O artigo explora as categorias Escola Unitária e Princípio Educativo, como base de compreensão da proposta educacional de Gramsci articulada à transição ao socialismo. Explicita que, no Caderno 12, o autor parte da constatação de que o sistema educacional italiano se encontra em crise, a qual se materializaria em uma cisão entre ensino técnico e ensino intelectual. O teórico revolucionário assinala que a referida crise do sistema escolar encontra uma solução na forma de uma escola única, que tem como base (...) o princípio educativo. Gramsci pensa a Escola Unitária para o momento de transição do capitalismo ao socialismo, em que o proletariado tome o poder e instaure um novo sistema educacional.The article explores the categories of Unitary School and Educational Principle, as a basis for the understanding of Gramsci’s educational proposal for the socialist transition. It notes that in his Number 12 Notebook, Gramsci attests that the crisis in the Italian educational system materializes itself in the partition between the technical and intellectual dimensions of schooling. According to the revolutionary author, that crisis would be solved by the establishment of an equal school, based upon an educational principle. Gramsci assumes the Unitary School for the transitional moment from capitalism to socialism, when the proletariat takes the power and creates a new educational system. (shrink)

Bioethics, Volume 36, Issue 2, Page 162-169, February 2022.

In recent decades, an increasing interest in the dynamics of collections has brought to view how objects circulate as parts of networks of knowledge and how collections can acquire new meanings. Introducing this special issue on Collections, Knowledge, and Time, we want to shift focus from geographical circulation towards the temporal dynamics of collections: the layering and interweaving of asynchronous temporalities as collections are preserved, frozen, reinterpreted, sampled, and destroyed over time, and how these temporalities constitute knowledge potentials. We treat (...) collections broadly across museums of history of medicine, history of science, and ethnography, and scientific institutions including biobanks, seed banks, and fly centres, to investigate the considerable overlap in collection practices, as well as how objects can move between cultural historical and scientific uses. We limit ourselves, however, to epistemic collections, mainly scientific ones, assembled with research as a main purpose. This introduction first explores apparently mundane collection practices such as preservation and care, as well as technologies such as freezers and boxes, to unravel them as temporal practices that make stored items transcend time. We then discuss historical practices across cultural and scientific collections to show how historical thinking plays a central part in scientific collection work and how new scientific methods shape investigations of the past. Finally, we outline the potentialities for future knowledge in collections. In conclusion, we sketch out a pluralist epistemology of collections focusing specifically on how the dynamics of time create multiple epistemic potentials for historical scholarship and scientific research in the present and future. (shrink)

During the postpartum period, the paternal brain suffers extensive and complex neurobiological alterations, through the experience of father–infant interactions. Although the impact of such experience in the mother has been increasingly studied over the past years, less is known about the neurobiological correlates of fatherhood—that is, the alterations in the brain and other physiological systems associated with the experience of fatherhood. With the present study, we aimed to perform a scoping review of the available literature on the genetic, neuroendocrine, and (...) brain correlates of fatherhood and identify the main gaps in the current knowledge. PubMed, Scopus, and Web of Science electronic databases were searched for eligible studies on paternal neuroplasticity during the postpartum period, over the past 15 years. Reference lists of relevant key studies and reviews were also hand-searched. The research team independently screened the identified studies based on the established inclusion criteria. Extracted data were analyzed using tables and descriptive synthesis. Among the 29 studies that met our inclusion criteria, the vast majority pertained to neuroendocrine correlates of fatherhood, followed by brain activity or connectivity, association studies of candidate genes, and brain structure correlates. Collectively, studies published during the past 15 years suggest the existence of significant endocrine and neurofunctional alterations as a result of fatherhood, as well as preliminary evidence of genetic variability accounting for individual differences during the postpartum period in fathers. No studies were so far published evaluating epigenetic mechanisms associated with the paternal brain, something that was also the focus of the current review. We highlight the need for further research that examines neuroplasticity during the experience of fatherhood and that considers both the interplay between hormones and simultaneous assessment of the different biomarkers ; data collection protocols and assessment times should also be refined. (shrink)

