This chapter contains sections titled: Mothering and the Quest for Certainty Finding Answers to Mothering Questions Both/And Not Either/Or Toward a Pragmatic Approach to Mothering Notes.

Identities were “murderous” in Algeria, to borrow an expression from Amin Maalouf. However, through this process, Algeria won its independence. Albert Camus, a son of France and a child of Algeria, caught between his two mothers’ identities, was torn apart and sometimes had to make choices; he was blamed for his Franco-French vision of Algeria and, above all, in the crucial hours, for preferring his biological mother to his cultural one. In other words, Camus had a poor record in Algeria. (...) And yet, there is something like a tuning fork vibrating in unison at the sound of “Camus” and “Algeria”: it is Camus’ Mediterranean, with its timeless and universal present, which takes its sense and essence from the “Algerian Mediterraneanness”. It is a fact: Algeria allows us to understand Camus, but Camus also allows us to know Algeria. Questionable dark areas lie within either of them, but would not it be better if we imagined that Camus and Algeria could find together a world beyond the absurd and revolt, on a quest for universality that would not abolish identities which are still asserted but played down today? (shrink)

Throughout history, a believer did not need logical proof to believe in Almighty God. This is because the spiritual proof was always enough to admit the existence of Almighty God and to submit to Him. Finding Almighty God is not a mathematical equation that needs to be proven. Rather, it is a spiritual feeling due to a call from inside a human being. The relationship between Almighty God and humans is spiritual rather logical.However, with the advances in science and (...) technology, this spiritual relationship decreases. Nowadays, modern man is looking for logic and scientific answers to many questions relating to Almighty God and religions. In fact, nonbelievers or atheists are not the only ones looking for answers to these types of questions; believers also want to increase their faith and remove doubts from their hearts. The main objective of this book is to provide logical answers to questions relating to belief in Almighty God, creations and Islam as the last heavenly religion. These questions are grouped under several topics, namely: 1) Almighty God, 2) the creation, 3) the soul, 4) the hereafter, 5) the destiny and freedom in choices, 6) the holy Quran and 7) the Islam.0The main feature of this book is that the author provides logic flowcharts with each presented question relating to the different topics. Each logic flowchart has three phases: a start, a process and an end.0Prof. Dr. Magd Abdel Wahab is a full-time Professor of Applied Mechanics in the Faculty of Engineering and Architecture at Ghent University, Belgium.Beside his interest in engineering, Prof. Wahab has a strong interest in research in Islamic religion. During the last 15 years, he has served as an Associate Imam, and has delivered Friday ceremony speeches and Islamic talks in several mosques in the UK and Belgium. This book, Logic and Islam, summarises his experiences and provides logical answers to questions related to Almighty God, creations and Islam. (shrink)

SUMMARYThe idea that the public needs enlightenment is generally formulated by people who consider themselves in possession of the enlightenment the public supposedly needs. Herein lies the paternalism problem of popular enlightenment. Some seventy years after Immanuel Kant formulated his famous answer to the question What is enlightenment?, a Norwegian philosopher reaches for his pen on a similar errand. The Norwegian context, however, is different, and the reflection takes a different turn. The questions become: What is popular enlightenment? Who (...) is in a position to decide what kind of enlightenment ‘the people’ need and to define what is enlightenment as opposed to darkness? The text takes a closer look at the Norwegian reflections, published as three articles in two newspapers in 1852 and 1855. The newspaper articles are written by the philosopher Marcus Jacob Monrad. He finds support in Kantian insights when reflecting upon how a concrete initiative for the enlightenment of the public, in which he himself participates, should be understood. Monrad addresses the problem of paternalism in popular enlightenment, and he does this by using his reason publicly, which is what is required, according to Kant, in order for man to escape from tutelage. (shrink)

Plato articulates a deep perplexity about inquiry in ?Meno's Paradox??the claim that one can inquire neither into what one knows, nor into what one does not know. Although some commentators have wrestled with the paradox itself, many suppose that the paradox of inquiry is special to Plato, arising from peculiarities of the Socratic elenchus or of Platonic epistemology. But there is nothing peculiarly Platonic in this puzzle. For it arises, too, in classical Indian philosophical discussions, where it is formulated with (...) great clarity, and analysed in a way that casts it in a new light. We present three treatments of the puzzle in Indian philosophy, as a way of refining and sharpening our understanding of the paradox, before turning to the most radical of the Indian philosophers to tackle it. The Indian philosophers who are optimistic that the paradox can be resolved appeal to the existence of prior beliefs, and to the resources embedded in language to explain how we can investigate, and so move from ignorance to knowledge. Highlighting this structural feature of inquiry, however, allows the pessimist philosopher to demonstrate that the paradox stands. The incoherence of inquiry is rooted in the very idea of aiming our desires at the unknown. Asking questions and giving answers rests on referential intentions targeting objects in a region of epistemic darkness, and so our ?inquiry sceptic? also finds structurally similar forms of incoherence in the pragmatics of interrogative discourse. (shrink)

This paper is an essay based on many years of reviewing journal submissions and discussions with business ethics scholars on a range of themes regarding methods. To some extent, it contains condensed thoughts from two experienced scholars in the field, which we hope will be useful, especially to emerging scholars who, to some extent, may still be wrestling with some of the issues raised in the paper. The validity and reliability of research methods in business ethics research is discussed in (...) terms of legitimate methods to employ in the discipline, the epistemic challenges in the discipline, the debate between qualitative and quantitative methods, and some considered comments on ‘researching well’ in this discipline. Within each theme, we attempt to convey our distilled thoughts in the hope that methods employed in future studies will avoid some of the failures we have observed in the past. (shrink)

