Purpose. To examine the existential anthropology of G. Marcel and E. Minkowski, in order to demonstrate the necessity of distinguishing the universal-spiritual, as human in human being, apart from the individual-existential in him, and to reveal the hierarchical correlation of biosocial, existential and spiritual spheres in personality. Theoretical basis. Within existential philosophy the author differentiates two separate traditions and proceeds from the insufficiency of the distinction of existential sphere, proposed by phenomenological tradition, showing the necessity of its correlation with the (...) spiritual sphere as a sphere of humanity, proposed by non-phenomenological tradition of G. Marcel and E. Minkowski. Originality. The author presents the anthropological conception of G. Marcel and E. Minkowski, in which human personality is understood as unity of individual-existential and universal-spiritual, which requires a special trans-empirical field of culture, which contains senses, images and symbols of humanity. Also, the author presents the recent developments of existential thinkers in distinguishing existential and spiritual dimensions, both not reducible to the physical and social dimensions. Conclusions. In both existential traditions, the specifically human was founded as a trans-biological and trans-social phenomenon, which appears as indefinable and non-predetermined. But in first tradition, humanity is understood as an existence, as a unique individuality, "project", variant of humanity, equivalent to other variants, and universal is understood as a community of human condition in the world. While in the second tradition, the universal is understood as spiritual. Thus, horizontal level of our private existence, as the process of movement from birth to death, is supplemented by vertical of human, universal ideals and images. Humanity appears as a task, on the way to which human being transcends beyond the limits of his individual "self" to the "super-individual", through inclusion into spiritual community, into universal culture. (shrink)

_Purpose._ The paper seeks to prove the thesis of the significance and importance of the theories and methodological approaches of historical anthropology, which are aimed at understanding the meanings, essence and value systems of human existence in the past for philosophical anthropology. The study of this problem is relevant for understanding the evolution of human identity with philosophical and anthropological concepts, understanding the essence of one’s own existence and attitude to the world. _Theoretical basis._ The author conducts research (...) in the analysis of the reflexive field of philosophical anthropology and related disciplines, in particular historical anthropology, implemented in the philosophical literature of recent centuries, that is, in the space of non-classical and modern philosophical thought. _Originality._ I raise and substantiate the theoretical question of the scientific significance of the analysis of human existence in the past thanks to the involvement of theoretical approaches and concepts formed in the reflexive field of modern historical and anthropological research. This forms the prerequisites for understanding complex and interdisciplinary explorations of the essence and cultural and spiritual values of human existence. I analyse the problems of the work in the context of the concept of the incompleteness of the project of philosophical anthropology without its involvement in the theoretical achievements of historical-anthropological investigations. _Conclusions._ In my opinion, modern historical and anthropological studies of the essence and meanings of being a person of the past form an extensive theoretical system. It is realized through such theoretical aspects of comprehension of human existence by historical and anthropological studies as "history of mentalities", "microhistory", "history of women", "new cultural history", "history of identity", "history of memory", history of mental aspects of political processes. Methodological approaches and concepts of modern historical anthropology form the basis of mental reconstruction and understanding of the mental and cultural causes and factors of human existence, thanks to the analysis of the evolution of the worldview, behaviour, outlook, various forms of individual and social activity of the individual. (shrink)

Mitochondrial replacement techniques, known in the popular media as 'three-parent' or 'three-person' IVFs, have the potential to enable women with mitochondrial diseases to have children who are genetically related to them but without such diseases. In the debate regarding whether MRTs should be made available, an issue that has garnered considerable attention is whether MRTs affect the characteristics of an existing individual or whether they result in the creation of a new individual, given that MRTs involve the genetic manipulation of (...) the germline. In other words, do MRTs affect the qualitative identity or the numerical identity of the resulting child? For instance, a group of panelists on behalf of the UK Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority has claimed that MRTs affect only the qualitative identity of the resulting child, while the Working Group of the Nuffield Council on Bioethics has argued that MRTs would create a numerically distinct individual. In this article, I shall argue that MRTs do create a new and numerically distinct individual. Since my explanation is different from the NCOB's explanation, I shall also offer reasons why my explanation is preferable to the NCOB's explanation. (shrink)

Background: Today in vitro fertilisation is a widespread and important technique of reproductive medicine. When the technique was first used, it was considered ethically controversial. This is the first study conducted of adult IVF-offspring in order to learn about their ethical opinions and personal attitudes towards this medical technology.Methods: We recruited the participants from the first cases of in vitro fertilisation in Germany at the Gynaecological Clinic of the University Hospital Erlangen. Our qualitative interview study consisted of in-depth, face-to-face interviews (...) with 16 adults who had been conceived by IVF. Our data was analysed with methods of Grounded Theory.Results: For these adults, the most important factor influencing their personal attitudes towards IVF was the knowledge that they were deeply wanted children. The artificiality of their conception seemed irrelevant for their ethical opinion. All participants mentioned that it was important for them to be informed about the circumstances of their conception by their parents.Conclusions: IVF seems to be a medical technique which, although it affects intimate aspects of human existence, can be integrated into the lives of the affected persons without any great difficulties. The findings suggest that parents should inform their children about their fertilisation at an early age and as part of a process over time, not only on a single occasion. Physicians should advise IVF-parents accordingly. (shrink)

This Article is a contribution to the torture debate. It argues that the abusive interrogation tactics used by the United States in what was then called the “global war on terrorism” are, unequivocally, torture under U.S. law. To some readers, this might sound like déjà vu all over again. Hasn’t this issue been picked over for nearly fifteen years? It has, but we think the legal analysis we offer has been mostly overlooked. We argue that the basic character of the (...) CIA’s interrogation of so-called “high-value detainees” has been misunderstood: both lawyers and commentators have placed far too much emphasis on the dozen or so “enhanced interrogation techniques” (EITs) short-listed in government “torture memos,” and far too little emphasis on other forms of physical violence, psychological stressors, environmental manipulations, and abusive conditions of confinement that are crucial to the question of whether the detainees were tortured. Furthermore, we dispute one of the standard narratives about the origins of the program: that it was the brainchild of civilian contractor psychologists because— in the CIA’s words—“[n]on-standard interrogation methodologies were not an area of expertise of CIA officers or of the US Government generally.” This narrative ignores the CIA’s role in devising these methods, in spite of the decades of prior CIA research and doctrine about forcing interrogation subjects into a state of extreme psychological debilitation, and about how to do so—by making them physically weak, intensely fearful and anxious, and helplessly dependent. By neglecting this history and focusing on the contractors and the EITs they devised, this narrative contributes to the misunderstanding that the torture debate is about EITs and nothing else. In effect, a “torture debate” about EITs and the torture memos neglects the purloined letter in front of our eyes: the abusive conditions the CIA inflicted on prisoners even when they were not subject to EITs, including abuses that the torture memos never bothered to discuss. Unpacking what this debate is really about turns out to be crucial to understanding that such interrogation methods are torture under existing U.S. law. The U.S. Torture Act includes a clause in its definition of mental torture that was intended to ban exactly the kind of interrogation methods the CIA had researched, out of concern that our Cold War adversaries were using them: mind-altering procedures “calculated to disrupt profoundly the senses or the personality.” That is precisely the “non-standard interrogation methodology” the CIA employed after 9/11. (shrink)

Solipsism indicates an epistemological position that denies the existence of ‘others’ by asserting that the ‘self’ is the only thing that can be known to exist. For sophist philosophers, the belief that “we can not know anything, and even if we do so, we cannot communicate it” is central to this theory. However, until now there has been little academic scholarship that has tried to provide answers to the pressing issues raised by solipsism. In Solipsist Ontology: Physical Things and (...) Personal Perceptual Space, Ural aims to redefine solipsism by analyzing and elaborating on traditional philosophical problems, such as empiricism and rationalism, as well as discussing problems of language, communication, and meaning. Ural reveals where solipsism has been previously ignored, pseudo-problems have arisen that disguise the sources of the problems with prejudices that concern the philosophical problems in question. Notably, many current, as well as traditional problems of ontology, epistemology, and language are bound up in discourses of solipsism. Ural argues that discarding solipsism as a philosophical discourse hinders new interpretations of traditional philosophical thought. This book offers a fresh perspective to solipsism by defining it in relation to concepts such as ‘physical things,’ ‘personal perceptual space’ and ‘identity.’ Importantly, Ural proposes that an understanding of ‘identity’ is not necessary in order to redefine solipsism. By building a logical system that fashions communication and solipsism as interrelated, it is possible to reject ‘identity’ as a useless concept and thus overcome the classic solipsist dilemma of “we are not able to communicate.” This original piece of research is an important and timely contribution to the field of philosophy that will be of great interest to teachers, researchers, and students. (shrink)

