Conceptualizing the image of a dancing Supreme Goddess in the Hindu tradition presents a philosophical challenge because it demands a coherent rational reconciliation between her nature as continuously changing into multiple forms and the realm of pure, absolute, never-changing, formless being. Different strategies have been proposed in the history of philosophy in India. This paper analyzes the image of the dancing Goddess as it appears in the Devī Māhātmya and in the Tantric iconography of the Goddess Kālī. An argument is (...) developed to show that Śākta philosophy resolves this tension through a radical non-dualist understanding of the role that a mental image (vikalpa) plays in accessing supreme reality. (shrink)

Like many other discussions regarding the nature of self-awareness in Classical Indian philosophical traditions, the commentators of Patañjali’s Yogaśāstra deployed the metaphor of light or luminosity to defend the position that consciousness is self-reflexive. In this paper I discuss the way the commentarial tradition of Classical Yoga misinterpreted Patañjali’s notion of self-reflexivity and articulate his account of self-awareness based on Vyāsa’s preferred metaphor of space (ākāśa). I also show how Patañjali´s notion of self-awareness could be understood in terms of “spaciousness” (...) by using Merleau-Ponty’s phenomenology of perception and Dan Zahavi’s studies on the first-person perspective. (shrink)

Each action, each thought is accompanied by one’s own breathing. To breathe is always thought of as an individual act. It is one’s own breathing that keeps us alive and it is one’s own breathing that leaves at the moment of death. Up until recently, it was uncommon to talk about breathing as a shared act, as a relational moment that is created with someone else. Yet, Luce Irigaray’s work calls for the cultivation of breathing to enable our ethical coexistence (...) with the other, and the eighth c. commentary on the Sāṃkhyakārikā, the Yuktidīpikā, relates the vital breath of samāna to the function of sharing. This paper searches for a philosophy of breath, such as the one that Irigaray calls for, that can emerge from a close reading of Indian philosophical sources. I explore the relational aspect of breathing throughout the development of the notion of prāṇa in the Upaniṣads and elucidate the meaning given to the term samāna within the classical Sāṃkhya tradition, unique in the Indian theory of the bodily winds. (shrink)

Classical Sāṃkhya has usually been interpreted as an intellectualist school. Its presumed method for the attainment of liberation is essentially characterized by rational inquiry into reality, which involves the intellectual understanding of the distinction between two principles: the conscious and the material. Some have argued that this liberating process is not only theoretical, but that it entails yogic practice, or that it is the natural outcome of existential forces that tend toward freedom. However, recent studies in Sāṃkhya involving detailed analysis (...) of an anonymous commentary of the Sāṃkhyakārikā, the Yuktidīpikā, suggest a more complex picture. The external functions of the five vital winds in relation to the sources of action and dispositions of being seem to play an important role in the liberating path. In this paper, I review the relation between bhāvas, karmayonis, and the five prāṇas by considering the social, moral, and interpersonal aspects of the five vital winds as described in the Yuktidīpikā. It will be shown how the external functions of prāṇa are related to the moral cultivation of vitality, leading to the enactment and manifestation of dispositions of being that bring about the realization of oneself as a knower in the ethical engagement with others. It is this unique way of understanding prāṇa in the Yuktidīpikā that makes the Sāṃkhya path for liberation something more than a theoretical cognitive method or a spontaneous and predetermined realization of one’s self. (shrink)

This book explores Patan̄jali's Yoga Sütra from a contemporary scholarly perspective. Chapters in this book explore questions regarding its metaphysics, epistemology, and praxis. Contributors to this volume guide us in a philosophical journey through this text that will be of interest to scholars and yoga practitioners alike.

