють ідентифікувати тренд розвитку сервісу українських туристичних компаній. (shrink)

Due to the innovative nature of the world economy and the continuity of scientific and technological progress, intellectualization becomes one of the world's leading trends. The article is aimed to evaluate the state of intellectualization of the national economy of Ukraine in the context of globalization. In the article the existing approaches are considered, which are used by international organizations and expert agencies to evaluate the intellectualization level of the countries around the world. The indicators of the state of intellectualization, (...) available in the publications of the State statistics service of Ukraine have been researched. The author's deductive description of the intellectualization state of the regions (on the basis of twenty four indicators) and of types of economic activity (three indicators) of the national economy has been presented. It has been determined, that in the today's circumstances, an increasing of intellectualization level of the Ukrainian economy could happen, on the one hand, by means of getting balanced the status of intellectualization of the regions, given their natural resource potential, the socio-economic situation and the international human resources movement. On the other hand, this can happen due to introduction of new forms of national economic policies for human resources development in the fields of IT-technologies, information services, sports, education, space industry, tourism. The scientific novelty and practical importance, as well as originality of the obtained results is represented by an elaborated methodological framework for evaluating the state of the intellectualization of the national economy plus a further projecting of mechanisms of intellectualization of Ukraine in the worldwide context. (shrink)

These arguments prove the necessity of developing highly competitive effective innovation strategy of the national economy aimed at developing modern innovative system that ensures the competitiveness of the national economy through effective use of scientific and technological capabilities towards promoting good economic growth.

Metaphors for describing the introduction, impacts, and management of non-native species are numerous and often quite outspoken. Policy-makers have adopted increasingly disputed metaphorical terms from scientific discourse. We performed a critical analysis of the use of strong metaphors in reporting scientific findings to policy-makers. Our analysis shows that perceptions of harm, invasiveness or nativeness are dynamic and inevitably display multiple narratives in science, policy or management. Improving our awareness of multiple expert and stakeholder narratives that exist in the context of (...) non-native species management, as well as metaphorical alternatives, is critical. (shrink)

Entrepreneurship education is among the key drivers of the country’s economy, and teachers are primarily responsible for its integration into teaching and finding the best and most useful method. The purpose of this research is to determine the level of entrepreneurial competence and teaching methods among entrepreneurship education teachers. Focusing on the concept of entrepreneurial competencies combining conceptual, human relations, strategic, commitment, opportunity, organizational and strategic competencies. Using quantitative – descriptive survey, the study tested its significant difference and relationship when (...) grouped with the profile variables. The findings indicate a significant correlation between the variables particularly, with the technical competence which has the strongest correlation. The paper sheds some light concerning the status of the current entrepreneurial competence of the teachers in the division and recommends training curriculum to develop their competencies in handling the subject. (shrink)

A qualitative phenomenological approach was used in this study to describe the lived experiences of Tagumpay National High School (TNHS) teachers on Online Learning Action Cell (LAC) session. LAC is a school-based professional development for teachers implemented by the Philippine Department of Education (DepEd). Due to teacher’s lack of participation on classroom LAC, a fully-online mode option is explored by offering TNHS teachers Online LAC session using Facebook as a Learning Management System (LMS). To capture the lived experience of teachers, (...) an in-depth interview with a purposive sample of one TNHS teacher is done in the process. The data gathered went through “Hycner’s Explicitation Process” (1999, in Groenewald, 2004) which includes bracketing, delineating, clustering, summarizing and extracting unique themes. Validity and Credibility were accomplished through an intercoder agreement between researchers, Facebook chat records, bracketing, and member checking. Results identified three themes in relation to teacher’s experience of Online LAC session including usefulness, barriers, and preference. Findings revealed the major role of TNHS teacher’s context on how Online LAC is utilized. Recommendations include administrator and expert teacher working with classroom teachers and the inclusion of teachers’ voices as input in the program design, implementation and evaluation stages of Online LAC to better address curriculum needs and facilitate the delivery of high-quality professional development for teachers’ professional growth. (shrink)

The purpose of this paper is to review and discuss Luciano Floridi’s 2019 book The Logic of Information: A Theory of Philosophy as Conceptual Design, the latest instalment in his philosophy of information (PI) tetralogy, particularly with respect to its implications for library and information studies (LIS) .