This paper develops a general approach to how society should compensate for losses that individuals incur due to public health interventions aimed at controlling the spread of infectious diseases. The paper falls in three parts. The first part provides an initial introduction to the issues and briefly outlines five different kinds of public health interventions that will be used as test cases. They are all directed at individuals and aimed at controlling the spread of infectious diseases (1) isolation, (2) quarantine, (...) (3) recommended voluntary social distancing, (4) changes in health care provision for asymptomatic carriers of multi-resistant microorganisms, and (5) vaccination. The interventions will be briefly described including the various risks, burdens and harms individuals who are subject to these interventions may incur. The second part briefly surveys current compensation mechanisms as far as any exist and argue that even where they exist they are clearly insufficient and do not provide adequate compensation. The third part will then develop a general framework for compensation for losses incurred due to public health interventions in the infectious disease context. This is the major analytical and constructive part of the paper. It first analyses pragmatic and ethical arguments supporting the existence of an obligation on the part of the state to compensate for such losses, and then considers whether this obligation can be defeated by (1) resource considerations, or (2) issues relating to personal responsibility. (shrink)

Background: In Switzerland, non-medical right-to-die organisations such as Exit Deutsche Schweiz and Dignitas offer suicide assistance to members suffering from incurable diseases. Objectives: First, to determine whether differences exist between the members who received assistance in suicide from Exit Deutsche Schweiz and Dignitas. Second, to investigate whether the practices of Exit Deutsche Schweiz have changed since the 1990s. Methods: This study analysed all cases of assisted suicide facilitated by Exit Deutsche Schweiz (E) and Dignitas (D) between 2001 and 2004 and (...) investigated by the University of Zurich’s Institute of Legal Medicine (E: n = 147; D: n = 274, total: 421). Furthermore, data from the Exit Deutsche Schweiz study which investigated all cases of assisted suicide during the period 1990–2000 (n = 149) were compared with the data of the present study. Results: More women than men were assisted in both organisations (D: 64%; E: 65%). Dignitas provided more assistance to non-residents (D: 91%; E: 3%; p = 0.000), younger persons (mean age in years (SD): D: 64.5 (14.1); E: 76.6 (13.3); p = 0.001), and people suffering from fatal diseases such as multiple sclerosis and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (D: 79%; E: 67%; p = 0.013). Lethal medications were more often taken orally in cases assisted by Dignitas (D: 91%; E: 76%; p = 0.000). The number of women and the proportion of older people suffering from non-fatal diseases among suicides assisted by Exit Deutsche Schweiz has increased since the 1990s (women: 52% to 65%, p = 0.031; mean age in years (SD): 69.3 (17.0) to 76.9 (13.3), p = 0.000), non-fatal diseases: 22% to 34%, p = 0.026). Conclusions: Weariness of life rather than a fatal or hopeless medical condition may be a more common reason for older members of Exit Deutsche Schweiz to commit suicide. The strong over-representation of women in both Exit Deutsche Schweiz and Dignitas suicides is an important phenomenon so far largely overlooked and in need of further study. (shrink)

Background: In Switzerland, non-medical right-to-die organisations such as Exit Deutsche Schweiz and Dignitas offer suicide assistance to members suffering from incurable diseases.Objectives: First, to determine whether differences exist between the members who received assistance in suicide from Exit Deutsche Schweiz and Dignitas. Second, to investigate whether the practices of Exit Deutsche Schweiz have changed since the 1990s.Methods: This study analysed all cases of assisted suicide facilitated by Exit Deutsche Schweiz and Dignitas between 2001 and 2004 and investigated by the University (...) of Zurich’s Institute of Legal Medicine. Furthermore, data from the Exit Deutsche Schweiz study which investigated all cases of assisted suicide during the period 1990–2000 were compared with the data of the present study.Results: More women than men were assisted in both organisations. Dignitas provided more assistance to non-residents, younger persons : D: 64.5 ; E: 76.6 ; p = 0.001), and people suffering from fatal diseases such as multiple sclerosis and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis. Lethal medications were more often taken orally in cases assisted by Dignitas. The number of women and the proportion of older people suffering from non-fatal diseases among suicides assisted by Exit Deutsche Schweiz has increased since the 1990s : 69.3 to 76.9, p = 0.000), non-fatal diseases: 22% to 34%, p = 0.026).Conclusions: Weariness of life rather than a fatal or hopeless medical condition may be a more common reason for older members of Exit Deutsche Schweiz to commit suicide. The strong over-representation of women in both Exit Deutsche Schweiz and Dignitas suicides is an important phenomenon so far largely overlooked and in need of further study. (shrink)

Proponents of numerous recent theories of a person's good hold that a plausible account of the good for a person must satisfy existence internalism. Yet little direct defense has been given for this position. I argue that the principal intuition behind internalism supports a stronger version of the thesis than it might appear--one that effects a "double link" to motivation. I then identify and develop the main arguments that have been or might be given in support of internalism (...) about a person's good, showing how these arguments support this stronger version of internalism. (shrink)

Time is analyzed as being those processes by which a system notes the processes which comprise its own existence. The directionality of time is given by the concepts, past, present, and future. To understand the meaning of these concepts, a set of experiments was carried out with four male subjects in which areas of time were expanded or ablated by means of post-hypnotic suggestions. These operations were carried out singly or in combination. The data suggest that the present is (...) primarily associated with stimulus input, the past with the criteria for defining that input as well as the development of response inhibitions and the future with the directionality of that input. Marked personality changes which range from the occurence of catatonic-like states to obsessive types of reaction and manic-like reactions are associated with different combinations of time alterations. Some of the changes are in accord with the serialist position on time of J. W. Dunne. The concept of death is very important both with regard to one’s view of time and how one lives. While it is important to live in the present, the present has no meaning without at least a past or a future. Implications of these findings for psychopathology in general and schizophrenia in particular are considered. (shrink)

It has become increasingly difficult for individuals to exercise meaningful control over the personal data they disclose to companies or to understand and track the ways in which that data is exchanged and used. These developments have led to an emerging consensus that existing privacy and data protection laws offer individuals insufficient protections against harms stemming from current data practices. However, an effective and ethically justified way forward remains elusive. To inform policy in this area, we propose the Ethical Data (...) Practices framework. The framework outlines six principles relevant to the collection and use of personal data—minimizing harm, fairly distributing benefits and burdens, respecting autonomy, transparency, accountability, and inclusion—and translates these principles into action-guiding practical imperatives for companies that process personal data. In addition to informing policy, the practical imperatives can be voluntarily adopted by companies to promote ethical data practices. (shrink)

The early Schelling and the romantics constructed the unconscious in order to overcome the modern split between subjectivity and nature, mind and body, a split legislated by Cartesian representationalism. Influenced by Boehme and Kabbalah, the later Schelling modified his notion of the unconscious to include the decision to be oneself, which must sink beneath consciousness so that it might serve as the ground of one's creative and personal acts. Slavoj Zizek has read the later Schelling's unconscious as a prototype of (...) Lacan's reactive unconscious, an unconscious that only exists as the excluded other of consciousness. This reading, though close to the text of Schelling, misses something essential: the unconscious for Schelling is not a repression but a condition of the possibility of life and love. (shrink)

The basic risk for culture in conditions of globalization consists in full submission of its existence to economic (market) rules. The masscult deprived a variety - a product of such submission. But a source of creative development was and there is a cultural variety. Domination of a masscult leads to decrease in creative potential of the person and a society. Becoming of metaculture as culture of gift of a modern society represents alternative as to principles of a masscult, and (...) ideas of multiculturalism and tolerance. The principle of tolerance is a recognition of powerlessness to involve cultures in productive dialogue, de-facto it is recognition of the established cultural barriers. The culture of gift (metaculture) is based on following principles: 1) reflexivity, 2) ethicness, 3) positive role ofOtherness, 4) the sacrifice of an autonomy to (accept of gift), 5) new cultural-historical type of rationality is focused not on things, but on events, 6) more easy approach to products of cultural creativity and in this direction - alternative to deadlocks of protection to intellectual property (copyright). Development of metaculture corresponds to principles of a symbolical exchange and «copyleft». (shrink)