Charles Tilly (1929-2008), sociólogo, historiador y politólogo norteamericano, es un autor imprescindible para la comprensión de la contienda política y el conflicto social. Sus investigaciones muestran cómo las bases sociales organizadas en diversas formas de acción colectiva pueden influir y condicionar la marcha de la historia. Sus estudios sobre las revoluciones, la formación y evolución de los Estados y su teoría de la acción colectiva giran en torno a su gran preocupación: la defensa de derechos ciudadanos y la búsqueda de (...) sistemas políticos atentos a las condiciones de vida de los más débiles. Esta obra presenta la mayor recopilación de reflexiones sobre su trabajo publicada hasta la fecha. Cada capítulo analiza sus textos, sus teorías y diseños metodológicos, y algunos añaden investigación de casos. Este libro ayuda a comprender un tiempo marcado por intensas movilizaciones populares, algunas con consecuencias muy relevantes, como las protestas que se extienden en 2011 desde Túnez a Egipto, Yemen, Libia, Siria, etc.,la llamada "primavera árabe" y distintas movilizaciones en el occidente democrático reclamando más atención a las demandas ciudadanas, como el Movimiento 15 de Mayo (15 M) en España replicado en otros países, las protestas en Grecia, Reino Unido, etc. (shrink)

This book is not only an homage to Charles Tilly, but is a proposal of applying his thought. The authors examine his concepts, theories, and methodological contributions, providing a richer understanding of them. It is an essential guide for anyone interested on the analysis of political change and social conflict.

Here, we report on a quasi-experimental study to explore the applicability and perceived benefits of the CRAFT program, which is based on mindfulness, yoga, positive psychology, and emotional intelligence, to improve higher education student musicians’ health and well-being during the lockdown. A subset of student musicians at a Higher Conservatory of Music in Spain followed the CRAFT program during the academic year 2019/2020, 1 h per week as part of their curriculum. Students enrolled in CRAFT-based elective subjects formed the CRAFT (...) program group, while other students represented the control group. The onset of the national lockdown elicited by the COVID-19 pandemic occurred halfway through the program, which was subsequently delivered in an online format. We administered an online survey to explore the effect that the exposure to the CRAFT program had in terms of how participants dealt with various health and well-being concerns arising from the COVID-19 lockdown. There was a significantly higher proportion of proactive participants in the CRAFT program group, 92%, than in the control group, 58%, in terms of implementing practices to improve their health and well-being during the lockdown. Additionally, significantly more participants acknowledged perceived benefits from their practices in the CRAFT program group, 78%, than in the control group, 52%. Among proactive participants, yoga/meditation was the most implemented in the CRAFT program group, followed by exercise, and other yoga/meditation practices, whereas in the control group, exercise and Alexander technique-based practices were the most applied. In the CRAFT program group, the highest rate of perceived benefits was from yoga/meditation CRAFT-based practices, 51%, followed by exercise, 32%, and other yoga/meditation practices, 27%, whereas in the control group, benefits were reported by 29% of exercising participants and 16% for those having practiced the Alexander technique. A similar pattern was observed when excluding participants with previous yoga/meditation experience. This study revealed how participants can independently apply learned skills from the CRAFT program in response to a naturally occurring life event of unprecedented global impact, suggesting that previous exposure to mindfulness and yoga is likely to have a beneficial effect on how young adults react towards exceptionally stressful conditions. (shrink)

