Artificial Intelligence (AI) has an increasing role to play in medical education and has great potential to revolutionize health professional education systems overall. However, this is accompanied by substantial questions concerning technical and ethical risks which are of particular importance because the quality of medical education has a direct effect on physical and psychological health and wellbeing. This article establishes an overarching distinction of AI across two typological dimensions, functional and humanistic. As indispensable foundations, these are then related to medical (...) practice overall, and forms of implementation with examples are described in both general and medical education. Increasingly, the conditions for successful medical education will depend on an understanding of AI and the ethical issues surrounding its implementation, as well as the formulation of appropriate guidelines by regulatory and other authorities. Within that discussion, the limits of both narrow or Routine AI (RAI) and artificial general intelligence or Decision AI (DAI) are examined particularly in view of the ethical need for Trustworthy AI (TAI) as part of the humanistic dimension. All stakeholders, from patients to medical practitioners, managers, and institutions, need to be able to trust AI, and loss of confidence could be catastrophic in some cases. (shrink)

In our article (Zawadzki and Adamczyk 2021), we analyzed threats that novel memory modifying interventions may pose in the future. More specifically, we discussed how optogenetics’ potential for reversible erasure/deactivation of memory “may impact authenticity by producing changes at different levels of personality.” Our article has received many thoughtful open peer commentaries for which we would like to express our great appreciation. We have identified two main threads of objections. They are related to the potential applicability of optogenetics as a (...) therapeutic memory modification technology (MMT) in humans—applicability thread, and the normative value of authenticity, that is, the assumption that preserving authenticity is valuable (either in general or in the particular approach we adopted)—normative thread. Both of these threads concern fundamental issues: The former deals with the scientific credibility of the case vignette on which our discussion is based, and the latter deals with the normative weight of our considerations. We think that addressing both of them can be instructive in a broader context as they reflect a more general disagreement among neuroethicists about the very purpose and method of our discipline. (shrink)

Optogenetics is an invasive neuromodulation technology involving the use of light to control the activity of individual neurons. Even though optogenetics is a relatively new neuromodulation tool whose various implications have not yet been scrutinized, it has already been approved for its first clinical trials in humans. As optogenetics is being intensively investigated in animal models with the aim of developing novel brain stimulation treatments for various neurological and psychiatric disorders, it appears crucial to consider both the opportunities and dangers (...) such therapies may offer. In this review, we focus on the memory-modifying potential of optogenetics, investigating what it is capable of and how it differs from other memory modification technologies. We then outline the safety challenges that need to be addressed before optogenetics can be used in humans. Finally, we re-examine crucial neuroethical concerns expressed in regard to other MMTs in the light of optogenetics and address those that appear to be unique to the memory-modifying potential of optogenetic technology. (shrink)

The purpose of the article is to contribute to the discussion about the relevance of existential issues in contemporary education. Analysis presented in the paper is related to the problems of self-awareness, becoming oneself and self-development. First, the author begins by depicting the meaning of human existence in the light of philosophy. The following aspects have been analyzed: being true to one’s own beliefs and values, recognizing personal truth, making existential choices and finding one’s own voice. A special attention is (...) paid to the language as an essential, constitutive element of being. Second, the article attempts to consider some educational implications resulting from the existential approach to education. Some of the issues discussed are learning to philosophize and to discover meaning, the concept of encounter in education and the role of language in self-development. While describing them the author indicates that the ignoring of crucial existential questions in education contributes to spiritual vacuity in life of young people and reduces educational thinking merely to instrumental, pragmatic problems concerning qualification and transfer of communicative skills. (shrink)

We discuss applications of our account of moral status grounded in person-rearing relationships: which individuals have higher moral status or not, and why? We cover three classes of cases: (1) cases involving incomplete realization of the capacity to care, including whether infants or fetuses have this incomplete capacity; (2) cases in which higher moral status rests in part on what is required for the being to flourish; (3) hypothetical cases in which cognitive enhancements could, e.g., help dogs achieve human-like cognitive (...) capacities. We thereby show that our account does not have the counterintuitive implications alleged by DeGrazia and other critics. (shrink)

