The properties of DNA -- DNA as universal property -- DNA as intellectual property -- DNA as national property -- DNA as personal property -- DNA as academic property -- DNA as taxable propety.

Access to detailed, up-to-date and available bioinformatics databases has been identified by the Commission of the European Union as a pillar for the harvesting of the potential of life-sciences and biotechnology. Unconditional access to research data, however, is squarely at odds with the primary interest of every scientist to be the first to make a discovery. This classical dilemma is specifically pressing in the data-driven field of biomedical research, where data-quantity has become a quality on its own, where speed matters (...) and patients can't wait. The dilemma urges a consideration of the principle, the practice and the law regarding access for academic researchers to unpublished research data. The consideration will include the presentation of the outcome of a global and a national survey among biomedical researchers on the accessibility of 'their' research data. The principled arguments pro unconditional access and the laws and practical considerations contra unconditional access offer conflicting perspectives and the resulting situation is compounded by the uncertainty created by the European database-right as to who holds legal title to the databases. Therefore, it is explored whether the two opposing concerns - unconditional access vs. legitimate restrictions - can be accommodated by the adoption and implementation of a general policy for access to biomedical data that greases the wheels of (European) research. (shrink)

The advent of personal genomics companies offering direct translation of scientific data into personal health information, calls into question traditional policies to refuse disclosure of such scientific data to research participants. This seems especially true for population biobanks, as they collect not only genotype information but also associated phenotype information, and thus may be in a unique position to translate their scientific findings into personal health information for their participants. Disclosure of such information seems mandated by the expectations raised by (...) biobanks ('to help bring about the era of personalized medicine') and their participants' rights to know health information, to know clinical research results, to life and health and particularly their right to benefit. Refusals to disclose such information can be grounded in the lack of analytical validity and/or clinical utility of most findings, the need to avoid the therapeutic misconception, the complexity and costs involved in translation and disclosure and the disproportionate burden resulting from the obligation to respect participants' right not to know before any disclosure can be made. Currently, any demands by participants in population biobanks for full disclosure of all pertinent personal health information potentially resulting from the biobank's scientific findings are unlikely to be granted by a Dutch court under Dutch and international law. As the law stands now, a population biobank is neither a doctor nor a personal genomics company. However, in view of the rapid scientific, medical, technological, commercial and social developments, population biobanks must prepare to take more care of their participants' legitimate interest in receiving as much validated personal health information as reasonably possible, in a timely fashion, by developing appropriate translation and disclosure mechanisms. This paper examines whether population biobank participants have the right, under Dutch civil law and international law, to full disclosure, i.e. to all information generated by the biobank that is pertinent to their present and future health. It pioneers the format of a hypothetical court case to elucidate the legal and policy arguments" for and against full disclosure. (shrink)

ABSTRACTMemory bias is a risk factor for depression. In two independent studies, the efficacy of one CBM-Memory session on negative memory bias and depressive symptoms was tested in vulnerable samples. We compared positive to neutral CBM-Memory trainings in highly-ruminating individuals and individuals with elevated depressive symptoms. In both studies, participants studied positive, neutral, and negative Swahili words paired with their translations. In five study–test blocks, they were then prompted to retrieve either only the positive or neutral translations. Immediately following the (...) training and one week later, we tested cued recall of all translations and autobiographical memory bias; and also measured mood, depressive symptoms, and rumination. Retrieval practice resulted in training-congruent recall both immediately after and one week after the training. Overall, there was no differential decrease in symptoms or difference in autobiographical memory bias between the tra... (shrink)

In this paper, we provide a state-of-the-art overview of the ethical challenges that arise in the context of antimicrobial resistance, which includes an introduction to the contributions to the symposium in this issue. We begin by discussing why AMR is a distinct ethical issue, and should not be viewed purely as a technical or medical problem. In the second section, we expand on some of these arguments and argue that AMR presents us with a broad range of ethical problems that (...) must be addressed as part of a successful policy response to emerging drug resistance. In the third section, we discuss how some of these ethical challenges should be addressed, and we argue that this requires contributions from citizens, ethicists, policy makers, practitioners and industry. We conclude with an overview of steps that should be taken in moving forward and addressing the ethical problems of AMR. (shrink)