Purpose. To determine the potential of deforming broaching for the improvement of efficiency of cutter chisels in the mining industry. Methodology. The study of the application of the technological process of deforming broaching was carried out based on the experimental research into conditions of assembly of press couplings corresponding to cutting rock-destroying tools, the working surface of which is reinforced with solid-alloy inserts. Findings. Based on the conducted research, a new process of assembling the crowns of cutter chisels with the (...) use of deforming broaching was developed. Originality. It was determined that the range of angles of inclination of generatrix of the working cone of the deforming element and the roll-treading lip of the insert, which are necessary for efficient machining and pressing in crowns of cutters, is 4–16°. It was proven that the “solid alloy-steel” press couplings for cutter chisels will have the maximum bearing capacity at total tension a/d0 ≤ 3 %. It was found that it is necessary to foresee the following distribution of tensions: to perform 2 % of deformation by preliminary deforming broaching, and 1 % ‒ by pressing in an insert Practical value. The use of deforming broaching makes it possible to increase the strength of fastening the inserts of cutter chisels by 2 times, to reduce specific consumption of the tool by 4.4 times, and to increase the average drilling rate by 4 times. (shrink)

Comparing the degree of openness of the economy of Poland and the Netherlands, we can say the following. The Netherlands is more dependent on foreign trade than Poland. The Netherlands export quota reaches almost 50%, unlike 41,37% in Poland in 2016. However, Poland has become more import-dependent. Poland, in contrast to the Netherlands, is continuing to increase the indicators of "economic globalization". To date, the Netherlands has been pursuing more moderate foreign trade policy and trying to protect itself from external (...) risks by focusing on an internal market with high purchasing power. On the contrary, Polish politics tries to focus on the new markets for its products in order to increase the prosperity and well-being of its citizens. Poland as a country and an economic entity has made a qualitative leap in its development. The economy of this country has become more open and integrated into the world economy. (shrink)

Paul Boghossian (1997) has argued that there is much to be said on behalf of the notion of analyticity so long as we distinguish epistemic analyticity and metaphysical analyticity. In particular, (1) epistemic analyticity isn’t undermined by Quine’s critique of the analytic-synthetic distinction, (2) it can explain the a prioricity of logic, and (3) epistemic analyticity can’t be rejected short of embracing semantic irrealism. In this paper, we argue that all three of these claims are mistaken.

The Parmenides is arguably the pivotal text for understanding the Platonic corpus as a whole. I offer a critical analysis that takes as its key the closely constructed dramatic context and mimetic irony of the dialogue. Read with these in view, the contradictory characterizations of the "one" in the hypotheses dissolve and reform as stages in a systematic response to the objections that Parmenides earlier posed to the young Socrates' notions of forms and participation, potentially liberating Socrates from his dependence (...) on sensible simile and yielding a distinctively conceptual articulation of the difference and relation of forms and their sensible participants. The dialogue as a whole thereby functions as the means for the "conversion" of the soul to eidetic being for which Plato has the elder Socrates call in Republic VII. (shrink)

This study was intended to determine the level of factors affecting the decision of 4th year BS Accountancy students from College of Maasin to work after graduation or to take the 2022 CPALE. In order to determine the factors affecting the decision of the graduating Accountancy students, the researchers adopted the descriptive survey design. Descriptive survey is a sort of descriptive study that uses surveys to collect data on a variety of issues. The goal of this information is to see (...) how different circumstances can be obtained among the respondents. The following results were derived in the course of the conduct of this study; There is bigger percentage of female than of male where 26 out of 27 belongs to the age group of 20 to 22. Majority of the student’s parent’s occupation status is working. Conversely, most of them only earns P2,000 to P5,000 per month even though the household member earning for a living is 1 to 4 members, the first 3 factors namely financial status, peer pressure and parent’s influence were found to slightly affect the decision of the student with regards to taking the CPALE or to work after graduation. The last factor, school’s teaching influence turned out that it somewhat affects the decision of the students, there is a significant difference between the teaching influence factor and the demographic profile of gender while on the age and parent’s occupation status, it has a significance difference with financial status factor. As BSA students taking a course where a licensure examination awaits after graduation, it is necessary to take some factors into consideration before coming up into a decision regarding taking the CPALE or to work after graduation. Based on the results of the study, the level of factors to affect the decision of the students was determined. It has been shown in the results that the three factors namely financial status, peer pressure and parent’s influence can slightly affect the student’s decision. However, among three, peer pressure has the highest weighted mean rating of 2.86. On the other hand, the school’s teaching influence has the lowest weighted mean rating of 2.29 which means it can somewhat affect the decision of the student. (shrink)