Purpose. The research is aimed at substantiation of the process of formation of various human images in the postmodernism era in the context of biophilosophy, taking into account the need to find an adequate response to historical challenges and the production of new value orientations reflecting succession of civilization development. Theoretical basis. The author in his theoretical constructs proceeds from the need of taking into account the biophilosophical aspect of postmodern man, as the one who, remaining a representative of the (...) species Homo sapiens, began to dynamically change, losing its own natural and functional qualities, acquiring to a large extent the socio-technology-related qualities. The thesis that in the postmodern society the moral and legal foundations of existence of human being, as the subject of actions and responsibility for these actions, practically coincide with the biological foundations is taken as initial argument. New biological knowledge, as well as the related technologies, orient the public consciousness towards production of fundamentally new or modernization of the existing bio-philosophical ideas. The author's vision of the anthropological collision of the Post-Modernism era is caused by the fact that the issues of a postmodern man acquire a special urgency at the end of the ХХ – early XXI century. A progressive disproportion between a human being, whose abilities as a representative of the species Homo sapiens are biologically limited, and the human community, which sees no limits in its information and technological expansion, is of current interest. Originality. The author reveals the key features of the Post-Modernism era, in which a fundamentally different civilizational space originates, and where a new type of person emerges in its internal culture, which is called the postmodern man. The postmodern man was considered through the prism of bio-philosophy. Its interest in man is caused by his or her place in nature, the prospects of development at the individual, population and species levels. Conclusions. In the process of development of bio-philosophy, its research field will be naturally expanded with the use of philosophical means of perception of life as such and filling the bio-philosophy with philosophical and biological issues. In contemporary conditions, the study of the boundaries of biological reality and its previously unknown properties, definition of new horizons of theoretical knowledge in the science of life, the critical rethinking of the concepts of biocentrism and anthropocentrism in the space of modern scientific knowledge, the definition of perspective trends in the study of man, his or her place and role in the planetary being is of great importance. (shrink)

Frances Kamm distinguishes between changes or enhancements that are made before a child exists (ex ante changes) and those that are made once a child exists (ex post changes), and she argues that ex ante changes do not show disrespect or, as Michael Sandel would put it, lack of love, for a person, since the person does not yet exist. In this paper, I argue that it is important to distinguish between ex ante enhancements that are morally neutral and those (...) that are morally dubious, and that the latter ones are morally objectionable even if the persons do not yet exist. (shrink)

Einstein argued in his latter years that the intelligibility of the world was in the nature of a miracle, and that in no way could one have expected a priori such a high degree of order; this is why he rejected the atheist, positivist standpoint, and believed in a Spinozist God. Einstein's argument, however, is essentially a form of the ?argument from design? for a personal God based on the existence of beautiful, mathematically simple laws of nature; that physical (...) order is a unique, improbable alternative compared to the infinite number of chaotic universes that might have existed. Einstein, in his early manhood, was a Humean, but in later years, as he moved toward Spinoza, from phenomenalism to noumenalism, he clearly rejected Hume's restriction of probable inferences to observed sequences. Darwin's arguments against biological design did not apply to Einstein's argument, because the laws of physics are not the outcome of any cumulative struggle for existence and natural selection. Perhaps the beautiful simplicity of basic physical laws helps account for the fact that relatively more physicists than biologists or psychologists hold to a theistic standpoint. Einstein's finite universe would have seriously weakened the argument that life, though infinitely improbable, would have been realized in an infinite world. But in any case, Einstein would have regarded ?emergence? theories of life as irrational. In accordance with the principle of identity of Emile Meyerson, the epistemologist whom he most respected, it would have followed that the occurrence of consciousness and intelligence was grounded in a God with those attributes, and that theism was consequently the basis for scientific knowledge. (shrink)

This book offers an original contribution towards a new theory of intersubjectivity which places ethics of breath, hospitality and non-violence in the forefront. Emphasizing Indian philosophy and religion and related cross-cultural interpretations, it provides new intercultural interpretations of key Western concepts which traditionally were developed and followed in the vein of re-conceptualizations of Greek thought, as in Nietzsche and Heidegger, for example. The significance of the book lies in its establishment of a new platform for thinking philosophically about intersubjectivity, so (...) as to nudge contemporary philosophy towards a more sensitive approach, which is needed in our times. Intended for philosophers, feminists and others concerned with intercultural philosophy, the book will appeal to readers interested in contemporary ethical and political theories. A Breath of Proximity will benefit all who seek a more sensitive approach in philosophy and often-neglected practical layers of our everyday intersubjective relations. Life as breath: such is the grand theme of Lenart Škof's wonderful new book. Ranging from Indian Vedic writings to Heidegger and Irigaray, Breath of Proximity cuts across the tired analytic/continental distinction in philosophy and proposes an ethical cosmology based on our human dwelling. A breath of fresh air! Kevin Hart is Professor of Christian Studies at the University of Virginia Lenart Škof wrote a very interesting book on breath and breathing which expresses and analyzes the essence of human existence. The breath or wind is the core point of humans. As you know, you will read in John 3.8 that the humans are born from the wind. The breath and wind have something to do with the ethics of being human, because humans live with breath and breathing. Ethics is essentially a way of life through breathing. Tadashi Ogawa is Professor of Philosophy Emeritus at Kyoto University Breath and breathing are central themes of Asian philosophies since ancient times. This was also the case in ancient Europe. But we forgot about this dimension in our academic discourse. The book of Lenart Škof brings into sight that well known Western philosophers of the 20th century picked this topic up again. The book is the most notable and far-reaching attempt to rediscover the fundamental dimension of breath and breathing for the contemporary discourse of philosophy. Rolf Elberfeld is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Hildesheim. (shrink)

In the article, science and poetry, scientific and poetic creativity are considered as part of human culture. It is shown that both scientific and poetic activities are loaded with cognitive content. At the same time, if the thesis about the cognitive orientation of science is not in doubt, then the connection of art with knowledge is not so obvious and needs explication. Poetry is considered as cultural phenomena that are directly related to knowledge, to the cognitive component of human activity. (...) Poetry and science can be compared on the basis of their direct relationship to the emotional environment of human existence and the existential feelings experienced by the subject of knowledge. In the article, we evaluate the concept of intellectual emotion, which was introduced by members of the Kharkiv linguistic school for the analysis of human cognitive activity in culture. For analysis of existential feelings, we review the conditions of self-awareness of both scientific and poetic activity. Special attention is paid to the analysis of apperception of the complex poetic contents of the consciousness of both poet and reader-interpreter as his co-author. Considering the views of E. Husserl and A. Bergson as well as the views of members of the Kharkiv linguistic school, we discuss the theoretical and cognitive aspect of poetic creativity. In the article, we conclude about a person’s holistic perception of knowledge, which is not only appercepted by the human mind but also affects his emotional sphere. We have shown that there are intellectual emotions involved in the consciousness of a person who solves a complex scientific or philosophical problem as well as perceiving poetry that has an cognitive aspect. We also concluded that existential emotions and feelings play a significant role in cognition. Therefore, knowledge can be not only scientific or philosophical but also poetic, and in the latter form of knowledge the existential aspects are more clearly manifested. (shrink)

