This article aims to examine critically the ‘cultural incompatibility’ argument, which asserts that disclosure of cancer-related information to patients is incompatible with Turkey’s cultural context. For this purpose, a brief overview of the approach to truth-telling in Turkey will first be provided, followed by the claims of two different Turkish authors on the issue and a critical analysis of their approach. It will be contended that this argument has actually been formulated with paternalistic concerns and it may be playing an (...) important role in shaping the approach of Turkish health care professionals to the issue. The article will then examine, in the light of study findings and case reports from Turkey, the concept of patient autonomy as it applies to truth-telling issues. It will be concluded that truth-telling can be compatible with Turkey’s cultural context, provided that health care professionals place more emphasis on good communication with their patients. (shrink)

Advance directives are not a part of the healthcare service in Turkey. This may be related with the fact that paternalism is common among the healthcare professionals in the country, and patients are not yet integrated in the decision-making process adequately. However, starting from the enactment of the Regulation of Patient Rights in 1998, this situation started to change. While the paternalist tradition still appears to be strong in Turkey, the Ministry of Health has been taking concrete measures in the (...) recent years to ensure that patient rights are implemented in healthcare practice. Therefore, Turkey now seems to be in a transitional period where a move towards a more patient-autonomy centred approach is being supported by the regulatory authorities, as well as the academic circles and the public at large. In the light of this background, this paper aims to examine the potential benefits of advance directives, particularly with regard to their possible effect in the clinical decision-making process of Turkey's context. It will be argued that advance directives, if correctly understood and implemented in the right settings, may be beneficial, particularly for improving communication between patients and healthcare professionals and for implementing of the right to refuse treatment. (shrink)

This paper examines the ethico-legal problems regarding the right to refuse treatment in Turkey's healthcare system. We discuss these problems in the light of a recent case that was directly reported to us. We first summarise the experience of a chronically dependent patient (as recounted by her daughter) and her family during their efforts to refuse treatment and receive palliative care only. This is followed by a summary of the legal framework governing the limits of the right to refuse treatment (...) in Turkey. With the help of this background information on the legal framework, we re-examine the ethico-legal aspects of the case and explain the underlying reasons for the problems the family and the patient experienced. Finally, we conclude that Turkey's legal framework relating to the right to refuse treatment needs to be clarified and amended in accordance with international conventions and fundamental human rights. (shrink)

This study aimed to examine the thoughts and expectations of patients receiving healthcare from their physicians and evaluate the ethical aspects of these thoughts and expectations. To determine the ethical aspects of the thoughts and expectations of patients, an open-ended question was asked on the web page of the Turkish Armed Forces (TAF) Health Care Command, which is accessible to the users of the TAF intranet system (the internet system used within TAF institutions). The participants were asked to express their (...) thoughts in their own words. A total of 804 participants answered the question by providing their input. The statements of the participants were classified separately by two public health specialists. The classification was made in accordance with the basic principles of patient rights, and they were collected under various headings including expectations about respect and care, good communication, informed consent, and fair and non-privileged distribution of healthcare services. The results show that patients tend to consider the physicians they see as solely responsible for all the negative issues that they encounter during their healthcare. This indicates that there is a need for extensive research on the underlying factors involved in the negative thoughts and feelings toward healthcare professionals in both TAF and Turkey in general. (shrink)