At first glance, Aristotle’s Politics is a repository of dry, professorial lecture notes. Although the work contains the occasional literary reference or historical digression, analysis, argumentation, and socio-political taxonomies predominate. Beneath the surface of such prose, Pangle locates an Aristotle who seeks to involve the reader in dialogical exchange—much like as in a Platonic dialogue—by means of dialectical, rhetorical and literary devices. Pangle—a student of the political theorist Leo Strauss, a translator of Plato, Aristophanes and Sophocles, and the author of (...) books on modern political theorists such as Montesquieu, Locke, and the Federalist Papers—has written a study of the Politics informed not only by a close reading of the text, but also its relationship to modern republicanism, and the conflict between rationalism and religion. A previously published introduction presents what Pangle takes to be Aristotle’s rhetorical strategy in the Politics; it is followed by chapters organized around individual books in the Politics (a chapter each for Politics I, II, and III, and consolidated chapters for Politics IV-VI and VII-VIII—the last of which had been previously published in part). The text is followed by almost 50 pages of notes, notes in which Aquinas is cited as frequently (and sometimes more frequently) than contemporary Aristotle scholars like P. Simpson, R. Kraut, and E. Schütrumpf and Alfarabi is cited more frequently than F. Miller (although by far the most frequently cited authorities are the 19th century scholars F. Susemihl, R.D. Hicks, and above all, W. Newman). The book is clearly a mature work of scholarship, informed by extended reflection on Aristotle’s Politics and the subsequent western tradition of political theory and philological commentary which has responded to it. (shrink)

In this paper we provide a psychological explanation for ‘grounding observations’—observations that are thought to provide evidence that there exists a relation of ground. Our explanation does not appeal to the presence of any such relation. Instead, it appeals to certain evolved cognitive mechanisms, along with the traditional modal relations of supervenience, necessitation and entailment. We then consider what, if any, metaphysical conclusions we can draw from the obtaining of such an explanation, and, in particular, if it tells us anything (...) about whether we ought to posit a relation of ground. (shrink)

Sayre finds deep connections between collection and division, the two kinds of measure distinguished in the Statesman, the conceptions of Limit and Unlimited in the Philebus, and the Dyad that Aristotle reports was a key principle in the "unwritten teachings." The Stranger's dialectical account of statesmanship practices due measure; by "cutting down the middle," the Stranger shows how Forms — understood as Limits as, in turn, "numbers in the sense of measures" — "mark off a middle ground between [the] extremes (...) [implied by] the Unlimited" and, thus, preserve the mean. I suggest a number of critical reconfigurations of these seminal insights. (shrink)

Aquinas’s characterization of sacra doctrina has received sustained engagement addressing its relation to contemporary conceptions of theology and Aristotelian conceptions of science. More recently, attention has been paid to Aquinas’s neo-Platonist influences, and the way they lead him to subvert purely Aristotelian categories. I therefore combine these themes by introducing the first study of whether sacra doctrina counts as a technê in Plato’s sense. After examining how Platonic technê relate to their ergon. epistasthai, gignôskein, and epistêmê and examining sacra doctrina’s (...) relationship to each of these Platonic categories, I suggest that sacra doctrina is an unqualified Platonic technê. (shrink)