《古希臘的人學》旨在探討在古代希臘傳統中的人學，相關的問題「人是什麼？」 人是其可見的身體，或還有什麼生命元素使得身體之所以是活著。 早在西元前六世紀開始，古希臘人的理性思辨首先關懷的課題就是人。人所處的究竟是一個什麼樣的物理世界？物理世界中的人又該如何定位？世界與人因而成了哲學探討的兩大主題。 當聚焦、關懷回到人的本身時，與人有關的首推靈魂論，其次是倫理學、政治學等。古希臘時期的靈魂論事實上就是人學，因認知到靈魂是身體（body）的生命原理，無論是從生物學、形上學乃至認識論推衍生命意義之所在 ，都不能捨靈魂而不論。 人的生命僅限在時間內，或還有永恆的面向？人除了生理生命，是否還有倫理、道德和宗教生命？人的自我完滿和完美在時間中達成，或是超越時間有永恆的生命？針對這類問題，作者丁福寧在《古希臘的人學》採取史的角度從 荷馬史詩中流露出的人之概念，及其後哲學理性思辨時期，藉著對一切起源或原理的探討，領悟到人在其身體之外，靈魂是人的生命原理。哲學家對原理和生命概念的詮釋均不同，連帶對「人是什麼？」這最基本問題的詮釋也不 同。亞理斯多德的全人概念，及其後的基督宗教思想，共同奠定了西方人學的基礎。 本書《古希臘的人學》主要研究，古代希臘人不僅關心人在這世界中的生活，如何渡合乎倫理、道德的生活。希臘人肯定人在身體死亡後，靈魂在另一個世界繼續存在。人死亡後的生命是以他在這世界中的生活作為衡量，人的理 想是相似神。人的身體屬於會毀滅的世界，理性則屬於神聖、不朽的世界。靈魂不朽不只是單純的宗教信仰，柏拉圖及亞理斯多德分別以不同的方式從理性的形上本性論證靈魂不朽。從某種角度而言，到了西元前四世紀，希臘人 所建立的人學不是封閉在時間、空間的人學體系，而是向著永恆、無限開放的人學體系。這種人學思想奠定往後所有世紀哲學家人學反省的典範。.

In this paper, we address the model of global attractor formulated in the form of evolution differential inclusions with second order in Banach spaces. Firstly, based on the fixed point theorem, the existence result of mild solutions is deduced. Then, by implementing the measure of noncompactness, the existence of global attractor associated with m -semiflow is validated. Finally, a concrete application of the main result is demonstrated to enhance the practical signification.

Vardanyan’s Theorems [36, 37] state that $\mathsf {QPL}(\mathsf {PA})$ —the quantified provability logic of Peano Arithmetic—is $\Pi ^0_2$ complete, and in particular that this already holds when the language is restricted to a single unary predicate. Moreover, Visser and de Jonge [38] generalized this result to conclude that it is impossible to computably axiomatize the quantified provability logic of a wide class of theories. However, the proof of this fact cannot be performed in a strictly positive signature. The system $\mathsf (...) {QRC_1}$ was previously introduced by the authors [1] as a candidate first-order provability logic. Here we generalize the previously available Kripke soundness and completeness proofs, obtaining constant domain completeness. Then we show that $\mathsf {QRC_1}$ is indeed complete with respect to arithmetical semantics. This is achieved via a Solovay-type construction applied to constant domain Kripke models. As corollaries, we see that $\mathsf {QRC_1}$ is the strictly positive fragment of $\mathsf {QGL}$ and a fragment of $\mathsf {QPL}(\mathsf {PA})$. (shrink)

Drawing from Goffman’s original observations on stigma and the consequences of interactions between the stigmatized and supportive or stigmatizing audiences, we conduct a 20-year review of the diverse literature on stigma to revisit the collective nature of stigmatization processes. We find that studies on stigma’s origins, responses, processes, and outcomes have diverged from Goffman’s relational view of stigma as they have overlooked important relational mechanisms explaining the processes of (de)stigmatization. We draw from those conclusions to justify the need to study (...) stigma as a collective phenomenon. We develop a relational perspective on stigma based on understanding how attributes are stigmatized (or not) by audiences in their interactions. We argue that to advance stigma research, it is necessary to build on Goffman’s theory to include the stigmatizers (i.e., the normal) and supporters (i.e., the wise); how they create, sustain, or remove stigma; and how they relate to the stigmatized (i.e., the targets). Accordingly, we provide a research agenda on stigma as a collective phenomenon that theorizes a relational perspective, proposes a typology of how audiences relate to stigmatization, and identifies patterns of relations between audiences. We thus offer a missing piece to existing accounts of stigma by focusing on the key role of audiences (i.e., stigmatizers or supporters of the stigmatized) rather than on the targets of stigma (i.e., the own). (shrink)

