The focus of this article is the analysis of generative mechanisms, a basic concept and phenomenon within the metatheoretical perspective of critical realism. It is emphasized that research questions and methods, as well as the knowledge it is possible to attain, depend on the basic view – ontologically and epistemologically – regarding the phenomenon under scrutiny. A generative mechanism is described as a trans empirical but real existing entity, explaining why observable events occur. Mechanisms are mostly possible to grasp only (...) indirectly by analytical work, based however on empirical observations. In order to achieve such an explanatory analysis, five methodological steps are suggested and discussed, among them abduction and retroduction. These steps are illustrated throughout by examples drawn from empirical research regarding social work practice. The article is concluded with a discussion of the need for knowledge of generative mechanisms. (shrink)

The aim of the present study was to describe variations in patient participation in decisions about care planning during the final phase of life for a group of gravely ill patients, and how the different actors’ manner of acting promotes or impedes patient participation. Thirty-seven qualitative research interviews were conducted with relatives of the patients. The patients’ participation in the decisions could be categorized into four variations: self-determination, co-determination, delegation and nonparticipation. The manner in which patients, relatives and caregivers acted (...) differed in the respective variations; this seemed either to promote or to impede the patients’ opportunities of participating in the decision making. The possibility for participation seems to be context dependent and affected by many factors such as the dying patient’s personality, the social network, the availability of different forms of care, cultural values, and the extent to which nurses and other caregivers of the different forms of care can and want to support the wishes of the patients and relatives in the decision-making process. (shrink)

Food security is becoming an increasingly relevant topic in the Global North, especially in urban areas. Because such areas do not always have good access to nutritionally adequate food, the question of how to supply them is an urgent priority in order to maintain a healthy population. Urban and peri-urban agriculture, as sources of local fresh food, could play an important role. Whereas some scholars do not differentiate between peri-urban and urban agriculture, seeing them as a single entity, our hypothesis (...) is that they are distinct, and that this has important consequences for food security and other issues. This has knock-on effects for food system planning and has not yet been appropriately analysed. The objectives of this study are to provide a systematic understanding of urban and peri-urban agriculture in the Global North, showing their similarities and differences, and to analyse their impact on urban food security. To this end, an extensive literature review was conducted, resulting in the identification and comparison of their spatial, ecological and socio-economic characteristics. The findings are discussed in terms of their impact on food security in relation to the four levels of the food system: food production, processing, distribution and consumption. The results show that urban and peri-urban agriculture in the Global North indeed differ in most of their characteristics and consequently also in their ability to meet the food needs of urban inhabitants. While urban agriculture still meets food needs mainly at the household level, peri-urban agriculture can provide larger quantities and has broader distribution pathways, giving it a separate status in terms of food security. Nevertheless, both possess potential, making them valuable for urban food planning, and both face similar threats regarding urbanisation pressures, necessitating adequate planning measures. (shrink)

The aim of the present study was to describe variations in patient participation in decisions about care planning during the final phase of life for a group of gravely ill patients, and how the different actors’ manner of acting promotes or impedes patient participation. Thirty-seven qualitative research interviews were conducted with relatives of the patients. The patients’ participation in the decisions could be categorized into four variations: self-determination, co-determination, delegation and nonparticipation. The manner in which patients, relatives and caregivers acted (...) differed in the respective variations; this seemed either to promote or to impede the patients’ opportunities of participating in the decision making. The possibility for participation seems to be context dependent and affected by many factors such as the dying patient’s personality, the social network, the availability of different forms of care, cultural values, and the extent to which nurses and other caregivers of the different forms of care can and want to support the wishes of the patients and relatives in the decision-making process. (shrink)

