In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Time’s Causal Power: Proclus and the Natural Theology of Time by Antonio Luis Costa VargasM. MartijnVARGAS, Antonio Luis Costa. Time’s Causal Power: Proclus and the Natural Theology of Time. Boston: Brill, 2021. i + 231 pp. Cloth and eBook, $162.00The metaphysics of time in Neoplatonism tends to be described top-down: From transcendent eternity, time as we know it emanates. This is hardly informative about the nature of time (...) as such, however. Vargas’s monograph about Proclus’s theory of time instead takes a bottom-up approach: From the effects of time, he ascends to transcendent and divine Time as their cause—a natural theology. In the process, we learn that the key element of Proclus’s theory is that Time, which orders events and distributes “lifetimes,” provides us with the possibility of understanding the world as an ordered, intelligible whole.The book contains four chapters providing a genealogy of sorts by systematically laying out Proclus’s inspiration from the philosophy of time in Plato, Aristotle, the Stoics, and Plotinus respectively. Chapter 1 starts from Plato’s Timaeus and the distinction between the “order of time” and the “flow of time.” The order of time is the intelligible, transcendent substance that causes the “flow of time,” that is, time as change. From the Republic, Proclus harvests “true Number” as determining the former, and the motions of the heavenly bodies dispensing lifespans to all beings as determining the latter. [End Page 732]Chapter 2 starts from Aristotle’s criticism of Platonic time as motion: A motion belongs to a specific substance, but time should be omnipresent. Vargas shows how Aristotle’s understanding of change, causality, and time helps Proclus shape the order of time as a cosmic intelligence that makes the world intelligible through the number by which its processes are measured. In this chapter, Vargas presents a beautiful and rich analysis of how Neoplatonists adopt elements from Aristotle’s physics, psychology, and biology in order to build their Platonic notion of time as “number that counts” or productive number. In Neoplatonic terms: Aristotle’s first intellect as first mover becomes the substantial Order of Time in Proclus, the transcendent monad, and his lower movers become the chain of emanated lower times as kinds of intelligence.In chapter 3, Stoic biology helps elaborate the understanding of time as the order within the cosmos, the world as a living being, and contributes the idea of one simultaneous present or “now” for everything. This cosmic life helps counter Aristotle’s criticism: All motions belong to specific substances but are part of the life of the cosmos. Vargas here also brings in an interesting link to more recent discussions in physics concerning the nature of simultaneity: How do we know whether things occurring far away from each other are simultaneous? The cosmic “now” and the notion of sympathy, which Proclus finds in synchronous processes, provide a metaphysical framework for such simultaneity.In chapter 4, Plotinus’s contribution to Proclus’s theory is discussed: the flow of time as the life of the world soul, which underlies all life in the cosmos and ties it together. It consists in the presence in the soul of the effects, that is, the external activity, of the emanated internal activity of Intelligence. Intelligence, according to Plotinus, must be alive because it is fully active, and its emanation in the world soul leads to the soul’s own external activity, that is, its uniform and discursive production of the world. This external activity is time in the strictest sense of the word. The main difference between Plotinus and Proclus is that for Proclus the flow of time is inferior to the eternal life of the world soul, belonging to its external activity, but for Plotinus it coincides with the world soul. Another interesting difference Vargas highlights is that, where Plotinus denied the possibility of time being a number of changes because of the eternity of the world soul’s production, Proclus instead ascribed it countable infinity resulting from the everlasting repetitions of the Great Year.Vargas’s analyses contain very rich and detailed discussions of metaphysical issues such as the Aristotelian difference... (shrink)