Medical, scientific and societal progress has been such that, in a universalist humanist perspective such as the WHO’s, it has become an ethical imperative for the primary endpoints in evidence based health care research to be expressed in e.g. Quality Adjusted Life Years (QALYs). The classical endpoints of discrete health‐related functions and duration of survival are increasingly perceived as unacceptably reductionistic. The major problem in ‘felicitometrics’ is the measurement of the ‘quality’ term in QALYs. That the mental, physical and social (...) domains, each containing many dimensions and items, all contribute to QOL is uncontroversial. What is controversial, is the weight of the different dimensions in overall QOL. It has been shown to be very different between different patient populations. In human individuals, assuredly complex systems, the many dimensions and items of QOL observably interact, probably sometimes also in chaotic ways. In these conditions, the weights of isolated items in individuals become for all practical purposes meaningless. Therefore, the much used multi‐item questionnaires at best describe, but do not evaluate QOL, neither in individuals, nor in populations. For example, allergic patients treated with cetirizine scored better than those a placebo on all dimensions of the SF‐36, a standard QOL questionnaire. Here there is no serious doubt that the treatment improved QOL, because it is highly unlikely that any important dimension on which the patient groups would have scored otherwise is missing in the SF‐36. However, whether piracetam treatment of acute stroke, which improved the surrogate endpoints neurological and functional scores, also improved QOL is plausible, but will be proven only when comprehensive QOL measurement will have been done. And suppose in randomised populations of end‐stage metastatic solid cancer patients, one would compare palliative last‐line chemotherapy with only palliative care, and one would, as can be expected, find no significant differences in average survival, and chemotherapy superior for the mental domain, but inferior for the physical comfort domain: we would not know which treatment, on aggregate, would be the better. The problem is that QOL is an individual and emergent construct, the resultant of a great many intractions, and of a different order than its contributing components. Overall QOL can therefore best be captured only as the Gestalt of a global self‐assessment. Just as people in everyday life, while acting under uncertainty, make global assessments all the time, so they can seriously answer the serious question: ‘How have you been?’ A solemn, practical, non peer‐relativistic, non‐cultural, experiential, and well tolerated way to obtain such responses is Anamnestic Comparative Self Assessment (ACSA), in which the subjects' memories of the best and the worst times in their life experience define their individual scale of QOL. ACSA is thus both exquisitely idiosyncratic, and yet can in a universalist humanistic perspective be considered generic. Using both a multi‐item questionnaire and a global assessment allows by one logistic regression, to estimate the weights of the dimensions and items in populations, and thus identify those whose improvement would most contribute to the QOL of the greatest number. A combined approach to measurement of QOL is necessary to maximise the utility of QOL interventions. (shrink)

Modern Moral Problems addresses moral quandaries that can beguile and confuse faithful Catholics. Written in a question-and-answer format, the book covers questions regarding sexuality, medical ethics, business practices, civic responsibilities, and the sacramental life of the Church. The extraordinary assortment of issuesforming a single, organized collectionis a valuable reference for anyone seeking clear and concise answers to tough moral questions. Written in a conversational tone often spliced with humor, this work by a highly respected moral theologian will (...) be read with fascination for its clarity of argument and fundamental good sense. Originally published as a monthly question-and-answer column in a magazine for priests, these selections by Msgr. William B. Smith retain a striking current topicality. Msgr. Smith often tackled matters of controversy in the Catholic Church, ones which continue to draw conflicting opinions. Interesting, informative, and eminently practical, this book conveys an overall impression that sound thinking about morality is rooted in a tradition within the Catholic Church, even when the answers to particular moral questions cannot be found in catechisms or Vatican documents. Msgr. Smith offers a clear-headed approach to the quandaries of our time precisely because of his training in traditional moral principles and his fidelity to the Catholic magisterium. This book should be in the possession of all seminarians and priests, who are bound to confront moral matters that are not so easily decided at first glance. But lay people, too, will find here rich responses to the challenging and sometimes unresolved moral questions they encounter in their own lives. (shrink)

I argue that inquiry can be defined without reference to the attitudes inquirers have during inquiry. Inquiry can instead be defined by its aim: it is the activity that has the aim of answering a question. I call this approach to defining inquiry a “naive” account. I present the naive account of inquiry in contrast to a prominent contemporary account of inquiry most notably defended by Jane Friedman. According to this view of inquiry, which I call an attitude-centric view, inquiry (...) is appropriately defined not by the aim of the activity but by the attitudes that inquirers have during inquiry. After developing the naive view, I defend it against the objection that it collapses into the attitude-centric view. (shrink)

