Interest in philosophy of management continues to grow. Growth of the philosophy of management might result from the consideration of man's potential as viewed by two different men, an industrialist and a philosopher. James Finney Lincoln was president and board chairman of The Lincoln Electric Company for 37 years. During that time, and for 14 previous years when he was the firm's general manager, he developed a philosophy basic to a practice of business management that gained national and international attention. (...) Wilhelm von Humboldt was a very gifted person with many accomplishments including those as a Prussian statesman, a humanist, and a linguistics scholar. A comparison of both men's philosophies reveals the following: In each view man's potentiality was approached by the dynamic, on-going process of developing his latent abilities or powers. Both views stressed freedom as being critical to the development of man's latent abilities or powers. For Lincoln the individual must gain satisfaction from the recognition of developing his latent abilities. For Humboldt the individual must enjoy the 'freedom of developing himself.' Lincoln warned against custom as being a barrier to development since it places man in situations which are without variation, forcing him merely to follow precedent. Humboldt, in addition to freedom, stated that "a variety of situations" is essential for development. 2012 APA, all rights reserved). (shrink)

Interest in philosophy of management continues to grow. Growth of the philosophy of management might result from the consideration of man's potential as viewed by two different men, an industrialist and a philosopher. James Finney Lincoln was president and board chairman of The Lincoln Electric Company for 37 years. During that time, and for 14 previous years when he was the firm's general manager, he developed a philosophy basic to a practice of business management that gained national and international attention. (...) Wilhelm von Humboldt was a very gifted person with many accomplishments including those as a Prussian statesman, a humanist, and a linguistics scholar. A comparison of both men's philosophies reveals the following: In each view man's potentiality was approached by the dynamic, on-going process of developing his latent abilities or powers. Both views stressed freedom as being critical to the development of man's latent abilities or powers. For Lincoln the individual must gain satisfaction from the recognition of developing his latent abilities. For Humboldt the individual must enjoy the 'freedom of developing himself.' Lincoln warned against custom as being a barrier to development since it places man in situations which are without variation, forcing him merely to follow precedent. Humboldt, in addition to freedom, stated that "a variety of situations" is essential for development. 2012 APA, all rights reserved). (shrink)

Advances in research on human cerebral organoids (HCOs) call for a critical review of current research policies. A challenge for the evaluation of necessary research regulations lies in the severe uncertainty about future trajectories the currently very rudimentary stages of neural cell cultures might take as the technology progresses. To gain insights into organotypic cultures, ethicists, legal scholars, and neuroscientists rely on resemblances to the human brain. They refer to similarities in structural or functional terms that have been established in (...) scientific practice to validate organotypic cultures as models for brain research. In ethical discourse, however, such similarities are also used to justify assumptions about the potential risk to cause harm to HCOs. Ethicists assume that as the technology advances, organotypic cultures will increasingly resemble the human brain, raising more complex ethical issues. I argue that such reasoning is not justified given the heterogeneity of HCOs that have been modified to enable scientists to pursue their research goals. I then discuss the implications this line of thought has for advocates of the precautionary principle, focussing on those suggestions which propose adopting research regulations to the presence of bodily warning signs deemed worthy of protection. In doing so, I illustrate that the prevalent assumptions on similarity in ethical discourse ultimately risk disproportionately restricting research. I conclude that given the severe uncertainty about the technology’s future development, ethical discourse might benefit from narrowing the time frame for anticipation. (shrink)

Background: Financial conflict of interest in clinical research is an area of active debate. While data exist on the perspectives and roles of academic institutions, investigators, industry sponsors, and scientific journals, little is known about the perspectives of potential research participants.Methods: The authors surveyed potential research participants over the internet, using the Harris Interactive Chronic Illness Database. A potential research participant was defined by: self report of diagnosis by a health care professional and willingness to participate in clinical trials. Email (...) invitations were sent to 20 205 persons with coronary artery disease, breast cancer, or depression; a total of 6363 persons were screened; of these, 86% or 5478 met inclusion criteria and completed the survey. The outcome measures were respondents’ ratings on: importance of knowing conflict of interest information, whether its disclosure ought to be required, and its effect on willingness to participate—across seven widely discussed scenarios of financial conflicts of interest .Results: Majority responded that knowing conflict of interest information was “extremely” or “very” important; a larger majority felt financial conflicts of interest should be disclosed as part of informed consent . In all seven scenarios, a majority was still willing to participate but in some scenarios a sizable minority would be wary of participation. Respondents were more wary of individual than institutional conflicts of interest. Illness group and sociodemographic factors had modest effects and did not affect the main trends.Conclusions: The prevailing practice of non-disclosure of financial conflicts of interest in clinical research appears contrary to the values of potential research participants. (shrink)

Individual objects have potentials: paper has the potential to burn, an acorn has the potential to turn into a tree, some people have the potential to run a mile in less than four minutes. Barbara Vetter provides a systematic investigation into the metaphysics of such potentials, and an account of metaphysical modality based on them. -/- In contemporary philosophy, potentials have been recognized mostly in the form of so-called dispositions: solubility, fragility, and so on. Vetter takes dispositions (...) as her starting point, but argues for and develops a more comprehensive conception of potentiality. She shows how, with this more comprehensive conception, an account of metaphysical modality can be given that meets three crucial requirements: Extensional correctness: providing the right truth-values for statements of possibility and necessity; formal adequacy: providing the right logic for metaphysical modality; and semantic utility: providing a semantics that links ordinary modal language to the metaphysics of modality. -/- The resulting view of modality is a version of dispositionalism about modality: it takes modality to be a matter of the dispositions of individual objects. This approach has a long philosophical tradition going back to Aristotle, but has been largely neglected in contemporary philosophy. In recent years, it has become a live option again due to the rise of anti-Humean, powers-based metaphysics. The aim of Potentiality is to develop the dispositionalist view in a way that takes account of contemporary developments in metaphysics, logic, and semantics. (shrink)