In 2020, the European Union announced the award of the contract for the biometric part of the new database for border control, the Entry Exit System, to two companies: IDEMIA and Sopra Steria. Both companies had been previously involved in the development of databases for border and migration management. While there has been a growing amount of publicly available documents that show what kind of technologies are being implemented, for how much money, and by whom, there has been limited engagement (...) with digital methods in this field. Moreover, critical border and security scholarship has largely focused on qualitative and ethnographic methods. Building on a data feminist approach, we propose a transdisciplinary methodology that goes beyond binaries of qualitative/quantitative and opacity/transparency, examines power asymmetries and makes the labour of coding visible. Empirically, we build and analyse a dataset of the contracts awarded by two European Union agencies key to its border management policies – the European Agency for Large-Scale Information Systems (eu-LISA) and the European Border and Coast Guard Agency (Frontex). We supplement the digital analysis and visualisation of networks of companies with close reading of tender documents. In so doing, we show how a transdisciplinary methodology can be a device for making datafication ‘intelligible’ at the European Union borders. (shrink)

Este artículo1 explora dos obras cinematográficas guatemaltecas, Polvo (2012) y Nuestras madres (2019), dirigidas por Julio Hernández Cordón y César Díaz correspondientemente. En ambos largometrajes la denuncia sobre la violación de derechos humanos durante el pasado conflicto armado guatemalteco, la búsqueda de padres o familiares desaparecidos y sus secuelas en las víctimas constituyen la temática central. Por tanto, el análisis se centra en la importancia que tiene la búsqueda del padre desaparecido en los hijos, quienes, a raíz de esta vivencia (...) traumática, experimentan un vacío identitario, así como estragos individuales provocados por la falta de la figura paterna. Por otro lado, también se analizan el trauma y el silencio de las madres sobrevivientes como remanente del miedo/terror experimentado durante el conflicto armado, pero también como un mecanismo de protección para sus hijos. En especial, el análisis se auxilia teóricamente con el extenso trabajo realizado por el sociólogo uruguayo Gabriel Gatti sobre la desaparición forzada. 1 Este ensayo forma parte de una serie de proyectos de investigación y se realizó con el apoyo de la beca Volgenau de la Academia Naval de Estados Unidos. (shrink)

Fencing for the blind and visually impaired is an emerging sub-discipline of fencing that creates unusual conditions for meaning-making through interaction between embodied endowments and worldly affordances. With the rules of fencing slightly adjusted to the needs of the blindfolded participants – regardless of their sightedness – the discipline requires the fencers to engage in a duel by relying on other than visual cues. This article explores what an autoethnographic account of experiences of participation in fencing for the blind and (...) visually impaired brings to debates on the embodied, and specifically sensory difference. The discussion of these experiences intersects with debates on affect, affordance, and habit, with all three having important roles in related semiotic processes. Presented vignettes draw upon the author’s lived experiences of participation in fencing for the blind and visually impaired and are analyzed as part of a mixed-method autoethnographic study, accompanied by sensory methodologies, with a focus on an inquiry beyond the visual. The vignettes elucidate how we make sense of our surroundings through a complex engagement with the ecology of sensory and affective processes. In addition to exploring the role of affective and pre-conceptual aspects of our experiences, the article seeks to understand how semiosis occurs through both exposure to as well as the active pursuit of specific environmental signs available to us. The article also derives from biosemiotics to examine the complex relationship between meaning-making processes and habits. Finally, the autoethnographic account provides an insight into how we habituate the world and our embodied differences and thus enable meaning-making processes. (shrink)

This paper investigates the interpretation of counterfactual conditionals. The main goal of the paper is to provide an account of the semantic role of similarity in the evaluation of counterfactuals. The paper proposes an analysis according to which counterfactuals are treated as predications “ de re ” over past situations in the actual world. The relevant situations enter semantic composition via the interpretation of tense. Counterfactuals are treated as law-like conditionals with de re predication over particular facts. Similarity with respect (...) to particular facts is ensured by the semantics of tense in interaction with the modal, while the modal itself is responsible for invoking laws. In the paper, various arguments are provided to support a local view of similarity over the global approach found in semantics along the line of Lewis’s and Stalnaker’s. Arguments are also provided tying the evaluation of similarity to the interpretation of tense. Finally, arguments are provided to show that in key cases, the approaches make comparable predictions. (shrink)

