L. van den Dries proved that the theory of n-valued rings has a model companion. We show here that this result is still true when the valuation rings are required to satisfy given inclusion relations (we restrict ourselves to the case of residual characteristic zero).

In January 2008, the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority issued two 1-year licenses for cytoplasmic hybrid embryo research. This article situates the HFEA's decision in its wider scientific and political context in which, until quite recently, the debate about human embryonic stem cell research has focused narrowly on the moral status of the developing human embryo. Next, ethical arguments against crossing species boundaries with humans are canvassed. Finally, a new argument about the risks of harm to women egg providers resulting (...) from research involving the creation of humanesque cytoplasmic hybrid embryos is elaborated. Taken together these ethical concerns about the moral status of the human embryo, about the ethics of crossing species boundaries with humans, and about the potential harms to women, provide good reason to eschew humanesque cytoplasmic hybrid embryo research in favor of less ethically controversial means to the laudable end of successful regenerative medicine. (shrink)

Most philosophers adopt an etiological conception of functions, but not one that uniformly explains the functions attributed to material entities irrespective of whether they are natural or man-made. Here, I investigate the widespread idea that a combination of the two current etiological theories, SEL and INT, can offer a satisfactory account of the proper functions of both organisms and artifacts.. Making explicit what a realist theory of function supposes, I first show that SEL offers a realist theory of biological functions (...) in which these are objective properties of a peculiar sort. I argue next that an artifact function demonstrates the same objective nature as a biological function when it is accounted for by SEL, but not when it is accounted for by INT. I explain why a dual theory of artifact functions admitting both INT and SEL functions is to be dismissed. I establish that neither INT nor SEL alone can account for all artifact functions. Drawing the conclusion that we need a new etiological theory of function, I show how one can overcome the apparent inevitability of INT for some artifact functions. Finally, I outline a new etiological theory of functions that applies equally to biological entities and to artifacts. (shrink)

Gödel once offered an argument for the general reflection principle in set theory that took the form of an analogy with Leibniz' Monadology. I discuss the mathematical and philosophical background to Gödel's argument, reconstruct the proposed analogy in detail, and argue that it has no justificatory force.

Bernard Williams argued that historical and philosophical inquiry were importantly linked in a number of ways. This introductory chapter distinguishes four different connections he identified between philosophy and history. (1) He believed that philosophy could not ignore its own history in the way that science can. (2) He thought that when engaging with philosophy’s history primarily to produce history, one still had to draw on philosophy. (3) Even doing history of philosophy philosophically, i.e. primarily to produce philosophy, required a keen (...) sense of how historically distant from us past philosophers were, on his view, because the point of reading them was to confront something different from the present. (4) He held that systematic philosophy itself needed to be done historically, engaging not necessarily with its own history, but with that of the concepts it sought to understand. The chapter closes with an overview of the volume’s structure and content. (shrink)

While 4E approaches to cognition are increasingly introduced in educational contexts, little has been said about how 4E commitments can inform pedagogy aimed at fostering ethical competencies. Here, we evaluate a 4E-inspired ethics exercise that we developed at a technical university to enliven the moral imagination of engineering students. Our students participated in an interactive tinkering workshop, during which they materially redesigned a healthcare artifact. The aim of the workshop was twofold. Firstly, we wanted students to experience how material choices (...) at the levels of design and functionality can enable morally significant reimaginings of the affordances commonly associated with existing artifacts. We term this type of reimagining world-directed moral imagination. Secondly, through the design process, we wanted students to robustly place themselves in the lived embodied perspectives of (potential) users of their selected artifacts. We term this person-directed moral imagination. While student testimonies about the exercise indicate that both their world-directed and person-directed moral imagination were enlivened, we note that the fostering of robust person-directed moral imagination proved challenging. Using 4E insights, we diagnose this challenge and ask how it might be overcome. To this end, we engage extensively with a recent 4E-informed critique of person-directed moral imagination, raised by Clavel Vázquez and Clavel-Vázquez (2023). They argue that person-directed moral imagination is profoundly limited, if not fundamentally misguided, particularly when exercised in contexts marked by emphatic embodied situated difference between the imaginer and the imagined. Building upon insights from both the 4E field and testimonies from critical disability studies, we argue that, while their critique is valuable, it ultimately goes too far. We conclude that a 4E approach can take on board recent 4E warnings regarding the limits of person-directed moral imagination while contributing positively to the development of moral imagination in engineering ethics education. (shrink)