As Vetter says, we are at the “beginning of the debate, not the end” (2015: 300) when it comes to evaluating her potentiality-based account of metaphysical modality. This paper contributes to this developing debate by highlighting three problems for Vetter’s account. Specifically, I begin (§1) by articulating some relevant details of Vetter’s potentiality-based view. This leads to the first issue (§2), concerning unclarity in the idea of degrees of potentiality. Similarly, the second issue (§3) raises trouble for Vetter’s proposed (...) individuation conditions for potentialities. Finally, the third issue (§4) is about apparently unmanifestable intrinsic potentialities, and suggests that there might be some deeper problems with anchoring metaphysical possibilities in concrete objects. More generally, though the issues detailed here are problematic, I do not take them to be fatal. However, they do show that, at minimum, further clarification of Vetter’s potentiality view is required. As Vetter says, we are at the “beginning of the debate, not the end” (2015: 300) when it comes to evaluating her potentiality-based account of metaphysical modality. This paper contributes to this developing debate by highlighting three problems for Vetter’s account. Specifically, I begin (§1) by articulating some relevant details of Vetter’s potentiality-based view. This leads to the first issue (§2), concerning unclarity in the idea of degrees of potentiality. Similarly, the second issue (§3) raises trouble for Vetter’s proposed individuation conditions for potentialities. Finally, the third issue (§4) is about apparently unmanifestable intrinsic potentialities, and suggests that there might be some deeper problems with anchoring metaphysical possibilities in concrete objects. More generally, though the issues detailed here are problematic, I do not take them to be fatal. However, they do show that, at minimum, further clarification of Vetter’s potentiality view is required. (shrink)

Television medical dramas frequently depict the practice of medicine and bioethical issues in a strikingly realistic but sometimes inaccurate fashion. Because these shows depict medicine so vividly and are so relevant to the career interests of medical and nursing students, they may affect these students' beliefs, attitudes, and perceptions regarding the practice of medicine and bioethical issues. We conducted a web-based survey of medical and nursing students to determine the medical drama viewing habits and impressions of bioethical issues depicted in (...) them. More than 80% of medical and nursing students watch television medical dramas. Students with more clinical experience tended to have impressions that were more negative than those of students without clinical experience. Furthermore, viewing of television medical dramas is a social event and many students discuss the bioethical issues they observe with friends and family. Television medical dramas may stimulate students to think about and discuss bioethical issues. (shrink)

Television medical dramas frequently depict the practice of medicine and bioethical issues in a strikingly realistic but sometimes inaccurate fashion. Because these shows depict medicine so vividly and are so relevant to the career interests of medical and nursing students, they may affect these students' beliefs, attitudes, and perceptions regarding the practice of medicine and bioethical issues. We conducted a web-based survey of medical and nursing students to determine the medical drama viewing habits and impressions of bioethical issues depicted in (...) them. More than 80% of medical and nursing students watch television medical dramas. Students with more clinical experience tended to have impressions that were more negative than those of students without clinical experience. Furthermore, viewing of television medical dramas is a social event and many students discuss the bioethical issues they observe with friends and family. Television medical dramas may stimulate students to think about and discuss bioethical issues. (shrink)

Background: There is a shortage of reports on what potential recipients of implantable cardioverter–defibrillators need to be informed about and what role they can and want to play in the decision-making process when it comes to whether or not to implant an ICD.Aims: To explore how patients with heart failure and previous episodes of malignant arrhythmia experience and view their role in the decision to initiate ICD treatment.Patients and methods: A qualitative content analysis of semistructured interviews was used. The (...) study population consisted of 31 outpatients with moderate heart failure at the time of their first ICD implantation.Setting: The study was performed at Sahlgrenska University Hospital, Göteborg, Sweden.Results: None of the respondents had discussed the alternative option of receiving treatment with anti-arrhythmic drugs, the estimated risk of a fatal arrhythmia, or the expected time of survival from heart failure in itself. Even so, very little criticism was directed at the lack of information or the lack of participation in the decision-making process. The respondents felt that they had to rely on the doctors’ recommendation when it comes to such a complex and important decision. None of them regretted implantation of the ICD.Conclusions: The respondents were confronted by a matter of fact. They needed an ICD and were given an offer they could not refuse, simply because life was precious to them. Being able to give well-informed consent seemed to be a matter of less importance for them. (shrink)

While copious quantities of ink have been spilled on the topic of autonomy in the context of health care, little has been written about autonomy in relation to intellectual disability. After presenting the received account of capacity, we argue that it cannot account for the moral permissibility of limiting an individual with intellectual disability’s access to diet soda. In cases of preventative medicine and intellectual disability, the philosophical motivation for the received account of capacity is incompatible with the actions it (...) recommends. We consider and reject several potential solutions; then, drawing on applied behavior analysis and the phenomenon of automatic reinforcement, we propose our own solution. The article concludes by considering the broader implications of our discussion. (shrink)

