This paper takes a virtuist approach to medical ethics to explore, from an empirical angle, ideas about settled ways of living a good life. Qualitative research methods were used to analyse the ways in which a group of 15 general practitioners articulated notions of good doctoring and the virtues in their work. I argue that the GPs, whose talk is analysed here, defined good general practice in terms of the ideals of accessibility, comprehensiveness, and continuity. They regarded these ideals significant (...) both for the way they dealt with morally problematic situations and for how they conducted their professional lives more generally. In addition, I argue that the GPs who articulated these ideals most clearly were able to, in part, because they shared the experience of working in rural areas. This experience helped them to develop an understanding of the nature of general practice that their urban colleagues were less able to draw on. In that sense, the structural and organisational framework of general practice in rural areas provided the context for their understanding of ideals in general practice. (shrink)

Using game theory and examples of actual games people play, Nobel laureate Manfred Eigen and Ruthild Winkler show how the elements of chance and rules underlie ...

Next SectionWhilst there has been considerable debate about the fit between moral theory and moral reasoning in everyday life, the way in which moral problems are defined has rarely been questioned. This paper presents a qualitative analysis of interviews conducted with 15 general practitioners (GPs) in South Australia to argue that the way in which the bioethics literature defines an ethical dilemma captures only some of the range of lay views about the nature of ethical problems. The bioethics literature has (...) defined ethical dilemmas in terms of conflict and choice between values, beliefs and options for action. While some of the views of some of the GPs in this study about the nature of their ethical dilemmas certainly accorded with this definition, other explanations of the ethical nature of their problems revolved around the publicity associated with the issues they were discussing, concern about their relationships with patients, and anxiety about threats to their integrity and reputation. The variety of views about what makes a problem a moral problem indicates that the moral domain is perhaps wider and richer than mainstream bioethics would generally allow. (shrink)

The significance of the complicated numbering of the propositions in the Tractatus has occasioned much speculation. Wittgenstein's own explanation has, following Stenius, been generally regarded as misleading. But an examination of the Prototractatus reveals that the numbering system was for Wittgenstein principally an aid in the composition of his work. It allowed him to mark out certain propositions which required further work or supplementation, without disturbing the basic structure of the treatise. But the reworking of the Prototractatus to form the (...) Tractatus considerably changed the original order in which the ideas were connected, and thus made it more difficult to understand the Tractatus. Several specific examples make it clear that it is essential to look back at the context of the Prototractatus in order to achieve a correct interpretation of many of the propositions in the Tractatus. (shrink)

Objectives: To determine whether authors of scientific publications in molecular biology declare patents and other potential financial interests.Design: Survey of a 6-month sample of papers related to molecular biology in Nature.Methods: The esp@cenet worldwide patent search engine was used to search for patents applied for by the authors of scientific papers in Nature that were related to molecular biology and genetics, between January and June 2005.Results: Of the 79 papers considered, four had declared that certain authors had competing financial interests. (...) Seven papers in which no financial interests were declared had authors with patent applications that were based on the research in the paper or were closely related to it. Another paper had two authors with connections to biotechnology companies that were not disclosed.Conclusion: Two thirds of the papers in which authors had patent applications or company affiliations that might be considered to be competing financial interests did not disclose them. Failure to disclose such information may have negative implications on the perception of science in society and on its quality if the possible bias is hidden. Journals should make greater efforts to ensure full disclosure, and scientific institutions should consider failure to disclose financial interests as an example of scientific malpractice. Establishing a register of interests for scientists is one way to increase transparency and openness. (shrink)

Copyright © 2008 by International Union for Health Promotion and Education.

T. 1. Wortschatz -- T. 2. Überlieferung, Textkritik, Grammatik.

To answer the question of whether school can become a non-adultist institution, this article examines the unequal adult–child (teacher–pupil) power relations that characterize school under the framework of bourgeois-capitalist society and that are upheld by certain functions, methods, norms and knowledge standards. Under the influence of the anti-authoritarian youth protest movements from the 1960s onwards, overt power in school (e.g. by means of corporal punishment) has been criticized and, in most countries, abolished. However, power imbalances between teachers and pupils have (...) not disappeared, but rather developed towards a more subtle, covert power, e.g. by framing certain expectations. The hierarchical top-down and one-way learning principles of school institutions are mostly left uncontested. This article does not content itself with simply stating that schools repeatedly reproduce adultism under these societal conditions, but also discusses possible strategies and interventions that could shift unequal power relations and ultimately overturn them. It looks at various concepts and alternative forms of education critical of adultism that have emerged since the beginning of the 20th century both within and outside the state school system. It further explores the contradictions that should be expected to arise in their implementation within the framework of existing educational institutions. Particular attention is paid to the respective possibilities for action on the part of teachers and pupils. We offer a decisive challenge to teachers to rethink how they deal with their power, which is always derived and fragile, and how they can contribute to pupils empowering themselves and significantly influence learning and decision-making processes at school. (shrink)

Originally presented as the author's thesis (doctoral)--Freiburg (Breisgau), Universitèat, 1996.