Background Notwithstanding the need to produce evidence-based knowledge on medications for pregnant women, they remain underrepresented in clinical research. Sometimes they are excluded because of their supposed vulnerability, but there are no universally accepted criteria for considering pregnant women as vulnerable. Our aim was to explore whether and if so to what extent pregnant women are vulnerable as research subjects. Method We performed a conceptual and empirical analysis of vulnerability applied to pregnant women. Analysis A conceptual analysis supports Hurst's definition (...) of vulnerability. Consequently, we argue that pregnant women are vulnerable if they encounter an identifiably increased likelihood of incurring additional or greater wrong. According to the literature, this increased likelihood could exist of four alleged features for pregnant women's vulnerability: informed consent, susceptibility to coercion, higher exposure to risk due to lack of knowledge, vulnerability of the fetus. Discussion Testing the features against Hurst's definition demonstrates that they all concern the same issue: pregnant women are only vulnerable because a higher exposure to risk due to lack of scientific knowledge comprises an increased wrong. Research Ethics Committees have a responsibility to protect the vulnerable, but a higher exposure to risk due to lack of scientific knowledge is a much broader issue and also needs to be addressed by other stakeholders. Conclusions The only reason why pregnant women are potentially vulnerable is to the extent that they are increasingly exposed to higher risks due to a lack of scientific knowledge. Accordingly, the discussion can advance to the development of practical strategies to promote fair inclusion of pregnant women in clinical research. (shrink)

There is ambiguity with regard to what counts as an acceptable level of risk in clinical research in pregnant women and there is no input from stakeholders relative to such research risks. The aim of our paper was to explore what stakeholders who are actively involved in the conduct of clinical research in pregnant women deem an acceptable level of risk for pregnant women in clinical research. Accordingly, we used the APOSTEL VI study, a low-risk obstetrical randomised controlled trial, as (...) a case-study. We conducted a prospective qualitative study using 35 in-depth semi-structured interviews and one focus group. We interviewed healthcare professionals, Research Ethics Committee members and regulators who are actively involved in the conduct of clinical research in pregnant women, in addition to pregnant women recruited for the APOSTEL VI case-study in the Netherlands. Three themes characterise the way stakeholders view risks in clinical research in pregnant women in general. Additionally, one theme characterises the way healthcare professionals and pregnant women view risks with respect to the case-study specifically. First, ideas on what constitutes an acceptable level of risk in general ranged from a preference for zero risk for the foetus up to minimal risk. Second, the desirability of clinical research in pregnant women in general was questioned altogether. Third, stakeholders proposed to establish an upper limit of risk in potentially beneficial clinical research in pregnant women in order to protect the foetus and the pregnant woman from harm. Fourth and finally, the case-study illustrates that healthcare professionals’ individual perception of risk may influence recruitment. Healthcare professionals, RECs, regulators and pregnant women are all risk adverse in practice, possibly explaining the continuing underrepresentation of pregnant women in clinical research. Determining the acceptable levels of risk on a universal level alone is insufficient, because the individual perception of risk also influences behaviour towards pregnant women in clinical research. Therefore, bioethicists and researchers might be interested in changing the perception of risk, which could be achieved by education and awareness about the actual benefits and harms of inclusion and exclusion of pregnant women. (shrink)

A decade ago, Isham and Butterfield proposed a topos-theoretic approach to quantum mechanics, which meanwhile has been extended by Döring and Isham so as to provide a new mathematical foundation for all of physics. Last year, three of the present authors redeveloped and refined these ideas by combining the C*-algebraic approach to quantum theory with the so-called internal language of topos theory (Heunen et al. in arXiv:0709.4364). The goal of the present paper is to illustrate our abstract setup through the (...) concrete example of the C*-algebra M n (ℂ) of complex n×n matrices. This leads to an explicit expression for the pointfree quantum phase space Σ n and the associated logical structure and Gelfand transform of an n-level system. We also determine the pertinent non-probabilisitic state-proposition pairing (or valuation) and give a very natural topos-theoretic reformulation of the Kochen–Specker Theorem.In our approach, the nondistributive lattice ℘(M n (ℂ)) of projections in M n (ℂ) (which forms the basis of the traditional quantum logic of Birkhoff and von Neumann) is replaced by a specific distributive lattice $\mathcal{O}(\Sigma_{n})$ of functions from the poset $\mathcal{C}(M_{n}(\mathbb{C}))$ of all unital commutative C*-subalgebras C of M n (ℂ) to ℘(M n (ℂ)). The lattice $\mathcal{O}(\Sigma_{n})$ is essentially the (pointfree) topology of the quantum phase space Σ n , and as such defines a Heyting algebra. Each element of $\mathcal{O}(\Sigma_{n})$ corresponds to a “Bohrified” proposition, in the sense that to each classical context $C\in\mathcal{C}(M_{n}(\mathbb{C}))$ it associates a yes-no question (i.e. an element of the Boolean lattice ℘(C) of projections in C), rather than being a single projection as in standard quantum logic. Distributivity is recovered at the expense of the law of the excluded middle (Tertium Non Datur), whose demise is in our opinion to be welcomed, not just in intuitionistic logic in the spirit of Brouwer, but also in quantum logic in the spirit of von Neumann. (shrink)

