Charles Djordjevic

This paper examines one of the most potent contemporaneous criticisms of the German Enlightenment (circa 1790) as well as the lessons that can be learned from such criticism. Specifically, it examines Kant's famous essay, “An Answer to the Question: What is Enlightenment,” and Hamman's objection drawn mainly from his “Letter to Christian Jacob Kraus.” It further argues Hamann’s criticisms are foresighted, especially when read against the subsequent dark imperil history of the ‘West' as seen in post-colonial theory.

Pain is a refractory problem in healthcare. One proposed solution is to promulgate best practices derived from the highest quality evidence stipulating how to assess pain and which treatment interventions are the most efficacious. Such a solution seamlessly integrates into evidence-based medicine, the dominant ‘revolutionary paradigm’ in healthcare. This paper argues that such a ‘revolutionary’ approach is theoretically untenable and ethically abhorrent. Section 1 adumbrates the evidence-based medicine framework, how best practices are often formulated under its auspices, and which methods it might use to address pain. Section 2 points out that this approach faces profound theoretical issues when applied to pain, even by its own lights. Section 3 argues that attempts to use such best practices in the clinic generate grave ethical problems. Finally, Sect. 4 briefly sketches a different form of medicine, one that casts evidence as a helpful handmaiden of medicine, instead of a domineering mistress.

In recent analytic philosophy, there is a growing interest in the project of conceptual engineering. This paper examines two ways this project might be applied to scientific research, specifically anthropological research. It argues that both of them are harmful to this research. Specifically, it argues that a reliance on the axiological standards of analytic philosophy conflicts with the goal of empirical adequacy. Section one proffers two forms that the engineering project might take when applied to the science. Section two proffers a case study drawn from anthropology. Specifically, it lays out Evans-Pritchard’s Witchcraft, Oracles, and Magic Among the Azande, paying particular attention to the inconsistency he discovered in Azande witchcraft. Sections three and four argue that attempting to remove this inconsistency via the two forms of engineering disable critical features of emic research and discard empirical findings. Finally, I close by noting how the conflict between axiological standards and empirical adequacy might generalize beyond anthropology.

In certain philosophical quarters, a new metaphilosophical position is being discussed—antiphilosophy. Such a position seems to maintain that there is no distinction between philosophy and sophistry, reason and rhetoric, arguing and emoting. This paper examines antiphilosophy. Specifically, it aims to address three interrelated questions: Is antiphilosophy a possible metaphilosophical position? If it is, what characterizes it? And what ramifications would it have? The paper argues that antiphilosophy is possible and is best construed as an attempt to reconstruct philosophical discourse on noncognitive lines. Explicitly, “to assert” and the belief propositional attitude is replaced by “to convince” and a pro‐attitude desire to rhetorically talk someone into something. The paper examines one possible form such a position could take as well as various ramifications of it.

In contemporary philosophy, there is a growing interest in how Søren Kierkegaard’s metaphilosophy and philosophical methodology may have influenced Ludwig Wittgenstein. This paper contributes to this discussion by arguing that each shares and critiques a particular conception of logic that I term “worldly logic.” Roughly, “worldly logic” contends logic and metaphysics are intimately interconnected. It further argues that reading Kierkegaard’s brief thoughts on logic, in the Climacus texts, through the lens of the later Wittgenstein, helps to clarify the nature of Kierkegaard’s critique. Finally, it argues that their shared abhorrence of a particular sort of philosophy of logic is principled and apt.

McCaffery's definition of pain has proven to be one of the most consequential in nursing and healthcare more generally. She put forward this definition in response to the persistent undertreatment of pain. However, despite raising her definition to the status of a dogma, the undertreatment remains a real problem. This essay explores the contention that McCaffery's definition of pain elides critical aspects of it, aspects that demand consideration when treating pain. In section I, I set the stage. I discuss how McCaffery's definition and her understanding of pain science interrelate. In section II, I raise three problems for this understanding. In section III, I argue that these problems stem from an incoherency in her definition. Finally, in section IV, I draw from hospice nursing as well as philosophy and the social sciences to redefine ‘pain’ so that an intersubjective feature of it is foregrounded. I also briefly discuss one implication this redefinition has for pain management.

The pain-assessment literature often claims that pain is subjective. However, the meaning and implications of this claim are left to the reader’s imagination. This paper attempts to make sense of the claim and its problems from the history and philosophy of science perspective. It examines the work of Henry Beecher, the first person to operationalize “pain” in terms of subjective measurements. First, I reconstruct Beecher’s operationalization of “pain.” Next, I argue this operationalization fails. Third, I salvage Beecher’s insights by repositioning them in an intersubjective account. Finally, I connect these insights to current pain-assessment approaches, showing that they enrich each other.

Pain, pain talk and pain ascriptions seem to be universal features of human experience and to have little to do with politics. It is often assumed that pain is always bad, a sign of a malfunctioning machine, that pain talk describes this malfunction and that the humane thing to do is to seek to ameliorate or excise pain. I argue that this viewpoint is one-sided at best and imperialistic at worst. In section I, I outline what I term the ‘prima facie model of pain’ and adumbrate later Wittgenstein’s criticism of it. In section II, I marshal ethnographic evidence that deepens Wittgenstein’s reimagining of pain and acknowledgment. In section III, I link this to ‘progressive’ politics and its normative understanding of the self. Finally, in section IV, I turn to Martin Luther King’s writing and discuss a use of pain that undermines this normative conception of the self and aligns with Wittgenstein’s account.

In this paper, we examine the viability of avoiding value judgments encoded in thick concepts when these concepts are used in economic theories. We focus on what implications the use of such thick concepts might have for the tenability of the fact/value dichotomy in economics. Thick concepts have an evaluative and a descriptive component. Our suggestion is that despite attempts to rid thick concepts of their evaluative component, economists are often not successful. We focus on the strategy of explication to remove the evaluative component of thick concepts and argue that often economists either have to make value judgments or are unable to individuate out the phenomenon under analysis. We support our claim with a case study, namely the concept of addiction in Gary Becker and Kevin Murphy’s Theory of Rational Addiction (1988). One consequence of our analysis is that theories containing thick concepts could commit economists to making value judgments and as such undermine the fact/value dichotomy.

Corry, Porter, and McKenna recently argued that logical positivism is a dead ‘research paradigm’ and should be stricken from the textbooks. Though I wholeheartedly support moving beyond logical positivism, I think its demise has been greatly exaggerated. This essay traces the continued influence of logical positivism on the nursing discipline. It also examines how far‐ranging the revisions would have to be if positivism is truly rejected from the nursing science. Section I argues that Corry et al.'s critique of positivism reiterates core positivist presuppositions. Sections II and III argue that positivist presuppositions about theories and operations still govern much nursing research. Section IV briefly discusses the role of values in the nursing science and argues that the positivists had an important point. This essay aims to clarify how deeply embedded positivism is in the nursing discipline, for it is only when we know how deep the infected tissue is that we can hope to excise it.