Historically, scientific and engineering expertise has been key in shaping research and innovation policies, with benefits presumed to accrue to society more broadly over time. But there is persistent and growing concern about whether and how ethical and societal values are integrated into R&I policies and governance, as we confront public disbelief in science and political suspicion toward evidence-based policy-making. Erosion of such a social contract with science limits the ability of democratic societies to deal with challenges presented by new, (...) disruptive technologies, such as synthetic biology, nanotechnology, genetic engineering, automation and robotics, and artificial intelligence. Many policy efforts have emerged in response to such concerns, one prominent example being Europe's Eighth Framework Programme, Horizon 2020, whose focus on “Responsible Research and Innovation” provides a case study for the translation of such normative perspectives into concrete policy action and implementation. Our analysis of this H2020 RRI approach suggests a lack of consistent integration of elements such as ethics, open access, open innovation, and public engagement. On the basis of our evaluation, we suggest possible pathways for strengthening efforts to deliver R&I policies that deepen mutually beneficial science and society relationships. (shrink)

In this paper, we introduce the Societal Readiness Thinking Tool to aid researchers and innovators in developing research projects with greater responsiveness to societal values, needs, and expectations. The need for societally-focused approaches to research and innovation—complementary to Technology Readiness frameworks—is presented. Insights from responsible research and innovation concepts and practice, organized across critical stages of project-life cycles are discussed with reference to the development of the SR Thinking Tool. The tool is designed to complement not only shortfalls in TR (...) approaches, but also improve upon other efforts to integrate RRI, sustainability, and design thinking in research and innovation cycles. Operationalization and early-stage user tests of the Tool are reported, along with discussion of potential future iterations and applications. (shrink)

Most of us believe that it would be unjust to act with indifference about the plight of future generations. Zipper arguments in intergenerational justice aim to show that we have duties of justice regarding future generations, regardless of whether we have duties of justice to future generations. By doing so, such arguments circumvent the foundational challenges that come with theorising duties to remote future generations, which result from the non-existence, non-identity and non-contemporaneity of future generations. I argue that zipper arguments (...) face several significant challenges. The ought-implies-can challenge points out that because prior generations determine what later generations can transfer, they determine how much they ought to transfer. In addition, both intentional and non-intentional non-compliance can break the chain of duties towards future generations on which zipper arguments rely. Some versions are surprisingly resilient especially in real-world circumstances. This paper does not show that zipper arguments inevitably fail, but all ways forward come at significant theoretical costs. Unless the challenges posed here are met (or shown as irrelevant), theorists of justice cannot side-track the foundational challenges that come with doing intergenerational justice. (shrink)

Antisthenes (c. 445- c. 365 BC), was a prominent follower of Socrates and bitter rival of Plato. In this revisionary account of his philosophy in all its aspects, P. A. Meijer claims that Plato and Aristotle have corrupted our perspective on this witty and ingenious thinker. The first part of the book reexamines afresh Antisthenes' ideas about definition and predication and concludes from these that Antisthenes never held the (in)famous theory that contradiction is impossible. The second part of the (...) book argues that Antisthenes' logical theories bear directly on his activities as an exegete of Homer and hence as a theological thinker. Part three, finally, offers innovative readings of Antisthenes' ethical fragments. (shrink)

Taal staat in de politiek centraal: in de Tweede Kamer, op social media en in het publieke debat wordt met woorden gestreden. Ook in de filosofie wordt taal steeds met politiek verbonden. Maar wie in staat is tot spreken staat nooit vast: in Black Lives Matter, #MeToo en klimaatmarsen eisen mensen die van oudsher tot zwijgen werden gebracht hun stem op. Stilte kan onderdrukken - soms wordt mensen (en andere dieren) letterlijk hun taal afgenomen, soms figuurlijk. Spreek, zegt de dichter (...) Audre Lorde terecht, je stilte zal je niet beschermen. Maar stilte heeft ook een andere kant: het kan een manier van verzet zijn, een schuilplaats, of deel van een gesprek in de vorm van luisteren en zwijgen. In een wereld waarin steeds harder geschreeuwd wordt moeten we leren af en toe ook stil te zijn. Om de rol van stilte te verkennen en de contouren te schetsen voor nieuwe politieke omgangsvormen, brengt Eva Meijer in 'Verwar het niet met afwezigheid. Over politieke stiltes' de verschillende soorten politieke stiltes in kaart. Ze markeert op originele wijze en met kennis van zaken de morele dilemma's die in het verhitte (social) mediadebat nauwelijks meer ter sprake komen."--Publisher information. (shrink)