This paper investigates the relationship between the eminent 19th-century naturalists Charles Darwin and Carl Vogt. On two separate occasions, Vogt asked Darwin for permission to translate some of the latter’s books into German, and in both cases Darwin refused. It has generally been assumed that Darwin turned down Vogt as a translator because of the latter’s reputation as a radical libertine who was extremely outspoken in his defence of scientific materialism and atheism. However, this explanation does not fit the facts, (...) since, on closer investigation, Darwin not only gave serious consideration to engaging Vogt as the German translator of two of his books, albeit ultimately rejecting him, but he also collaborated with Vogt on the French editions of his works. In this paper we argue that this was not because Darwin was unaware of Vogt’s personality and blunt writing style; rather, Darwin seems to have decided that the benefits he would gain from their association would clearly outweigh the risk of offending some of his readers: in working with Vogt, who was not only a knowledgeable scientist but also an avowed adherent of Darwinism, Darwin could be assured of the scientific quality of the translation and of an edition that would not distort his central concepts – both of which were by no means matters of course in 19th-century translations of scientific works. (shrink)

Dementia is highly prevalent and up until now, still incurable. If we may believe the narrative that is currently dominant in dementia research, in the future we will not have to suffer from dementia anymore, as there will be a simple techno-fix solution. It is just a matter of time before we can solve the growing public health problem of dementia. In this paper we take a critical stance towards overly positive narratives of techno-fixes by placing our empirical analysis of (...) dementia research protocols and political statements in a framework of technology assessment. From this perspective, it becomes obvious that a techno-fix is just one of many ways to approach societal problems and more importantly that technologies are way less perfect than they are presented. We will argue that this narrow scope, which focusses on the usual suspects for solving illnesses, reduces dementia to organismic aspects, and may be counterproductive in finding a cure for dementia. We conclude with outlining how the narrow scope can be balanced with other narratives and why we should have a reasonable scepticism towards the usual suspects. (shrink)

Scientific discoveries are often to some degree influenced by luck. Whether luck’s influence is at odds with common-sense intuitions about responsibility, is the central concern of the philosophical debate about moral luck. Do scientists acknowledge that luck plays a role in their work and – if so – do they consider it morally problematic? The present article discusses the results of four focus groups with scientists, who were asked about their views on luck in their fields and its moral implications. (...) The participants underscored circumstantial luck as a key dimension of luck in science. Nevertheless, most participants insisted that there are ways of executing ‘control’ in science: They believe that virtues and skills can increase one’s chances for success. The cultivation of these skills and virtues was considered a reasonable ground for pride. Prizes and rewards were rarely tied to personal desert, but instead to their societal function. (shrink)

Relational, selfless, caring, polite, nice, and kind are not how we imagine a woman giving birth in U.S. culture. Rather, we picture her as screaming, yelling, self-centered, and demanding drugs or occasionally as numbed and passive from pain-killing medication. Using in-depth interviews with women about their labor and childbirth, the author presents data to suggest that white, middle-class, heterosexual women often worry about being nice, polite, kind, and selfless in their interactions during labor and childbirth. This finding is important not (...) only because it contradicts the dominant cultural image of the birthing woman but because it reveals that an internalized sense of gender plays a role in disciplining women and their bodies during childbirth. The feminist sociological literatures on birth are concerned with how women and their bodies are controlled, yet they have overlooked this other dimension of control that is not institutional but is a product of how gender is internalized. (shrink)

In their paper ‘Responsibility, second opinions and peer-disagreement: ethical and epistemological challenges of using AI in clinical diagnostic contexts’, Kempt and Nagel discuss the use of medical AI systems and the resulting need for second opinions by human physicians, when physicians and AI disagree, which they call the rule of disagreement.1 The authors defend RoD based on three premises: First, they argue that in cases of disagreement in medical practice, there is an increased burden of proof for the physician in (...) charge, to defend why the opposing view is adopted or overridden. This burden for justification can be understood as an increased responsibility. In contrast, such burden does allegedly not arise, when physicians agree in their judgement. Second, in those medical contexts where humans collaborate with humans such justification can be provided, since human experts can discuss the evidence and reasons that have led them to their judgement, through which the sources of disagreement can be found and a justified decision can be made by the physician in charge. Third, unlike human-to-human collaboration, such communicative exchange is not possible with an AI system. Due to AI’s opacity, the physician in charge has no means of illuminating why the AI disagrees. Conclusively, the authors propose RoD as a solution. RoD suggests that a second human expert should be consulted for advise in cases of human–AI disagreement. Once AI systems become more widespread in clinical practice, it can be expected that such type of disagreement occurs more frequently. AI, after all, is being implemented, because it promises, among others, higher accuracy, which implies that some abnormalities will be detected that the physician would have missed.2 Hence, it is laudable to discuss the moral implications of …. (shrink)