Prosocial cartoon is characterized by helping others solve difficulties, including helping, donating, sharing, comforting, and cooperating. The current study examined whether viewing a prosocial cartoon decreases aggression immediately upon exposure and the potential mediating role of aggressive motivation. Participants involve 168 children nominated by teachers as aggressive from three Chinese kindergartens. Children in the treatment group watched a prosocial cartoon, while children in the control group watched a nonprosocial cartoon. Afterward, the Hot Sauce Task was employed to assess aggressive behavior, (...) and Aggressive Motivation Questionnaire was employed to assess aggressive motivation. Results revealed that viewing a prosocial cartoon did reduce children’s aggression immediately upon exposure. Specifically, males showed less aggressive behavior than females upon prosocial cartoon exposure, while males showed more aggressive behavior than females upon nonprosocial cartoon exposure. Mediational analysis suggested that the prosocial cartoon effect on aggression was partially mediated by aggressive motivation, especially for males. Consistent with general aggression model, findings of the study indicated that short-term exposure to a prosocial cartoon decreased children’s aggression by reducing aggressive motivation. (shrink)

Access to investigational drugs is a concern to patients and regulatory agencies. In order to determine potential trial participants’ views on access to investigational drugs, we surveyed one hundred people who had been referred to a phase I clinical trial. Most respondents indicated that patients had a right to investigational drugs, that the drugs should be offered only in the context of research, that getting access to these drugs is too hard, and that knowing the right people and being persistent (...) increased the likelihood of gaining access. Respondents did not think that investigational drugs should be given to anyone who wanted them, or that physicians were aware of the latest investigational agents. They most frequently recommended two allocation criteria: offering investigational drugs to those who would benefit most or were most needy; and allocating them to maximize scientific advancement. Respondents who understood the purpose of the trial were more likely to choose the second criterion. (shrink)

According to the orthodox view, the goodness of a life depends exclusively on the things that actually happened within it, such as its pleasures and pains, the satisfaction of its subject’s preferences, or the presence of various objective goods and bads. In this paper, I argue that the goodness of a life also depends on what could have happened, but didn’t. I then propose that this view helps us resolve ethical puzzles concerning the standards for a life worth (...) living for animals and the significance of a life’s shape. (shrink)

Vetter's Potentiality is an exposition and development of a new account of possibility and necessity, given in terms of potentialities. In this critical notice, I give an outline of some of the key claims of the book. I then raise some issues for the extent to which Vetter's view can accommodate genuine de re modalities, especially those of possible existence and non-existence.

The purpose of this article is to propose a method for analyzing the ideo­logical content of video games while taking into account the agency of the players. The interactivity of video games as a medium has been attracting the attention of researchers for many years, raising, in particular, the ques­tion of how this unique property serves to broadcast certain ideologies. The ability of games to make ideological statements was discussed by Bogost, Frasca, Aarseth, and many other pioneers of game studies. (...) Video games were analyzed both in the context of older media forms that promoted certain ideas through plots, visuals, and other traditional means, and as unique types of objects that can make statements through rules. I aim to introduce the player — as a subject who is able to transform and conceptual­ize the game based on their own cultural background — to this discussion. Using James Gibson’s theory of affordances, I want to acknowledge the player’s freedom of interpretation, the potential to assign one or another ideology to the game in each playthrough. On the one hand, the player acts as a consumer of content; on the other hand, they are a co-author who will use the tools offered by the video game to produce their own state­ments, to be interpreted independently. This leaves the final decision about the ideology of the game to the consumer; thus, game studies need an ap­proach that allows the analysis of the ideological content of specific games. It is especially important in the light of more and more games prioritizing player freedom and not providing any clear plot or even victory conditions. Of course, research can still proclaim, and rightfully so, that the specific rules in such games bear traces of certain ideological systems — capitalism or secularism, for example. But individual players could undermine such interpretations both at the level of reading the game as a “text”, and at the level of interactive actions inspired by those readings. (shrink)

Standard quantum mechanics undeniably violates the notion of separability that classical physics accustomed us to consider as valid. By relating the phenomenon of quantum nonseparability to the all-important concept of potentiality, we effectively provide a coherent picture of the puzzling entangled correlations among spatially separated systems. We further argue that the generalized phenomenon of quantum nonseparability implies contextuality for the production of well-defined events in the quantum domain, whereas contextuality entails in turn a structural-relational conception of quantal objects, viewed as (...) carriers of dispositional properties. It is finally suggested that contextuality, if considered as a conditionalization preparation procedure of the object to be measured, naturally leads to a separable concept of reality whose elements are experienced as distinct, well-localized objects having determinate properties. In this connection, we find it necessary to distinguish the meaning of the term reality from the criterion of reality for us. The implications of the latter considerations for the notion of objectivity in quantum mechanics are also discussed. (shrink)

Modal potentialism as proposed by Barbara Vetter (2015) is the view that every possibility is grounded in something having a potentiality. Drawing from work by Jessica Leech (2017), Samuel Kimpton-Nye (2021) argues that potentialists can have an S5 modal logic. I present a novel argument to the conclusion that the most straightforward way of spelling out modal potentialism cannot validate an S5 modal logic. Then I will propose a slightly tweaked version of modal potentialism that can validate an S5 (...) modal logic and still does justice to the core claim of potentialism. (shrink)