A long series of studies in social psychology have shown that the explanations people give for their own behaviors are fundamentally different from the explanations they give for the behaviors of others. Still, a great deal of uncertainty remains about precisely what sorts of differences one finds here. We offer a new approach to addressing the problem. Specifically, we distinguish between two levels of representation ─ the level of linguistic structure (which consists of the actual series of words used in (...) the explanation) and the level of conceptual structure (which consists of the concepts these words are used to express). We then formulate and test hypotheses both about self-other differences in conceptual structure and about self-other differences in the mapping from conceptual structure to linguistic structure. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:On Japanese Things and Words:An Answer to Heidegger's QuestionMichael F. MarraIt has been over thirty years since my high school teacher of philosophy, Professor Dino Dezzani, recommended a book from which to begin my study of philosophy: Martin Heidegger's (1889-1976) Unterwegs zur Sprache (On the way to language [1959]). Evidently he was aware of my interest in literature and thought that Heidegger's discussion of words, things, and poetic language (...) would give some sort of direction to my naïve and youthful questions of what literature is about and what I should hope to find in it.The impact that Heidegger's book had on this young student was much greater than my professor could ever have imagined. I would hardly have committed myself to the study of Japan were it not for my reading of "A Dialogue on Language between a Japanese and an Inquirer," which appears in On the Way to Language. The dialogue is a fictional reconstruction of an actual meeting that Heidegger had with Tezuka Tomio (1903-1983), a Japanese scholar of German literature who visited the German philosopher in Freiburg at the end of March 1954.1 In the dialogue the Inquirer (Heidegger) formulates a central question that, in my opinion, should be of fundamental interest to anyone seriously concerned with the study of Japan. The question is deceptively simple, at least compared with the difficulty of coming up with the answer-an answer that, as a matter of fact, the reader will not find fully formulated in the dialogue. The question is: "What is the Japanese word for 'language' "? The Japanese visitor (Tezuka in Heidegger's recollection) appears to have been caught off guard, as we can see from Heidegger's parenthetical remark: "after further hesitation." Had Heidegger posed the same question to a Frenchman or an Italian, the answer would have been immediate: "langue" or "lingua." The challenge for Tezuka was definitely higher since he had a variety of words from which to choose. He could have used, for example, the expression gengo, a combination of two Chinese characters indicating "the speech of words." Instead, he used an ancient Japanese word derived from the native Yamato vocabulary: kotoba, which literally means "the foliage of speech."2There should be little doubt that Tezuka's choice was prompted by his desire to please Heidegger by playing the philosopher's own game-something that Tezuka totally succeeded in doing, as Heidegger's dialogue attests. Tezuka introduced a term that lent itself to etymological play-an enterprise very close to the heart of Heidegger, and one that was also very popular among Japanese thinkers.3 In fact, the expression kotoba incorporates the word koto, which means both "thing" and [End Page 555] "word" and which is found in the basic concepts of Japanese ontology: Mikoto (God, or "the honorable thing"), makoto (truth, or "the true word"), kotodama (soul, or "the spirit of words"), and kotowari(reason, or "the splitting of things"). The association of "words" and "things" in the Japanese word for "language" must have been of particular interest to Heidegger, who, four years before his meeting with Tezuka, had written "Das Ding" (The thing), a major lecture on the notion of things interpreted in light of the fourfold earth, sky, divinities, and mortals. In the dialogue Heidegger refers to this essay, in which "things" are presented in their objectified presence-the disparaged things that modernity and technology have dispossessed of their Being (Sein). Heidegger points out that never has the distance between things and Sein been as great as in modernity, when all distances in space and time have shrunk.4 Given the unflattering position that Heidegger had taken on the notion of "things," Tezuka was forced to come to the rescue of the Japanese word kotoba by endowing koto with the meaning of two Heideggerian keywords: "event" (kotogara) and "affair" (Sache). The thingly component of kotoba was not simply an objectifiable presence that can be counted, analyzed, and disposed of, but rather a poietic "act" that has the power to create a reality by transforming the named thing (koto) into a real thing (koto).In "A Dialogue... (shrink)

What truly matters? What is my purpose? When is the right time to make a change? Who is most important to me? A thoughtful and provocative collection of personal essays, O’s Little Guide to the Big Questions highlights the wisdom to be gained from engaging with life’s deepest mysteries. Award-winning and bestselling writers for O, The Oprah Magazine have been tackling these and other crucial questions since the magazine’s inception. Here, they share their eye-opening, soul-expanding insights. Among the (...) many jewels in the collection, Terry Tempest Williams describes the utter shock of opening her late mother’s journals—and the lessons she gleaned from what she found inside; Thich Nhat Hanh finds compassion in the midst of anger; JulieOrringer reveals how we can know when we’ve found “the one.” Offering valuable perspective to anyone feeling lost or in need of a reset, O’s Little Guide to the Big Questions is proof that while the search for meaning can be daunting, it’s also clarifying, motivating, empowering, and the surest path to becoming the person you were meant to be. (shrink)

At the age of 15 I began calling myself an atheist. It was bad timing because the next year, in English class, I read Waiting for Godot and plunged into a philosophical depression. This was not a clinical depression with thoughts of personal worthlessness and a yearning for death. It was, rather, the kind of funk that Woody Allen’s characters were so prone to in his early movies. For example, in Annie Hall, a flashback shows us a nine-year-old Allen-esque boy (...) being asked by a doctor why he is depressed. The boy’s response is that he had recently learned that the universe will expand forever and someday break apart. He saw no further point in doing homework, despite his mother’s protestations that Brooklyn was not expanding. After reading Godot, I felt the same way. If there was no God then my life, and all life, suddenly seemed to be as pointless as the lives of Vladimir and Estragon. Here, for example, is the quote I chose later that year to place under my picture in my high school yearbook: “Whosoever shall not fall by the sword or by famine, shall fall by pestilence, so why bother shaving?” The quote is from Woody Allen[1]. The next year I went to college. I was committed to figuring out the meaning of life and I thought that studying philosophy would help. I was disappointed. Philosophy addressed many fundamental questions of being and knowing, but the question “What is the meaning of life?” never came up. I assumed it was a badly formed question, and I moved on. I went to graduate school in psychology. If only I had been able to read Susan Wolf back then! She clarifies the question so elegantly, and she points to the means by which each of us can answer it for ourselves: go find something to love, something worthy of love, that you can link to and engage with in the right sort of way. It took me a while to do that, but I eventually did, as so many of us have, both by committing to people and by committing to my work. My remaining comments flow from that work, which ended up bringing me, by a roundabout route, back to the question of the meaning of life.. (shrink)