Many women professionals traverse settings beyond the office in their work, but research on women professionals rarely follows them out of the office. Using a large, archived data set of focus groups with sales professionals, the authors ask how work in out-of-the-office settings affects women’s careers. The authors distinguish between two types of settings. In “heterosocial” settings, interaction rules are traditionally and normatively gendered; women and men are understood by others as heterosexually linked pairs, women become targets of gossip, and (...) some women report sexual advances and sexual harassment. In “homosocial” settings such as golf courses and strip clubs, women’s disadvantage takes the form of exclusion. (shrink)

Using an analysis of child care books and parenting Web sites, this article asks if second-wave feminism’s vision of gender-neutral child rearing has been incorporated into contemporary advice on child rearing. The data suggest that while feminist understandings of gender have made significant inroads into popular advice, especially with regard to the social construction of gender, something akin to “a stalled revolution” has taken place. Children’s gender nonconformity is still viewed as problematic because it is linked implicitly and explicitly to (...) homosexuality. (shrink)

This paper provides a stagewise overview of the important issues that play a role in technology adoption and use in organizations. In the current literature, there is a lack of consistency and clarity about the different stages of the technology adoption process, the important issues at each stage, and the differentiation between antecedents, after-effects, enablers, and barriers to technology adoption. This paper collected the relevant issues in technology adoption and use, mentioned dispersedly and under various terminologies, in the recent literature. (...) The qualitative literature review was followed by thematic analysis of the data. The resulting themes were organized into a thematic map depicting three stages of the technology adoption process: pre-change, change, and post-change. The relevant themes and subthemes at each stage were identified and their significance discussed. The themes at each stage are antecedents to the next stage. All the themes of the pre-change and change stages are neutral, but the way they are managed and executed makes them enablers or barriers in effect. The thematic map is a continuous cycle where every round of technology adoption provides input for the subsequent rounds. Based on how themes have been addressed and executed in practice, they can either enhance or impair the subsequent technology adoption. This thematic map can be used as a qualitative framework by academics and practitioners in the field to evaluate technological changes. (shrink)

What is the relationship between gender and sexuality? Some theories claim that they are two distinct systems of stratification, whereas others claim that they are bound tightly together. By looking at medical opinion on homosexuality in men and women from 1900 to 1950, this article examines the relationship between sexuality and gender. Interpretive analysis of articles on homosexuality appearing in medical journals during this time suggests that the relationship between sexuality and gender varies in historically and socially specific ways.

This research investigated the organizational challenges related to the development and implementation of virtual reality technology for operation in a conservative heavy machinery industry. The incorporation of a VR solution for heavy machinery equipment enhanced the safety and convenience of operation under dangerous work conditions. However, the development and implementation processes faced challenges. Furthermore, the adoption of the solution by users was perceived to be slower than anticipated. We aimed to explore the main challenges that the developer organization faced and (...) how it also influenced user organizations. Due to the exploratory nature of the research, qualitative analysis was chosen, interviews were conducted, and thematic analysis was applied. The themes and subthemes were identified and discussed. The results showed the existence of challenges related to technology maturity, managerial challenges regarding communication and support coordination, workload, and multiple stakeholder management. The findings emphasize the importance of attending to the existing and potential organizational challenges before and throughout technological innovation. Theoretical and managerial implications are discussed, and a future research agenda is suggested. (shrink)