Despite the substantial research into the peculiar political and legal status of climate migrants, there is comparatively little exploration of the particular forms of loss such migrants might face or how efforts might mitigate such loss. This paper aims to begin filling that void by characterizing such loss, using the framework of the UNFCC’s Warsaw Mechanism, as agential harm. Using existing models for thinking about the preservation of values and links with the past, I aim to use this idea of (...) a threat to agency to discuss how migration could occur to better preserve the agential control of displaced populations. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Journal of the History of Ideas 66.4 (2005) 483-506 [Access article in PDF] Lorenzo Valla and the Traditions and Transmissions of Philosophy C. S. Celenza Johns Hopkins University What is "philosophy"? Who is a "philosopher"? These questions underlay much of Salvatore Camporeale's work, and they are deeper than one might suppose. We can begin with one of Camporeale's favorite figures, Lorenzo Valla, and listen to one of the ways (...) he answered these questions. In the introduction to his work reforming Aristotelian logic, the Repastinatio totius dialectice, Valla situates the debate on wisdom by recalling the case of Pythagoras.1 "What a marvelous praise of modesty it was," Valla wrote, when Pythagoras, asked whether he considered himself wise, replied that he was not "wise," but was rather a "lover of wisdom"—not sophos, but philosophos.2 Valla uses here a humanistic trope, found also in Petrarch's advice to Luigi Marsili, to the effect that Marsili should shape the practice of his life in order to become a "verae sapientiae amator," a "lover of true wisdom."3These citations from Petrarch and Valla alert us to the well-studied fact that, in the view of some humanists, academic "philosophy" had usurped the name "philosophy" and the self-searching meaning behind it. Certain humanists were proposing an alternative notion of what wisdom signified and consequently of what philosophy itself—the "love of wisdom"—represented. It seemed that wisdom needed to be located in a more persuasive way in the world of human beings, history, and language, rather than in one of eternal [End Page 483] suprahuman essences; in short, "philosophy" had to be brought closer to rhetoric and philology.The goal of this paper is to examine this idea in a twofold manner: through the history of terms and concepts as these are refracted by and through the history of institutionalized learning; and through a brief foray into Valla's preface to his great critique of western logic. There has been a lot of challenging and interesting work on this topic in the last few decades. At the same time, there may be cause to wonder whether relatively recent historians have unwittingly become too bogged down in names, failing to see the real conflict. They have tended to assume that the modern, sharp separation of humanistic "disciplines," such as rhetoric and philosophy, existed in the same way and with the same force of conviction in the premodern era. True, there are famous ancient, medieval, and early modern examples of self-defined "philosophers" differentiating themselves from "philologists" and vice versa, most notably Seneca, who—lamenting the professionalization of education in his day—complained in a letter that "what was once philosophy, has become philology" (Ep. 108.23). Yet, the more one investigates this problem, and the more one peers beneath the surface of the seemingly stark divisions between "philosophy" and "philology," the more difficult this strong separation is to maintain.This notion of the possible interpenetrability of "philosophy," and "philology," and "rhetoric" as concepts was probably easier to understand in the Renaissance than it is now. The differences between the Renaissance and our own era lie in institutional context and personal approach, both of which have been, for about six or seven intellectual generations now (but no more than that), supported by a fourfold set of assumptions about what "real" or "professional" philosophy represents: first, that philosophy is primarily about metaphysics and ontology, or rather that there exists a hierarchy in which metaphysics and ontology stand at the top; other things, such as history, language, or rhetoric are "just not philosophy." Second, a retrospectively understood Cartesian split between mind and body is basically true (and that it is legitimate to project that dualistic split back onto thinkers who did not hold the same sort of dualism as axiomatic); and consequently third, that epistemology should be privileged, that is, that knowing and the study of how knowing happens are primarily what philosophy is about. Hence "philosophy" is regulative, a master-discipline that oversees the truth claims of all... (shrink)

Entitlement theorists claim that bequest is a moral right. The aim of this essay is to determine whether entitlement theorists can, on their own grounds, consistently defend that claim. I argue that even if there is a moral right to self-appropriated property and to engage in inter vivos transfers, it is a mistake to contend that there exists an equivalent moral right to make a bequest. Taxing or regulating bequest does not violate an individual’s moral rights because, regardless of whether (...) bequest safeguards certain interests, those interests are not the interests of a living, morally inviolable being. Instead, they are the interests of a deceased entity that has lost the ability to track what it values and pursue projects in accord with those values – a quality that by entitlement theorists’ own arguments renders persons morally significant and deserving of rights in the first place. (shrink)

Background: Financial conflict of interest in clinical research is an area of active debate. While data exist on the perspectives and roles of academic institutions, investigators, industry sponsors, and scientific journals, little is known about the perspectives of potential research participants.Methods: The authors surveyed potential research participants over the internet, using the Harris Interactive Chronic Illness Database. A potential research participant was defined by: self report of diagnosis by a health care professional and willingness to participate in clinical trials. Email (...) invitations were sent to 20 205 persons with coronary artery disease, breast cancer, or depression; a total of 6363 persons were screened; of these, 86% or 5478 met inclusion criteria and completed the survey. The outcome measures were respondents’ ratings on: importance of knowing conflict of interest information, whether its disclosure ought to be required, and its effect on willingness to participate—across seven widely discussed scenarios of financial conflicts of interest .Results: Majority responded that knowing conflict of interest information was “extremely” or “very” important; a larger majority felt financial conflicts of interest should be disclosed as part of informed consent . In all seven scenarios, a majority was still willing to participate but in some scenarios a sizable minority would be wary of participation. Respondents were more wary of individual than institutional conflicts of interest. Illness group and sociodemographic factors had modest effects and did not affect the main trends.Conclusions: The prevailing practice of non-disclosure of financial conflicts of interest in clinical research appears contrary to the values of potential research participants. (shrink)

Three standard psychometric tests were administered to parents who volunteered their children for a randomised, double-blind placebo-controlled trial of a new asthma drug and to a control group of parents whose children were eligible for the trial but had declined the invitation. The trial took place at a children's hospital in Australia. The subjects comprised 68 parents who had volunteered their children and 42 who had not, a participation rate of 94 per cent and 70 per cent, respectively. The responses (...) of these parents to the Gordon Survey of Interpersonal Values Questionnaire, the Coopersmith Self-Esteem Inventory and the Cattell Sixteen Personality Factor Questionnaire were analysed by computer. There was a marked difference between the psychological profiles of the two groups of parents. Volunteering parents put more value on benevolence while non-volunteering parents were more concerned with power and prestige. The self-esteem of volunteering parents was much lower than that of non-volunteering parents. Finally, volunteering parents were more introverted, exhibited greater anxiety and low supergo, while non-volunteering parents appeared to have greater social confidence and emotional stability. Since an individual's values, self-esteem and personality may be important antecedents of behaviour, these findings suggest that parents who volunteer their children for clinical research are not only socially disadvantaged and emotionally vulnerable, but may also be psychologically predisposed to volunteering. Furthermore, these findings provide evidence for the existence of a psychosocial 'filter' effect of the informed consent procedure, which may be discouraging the better educated, more privileged and psychologically resilient members of society from participation as research subjects. (shrink)

Three standard psychometric tests were administered to parents who volunteered their children for a randomised, double-blind placebo-controlled trial of a new asthma drug and to a control group of parents whose children were eligible for the trial but had declined the invitation. The trial took place at a children's hospital in Australia. The subjects comprised 68 parents who had volunteered their children and 42 who had not, a participation rate of 94 per cent and 70 per cent, respectively. The responses (...) of these parents to the Gordon Survey of Interpersonal Values Questionnaire, the Coopersmith Self-Esteem Inventory and the Cattell Sixteen Personality Factor Questionnaire were analysed by computer. There was a marked difference between the psychological profiles of the two groups of parents. Volunteering parents put more value on benevolence while non-volunteering parents were more concerned with power and prestige. The self-esteem of volunteering parents was much lower than that of non-volunteering parents. Finally, volunteering parents were more introverted, exhibited greater anxiety and low supergo, while non-volunteering parents appeared to have greater social confidence and emotional stability. Since an individual's values, self-esteem and personality may be important antecedents of behaviour, these findings suggest that parents who volunteer their children for clinical research are not only socially disadvantaged and emotionally vulnerable, but may also be psychologically predisposed to volunteering. Furthermore, these findings provide evidence for the existence of a psychosocial 'filter' effect of the informed consent procedure, which may be discouraging the better educated, more privileged and psychologically resilient members of society from participation as research subjects. (shrink)

A liberal antinomy of parenting exists: strong liberal intuitions militate in favor of both denying special resources to parenting projects (on grounds of project-neutrality) and granting them (on grounds of respect for personhood). I show that we can reconcile these two claims by rejecting a premise common to both--viz. that liberalism is necessarily committed to extensive procreative liberties--and limiting procreation and subsequent parenting to adults who meet certain psychological and especially financial criteria. I also defend this argument, which provides a (...) Kantian complement to utilitarian arguments for restricting procreation, against a variety of objections. (shrink)

Purpose. The article is aimed to study the anthropological, socio-philosophical and philosophical-legal dimensions of the ontological sphere of human life within the discourse of restricting human rights during pandemic threats. To do this, one should solve a number of tasks, among which are the following: 1) to explore the anthropological and praxeological understanding of fear as a primary component of human existence in a pandemic, which prevents people from changing their lives for the better and healthier, having fun and (...) happiness; 2) to put a focus on the habituation of fear as a two-dimensional adaptation to risks and threats from pandemics; 3) to reflect the anthropological features of changes in human life experience under the influence of the COVID-19 pandemic in the discourse of human rights and public health measures. Theoretical basis. Today, international guiding principles on human rights response to global natural threats have been updated. However, there are still no specific legal recommendations concerning measures on human rights protection during outbreaks of various infectious diseases. However, the influence of unexpected global challenges causes a change in the anthropological component of society and the state, so it requires immediate comprehensive research. Originality. It was substantiated a systematic approach to the implementation of modern healthcare policy towards the recognition of human life as the highest value, increasing the level of psychological preparedness for pandemic challenges and approximation of statutory provisions of human rights protection to modern challenges and threats to the health of the individual, society and state. The study of anthropological, socio-philosophical and philosophical-legal dimensions of human existence in the discourse of pandemic threats made it possible to reveal the profound influence of fear on human life, social justice and, consequently, identify the moral and legal dependence of the development level of society and the state on the level of axiological and anthropological concept of human dignity. Conclusions. Based on the study of statistical reports, international analysis and the use of personal authorial methods, the following can be stated: the methods of combating the modern pandemic have directly affected everyone on national and international level. Their influence is significant because it changes the rules of coexistence and life of people in all spheres. However, the influence on the consciousness and other intentions of the individual has mostly temporally insignificant limits. (shrink)