Die vorliegende Arbeit, die als Diplom-Arbeit verfasst und im September 1980 bei Johannes Agnoli eingereicht wurde, war das Resultat einer Auseinandersetzung mit Michel Foucault, der man sich in Berlin Ende der 1970er Jahren nur schwer entziehen konnte. »Jeder Aussage, gleichgültig, ob sie als Affirmation, als Kritik oder als Negation gemeint ist, liegt ein positiver Gehalt zugrunde. Die Reflexion auf diesen, meist unbewußten Gehalt gibt anderen erst die Möglichkeit, aber auch sich selbst, abgegebene Urteile auf ihren Wirklichkeitsgehalt hin zu überprüfen. Letzteres (...) will nichts anderes besagen, als daß ein konsequent durchgeführter Skeptizismus sich über die eigene Positivität ebenso hinwegtäuscht, wie jede Form von Partikularismus (Empirismus, wissenschaftlicher Rationalismus und auch der Positivismus à la Foucault) darüber stolpert – und hiermit benenne ich das versteckte Problem in Foucaults Machtbegriff auf allgemeinster Ebene – daß auch noch so vereinzelte Aussagen immer auf eine, in letzter Instanz positiv beschreibbare Totalität verweisen. Die weitgehende Mißachtung dieses Aspektes einer jeden Reflexion auch im Marxismus ist der Punkt, den ich für die Entstehung der Krisen des Marxismus (mit-)verantwortlich mache.«. (shrink)

Da nur der einzelne Mensch, nicht aber etwas ihn (seinen individuellen Leib im Sinne Jean Amérys) Überschreitendes frei sein kann, darum, so lautet Sartres logisch nicht zu widerlegendes Urteil, kann keinem Objekt eine in diesem selbst angelegte Fähigkeit, Entscheidungen zu fällen, zugesprochen werden. Wenn ein Subjekt einem ihm Äußeren – etwa Gott, der Natur, dem Staat, dem Kapital oder dem Schönen, dem Glück oder sonst etwas –, eine derartige Autonomie zuschreibt, belügt es sich, meint Sartre: um der Angst vor seiner (...) Freiheit Herr zu werden und sich für seine Taten nicht verantwortlich fühlen zu müssen. Wenn man Adornos Ästhetik dieser Subjektbestimmung konfrontiert, läßt sich jedoch zeigen, daß, so sehr Sartre logisch im Recht sein mag, die Kritik im Grunde darauf zielen muß, genau jenes für Sartre Unmögliche dennoch zur Darstellung zu bringen: um die Verkehrungen erkennen zu können, dank derer das Kapital als automatisches Subjekt, als Souverän, agieren kann. (shrink)

The concept of noncombatant immunity prohibits the intentional targeting of noncombatants. The availability of nonlethal weapons (NLW) may weaken this prohibition, especially since using NLWs against noncombatants may, in some cases, actually save the noncombatants' lives. Given the advancement of NLWs, I argue that their probable appearance on the battlefield demands close scrutiny due to the moral problems associated with their use. In this paper, I examine four distinct cases and determine whether the use of NLWs is morally permissible. While (...) it seems that the reduced harm caused by NLWs makes their use more acceptable, adhering to noncombatant immunity requires more than not killing noncombatants. It also requires that military forces treat noncombatants a certain way. In the cases I present, to use NLWs against noncombatants treats them as combatants and coerces them to do something against their will. While a consequentialist foundation for noncombatant immunity may permit this action, a rights-based concept of noncombatant immunity does not. I contend that only a rights-based concept of noncombatant immunity is viable, and that the availability of NLWs should not significantly alter the prohibitions prescribed by noncombatant immunity. (shrink)

The biological sciences have become increasingly reliant on so-called ‘model organisms’. I argue that in this domain, the concept of a descriptive model is essential for understanding scientific practice. Using a case study, I show how such a model was formulated in a preexplanatory context for subsequent use as a prototype from which explanations ultimately may be generated both within the immediate domain of the original model and in additional, related domains. To develop this concept of a descriptive model, I (...) focus on use of the nematode worm Caenorhabditis elegans and the wiring diagrams that were developed as models of its neural structure. In addition, implications of the concept of a descriptive model, particularly its relevance for the data-phenomena distinction as well as its relation to long-standing debates on realism, are briefly examined. (shrink)

"The Augustinus-Lexikon is both a conceptual and a real dictionary. In alphabetical order, it covers concepts, people and things that are of importance for the life, work and teachings of Augustine."--.