INTRODUCTION[|]This paper has been planned as a critical response to Murat Civaner's article entitled 'Medical Ethics arguments should be concordant with scientific knowledge and certain values', published in the Autumn 2015 issue of Turkish Journal of Bioethics. It also aims to provide an evaluation of the way the authoritarian discourse manifests itself in ethical arguments.[¤]METHODS[|]For this purpose, the paper first presents the views of Orhan Hançerlioğlu on Karl Marx and Karl Popper and treats these views as a written example of (...) such authoritarian discourse, which is essentially a problematic attitude that results from an inability to acknowledge the value-laden aspects of a given perspective. [¤]RESULTS[|]In order to show that problems in Hançerlioğlu's approach is also present in Civaner's arguments, several examples where the author did not recognize the value-laden aspects and the subjective nature of information are provided. The paper then examines the recent claim by Celal Şengör, who asserted that force feeding of feces to individuals do not qualify as torture. Based on the presentation and the justification of this reductionist claim, it is emphasized that the relationship between information and values is much more complicated than those presented by Civaner. Civaner's claim, which asserts that the concept of conscience should have no place in medical ethics arguments, is also evaluated on this basis and the dangers of excluding the moral agent in ethical evaluation are underlined. In addition, the relationship of the paternalist tradition with the perspective which I refer to as the 'macro axis' is examined. Last but not least, the paper deals with the concept of 'ethics of ethics' by using examples from national and international ethics literature and emphasizes the reason why it is important for the ethicist to become aware of her own scheme of values. [¤]DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION[|]The paper concludes that contrary to what Civaner has asserted, it is not possible to exclude subjective aspects from ethical argumentation and that such an appraoch will inevitably have an authoritarian quality. For this reason, the need for other approaches for revealing, rather than repressing or ignoring, the subjective aspects of ethical inquiry is underlined.[¤]. (shrink)

Understanding dental ethics as a field separate from its much better known counterpart, medical ethics, is a relatively new, but necessary approach in bioethics. This need is particularly felt in dental education and establishing a curriculum specifically for dental ethics is a challenging task. Although certain topics such as informed consent and patient rights can be considered to be of equal importance in both fields, a number of ethical issues in dental practice are only remotely—if at all—relevant for medical practice. (...) Therefore, any sound approach to education in dental ethics has to recognise the unique aspects of dental practice in order to meet the needs of dental students and prepare them for the ethical challenges they may face during their professional practice. With this goal in mind, this paper examines the approach of the authors to dental ethics education and proposes a system to organise the topics of biomedical ethics for dental education. While the authors' perspective is based on their experience in Turkey, the proposed system of classification is not a rigid one; it is open to interpretation in other contexts with different social, cultural and professional expectations. Therefore, the paper also aims to inspire discussion on the development of an ideal dental ethics curriculum at an international level. (shrink)

Ömer Naci Soykan'ın ülkemizde yayımlanan armağan kitaplar konusunda eleştirel bir yaklaşımı vardı. Bu eleştiri, armağan kitapların büyük çoğunluğunun "armağan" edildikleri düşünür ya da filozofla ilgili neredeyse hiçbir ciddi çalışmayı içermemesiyle ilgiliydi. Ona göre bir armağan kitabın öncelikli amacı "armağan" edildiği kişinin felsefi görüşlerine yer vermek olmalıydı. Dolayısıyla Soykan hayattayken kendisiyle ilgili bir armağan kitap çıkarmayı düşündüğümüzü dile getirdiğimizde ilk sözü "İçinde benim düşüncelerimle ilgili yazılar olacaksa olsun, yoksa istemiyorum!" olmuştu. "Sağdan soldan toplama yazılarla, tematik bütünlüğü olmayan yazıların art arda getirilmesiyle (...) oluşturulmuş bir armağan kitap olmaz. Armağan kitap, (bir "Festschrift") öncelikle o kişiyle, o kişinin düşünceleriyle ilgili yazılardan oluşması gerekir" diye de eklemişti. Bu kitabın gecikmesinin bir başka nedeni belki de Soykan'ın bu kadar açık biçimde dile getirdiği bu sözlerdi çünkü eleştirdiği türde bir armağan kitap hazırlamak görece kolay olabilirdi. Geç oldu ancak olması gereken gibi oldu! Kitaptaki her yazarın katkısı Soykan'ın görüşleri üzerine, onları açımlayan, değerlendiren, belki yer yer de eleştiren değerli çalışmalar olarak ortaya çıktı. Böylelikle onun isteğini de bir bakıma yerine getirmiş olduk. (shrink)