"This book contains ideas to develop interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary views on economy and society. It aims to disseminate heterodox ideas on various subjects related to economics and global society. The book is organised in six parts. Part 1 contains the key lectures of Backhaus on the concept of state sciences and of Klamer on the importance of culture for economics. Parts 2- 6 contain successively contributions in the areas of economic paradigms and theories, population and society, corporate issues, environment, and (...) international relations. Examples of the content are: - the changes of family life cycles due to the rise of non-traditional households; - subjective and objective inflation rates after the introduction of the Euro; - the economics of genetic engineering; - the contribution of foreign direct investment to the economic development of host countries; - the inaccuracy of economic models applied in places characterized by extreme income disparities; - the improvement of political and corporate governance; - evolutionary thinking and emission trading; - freedom and order in the European Union; - the reform of social policy in Europe. The book provides interesting creative multi-disciplinary ideas with respect to various topical issues concerning the contemporary global society. It is highly recommended for economists and social scientists in search of broad views on social science and society.". (shrink)

This paper explores the relation between metaethical reflection and value experience, and does so by focusing on robust realism. Robust realism is typically criticized for its ontological and epistemological commitments. In this paper, however, we hope to shed new critical light on the plausibility of the theory by using two concepts – ‘reification’ and ‘alienation’ – that have their origin in critical social theory. We use the concept of ‘reification’ as an interpretative lens to look at robust realism and show (...) that it is reifying in two respects: it turns values into things, and, correspondingly, turns human agents into disengaged observers of those things. This analysis is then used to argue that robust realism is alienating in the sense that it distances us from the world that presents itself to us in value experience, and that it separates us from what we call our engaged responsiveness. We also argue that its alienating effects give us good reason to reject the theory. (shrink)

Keine ausführliche Beschreibung für "Beiträge zur Kritik der reinen Vernunft 1781-1981" verfügbar.

In this article, we investigate the political theology of populism and look at the case of the Front National. Considering the writings of Carl Schmitt and Ernesto Laclau, we trace the logical core of Schmitt’s political theology and show how it is integrated into theories of the political and Laclau’s theory of populism. We argue that the theologico-political core of populism is the simultaneous disavowal and imposition of mediation and that this stance leads to an increasing formalism. Looking at the (...) discourse of the FN on the notion of laïcité, we find that this theologico-political structure explains how the party is able to link traditionally left- and right-wing motives in its discourse. Finally, we show how in FN’s discourse, the formalist tendency of populism, which Laclau has theoretically explicated, has become overt and must be understood as part of politics, not as a universal and tran-historical logic of the political. This suggests, we argue pace Laclau, that we ought to consider both t... (shrink)

We trained a computational model (the Chunk-Based Learner; CBL) on a longitudinal corpus of child–caregiver interactions in English to test whether one proposed statistical learning mechanism—backward transitional probability—is able to predict children's speech productions with stable accuracy throughout the first few years of development. We predicted that the model less accurately reconstructs children's speech productions as they grow older because children gradually begin to generate speech using abstracted forms rather than specific “chunks” from their speech environment. To test this idea, (...) we trained the model on both recently encountered and cumulative speech input from a longitudinal child language corpus. We then assessed whether the model could accurately reconstruct children's speech. Controlling for utterance length and the presence of duplicate chunks, we found no evidence that the CBL becomes less accurate in its ability to reconstruct children's speech with age. (shrink)

Meyer Cornelis Smit taught history and philosophy in the Free University at Amsterdam for a quarter century. Toward a Christian Conception of History presents the harvest of his scholarly output. The relation between God and history and the problems inherent in articulating that relation in a manner consistent with historic Christian belief and modern ideas of historical existence is the central theme of Smit's writing. Smit discusses the influence of one's world view on the practice and appreciation of history, the (...) significance of the question of the meaning of history as an answer to the a-historical-mindedness of our time, and the fundamental flaw of the modernist theory of knowledge and philosophy of science. (shrink)

By way of introduction, this paper points out inherent problems in attempting a comprehensive social history of the Reformation, due to the complex dynamics at work in sixteenth century European society.Contemporary pamphlet literature, a resource as yet not intensively explored, reflects in a unique manner the rich variety of the Reformation experience in all walks of life, from both sides of the schism. By examining a representative sampling of such tracts, the essay strives to establish some immediacy to that experience. (...) The nearly 300 pamphlets held by the Ambrose Swasey Library at the Colgate Rochester Divinity School in Rochester, NY, served as source material to help straddle the 500 year gap. The abbreviation ASL is used to identify pamphlets in the text. (shrink)