GPs usually care for their patients for an extended period of time, therefore, requests to not only discontinue a patient’s treatment but to assist a patient in a suicide are likely to create intensely stressful situations for physicians. However, in order to ensure the best patient care possible, the competent communication about the option of physician assisted suicide as well as the assessment of the origin and sincerity of the request are very important. This is especially true, since patients’ requests (...) for PAS can also be an indicator for unmet needs or concerns. Twenty-three qualitative semi-structured interviews were conducted to in-depth explore this multifaceted, complex topic while enabling GPs to express possible difficulties when being asked for assistance. The analysis of the gathered data shows three main themes why GPs may find it difficult to professionally communicate about PAS: concerns for their own psychological well-being, conflicting personal values or their understanding of their professional role. In the discussion part of this paper we re-assess these different themes in order to ethically discuss and analyse how potential barriers to professional communication concerning PAS could be overcome. (shrink)

Absolute and relative outcome measures measure a treatment’s effect size, purporting to inform treatment choices. I argue that absolute measures are at least as good as, if not better than, relative ones for informing rational decisions across choice scenarios. Specifically, this dominance of absolute measures holds for choices between a treatment and a control group treatment from a trial and for ones between treatments tested in different trials. This distinction has hitherto been neglected, just like the role of absolute and (...) baseline risks in rational decision-making that my analysis reveals. Recognizing both aspects advances the discussion on reporting outcome measures. (shrink)

During the last twenty years, Kant's theory of biology has increasingly attracted the attention of scholars and developed into a field which is growing rapidly in importance within Kant studies. The volume presents fifteen interpretative essays written by experts working in the field, covering topics from seventeenth- and eighteenth-century biological theories, the development of the philosophy of biology in Kant's writings, the theory of organisms in Kant's Critique of the Power of Judgment, and current perspectives on the teleology of nature.

Unintended negative outcomes on child behavior due to lockdown and home confinement following the corona virus disease pandemic needs highlighting to effectively address these issues in the current and future health crises. In this sub-study of the ODIN-study, the objectives were to determine whether the Danish lockdown and home confinement following the COVID-19 pandemic affected changes in emotional-behavioral functioning of pre-school-aged children using the validated Strength and Difficulties Questionnaire answered by parents shortly before lockdown and 3 weeks into lockdown, and (...) moreover, to examine whether baseline family and social characteristics could predict change in child emotional-behavioral functioning during lockdown. Parents of 40 children with a mean age of 5.0 completed the baseline questionnaire and the lockdown follow-up questionnaire. The SDQ-Total difficulties score and Prosocial Behavioral score changed significantly from pre- to lockdown [SDQ-TD mean: 6.0 and 7.9; P = 0.02, respectively and PSB mean: 8.5 and 7.9; P = 0.03, respectively]. Attending leisure time activities before lockdown was a predicting factor of changes to the worse in the children’s SDQ-TD scores, with a mean difference in SDQ-TD between those with and without activities of 3.16 ; P = 0.03. In conclusion, the study showed a modest decrease in child-emotional behavioral functioning during the COVID-19 lockdown, potentially due to parental stress. Although these results might not be generalizable due to small sample size and selected population, the results point to a need of a greater awareness of child mental wellbeing during a lockdown situation. (shrink)

The aim of the present study was to investigate the association between work-related moral stress, moral climate and moral sensitivity in mental health nursing. By means of the three scales Hospital Ethical Climate Survey, Moral Sensitivity Questionnaire and Work-Related Moral Stress, 49 participants’ experiences were assessed. The results of linear regression analysis indicated that moral stress was determined to a degree by the work place’s moral climate as well as by two aspects of the mental health staff’s moral sensitivity. The (...) nurses’ experience of ‘moral burden’ or ‘moral support’ increased or decreased their experience of moral stress. Their work-related moral stress was determined by the job-associated moral climate and two aspects of moral sensitivity. Our findings showed an association between three concepts: moral sensitivity, moral climate and moral stress. Despite being a small study, the findings seem relevant for future research leading to theory development and conceptual clarity. We suggest that more attention be given to methodological issues and developing designs that allow for comparative research in other disciplines, as well as in-depth knowledge of moral agency. Copyright © 2011 by SAGE Publications. (shrink)