With his philosophy of transcendence, Karl Jaspers is considered one of the few great metaphysicians of the 20th century. This study is devoted to the roots of his transcendental thinking in the philosophy of Plotinus (c. 204–270). It demonstrates the constitutive role that reference to the philosophia perennis played for Jaspers, as well as his early and intensive engagement with the founder of Neoplatonism, who for Jaspers was ‘the metaphysician par excellence’. His connection with Plotinus opens up fascinating new perspectives (...) on Jaspers’ concept of existential self-emergence as an ascent to the One, and on his henological philosophy of reason and his speculative paradoxical thinking about God. (shrink)

This paper is a qualitative empirical study of the perceptions of web editors and moderators about reader comments. Drawing from the insights provided by nineteen in-depth interviews with newsroom staff, we contend that reader comments have so far made little impact on the practices of traditional journalism in Turkey and that their promise to foster more constructive online public deliberation is largely unfulfilled. Reader comments continue to be an underestimated and neglected feature of online news. Online journalists’ perceptions of reader (...) comments are not based on any solid information of their readers but on their own personal observation and experiences. Moreover, freedom of expression in reader comments in mainstream newspapers is very limited due to legal and political pressures and prevalent self-censorship. Online journalists define politics and sports as the main categories that receive the highest number of comments most of the time. They also observe in reader comments the manifestation of a current political polarization in Turkey and point out the existence of majority pressure and a spiral of silence in relation to the Kurdish issue. (shrink)

This paper explores expatriates’ ethical evaluations of and responses to guanxi in China through the lens of integrative social contracts theory. We conducted in-depth interviews with 14 expatriate managers who had spent, on average, 6.5 years working and living in China. Based on the content analysis of these interviews, we identified two different uses of guanxi: defensive and competitive. In general, the respondents found defensive guanxi moral in the Chinese context, while they considered competitive guanxi immoral. Based on our findings, (...) we identified fair competition as the substantive hypernorm that governed most respondents’ ethical evaluations of guanxi. The study has implications for all scholars who seek to utilize integrative social contracts theory to study the relationship between informal networks and corruption in developing countries. (shrink)

Geleneksel bir bakış açısıyla İsrailoğullarının Tevrat’taki ilk kadın peygamberi olan Miryam, Harun ve Musa’nın kız kardeşi olup Mısır’dan çıkışın önemli figürlerinden biridir. Ancak eleştirel ve farklı bakış açısından Miryam ile ilgili kutsal kitap ve midraşlardaki anlatılara bakıldığında onun üç farklı portreye sahip olduğu görülmektedir. İlk portre, sepet içinde suya bırakılan Musa’yı uzaktan seyreden ve ismi belirtilmeyen abladır. İkinci tasvirde o, Mısır’dan çıkış esnasında Harun’un kız kardeşi peygamber Miryam olarak betimlenmektedir. Bu tasvir daha yakından incelendiğinde Mısır’dan çıkışta dilinde ezgisi, elinde tefi (...) ile dans ederek İsrailoğullarına liderlik eden Miryam’ın, peygamber olmaktan ziyade Mısır’dan izler taşıyan rahibe olmaya daha yakın durduğu görülmektedir. Nitekim Miryam’ı bir rahibe olarak görmek Cüzzamlı Miryam kıssasını daha anlaşılır kıldığı gibi onun fiziki kusurla cezalandırılması Mısır’daki bir rahibenin görevden uzaklaştırılmasıyla uyumluluk arz etmektedir. Rabbani literatür başta olmak üzere Yahudi geleneğinin Miryam algısı ise ona üçüncü bir portre kazandırmaktadır. Midraş literatürün Miryam portresi, ölümünden hemen önce Tevrat’ın ondan aldığı saygınlığı iade çerçevesinde olup, onu diğer önemli anneler arasında görmek üzerine kuruludur. (shrink)