BackgroundLiterature shows that middle-aged and older adults sometimes experience a wish to die. Reasons for these wishes may be complex and involve multiple factors. One important question is to what extent people with a wish to die have medically classifiable conditions. Aim(1) Estimate the prevalence of a current wish to die among middle-aged and older adults in The Netherlands; (2) explore which factors within domains of vulnerability (physical, cognitive, social and psychological) are associated with a current wish to die; (3) (...) assess how many middle-aged and older adults with a current wish to die do not have a medically classifiable condition and/or an accumulation of age-related health problems.MethodsData of 2015/16 from the Longitudinal Aging Study Amsterdam were used for this cross-sectional study (1563 Dutch middle-aged and older adults aged between 57 and 99 years), obtained through structured medical interviews and self-reported questionnaires. Three experienced physicians assessed whether the participants with a current wish to die could be classified as having a medically classifiable condition and/or an accumulation of age-related health problems.ResultsN = 62 participants (4.0%) had a current wish to die. Having a current wish to die was associated with multiple characteristics across four domains of vulnerability, among which: self-perceived health, problems with memory, self-perceived quality of life and meaningfulness of life. Fifty-four participants with a current wish to die were assessed with having a medically classifiable condition, of which one was also assessed with having an accumulation of age-related health problems. Six people were assessed to have neither, and for two people it was unclear.ConclusionA small minority of middle-aged and older adults in the Netherlands have a current wish to die. Most of them can be classified with a medical condition and one person with an accumulation of age-related health problems. Furthermore, the findings show that having a current wish to die is multi-faceted. There is still a need for more knowledge, such as insight in to what extent suffering stemming from the medical classifiable disease contributes to the development of the wish to die. (shrink)

BackgroundThere is ambiguity with regard to what counts as an acceptable level of risk in clinical research in pregnant women and there is no input from stakeholders relative to such research risks. The aim of our paper was to explore what stakeholders who are actively involved in the conduct of clinical research in pregnant women deem an acceptable level of risk for pregnant women in clinical research. Accordingly, we used the APOSTEL VI study, a low-risk obstetrical randomised controlled trial, as (...) a case-study.MethodsWe conducted a prospective qualitative study using 35 in-depth semi-structured interviews and one focus group. We interviewed healthcare professionals, Research Ethics Committee members and regulators who are actively involved in the conduct of clinical research in pregnant women, in addition to pregnant women recruited for the APOSTEL VI case-study in the Netherlands.ResultsThree themes characterise the way stakeholders view risks in clinical research in pregnant women in general. Additionally, one theme characterises the way healthcare professionals and pregnant women view risks with respect to the case-study specifically. First, ideas on what constitutes an acceptable level of risk in general ranged from a preference for zero risk for the foetus up to minimal risk. Second, the desirability of clinical research in pregnant women in general was questioned altogether. Third, stakeholders proposed to establish an upper limit of risk in potentially beneficial clinical research in pregnant women in order to protect the foetus and the pregnant woman from harm. Fourth and finally, the case-study illustrates that healthcare professionals’ individual perception of risk may influence recruitment.ConclusionsHealthcare professionals, RECs, regulators and pregnant women are all risk adverse in practice, possibly explaining the continuing underrepresentation of pregnant women in clinical research. Determining the acceptable levels of risk on a universal level alone is insufficient, because the individual perception of risk also influences behaviour towards pregnant women in clinical research. Therefore, bioethicists and researchers might be interested in changing the perception of risk, which could be achieved by education and awareness about the actual benefits and harms of inclusion and exclusion of pregnant women. (shrink)