7 lectures, Torquay, UK, August 12-20, 1924 (CW 311) These seven intimate, aphoristic talks were presented to a small group on Steiner's final visit to England. Because they were given to "pioneers" dedicated to opening a new Waldorf school, these talks are often considered one of the best introductions to Waldorf education. Steiner shows the necessity for teachers to work on themselves first, in order to transform their own inherent gifts. He explains the need to use humor to keep their (...) teaching lively and imaginative. Above all, he stresses the tremendous importance of doing everything in the knowledge that children are citizens of both the spiritual and the earthly worlds. And, throughout these lectures, he continually returns to the practical value of Waldorf education. These talks are filled with practical illustrations and revolve around certain themes--the need for observation in teachers; the dangers of stressing the intellect too early; children's need for teaching that is concrete and pictorial; the education of children's souls through wonder and reverence; the importance of first presenting the "whole," then the parts, to the children's imagination. Here is one of the best introductions to Waldorf education, straight from the man who started it all. German source: Die Kunst des Erziehens aus dem Erfassen der Menschenwesenhiet (GA 311). ∞ ∞ ∞ SYNOPSIS OF THE LECTURES LECTURE 1: The need for a new art of education. The whole of life must be considered. Process of incarnation as a stupendous task of the spirit. Fundamental changes at seven and fourteen. At seven, the forming of the "new body" out of the "model body" inherited at birth. After birth, the bodily milk as sole nourishment. The teacher's task to give "soul milk" at the change of teeth and "spiritual milk" at puberty. LECTURE 2: In first epoch of life child is wholly sense organ. Nature of child's environment and conduct of surrounding adults of paramount importance. Detailed observation of children and its significance. In second epoch, seven to fourteen, fantasy and imagination as life blood of all education, e.g., in teaching of writing and reading, based on free creative activity of each teacher. The child as integral part of the environment until nine. Teaching about nature must be based on this. The "higher truths" in fairy tales and myths. How the teacher can guide the child through the critical moment of the ninth year. LECTURE 3: How to teach about plants and animals (seven to fourteen). Plants must always be considered, not as specimens, but growing in the soil. The plant belongs to the earth. This is the true picture and gives the child an inward joy. Animals must be spoken of always in connection with humans. All animal qualities and physical characteristics are to be found, in some form, in the human being. Humans as synthesis of the whole animal kingdom. Minerals should not be introduced until twelfth year. History should first be presented in living, imaginative pictures, through legends, myths, and stories. Only at eleven or twelve should any teaching be based on cause and effect, which is foreign to the young child's nature. Some thoughts on punishment, with examples. LECTURE 4: Development of imaginative qualities in the teacher. The story of the violet and the blue sky. Children's questions. Discipline dependent on the right mood of soul. The teacher's own preparation for this. Seating of children according to temperament. Retelling of stories. Importance of imaginative stories that can be recalled in later school life. Drawing of diagrams, from ninth year. Completion and metamorphosis of simple figures, to give children feeling of form and symmetry. Concentration exercises to awaken an active thinking as basis of wisdom for later life. Simple color exercises. A Waldorf school timetable. The "main lesson." LECTURE 5: All teaching matter must be intimately connected with life. In counting, each different number should be connected with the child or what the child sees in the environment. Counting and stepping in rhythm. The body counts. The head looks on. Counting with fingers and toes is good (also writing with the feet). The ONE is the whole. Other numbers proceed from it. Building with bricks is against the child's nature, whose impulse is to proceed from whole to parts, as in medieval thinking. Contrast atomic theory. In real life we have first a basket of apples, a purse of coins. In teaching addition, proceed from the whole. In subtraction, start with minuend and remainder; in multiplication, with product and one factor. Theorem of Pythagoras (eleven-twelve years). Details given of a clear, visual proof, based on practical thinking. This will arouse fresh wonder every time. LECTURE 6: In first seven years etheric body is an inward sculptor. After seven, child has impulse to model and to paint. Teacher must learn anatomy by modeling the organs. Teaching of physiology (nine to twelve years) should be based on modeling. Between seven and fourteen astral body gradually draws into physical body, carrying the breathing by way of nerves, as playing on a lyre. Importance of singing. Child's experience of well being like that of cows chewing the cud. Instrumental music from beginning of school life, wind or strings. Teaching of languages; up to nine through imitation, then beginnings of grammar, as little translation as possible. Vowels are expression of feeling, consonants are imitation of external processes. Each language expresses a different conception. Compare head, Kopf, testa. The parts of speech in relation to the life after death. If language is rightly taught, out of feeling, eurythmy will develop naturally, expressing inner and outer experiences in ordered movements--"visible speech." Finding relationship to space in gymnastics. LECTURE 7: Between seven and fourteen soul qualities are paramount. Beginnings of science teaching from twelfth year only, and connected with real phenomena of life. The problem of fatigue. Wrong conceptions of psychologists. The rhythmic system, predominant in second period, never tires. Rhythm and fantasy. Composition. Sums from real life, not abstractions. Einstein's theory. The kindergarten--imitation of life. Teachers' meetings, the heart of the school. Every child to be in the right class for its age. Importance of some knowledge of trades, e.g., shoemaking, handwork, and embroidery. Children's reports-- characterization, but no grading. Contact with the parents. QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS: The close relationship of Multiplication and Division. How to deal with both together. Transition from the concrete to the abstract in Arithmetic. Not before the ninth year. Healthiness of English weights and measures as related to real life. Decimal system as an intellectual abstraction. Drawing. Lines have no reality in drawing and painting, only boundaries. How to teach children to draw a tree in shading, speaking only of light and color. (Illustration). Line drawing belongs only to geometry. Gymnastics and Sport. Sport is of no educational value, but necessary as belonging to English life. Gymnastics should be taught by demonstration. Religious Instruction. Religion lessons in the Waldorf school given by Catholic priest and Protestant pastor. "Free" religion lessons provided for the other children. Plan of such teaching described, of which the fundamental aim is an understanding of Christianity. The Sunday services. Modern Language Lessons. Choice of languages must be guided by the demands of English life. These can be introduced at an early age. Direct method in language teaching. Closing words by Dr. Steiner on the seriousness of this first attempt to found a school in England. (shrink)