This paper evaluates Richard Swinburne’s modal argument for the existence of souls. After a brief presentation of the argument, wedescribe the main known objection to it, which is called the substitution objection (SO for short), and explain Swinburne’s response to that objection. With this as background, we formalize Swinburne’s argument in a quantified propositional modal language, modifying it so that it is logically valid and contains no tacit assumptions, and we explain why we find Swinburne’s response to SO unsatisfactory. Next, (...) we indicate that, even though SO is quite compelling, a weakening of one of the premises yields a valid argument for the same conclusion which is immune to SO. This version of the argument, however, is epistemically circular. (shrink)

Although there is much research on the relationships of corporate social responsibility and employee-related outcomes, a systematic and quantitative integration of research findings is needed to substantiate and broaden our knowledge. A meta-analysis allows the comparison of the relations of different types of CSR on several different outcomes, for example to learn what type of CSR is most important to employees. From a theoretical perspective, social identity theory is the most prominent theoretical approach in CSR research, so we aim to (...) investigate identification as a mediator of the relationship between CSR and employee-related outcomes in a meta-analytical mediation model. This meta-analysis synthesizes research findings on the relationship between employees' perception of CSR (people, planet, and profit) and employee-related outcomes (identification, engagement, organizational attractiveness, turnover (intentions), OCB, commitment, and job satisfaction), thereby distinguishing attitudes and behavior. A total of 143 studies (N= 89,396) were included in the meta-analysis which was conducted according to the methods by Schmidt and Hunter (except of the meta-analytical structural equation model). Mean effect sizes for the relationship between CSR and employee-related attitudes and behaviors were medium-sized to large. For attitudes, the relationships were stronger than for behavior. For specific types of CSR, average effect sizes were large. Identification mediated the relation between CSR and commitment, job satisfaction, and OCB, respectively. Based on our results, we give recommendations concerning the design of CSR initiatives in a way that benefits employees. (shrink)

[A] man does not consist of memory alone. He has feeling, will, sensibilities, moral being…. And it is here … that you may find ways to touch him.—A. R. Luria1.

In his work on internality, identification, and caring, Harry Frankfurt attempts to delineate the organization of agency peculiar to human beings, while avoiding the traditional overintellectualized emphasis on the human capacity to reason about action. The focal point of Frankfurt’s alternative picture is our capacity to make our own motivation the object of reflection. Building upon the observation that marginal agents (such as young children and Alzheimer’s patients) are capable of caring, I show that neither caring nor internality need to (...) depend on the phenomena of reflectiveness. I develop alternative interlocking accounts of caring and internality that are independent of both reflectiveness and evaluation, but that can still do justice to the central role of carings in the organization of agency characteristic of human persons. (shrink)

A being has moral standing if it or its interests matter intrinsically, to at least some degree, in the moral assessment of actions and events. For instance, animals can be said to have moral standing if, other things being equal, it is morally bad to intentionally cause their suffering. This essay focuses on a special kind of moral standing, what I will call “full moral standing” (FMS), associated with persons. In contrast to the var- ious accounts of what ultimately grounds (...) FMS in use in the philosophical literature, I will propose that the emotional capacity to care is a sufficient condition of an individual’s FMS as a person. In developing this account, I will appeal to a set of intuitions not previously mined for this purpose: those generated by conflicts of interests between different life phases of a single individual. (shrink)

Why does a baby who is otherwise cognitively similar to an animal such as a dog nevertheless have a higher moral status? We explain the difference in moral status as follows: the baby can, while a dog cannot, participate as a rearee in what we call “person-rearing relationships,” which can transform metaphysically and evaluatively the baby’s activities. The capacity to engage in these transformed activities has the same type of value as the very capacities (i.e., intellectual or emotional sophistication) that (...) explain unimpaired adult humans’ high moral status. We attempt to extend this account to individuals with severe cognitive impairments. (shrink)