Kierkegaard’s Concepts is a comprehensive, multi-volume survey of the key concepts and categories that inform Kierkegaard’s writings. Each article is a substantial, original piece of scholarship, which discusses the etymology and lexical meaning of the relevant Danish term, traces the development of the concept over the course of the authorship, and explains how it functions in the wider context of Kierkegaard’s thought. Concepts have been selected on the basis of their importance for Kierkegaard’s contributions to philosophy, theology, the social sciences, (...) literature and aesthetics, thereby making this volume an ideal reference work for students and scholars in a wide range of disciplines. -/- Contents: Envy, Janne Kylliäinen; Epic, Nassim Bravo Jordán; Epigram, David R. Law; Ethics, Azucena Palavicini Sánchez; Evil, Azucena Palavicini Sánchez and William McDonald; Exception/Universal, Geoffrey Dargan; Existence/Existential, Min-Ho Lee; Experience, Jakub Marek; Fairytale, Nathaniel Kramer; Faith, William McDonald; Finitude/Infinity, Erik M. Hanson; Forgiveness, John Lippitt; Freedom, Diego Giordano; Genius, Steven M. Emmanuel; God, Paul Martens and Daniel Marrs; Good, Azucena Palavicini Sánchez; Governance/Providence, Jack Mulder, Jr.; Grace, Derek R. Nelson; Gratitude, Corey Benjamin Tutewiler; Guilt, Erik M. Hanson; Happiness, Benjamin Miguel Olivares Bøgeskov; Hero, Sean Anthony Turchin; History, Sean Anthony Turchin; Holy Spirit, Leo Stan; Hope, William McDonald; Humility, Robert B. Puchniak; Humor, Alejandro González; Hypocrisy, Thomas Martin Fauth Hansen; Identity/Difference, Claudine Davidshofer; Imagination, Frances Maughan-Brown; Imitation, Leo Stan; Immanence/Transcendence, Leo Stan; Immediacy/Reflection, Zizhen Liu; Immortality, Lee C. Barrett; Incognito, Martijn Boven. (shrink)

Background In the Netherlands, people can receive (limited) demedicalised assistance in suicide (DAS)—an option less well known than physician-assisted dying (PAD). Aim This study explores which trajectories people take to seek DAS, through open-coding and inductive analysis of in-depth interviews with 17 people who receive(d) DAS from counsellors facilitated by foundation De Einder. Results People sought DAS as a result of current suffering or as a result of anticipating possible prospective suffering. People with current suffering were unable or assumed they (...) would be unable to obtain PAD. For people anticipating possible prospective suffering, we distinguished two trajectories. In one trajectory, people preferred PAD but were not reassured of help by the physician in due time and sought DAS as a backup plan. In the other trajectory, people expressed a preference for DAS mainly as a result of emphasising self-determination, independence, taking their own responsibility and preparing suicide carefully. In all trajectories, dissatisfaction with physician–patient communication—for instance about (a denied request for) PAD or fearing to discuss this—influenced the decision to seek DAS. Conclusions While PAD is the preferred option of people in two trajectories, obtaining PAD is uncertain and not always possible. Dissatisfaction with physician–patient communication can result in the physician not being involved in DAS, being unable to diagnose diseases and offer treatment nor offer reassurance that people seem to seek. We plea for more mutual understanding, respect and empathy for the limitations and possibilities of the position of the physician and the patient in discussing assistance in dying. (shrink)

This reflection focuses on what insights Catholic Social Teaching can provide for corporate governance. I argue that the ‘standard’ agency theory is overly reductionist and insufficiently incorporates important economic limitations as well as human frailty. As a result, such agency theory insufficiently distinguishes firms from markets, which can easily relativize how we treat others and facilitate rationalization of unethical behavior. I then explore how three pillars of CST—human dignity, solidarity, and subsidiarity—can help overcome these limitations. CST proposes a vision of (...) the business corporation as a community of persons, working together in cooperative business relationships toward the shared purpose of contributing to human flourishing. (shrink)

Standardisation is increasingly seen as a means to insert ethics in innovation processes. We examine the institutionalisation of responsible innovation in de jure standardisation as this is an important but unexplored research area. In de jure standardisation, stakeholders collaborate in committees to develop standards. We adopt the anticipation, inclusion, reflexivity, and responsiveness responsible innovation framework as our theoretical lens. Our study suggests that responsible standardisation processes should embody forms of these four dimensions. We investigate the institutionalisation of these dimensions and (...) identify 96 factors that can motivate, hinder, or facilitate responsible standardisation. Factors were found through in-depth interviews with managers of a standard developing organisation. These are subsequently validated/rejected using surveys completed by committee representatives. The results suggest that the social desirability of standards is not self-evident. This study could pave the way for future research on responsible standardisation processes, complementing research on legitimacy, responsible innovation, and standardisation. (shrink)

Contrastivism can be applied to a variety of problems within philosophy, and as such, it can be coherently seen as a unified movement. This volume brings together state-of-the-art research on the contrastive treatment of philosophical concepts and questions, including knowledge, belief, free will, moral luck, Bayesian confirmation theory, causation, and explanation.