Nicholas Fearn. Philosophy: The latest answers to the oldest questionsLondon: Atlantic Books, 2005, 225 pp.Nicholas Fearn has written a useful book for both beginners and long-time devotees of philosophy. The part of the subtitle that should interest the experienced philosophy professionals would be the “latest answers.” Beginners, meanwhile, will find the lucid and example-laden discussion of the “oldest questions” useful as they try to learn their way about.How does Fearn manage this juxtaposition? First, he produces three basic (...) philosophical questions which designate the three parts of his book. Contained in these three parts are more detailed problems, which constitute the book’s thirteen chapters. We have, for example, under “who am I?” chapters on the self, free will, other minds, and the soul. These different chapters flesh out, for the most part, the classic philosophical problems. They are the “oldest questions” mentioned in the title. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Finding My Compass*Laura Inter+I was born in the 1980s, and much to my parents surprise, the doctors could not say whether I was a boy or a girl because my body had ambiguous genitalia. They then conducted a chromosome test and the result was XX chromosomes. I was assigned female and only later was diagnosed with congenital adrenal hyperplasia (CAH). Fortunately for me the endocrinologist who treated me (...) did not mention the option of surgery, so my medical treatment consisted only of taking cortisol. Apart from this, from the time I turned one, I was subjected to genital examinations twice a year, during which the endocrinologist would touch my genitals and look to see how they were developing.These unnecessary and intrusive examinations had a profound effect on me. As a young child, I did not understand why I had to lower my pants in front of a stranger—the endocrinologist—and let him touch me. The fact that my mother was present, and approved of this was something that made me feel completely helpless. All this seemed very strange to me; I found it confusing, and terribly uncomfortable, and I just felt it wasn’t right.I remember the doctor always spoke as if I wasn’t right there, and I did not always understand everything the doctor said when I was young, because of all the medical terms he used. I grew up with a feeling of being “inadequate,” of having a sense that something was wrong with me, though I didn’t know exactly what. These exams lasted until I was about 12 years old. Years later, as I began my adult, sexual life, I realized how much those displays had affected me emotionally.I discovered what was “wrong” with me during sex education classes in the first year of high school. There was a class session in which two images were shown: one displaying the external female sex organs, and the other the male sex organs. I noticed that my body was not like either of them. I was very distressed, thinking “I have deformed genitals!” I feared I could not perform sexually as either a man or a woman. I became very depressed. I was sure nobody would want me, that I would never have a relationship. I was unacceptable, “abnormal,” or at least that is what the doctors had said. And in any case my parents never spoke of it, and I didn’t know that I had CAH.Skip forward a few years: I was still looking for answers, I found my medical file and read in the documents “pseudo–hermaphrodite,” and [End Page 95] “congenital adrenal hyperplasia.” I searched the internet, but only found medical opinions that said that in the case of genital ambiguity, the best option was surgery. I wondered to myself: “Why didn’t they operate on me?”I put the question to my parents, and, at fifteen, I found myself being examined once more in the doctor’s office, this time to consider the possibility of a genital surgery which might once and for all, I believed, make me a “normal” person.I have never told anyone outside my family before, but one of those exams was the most humiliating experiences of my life. One doctor wanted to speak with me alone, so she made my mother wait outside the exam room. My mother agreed, thinking that after the doctor talked with me, my mother would be able to be present during the rest of the exam. The doctor asked me questions, some of which made me very uncomfortable: “Do you feel good about being a woman”? Did you ever feel like a man? Why don’t you dress up more, use more makeup? Are you a lesbian? Have you ever had sex? She then said she wanted to see my genitals. I felt awful and wanted my mother present, but I also wanted it to be over quickly, and said nothing. Examining my genitals, the doctor told me they “would not be adequate for sex,” and that she needed to “perform surgery.” Something else that made me uncomfortable was the presence of another doctor in... (shrink)

Leibniz is often cited as an authority when it comes to the formulation and answer strategy of the question “Why is there something rather than nothing?” Yet much current research assumes that Leibniz advocates an unambiguous question and strategy for the answer. In this respect, one repeatedly finds the argument in the literature that alternative explanatory approaches to this question violate Leibniz’s intention, since he derives the question from the principle of sufficient reason and also demands a causal explanation to (...) the question. In particular, the new research on non-causal explanatory strategies to the Leibniz question seems to concern this counter-argument. In this paper, however, I will argue that while Leibniz raises the question by means of the principle of sufficient reason, he even favours a non-causal explanatory strategy to the question. Thus, a more accurate Leibniz interpretation seems not only to legitimise but also to support non-causal explanations to the Leibniz question. (shrink)

In this paper I propose to examine, and in part revive, a time-honoured perspective to inquiry in general and scientific explanation in particular. The perspective is to view inquiry as a search for answers to questions. If there is anything that deserves to be called a working scientist's view of his or her daily work, it surely is that he or she phrases questions and attempts to find satisfactory answers to them.

BackgroundAlthough the “right not to know” is well established in international regulations, it has been heavily debated. Ubiquitous results from extended exome and genome analysis have challenged the right not to know. American College of Medical Genetics and Genomics Recommendations urge to inform about incidental findings that pretend to be accurate and actionable. However, ample clinical cases raise the question whether these criteria are met. Many incidental findings are of uncertain significance. The eager to feedback information appears to enter the (...) field of IFUS and thereby threaten the right not to know. This makes it imperative to investigate the arguments for and against a right not to know for IFUS.DiscussionThis article investigates how the various arguments for and against a right not to know hold for IFUS. The main investigated arguments are: hypothetical utilitarianism, the right-based argument, the feasibility argument, the value of knowledge argument, the argument from lost significance, the empirical argument, the duty to disclose argument, the avoiding harm argument; the argument from principle, from autonomy, from privacy, as well as the argument from the right to an open future. The analysis shows that both sides in the debate have exaggerated the importance of incidental findings.SummaryOpponents of a right not to know have exaggerated the importance of IFUS, while proponents have exaggerated the need to be protected from something that is not knowledge. Hence, to know or not to know is not the question. The question is whether we should be able to stay ignorant of incidental findings of uncertain significance, if we want to. The answer is yes: As long as the information is not accurate and/or actionable: ignorance is bliss. When answering questions that are not asked, we need to think twice. (shrink)