The problem of antimicrobial resistance is so dire that people are predicting that the era of antibiotics may be coming to an end, ushering in a ‘post-antibiotic’ era. A comprehensive policy response is therefore urgently needed. A part of this response will require framing the problem in such a way that adequately reflects its nature as well as encompassing an approach that has the best prospect of success. This paper considers framing the problem as a slowly emerging disaster, including its (...) potential benefits and difficulties, from a conceptual and policy perspective. (shrink)

This essay is an attempt to look at economics from a Christian perspective in this time of crisis. This exploration is of great personal interest to me because I am a Christian and an economist. During my entire adult life, I have been trying to connect these two parts of who I am: my Christian faith and my vocation in economics. In the beginning of my career I focused more on the dialectic tension between economics and faith. As I have (...) grown older I have moved more towards a synthesis of economics and faith. (shrink)

As conceptual and theoretical discussions on environmental valuation approaches have advanced there is growing interest in the impact that valuation has on decision making. The perceived legitimacy of the outputs of valuation studies is seen as one factor influencing their impact on policy decisions. One element of this is ensuring that participants of valuation processes see the results as legitimate and would be willing to accept decisions based on these findings. Here, we test the perceived legitimacy to participants of two (...) approaches to deliberative monetary valuation, deliberated preferences and Deliberative Democratic Monetary Valuation, in the context of marine planning in the Clyde estuary in Scotland. We compare and contrast deliberated preference and deliberative democratic monetary valuation and track their emergence as responses to critiques of conventional stated preference approaches. We then present the results of our case study where we found that deliberative democratic monetary valuation produced valuations that were perceived as more legitimate that deliberated preference as the basis for decision making by those involved in the valuation process. (shrink)

In the ´Introduction´ to "The Great Philosophers" Karl Jaspers explores the criteria for recognizing human greatness in general and in philosphers in particular. He comments on the historical process related to the selection and grouping of great philosophers. Jaspers acknowledges the questionable aspect of greatness, yet he affirms that such distinction is indispensable. The 1957 English translation by Ralph Mannheim and Hannah Arendt of Jaspers' Die Grossen Philosophen and all its subsequent editions did not include this Introduction. The translation offered (...) here redresses this omission and is the first ever published English translation of Jaspers' extended Introduction. (shrink)

The advent of personal genomics companies offering direct translation of scientific data into personal health information, calls into question traditional policies to refuse disclosure of such scientific data to research participants. This seems especially true for population biobanks, as they collect not only genotype information but also associated phenotype information, and thus may be in a unique position to translate their scientific findings into personal health information for their participants. Disclosure of such information seems mandated by the expectations raised by (...) biobanks and their participants' rights to know health information, to know clinical research results, to life and health and particularly their right to benefit. Refusals to disclose such information can be grounded in the lack of analytical validity and/or clinical utility of most findings, the need to avoid the therapeutic misconception, the complexity and costs involved in translation and disclosure and the disproportionate burden resulting from the obligation to respect participants' right not to know before any disclosure can be made. Currently, any demands by participants in population biobanks for full disclosure of all pertinent personal health information potentially resulting from the biobank's scientific findings are unlikely to be granted by a Dutch court under Dutch and international law. As the law stands now, a population biobank is neither a doctor nor a personal genomics company. However, in view of the rapid scientific, medical, technological, commercial and social developments, population biobanks must prepare to take more care of their participants' legitimate interest in receiving as much validated personal health information as reasonably possible, in a timely fashion, by developing appropriate translation and disclosure mechanisms. This paper examines whether population biobank participants have the right, under Dutch civil law and international law, to full disclosure, i.e. to all information generated by the biobank that is pertinent to their present and future health. It pioneers the format of a hypothetical court case to elucidate the legal and policy arguments" for and against full disclosure. (shrink)

Karl Jaspers (1883-1969)--"founder of German existentialism" (Martin Heidegger) and "a lucid and flexible intelligence in the service of a genuine and ...