oise Baylis, 1234 Le Marchant Street, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada B3H 3P7. Tel.: (902)-494–2873; Fax: (902)-494-2924; Email: francoise.baylis{at}dal.ca ' + u + '@' + d + ' '//--> . Abstract Recently, there has been a growing interest in public health and public health ethics. Much of this interest has been tied to efforts to draw up national and international plans to deal with a global pandemic. It is common for these plans to state the importance of drawing upon a well-developed (...) ethics framework and we argue that this framework should reflect the values and insights of feminist relational theory. More specifically, we argue that pandemic planning must be squarely situated in the larger realm of public health and that an ethics framework for public health will be one that recognizes the need to pay particular attention to the vulnerability of subpopulations lacking in social and economic power. We propose an ethics framework for public health that builds on the notions of relational personhood (including relational autonomy and social justice) and relational solidarity. In this way, we aim for a public health ethics that, as appropriate, promotes the public interest and the common good. CiteULike Connotea Del.icio.us What's this? (shrink)

Suddenly, COVID-19 has changed the world and the way people work. Companies had to accelerate something they knew was imminent in the future, but not immediate and extremely humongous. This situation poses a huge challenge for companies to survive and thrive in this complex business environment and for employees, who must adapt to this new way of working. An effective e-leadership, which promotes companies’ adaptability, is needed. This study investigates the existing knowledge on teleworking and e-leadership; and analyzes the supposed (...) challenges. The literature review shows that companies with effective e-leadership can view teleworking as an opportunity. It is advantageous for not only companies’ productivity but also the environment and people who work remotely. However, a traditional or no leadership can result in some risks. Thriving in remote work environments implies that managers must adjust the companies’ structure, making them less hierarchical, and developing new abilities to establish a strong and trustworthy relationship with their employees to maintain their competitiveness, while retaining a genuine concern for their employees’ well-being. Similarly, successful e-leadership must be able to consolidate and lead effective virtual teams to accomplish organizational goals. This study contributes to the literature and leaders during the pandemic. (shrink)

Tri‐methylation of lysine 4 on histone H3 (H3K4me3) is a near‐universal chromatin modification at the transcription start site of active genes in eukaryotes from yeast to man and its levels reflect the amount of transcription. Because of this association, H3K4me3 is often described as an ‘activating’ histone modification and assumed to have an instructive role in the transcription of genes, but the field is lacking a conserved mechanism to support this view. The overwhelming finding from genome‐wide studies is that actually (...) very little transcription changes upon removal of most H3K4me3 under steady‐state or dynamically changing conditions, including at mammalian CpG island promoters. Instead, rather than a major role in instructing transcription, time‐resolved experiments provide more evidence supporting the deposition of H3K4me3 into chromatin as a result of transcription, influencing processes such as memory of previous states, transcriptional consistency between cells in a population and transcription termination. -/- . (shrink)

Chronique/critique de Françoise Favretto parue dans la revue L'intranquille. Revue de littérature, n° 20, St-Quentin-de-Caplong, L'Atelier de l'Agneau, 2021, p. 83. - Recensions.

En partant de la définition des rituels, et notamment du rôle de la parole, qu'elle soit verbale ou non-verbale, cet article interroge la façon dont la ritualisation peut contribuer à l'éducation, notamment en milieu scolaire. Après un tour d'horizon des principaux aspects rituels de l'enseignement et de l'école, l'auteur questionne plus particulièrement les rituels d'apprentissage, c'est-à-dire ceux qui structurent la relation enseignant/enseigné au sein de la classe. En s'appuyant sur une théorisation psychanalytique elle montre alors comment les rituels peuvent ou (...) non, notamment en fonction de leur degré « d'ouverture », contribuer à faire exister les élèves dans leur singularité et, ce faisant, les aider à se construire dans leur rapport au savoir.Starting from the definition of rituals, including the role of speech, either verbal or non-verbal, this article examines how ritual can contribute to education, particularly in schools. After an overview of the main aspects of teaching and rituals of the school, especially the author questions the rituals of learning, that is to say those that structure the relationship teacher / learner in the class. Based on psychoanalytic theorizing it then shows how rituals may or may not, depending on their particular degree of "openness" to help students exist in their singularity, thereby helping to build in their relation to knowledge. (shrink)

The primary objective of The Health Care Ethics Con sultant is to focus attention on an immediate practical problem: the role and responsibilities, the education and training, and the certification and accreditation of health care ethics consultants. The principal questions addressed in this book include: Who should be considered health care ethics consultants? Whom should they advise? What should be their responsi bilities and what kind of training should they have? Should there be some kind of accreditation or certification program (...) to ensure that those who call themselves ethics consultants are in fact qualified to advise, consult, research, and write in health care ethics? The distinguished authors ofthese articles are persons with diverse backgrounds, interests, presumptions, and val ues. Not surprisingly, therefore, diverse responses have emerged to the questions posed. Though the book's chapters are individually authored, they are informed by the group discussions that went on during active workshop sessions, and by knowledge of the contributions of others. All of the chapters meaningfully represent their consensus. This is not to say that there were no disagreements regarding specific details, but rather that there were no fundamental objections on the book's basic content among a panel of authors who share basic premises regarding the role, responsibilities, education, and certifica tion of health care ethics consultants. (shrink)