This article considers the sexual politics of animal evidence in the context of German sexology around 1920. In the 1910s, the German-Jewish geneticist Richard B. Goldschmidt conducted experiments on the moth Lymantria dispar, and discovered individuals that were no longer clearly identifiable as male or female. When he published an article tentatively arguing that his research on ‘intersex butterflies’ could be used to inform concurrent debates about human homosexuality, he triggered a flurry of responses from Berlin-based sexologists. In this article, (...) I examine how a number of well-known sexologists affiliated with Magnus Hirschfeld, his Scientific-Humanitarian Committee, and later his Institute of Sexology attempted to incorporate Goldschmidt’s experiments into their sexological work between 1917 and 1923. Intersex butterflies were used to discuss issues at the heart of German sexology: the legal debate about the criminalisation of homosexuality under paragraph 175; the scientific methodology of sexology, caught between psychiatric, biological, and sociological approaches to the study of sexual and gender diversity; and the status of sexology as natural science, able to contribute knowledge about the sexual Konstitution of the organism. This article thus shows that butterfly experiments function as important and politically charged evidence for a discussion at the heart of the sexological project of those involved in the founding of the Institute of Sexology: the question of the nature and naturalness of homosexuality and its political consequences. In doing so, this article makes a case for paying attention to non-human actors in the history of sexology. (shrink)

Perfect adaptation in a dynamical system is the phenomenon that one or more variables have an initial transient response to a persistent change in an external stimulus but revert to their original value as the system converges to equilibrium. With the help of the causal ordering algorithm, one can construct graphical representations of dynamical systems that represent the causal relations between the variables and the conditional independences in the equilibrium distribution. We apply these tools to formulate sufficient graphical conditions for (...) identifying perfect adaptation from a set of first-order differential equations. Furthermore, we give sufficient conditions to test for the presence of perfect adaptation in experimental equilibrium data. We apply this method to a simple model for a protein signalling pathway and test its predictions in both simulations and using real-world protein expression data. We demonstrate that perfect adaptation can lead to misleading orientation of edges in the output of causal discovery algorithms. (shrink)

Background:More and more adults in their fifties and sixties are confronted with the need to support their ageing parents. Although many aspects of filial caregiving have been researched, a well-documented and comprehensive overview of the caregiving experience is lacking.Aim:This study aims for a better understanding of the caregiving experience of adult children by generating an overview of main themes in international research.Method:A literature review of qualitative studies, focusing on the experiences of adult children caring for their ageing parents, was performed. (...) The electronic EBSCO databases Academic Search Premier, CINAHL and PsycINFO, and Google Scholar were searched to identify relevant qualitative studies published between 2000 and 2017. The ‘SPIDER’ eligibility criteria directed the approach. The quality of studies included was screened with the assessment sheet designed by Hawker and colleagues. The experiences reported were analysed and themes were synthesized.Ethical consideration:Ethical requirements were respected in every phase of the research process.Findings:Nineteen qualitative studies met the inclusion criteria. The quality of the relationship with the parent appears to be an important determinant of the children’s caregiving experience. Within this context, three themes were found: caregiving as an emotional rollercoaster, a normatively demanding experience and an opportunity for personal development.Discussion:Children caring for their ageing parents have to deal with a wide range of contradicting and conflicting norms and values. Implications for healthcare professionals and future research have been discussed.Conclusion:Caring for ageing parents is a continuous quest for giving the best possible care and living up to one’s personal values, within the context of the parent’s declining health. Professionals who support filial caregivers should address not only practical responsibilities but also the normative questions and moral considerations caregivers are dealing with. (shrink)