Do adult children have a particular duty, or set of duties, to their aging parents? What might the normative source and content of filial obligation be? This chapter examines Kant’s duty of beneficence in The Doctrine of Virtue and the Groundwork, suggesting that at its core, performance of filial duty occurs in response to the needs of aging parents. The duty of beneficence accounts for inevitable vulnerabilities that befall human rational beings and reveals moral agents as situated in communities of (...) dependence and mutual aid. Other accounts of filial obligation, such as those based on a notion of gratitude, virtue, or friendship, generate various difficulties and fail to adequately address and emphasize four morally significant features of the adult child/ aging parent relationship. First, the relationship between adult children and their aging parents is one of dependency created by the increasing frailty and need of those parents. Second, the obligations that adult children have to aging parents take place in the context of a relationship not voluntarily assumed, but not coerced. Third, given a cultural tendency toward paternalistic care of elderly individuals, the content of filial obligation should safeguard against such treatment. Fourth, because dependency relations between adult children and aging parents can involve an immense degree of sacrifice on the part of the caretaker, an acknowledgment of duties should be accompanied by a concurrent acknowledgment of the necessary limitation of duties. Addressing these four issues is essential in offering a coherent account of the normative source, content, nature, and scope of adult children’s duty to care for their aging parents. This essay demonstrates that the Kantian duty of beneficence, when functioning as the philosophical foundation of filial obligation, allows for ample light to be shed upon and for proper analysis to take place of these four issues. (shrink)

This essay demonstrates that Beauvoir's La Vieillesse is a phenomenological study of old age indebted to Husserl's phenomenology of the body. Beauvoir's depiction of the doubling in the lived experience of the elderly--a division between outsiders' awareness of the elderly's decline and the elderly's own inner understanding of old age--serves as a specific illustration of Beauvoir's particular method of description and analysis.

Information providing and gathering increasingly involve technologies like search ‎engines, which actively shape their epistemic surroundings. Yet, a satisfying account ‎of the epistemic responsibilities associated with them does not exist. We analyze ‎automatically generated search suggestions from the perspective of social ‎epistemology to illustrate how epistemic responsibilities associated with a ‎technology can be derived and assigned. Drawing on our previously developed ‎theoretical framework that connects responsible epistemic behavior to ‎practicability, we address two questions: first, given the different technological ‎possibilities available (...) to searchers, the search technology, and search providers, ‎who should bear which responsibilities? Second, given the technology’s ‎epistemically relevant features and potential harms, how should search terms be ‎autocompleted? Our analysis reveals that epistemic responsibility lies mostly with ‎search providers, which should eliminate three categories of autosuggestions: those ‎that result from organized attacks, those that perpetuate damaging stereotypes, and ‎those that associate negative characteristics with specific individuals.‎. (shrink)

ABSTRACTRational agents have consistent beliefs. Bayesianism is a theory of consistency for partial belief states. Rational agents also respond appropriately to experience. Dogmatism is a theory of how to respond appropriately to experience. Hence, Dogmatism and Bayesianism are theories of two very different aspects of rationality. It's surprising, then, that in recent years it has become common to claim that Dogmatism and Bayesianism are jointly inconsistent: how can two independently consistent theories with distinct subject matter be jointly inconsistent? In this (...) essay I argue that Bayesianism and Dogmatism are inconsistent only with the addition of a specific hypothesis about how the appropriate responses to perceptual experience are to be incorporated into the formal models of the Bayesian. That hypothesis isn't essential either to Bayesianism or to Dogmatism, and so Bayesianism and Dogmatism are jointly consistent. That leaves the matter of how experiences and credences are related, a... (shrink)

Margaret Atwood and David Suzuki are two of the most prominent Canadian public ‎intellectuals ‎involved in the global warming debate. They both argue that anthropogenic global ‎warming is ‎occurring, warn against its grave consequences, and urge governments and the ‎public to take ‎immediate, decisive, extensive, and profound measures to prevent it. They differ, ‎however, in the ‎reasons and evidence they provide in support of their position. While Suzuki ‎stresses the scientific ‎evidence in favour of the global warming theory and the (...) scientific ‎consensus around it, Atwood is ‎suspicious of the objectivity of science, and draws on an ‎idiosyncratic neo-Malthusian theory of ‎human development. Their implicit views ‎about the cognitive authority of science may be ‎identified with Critical Contextual Empiricism ‎and Feminist Standpoint Epistemology, respectively, ‎both of which face difficulties with ‎providing solid grounds for the position they advocate.‎ ‎. (shrink)

In today’s world, safety and security are the two important criteria, which needs much attention. The crucial reason behind the death cases and severe injuries are mostly because of two-wheeler accidents. In India it has been reported that for every four minutes, there is one death being reported. Now-a-days two wheeler accidents are increasing rapidly due to the consumption of alcohol and also due to the riders not wearing helmet. When a person met with an accident, immediate first aid treatment (...) should be provided. Currently, we are not in a position to ensure the quick treatment. Due to this late medication the person may die. The ultimate aim of the proposed system is to ensure the preventive measures and provide immediate first aid treatment by sending an alert message to the registered mobile numbers which speed up the first aid treatment. (shrink)