In the first part of his paper, published in the previous issue of this journal, the author dwelt on Sri Aurobindo's social, economic, political and nationalistic writings in Aurobindo's pre-Pondicherry days. In this second part, the paper crystallizes Sri Aurobindo's ideas and writings during the four decades he spent in Pondicherry. This paper looks at Aurobindo's metaphysical search for answers to the most fundamental questions of existence. The future that Sri Aurobindo was seeking out was not a particular future (...) of any single nation but that of the human personality itself, both in its individual and collective manifestations. The author documents with great fidelity Aurobindo's vision of the birth of a new consciousness which will liberate the individual from his ego and create a framework of life within which man can seek and grow into his real self and divinity. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:David Hume on Personal Identity and the Indirect Passions Robert S. Henderson Scholarly reflection on Hume's "doctrine" ofselfand personal identity continues to focus on the sections "Of Personal Identity" and the "Appendix" toA Treatise ofHuman Nature. To answer the question of why we have so great a propension to ascribe an identity to these successiveperceptions which make up experience, Hume says that we must distinguish betwixtpersonal identity, as it (...) regards our thought or imagination, and as it regards our passions or the concern we take in ourselves. He considers only the former in these sections. Towards the end of the personal identity section he writes that our identity with regard to the passions serves to corroborate that with regard to the imagination, by the making our distant perceptions influence each other, and by giving us a present concern for ourpast or future pains or pleasures (T 261). In the advertisement to the Treatise Hume says that the subjects of the understanding and passions make a compleat chain of reasoning by themselves (T xii). In light of the importance Hume attaches to the distinction, and since there are many indications that the Treatise should be read as an integral whole, it is surprising that so little attention is given to what he says of personal identity in the other books. As the title suggests, this paper concentrates on the second part of the distinction and especially on the discussion ofthe indirectpassions in Book II of the Treatise. This is not to suggest that self does not play an important role elsewhere in Hume's science ofman; for example, it is selfwhich experiences the impression ofwill and the direct passions. However, the indirect passions have a particularly important part to play in ascriptions of personal identity and this justifies the present investigation. II We can safely predict that personal identity as it regards our passions will not be the idea??some philosophers whose views of self as having the philosophical (strict) relation ofidentity Hume has rejected in "Of Personal Identity." The relationship between thought and passion to which he draws attention suggests that the idea of selfin this context has a relation to the positive suggestions in that earlier section of why Volume XVI Number 1 33 ROBERT S. HENDERSON we do speak meaningfully of the identity of the self. We are able so to speak because ofarelationship which is felt to exist between a person's distinct and changing perceptions. The relationship has to do with the discovery by memory of the connection of a person's perceptions through the association ofideas by resemblance and causation (T 261). Examination of the idea of self to which Hume makes frequent reference in Book II requires some review ofthe method ofthe Treatise. Perceptions make up human experience. Perceptions are either impressions or ideas which derive from impressions. Hume describes the indirect passions as secondary or reflective impressions and these stem from original impressions or from their ideas. He distinguishes between direct andindirect passions. Directpassionsarise immediately fromgood or evil, frompain orpleasure (T 276). Examples are joy, hope and fear. Indirect passionsproceed from the same principles, but by the conjunction ofother qualities (T 276). That is, the indirect passions not onlyhave a cause (an impression which excites them), but also an object (to which the passion directs our view when excited). We shall see that a significant quality of the indirect passions is the relation of these impressions to their objects, which are either one's own or another's self. In Book II of the Treatise Hume examines the indirect passions: love, hate, pride and humility. These passions are evaluations of persons; of selfin the case of pride and humility, and of another in the case of love and hatred. Evaluation of persons is a central feature of Hume's moral philosophy: To have the sense ofvirtue, is nothing but to feel a satisfaction of a particular kind from the contemplation of a character. The very feeling constitutes our praise or admiration (T 471). We shall see that the indirect passions in particular make an important contribution to the answer ofHume's original question ofthe source?? owe propension to ascribe an identity. Ill... (shrink)

In the process of history, not only models of the world, but the very subject of philosophy, changes. Therefore, it seems to me, it is not quite right to reject the definition of culture as a personal or subjective aspect of history just because subject and object are attributes of rational knowledge. If we speak of culture as the being in which man lives, the question naturally arises as to how man can exist without being related to society and, in (...) general, what is man? The very concept of culture assumes that man is not just an individual but a person, because he possesses reflective thought. A second point: the novelty of contemporary philosophy lies in the point that, in the process of its development, philosophy began to understand-and it was precisely the contemporary period that brought it to this-that its only subject is man. This is important because such an understanding of the subject of philosophy makes it possible not to counterpose it to culture or isolate it from the latter, but to make it a guide to culture in the sense that culture itself presupposes reflective thought. Now, specifically on A. Iu. Shemanov's paper. (shrink)

The persons who adapt to changes as may be necessary in the course of their existence not only survive in the struggle for existence but also thrive and enjoy their lives in the best possible way under the given circumstances. For, life consists in various relationships, which are in constant movement and change.Therefore dealing with change or change-management has got pivotal importance in all walks of humans’ lives. In order to facilitate smooth change all big and small inheritances (...) have to be shed off. Adaptation to change involves some amount of give and take. Before stepping into new shoes one has to remove old ones. Sticking to good or bad things of the past in some cases spoils the present. One should, therefore, be in a position to come out of the situation of status quoor inertia. In some cases our ego does not allow us to change. It forces us to remain in the state that we have been enjoying hitherto. If we are untouched by sense of exuberance and live a life of simplicity, we can break the fetters of ego. The crux of the problem lies in affecting the change of attitude towards the present state of affairs and performance of corresponding duty. The persons should realize that change in power, position, strength etc. is inevitable. So,they should be mentally and physically prepared for it. This can be conveniently achieved by developing adaptability to and management of change. (shrink)