Advance directives are written documents that give patients the opportunity to communicate their preferences regarding treatments they do or do not want to receive in case they become unable to make decisions. Commonly used pre-printed forms have different formats. Some offer space for patients to appoint a surrogate decision maker, and/or to determine future medical treatments and/or give a statement of personal values. So far it is unknown which forms GPs preferably use and why they decide to do so. 23 (...) semi-structured interviews with GPs were analysed using content analysis. Interviewees mainly use short templates and medium length templates with checkboxes to indicate patients’ preferences in regards to life prolonging measures. Especially when patients faced the progression of a disease, participants use the latter version. Only then, the interviewees remarked, patients are capable to rate concrete situations reliably. GPs also realize the importance of the verbal assessment of patients’ preferences; however they rarely keep a written form of the conversation. Some GPs hand out one or more templates and ask their patients to read and think about them at home with the option to talk to them about it later on, while others prefer their patients to fill them out alone at home. Regardless of template usage, most GPs emphasize that ADs require regular updates. GPs tend to see standardized advance directives mainly as a tool to start a conversation with their patients and to identify their real preferences and values. When the patient is still not facing the progression of an already existing disease it could be sufficient to only appoint a surrogate decision maker instead of creating a full AD. However, in all other situations, appointing a surrogate decision maker should be backed up by a written statement of a patient’s general values. Patients and their relatives should always have the opportunity to ask their GP for medical advice when drafting an AD. It is crucial to regularly verify and update existing ADs within the course of a disease. (shrink)

The human being as a constituted objectivity is a fragile ‘figure’ who lives in through their individual and shared experience. As a constituted objectivity, it influences our experiences, actions and the constitution of our community. Nevertheless, it appears to us, who actually constitute it, as a completely independent and immutable object, as a mere fact our experience has to comply with, and as a normative representation of the human being. This paper inquires - from a phenomenological point of view - (...) about the structure that underlies the norm at work in our experience, as well as in the high- and low-level dimensions of the intersubjective community. Indirectly, such a structure can be identified through the connection between Husserl’s understanding of normality and objectivity. My claim is that normativity can be understood as a necessary function and thus can be distinguished from objectivity and normality. Normativity appears, therefore, as a function of objectivity, which allows one to distinguish the latter from normality. As such, normativity should not be confused with an active agreement or regulation, but rather identified as a necessary constitutive structure arising from experiential intersubjective sense-borrowing performance. At the same time, due to its connection to objectivity, normativity also appears to strongly influence the social production of validity, therefore being endorsed by institutions. (shrink)

Over the last few years, the idea that we live in a globalized world has significantly gained ground. Across various disciplines, this had led to severe critiques not only of methodological nationalism, but also of methodological Eurocentrism. But what does it mean to leave Eurocentrism behind? What kind of theorizing can and should we engage in when we attempt to provincialize, decenter, or even decolonize our thinking? This article distinguishes, presents, and critically discusses four trajectories beyond Eurocentrism in political and (...) social theory: enlarging the canon, inter-contextual dialogue, taking the impacts of European colonialism and imperialism into account, as well as shifts in theoretical agenda setting. It argues that if political and social theory truly attempts to transcend methodological Eurocentrism, it must not only bring in non-Western thought, but must also critically address both discursive and institutional aspects of global power relations. (shrink)

Ein textnaher, fortlaufender Kommentar zu Kants Lehre von organisierten Wesen in der „Kritik der Urteilskraft“ ist ein Desiderat sowohl der Kantforschung als auch der Philosophie und Geschichte der Lebenswissenschaften. Auch gibt es bisher nur wenige Lesarten, die Kants Philosophie der Biologie im Ganzen erschließen und versuchen, sie in die vielschichtigen historischen Kontexte der frühneuzeitlichen Naturforschung einzuordnen. Das vorliegende Buch schließt diese Lücken. Es verteidigt die Thesen, dass Kant organisierte Wesen durch drei Arten von Kräften und Gesetzen charakterisiert – durch mechanische, (...) physisch teleologische und moralteleologische Krätfe und Gesetze – deren Vereinbarkeit im Bewusstsein des Menschen, und in der Erfahrungswelt, so, wie sie dem Menschen erscheint, auf der regulativen Idee ihrer Einheit im schöpferischen, theoretisch praktischen Bewusstsein Gottes beruht. Kants Lehre von organisierten Wesen kann als Verbindung einer gemäßigten, weder animalkulistisch noch ovistisch vereinseitigten, Präformationslehre mit einer vitalistischen Spielart der Epigenesislehre verstanden werden. – Weiterführende und provokative Einsichten für eine der bewegtesten Debatten der gegenwärtigen Kantforschung. (shrink)

Articles on different religious philosophies of pre-colonial Bengal, India.