Psycholinguistic studies often look at the production of referring expressions in interactive settings, but so far few referring expression generation algorithms have been developed that are sensitive to earlier references in an interaction. Rather, such algorithms tend to rely on domain-dependent preferences for both content selection and linguistic realization. We present three experiments showing that humans may opt for dispreferred attributes and dispreferred modifier orderings when these were primed in a preceding interaction (without speakers being consciously aware of this). In (...) addition, we show that speakers are more likely to produce overspecified references, including dispreferred attributes (although minimal descriptions with preferred attributes would suffice), when these were similarly primed. (shrink)

Charles Travis has developed a distinction between “the historical” and “the conceptual”, which underlies his influential contributions to the philosophy of language and perception. The distinction is based on the observation that there are, for any thought, indefinitely many different circumstances that would render it true. The generality of thoughts and concepts contrasts with the particularity of the sensible world. I challenge the assumption that what exhibits such generality cannot belong to the sensible world. I also defend a version of (...) the claim that perception involves the exercise of conceptual capacities. (shrink)

BackgroundIn the Netherlands, Foundation De Einder offers counselling to people who wish to be able to self-determine the timing and manner of their end of life.AimThis study explores the experiences with counselling that counselees receive from counsellors facilitated by Foundation De Einder.MethodsOpen coding and inductive analysis of in-depth interviews with 17 counselees.ResultsCounselling ranged from solely receiving information about lethal medication to combining this with psychological counselling about matters of life and death, and the effects for close ones. Counselees appreciated the (...) availability of the counsellor, their careful and open attitude, feeling respected and being reminded about their own responsibility. Some counselees felt dependent on the counsellor, or questioned their competency. Most counselees collected lethal medication. This gave them peace of mind and increased their quality of life, but also led to new concerns. Few were inclined to use their self-collected medication. Counselling contributed to thinking about if, when and how counselees would like to end their life.ConclusionHaving obtained means to end their lives can offer people feelings of reassurance, which can increase their quality of life, but can also give rise to new concerns. Next to providing information on lethal medication, counsellors can play an important role by having an open non-judgemental attitude, providing trustworthy information and being available. These positively valued aspects of counselling are also relevant for physicians taking care of patients who wish to self-determine the timing and manner of their end of life. (shrink)

This chapter discusses a central problem in Sebastian Rödl’s Self-Consciousness & Objectivity (SC&O) and in Wittgenstein’s Tractatus. In a statement of the form “I think p”, the words “I think” do not contribute to the content and yet they are not redundant. What comes to the same, a thinking subject is not something and yet not nothing. But then in what sense is a thinking subject a part of the world? The problem is intractable on a merely negative understanding of (...) “I think”, like Anscombe’s merely negative thesis, endorsed by SC&O, that “I” is not a referring expression. In search of a positive understanding, this chapter proposes to understand “I think” by comparison to “hello”. A speaking subject is the expression of mutual presence in conversation — in that sense a limit of the world. Such expression may be compared to facial expression, with the crucial difference that a verbal expression can be taken up - repeated - in the third person. A speaking subject, then, is potentially absent from conversation — in that sense a part of the world. (shrink)

How the Author Disappeared from Wittgenstein’s Tractatus In this essay, I investigate the status of the written word in the (early, mostly) work of Wittgenstein. In the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, Wittgenstein tends to imagine language as written rather than spoken. This focus on writing goes together with a sense that the author is absent from the text. I argue that the problem is not with writing in general but specifically with books, and more specifically with the fantasy of a book of (...) everything, the importance of which to Wittgenstein’s early work was brought out by Eli Friedlander. On my account, such a book, by pretending to contain the whole world, leaves no place for an author. Since the early Wittgenstein imagines subjectivity in the form of a book of everything, he is unable to place subjectivity – subjects: you and I – in the world. I end by briefly suggesting that in his later work, Wittgenstein gives up on the fantasy of a book of everything and is in a better position to address the problem of finding subjectivity in the world. (shrink)

Many philosophers are building a solid case in favour of the knowledge account of assertion (KAA). According to KAA, if one asserts that P one represents oneself as knowing that P. KAA has recently received support from linguistic data about prompting challenges, parenthetical positioning and predictions. In this article, I add another argument to this rapidly growing list: an argument from what I will call ‘reinforcing parenthesis’.