Background:The global COVID-19 pandemic has imposed challenges on healthcare systems and professionals worldwide and introduced a ´maelstrom´ of ethical dilemmas. How ethically demanding situations are handled affects employees’ moral stress and job satisfaction.Aim:Describe priority-setting dilemmas, moral distress and support experienced by nurses and physicians across medical specialties in the early phase of the COVID-19 pandemic in Western Norway.Research design:A cross-sectional hospital-based survey was conducted from 23 April to 11 May 2020.Ethical considerations:Ethical approval granted by the Regional Research Ethics Committee in (...) Western Norway (131421).Findings:Among the 1606 respondents, 67% had experienced priority-setting dilemmas the previous two weeks. Healthcare workers who were directly involved in COVID-19 care, were redeployed or worked in psychiatry/addiction medicine experienced it more often. Although 59% of the respondents had seen adverse consequences due to resource scarcity, severe consequences were rare. Moral distress levels were generally low (2.9 on a 0–10 scale), but higher in selected groups (redeployed, managers and working in psychiatry/addiction medicine). Backing from existing collegial and managerial structures and routines, such as discussions with colleagues and receiving updates and information from managers that listened and acted upon feedback, were found more helpful than external support mechanisms. Priority-setting guidelines were also helpful.Discussion:By including all medical specialties, nurses and physicians, and various institutions, the study provides information on how the COVID-19 mitigation also influenced those not directly involved in the COVID-19 treatment of patients. In the next stages of the pandemic response, support for healthcare professionals directly involved in outbreak-affected patients, those redeployed or those most impacted by mitigation strategies must be a priority.Conclusion:Empirical research of healthcare workers experiences under a pandemic are important to identify groups at risks and useful support mechanisms. (shrink)

The complexities of how justice comes to be realized, and by which agents, is a relatively neglected element in contemporary theories of justice. This has left several crucial questions about agency and justice undertheorized, such as why some particular agents are responsible for realizing justice, how their contribution towards realizing justice should be understood, and what role agents such as activists and community leaders play in realizing justice. We aim to contribute towards a better understanding of the landscape of these (...) kinds of questions. First, we argue that theorists should distinguish between (i) agents who are responsible for realizing justice, but not committed to it, (ii) agents who are not responsible for realizing justice, but who are committed to it, and (iii) agents who are both responsible for and committed to realizing justice. Second, we discuss how to incorporate agents of justice more robustly into theorizing about justice. (shrink)

This article theorizes the connection between political distrust and conspiracy theories through a post-political framework. Following Luc Boltanski’s focus on the critical capacities of ordinary actors, it builds on interviews with participants of the Yellow Vest Movement in France who hold conspiratorial views of Covid-19 and the vaccine. The article explores how the interviewees’ critique mirrors that of post-political theorists. In particular, I use Rancière’s notion of subjectification and politics to theorize how conspiracy theories function as a means of dissent (...) in the interviewees’ understanding of their experiences as well as in their own critique of and disillusionment with politics in France. As such, this article explores how political trust affected reactions to the pandemic, how political trust is interconnected with conspiracy theories and finally how such conspiracy theories can be viewed as biproducts of the post-political order. (shrink)

Hannah Arendt und Karl Jaspers – zwei herausragende Persönlichkeiten der Philosophiegeschichte des 20. Jahrhunderts, die eine vor allem politische Denkerin, der andere ursprünglich Mediziner und Psychologe, die beide mit den Erschütterungen der Welt und ihres persönlichen Lebens durch Nationalsozialismus und Zweiten Weltkrieg zurechtkommen mussten und dabei doch der Welt immer zugewandt blieben. Sie haben viele bedeutende Schriften hinterlassen, Denkansätze, deren Relevanz bis heute nicht nachgelassen hat.über beide ist viel geschrieben und geforscht worden – allein ihre sehr tiefe und besondere, fast (...) lebenslange Freundschaft, beginnend mit Arendts Studium bei Jaspers ab 1926, ist bislang seltsam unerforscht. Zwar ist der umfangreiche Briefwechsel ediert, es existiert jedoch keine einzige Monographie zum Thema. Diesem Umstand will das vorliegende Buch abhelfen. Ingeborg Gleichauf, Philosophin und Schriftstellerin, nähert sich der Beziehung von Arendt und Jaspers über die Beschäftigung mit den großen Fragen und Themen, die die beiden zeit ihres Lebens umtrieben und legt den Focus auf das über lange Zeiträume und große Distanzen nie versiegende Gespräch zwischen ihnen, ob persönlich oder in Briefen – auf den fruchtbaren, auch manchmal streitbaren, immer vertrauensvollen, von Neugier, Offenheit und Redlichkeit geprägten Austausch. (shrink)

Natural language sentences that talk about two or more sets of entities can be assigned various readings. The ones in which the sets are independent of one another are particularly challenging from the formal point of view. In this paper we will call them ‘Independent Set (IS) readings’. Cumulative and collective readings are paradigmatic examples of IS readings. Most approaches aiming at representing the meaning of IS readings implement some kind of maximality conditions on the witness sets involved. Two kinds (...) of maximization have been proposed in the literature: ‘Local’ and ‘Global’ maximization. In this paper, we present an online questionnaire whose results appear to support Local maximization. The latter seems to capture the proper interplay between the semantics and the pragmatics of multi-quantifier sentences, provided that witness sets are selected on pragmatic grounds. (shrink)