Mezhepler, İslam düşünce tarihinin -tenkid edilse dahi- bir parçasıdırlar. Bu oluşumların sâlikleri arasında onaylanması zor bazı olayların vuku bulduğu tarihi bir hakikattir. Bununla beraber mezkûr teşekküllerin İslam düşünce dünyasının oluşumuna büyük katkı sağladıkları da su götürmez bir gerçektir. Zira her farklılık beraberinde yeni tezleri doğurmuş ve her tez de peşinden anti-tezler geliştirmiştir. Fikri hareketlilikler de İslam düşüncesini başka bir medeniyete nasip olmayacak bir kültürel zenginlikle taçlandırmıştır. Bu meyanda Hâricîler, İslam düşünce tarihinin ilk ortaya çıkan oluşumudur. Hâricîler tarihi süreçte çeşitli etkenlerle (...) önce kendi içinde gruplara ayrılmış ve daha sonra bu gruplardan sadece İbâzîler günümüze kadar varlıklarını devam ettirmişlerdir. Teşekkül dönemlerinden itibaren Hâricîler entelektüel bir birikimden daha çok kılıç-kalkanla meşhur olmuşlardır. Bu durum onların ilmî faaliyetlere yeterince zaman ayırmalarını da engellemiştir. Bu sebeple tarihi süreçte oluşmuş olan Hâricî literatür diğer teşekküllere göre son derece azdır. Ancak Hâricîlerle aralarında bazı fikri yakınlıklar bulunsa da bu mevzuda İbâzîleri ayrı değerlendirmek daha sağlıklı sonuçlar elde etmenin yolunu açacaktır. Zira kaynaklarda Hâricî kategorisinde zikredilen eserlerin neredeyse tamamı İbâzîlere aittir. Ayrıca İbâzîler çoğunlukla Hâricîlerle beraber ele alınıp bir ayırıma gitmeden değerlendirilerek ilmi literatürlerinin az olduğu ifade edilmektedir. Hâlbuki nüfuslarıyla kıyaslandığında ortaya koydukları eserlerin azımsanmayacak miktarlarda olduğunu ifade etmek mümkündür. Yapılan taramalarda -son zamanlarda sınırlı miktarda bazı araştırmalar yapılmış olsa da- İbâzîler hakkında yapılan çalışmaların ülkemizde yeterli miktarda olmadığı akademik camiada malum olan bir vakıadır. Binaenaleyh bu araştırma, gerek İbâzî tefsir alanında çalışmalar yapacak araştırmacılara bir katkı sağlamak gerekse İslam toplumunun bir parçası olan İbâzîlerle ilgili ülkemizde eksikliği hissedilen araştırmalara bir yenisini eklemek gayesiyle yapılmıştır. Dolayısıyla bu çalışmada Hâricî ve İbâzî grupların tarihi süreçte bugüne kadar oluşturdukları tefsir literatürlerinin ele alınıp tanıtılması hedeflenmiştir. (shrink)

This article offers a critical inquiry of contemporary neural network models as an instance of machine learning, from an interdisciplinary perspective of AI studies and performativity. It shows the limits on the architecture of these network systems due to the misemployment of ‘natural’ performance, and it offers ‘context’ as a variable from a performative approach, instead of a constant. The article begins with a brief review of machine learning-based natural language processing systems and continues with a concentration on the relevant (...) model of recurrent neural networks, which is applied in most commercial research such as Facebook AI Research. It demonstrates that the logic of performativity is not brought into account in all recurrent nets, which is an integral part of human performance and languaging, and it argues that recurrent network models, in particular, fail to grasp human performativity. This logic works similarly to the theory of performativity articulated by Jacques Derrida in his critique of John L. Austin’s concept of the performative. Applying Jacques Derrida’s work on performativity, and linguistic traces as spatially organized entities that allow for this notion of performance, the article argues that recurrent nets fall into the trap of taking ‘context’ as a constant, of treating human performance as a ‘natural’ fix to be encoded, instead of performative. Lastly, the article applies its proposal more concretely to the case of Facebook AI Research’s Alice and Bob. (shrink)

Causal knowledge unquestionably provides useful means to describe, explain and predict both natural and daily phenomena. This article addresses whether causality as such may not be ontologically primary and looks for an alternative fundamental mechanism encapsulating the information load of the causal framework. A probabilistic process view of reality asserting the struggle of natural forces is considered along with lines quoted from Nietzsche’s posthumously published notebooks and published work. Examples from scientific discoveries, in particular neurosciences, echoing his ontology are provided. (...) Furthermore, I propose a basic number game algorithm to illustrate and model the struggle of forces leading to causal inferences for an external observer. Nietzschean dynamic ontology involving the ceaseless struggle of will-to-power units accords with the emergentist approach to causation, which has been principally employed by the scientists working under the fields of thermodynamics, quantum mechanics and complex dynamical systems. (shrink)