BACKGROUND: Delusions in schizophrenia are commonly approached as empirical false beliefs about everyday reality. Phenomenological accounts, by contrast, have suggested that delusions are more adequately understood as pertaining to a different kind of reality experience. How this alteration of reality experience should be characterised, which dimensions of experiential life are involved, and whether delusional reality might differ from standard reality in various ways is unclear and little is known about how patients with delusions value and relate to these experiential alterations. (...) This study aimed to investigate the nature of delusional reality experience, and its subjective apprehension, in individuals with lived experience of delusions and a schizophrenia-spectrum diagnosis. METHODS: In this qualitative phenomenological study, we recruited individuals with lived experience of delusions and a schizophrenia-spectrum diagnosis from two psychiatric-hospital services in Belgium using homogenous sampling. Criteria for participation were having undergone at least one psychotic episode with occurring delusional symptoms, present at least 1 year before participation, on the basis of clinical notes assessed by the attending psychiatrist; a schizophrenia-spectrum diagnosis, ascertained through clinical interview by the attending psychiatrist upon admission; being aged between 18 years and 65 years; and having the capacity to give informed consent. Exclusion criteria included worries concerning capacity to consent and risk of distress caused by participation. We did phenomenologically driven semi-structured interviews with the participants to explore the nature of delusional reality experience and their subjective valuation of these experiences. We used interpretative phenomenological analysis, a qualitative method tailored to the in-depth exploration of participants’ first-person perspective, to analyse their accounts. FINDINGS: Between March 2, 2020, and Sept 30, 2020, 18 adults participated in the interview study. The findings suggest that delusions are often embedded in wide-ranging alterations of basic reality experience, involving quasi-ineffable atmospheric and ontological qualities that undermine participants’ sense of the world as unambiguously real, fully present, and shared with others. We also found that delusional reality experience can differ from standard reality in various ways, across multiple dimensions, and that participants are often implicitly or explicitly aware of the distinction between delusional and standard reality. Delusional experience can have an enduring value and meaning that is not fully captured by a strictly medical perspective. INTERPRETATION: Increased awareness and recognition of the distinctive nature of delusional reality experience, in both clinical and research settings, can improve diagnostic accuracy, explanatory models, and therapeutic support for individuals with delusions whose lived realities are not always evident from an everyday perspective. FUNDING: FWO Flanders. TRANSLATION: For the Dutch translation of the abstract see Supplementary Materials section. (shrink)

Amsterdam University Press is a leading publisher of academic books, journals and textbooks in the Humanities and Social Sciences. Our aim is to make current research available to scholars, students, innovators, and the general public. AUP stands for scholarly excellence, global presence, and engagement with the international academic community.

This paper concludes a special feature of Sustainability Science that explores a broad range of social value theoretical traditions, such as religious studies, social psychology, indigenous knowledge, economics, sociology, and philosophy. We introduce a novel transdisciplinary conceptual framework that revolves around concepts of 'lenses' and 'tensions' to help navigate value diversity. First, we consider the notion of lenses: perspectives on value and valuation along diverse dimensions that describe what values focus on, how their sociality is envisioned, and what epistemic and (...) procedural assumptions are made. We characterise fourteen of such dimensions. This provides a foundation for exploration of seven areas of tension, between: (1) the values of individuals vs collectives; (2) values as discrete and held vs embedded and constructed; (3) value as static or changeable; (4) valuation as descriptive vs normative and transformative; (5) social vs relational values; (6) different rationalities and their relation to value integration; (7) degrees of acknowledgment of the role of power in navigating value conflicts. In doing so, we embrace the 'mess' of diversity, yet also provide a framework to organise this mess and support and encourage active transdisciplinary collaboration. We identify key research areas where such collaborations can be harnessed for sustainability transformation. Here it is crucial to understand how certain social value lenses are privileged over others and build capacity in decision-making for understanding and drawing on multiple value, epistemic and procedural lenses. (shrink)

This paper concludes a special feature of Sustainability Science that explores a broad range of social value theoretical traditions, such as religious studies, social psychology, indigenous knowledge, economics, sociology, and philosophy. We introduce a novel transdisciplinary conceptual framework that revolves around concepts of ‘lenses’ and ‘tensions’ to help navigate value diversity. First, we consider the notion of lenses: perspectives on value and valuation along diverse dimensions that describe what values focus on, how their sociality is envisioned, and what epistemic and (...) procedural assumptions are made. We characterise fourteen of such dimensions. This provides a foundation for exploration of seven areas of tension, between: (1) the values of individuals vs collectives; (2) values as discrete and held vs embedded and constructed; (3) value as static or changeable; (4) valuation as descriptive vs normative and transformative; (5) social vs relational values; (6) different rationalities and their relation to value integration; (7) degrees of acknowledgment of the role of power in navigating value conflicts. In doing so, we embrace the ‘mess’ of diversity, yet also provide a framework to organise this mess and support and encourage active transdisciplinary collaboration. We identify key research areas where such collaborations can be harnessed for sustainability transformation. Here it is crucial to understand how certain social value lenses are privileged over others and build capacity in decision-making for understanding and drawing on multiple value, epistemic and procedural lenses. (shrink)

The intent of Jaspers' philosophizing then is simply to recall us to our authentic situation. This recall is not itself a doctrine; it is only the stimulus to an inward action each must perform for himself in communication with others. Jaspers' Existenz-philosophy is thus an attempt to consider and enact human honesty; it is philosophy, not as wisdom, but as the love of wisdom.