The aim of this academic symposium was to provide an answer to the question whether “youth quotas” offer a solution to changes in age demographics and a looming gerontocracy. Based on the premise that young people have the potential to act as change agents, especially with regard to ecological sustainability, it was our aim to stimulate a societal discussion and to raise public awareness on the topic of youth quotas, whilst providing the discussion with a scientific basis. The question of (...) a power shift between generations is already discussed in many facets in the literature. Many commentators state that a shift is already visible and that the problem requires careful political management. In light of this, the implementation of youth quotas could be a possible method of protecting the interests of younger generations in politics and beyond. The symposium was investigating a topic that is greatly under-researched. Some key questions to be addressed at the symposium were: Should youth quotas be limited to the political arena or should they also be implemented in other fields? Can youth quotas ensure that a greater sense of urgency is applied to the problem-solving process of future concerns like global warming? Can young people really be relied upon to represent the interests of the young generation as a whole, or will they just follow their own individual interests? Are youth quotas in general an effective instrument to strengthen the rights of the young generation or do we need other and more effective instruments? Intense debates arose over the question of whether or not youth quotas are an effective means to strengthen the rights of future generations. Some junior researchers suggested that young people can be thought of as the “trustees of posterity” as they tend to be fiercer defenders of long-termist policies, especially regarding the environment, since the environmental crisis will have a more concrete impact on their lifespan. But other speakers rejected the causality that young people will have a stronger determination to solve future problems, or will necessarily add a new “young” perspective in the epistemic process of finding solutions to future problems. The indication of these latter speakers was that environmental issues are not the top priority of young people. Regarding the composition of party lists, one speaker pointed to the problem of legitimacy in the outcome of an election. The positive discrimination of youth within a societal group has to be justified because other groups could feel disadvantaged by the implementation of such a strong instrument. Some speakers challenged the analogy of youth quotas to quotas for women or ethnic minorities, because women and ethnic minorities can’t change their status whereas today’s young people, in the normal course of life, will be old in the future. This means that the disadvantage of a person in his or her young age is just temporal. Generational effects were pitted against age effects in this context. Some experts pointed to alternatives to youth quotas. In their view, lowering the voting age and better political education in schools, especially, would produce better results. Another proposed strategy was the implementation of proxy votes for the parents. A vote at the end of the symposium sparked interesting results. Although several reservations were noted, most of the speakers voted for the implementation of youth quotas. All speakers voted for lowering the voting age. The conclusion reached by this academic symposium was that a package of measures is required to give adequate answers to demographic change. Youth quotas could be part of this package. The organisers planned to publish the outcomes of the symposium in an anthology : Youth Quotas and other Efficient Forms of Youth Participation in Ageing Societies. Berlin/Heidelberg: Springer). (shrink)

Adopting a sociopragmatic and interactional perspective, the paper proposes to investigate how apprentices engage in questioning practices and how trainers respond to these questions. A detailed empirical analysis of audio/video data collected in the context of Swiss training companies establishes that answers provided by trainers in response to questions do not constitute the dominant form of questioning work observed. Alternative interactional patterns that stress the tensions connected with questioning in the workplace context and the complexity of the (...) social practices associated with workplace learning are identified and described. These findings illuminate the challenges faced by apprentices when joining the workplace and underscore the importance of a sociopragmatic perspective in addressing social issues related to initial vocational education. (shrink)

What is creativity and who exactly is creative? In this insightful and highly readable book, the author attempts to answer these questions by arguing that geographical millieux are hotbeds for creativity and renewal - places where pioneers in art, technology and science have gathered and developed their special abilities. In light of ongoing social and economic transformations, special attention is paid to the institutional settings in firms and universities. The goal is to identify those features which facilitate and those (...) which impede the creative process. Individual lives are illustrated through the autobiographies of hundreds of Nobel Laureates. Their life paths reveal the importance of geographic mobility and contact patterns for the development of creativity and international prestige. From these biographies we can also see how local millieux and schools have influenced many scientists"--Back cover. (shrink)

This paper addresses a problem for theories of epistemic democracy. In a decision on a complex issue which can be decomposed into several parts, a collective can use different voting procedures: Either its members vote on each sub-question and the answers that gain majority support are used as premises for the conclusion on the main issue, or the vote is conducted on the main issue itself. The two procedures can lead to different results. We investigate which of these procedures (...) is better as a truth-tracker, assuming that there exists a true answer to be reached. On the basis of the Condorcet jury theorem, we show that the pbp is universally superior if the objective is to reach truth for the right reasons. If one instead is after truth for whatever reasons, right or wrong, there will be cases in which the cbp is more reliable, even though, for the most part, the pbp still is to be preferred. (shrink)

This paper focuses on children’s interpretation of sentences containing negation and a quantifier (e.g., The detective didn’t find some guys). Recent studies suggest that, although children are capable of accessing inverse scope interpretations of such sentences, they resort to surface scope to a larger extent than adults. To account for children’s behavioral pattern, we propose a new factor at play in Truth Value Judgment tasks: the Question–Answer Requirement (QAR). According to the QAR, children (and adults) must interpret the target sentence (...) that they evaluate as an answer to a question that is made salient by the discourse. (shrink)

The article purports to examine the risk to cultural identity amongst an Indian community in South Africa using a single case study methodology. A case study approach was followed, using the qualitative research methodology, whereby not only the how, but also adding focus on the thoughts, feelings, perceptions, experiences and motivations that people have underlie their behaviour. The year 1960 marked the 100th anniversary of the arrival of the Indians to the Colony of Natal, hence the study considers the period (...) 1895 to 1960. Identifying with a particular culture allows members of that community to experience feelings of belonging and security. Moving across continents, Indian indentured sugar plantation labourers came to the Colony of Natal from 1860 until 1911 bringing with them their cultural identity. The risk to cultural identity is a significant contributor to an individual’s well-being. Cultural identity may be viewed as a sense of belonging based on one’s ancestry, rituals, religion, traditions, values and even language. When they were transported during the concurrent time of colonisation and indenture, they became displaced and thus an emotional threat to their well-being, belonging and security was created and simultaneously experienced. This threat compromised their cultural identity. This risk to cultural identity is investigated in the narrative of an Indian female national matriarch, Mrs Takurine Mahesh Singh who arrived in the Colony in 1895 and passed away in 1959. A risk to cultural identity existed, but the Indian community in South Africa did not experience deculturalisation. They were able to practise their ancestral culture without losing their identity. This is one of the findings and it concludes the abstract.Contribution: The study of identity, identity diffusion, identity loss is a very important aspect to study, especially for displaced communities who suffer not only alienation from their mother country, but also losing contact and cultures as a result of displacement. This article provides insight on the risk to cultural identity in Natal between 1895 and 1960. In terms of the findings, cultural identity is an important contributor to well-being. Identifying with a particular culture gave the matriarch a feeling of belonging and security. It also provides access to social and other networks which provide support and shared strength, values and aspirations. Although a product of oral history, for this research, the article could not be supported by other historical materials in an attempt at balancing the views as scholars have not explored the widowed Indian nationals who have remained in the Colony after indenture. This article should not be viewed simplistically as a retelling of Mrs Singh’s life story, but rather a narrative based on reflective memories that pieced together her departure from India under the political system of indenture, living and surviving as a widow under harsh laws and having multiple identities. The narrative oral history approach combined with a qualitative research methodology does not focus on analysis and interpretation but rather brings to the fore, the opportunity for further exploratory studies where the question ‘why’ will be answered. (shrink)