In this article, the authors examine accounts of heterosexuality in media for children. The authors analyze all the G-rated films grossing $100 million dollars or more between 1990 and 2005 and find two main accounts of heterosexuality. First, heterosexuality is constructed through hetero-romantic love relationships as exceptional, powerful, magical, and transformative. Second, heterosexuality outside of relationships is constructed through portrayals of men gazing desirously at women's bodies. Both of these findings have implications for our understanding of heteronormativity. The first is (...) seemingly at odds with theories that claim that heterosexuality's mundane, assumed, everyday ordinariness lends heteronormativity its power. In fact, the authors suggest heterosexual exceptionalism may extend the pervasiveness of heterosexuality and serve as a means of inviting investment in it. The second offers ways to begin to think about how heteronormativity is gendered and racialized. (shrink)

The next World Congress of Bioethics will be held in Doha, Qatar. Although this location provides opportunities to interact with a more culturally diverse audience, to advance dialogue between cultures and religions, offer opportunities for mutual learning, there are also huge moral concerns. Qatar is known for violations of human rights ‐ including the treatment of migrant workers and the rights of women ‐ corruption, criminalization of LGBTQI+ persons, and climate impact. Since these concerns are also key (bio)ethical concern we (...) call for a broad debate within the bioethics community whether organizing and attending the World Congress in Qatar is ethically problematic and how ethical concerns should be dealt with. (shrink)

In the present paper we empirically investigate the psychometric properties of some of the most famous statistical and logical cognitive illusions from the “heuristics and biases” research program by Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky, who nearly 50 years ago introduced fascinating brain teasers such as the famous Linda problem, the Wason card selection task, and so-called Bayesian reasoning problems (e.g., the mammography task). In the meantime, a great number of articles has been published that empirically examine single cognitive illusions, theoretically (...) explaining people’s faulty thinking, or proposing and experimentally implementing measures to foster insight and to make these problems accessible to the human mind. Yet these problems have thus far usually been empirically analyzed on an individual-item level only (e.g., by experimentally comparing participants’ performance on various versions of one of these problems). In this paper, by contrast, we examine these illusions as a group and look at the ability to solve them as a psychological construct. Based on an sample ofN= 2,643 Luxembourgian school students of age 16–18 we investigate the internal psychometric structure of these illusions (i.e., Are they substantially correlated? Do they form a reflexive or a formative construct?), their connection to related constructs (e.g., Are they distinguishable from intelligence or mathematical competence in a confirmatory factor analysis?), and the question of which of a person’s abilities can predict the correct solution of these brain teasers (by means of a regression analysis). (shrink)

Upon Scheler’s death in 1928, Martin Heidegger remarked that he was the most important force in philosophy at the time. Jose Ortega y Gasset called Scheler "the first man of the philosophical paradise." The Human Place in the Cosmos, the last of his works Scheler completed, is a pivotal piece in the development of his writing as a whole, marking a peculiar shift in his approach and thought. He had been asked to provide an initial sketch of his much larger (...) works on philosophical anthropology and metaphysics--works he was not able to complete because of his early demise. Frings' new translation of this key work allows us to read and understand Scheler's thought within current philosophical debates and interests. The book addresses two main questions: What is the human being? And what is the place of the human being in the universe? Scheler responds to these questions within contexts of said two projected much larger works but not without reference to scientific research. He covers various levels of being: inorganic reality, organic reality, all the way up to practical intelligence and the spiritual dimension of human beings, and touching upon the holy. Negotiating two intertwined levels of being, life-energy and "spirit," this work marks not only a critical moment in the development of his own philosophy but also a significant contribution to the current discussions of continental and analytic philosophers on the nature of the person. (shrink)

Over the years, many scholars have focused on the hierarchical and overpowering influence of Martin Heidegger upon Hannah Arendt’s thought. This view follows the stereotype concerning philosophical influence in which an all-knowing teacher affects the thought of the student, particularly if the student is a woman. In this paper, I argue that the story of philosophical influence is more complicated. In this case, the biographical archive establishes how Karl Jaspers, Martin Heidegger, and Hannah Arendt mutually influenced one another throughout their (...) lives and careers. This evidence contests the typical view of philosophical influence which is hierarchical and often gendered and suggests a new model for understanding philosophical influences as dynamic and reciprocal. (shrink)

Translated from the Dutch, this book offers a systematic interpretation of Heidegger's thought, focusing particularly on recently published works.