While issues of efficacy and specificity are crucial for the future of neurofeedback training, there may be alternative designs and control analyses to circumvent the methodological and ethical problems associated with double-blind placebo studies. Surprisingly, most NF studies do not report the most immediate result of their NF training, i.e. whether or not children with ADHD gain control over their brain activity during the training sessions. For the investigation of specificity, however, it seems essential to analyze the learning and adaptation (...) processes that take place in the course of the training and to relate improvements in self-regulated brain activity across training sessions to behavioral, neuropsychological and electrophysiological outcomes. To this aim, a review of studies on neurofeedback training with ADHD patients, which include the analysis of learning across training sessions or relate training performance to outcome, is presented. Methods on how to evaluate and quantify learning of EEG regulation over time are discussed. “Non-learning” has been reported in a small number of ADHD-studies, but has not been a focus of general methodological discussion so far. For this reason, selected results from the brain-computer interface (BCI) research on the so-called “brain-computer illiteracy”, the inability to gain control over one’s brain activity, are also included. It is concluded that in the discussion on specificity, more attention should be devoted to the analysis of EEG regulation performance in the course of the training and its impact on clinical outcome. It is necessary to improve the knowledge on characteristic cross-session and within-session learning trajectories in ADHD and to provide the best conditions for learning. (shrink)

This article discusses what is involved in having full moral status, as opposed to a lesser degree of moral status and surveys different views of the grounds of moral status as well as the arguments for attributing a particular degree of moral status on the basis of those grounds.

In a number of publications positive associations between the exposure to artificially generated nonionizing electromagnetic fields (EMF) and the reproductive risks in women were reported (abortion, birth defects, stillbirths). Yet, in another studies, claimed to be more careful, it has been shown that EMF should not be accounted for as a factor causing measurable increase in the above mentioned reproductive failures. In this context, of crucial importance is the determination whether the observed relationship between EMF and people is not of (...) casual but of causal character. In epidemiology a simple checklist is often used to establish this type of relationship. However, in the case of weak association the causal relationship may be claimed with a high degree of uncertainty. Taking into account the fact that in situations that are of interest to epidemiology, EMF are one (sometimes seemingly the most important) of a number of factors. Therefore, the above mentioned bioeffects may come into effect only if other factors are also present. It should be also stressed that the intricacy of these relationships increases when the role of such circumstances, as: distribution in time of the expositions, accumulation of dose, different spans of latency periods, as well as possible stimulatory effects of weak EMF is taken into account. (shrink)

This distinctively interdisciplinary approach to the subject encompasses filmmaking, psychoanalysis, philosophy and popular culture and offers a unique insight into documentary film practice from a psychoanalytic perspective. At the heart of the enquiry is belief that ‘transference-love’ is present in the documentary encounter. With a focus on testimony-driven film and a foreword by Michael Renov, who calls this book 'a radical and compelling account', _Psychoanalysis and Ethics in Documentary Film _covers a range of topics including: Four fundamental concepts of psychoanalysis (...) and documentary film A review of documentary film practice A personal account of the author’s relationship with a subject of her own work A thorough interrogation of the ethics of documentary Ideal for film studies scholars, psychoanalysts, psychotherapists and psychotherapeutically engaged professionals, as well as filmmakers, culture studies students and anyone interested in the process of documentary-making and contemporary culture, this work offers a unique approach. (shrink)

The article is devoted to the Roman Kurkiewicz essays. He is a philosopher, but is also a wellknown newspaper, radio and television journalist. The publication Klapsy polskie contains selected essays printed in ‘Przekrój’. They are alphabetically arranged and concern many issues important for Poles at the time. Political, economic, sporting and cultural events are the starting point for general discussions on the human and the world. Kurkiewicz writes about difficult and controversial topics. The article describes selected examples of different kinds (...) of essay titles. The author refers to the literature, press and TV movies. Selected examples demonstrate the richness of the author’s ideas. (shrink)

The objective of this article is to revise the dominating narrative of communism as male generational history. With the aid of memoirs of communist women, many of whom started their political activity before WWII and belonged to the power-wielding elites of Stalinist Poland, the author shows that the former constituted an integral part of the generation which had planned a revolution and ultimately took over power. Their texts were imbued with a matrilineal perspective on the history of communism: the authors (...) emphasized that other women had strongly motivated them to become involved in politics. However, the memoirs revealed something more: as an attempt to establish new models of emancipation and to transmit them to younger generations of women, they were to rekindle the memory of women as the active agent of that part of Polish history which contemporary feminists refuse to remember. (shrink)