: The Cartesians have often been read as if they denied spatial presence to incorporeal substances, reserving it for extended things alone. This article explores whether this common interpretation is accurate, examining the cases of both created minds and the divine substance of God Himself. Through scrutiny of the relevant texts of both Descartes himself and his followers, it demonstrates that, in the divine case, this common interpretation is incorrect, and that the Cartesians did believe that God’s own substance really (...) was omnipresent in a literal sense. In the case of created minds, by contrast, the article suggests that the standard reading is probably correct after all, and that these substances were indeed excluded from the spatial world: but it also suggests that, in the hands of at least some of the Cartesians, this position caused certain philosophical tensions and potential inconsistencies within their systems. (shrink)

Many ethical concerns have been voiced about Clinical Decision Support Systems (CDSSs). Special attention has been paid to the effect of CDSSs on autonomy, responsibility, fairness and transparency. This journal has featured a discussion between Rosalind McDougall and Ezio Di Nucci that focused on the impact of IBM’s Watson for Oncology (Watson) on autonomy. The present article elaborates on this discussion in three ways. First, using Jonathan Pugh’s account of rational autonomy we show that how Watson presents its results might (...) impact decisional autonomy, while how Watson produces knowledge might affect practical autonomy. Second, by drawing an analogy with patient decision aids we identify an empirical way of estimating Watson’s impact on autonomy (ie, value-congruence). Lastly, McDougall introduced the notion of value-flexible design as a way to account for the diverging preferences patients hold. We will clarify its relation with the established domain of value-sensitive design. In terms of the tripartite methodology of value-sensitive design, we offer aconceptualclarification using Pugh’s account of rational autonomy, anempiricaltool to evaluate Watson’s impact on autonomy and situate a group oftechnicaloptions to incorporate autonomy in Watson’s design. (shrink)

Although there is much discussion exploring the potential causes of plagiarism, there is limited research available which provides evidence as to the academic interventions which may help reduce this. This paper discusses a bespoke English for Academic Purposes programme introduced at the university level, aimed at improving the academic writing standards of students, reducing plagiarism, and detecting cases of contract cheating. Results from 12 semesters of academic misconduct data demonstrate a 37.01% reduction in instances of detected plagiarism following the intervention, (...) but due to limited data, cannot demonstrate a direct impact on reducing detected rates of contract cheating. The results also show a lower than expected proportion of plagiarised assignments among submissions. (shrink)

In a 1978 lecture in Tokyo, Foucault drew a comparison between his own philosophical methodology and that of ‘Anglo-Saxon analytic philosophy’, claiming the label ‘analytic philosophy of politics’ for his own approach. This may seem like a somewhat surprising comparison given the gulf between contemporary analytic and continental philosophy, but I argue that it is a very productive one which indeed might help us reconsider this gulf. I proceed through a comparison between Foucault and the speech act theory of J. (...) L. Austin, one of the analytic philosophers Foucault had in mind in his Tokyo lecture. By focusing on the methodological commonalities between Foucault and Austin, this article identifies the core of a philosophical methodology that cuts across the analytic/continental divide in philosophy in general while constituting a powerful alternative to the methods applied by analytic political philosophers specifically. This approach, which I term ‘analytic critique’, is one that starts from a critical analysis of what happens in ordinary lived experience and theorizes ‘bottom-up’ in an avowedly politically engaged way – thereby challenging the conceptual and political aloofness of contemporary political philosophy in the liberal-Rawlsian tradition. Foucault’s appropriation of the label ‘analytic philosophy’, it is argued, ought to function as a call to more imaginative methodological-theoretical engagement across the traditional division between continental and analytic approaches. (shrink)