Moraal was sinds mensenheugenis het exclusieve domein van filosofie en theologie, totdat bioloog Charles Darwin in The Descent of Man (1871) als eerste opperde: ‘Elk dier dat met uitgesproken sociale instincten is toegerust (…) zou onvermijdelijk een moraal of geweten verwerven zodra zijn intellectuele vermogens even goed of bijna even goed ontwikkeld zouden zijn als die van de mens.’ Pas een eeuw later kwam het onderzoek naar moraal goed op gang in empirische wetenschapsdisciplines als biologie, ethologie, culturele antropologie, psychologie en (...) neurowetenschappen. De getemde mens laat zien hoe ver de fascinerende inzichten die dat onderzoek al heeft opgeleverd, zijn doorgedrongen in Vlaanderen en Nederland. Meer dan 140 bekende en onbekende personen met uiteenlopende culturele en levensbeschouwelijke achtergronden laten in dit boek hun gedachten gaan over de vraag waar onze moraal vandaan komt. Primatoloog Frans de Waal wijdt aan deze centrale vraag een uitvoerig essay, terwijl schooldirecteur en expert radicalisering Karin Heremans een stem laat horen uit de multiculturele onderwijspraktijk. Filosoof Guido Vanheeswijck en moraalwetenschapper Dirk Verhofstadt geven niet alleen zelf antwoord op de vraag waar onze moraal vandaan komt, maar lazen alle bijdragen en schreven naar aanleiding daarvan een slotessay. (shrink)

Online supplement, "Mulsow: Additions to Notes drawn from the 2002 edition of Moderne aus dem Untergrund" full versions of nearly 300 notes that were truncated in the print edition. Hosted on H. C. Erik Midelfort's website. Martin Mulsow's seismic reinterpretation of the origins of the Enlightenment in Germany won awards and renown in its original German edition, and now H. C. Erik Midelfort's translation makes this sensational book available to English-speaking readers. In Enlightenment Underground, Mulsow shows that even in the (...) late seventeenth century some thinkers in Germany ventured to express extremely dangerous ideas, but did so as part of a secret underground. Scouring manuscript collections across northern Europe, Mulsow studied the writings of countless hitherto unknown radical jurists, theologians, historians, and dissident students who pushed for the secularization of legal, political, social, and religious knowledge. Often their works circulated in manuscript, anonymously, or as clandestinely published books. Working as a philosophical microhistorian, Mulsow has discovered the identities of several covert radicals and linked them to circles of young German scholars, many of whom were connected with the vibrant radical cultures of the Netherlands, England, and Denmark. The author reveals how radical ideas and contributions to intellectual doubt came from Socinians and Jews, church historians and biblical scholars, political theorists, and unemployed university students. He shows that misreadings of humorous or ironic works sometimes gave rise to unintended skeptical thoughts or corrosively political interpretations of Christianity. This landmark book overturns stereotypical views of the early Enlightenment in Germany as cautious, conservative, and moderate, and replaces them with a new portrait that reveals a movement far more radical, unintended, and puzzling than previously suspected. (shrink)

In this volume Martin Heidegger confronts the philosophical problems of language and begins to unfold the meaning begind his famous and little understood phrase "Language is the House of Being." The "Dialogue on Language," between Heidegger and a Japanese friend, together with the four lectures that follow, present Heidegger's central ideas on the origin, nature, and significance of language. These essays reveal how one of the most profound philosophers of our century relates language to his earlier and continuing preoccupation with (...) the nature of Being and himan being. One the Way to Language enable readers to understand how central language became to Heidegger's analysis of the nature of Being. On the Way to Language demonstrates that an interest in the meaning of language is one of the strongest bonds between analytic philosophy and Heidegger. It is an ideal source for studying his sustained interest in the problems and possibilities of human language and brilliantly underscores the originality and range of his thinking. (shrink)

This radical, profoundly scholarly book explores the purposes and nature of proof in a range of historical settings. It overturns the view that the first mathematical proofs were in Greek geometry and rested on the logical insights of Aristotle by showing how much of that view is an artefact of nineteenth-century historical scholarship. It documents the existence of proofs in ancient mathematical writings about numbers and shows that practitioners of mathematics in Mesopotamian, Chinese and Indian cultures knew how to prove (...) the correctness of algorithms, which are much more prominent outside the limited range of surviving classical Greek texts that historians have taken as the paradigm of ancient mathematics. It opens the way to providing the first comprehensive, textually based history of proof. (shrink)