The so-called integration problem concerning mechanistic and computational explanation asks how they are related to each other. One approach is that a computational explanation is a species of mechanistic explanation. According to this view, computational or mathematical descriptions are mechanism sketches or macroscopic descriptions that include computationally relevant and exclude computationally irrelevant physical properties. Some suggest that this results in a so-called single hierarchy view of physical computation, where computational or mathematical properties sit together in the same mechanistic (...) hierarchy with the implementational properties. This view can be contrasted with a separate hierarchy view, according to which computational and physical descriptions have their own hierarchies which are related to each other via a bridging implementation relation. The single hierarchy view has been criticized for downplaying the explanatory value of computational explanations and not being hospitable to multiple realization of cognitive processes. In this paper, I argue that the aforementioned criticisms fail, and there might be a deeper problem with the single hierarchy view, which is that the single hierarchy view might collapse into a separate hierarchy view. The kind of abstraction used by the single hierarchy view does not seem to grant mathematical or computational descriptions but only more stripped physical or implementational descriptions. (shrink)

We propose an interpretation of physics named potentiality realism. This view, which can be applied to classical as well as to quantum physics, regards potentialities (i.e. intrinsic, objective propensities for individual events to obtain) as elements of reality, thereby complementing the actual properties taken by physical variables. This allows one to naturally reconcile realism and fundamental indeterminism in any theoretical framework. We discuss our specific interpretation of propensities, that require them to depart from being probabilities at the formal level, (...) though allowing for statistics and the law of large numbers. This view helps reconcile classical and quantum physics by showing that most of the conceptual problems that are customarily taken to be unique issues of the latter -- such as the measurement problem -- are actually in common to all indeterministic physical theories. (shrink)

Myles Burnyeat has argued that in De Anima II.5 Aristotle marks out a refined kind of alteration which is to be distinguished from ordinary alteration, change of quality as defined in Physics III.1-3. Aristotle's aim, he says, is to make it clear that perception is an alteration of this refined sort and not an ordinary alteration. Thus, it both supports his own interpretation of Aristotle's view of perception, and refutes the Sorabji interpretation according to which perception is a composite (...) of form and matter where the matter is a material alteration in the body. I argue that Burnyeat's interpretation of II.5 should be rejected for a number of reasons, and offer a new interpretation of the distinctions drawn in the chapter, and the relations between them. I conclude that the chapter provides no evidence against the Sorabji view or for Burnyeat's view. Aristotle's assertion that perception is a refined kind of alteration means that it is the kind of alteration that preserves and is good for the subject of that alteration. There is no inconsistency in the thought that perception is a refined alteration of this sort while it, or its matter, is an ordinary alteration. (shrink)

Many people face a problem about potentiality: their moral beliefs appear to dictate inconsistent views about the significance of the potentiality to become a healthy adult. Briefly, the problem arises as follows. Consider the following two claims. First, both human babies and cats have moral status, but harms to babies matter more, morally, than similar harms to cats. Second, early human embryos lack moral status. It appears that the first claim can only be true if human babies have more moral (...) status than cats. Among the properties that determine moral status, human babies have no properties other than their potentiality that could explain their having more moral status than cats. So human babies’ potentiality to become adult persons must explain their having more moral status than cats. But then potentiality must raise moral status generally. So early human embryos must have some moral status. It appears that the view that must underlie the first claim implies that the second claim is false. (shrink)

ABSTRACT Consideration of the potentiality of human embryos to develop characteristics of personhood, such as intellect and will, has figured prominently in arguments against abortion and the use of human embryos for research. In particular, such consideration was the basis for the call of the US President's Council on Bioethics for a moratorium on stem cell research on human embryos. In this paper, I critique the concept of potentiality invoked by the Council and offer an alternative account. In contrast to (...) the Council's view that an embryo's potentiality is determined by definition and is not affected by external conditions that may prevent certain possibilities from ever being realized, I propose an empirically grounded account of potentiality that involves an assessment of the physical and decisional conditions that may restrict an embryo's possibilities. In my view, some human embryos lack the potentiality to become a person that other human embryos have. Assuming for the sake of argument that the potential to become a person gives a being special moral status, it follows that some human embryos lack this status. This argument is then used to support Gene Outka's suggestion that it is morally permissible to experiment on ‘spare’ frozen embryos that are destined to be destroyed. (shrink)

The paper examines the connection between Aristotle's theory of generated substance and his notion of potentiality in "Metaphysics" Θ.7. Aristotle insists that the matter of a substance is not what that substance is, against a competing view that was widely held both in his day and now. He coined the term thaten (ἐ[unrepresentable symbol]νινονον) in order to make this point. The term highlights a systematic correspondence between the metaphysics of matter and of quality: the relationship between a thing and (...) its matter is like the relationship between a qualified thing and the relevant quality. It is argued that Aristotle's view about the matter of particular substances is connected with his view about ultimate matter. His conception of the matter of particular substances allows him to block an argument, from Plato's "Timaeus", that ultimate matter must be something imperceptible and lacking all perceptible qualities. Aristotle uses the term thaten to introduce an alternative conception of ultimate matter on which ultimate matter might well be an ordinary perceptible kind of thing. (shrink)

Bettina Schöne-Seifert and Marco Stier present a host of detailed and intriguing arguments to the effect that potentiality arguments have to be viewed as outdated due to developments in stem cell research, in particular the possibility of re-setting the development potential of differentiated cells, such as skin cells. However, their argument leaves them without an explanation of the intuitive difference between skin cells and human beings, which seems to be based on the assumption that a skin cell is merely part (...) of a human organism, while an embryo is at some point a human organism. An appropriately designed concept of the human organism can explain the difference, but also has the potential of re-dividing the argumentative landscape along familiar lines. (shrink)