In this paper, I investigate the relation of Kant's theory of biology to epigenetic accounts of organic generation and development. In the literature, a dispute about similarities between Blumenbach's epigenetic account and Kant dominated the debate for many years (see Lenoir 1980, 1981, and 1982, 17–34, Richards 2000; 2002, 207–37; Look 2006, and van den Berg 2009). Some more recent interpreters claim that Wolff's, more than Blumenbach's account plays the pivotal role in the development of a vitalistic conception of epigenesis (...) in Kant (see Dupont 2007 and Huneman 2007). Although I myself hold the view that Kant's position contains preformistic and epigenetic characteristics, in the current paper I focus solely on an investigation of epigenetic elements in Kant's account and compare them to the corresponding epigenetic elements in Wolff's theory. Section I of the paper is devoted to an analysis of Wolff's most important epigenetic theorems: the notion of the essential power (vis essentialis) and the conception of the part-whole composition of organized matter. Although Wolff describes the essential power vitalisticly, as a principle of life, he understands it as the cause of mechanical motions explaining the generation, nourishment, and the growth of an organism. Wolff's model of the part-whole composition of organic matter is subtle, but committed to fundamental mechanistic assumptions, such as that the organism as a whole is composed of inorganic parts. In section II, I analyze the corresponding elements in Kant's theory: the notion of the formative power and the conception of the whole-part composition of organized materials. Kant describes the formative power as a principle that causes the purposive form of an organized being such that matter and mechanism are the means to the purpose of the being as their end. The purpose of the whole is a functional unit which is in principle superior to the form and matter of the subordinate parts. The parts are combined into such a whole in being mutually cause and effect of each other and in being related to the superior whole. In section III, I respond to the debate in the literature. Against Dupont (2007) and Huneman (2007) I argue that, according to Wolff, the vis essentialis accounts for mechanic effects in matter, whereas, according to Kant, the formative power explains the intentional order (form, end, purpose) of an individual organized being, its parts, and its species. Since this view is closer to Blumenbach than to Wolff, the ongoing comparison between Kant and Blumenbach in the literature is justified. However, the emphasis on the specific part-whole composition that Kant considers to be the determining feature of an organized being can be found only in Wolff and not in Blumenbach—though Wolff and Kant describe it in opposing ways. This increases the systematic importance of Wolff for Kant. Thus, a fresh look on the historical debate is required. (shrink)

The permanent preservation of objects in global custodianship is a captivating ideal that informs countless museums’ corporate identities and governs collection guidelines as well as politics. Recent research has challenged the alleged perpetuity of collections and collected items, revealing their coherence as fragile and dependent on historically, politically and culturally specific conditions. Duplicates offer an instructive point of entry to explore the idea of collection permanence, museum politics, and the mobility of museum objects. The history of duplicates, moreover, comprises a (...) constellation of practises, concepts and debates that can be found in various forms throughout the intertwined histories of natural-scientific, ethnographic and artistic collections. This history, however, has rarely been questioned or explored. By introducing the issue of duplicates, this paper opens up a discussion that not only connects different forms of collections, but also situates the history of collecting institutions across the disciplinary spectrum within broader political, economic and epistemic frameworks. (shrink)

A commentary on Sections XII–XVI of the “Introduction to the Doctrine of Virtue”.

This chapter examines Kant's account of the nature of nonhuman and human animals in the "Critique of the Power of Judgement". It discusses how Kant thought that a complete account of the forms of explanation commit one to belief in God. It concludes, firstly, that Kant's account implies an unhealthy anthropocentrism and an Enlightenment prejudice in the form of the overestimation of reason, and secondly, that the Kantian model of God lacks one of the main characteristics of the Christian conception (...) of God: the universal divine love, a power that unifies and embraces all beings, including nonhuman and human animals and their orders. (shrink)