The European Commission has recently proposed the introduction of legally binding quotas for women on corporate boards of European companies. This proposal has put the spotlight on the question of whether increasing female representation on the board brings economic benefits to the firm. In order to shed light on the issue, this study investigates the direct and indirect effects of women on the board on firm value. We use a simultaneous equation model to estimate the effects of women on the (...) board on firm value, financial performance, and compliance with ethical and social principles adopted by the firm. We find no evidence that a higher female representation on the board directly affects firm’s value. However, we find indirect effects. Women on the board are positively related with financial performance (measured in terms of return on assets and return on sales) and with ethical and social compliance, which in turn are positively related with firm value. The findings in this study suggest that greater female representation on corporate boards of large European firms can increase firm value indirectly. Further, part of the indirect effect comes from stronger compliance with ethical principles, something that is not captured by accounting-based financial performance. (shrink)

How does science create knowledge? Epistemic cultures, shaped by affinity, necessity, and historical coincidence, determine how we know what we know. In this book, Karin Knorr Cetina compares two of the most important and intriguing epistemic cultures of our day, those in high energy physics and molecular biology. The first ethnographic study to systematically compare two different scientific laboratory cultures, this book sharpens our focus on epistemic cultures as the basis of the knowledge society.

The ArgumentTo highlight speculative trends specific to the mathematical tradition that developed in China, the paper analyzes an excerpt of a third-century commentary on a mathematical classic, which arguably contains a proof. The paper shows that the following three tasks cannot be dissociated one from the other: (1) to discuss how the ancient text should be read; (2) to describe the practice of mathematical proof to which this text bears witness; (3) to bring to light connections between philosophy and mathematics (...) that it demonstrates were established in China. To this end the paper defines its use of the word “proof” and outlines a program for an international history of mathematical proof. It describes the sense in which the text conveys a proof and shows how it simultaneously fulfills algorithmic ends, bringing to light a formal pattern that appears to be fundamental both for mathematics and for other domains of reality. The interest in transformations that mathematical writings demonstrate in China at that time seems to have been influenced by philosophical developments based onThe Book of Changes (Yi-jing), which the excerpt quotes. This quotation within a mathematical context makes it possible to suggest an interpretation for a rather difficult philosophical statement. (shrink)

L’addition, dans la cinquième édition en 1683 de La Logique ou L’Art de penser, d’un chapitre consacré à la définition générale du signe et de plusieurs chapitres relevant spécifiquement d’une analyse des signes linguistiques, a été parfois interprétée comme une apparition tardive du “problème du langage” dans le traité d’Arnauld et Nicole. Parce que la plupart de ces chapitres supplémentaires sont la transposition de passages auparavant destinés dans la Perpétuité de la foi (1669-1674) à réfuter le sens calviniste de Ceci (...) est mon corps, on a été enclin à attribuer l’importance de la question du signe et du “problème du langage” dans l’édition de 1683 à une origine théologique. J’essaie au contraire de montrer que, dès la première édition de L’Art de penser en 1662, la problématisation des écarts des expressions linguistiques avec une correspondance terme à terme entre les mots et les idées a été indissociable pour Port-Royal de l’analyse des opérations de l’esprit. Selon moi, dans la Perpétuité de la foi, la critique du sens calviniste de la formule eucharistique constitue elle-même une application de cette analyse logique du langage : les passages incorporés ensuite dans L’Art de penser sont dans le prolongement des réflexions de 1662 sur les difficultés d’adéquation entre le dire et le vouloir-dire. Je montre pour finir que la définition générale du signe à Port-Royal suppose une restructuration de la définition augustinienne du De doctrina christiana, et fonde en 1683 une identification de la relation de signification linguistique à un rapport de représentation des mots aux idées, qui vient redoubler le rapport de représentation des idées aux choses établi en 1662. (shrink)