Haeusermann et al. (Citation2023) draw three overall conclusions from their study on closed loop neuromodulation and self-perception in clinical treatment of refractory epilepsy. The first is that closed-loop neuromodulation devices did not substantially change epileptic patient’s personalities or self-perception postoperatively. The second is that some patients and caregivers attributed observed changes in personality and self-perception to the epilepsy itself and not to the DBS treatments. The third is that the devices provided participants with novel ways to make sense of their (...) illness. These findings further demonstrate a misalignment between some neuroethicists’ concerns about putative postoperative changes to personality, and the empirical evidence for such changes. Haeusermann et al. nonetheless concede that “neurotechnology directed at persisting rather than episodic clinical phenomena could have greater implications for personality or self-perception, either because they operate more continuously or are directed at clinical phenomena that are more stably integrated into patients’ self-concepts” (41). We acknowledge that the hypothesis that participants did not report changes because they were only episodically and not continually stimulated offers an interesting line for future investigation. Nonetheless, we would like to propose that potential postoperative personality changes might be correlated with the pathophysiology itself, rather than the stimulation effects of the technology. Generally, we advance the view that unintended effects solely induced by the technology cannot be excluded per se. Regardless, this comment aims to highlight that ethicists’ starting premise should be that patients suffering from diverse pathophysiology, or patients who are treated with stimulation in different brain regions and with differing parameters, would likely not react in the same way to treatment. (shrink)

We explain and explore class-theoretic potentialism—the view that one can always individuate more classes over a set-theoretic universe. We examine some motivations for class-theoretic potentialism, before proving some results concerning the relevant potentialist systems (in particular exhibiting failures of the $\mathsf {.2}$ and $\mathsf {.3}$ axioms). We then discuss the significance of these results for the different kinds of class-theoretic potentialists.

This article analyzes the status of passive potentiality of prime matter and sensible objects in Plotinus' Enneads. In particular, it will focus on Enneads II 5 [25] and confront it with other treatises, specifically Enneads III 6 [26]; II 6 [17]; VI 2 [43] and VI 3 [44]. It aims at offering a new interpretation of treatise 25 and at proposing a reconstruction of Plotinus' notion of change in the sensible realm that illustrates both his critique of Aristotle's notion of (...) substantial change and his acceptance of Aristotle's view of qualitative change. (shrink)

Is it possible to look at schools as spaces for encounters? Could schools contribute to a deliberative mode of communication in a manner better suited to our own time and to areas where different cultures meet? Inspired primarily by classical (Dewey) and modern (Habermas) pragmatists, I turn to Seyla Benhabib, posing the question whether she supports the proposition that schools can be sites for deliberative communication. I argue that a school that engages in deliberative communication, with its stress on mutual (...) communication between different moral perspectives, gives universalism a procedurally oriented meaning, serving as an arena for encounters that represents a weak public sphere. An interactive universalism of this kind attaches importance to developing an ability and willingness to reason on the basis of the views of others and to change perspectives. In that respect, the institutional arrangements of schools are potential parts of the political dimension of cosmopolitanism, as well as its moral dimension, in terms of the obligations and responsibilities we develop through our institutions and in our actions as human beings towards one another. (shrink)

What is the moral status of humans lacking the potential for consciousness? The concept of potentiality often tips the scales in life-and-death medical decisions. Some argue that all human embryos have the potential to develop characteristics—such as consciousness, intellect, and will—that we normally associate with personhood. Individuals with total brain failure or in a persistent vegetative state are thought to lack the potential for consciousness or any other mental function. Or do they? In Potentiality John Lizza gathers classic articles alongside (...) newly commissioned chapters from leading thinkers who analyze the nature of potentiality in bioethics, a concept central to a number of important debates. The contributors illustrate how considerations of potentiality and potential persons complicate the analysis of the moral consideration of persons at the beginning and end of life. A number of works explicitly uncover the Aristotelian background of the concept, while others explore philosophical issues about persons, dispositions, and possibility. The common assumption that potentiality is intrinsic to whatever has the potentiality is challenged by a relational view of persons, an extrinsic account of dispositions, and attention to how extrinsic factors affect realistic possibilities. Although potentiality has figured prominently in bioethical literature, it has not received a great deal of logical, semantic, and metaphysical analysis in contemporary philosophical literature. This collection will bring these thorny philosophical issues to the fore. Incorporating cutting-edge research on the topic of potentiality, this thought-provoking collection will interest bioethicists, philosophers, health care professionals, attorneys engaged in medical and health issues, and hospital and governmental committees who advise on policy and law concerning issues at the beginning and end of life. (shrink)

Against any obscurantist stand, denying the interest of natural sciences for the comprehension of human meaning and language, but also against any reductionist hypothesis, frustrating the specificity of the semiotic point of view on nature, the paper argues that the deepest dynamic at the basis of meaning consists in its being a mechanism of ‘potentiality navigation’ within a universe generally characterized by motility. On the one hand, such a hypothesis widens the sphere of meaning to all beings somehow endowed (...) with the capacity of moving and/or perceiving movement. On the other hand, through a new evolutionist interpretation of the concept of generativity, such a hypothesis preserves the peculiarity of human meaning, meant as essentially founded on a certain intuition of infinity. Two corollaries stem from this hypothesis: first, religiosity can be considered as a matrix of grammars of infinity, aiming at regimenting its flight of potentialities. Second, non-genetic transmission of cultural information exerts determinant influence also at the level of that very deep mechanism of the human predicament that is the cognitive navigation of motor potentialities. A re-reading of the structuralist epistemology, scientific literature on the nervous cells of jellyfish, and some recent experiments on the mirror neurons of dancers, as well as certain intuitions of Teilhard de Chardin, are the main arguments of the paper. (shrink)