BackgroundAlthough the “right not to know” is well established in international regulations, it has been heavily debated. Ubiquitous results from extended exome and genome analysis have challenged the right not to know. American College of Medical Genetics and Genomics Recommendations urge to inform about incidental findings that pretend to be accurate and actionable. However, ample clinical cases raise the question whether these criteria are met. Many incidental findings are of uncertain significance. The eager to feedback information appears to enter the (...) field of IFUS and thereby threaten the right not to know. This makes it imperative to investigate the arguments for and against a right not to know for IFUS.DiscussionThis article investigates how the various arguments for and against a right not to know hold for IFUS. The main investigated arguments are: hypothetical utilitarianism, the right-based argument, the feasibility argument, the value of knowledge argument, the argument from lost significance, the empirical argument, the duty to disclose argument, the avoiding harm argument; the argument from principle, from autonomy, from privacy, as well as the argument from the right to an open future. The analysis shows that both sides in the debate have exaggerated the importance of incidental findings.SummaryOpponents of a right not to know have exaggerated the importance of IFUS, while proponents have exaggerated the need to be protected from something that is not knowledge. Hence, to know or not to know is not the question. The question is whether we should be able to stay ignorant of incidental findings of uncertain significance, if we want to. The answer is yes: As long as the information is not accurate and/or actionable: ignorance is bliss. When answering questions that are not asked, we need to think twice. (shrink)

This paper addresses a problem for theories of epistemic democracy. In a decision on a complex issue which can be decomposed into several parts, a collective can use different voting procedures: Either its members vote on each sub-question and the answers that gain majority support are used as premises for the conclusion on the main issue, or the vote is conducted on the main issue itself. The two procedures can lead to different results. We investigate which of these procedures (...) is better as a truth-tracker, assuming that there exists a true answer to be reached. On the basis of the Condorcet jury theorem, we show that the pbp is universally superior if the objective is to reach truth for the right reasons. If one instead is after truth for whatever reasons, right or wrong, there will be cases in which the cbp is more reliable, even though, for the most part, the pbp still is to be preferred. (shrink)

By the end of 18th century, when one of the well-known political documents, the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen, was enacted, it hasn’t been that difficult to find the answer to the question about “what” of the human rights, though then we acceded to the grounds of a basically different morals. One way or another, human rights were derived from reason, meaning from the ability which should be able to write “The Pure Reason Gospel”. A (...) century and a half later, in 1948, such question not only had certain shortcomings, but in just a few years of practicing the Universal Declaration of Human Rights it became clear that searching for “what” of human rights opens numerous and profound dissidences every day. Therefore a strategic shift was suggested: to proclaim the question about “what” to be prevalent and commit ourselves to the “how” of human rights. Instead of positive assignment , we suggest a negative assignment: What kind of thinking can negatively affect the “how” of human rights? In this enclosure, we need to show how postmodernism brought onto-theological thinking which acts like lenses that give us wrong perspective on human rights and therefore represents one of the biggest contemporary threats for human rights. (shrink)

This paper addresses a problem for theories of epistemic democracy. In a decision on a complex issue which can be decomposed into several parts, a collective can use different voting procedures: Either its members vote on each sub-question and the answers that gain majority support are used as premises for the conclusion on the main issue, or the vote is conducted on the main issue itself. The two procedures can lead to different results. We investigate which of these procedures (...) is better as a truth-tracker, assuming that there exists a true answer to be reached. On the basis of the Condorcet jury theorem, we show that the pbp is universally superior if the objective is to reach truth for the right reasons. If one instead is after truth for whatever reasons, right or wrong, there will be cases in which the cbp is more reliable, even though, for the most part, the pbp still is to be preferred. (shrink)

This paper addresses a problem for theories of epistemic democracy. In a decision on a complex issue which can be decomposed into several parts, a collective can use different voting procedures: Either its members vote on each sub-question and the answers that gain majority support are used as premises for the conclusion on the main issue, or the vote is conducted on the main issue itself. The two procedures can lead to different results. We investigate which of these procedures (...) is better as a truth-tracker, assuming that there exists a true answer to be reached. On the basis of the Condorcet jury theorem, we show that the pbp is universally superior if the objective is to reach truth for the right reasons. If one instead is after truth for whatever reasons, right or wrong, there will be cases in which the cbp is more reliable, even though, for the most part, the pbp still is to be preferred. (shrink)

In answer to jordan's "disputed questions" the reasons why gilsonianism has been chosen as interlocutor are clarified; the analogous character of the "transcendental sense" of essence and the "primary sense" (first analogate) of essence ((1) "essence of and in really existing beings," (2) ideal and immutable eide, (3) essence of the absolute, real and eternal being) are further elucidated. The main arguments in the essay for "ideal essences" are further explained and the main charges answered by the speculative attempt (...) to reconcile clearly given ideal "essences" with a divine being (subject of philosophical proof) which is not limited by "ideas" like plato's demiourg. Existential thomism (gilson) is credited with having referred to an unmistakably given important metaphysical "principle": existence, which is then wrongly "absolutized," while jordan's "absolutized" "esse" is suspected to refer to no single original datum; the limitation implied in "essence" seems to be held on the basis of a "concoction" of existence, being and essence. (shrink)