Cette étude vise à comprendre les spécificités sémantiques des lexèmes _manipuler_ et _modifier_ afin d’éclairer l’usage qui en est fait en bioéthique lorsque les actions désignées ont comme objet l’embryon, le cerveau, l’ADN, l’Homme, le vivant ou la procréation. En s’appuyant sur les définitions des dictionnaires et sur les réponses à un questionnaire soumis aux locuteurs, et en se servant de concepts de la sémantique combinatoire, de la sémantique argumentative, de la sémantique des cadres et de l’aspect sémantique, l’étude identifie (...) les éléments de signification propres à chacun des deux lexèmes. Ces éléments sont étroitement liés au potentiel de signification des lexèmes et aux traits aspectuels des procès qu’ils désignent. À l’issue de cette étude, un ensemble de traits sémantiques caractéristiques de chaque lexème est proposé, dans une perspective contrastive. (shrink)

Mary Livermore'sMy Story of the Waris a valuable piece of travel writing written from the point of view of a nurse who documented her unexpected personal and professional journey to administer the Sanitary Commission of the United States Union Army and provide nursing care during the American Civil War. Although Livermore's pre‐war background had not been solely limited to the domestic sphere, her wartime experience involved a public negotiation between the traditional domestic realm assigned to women and new nursing professional (...) functions that emerged during the war. In a context in which the general access of women to public writing was rather limited and in which nursing was not a formally regulated professional activity, Livermore's triumphal narrative reflects the increasing connection between progressively professional nursing functions that emerged in the context of war and a new women's rights leadership forged during her autobiographical journey. (shrink)

Margaret Archer plays a leading role in the sociological analysis of the relation between structure and agency, and particularly in the study of reflexivity. The main aim of this article is to discuss her approach, focusing on the main contributions and limitations of Archer’s theory of reflexivity. It is argued that even though her research is a pioneering one, proposing an operationalization of the concept of reflexivity in view of its empirical implementation, it also minimizes crucial social factors and the (...) dimensions necessary for a more complex and multi-dimensional study of the concept, such as social origins, family socialization, processes of internalization of exteriority, the role of other structure–agency mediation mechanisms and the persistence of social reproduction. (shrink)

Spin is a fundamental and distinctive property of the electron, having far-reaching implications. Yet its purely formal treatment often blurs the physical content and meaning of the spin operator and associated observables. In this work we propose to advance in disclosing the meaning behind the formalism, by first recalling some basic facts about the one-particle spin operator. Consistently informed by and in line with the quantum formalism, we then proceed to analyse in detail the spin projection operator correlation function \=\left\langle (...) \left \left \right\rangle \) for the bipartite singlet state, and show it to be amenable to an unequivocal probabilistic reading. In particular, the calculation of \\) entails a partitioning of the probability space, which is dependent on the directions \.\) The derivation of the CHSH- or other Bell-type inequalities, on the other hand, does not consider such partitioning. This observation puts into question the applicability of Bell-type inequalities to the bipartite singlet spin state. (shrink)

La mentoría como programa de formación en el inicio de la vida profesional del docente principiante se presenta como una oportunidad para la mejora de la calidad de las instituciones educativas y de sus agentes. Al mismo tiempo, revierte sobre la comunidad y el territorio donde se ubica. En contextos reconocidos como vulnerables se necesitan agentes educativos vocacionales y con un alto nivel de resiliencia, y con una meta clara: formar a personas plenas que contribuyan con su sentir, ser y (...) hacer al desarrollo de la comunidad en la que habitan. (shrink)