This essay examines two conceptions of the ancient ideal of ‘living in the present’, one that may be called ‘Platonic’, suggested by a remark of Ludwig Wittgenstein, and one that may be called ‘Stoic’, developed by Pierre Hadot. On both conceptions, a life lived and considered in the right way is complete in the present, so that nothing is wanting. I introduce a problem concerning the coherence of this concept: Life involves movement, and movement is aimed at some completion in (...) the future. How, then, can a life be complete in the present and yet not be static? I consider and reject an answer by Hadot, based on psychological concentration on the present. I then propose an alternative answer, based on Aristotle's concept of complete activity, and discuss its significance for both the Platonic and the Stoic conception of the ideal. Throughout, my focus is on this metaphysical and conceptual problem, thus preparing the way for the ethical question whether ‘living in the present’ would be a good way to live. (shrink)

Review of Hans Julius Schneider: Wittgenstein's Later Theory of Meaning: Imagination and Calculation, Oxford: Wiley Blackwell 2014. Translated from German by Timothy Doyle and Daniel Smyth.

This collection addresses a post-WWII shift in the hierarchy of scientific explanations, where the highest goal moves from reductionism towards some ...

The principle of philosophy, Schelling declares in his 1810 Stuttgarter Privatvorlesungen, is the Absolute or God.1 The terms are brought into close yet ambiguous proximity by this assertion. Yet how are we to think them together? It is far from clear just how the Absolute—the abstract, universal, all-encompassing name Idealism gives to what, most fundamentally, there is—and God, a name with a rather longer life story, are to be related. Are we to take it that the Absolute and God are (...) to be baldly equated? That the one is a mere term of convenience properly understood in the light of the other? That the one is a supplement or corrective that the other is in need of? And who would be the arbiter of... (shrink)

This article engages with current discussions on the politics of aesthetics to theorize the role of popular art in reproducing or contesting urban orders. Specifically, we engage with scholars who have taken up the work of Jacques Rancière to understand how power structures are normalized through ‘the distribution of the sensible’. Building on and critically engaging with debates on the ‘post-political city’, we suggest that all too often scholars fall back on a binary, state-centric approach that depicts non-state popular aesthetics (...) as either revolutionary and disruptive, or as indicative of an alternative form of oppression. Drawing on our work in Kingston, Jamaica, and Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, we argue that sensorial-political, art-based urban struggles shape multiple urban orders that are distinct but not necessarily antagonistic. Applying Stuart Hall’s work on popular culture to contexts of criminal governance, we show how art is often simultaneously supportive and disruptive of urban orders. (shrink)

A central intuition many epistemologists seem to have is that knowledge is distinctively valuable. In his paper 'Radical Scepticism, Epistemic Luck and Epistemic Value', Duncan Pritchard rejects the virtue-theoretic explanation of this intuition. This explanation says that knowledge is distinctively valuable because it is a cognitive achievement. It is maintained, in the first place, that the arguments Pritchard musters against the thesis that knowledge is a cognitive achievement are unconvincing. It is argued, in the second place, that even if the (...) arguments against the thesis that knowledge is a cognitive achievement were convincing, there is another explanation of the intuition that knowledge has final value available: the question-relative treatment of knowledge. (shrink)

Subject sensitive invariantism is the view that whether a subject knows depends on what is at stake for that subject: the truth-value of a knowledge-attribution is sensitive to the subject's practical interests. I argue that subject sensitive invariantism cannot accept a very plausible principle for memory to transmit knowledge. I argue, furthermore, that semantic contextualism and contrastivism can accept this plausible principle for memory to transmit knowledge. I conclude that semantic contextualism and contrastivism are in a dialectical position better than (...) subject sensitive invariantism is. (shrink)