This essay is a sustained attempt to bring new light to some of the perennial problems in philosophy of mind surrounding phenomenal consciousness and introspection through developing an account of sensory and phenomenal concepts. Building on the information-theoretic framework of Dretske (1981), we present an informational psychosemantics as it applies to what we call sensory concepts, concepts that apply, roughly, to so-called secondary qualities of objects. We show that these concepts have a special informational character and semantic structure that closely (...) tie them to the brain states realizing conscious qualitative experiences. We then develop an account of introspection which exploits this special nature of sensory concepts. The result is a new class of concepts, which, following recent terminology, we call phenomenal concepts: these concepts refer to phenomenal experience itself and are the vehicles used in introspection. On our account, the connection between sensory and phenomenal concepts is very tight: it consists in different semantic uses of the same cognitive structures underlying the sensory concepts, such as the concept of red. Contrary to widespread opinion, we show that information theory contains all the resources to satisfy internalist intuitions about phenomenal consciousness, while not offending externalist ones. A consequence of this account is that it explains and predicts the so-called conceivability arguments against physicalism on the basis of the special nature of sensory and phenomenal concepts. Thus we not only show why physicalism is not threatened by such arguments, but also demonstrate its strength in virtue of its ability to predict and explain away such arguments in a principled way. However, we take the main contribution of this work to be what it provides in addition to a response to those conceivability arguments, namely, a substantive account of the interface between sensory and conceptual systems and the mechanisms of introspection as based on the special nature of the information flow between them. (shrink)

This dissertation argues for a "bundle thesis" of phenomenal consciousness: that the ways things seem to subjects are constituted by bundles of representational and functional properties. I argue that qualia are determined not only by intrinsic properties, but also by relational properties to other bodily and mental states . The view developed on the basis of this claim is called "phenomenal holism." ;Part I examines the current literature on phenomenal consciousness, sorting out various conceptual and historical issues. In particular, I (...) show that current research falls into two camps: that claiming there is no coherent view of phenomenal consciousness or of how it can be studied, and that claiming that phenomenal consciousness is constituted by non-relational and non-causal/functional/representational properties. Neither camp believes that materialist theories of consciousness are possible. ;Part II counters the specific objections these writers raise against materialist theories. First I show that some of the most prominent objections are founded upon an implicit and misguided assumption: that qualia are non-relational simples, based on what I call the segregationist intuition. Then, more specifically, I argue: that while Kripke's argument from a posteriori necessity against the identity-theory is committed to the absence of an appearance/reality distinction, its presumptions entail this distinction; and that the symmetrical development of the possibility of "hidden qualia" shows that absent qualia and zombie arguments against functionalism are absurd. This last argument is extended to argue against the possibility of inverted spectra. It is concluded that none of the standard objections to materialist theories carry significant weight. ;Part III turns to relational theories of consciousness, and supports an "integrationist intuition" about the mind. I first show that higher-order perception and higher-order thought theories are inadequate, in spite of correctly construing consciousness relationally. I then go on to develop the bundle theory, drawing support from empirical research on vision and pain. The dissertation concludes by defending phenomenal holism and integrationist views of mind more generally, and setting directions for future research. (shrink)

" -- "New Scientist" Intended for anyone attempting to find their way through the large and confusingly interwoven philosophical literature on consciousness, ..

The book also contains an unpublished interview with Maria Reichenbach, Hans Reichenbach's wife, which sheds new light on Reichenbach's academic and personal ...