We explore the distinctive characteristics of Mexico's society, politics and history that impacted the establishment of genetics in Mexico, as a new disciplinary field that began in the early 20th century and was consolidated and institutionalized in the second half. We identify about three stages in the institutionalization of genetics in Mexico. The first stage can be characterized by Edmundo Taboada, who was the leader of a research program initiated during the Cárdenas government (1934-1940), which was primarily directed towards improving (...) the condition of small Mexican farmers. Taboada is the first Mexican post-graduate investigator in phytotechnology and phytopathology, trained at Cornell University and the University of Minnesota, in 1932 and 1933, respectively. He was the first investigator to teach plant genetics at the National School of Agriculture and wrote the first textbook of general genetics, Genetics Notes, in 1938. Taboada's most important single genetics contribution was the production of "stabilized" corn varieties. The extensive exile of Spanish intellectuals to Mexico, after the end of Spain's Civil War (1936-1939), had a major influence in Mexican science and characterizes the second stage. The three main personalities contributing to Mexican genetics are Federico Bonet de Marco and Bibiano Fernández Osorio Tafall, at the National School of Biological Sciences, and José Luis de la Loma y Oteyza, at the Chapingo Agriculture School. The main contribution of the Spanish exiles to the introduction of genetics in Mexico concerned teaching. They introduced in several universities genetics as a distinctive discipline within the biology curriculum and wrote genetics text books and manuals. The third stage is identified with Alfonso León de Garay, who founded the Genetics and Radiobiology Program in 1960 within the National Commission of Nuclear Energy, which had been founded in 1956. The Genetics and Radiobiology Program rapidly became a disciplinary program, for it embraced research, teaching, and training of academics and technicians. The Mexican Genetics Society, created by de Garay in 1966, and the development of strains and cultures for genetics research were important activities. One of de Garay's key requirements was the compulsory training of the Program's scientists for at least one or two years in the best universities of the United States and Europe. De Garay's role in the development of Mexican genetics was fundamental. His broad vision encompassed the practice of genetics in all its manifestations. (shrink)

Prominent tuberculosis (TB) actors are invoking solidarity to motivate and justify collective action to address TB, including through intensified development and implementation (D&I) of technologies such as drugs and diagnostics. We characterize the ethical challenges associated with D&I of new TB technologies by drawing on stakeholder perspectives from 23 key informant interviews and we articulate the ethical implications of solidarity for TB technology D&I. The fundamental ethical issue facing TB technological D&I is a failure within and beyond the TB community (...) to stand in solidarity with persons with TB in addressing the complex sociopolitical contexts of technological D&I. The failure in solidarity relates to two further ethical challenges raised by respondents: skewed power dynamics that hinder D&I and uncertainties around weighing risks and benefits associated with new technologies. Respondents identified advocacy and participatory research practices as necessary to address such challenges and to motivate sustained collective action to accelerate toward TB elimination. We present the first empirical examination of bioethical accounts of solidarity in public and global health. Our study suggests that solidarity allows us better to understand and address the ethical challenges that arrest the D&I of new TB technologies. Solidarity lends credence to policies and practices that address the relational nature of illness and health through collective action. (shrink)

Online education has become an essential component of education. Thus, several factors, such as the student’s learning strategy and motivation, generally contribute to their academic success. This study investigates the relationship between learning strategies, motivation, and online learning environment among 150 first-year college students. Employing correlational design, the statistical findings of the study reveal that the r coefficient of 0.59 indicates a moderate positive correlation between the variables. The p-value of 0.00, which is less than 0.05, leads to the decision (...) to reject the null hypothesis. Hence, a significant relationship exists between learning strategies, motivation, and the online learning environment. (shrink)