The goal of this article is to counter a belief, still widely held in the secondary literature, that Anne Conway espoused a theory of monads. By exploring her views on the divisibility of both bodies and spirits, I argue that monads could not possibly exist in her system. In addition, by offering new evidence about the Latin translation of Conway's Principles and the possible authorship of its annotations, I argue that she never even suggested that there could be such things (...) as monads. Alongside this, I explore the theories of monads that did get developed by the philosophers closest to Conway—Henry More, Francis Mercury van Helmont, and Christian Knorr von Rosenroth—thereby further underlining Conway's originality and philosophical daring. (shrink)

A semantic solution to the liar paradox (“This statement is not true”) is presented in this article. Since the liar paradox seems to evince a contradiction, the principle of non-contradiction is preliminarily discussed, in order to determine whether dismissing this principle may be reason enough to stop considering the liar paradox a problem. No conclusive outcome with respect to the value of this principle is aspired to here, so that the inquiry is not concluded at this point and the option (...) to explore an alternative, semantic, solution remains open. This proposed solution is focused on what the liar paradox expresses and what it fails to express. (shrink)

This article analyzes learning in context through the prism of a sustainable dairy-farming project. The research was performed within a nutrient management project that involved the participation of farmers and scientists. Differences between heterogeneous forms of farmers’ knowledge and scientific knowledge were discursively constructed during conflict and subsequent alignment over the validity and relevance of knowledge. Both conflict and alignment appeared to be essential for learning in context. Conflict spurred learning when disagreeing groups of actors developed their knowledge in order (...) to strengthen their arguments. Conflict caused self-referentiality when the actors no longer listened to each other. This inhibited self-reflection, thus blocking ongoing learning. Nevertheless, after a period of alignment, scientific models and knowledge of farmers were reevaluated and recontextualized. Through determining how to use scientific models and farmers’ knowledge for further learning, aimed at a shared goal, the participating actors also learned how to learn. (shrink)

This article analyzes learning in context through the prism of a sustainable dairy-farming project. The research was performed within a nutrient management project that involved the participation of farmers and scientists. Differences between heterogeneous forms of farmers’ knowledge and scientific knowledge were discursively constructed during conflict and subsequent alignment over the validity and relevance of knowledge. Both conflict and alignment appeared to be essential for learning in context. Conflict spurred learning when disagreeing groups of actors developed their knowledge in order (...) to strengthen their arguments. Conflict caused self-referentiality when the actors no longer listened to each other. This inhibited self-reflection, thus blocking ongoing learning. Nevertheless, after a period of alignment, scientific models and knowledge of farmers were reevaluated and recontextualized. Through determining how to use scientific models and farmers’ knowledge for further learning, aimed at a shared goal, the participating actors also learned how to learn. (shrink)

In a new foreword to this edition, Richard M. Owsley provides a brief overview of Jaspers' life and achievement.

various arguments for the existence of God have risen and fallen over the centuries, but the one that has perhaps fallen furthest is the argument from the universal consent of mankind. Put simply, the argument went as follows: near enough everyone, in near enough every nation, in near enough every historical era, has believed in God; therefore, God must exist. Or, as it was summarized in the strikingly Lincolnesque terms of Diderot’s Encyclopédie: “You can fool some of the people, or (...) fool all of them in certain places and certain times, but not all people in all places and in all ages.”1 Universal agreement in the truth of a certain proposition was taken by many as a sufficient demonstration of that truth. This.. (shrink)

Makins1 formulates a deference principle which states that patients’ attitudes towards the health outcomes associated with different treatment options should drive decision-making and not physicians’ attitudes towards these health outcomes. Although this deference principle is widely agreed on, it is less obvious which role patients’ risk attitudes should play. Makins takes patients’ attitudes towards health outcomes to be sufficiently analogous to patients’ risk attitudes in order to extend his deference principle. His extended deference principle states that patients’ attitudes towards the (...) health outcomes and risks associated with different treatment options should drive decision-making and not physicians’ attitudes towards these health outcomes and risks. This extension is not only taken to be ethically preferable, but also practically realisable as one can reliably trace patients’ (risk) attitudes. Problematic situations arise when patients exhibit risk attitudes they do not reflexively endorse. For instance, patients might systematically make more risky choices than they think they should make. In response to these kinds of situations, Makins proposes to revise his deference …. (shrink)

One of the founders of existentialism, the eminent philosopher Karl Jaspers, here presents for the general reader an introduction to philosophy. In doing so, he also offers a lucid summary of his own philosophical thought. In Jaspers' view, the source of philosophy is to be found in wonder, in doubt, in a sense of forsakenness, and the philosophical quest is a process of continual change and self-discovery. In a new foreword to this edition, Richard Owsley provides a brief overview of (...) Jaspers' life and achievement. (shrink)