The introduction of Women and Gender Studies in Polish universities is intrinsically connected with the systemic transformation following 1989. This change was marked by the rejection of the communist past with its nominal sexual equality and acceptance of a conservative culture legally restricting women’s rights. Since the mid-nineties, Women and Gender Studies programs have been instituted in many state and private universities albeit on an auxiliary, extramural bases or as “specialization” within other degrees (e.g., sociology, or cultural studies). Since the (...) mid-2000s, gender studies in Poland include studies of masculinity, gender identity formation and queer theory in addition to the traditional women studies program. After Poland joined the EU, the introduction of European legal standards started to influence the progress in Poland’s gender politics towards greater recognition of minority rights. Gender Studies are in the foreground of these changes in teaching and training students and colleagues in gender issues seen as crucial for building a democratic inclusive society. (shrink)

The paper aims at indicating opportunities and threats faced by gender studies in Poland. The author presents institutional problems, which limit dynamic development of the discipline and its impact on the society. She also discusses tensions between an academic affiliation of gender studies and its political aspirations rooted in the tradition of feminist movement. Finally, the author describes recent methodological debates on gender discourse—its theoretical inspirations and practical use.

Seweryn Blandzi Plato and the Protestant Principle of Autarchy of the Scripture (sola scriptura)The author gives reasons why the new holistic Tübingen-interpretation of Plato (H. Krämer, K. Gaiser, Th. A. Szlezák), which combines the Dialogues with his unwritten teaching is still difficult to accept (especially in Germany). The discovery (on the basis of indirect testimonies of Aristotle and his commentators) that there was a separate oral (“exoteric”) metaphysics of principles, which was parallel to dialogues but more valuable (timiotera) in (...) content, and which Plato did not popularize in his writings, has been an antithesis to the traditional romantic paradigm (particularly strong in Germany) of F. Schlegel-Schleiermacher, founded on the conviction of the primacy of autarchy of the written (“exoteric”) text in general. This conviction leads us to the Protestant postulate of Biblical exegesis treated as self-sufficient (sola scriptura), interpreted exclusively on its own basis (sui ipsius interpres), and Schleiermacher transposes this requirement onto Plato’s writings. On the other hand, F. Schlegel, who emphasizes the fragmentary and asystematic character of Plato’s thought in dialogues, sees Plato as a thinker who constantly moves toward infinity, unable ever to reach it. With respect to the dialogues, the reader finds himself in a similar situation as the limited individuality of finite being to infinity. For the romantics (inspired by the idealistic philosophy of subjectivity and identity), man’s greatness as a finite being manifests itself in creating works which reflect infinity. The infinity of the Absolute manifests itself in the absolute freedom and the power of creation, which man – so to speak – meets halfway, with his infinite reflection, creativity, invention, interpretation as an expression of spirit’s freedom. Hence the lasting attraction of this traditional approach, which is unlike the new paradigm that imposes great requirements and constraints on the reader (studying doxographic literature, finding in it testimonies of Plato’s disciples regarding the intra-academic teaching). When Plato’s literary dialogue is treated as a kind of an “open text,” it thus justifies all the possible “hermeneutic” attempts at free and creative interpretations. Keywords: Plato, Hans Krämer, Friedrich Daniel Ernst Schleiermacher, Friedrich Schlegel, romantic paradigm, sola scriptura, infinity of reflection, new paradigm, unwritten teaching, metaphysics of principles. (shrink)

The philosophical activities during the Safavid era mark the peak of a renewed engagement with Greek sources unmediated by Ibn Sina's interest in them and their successive incorporation into his philosophy.1 Among the topics for which the Safavid thinkers consulted ancient Greek authors were cosmology, the role of the intellect and the ways of acquiring knowledge, the nature of the soul, and the process of emanation.2 This engagement, to be sure, did not mean an antiquarian, philological return to the original (...) texts in Greek. Rather, it was a re-reading of their Arabic translations from the ninth to tenth centuries to find ideas beyond those of which Ibn Sina made use, and to legitimize—through their... Read More. (shrink)

Tributes to Professor Andrzej Kopcewicz - Agnieszka Salska New Media Effects on Traditional News Sources: A Review of the State of American Newspapers - Richard Profozich Review of The Body, ed. by Ilona Dobosiewicz and Jacek Gutorow - Grzegorz Kość “Taste good iny?”: Images of and from Australian Indigenous Literature - Jared Thomas Speaks with Teresa Podemska-Abt Engaging the “Forbidden Texts” of Philosophy - Pamela Sue Anderson Talks to Alison Jasper.