Myles Burnyeat has argued that in De Anima II.5 Aristotle marks out a refined kind of alteration which is to be distinguished from ordinary alteration, change of quality as defined in Physics III.1-3. Aristotle's aim, he says, is to make it clear that perception is an alteration of this refined sort and not an ordinary alteration. Thus, it both supports his own interpretation of Aristotle's view of perception, and refutes the Sorabji interpretation according to which perception is a composite (...) of form and matter where the matter is a material alteration in the body. I argue that Burnyeat's interpretation of II.5 should be rejected for a number of reasons, and offer a new interpretation of the distinctions drawn in the chapter, and the relations between them. I conclude that the chapter provides no evidence against the Sorabji view or for Burnyeat's view. Aristotle's assertion that perception is a refined kind of alteration means that it is the kind of alteration that preserves and is good for the subject of that alteration. There is no inconsistency in the thought that perception is a refined alteration of this sort while it, or its matter, is an ordinary alteration. (shrink)

Is it possible to look at schools as spaces for encounters? Could schools contribute to a deliberative mode of communication in a manner better suited to our own time and to areas where different cultures meet? Inspired primarily by classical (Dewey) and modern (Habermas) pragmatists, I turn to Seyla Benhabib, posing the question whether she supports the proposition that schools can be sites for deliberative communication. I argue that a school that engages in deliberative communication, with its stress on mutual (...) communication between different moral perspectives, gives universalism a procedurally oriented meaning, serving as an arena for encounters that represents a weak public sphere. An interactive universalism of this kind attaches importance to developing an ability and willingness to reason on the basis of the views of others and to change perspectives. In that respect, the institutional arrangements of schools are potential parts of the political dimension of cosmopolitanism, as well as its moral dimension, in terms of the obligations and responsibilities we develop through our institutions and in our actions as human beings towards one another. (shrink)

Background: Although nurses worldwide are confronted with euthanasia requests from patients, the views of palliative care nurses on their involvement in euthanasia remain unclear.Objectives: In depth exploration of the views of palliative care nurses on their involvement in the entire care process surrounding euthanasia.Design: A qualitative Grounded Theory strategy was used.Setting and participants: In anticipation of new Belgian legislation on euthanasia, we conducted semistructured interviews with 12 nurses working in a palliative care setting in the province of Vlaams-Brabant.Results: Palliative care (...) nurses believed unanimously that they have an important role in the process of caring for a patient who requests euthanasia, a role that is not limited to assisting the physician when he is administering life terminating drugs. Nurses’ involvement starts when the patient requests euthanasia and ends with supporting the patient’s relatives and healthcare colleagues after the potential life terminating act. Nurses stressed the importance of having an open mind and of using palliative techniques, also offering a contextual understanding of the patient’s request in the decision making process. Concerning the actual act of performing euthanasia, palliative care nurses saw their role primarily as assisting the patient, the patient’s family, and the physician by being present, even if they could not reconcile themselves with actually performing euthanasia.Conclusions: Based on their professional nursing expertise and unique relationship with the patient, nurses participating as full members of the interdisciplinary expert team are in a key position to provide valuable care to patients requesting euthanasia. (shrink)

A significant part of Kit Fine’s work in metaphysics assumes a very fine-grained individuation of propositions and facts. This article discusses how such fine distinctions lead to inconsistency in ways which are similar to the inconsistency of naive set comprehension. The case of constraints on individuation arising from a relation of metaphysical ground will be considered in particular. Fine has developed a view of sets in response to the inconsistency of naive set comprehension according to which sets are postulated, (...) and so form a merely potential hierarchy. This article explores what an analogous potentialist response might look like in the case of finely distinguished propositions and facts, and applies the resulting view to the case of metaphysical grounding. A potentially problematic feature of the view is highlighted, which is that it is unclear how it might allow one to formulate in suitable generality the claim that grounding is a well-founded relation among possible propositions. (shrink)

It is no coincidence that the relationship between Paul Ricoeur and Michel Foucault has been principally discussed in research carried out by specialists in one of these two thinkers. Although active at the same time, the scholar can easily get the impression that they worked in two parallel philosophical universes. This paper will argue, however, that a comparative reading is nonetheless possible. Taking identity and the subject as key areas of discussion, as well as the methodology used to deal with (...) these themes, this paper will highlight the continuities between both the philosophers’ world views. A reading of their post-1980 works makes it clear that both of them, each in his respective way, can enrich a reading of the other and that, more than just being contemporaries, they share several important points in common. (shrink)

Addiction is increasingly described as a “chronic and relapsing brain disease”. The potential impact of the brain disease model on the treatment of addiction or addicted individuals’ treatment behaviour remains uncertain. We conducted a qualitative study to examine: (i) the extent to which leading Australian addiction neuroscientists and clinicians accept the brain disease view of addiction; and (ii) their views on the likely impacts of this view on addicted individuals’ beliefs and behaviour. Thirty-one Australian addiction neuroscientists and clinicians (...) (10 females and 21 males; 16 with clinical experience and 15 with no clinical experience) took part in 1 h semi-structured interviews. Most addiction neuroscientists and clinicians did not uncritically support the use of brain disease model of addiction. Most were cautious about the potential for adverse impacts on individuals’ recovery and motivation to enter treatment. While some recognised the possibility that the brain disease model of addiction may provide a rationale for addicted persons to seek treatment and motivate behaviour change, Australian addiction neuroscientist and clinicians do not assume that messages about “diseased brains” will always lead to increased treatment-seeking and reduced drug use. Research is needed on how neuroscience research could be used in ways that optimise positive outcomes for addicted persons. (shrink)