RÉSUMÉ: Cet article examine les façons dont le platonicien de Cambridge Henry More, au XVIIe siècle, a tenté de défendre une rigoureuse séparation ontologique entre les substances matérielles et les substances spirituelles tout en maintenant que les unes et les autres étaient étendues. Nous élucidons certaines des théories et certains des concepts propres à More, tels que l’indiscerpabilité, la pénétrabilité, la spissitude essentielle et l’hylopathie, qui fournissaient, croyait-il, une base solide à cette séparation. Mais nous montrons aussi certaines faiblesses inhérentes (...) à ces théories, concluant en fin de compte que More n’est pas arrivé à maintenir la distinction stricte qu’il recherchait. (shrink)

This paper explores the ontology of Malebranche's notion of "intelligible extension", the archetypal divine idea of matter which he believed to be the immediate object of our own minds in all of our thoughts about corporeal things. Building on this account of its ontology, and through an examination of a form of isomorphism between intelligible extension and the created spatial world, the paper also attempts to explain the manner in which it could fulfill its epistemological role of representing all possible (...) bodies and supplying us with our abstract knowledge of geometry. (shrink)

: This paper charts the gradual development of a theory of real space, underlying the created world and constituted by the extension of God Himself, in the writings of the Cambridge Platonist, Henry More. It identifies two impediments to More's embracing such a theory in the earlier part of his career, namely his initial commitment to the principles that (a) space was not real and (b) God was not extended, and it shows how he finally came to renounce these principles (...) in order to devise the theory so closely associated with him. (shrink)

The correspondence between Hannah Arendt and Karl Jaspers begins in 1926, when the twenty-year-old Arendt studied philosophy with Jaspers in Heidelberg. It is interrupted by Arendt's emigration and Jasper's 'inner emigration' and resumes in the fall of 1945. From then until Jaspers's death in 1969, the initial teacher-student relationship develops into a close friendship. Three countries figure prominently in the correspondence: Germany, Israel, and the United States. Among the topics are Fascism, the atom bomb and the threat of global (...) destruction, German guilt for the Holocaust, Jewishness, the State of Israel, American politics and American universities, the Eichmann trial in Jerusalem. Arendt and Jaspers discuss people both famous and obscure. They gossip, joke complain, and argue. They commiserate with each other over the illnesses and infirmities of old age. And they converse about the world's great philosophers: Spinoza, Kant, Marx, Max Weber, Heidegger. Here is a fascinating dialogue between a woman and a man, a Jew and a German, a questioner and a visionary, both uncompromising in their examination of our troubled century. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to establish the existence of a significant difference, in a number of respects, between the style of the narrated portions of Homer and that of the speeches which are recorded in the two epics; and to offer some explanations for this fact. It will require the presentation of some statistics: I suspect that not all of the figures are absolutely accurate, but I feel confident that such inaccuracies as they may contain will not affect (...) the validity of the inferences drawn from them. The mere fact of differences in vocabulary, while not without interest, is not extremely interesting or surprising. The hope of this paper is that patterns will appear, and that the ‘reticence’ or ‘objectivity’ of Homer, more often praised than investigated, will be illuminated by them; that particular passages in the poems will be shown to be stylistically interesting or unusual; and that some general considerations will emerge which suggest that the difficulties confronting the oral theory of Homer are rather more complex than is often supposed. (shrink)

The time is long gone when literary men were happy to treat literature, and tragic poetry in particular, as something which exists serenely outside time, high up in the empyrean of unchanging validity and absolute values. Nowadays it is conventional, and seems natural, to insist that literature is produced within a particular society and a particular social setting: even its most gorgeous blooms have their roots in the soil of history. Its understanding requires us to understand the society which appreciated (...) it, and for which it came into existence. In the particular case of the tragic poetry of Athens, the most influential body of recent criticism focuses on the relation of the drama to the realities of political and social life. (shrink)

Several countries have legalized euthanasia on the basis of medically diagnosable suffering over the last decennial; the criteria to which they adhere differ. The topic of this article is euthanasia on the basis of existential suffering. This article presents a recent proposal to legalize euthanasia for people who experience such suffering and then discusses the issue of what the value of life may be, and whether the standard that life is normally something positive should be accepted. This provides the foundation (...) to answer the question of whether euthanasia on the basis of existential suffering should be allowed. (shrink)

Taking the semiotic landscaping of the Occupy Movement in Hong Kong in 2014 as an example, the article explores the semiotic relation between the materialization of signs and the constitution of a collectivity. Juxtaposing the concepts of ‘collective assemblage of enunciation’, ‘landscaping’ and ‘autoglottic space’, the article argues that collective enunciations are not autonomous from human agency. Instead, collective enunciations can be created by deliberate de-subjectification and de-personification in the materialization of signs.