Argumentation mining is an application of natural language processing (NLP) that emerged a few years ago and has recently enjoyed considerable popularity, as demonstrated by a series of international workshops and by a rising number of publications at the major conferences and journals of the field. Its goals are to identify argumentation in text or dialogue; to construct representations of the constellation of claims, supporting and attacking moves (in different levels of detail); and to characterize the patterns of reasoning that (...) appear to license the argumentation. Furthermore, recent work also addresses the difficult tasks of evaluating the persuasiveness and quality of arguments. Some of the linguistic genres that are being studied include legal text, student essays, political discourse and debate, newspaper editorials, scientific writing, and others. The book starts with a discussion of the linguistic perspective, characteristics of argumentative language, and their relationship to certain other notions such as subjectivity. Besides the connection to linguistics, argumentation has for a long time been a topic in Artificial Intelligence, where the focus is on devising adequate representations and reasoning formalisms that capture the properties of argumentative exchange. It is generally very difficult to connect the two realms of reasoning and text analysis, but we are convinced that it should be attempted in the long term, and therefore we also touch upon some fundamentals of reasoning approaches. Then the book turns to its focus, the computational side of mining argumentation in text. We first introduce a number of annotated corpora that have been used in the research. From the NLP perspective, argumentation mining shares subtasks with research fields such as subjectivity and sentiment analysis, semantic relation extraction, and discourse parsing. Therefore, many technical approaches are being borrowed from those (and other) fields. We break argumentation mining into a series of subtasks, starting with the preparatory steps of classifying text as argumentative (or not) and segmenting it into elementary units. Then, central steps are the automatic identification of claims, and finding statements that support or oppose the claim. For certain applications, it is also of interest to compute a full structure of an argumentative constellation of statements. Next, we discuss a few steps that try to 'dig deeper': to infer the underlying reasoning pattern for a textual argument, to reconstruct unstated premises (so-called 'enthymemes'), and to evaluate the quality of the argumentation. We also take a brief look at 'the other side' of mining, i.e., the generation or synthesis of argumentative text. The book finishes with a summary of the argumentation mining tasks, a sketch of potential applications, and a—necessarily subjective—outlook for the field. Table of Contents: Preface / Acknowledgments / Introduction / Argumentative Language / Modeling Arguments / Corpus Annotation / Finding Claims / Finding Supporting and Objecting Statements / Deriving the Structure of Argumentation / Assessing Argumentation / Generating Argumentative Text / Summary and Perspectives / Bibliography / Authors' Biographies / Index. (shrink)

Frege spricht einerseits von der Zerlegung von Gedanken in Gedankenteile, andrerseits aber vom Aufbau von Gedanken. Scheinbar werden damit verschiedene inkompatible Auffassungen über Struktur bzw. Strukturlosigkeit von Gedanken ausgedrückt. Frege gebraucht jedoch den Ausdruck „Zerlegung" in mehreren Bedeutungen, die mit der Idee einer Konstruktion des Gedankens aus Teilen nicht nur vereinbar sind, sondern diese Idee sinnvoll ergänzen. Gedanken im Sinne Freges sind schon an sich auf eine bestimmte Weise logisch strukturiert und unterschieden sich gerade dadurch wesentlich von den sprachlichen Bedeutungen (...) natursprachlicher Sätze. (shrink)

The foundations of psychoanalysis in the German idealist concepts of the reflexive human self have been the subject of detailed investigations devoted to the intertwined processes of introspection,...

The European Legacy, Volume 16, Issue 7, Page 851-854, December 2011.

This chapter contains sections titled: Introduction A Brief History of Developmental Explanations of Phenotypic Evolution Research Questions of Evo‐Devo Unifying Themes of the Conceptual Basis of Evo‐Devo Conclusion: A Mechanistic Theory of Evo‐Devo Challenges the Modern Synthesis Postscript: Counterpoint References.