This paper examines Kant’s anthropological project and its relationship to his conception of ‘man’ in order to show that Kant’s answer to the question ‘what is man?’ entails a decisive re-evaluation of traditional conceptions of human nature. I argue that Kant redirects the question ‘what is man?’ away from defining man in terms of what he is, and towards defining him in terms of what he does, in particular through the distinction between three levels of what I will call ‘man’s (...) praxis’: the levels of technicality, prudence, and morality. As soon as man is understood in terms of what he makes of himself rather than in terms of what he is, two crucial issues arise: what is the purpose of his making? And how can he reach this destination? My claim is that whilst the first question is answered by ethics and a doctrine of prudence, the second question is answered by anthropology. In this sense, anthropology plays the crucial role of identifying the worldly helps and hindrances to the realisation of man’s purposes—and this is the reason why it should be understood as a ‘pragmatic’ discipline.Keywords: Immanuel; Kant; Pragmatic; Anthropology; Praxis; Aliens; Human nature. (shrink)

Rosłanowski and Shelah [Small-large subgroups of the reals, Math. Slov. 68(3) (2018) 473–484] asked whether every locally compact non-discrete group has a null but non-meager subgroup, and conversely, whether it is consistent with [Formula: see text] that in every locally compact group a meager subgroup is always null. They gave affirmative answers for both questions in the case of the Cantor group and the reals. In this paper, we give affirmative answers for the general case.

Back when I was a college freshman, I started working as a research assistant to a young graduate student named Bertram Malle. I hadn’t actually known very much about Malle’s work when I first signed up for the position, but as luck would have it, he was a brilliant researcher with an innovative new approach. Malle was interested in understanding people’s ordinary intuitions about intentional action – the way in which people’s ascriptions of belief, desire, awareness and so forth ultimately (...) feed into the process by which people determine whether or not a behavior was performed intentionally. Of course, this sort of question had already been pursued in countless philosophy papers, but Malle wanted to use a different approach. He wanted to study the problem experimentally. We ran a number of experiments together and then co-authored a paper, which was published in a social psychology journal. Yet although I found this type of research interesting and engaging, my real passion lay elsewhere. I was obsessively reading Nietzsche, along with some heavy doses of Kierkegaard, Hume, Marx, Wittgenstein and Aristotle. What I really wanted to do was to continue working on the very same sorts of questions I saw addressed in these thinkers. (shrink)

I came late to philosophy and even later to normative ethics. When I started my undergraduate studies at the University of Toronto in 1970, I was interested in mathematics and languages. I soon discovered, however, that my mathematical talents were rather meager compared to the truly talented. I therefore decided to study actuarial science (the applied mathematics of risk assessment for insurance and pension plans) rather than abstract math. After two years, however, I dropped out of university, went to work (...) for a life insurance company, and started studying on my own for the ten professional actuarial exams. When not studying, I would often go to the public library and I was drawn to the philosophy section—although I had no idea of what philosophy was about. I there saw Logical Positivism, edited by A.J. Ayer. I was interested in logical thinking and I also favored an optimistic attitude towards life (!) and so I thought that the book might be interesting. I checked it out and was absolutely enthralled with the writings of Bertrand Russell, Rudolf Carnap, Carl Hempel and others (if I’m remembering correctly). Of course, I didn’t really understand much of what they were doing, but I did see that they were addressing important problems in a systematic and rigorous manner. I liked it! (shrink)

The ideals and realities of field research have shaped the development of behavioural primatology over the latter half of the twentieth century. This paper draws on interviews with primatologists as well as a survey of the scientific literature to examine the idealized notion of the field site as a natural place and the physical environment of the field as a research space. It shows that what became standard field practice emerged in the course of wide ranging debate about the techniques, (...) personal qualities and site conditions best suited to the scientific study of the natural behaviour of apes and monkeys. Although the laboratory was a constant presence in this debate, the export of techniques from the laboratory to the field was limited, due to concerns that experimental manipulation would destroy the naturalness of the behaviour. The paper goes on to demonstrate the central significance given by primatologists to the unique social, historical and ecological circumstances of particular field sites, and to sketch some of the complexities that fieldworkers contend with in trying to realize their ideals. Primatologists seek field sites that answer their questions; but once their studies become long term, they also need to find questions that answer to ever changing conditions at those sites. (shrink)

The initial questions about God -- The attributes of God -- The names of God -- The trinity and intrapersonal relationship of God -- Early heresies relating to God and how the church responded to them -- What the ancient church taught about God -- The true and living God and other gods.

Dr. Stephen Hawking was the most renowned scientist since Einstein, known both for his groundbreaking work in physics and cosmology and for his mischievous sense of humor. He educated millions of readers about the origins of the universe and the nature of black holes, and inspired millions more by defying a terrifying early prognosis of ALS, which originally gave him only two years to live. In later life he could communicate only by using a few facial muscles, but he continued (...) to advance his field and serve as a revered voice on social and humanitarian issues. Hawking not only unraveled some of the universe's greatest mysteries but also believed science plays a critical role in fixing problems here on Earth. Now he turns his attention to the most urgent issues facing us. Will humanity survive? Should we colonize space? Does God exist? These are just a few of the questions Hawking addresses in this wide-ranging, passionately argued final book from one of the greatest minds in history. Featuring a foreword by Eddie Redmayne, who won an Oscar playing Stephen Hawking, an introduction by Nobel Laureate Kip Thorne, and an afterword from Hawking's daughter, Lucy. (shrink)

Rosłanowski and Shelah [Small-large subgroups of the reals, Math. Slov. 68 473–484] asked whether every locally compact non-discrete group has a null but non-meager subgroup, and converse...

An affirmative answer is given to the question quoted in the title.