The somatic mutation theory (SMT) of cancer has been and remains the prevalent theory attempting to explain how neoplasms arise and progress. This theory proposes that cancer is a clonal, cell‐based disease, and implicitly assumes that quiescence is the default state of cells in multicellular organisms. The SMT has not been rigorously tested, and several lines of evidence raise questions that are not addressed by this theory. Herein, we propose experimental strategies that may validate the SMT. We also call attention (...) to an alternative theory of carcinogenesis, the tissue organization field theory (TOFT), which posits that cancer is a tissue‐based disease and that proliferation is the default state of all cells. Based on epistemological and experimental evidence, we argue that the TOFT compellingly explains carcinogenesis, while placing it within an evolutionarily relevant context.magnified imagemagnified imageAna Soto and Carlos Sonnenschein are at Tufts University School of Medicine, Boston, MA, USA. (shrink)

How do we acquire a mental representation of our own face? Recently, synchronous, but not asynchronous, interpersonal multisensory stimulation between one’s own and another person’s face has been used to evoke changes in self-identification . We investigated the conscious experience of these changes with principal component analyses that revealed that while the conscious experience during synchronous IMS focused on resemblance and similarity with the other’s face, during asynchronous IMS it focused on multisensory stimulation. Analyses of the identified common factor structure (...) revealed significant quantitative differences between synchronous and asynchronous IMS on self-identification and perceived similarity with the other’s face. Experiment 2 revealed that participants with lower interoceptive sensitivity experienced stronger enfacement illusion. Overall, self-identification and body-ownership rely on similar basic mechanisms of multisensory integration, but the effects of multisensory input on their experience are qualitatively different, possibly underlying the face’s unique role as a marker of selfhood. (shrink)

Croatia is a transitional society in that it is a country emerging from a socialist command economy toward a market-based economy with ensuing structural changes of a social and political nature—some extending into the healthcare system. A legacy from our past is that, until now, Croatian healthcare institutions have had no real experience with clinical ethics support services. When clinical cases arise presenting complex ethical dilemmas in treatment options, the challenges presented to the medical team are substantial. The case described (...) below recently occurred on a ward in a university hospital in Croatia. An unexpected request from the patient’s parents created a number of issues that needed to be addressed by the medical team, which was made more difficult by the lack of clinical ethics support services. Such cases press the question currently being debated as to what type of ethics support services would be suitable for Croatia and why. (shrink)

How can we feel at home in this world without clinging to false certainties? This book offers a humanist re-reading of philosophical pragmatism and explores its potentials for a worldview that relies only on human resources. Thinking along with authors like William James and F.C.S. Schiller, it highlights a fundamentally humanist strand of pragmatism aimed at fostering human creativity and transformative action. It is grounded in everyday experience and underlines our responsibility to strive for the better. Ana Honnacker traces perspectives (...) on science, religion, and ethics in the light of a pragmatic understanding of humanism. Furthermore, she suggests how to address the existential challenges we face today. Thus, pragmatic humanism is explored not only as a philosophy for critical minds, but also as a way of life. (shrink)

Codes of medical ethics (codes) are part of a longstanding tradition in which physicians publicly state their core values and commitments to patients, peers, and the public. However, codes are not static. Using the historical evolution of the Canadian Medical Association's Code of Ethics as an illustrative case, we argue that codes are living, socio-historically situated documents that comprise a mix of prescriptive and aspirational content. Reflecting their socio-historical situation, we can expect the upheaval of the COVID-19 pandemic to prompt (...) calls to revise codes. Indeed, Alex John London has argued in favour of specific modifications to the World Medical Association's International Code of Medical Ethics (which has since been revised) in light of moral and scientific failures that occurred during the COVID-19 pandemic. Responding to London, we address the more general question: should codes be modified to reflect lessons drawn from the COVID-19 pandemic or future such upheavals? We caution that codes face limitations as instruments of policy change because they are inherently interpretive and ‘multivocal’, that is, they usually underdetermine or provide more than one answer to the question, ‘What should I do now?’ Nonetheless, as both prescriptive and aspirational documents, codes also serve as tools for reflection and deliberation—collective practices that are necessary to engaging with and addressing the moral and scientific uncertainties inherent to medicine. (shrink)

Analytic study of ethical conviction and beliefs with reference to the Advaitavada of Śaṅkarācārya and Śuddhādvaitavāda of Vallabhachars.