The literature on deep brain stimulation (DBS) and adaptive DBS (aDBS) raises concerns that these technologies may affect personality, mood, and behavior. We conducted semi-structured interviews with researchers (n = 23) involved in developing next-generation DBS systems, exploring their perspectives on ethics and policy topics including whether DBS/aDBS can cause such changes. The majority of researchers reported being aware of personality, mood, or behavioral (PMB) changes in recipients of DBS/aDBS. Researchers offered varying estimates of the frequency of PMB changes. A (...) smaller majority reported changes in personality specifically. Some expressed reservations about the scientific status of the term ‘personality,’ while others used it freely. Most researchers discussed negative PMB changes, but a majority said that DBS/aDBS can also result in positive changes. Several researchers viewed positive PMB changes as part of the therapeutic goal in psychiatric applications of DBS/aDBS. Finally, several discussed potential causes of PMB changes other than the device itself. (shrink)

The medical ethicist is a fairly recent addition to the clinical setting. The following four potential roles of the clinical ethicist are identified and discussed: consultant in difficult cases, educator of health care providers, counselor for health care providers and finally patient advocate to protect the interests of patients. While the various roles may sometimes overlap, the roles of educator and counselor are viewed as being more congruent with the education and training of medical ethicists than are the roles of (...) consultant and patient advocate. (shrink)

Recent advancements in developmental biology enable the creation of embryo-like structures from human stem cells, which we refer to as human embryo-like structures (hELS). These structures provide promising tools to complement—and perhaps ultimately replace—the use of human embryos in clinical and fundamental research. But what if these hELS—when further improved—also have a claim to moral status? What would that imply for their research use? In this paper, we explore these questions in relation to the traditional answer as to why human (...) embryos should be given greater protection than other (non-)human cells: the so-called Argument from Potential (AfP). According to the AfP, human embryos deserve special moral status because they have the unique potential to develop into persons. While some take the development of hELS to challenge the very foundations of the AfP, the ongoing debate suggests that its dismissal would be premature. Since the AfP is a spectrum of views with different moral implications, it does not need to imply that research with human embryos or hELS that (may) have ‘active’ potential should be completely off-limits. However, the problem with determining active potential in hELS is that this depends on development passing through ‘potentiality switches’ about the precise coordinates of which we are still in the dark. As long as this epistemic uncertainty persists, extending embryo research regulations to research with specific types of hELS would amount to a form of regulative precaution that as such would require further justification. (shrink)

Multimodal Critical Discourse Analysis (MCDA) as a sub-discipline of Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) emerged from the availability of social semiotic frameworks describing multimodal meaning making. However, weaknesses of these frameworks have raised concerns and prompted recent methodological reflections in MCDA. Inspired by these reflections, this paper critically assesses MCDA research on advertising persuasion and identifies a lack of attention in studies to account for the social and ideological impact of advertising. This shortcoming is argued to be attributable to the weak (...) empirical grounding of social semiotic frameworks which in turn is rooted in a ‘discursive gap’ (Bateman, Citation2019, p. 300) in multimodality as a discipline. The authors then propose methodological solutions involving eye tracking experiments and higher order data analytics which can strengthen the empirical basis of theoretical assumptions made in MCDA research on advertising. Drawing on methodological guidance for empirical multimodal research, the authors discuss specific issues in realizing this proposal, focusing on a strategy addressing operationalization challenges in experimental design and the affordance of a data cluster algorithm that calculates the common viewing path of a group of viewers. (shrink)

The view that the fetus' potential for human consciousness confers upon it the right to life has been widely criticised on the basis that the notion of potentiality is so vague as to be meaningless, and on the basis that actual rights cannot be deduced from the mere potential for personhood. It has also been criticised, although less commonly, on the basis that it is not the potential to assume consciousness, but rather the potential to resume consciousness which is (...) morally significant, and on the basis that the fetus does not really possess the potential for consciousness. In response, I argue that these criticisms are mistaken and that the potential for human consciousness is a sufficient condition not simply of potential, but actual, personhood. Since it possesses this potential from the moment of conception, the fetus should be considered an actual person from the moment of its conception. (shrink)

This paper will articulate and defend a novel theory of epistemic justification; I characterize my view as the thesis that justification is potential knowledge . My project is an instance of the ‘knowledge-first’ programme, championed especially by Timothy Williamson. So I begin with a brief recapitulation of that programme.