In Chapter 1 I discuss the basic problem which made me undertake the issue of human death. That problem was the dualism in the depiction of human nature which has not been fully overcome yet, the dualism which leads to the emergence of new difficulties in contemporary attempts at adequately solving the problem of human death. They include the separation of soul from the body in the moment of death, and the borderline between the moment of death and the moment (...) of resurrection. Chapter 2 is devoted to the presentation of a new anthropological perspective, of an anthropology build “from the bottom up”, that is “from foundations”, and taking into account man’s rooting in the biological environment, and thus also in the genetic heritage taken over from our pre-human ancestors. That anthropology brings new aspects into traditional anthropology by extending it to include new ways of explaining the genesis of the human body and spirit, and new depictions of man’s death. In Chapter 2 I will also present the concept of evolution proposed by P.T. de Chardin, which I appreciate for its comprehensive evolutionary perception of the world. This concept has provoked various responses, but it certainly provides a creative inspiration for further attempts at applying the idea of evolution to various issues. The general framework of the evolutionary model proposed by the French researcher turns out to be useful also when applied to the evolutionary understanding of human death. Chapter 3 contains a discussion of the principal premises of the evolutionary concept of human death taken from analyses carried out by T. Wojciechowski concerning the issue of time, space, and the structure of variable material beings. A being is variable because it has a temporal structure, and the changes that occur are the derivatives of that structure. The temporal structure may be seen as endless, in which a being, even though its existence had a beginning, will exist for ever. Material substance should not be seen statically, but in dynamic and evolutionary terms. In evolution, time becomes a driver of development, an element shaping and directing the evolution of the entire cosmos. Man’s substance has been made capable of two levels of being and acting: the spatial and temporal level, and the endless and immanent level. Together, they form the one essence of man. Thus, the human person is partially immersed in the material cosmos, and partially elevated above it. Chapter 4 presents the evolutionary approach to the moment of man’s death. The views of T. Wojciechowski will be presented in which the moment of death is seen as a moment of transformation and perfection of the structure of the essence of human existence. Furthermore, the issue of the relationship existing, according to T. Wojciechowski, between man’s death and resurrection will be discussed. Understood in evolutionary terms, the moment of death is the time when the structure of human existence is transformed. Death transfers man fully into eternity and enables his life on a higher level of existential being. The element of flesh is retained, but changes its nature. Such view of death allows it to be understood as the moment of resurrection and the culmination of the evolutionary process of life. Death is therefore an “invention” of the evolution and should be seen as a natural and positive phenomenon. At this point, I also propose a solution to the question about reconciliation between temporal and endless existence. In Chapter 5 I take up the issue of consequences flowing from the postulated understanding of human death. They have been pointed to by T. Wojciechowski, but need to be further developed and clarified. He believed two lines in man’s development need to be recognized: that of natural and that of supernatural evolution. Both have the same direction, while occurring on different planes. In each of these lines, death is a natural element of life, pre-planned and, so to say, “encoded” in the cosmic matter. Therefore, the treatment of biological death as the consequence of sin is not only contrary to the evolutionary understanding of life, but in addition artificially combines that which is natural with that which is supernatural. Man’s authentic experience of his own present is a condition of his achieving full existential perfection in the moment of this death. Full engagement in the present is, in a way, a harbinger of the future; thus, the life “here” and “there” may not be inherently inconsistent. In the light of the evolutionary concept, death is not a punishment, but the most positive experience of man’s life in that it enables him to achieve full existential perfection. Chapter 6 is devoted to a substantiation of the possibility of evolutionary transformation of the structure of human existence in the moment of death. An adequate cause needs to be identified which could substantiate that transformation and achievement of perfection. I believe an appropriate substantiation can be found in God’s creative act, interpreted in evolutionary terms. The process of evolution, with its subsequent stages, is only a necessary condition for that “transformation” and “elevation”. The sufficient condition is fulfilled by the continuous creative intervention of God. The concept of God’s creative activity in the moment of man’s death finds its continuation in Chapter 7, where I present a detailed analysis of God’s activity at the time of man’s death. The concept of God’s creative activity extended over the entire process of evolution makes it possible to consider the moment of death as the moment of man’s resurrection. The moment of death is thus a moment of creation in evolutionary terms. Thus, as long as man is related to temporal and spatial elements, his development, or creation, continues. Death is only the completion of the final stage of creation, which may be painful and evoke fear, but in fact should give hope, for it involves resurrection. I also propose that the creative act in the moment of man’s death-resurrection be considered a basic action of God, which explains the manner in which God’s activity is contained within the framework of the creative act, encompassing also the moment of death-resurrection. The final Chapter 8 describes a didactic model illustrating the concept proposed here. I use the analogy of white light dispersion effect in the prism, and compare the incident ray to the creative act, and the dispersed rays going through the prism to the line of man’s natural and supernatural evolution. This model also shows the difference in the perspectives from which the phenomenon of death is seen by God and by man. (shrink)

Patriarchal institutions govern all aspects of women's lives: their minds, their bodies, and their souls. Additionally, they govern the ways in which women are perceived by others and the ways in which women perceive themselves. (Re) Interpretations: The Shapes of Justice in Women's Experience, is a collection of essays on language, religion, war, sex trafficking, and medicine-the patriarchal structures that form the basis of western society and, thus, are in many ways inherently unjust. The essays illustrate the multitude of ways (...) that women have found to work within and without these structures to create justice. Traditional theories of justice cast it as a cardinal virtue, unbiased and impartial. The essays in this book, however, remove justice from the abstract and return it to the specific: most of the essays use personal narratives to highlight the connections all people share. The women discussed here are challenging the authority of existing patriarchal narratives by telling their versions, and, thus, calling attention to and challenging their own political and social realities. Reflecting a focus on global connectedness and interdisciplinarity, the writers of these essays aim not only to raise questions, but also to show ways in which women are creating new pathways for themselves. Only by exploring solutions will women reclaim justice. From L.A. to Zimbwabe, women have stories to tell about their experiences of justice in the inherently patriarchal institutions of Language, Religion, War, Sex Trafficking, and Medicine. This relevant and thought-provoking collection captures the trials that women across the world face and the hope they create through their courageous actions. Through both personal narrative and factual overview, these essays emphasize that as people committed to justice, women must not simply raise the questions, but they must also explore solutions in order to reclaim justice for themselves, their daughters, their sisters, and their mothers. Contributors: Yifat Bitton, Stephany Ryan Cate, Jo Scott-Coe, Susan Dewey, Carmela Epright, Carmen Faymonville, Adam Gaynor, Pauline Greenhill, Denise Handlarski, Alison Jobe, Marc J.W. de Jong, Jodie M. Lawston, Jody Lisberger, Kristy Maher, Susan Maloney, Mickias Musiyiwa, Ruben Murillo, Annemarie Profanter, Natalie Wilson, and J. Carter Wood. (shrink)

Thomas Aquinas understands providence as the reason of directing things to ends, and as the execution of that directing, i.e. governance. Thus, providence is one of the fundamental attributes of the person that reveals the person's perfection and dignity. Providence consists in a free and reasonable directing of oneself and the reality subject to oneself in order to actualize potentialities of oneself and of other beings in the context of the ultimate goal of existence. Human providence joins the (...) providence of the Absolute with regard to the world. In spite of its deficiencies human providence reveals the essential dignity of the human person. (shrink)

Hume’s understanding of sympathy in section 2.1.11 of the Treatise—that it is a mental mechanism by means of which one sentient being can come to share the psychological states of another—has a particularly interesting implication. What the sympathizer receives, according to this definition, is the passing psychological “affection” that the object of his sympathy was experiencing at the moment of observation. Thus the psychological connection produced by Humean sympathy is not between the sympathizer and the “other” as a “whole person” (...) existing through time, but between the sympathizer and the other’s current mental state, detached from his or her diachronic psychological life. Some commentators profess themselves dissatisfied with the impersonality of this “limited sympathy”. John Bricke, for example, argues that the Humean sympathizer sympathizes with “atomistically rendered desires of some individual who is, thus far, of no further concern,” while Philip Mercer writes more bluntly that Hume’s definition omits the “practical concern for the other” that is the essence of sympathy’s contribution to moral psychology. (shrink)

Having a decreased sense of security leads to unnecessary suffering and distress for patients. Establishing trust is critical for nurses to promote a patient's sense of security, consistent with trauma‐informed care. Research regarding nursing action, trust, and sense of security is wide‐ranging but fragmented. We used theory synthesis to organize the disparate existing knowledge into a testable middle‐range theory encompassing these concepts in hospitals. The resulting model illustrates how individuals are admitted to the hospital with some predisposition to trust or (...) mistrust the healthcare system and/or personnel. Patients encounter circumstances increasing their emotional and/or physical vulnerability to harm, leading to experiences of fear and anxiety. Without intervention, fear and anxiety lead to a decreased sense of security, increased distress, and suffering. Nurse action can ameliorate these effects by increasing a hospitalized person's sense of security or by promoting the development of interpersonal trust, also leading to an increased sense of security. Increased sense of security results in diminished anxiety and fear, and increased hopefulness, confidence, calm, sense of value, and sense of control. The consequences of a decreased sense of security are harmful to patients and nurses should know that they can intervene in ways that both increase interpersonal trust and sense of security. (shrink)

§1. The origins of recursion theory. In dedicating a book to Steve Kleene, I referred to him as the person who made recursion theory into a theory. Recursion theory was begun by Kleene's teacher at Princeton, Alonzo Church, who first defined the class of recursive functions; first maintained that this class was the class of computable functions ; and first used this fact to solve negatively some classical problems on the existence of algorithms. However, it was Kleene who, in (...) his thesis and in his subsequent attempts to convince himself of Church's Thesis, developed a general theory of the behavior of the recursive functions. He continued to develop this theory and extend it to new situations throughout his mathematical career. Indeed, all of the research which he did had a close relationship to recursive functions.Church's Thesis arose in an accidental way. In his investigations of a system of logic which he had invented, Church became interested in a class of functions which he called the λ-definable functions. Initially, Church knew that the successor function and the addition function were λ-definable, but not much else. During 1932, Kleene gradually showed1 that this class of functions was quite extensive; and these results became an important part of his thesis 1935a. (shrink)