Selected works of the contemporary Polish abstract painting in the light of Ingarden’s conception of metaphysical qualities: The main thesis of my article is that Roman Ingarden’s concept of metaphysical qualities can be adapted to analyze and interpret artworks that represent some tendencies in abstract painting. I start by summarizing this concept, taking into consideration the elements of its reconstructions that are present in the source literature, especially those aspects that concern art. Although Ingarden’s idea can be used with many (...) examples, I employ it to analyze chosen artworks by the outstanding Polish abstract artists Tamara Berdowska, Władysław Podrazik, Tadeusz G. Wiktor and Jan Pamuła. I do not intend to refer to these paintings strictly in Ingarden’s terms, but I use these criteria in a way that allows me to enrich the interpretation of these artworks by showing them in a new light. By recognizing the role of contemplation of art, I try to fnd the genesis of the analyzed examples and reveal how metaphysical qualities manifest in them and infuence the viewer. I underline aspects that are distinctive of the presented artists and are related to the exceptional ability of abstract language to correspond to Ingarden’s idea. Subsequently, when developing my point of view I maintain the relationship between aesthetic and metaphysical sense that creates a kind of interdependence. These artists intentionally go beyond purely aesthetic efects to relate to transcendence. By adapting Ingarden’s concept to some contemporary abstractions, I try to link philosophical and critical ways of approaching these artistic phenomena with special regards to their metaphysical connotations that tend to be overlooked in contemporary discourses. (shrink)

The article reviews the book Ekofilozofia [Ecophilosophy], by Zdzisława Piątek.

İbn Sînâ, Yeter Sebep İlkesi’ni (YSİ), yani her şeyin bir sebebi olduğu ve sebepsiz hiçbir varlığın var olamayacağı iddiasını savunan modern dönem öncesi filozoflarından biridir. YSİ’nin sonuçlarından biri de zorunlulukçuluktur (necessitarianism); yani gerçekte var olan her şeyin aynı zamanda zorunlu olarak var olduğu iddiasıdır. Bu fikre göre sebepler zincirinin her bir üyesi kendinden önceki sebepler tarafından belirlenir. Dolayısıyla YSİ, olayların başka türlü de olabileceğini telkin eden insan sezgisine karşı çıkmaktadır. Bu çalışmadaki amacım, İbn Sînâ sonrası yazarların insan iradesini dışlamak suretiyle (...) YSİ’nin zorunlulukçu sonuçlarını hafifletmeye çalışıp çalışmadıklarını araştırmaktır. Nasîrüddin Tûsî’nin (ö. 672/1274) Cebr ve Kader adlı Farsça risalesi ile Tecrîdü’l-i‘tikâd adlı kelâm kitabı arasında bir karşılaştırma yapmaya odaklanacağım. Bu konuyu seçmemin öncelikli sebebi, insanların eylemlerinin bağımsız fâilleri olduklarını sezgisel olarak bildiklerine dair Tûsî’nin iddialarıdır ki bu, YSİ‘nin evrensel uygulanabilirliği ile çelişiyor gibi görünmektedir. Tûsî’nin özgür irade konusunda, metinlerin karakterine ve yazıldıkları döneme bağlı olarak, bazen İbn Sînâ ile tutarlılık arzeden bazen de Mu‘tezile’ye angaje olan farklı görüşler benimsediğini savunacağım. Tûsî’nin, bazen nedensel olarak etkin olmamasına rağmen insan özgürlüğüne nasıl yer bıraktığını göstereceğim. O, insan özgürlüğünü, insanın karşı karşıya kaldığı fiziksel veya ilahî diğer belirlenim türlerinden bağımsız olarak hareket edebilen farklı bir belirlenim türü olarak anlar. Genel olarak bu mesele, Tûsî’nin İbn Sînâ felsefesine ya da Şiî kelâmına bağlılığını test etmekte ve hatta onu bazı eserlerinde İbn Sînâ’nın bilgi görüşüne karşı bir duruş sergilemeye zorlamaktadır. (shrink)

In their article, Sankary et al. (2022) interviewed participants who underwent implantation (n = 16) and subsequent explantation (n = 9) of brain stimulation devices associated with their recent (n...