The European project European and Latin American Systems of Ethics Regulation of Biomedical Research Project (EULABOR) has carried out the first comparative analysis of ethics regulation systems for biomedical research in seven countries in Europe and Latin America, evaluating their roles in the protection of human subjects. We developed a conceptual and methodological framework defining ‘ethics regulation system for biomedical research’ as a set of actors, institutions, codes and laws involved in overseeing the ethics of biomedical research on humans. This (...) framework allowed us to develop comprehensive national reports by conducting semi-structured interviews to key informants. These reports were summarised and analysed in a comparative analysis. The study showed that the regulatory framework for clinical research in these countries differ in scope. It showed that despite the different political contexts, actors involved and motivations for creating the regulation, in most of the studied countries it was the government who took the lead in setting up the system. The study also showed that Europe and Latin America are similar regarding national bodies and research ethics committees, but the Brazilian system has strong and noteworthy specificities. (shrink)

A close reading of the five mathematical studies Socrates proposes for the philosopher-to-be in Republic VII, arguing that (1) each study proposes an object the thought of which turns the soul towards pure intelligibility and that (2) the sequence of studies involves both a departure from the sensible and a return to it in its intelligible structure.

Two Socratic dialogues often considered “comic”—Ion and Hippias Major—have also been contested as to their Platonic authenticity. Plato’s dialogues; while certainly engaging, can also seem grim in their philosophical intensity: At least one author has contended that the dialogue more firmly established as genuinely by Plato, Symposium; has some comic elements: This article goes a step further in suggesting that this dialogue does not merely have comic elements but is in fact a comedy. It draws on several texts in the (...) literature on Greek comedy over the past century and suggests that; although the dialogue sets itself serious philosophical challenges, its structure; style; and method are deeply steeped in comedic modes from around Plato’s day. This is not to presume whether Plato was deliberately writing a comedy. In general, writers are often strongly influenced by literary fashions of the day, so it would not be far stretching the matter to understand the work as comedic. Thereby, the article offers, via textual analysis, an argument for how the dialogue is a comedy along withcounter-arguments against such a notion. In the end, indeed, acknowledging it is a comedy promises to open up new angles on interpreting that dialogue. (shrink)

Initial responses to questionnaires used to assess participants' understanding of informed consent for malaria vaccine trials conducted in the United States and Mali were tallied. Total scores were analyzed by age, sex, literacy (if known), and location. Ninety-two percent (92%) of answers by United States participants and 85% of answers by Malian participants were correct. Questions more likely to be answered incorrectly in Mali related to risk, and to the type of vaccine. For adult participants, independent predictors of higher scores (...) were younger age and female sex in the United States, and male sex in Mali. Scores in the United States were higher than in Mali (P = 0.005). Despite this difference participants at both sites were well informed overall. Although interpretation must be qualified because questionnaires were not intended as research tools and were not standardized among sites, these results do not support concerns about systematic low understanding among research participants in developing versus developed countries. (shrink)

As engineers propose constructing humanlike automata, the question arises as to whether such machines merit human rights. The issue warrants serious and rigorous examination, although it has not yet cohered into a conversation. To put it into a sure direction, this paper proposes phrasing it in terms of whether humans are morally obligated to extend to maximally humanlike automata full human rights, or those set forth in common international rights documents. This paper’s approach is to consider the ontology of humans (...) and of automata and whether ontological difference between them, that pertains to the very bases of human rights, affects the latter’s claims to full human rights. Considering common bases of human rights, can these bases tell us whether a certain ontological distinction of humans from automata—or a de facto distinction about humans tacitly acknowledged by full-rights-recognizing societies—makes a difference in whether humans are morally obligated to assign these entities full rights? Human rights to security also arise. The conclusion is that humans need not be under any moral obligation to confer full human rights on automata. The paper’s ultimate point is not to close the discussion with this ontological cap but to set a solid moral and legal groundwork for opening it up tout court. (shrink)

A close examination of the implicit logic that guides Hesiod's account of the genesis of the cosmos in the Theogony 116-133, with special attention to his choice of Chaos as the first born and to the logical relations between opposites and between whole and parts as these emerge within, as the structuring principles of, Hesiod's ordering of the births of cosmic elements.