Background: Little is known about U.S. healthcare provider views and practices regarding evidence, counseling, and shared decision-making about in-hospital versus out-of-hospital birth settings. Methods: We conducted 19 in-depth, semistructured, qualitative interviews of eight obstetricians, eight midwives, and three pediatricians from across the United States. Interviews explored healthcare providers’ interpretation of the current evidence and their personal and professional experiences with childbirth within the existing medical, ethical, and legal context in the United States. Results: Themes emerged concerning risks and benefits, decision-making, (...) and patient-provider power dynamics. Collectively, the narratives illuminated fundamental ideological tensions between in- and out-of-hospital providers arising from divergent assignment of value to described risks and benefits. The majority of physicians focused on U.S.-specific data demonstrating increased neonatal morbidity and mortality associated with delayed access to hospital-based interventions, thereby justifying hospital birth as the standard of care. By contrast, midwives emphasized data demonstrating fewer interventions and superior maternal and neonatal outcomes in high-income European countries, where out-of-hospital birth is more common for low-risk birthing people. A key gap in counseling was revealed, as no interviewees offered anticipatory counseling regarding birth setting options. Providers directly and indirectly illustrated the propensity for asymmetric power relations between birth providers and pregnant people, especially in hospital settings. Conclusions: The narratives highlight the common goal of optimizing maternal and neonatal outcomes despite tensions arising from divergent prioritization of specific maternal and neonatal risks. Our findings suggest opportunities to foster collaboration and optimize outcomes via mutual respect and improved integration of care. (shrink)

In this paper, I outline a theory of social kinds. A general theory of social kinds has to set out at least three conditions: existence conditions, persistence conditions, and identity conditions. For the sake of expediency, I focus on the existence and persistence conditions. The paper is organized just as life: first with existence, then persistence. I argue that anti-realism is more attractive than realism as an account of the existence conditions, despite the fact that realism (...) has been under-appreciated. Then I argue for a particular theory of the persistence conditions, which I call the basic overlapping traits theory (BOTT), based on an analogy to an approach to personal identity. The upshot of the argument is that from an anti-realist metaphysics we have the capacity to discuss a wider diversity of social phenomena. (shrink)

In the present article, the author analyses the interpretation of the phenomenon of Christ by Dostoevsky and Nietzsche. The author uses comparative and hermeneutic methods of historical and philosophical research. Dostoevsky's Christ and Nietzsche's Jesus are interpreted as “conceptual characters” (G. Deleuze), occupying an important place in the philosophical constructions of both thinkers. Stating the epoch-making event of the “death of God” in European culture, they discover the origins of nihilism in Christianity itself and attempt (each in his own way) (...) to recreate the original, pristine Christianity. Reconstruction of the original image of Christ makes it possible to comprehend not only the historical destiny of Christianity and the European portion of humanity, but also the prospects for overcoming the crisis of European and Russian (in the case of Dostoevsky) self-consciousness. It is argued that both interpretations, although far from orthodox Christianity, play the role of a central link in the development of the philosophic thinking of the Russian writer and German philosopher from the critical deposition of European humanism and metaphysics to new projects of human existence in the world. The conceptual images of Dostoevsky's Christ and Nietzsche's Jesus personally embody the spiritual attitudes and models of life that are timeless in nature, and at the same time serve as an expression of the “fundamental metaphysical positions” (M. Heidegger) of existential thinkers. The assertion of the absolute genuineness and beauty of the moral ideal of Christ allows Dostoevsky to return transcendence to the godless world – to substantiate the neo-Christian version of metaphysics, the religious-existential ontology. The “Glad Tidings” of Jesus, his life and death, appear in Nietzsche’s works as a practical elimination of transcendence, the Platonic dualism of the “true” and “visible” worlds. The spiritual attitude of Jesus reveals a direct affinity to Nietzsche's anti-metaphysical “philosophy of becoming”. (shrink)

Three puzzles about self-deception make this mental phenomenon an intriguing explanatory target. The first relates to how to define it without paradox; the second is about how to make sense of self-deception in light of the interpretive view of the mental that has become widespread in philosophy; and the third concerns why it exists at all. In this paper I address the first and third puzzles. First, I define self-deception. Second, I criticize Robert Trivers’ attempt to use adaptionist evolutionary psychology (...) to solve the third puzzle (existence). Third, I sketch a theory to replace that of Trivers. Self-deception is not an adaptation, but a spandrel in the sense that Gould and Lewontin give the term: a byproduct of other features of human (cognitive) architecture.Self-deception is so undeniable a fact of human life that if anyone tried to deny its existence, the proper response would be to accuse this person of it. (Allen Wood, Citation 1988 ). (shrink)

Patient-derived xenografts are currently promoted as new translational models in precision oncology. PDXs are immunodeficient mice with human tumors that are used as surrogate models to represent specific types of cancer. By accounting for the genetic heterogeneity of cancer tumors, PDXs are hoped to provide more clinically relevant results in preclinical research. Further, in the function of so-called “mouse avatars”, PDXs are hoped to allow for patient-specific drug testing in real-time. This paper examines the circulation of knowledge and bodily material (...) across the species boundary of human and personalized mouse model, historically as well as in contemporary practices. PDXs raise interesting questions about the relation between animal model and human patient, and about the capacity of hybrid or interspecies models to close existing translational gaps. We highlight that the translational potential of PDXs not only depends on representational matching of model and target, but also on temporal alignment between model development and practical uses. Aside from the importance of ensuring temporal stability of human tumors in a murine body, the mouse avatar concept rests on the possibility of aligning the temporal horizons of the clinic and the lab. We examine strategies to address temporal challenges, including cryopreservation and biobanking, as well as attempts to speed up translation through modification and use of faster developing organisms. We discuss how featured model virtues change with precision oncology, and contend that temporality is a model feature that deserves more philosophical attention. (shrink)

This confrontation of analytical psychology with ethics is intended as a philosophical examination of the justification of Jung's and Erich Neumann's claim to have offered in their so-called individuation process the new ethics demanded by the discovery of the psychic reality of the collective unconscious. As a standard of evaluation the author first tries to establish the idea of self-realization as a moral imperative. Aware of the difficulty of finding agreement in matters of ethics, he turns to self-awareness as the (...) source of his ethical principle. Beginning with a discussion of Kant's understanding of moral life, the author recognizes the categorical imperative as an expression of an absolute and universal law of practical reason to be an unsatisfactory representation of subjective morality, and rediscovers in the awareness of the individual law of G. Simmel the evidence of the immediate givenness of our self as a strict moral obligation. The awareness of the self as a moral ideal pre supposes freedom, which, following Sartre's existentialistic [[sic]] understanding, is identified with human reality as such and is found not to allow any kind of determination of human existence; consciousness of impulses implies "original choice," and unconsciousness means abdicated freedom. Compared with the ideal reality of the self and with the conditions of its realization as experienced in immediate awareness, the psychic reality of the individuation process as described in complex psychology lacks every moral qualification. Jung's individuation process does not represent a realization or even a recognition of the self, as the second part of the book attempts to show. A natural process enforced by an archetype of the self, demanding as moral obligations only a conscious awareness of alleged unconscious contents of a collective and personal unconscious in a confrontation of archetypes of the process, and an integration or combination of opposing conscious and unconscious psychic elements, is essentially different from a free and responsible realization of one's individual law in active confrontation with one's own historical situation and reality, and with the moral demands of the physical and social world. Confusing subjective interpretations with objective psychic facts in its doctrine of the archetypes, and morality with mental health in its understanding of the individuation process, analytic psychology is rightly found to ignore decisive aspects of human existence and especially to disregard moral reality as an essential phenomenon of human life.--M. S. (shrink)