This paper is an attempt to spell out what makes the scientific study of pain so distinctive from a philosophical perspective. Using the IASP definition of ‘pain’ as our guide, we raise a number of questions about the philosophical assumptions underlying the scientific study of pain. We argue that unlike the study of ordinary perception, the study of pain focuses from the very start on the experience itself and its qualities, without making deep assumptions about whether pain experiences are perceptual. (...) This in turn puts scientific explanation in a curious position due to pain’s inherently subjective epistemic nature. The reason for this focus on the experience itself and its qualities, we argue, has to do with pain’s complex phenomenology involving an affective/motivational dimension. We argue for the scientific legitimacy of first‐person phenomenological studies and attempts to correlate phenomenology with neural events. We argue that this methodological procedure is inevitable and has no anti‐physicalist ontological implications when properly understood. We end the paper by commenting on a discussion between two prominent pain scientists in the field, Don Price and Howard Fields, about the need to distinguish more dimensions in the phenomenology of pain and how to classify them vis‐à‐vis the recent scientific findings. Our interest in this discussion is not only to introduce some clarifications but also to show how “neurophenomenology” has already been shaping the scientific research and to back our claim about why this methodology is inevitable with an example. (shrink)

In his essay “The Crisis in the Teaching of Philosophy” Derrida writes “Philosophy would repeat itself and would reproduce its own tradition as the teaching of its own crisis and as the paideia of self-critique in general. This paideia goes hand in hand, and there is nothing fortuitous about this, with what I will call without taking it lightly, an imperialist self-confidence of philosophy.” In a properly Derridean fashion these lines are haunting for me. What is “imperialist” about philosophy; the (...) self-confidence? Is the confidence imperialist or is it the entire content of the philosophical tradition? Is there something colonial about not only dominating other disciplines and assigning them their regional ontologies, but also about the very discourse of philosophy itself? Of course, this very question presupposes there is such a thing as a “philosophical discourse” that has an identity which is itself a philosophical question. Is there such a thing as identity? If philosophy does not have this discursive identity, is it the crisis that is imperialist, crisis in the sense of constantly being separated from itself, always not having an identity or “never having an identity”? Perhaps in a different yet admittedly still problematic way, does philosophy dominate, colonize, thinking itself, both culturally and conceptually. Derrida continues his essay by forging an alliance between decolonization and deconstruction. It is a curious alliance because it both endorses and rejects philosophy (in a properly philosophical fashion): “If, like philosophy and the deconstruction of the philosophical, decolonization is interminable, it is because it cannot be effective either as simple mode of reappropriation or as a simple mode of opposition or overturning.” (Derrida 2002, 103). (shrink)

Cet article est un récit analytique basé sur des témoignages primaires concernant le Mouvement des Académies Solidaires qui a émergé à la suite des purges des Académiciens de la Paix en Turquie. Il examine le Mouvement sous l’angle de la signification et de la possibilité d’une subjectivité académique révolutionnaire, montre son originalité académique et organisationnelle, et analyse son déclin face aux problèmes auxquels il est confronté. Les Académies Solidaires, en tant qu’initiatives radicales qui transcendent la légalité existante, ont créé des (...) environnements de connaissance et d’apprentissage en commun, mais elles ont régressé parce qu’elles n’ont pas pu transformer cette expérience en un projet capable de résoudre les problèmes d’organisation interne et de relation avec l’environnement social. (shrink)

We argue that Block's charge of fallacy remains ungrounded so long as the existence of P-consciousness, as Block construes it, is independently established. This, in turn, depends on establishing the existence of “phenomenal properties” that are essentially not representational, cognitive, or functional. We argue that Block leaves this fundamental thesis unsubstantiated. We conclude by suggesting that phenomenal consciousness can be accounted for in terms of a hybrid set of representational and functional properties.

This article is a version of the first half of an introduction to an anthology on consciousness. It is aimed at tracing the study of consciousness in psychology roughly since psychology pulled itself apart from philosophy as an independent discipline in the late nineteenth century. The second half, which will appear as a sequel to the present article, will cover the various philosophical problems involving consciousness, and trace the consciousness debate to date. The two articles are intended as a general (...) introduction to the forthcoming special issue, Explaining Consciousness: the Hard Problem. (shrink)

On the basis of distinguishing three different kinds of zombies , I argue that Moody's argument against the conscious inessentialism thesis and physicalism is invalid, and comparatively analyse similarities as well as differences between two responses to Moody: Flanagan & Polger and Dennett.