David Lewis is a natural target for those who believe that findings in quantum physics threaten the tenability of traditional metaphysical reductionism. Such philosophers point to allegedly holistic entities they take both to be the subjects of some claims of quantum mechanics and to be incompatible with Lewisian metaphysics. According to one popular argument, the non-separability argument from quantum entanglement, any realist interpretation of quantum theory is straightforwardly inconsistent with the reductive conviction that the complete physical state of the world (...) supervenes on the intrinsic properties of and spatio-temporal relations between its point-sized constituents. Here I defend Lewis's metaphysical doctrine, and traditional reductionism more generally, against this alleged threat from quantum holism. After presenting the non-separability argument from entanglement, I show that Bohmian mechanics, an interpretation of quantum mechanics explicitly recognized as a realist one by proponents of the non-separability argument, plausibly rejects a key premise of that argument. Another holistic worry for Humeanism persists, however, the trouble being the apparently holistic character of the Bohmian pilot wave. I present a Humean strategy for addressing the holistic threat from the pilot wave by drawing on resources from the Humean best system account of laws. (shrink)

It is often assumed that it seems to each of us as though time flows, or passes. On that assumption it follows either that time does in fact pass, and then, pretty plausibly, we have mechanisms that detect its passage, or that time does not pass, and we are subject to a pervasive phenomenal illusion. If the former is the case, we are faced with the explanatory task of spelling out which perceptual or cognitive mechanism (or combination thereof) allows us (...) to detect and track time’s passage (§2.1) If the latter, then we are faced with the task of explaining how, and why, we are subject to a pervasive phenomenal illusion (§2.2). There is, however, a third, somewhat less discussed, explanatory project. Rather than assuming that it seems to each of us as though time passes, and then attempting to explain why it seems that way, we jettison that assumption. According to these views it does not seem to us as though time passes; instead, we come to falsely believe that it seems to us as though time passes (§3). This view requires that we explain how we come to have systematically false beliefs about the way our experiences seem to us. This paper aims to motivate this third explanatory strategy and say something about what kind of cognitive mechanisms might be responsible for our having a false belief that it seems as though time passes, (§3.1) and why we might have evolved (some of) those mechanisms (§3.2). In particular, the paper does not aim to argue for this view: rather, it aims to present it as a viable contender alongside other more common views. (shrink)

Hegel's influence on post-Hegelian philosophy is as profound as it is ambiguous. Modern philosophy is philosophy after Hegel. Taking leave of Hegel's system appears to be a common feature of modern and post-modern thought. One could even argue that giving up Hegel's claim of totality defines philosophy after Hegel. Modern and post-modern philosophies are philosophies of finitude: Hegel's philosophy cannot be repeated. However, its status as a negative backdrop for modern and post-modern thought already shows its pervasive influence. Precisely in (...) its criticism of Hegel, modern thought is bound up with his thinking. (shrink)

Despite the United Nations Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, assimilationist policies continue, whether official or effective. Such policies affect more than the right to group choice. The concern is whether indeed genocide or “only” ethnocide (or culturecide)—the elimination of a traditional culture—is at work. Discussions of the distinction between the two terms have been inconsistent enough that at least one commentator has declared that they cannot be used in analytical contexts. While these terms, I contend, have distinct senses, (...) yet in cases of governmental and other institutional assimilationist policy for indigenous peoples, such ethnocide effectively entails genocide. Insofar as any people’s cultural practices and beliefs are essential for life and health, individuals in groups value, if tacitly, their culture as highly as their language or any artifact: Thus, attempts to eradicate a culture through assimilation in fact eradicate individuals’ lives and health and so are effectively murderous. Acknowledgement by worldwide organizations that assimilationist ethnocide is effectively genocide should affect policy concerning indigenous peoples and thus has significance for international law. (shrink)

Reflections on the linkage between and the provocative force of problems in the analogy of city and soul, in the simile-bound characterization of the Good, and in the performative tension between what Plato has Socrates say about the philosopher's disinclination to descend into the city and what he has Socrates do in descending into the Piraeus to teach, with a closing recognition of the analogy between Socratic teaching and Platonic writing.