Les premières mythographies de l’Europe néo-latine, depuis la Genealogia deorum de Boccace, considèrent l’histoire des dieux sur le modèle des généalogies humaines, en cherchant à recomposer « la lignée de Saturne ». Les premiers historiens de la Grèce, comme les poètes, inventèrent des généalogies mythiques pour inscrire l’origine des hommes dans l’histoire de leur relation aux dieux. Que fondent les généalogies divines ? Non seulement des structures religieuses, non seulement la raison même des sociétés humaines, mais encore la préhistoire de (...) l’humanité. Mais si les engendrements divins donnent sens aux relations entre les hommes et les dieux, c’est l’histoire des commencements du monde que les mythographes cherchent à comprendre en interrogeant l’articulation des généalogies divines et humaines. Depuis que, dans le Timée, Platon a associé mythologia et genealogia comme deux modes de discours « archéologiques », les mythographes ont ouvertement revendiqué un savoir sur le monde qui se définit comme une synthèse des « sciences de la nature ».Mythologia, Genealogia, Archaiologia:A Paleontological Scope for Mythography. The first European mythographical treatises in the Middle Ages and Renaissance, since Boccaccio’s Genealogia deorum, were determined by a genealogical method, looking at the history of the gods with human patterns and seeking the reconstruction of “Saturn’s lineage”. The early Greek mythographers, like the poets, imagined various genealogies for seeking out the origins of humanity through their relationships with gods. What is founded on divine genealogies? Not only religious structures, nor only the true ratio of human sociability, but a human paleon­tology too. By interpreting filiations as a system of connexions between gods and humans, the mythographers aimed at understanding the protohistory of the universe. Since Plato’s Timaeus associated mythologia and genealogia as two modes of “archaeological” discourse, mythographers have wanted to assert their own “physical science” as a whole synthetic perception of the natural world. (shrink)

C’est à l’aide de la distinction de L. Wittgenstein entre critères et symptômes dans une théorie, et de l’affirmation chez Freud de la conscience (Bewusstheit) comme symptôme pour la Métapsychologie, que nous posons la question de l’existence de symptômes dans la théorie lacanienne. Ne serait-ce pas alors sur la question du réel que nous retrouvons Lacan et Wittgenstein dans leur dialogue fictif ? La question du réel sera posée chez eux en lien avec celle de la nature mentale du corps, (...) puis d’une question commune sur l’objet du désir. Les apories rencontrées dans les tentatives de la pensée du réel mènent Wittgenstein à trouver une solution, la forme (logicalform). Pour Lacan la réponse sera dans l’introduction des n’uds pour la théorie analytique, y ajoutant, pour l’usage, une catégorie : celle du semblant. (shrink)

We outline a number of ethical objections to genetic technologies aimed at enhancing human capacities and traits. We then argue that, despite the persuasiveness of some of these objections, they are insufficient to stop the development and use of genetic enhancement technologies. We contend that the inevitability of the technologies results from a particular guiding worldview of humans as masters of the human evolutionary future, and conclude that recognising this worldview points to new directions for ethical thinking about genetic enhancement (...) technologies. (shrink)

: Françoise Dastur describes her efforts to practice history of philosophy in a (paradoxically) non-historical fashion. She discusses her concept of the historical, and argues that the only true way to be of one's time is to be against one's time.

Françoise Dastur describes her efforts to practice history of philosophy in a non-historical fashion. She discusses her concept of the historical, and argues that the only true way to be of one's time is to be against one's time.

Cet article expose les premiers contacts d’Alexandre Nequam (1157-1217) avec la traduction latine du Liber de causis dans sa proposition 2, et le recours à son ami le théologien Alain de Lille ( c. 1120-1202) qu’il jugea nécessaire. Celui-ci répondit par ses quatre premières Regulae theologicae.

Sur quoi aujourd’hui fonder l’autorité des parents? Que transmettre? Et comment exercer cette autorité au temps de l’enfance? Questions cruciales pour le devenir subjectif des nouveaux venus au monde... Car, sans autorité, pas de transmission de la dette de vie, celle qui ouvre à la Loi et au désir, pas d’humanisation et de socialisation des enfants.