This paper attempts to signal the potential relevance of A Test of the News, written by Lippmann and Merz, for Critical Discourse Analysis. It seems that the study is overlooked by CDA’s experts as a pioneering work in press analysis. In order to demonstrate links between CDA and the research, in the first part, the work of Lippmann and Merz is situated within a wider picture of the theoretical and historical background as well as common views on politics and the (...) role of the press. Then, the reasons for the choice of the Times as a medium of research and the Russian Revolution as a topic are stated. The authors’ methodological assumptions are discussed in brief. The second part begins with an attempt to define the concept of CDA. The next section presents a theoretical framework of CDA in order to indicate that Lippmann’s and Merz’s analysis demonstrates a similar theoretical approach. Additionally, the tools used by authors are compared with those used in CDA. The parallel between the central role of the media discourse in CDA and the concern of the authors of the role of the press is also discussed. Since the active role of the reader and the hearer in constructing the meaning of the text corresponds with the views of the authors on the discrepancy between the real world and its representation, the next section is devoted to this issue. Finally, readers’ abilities, discussed by Lippmann and Merz, are viewed in relation to the significance of reader’s experiences in constructing the meaning of a text. (shrink)

In this paper I present the explanatory potential of Antoni Kępiński’s model of information metabolism in the question of data smog (data glut, information overload). Kępiński’s model is not well known and the bibliography concerning the model of information metabolism is still rather poor. In the article I present the model as a good heuristics for explaining information exchange between the system and the environment. The particular aim of my deliberations is to use the model of information metabolism to discuss (...) the pathological, although common phenomenon of data smog. This allows for a holistic view of the problem and allows for new statements on data smog, ethical consequences and counteracting the negative consequences of information overload. (shrink)

Background Informed consent is often cited as the “cornerstone” of research ethics. Its intent is that participants enter research voluntarily, with an understanding of what their participation entails. Despite agreement on the necessity to obtain informed consent in research, opinions vary on the threshold of disclosure necessary and the best method to obtain consent. We aimed to investigate Australian researchers’ views on, and their experiences with, obtaining informed consent. Methods Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 23 researchers from NSW institutions, working (...) in various fields of research. Interviews were analysed and coded to identify themes. Results Researchers reported that consent involved information disclosure, understanding and a voluntary decision. They emphasised the variability of consent interactions, which were dependent on potential participants’ abilities and interests, study complexity and context. All researchers reported providing written information to potential participants, yet questioned the readability and utility of this information. The majority reported using signed consent forms to ‘operationalise’ consent and reported little awareness of, and lack of support in implementing more dynamic informed consent procedures, such as verbal informed consent, that was fit for the purposes of their studies. Views on Human Research Ethics Committees varied. Some reported inconsistent, arduous inputs on the information form and consent process. Others expressed reliance on HRECs for guidance, viewing them as institutional safeguards. Conclusions This study highlights the importance of transparent relationships, both between researchers and participants, and between researchers and HRECs. Where the relationship with study participants was reported as more robust, researchers felt that they were better able to ensure participants made better, more informed decisions. Where the relationship with HRECs was reported as more robust, researchers were more likely to view them as institutional safeguards, rather than as bureaucratic hindrances. Conscientious and mindful researchers are paramount to ensuring the procedure accommodates individual requirements. This study advocates that when designing ethical informed consent practices, researchers should be integrated as autonomous players with a positive input on the process, rather than, in the worst case, predatory recruiters to be curtailed by information forms and oversight. (shrink)

It is no coincidence that the relationship between Paul Ricoeur and Michel Foucault has been principally discussed in research carried out by specialists in one of these two thinkers. Although active at the same time, the scholar can easily get the impression that they worked in two parallel philosophical universes. This paper will argue, however, that a comparative reading is nonetheless possible. Taking identity and the subject as key areas of discussion, as well as the methodology used to deal with (...) these themes, this paper will highlight the continuities between both the philosophers’ world views. A reading of their post-1980 works makes it clear that both of them, each in his respective way, can enrich a reading of the other and that, more than just being contemporaries, they share several important points in common. (shrink)

Sports occupy an interesting ethical space from a pedagogic point of view, being included in physical education curricula in most Western countries. The approach of physical education to sports as vehicle for ethical education is too limited when it is restricted to their minimal functional, constitutive and regulatory goals. This essay’s aim is to argue the extent to which the ethical potential of physical education can embrace more than functional purposes, or whether that will be neglected in terms of (...) limited educational aspirations. We present data from nineteen exploratory interviews with experienced philosophy, sports and physical education researchers and teachers, from six different nations, concerning the ethical potentiality of physical education. We highlight five ethical themes: (i) the regulatory and normative structure of sports; (ii) the spirit of sports and its internal values; (iii) the right playing/doing of sports; (iv) the overcoming in sports; and (v) sports as an opportunity for a supererogatory ethics as fertile ground for future operationalization of the potential of physical education for ethical education through sports.El deporte ocupa un interesante espacio ético desde un punto de vista pedagógico, integrándose en los curricula de educación física en la mayoría de países occidentales. El planteamiento de la educación física como vehículo de la educación ética es limitado cuando restringido a sus objetivos mínimos funcionales, constitutivos y regulatorios. El objetivo de este estudio es discutir si el potencial ético de la educación física puede ir más allá de los propósitos funcionales, que considerados aisladamente constituyen un desperdicio de la experiencia pedagógica del deporte. Para conseguirlo, presentamos datos de diecinueve entrevistas exploratorias con experimentados investigadores y profesores de filosofía, deporte y educación física relacionadas con las potencialidades éticas de la educación física. La muestra incluye individuos de seis diferentes nacionalidades, cuyo trabajo demuestra preocupaciones con el tema. La argumentación resulta de cinco temáticas principales: (i) Estructura normativa y regulativa del deporte; (ii) El espírito del deporte y sus valores internos; (iii) El bien hacer deportivo; (iv) La superación deportiva; (v) El deporte como oportunidad de una ética supererogatoria como contexto fértil para la concretización del potencial ético de una educación deportiva. (shrink)