Isaac Newton, in popular imagination the Ur-scientist, was an outstanding humanist scholar. His researches on, among others, ancient philosophy, are thorough and appear to be connected to and fit within his larger philosophical and theological agenda. It is therefore relevant to take a closer look at Newton’s intellectual choices, at how and why precisely he would occupy himself with specific text-sources, and how this interest fits into the larger picture of his scientific and intellectual endeavours. In what follows, we shall (...) follow Newton into his study and look over his shoulder while reading compendia and original source-texts in his personal library at Cambridge, meticulously investigating and comparing fragments and commentaries, and carefully keeping track in private notes of how they support his own developing ideas. Indeed, Newton was convinced that precursors to his own insights and discoveries were present already in Antiquity, even before the Greeks, in ancient Egypt, and he puts a lot of time and effort into making the point, especially, and not incidentially, in the period between the first and the second edition of the Principia. A clear understanding of his reading of the classic sources therefore matters to our understanding of its content and gestation process. In what follows we will confine ourselves to the classical legacy, and investigate Newton’s intellectual intercourse with it. (shrink)

The use of black box algorithms in medicine has raised scholarly concerns due to their opaqueness and lack of trustworthiness. Concerns about potential bias, accountability and responsibility, patient autonomy and compromised trust transpire with black box algorithms. These worries connect epistemic concerns with normative issues. In this paper, we outline that black box algorithms are less problematic for epistemic reasons than many scholars seem to believe. By outlining that more transparency in algorithms is not always necessary, and by explaining that (...) computational processes are indeed methodologically opaque to humans, we argue that the reliability of algorithms provides reasons for trusting the outcomes of medical artificial intelligence. To this end, we explain how computational reliabilism, which does not require transparency and supports the reliability of algorithms, justifies the belief that results of medical AI are to be trusted. We also argue that several ethical concerns remain with black box algorithms, even when the results are trustworthy. Having justified knowledge from reliable indicators is, therefore, necessary but not sufficient for normatively justifying physicians to act. This means that deliberation about the results of reliable algorithms is required to find out what is a desirable action. Thus understood, we argue that such challenges should not dismiss the use of black box algorithms altogether but should inform the way in which these algorithms are designed and implemented. When physicians are trained to acquire the necessary skills and expertise, and collaborate with medical informatics and data scientists, black box algorithms can contribute to improving medical care. (shrink)

It will be shown in this article that an ontological approach for some problems related to the interpretation of Quantum Mechanics (QM) could emerge from a re-evaluation of the main paradox of early Greek thought: the paradox of Being and non-Being, and the solutions presented to it by Plato and Aristotle. More well known are the derivative paradoxes of Zeno: the paradox of motion and the paradox of the One and the Many. They stem from what was perceived by classical (...) philosophy to be the fundamental enigma for thinking about the world: the seemingly contradictory results that followed from the co-incidence of being and non-being in the world of change and motion as we experience it, and the experience of absolute existence here and now. The most clear expression of both stances can be found, again following classical thought, in the thinking of Heraclitus of Ephesus and Parmenides of Elea. The problem put forward by these paradoxes reduces for both Plato and Aristotle to the possibility of the existence of stable objects as a necessary condition for knowledge. Hence the primarily ontological nature of the solutions they proposed: Plato’s Theory of Forms and Aristotle’s metaphysics and logic. Plato’s and Aristotle’s systems are argued here to do on the ontological level essentially the same: to introduce stability in the world by introducing the notion of a separable, stable object, for which a ‘principle of contradiction’ is valid: an object cannot be and not-be at the same place at the same time. So it becomes possible to forbid contradiction on an epistemological level, and thus to guarantee the certainty of knowledge that seemed to be threatened before. After leaving Aristotelian metaphysics, early modern science had to cope with these problems: it did so by introducing “space” as the seat of stability, and “time” as the theater of motion. But the ontological structure present in this solution remained the same. Therefore the fundamental notion ‘separable system’, related to the notions observation and measurement, themselves related to the modern concepts of space and time, appears to be intrinsically problematic, because it is inextricably connected to classical logic on the ontological level. We see therefore the problems dealt with by quantum logic not as merely formal, and the problem of ‘non-locality’ as related to it, indicating the need to re-think the notions system, entity, as well as the implications of the operation ‘measurement’, which is seen here as an application of classical logic (including its ontological consequences) on the material world. (shrink)