Neil Pickering

Neoliberalism and the academic as critic and conscience of society

This paper provides a critique of academic experiences of neoliberal economic reform at a New Zealand (NZ) university. The authors engaged in a collaborative inquiry that was based upon a developing theoretical perspective of the reform process and how this affected their academic lives. We were keen to develop an understanding of liberal educational philosophy and how neoliberalism impacts on this. In this context we examined the nature of compliance and an academics role in society. We conclude that universities in NZ are historically liberal and that there are limits to the neoliberal project due to the relationship that individuals have with knowledge and the pressures that come from being part of a worldwide academic community that aspires to excellence in research and teaching. However, new compliance measures, such as Performance-based Research Funding, have changed academic work and made a broader societal role for academics more difficult. In serving society universities are required to accept a role as critic and conscience of society. We suggest that academics must be both critic and conscience and that this responsibility can be fulfilled through our conduct, empowerment and speaking on behalf of others.

The metaphor of mental illness

PART I - ANSWERING RADICAL QUESTIONS PART II - METAPHOR PART III - THE METAPHOR OF MENTAL ILLNESS

Metaphors and models in medicine.

This paper aims to show how medical scientists may use metaphor in ways closely parallel to poets. Those who believe metaphor has any role at all in science may describe its use in various ways. Associationists think metaphors are based upon likenesses, and collapse the notions of model and metaphor together. But, as an example from the work of Louis Pasteur suggests, metaphor need not be based upon likenesses. Rather it may play a role in making possible a modelsexplanatory significance. Models may presuppose metaphors. The Pasteur example also suggests metaphor may play a part in creating likenesses through its role in classification and reclassification. It is in these ways that the use of metaphor in medical science most closely parallels that in poetry.

Out of the ordinary: recapturing the liberal traditions of a university education through field courses

This article aims to stimulate debate about the nature of field courses in higher education. We use a colloquium format that allows each of us to reflect on the philosophy of field course teaching and our writing endeavours to establish a dialogue between the authors and leave the reader with a sense of curiosity. It starts with a position paper that sets out a particular viewpoint on field courses to which responses were invited. Two of the respondents were experienced field-course teachers in disciplines traditionally associated with this type of curriculum, the other a lecturer in a non-field-course-oriented discipline.

The Likeness Argument and the Reality of Mental Illness

A fundamental issue in the philosophy of psychiatry is that of the reality of mental illness: is there any such thing as mental illness? The dominant means of resolving this issue—either for or against—is the likeness argument. This states that mental illness exists, or does not, depending on the extent to which putative mental illnesses (such as alcoholism or schizophrenia) are like universally accepted illnesses (such as pneumonia). To succeed, this argument has to assume (1) that the features of conditions such as schizophrenia will decide whether they are illnesses or not and (2) that the existence of these features can be determined independently of the question whether they are illnesses or not. Both assumptions can be questioned. A weaker objection to the likeness argument questions the first, but it is possible to overcome it. A stronger objection questions the second assumption, and is successful in undermining it. This also undermines the first assumption. As a result, the likeness argument will fail. Two major objections to the stronger objection are considered and accommodated.

When Lack of Evidence Is Evidence of Lack

In their recent article “A Gentle Ethical Defence of Homeopathy,” Levy, Gadd, Kerridge, and Komesaroff use the claim that “lack of evidence is not equivalent to evidence of lack” as a component of their ethical defence of homeopathy. In response, this article argues that they cannot use this claim to shore up their ethical arguments. This is because it is false.

Teens and young adults should be started on long-acting reversible contraceptives before sexual activity commences: FOR: An opt-out programme would avoid teen pregnancy and associated costs.

Nature confers fertility on young people at an age when, developmentally and socially, at this time in history, a pregnancy is in neither the individual or society’s best interest (Lawlor D, et al. Int J Epidemiol 2011;40:5:1205– 14). Teen pregnancy places significant costs on the individual and society. These include costs to the state to support teen mother and child, opportunity costs for young women missing out on education and future earnings, and opportunity costs of the state benefitting from their contribution and taxation. Moreover, the children of teen pregnancies do poorly in statistics related to poverty, incarceration, and teen pregnancy [Office for National Statistics. Conceptions in England and Wales 2012, Statistical Bulletin (2014), The National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy (2013)]. Therefore proposals that long acting reversible contraceptives (LARCs) should be provided by the state free to all young people before they become sexually active are worthy of examination (Battin M. Soc Sci Med 1995;41:9:1203–5).

A Random Blend: The Self in Philip Larkin’s Poems “Ambulances” and “The Building”

In two of his great poems, “Ambulances” and “The Building,” Philip Larkin considers a deep fear about human individuality. The fear is that the human self is contingent and disjunctive, lacking any integrity or unity. The arrival of an ambulance on an urban curb and a visit to the hospital are the occasion of reflection on this form of human fragility. But more significant, the ambulance and the hospital are imagined as contexts in which the contingency of the human individual is brought out and laid before us.

Extending disorder: essentialism, family resemblance and secondary sense

It is commonly thought that mental disorder is a valid concept only in so far as it is an extension of or continuous with the concept of physical disorder. A valid extension has to meet two criteria: determination and coherence. Essentialists meet these criteria through necessary and sufficient conditions for being a disorder. Two Wittgensteinian alternatives to essentialism are considered and assessed against the two criteria. These are the family resemblance approach and the secondary sense approach. Where the focus is solely on the characteristics or attributes of things, both these approaches seem to fail to meet the criteria for valid extension. However, this focus on attributes is mistaken. The criteria for valid extension are met in the case of family resemblance by the pattern of characteristics associated with a concept, and by the limits of intelligibility of applying a concept. Secondary sense, though it may have some claims to be a good account of the relation between physical and mental disorder, cannot claim to meet the two criteria of valid extension.

Disease, variety, disagreement, and typicality: Advantage Roschian Concepts?

In a classical approach, disease is defined in terms of necessary and sufficient conditions. In contrast, in a Roschian approach, the degree of similarity to a prototype determines membership in the class of diseases. Because Roschian approaches recognize degrees of similarity among members of the category, and do not assert that all diseases must be the essentially the same, it can be argued that they have certain advantages, at a general level. These include accommodation of the variety of diseases, the capacity to explain disagreement about category membership, and to account for typicality effects (where people see some diseases as typical and some as less typical of the category). But despite the expectation, Roschian accounts do not unproblematically accommodate disease variety, do not make a better job of explaining disagreement about disease status, and turn out to be as embarrassed by typicality effects as classical approaches.