This volume publishes the papers which were offered and discussed by a group of philosophers and psychologists during a conference "designed to explore the interrelations between philosophical analyses of the family of concepts relating to the self... and empirical studies in psychology of the development and manifestations of self-control, self-knowledge, and the like," held in Chicago in 1975. The late editor arranged the papers "in terms of four topics" indicating the major themes they address. After his introduction, "Conceptual Issues in (...) the Psychology of the Self", written after the conference and intended as an harmonization of opposing views expressed in the discussions, he presents three papers concerned with psychological and philosophical aspects of "Self-Control and the Concept of Agency." In "Self-Control and the Self," Walter and Harriet N. Mischel start with "an overview of some of the main types of self-control that psychologists have researched". Such psychological studies reveal the human being as "an active, self-aware problem-solver, capable of changing himself and achieving substantial self-control through the application of rational principles to a much greater degree than has usually been supposed in psychology". William P. Alston intends to determine in what ways the self has to be taken into account in the psychology of motivation in "Self-Intervention and the Structure of Motivation". That "there is an agent that does the integrating... and so on," is to be recognized as a fact. The understanding of this self-intervention, however, demands the admission of at least two motivational systems of higher-level-wants and of lower-level-wants, differing in structure and in the mode of acquisition. Charles Taylor explores "what is involved in the notion of self, of a responsible human agent" in his paper, "What is Human Agency". A person is found to be essentially characterized by the capacity for reflective self-evaluation. "Self-Knowledge" is discussed in the following two articles. Kenneth J. Gergen defends "The Social Construction of Self-Knowledge" in line with ideas of George Herbert Mead. Self-knowledge is "primarily a socially mediated and essentially arbitrary construction of experience". In its case "there is virtually nothing to know". This socio-cognitive conception of the self is emphatically rejected by David W. Hamlyn in his "Self-Knowledge". Knowledge about oneself as studied in psychology and sociology is essentially different from self-knowledge in the full sense, "connected with some kind of commitment to oneself". Different scientific views of certain aspects of human existence are presented in "Self-Development and Its Failures". Freud’s conception of the human person finds a realistic correction in the theoretical and practical work of contemporary psychoanalysts insisting upon the need of the concept of a "cohesive self," as described in Ernest S. Wolf’s "'Irrationality’ in a Psychoanalytic Psychology of the Self". This need is denied in behavioristic psychology, as Willard F. Day, Jr. shows in "On the Behavioral Analysis of Self-Deception and Self-Development". "To a behaviorist, there is no such thing" as the self. Consequently, there cannot be a genuine self-development as distinguished from a progress toward creating a desirable environment. Self-deception means fighting the environment. "A Critique of the Behavioral Paradigm and an Alternative Conceptualization" is offered by Paul F. Secord in an analysis of "Making Oneself Behave". Meaning and deficiencies of the understanding of the self in sociological social psychology are outlined by George J. McCall in "The Social Looking-Glass: A Sociological Perspective on Self-Development". The self is seen as essentially a social self or looking-glass self. Problems with regard to an explanation of the personal choice of behavior of a determined social role, however, seem to demand impulses as well as institutions as a locus of self-appraisal. "The Meaning of ’self’ and the Multiplicity of Selves" is the title of the last section of the book. Various uses of the term ’self’ are distinguished by Stephen E. Toulmin in "Self-Knowledge of the Self". The author is primarily concerned with establishing the relations of even the sophisticated psychological and psychiatric uses of the term to the everyday experience and language of reflective conduct. Rom Harré finally hopes to interpret "the syntax of much of the talk of ‘I’ and ‘me', ‘thou’ and ‘we'... as monodramatic performances" in "The Self in Monodrama". (shrink)

Purpose. The paper is aimed at studying the peculiarities of the Oleksandr Kulchytskyi’s doctrine of human, taking into account the context of European philosophy and especially in comparison with the paradigm of philosophizing in the Lviv-Warsaw school. The theoretical basis of the study is determined by Kulchytskyi’s scholarly works in the field of philosophy and philosophical anthropology, as well as the latest researches that reinterpret the influence of Twardowski’s theoretico-methodological ideas on the formation of the philosophical worldview of the Ukrainian (...) thinker. Originality. Based on the appeal to primary sources, Kulchytskyi’s philosophical doctrine of human in the unity of its basic principles and theoretico-practical results is reconstructed. The ways of forming the key ideas of his philosophical anthropology are determined, their originality is substantiated, despite the cooperation with Twardowski’s school, as well as despite numerous discussions and researches of Western European philosophico-anthropological, existentio-ideological and socio-psychological issues. Conclusions. It is found out how the philosophical worldview of Oleksandr Kulchytskyi was formed and how he gradually came from the research of the human psyche within the framework of anthropological structural psychology to the realization of the need to study philosophical anthropology. The personalistic features of his philosophical doctrine of human are characterized; in particular, attention is paid to the distinction between the concepts of person and personality, determining the importance of the social factor for the formation of human worldview, didactic aims of anthropological studies. It is shown how in Kulchytskyi’s philosophical anthropology the analysis of the existentio-worldview dimension of human existence, manifested in different spiritual situations and socio-cultural conditions that influence the specifics of thinking and the nature of the personality mentality, acquires special importance. The originality of Kulchytskyi’s arguments about human in the context of both Ukrainian philosophy and in general European philosophical thought is stated. (shrink)

Mobile health (mHealth) apps for self-monitoring increasingly gain relevance for public health. As a mobile technology, they promote individual participation in health monitoring with the aim of disease prevention and the mitigation of health risks. In this paper, I argue that users of mHealth apps must engage in value trade-offs concerning their fundamental dimensions of well-being when using mobile health apps for the self-monitoring of health parameters. I particularly focus on trade-offs regarding the user’s self-determination as well as their capacity (...) to form personal attachments. Depending on the user’s level of advantage or disadvantage, value trade-offs can pose a threat to the users’ sufficient fulfillment of the dimensions of well-being. As such, value trade-offs can entrench existing structural injustices and prevent disadvantaged users to benefit from this technology. I argue that value trade-offs are, to some, a type of injustice that can drive disadvantaged users away from a sufficiency threshold of well-being, risk users to fall below the threshold, or have an accumulative effect on different dimensions of the user’s well-being. (shrink)

The state of national economies development varies and is characterized by many indicators. Economically developed countries are known as doubtless leaders that are in progress and form political stability, social and economics standards, scientific and technical progress and determine future priorities. It is worth mentioning that the progressive development of national economies in conditions of globalization can take place only in case of the increase of their intellectualization level, through saturation of people`s life, economic relations and production by brain activity, (...) knowledge, creativity, innovation, culture, ethical considering of the historical heritage. The main aim of the research is national economies intellectualization evaluating in globalization conditions. In order to gain this aim, the following tasks were defined: to identify existing indices of the national economies intellectualization level evaluation, develop the authors’ methodological approach to the national economies intellectualization level, determine the areas of measurement results application. While conducting the research, systematic approach, the methods of analysis, synthesis, grouping, abstracting, generalization, imaginary experiment and grounding were used. In the modern world, there are a large number of indicators which characterize differences in intellectual state of the national economy. When comparing the state of national economies intellectualization, the problems arise with different number of countries, duplication of indicators, disproportionate number of the components of indicators, various years of publication, etc. Therefore, to ensure comparability, we choose four general indicators – the index of human development, the global innovation index, the global competitiveness index and the knowledge economy index. Using these indices, we do the research and determine the state of national economies intellectualization in the world economy. According to the calculated results, as of 2013, we have divided 190 national economies by level of intellectualization into five groups: countries with the highest (30 countries), high (30 (countries), low (30 countries), the lowest (35 countries) and the countries with uncertain state of intellectualization (65 countries). The leaders in the state of intellectualization are Switzerland, Sweden, The Netherlands, Finland and the USA. The countries with the highest level of intellectualization serve as an example to all other countries of the world. These countries are characterized by developed market economy; a dominant position in the international economy, which allows actively engaging own and imported resources in the economic turnover; the shift of the center of gravity of economic activity into the services sector and the dominance of service economy; the greatest exhaustion of sources and factors of industrial development; advanced post-industrial development. The economic policy of the first group of countries has a decisive influence on the state and dynamics of the global economy, defining the main directions of its scientific and technological development and structural adjustment. The average index of the national economy intellectualization (AINEI), calculated by the authors, shows the place of each country in the world community as to their intellectual capital. Considering the continued deployment of R&D progress, the growing role of high-tech production and the complexity of social and economic relations, AINEI can serve as a reliable indicator of the macroeconomic environment intellectualization state. Therefore, the following organizations, bodies and individuals can use the comparative results of this study: the international organizations while developing international economic development programs; the state authorities of the countries in foreign and domestic policy forming; companies that create innovative and investment policy; migrants, tourists and persons who perform professional and transit activity for the formation of human potential and capital; scientists and teachers who develop mechanisms of intellectualization. (shrink)

Patients with psychotic disorders experience a range of reality distortions. These often include auditory-verbal hallucinations, and thought insertion to a lesser degree; however, their mechanisms and relationships between each other remain largely elusive. Here we attempt to establish a integrative model drawing from the phenomenology of both AVHs and TI and argue that they in fact can be seen as ‘spectra’ of experiences with varying degrees of agency and ownership, with ‘silent and internal own thoughts’ on one extreme and ‘fully (...) external and clearly audible voices’ in the absence of a speaker on the other. We believe a spectral model will add emphasis to the continuity of experience and help to better understand how one type of psychotic symptom may interact with another, and put forward the argument that the experience of TI itself is not sufficient to classify as a delusion. In addition we aim to discuss some of the conceptual issues surrounding AVHs and TI with first-person accounts and current philosophical and neuropsychological theories in mind. We propose that the mechanisms behind AVHs and TI are more complex than source-monitoring deficits; indeed, to understand such phenomena one must appreciate that their very ‘existence’ and ‘reality’ as experienced by the individual have much deeper implications and meaning, both philosophically and clinically. (shrink)