This critique presents important textual, epistemological, and metaphysical considerations that serve to correct Pauline Watts' account of Nicholas of Cusa's "fifteenth-century vision of man.".

Understanding alterations of selfhood (termed self-disorders or self-disturbances) that are considered typical of the schizophrenia-spectrum is a central focus of phenomenological research. The currently most influential way of phenomenologically conceiving self-disorders in schizophrenia is as disorders of the so-called most basic or “minimal self”. In this paper, we first highlight some challenges for the minimal self-view of self-disorders, focusing on (1) problems arising from the supposedly “essential” or “universal” nature of minimal self with respect to phenomenal awareness and (2) the (...) critical implications of alterations of self-experience in schizophrenia that involve heightened or exaggerated sense of self. In the second part, we tentatively explore how a (non-egological) transparency-view of consciousness may offer an alternative way of understanding the experiential abnormalities involved in self-disorders in schizophrenia. We discuss how such a transparency-view (1) may account for loss-of-self experiences; (2) is compatible with the key notion of “hyper-reflexivity”; and (3) can help explain instances of self-disorder involving increased sense of self. In conclusion, we consider some possible advantages of this alternative view for research on self-disorders and clinical approaches. (shrink)

This article compares Hume's metaphysical views with those of his contemporary, the American theologian and philosopher, Jonathan Edwards. It shows how, although the two men developed their theories in isolation from one another, their minds were nevertheless following almost identical paths on several of the most central issues in metaphysics (including the natures of body and mind, personal identity, causation, and free will). Their final conclusions were, however, radically different. In short, wherever Hume came to rest in a skeptical position, (...) Edwards would initially approach the very same position, but would then pull back at the last minute and bring in God to fill the gaps, yielding a Christian system of philosophy with an idiosyncratically Humean flavour. (shrink)

_ Source: _Page Count 21 The “Context Principle”, as the author understands it in this paper, is the claim that sub-sentential linguistic expressions have meaning only in the context of complete meaningful sentences. The author reconstructs the version of the Context Principle that Wittgenstein holds in the _Tractatus_, shows that it has intuitive plausibility and can be defended against alleged counterexamples, and develops an argument for its truth that can be found in the _Tractatus_. In short, the author argues that (...) the “fit” between the meanings of sentences and the meanings of the expressions they contain can only be adequately explained if one acknowledges that for a sub-sentential expression to have meaning _is_ for it to make a contribution to the meaning of a sentence. (shrink)

Descartes croyait que le monde étendu ne se terminait pas par une borne, mais pourquoi? Après avoir expliqué la position de Descartes au §1, en suggérant que sa conception de l’étendue indéfinie de l’univers devrait être entendue comme actuelle, mais syncatégorématique, nous nous penchons sur son argument dans le §2 : toute postulation d’une surface extérieure au monde sera autodestructrice, parce que la simple contemplation d’une telle borne nous conduira à reconnaître l’existence d’une étendue allant au-delà. Au §3, nous identifions (...) l’hypothèse fondamentale qui sous-tend cet argument en comparant les conceptions respectives de Descartes et de Malebranche quant au statut ontologique des modes de l’étendue. (shrink)

We examine how recruiting managers cope with communal norms and expectations of favoritism during recruitment and selection processes. Combining insights from institutional theory and network research, we develop a communal perspective on favoritism that presents favoritism as a social expectation to be managed. We subsequently hypothesize that the communal ties between job applicants and managers affect the strategies that managers employ to cope with this expectation. We test these ideas using a factorial survey of the effects of clan ties on (...) recruitment and selection processes in Kazakhstan. The results confirm communal ties as antecedents to the strategies managers use to cope with communal favoritism. Surprisingly, the results also show that these coping strategies are relatively decoupled from managers’ recruitment decisions. The findings contribute to favoritism research by drawing attention to the mitigating work of managers in societies in which favoritism is common. (shrink)