Erarbeitet von Dominik Balg, Anne Burkard, Henning Franzen, Aenna Frottier, David Lanius, David Löwenstein, Hanna Lucks, Kirsten Meyer, Donata Romizi, Katharina Schulz, Stefanie Thiele und Annett Wienmeister. -/- Die Entwicklung argumentativer Fähigkeiten ist ein zentrales Ziel des Ethik- und Philosophieunterrichts, ja überhaupt ein zentrales Bildungsziel. Wie aber kann das gelingen? In vielen verfügbaren Unterrichtsmaterialien werden argumentative Fähigkeiten eher vorausgesetzt als systematisch gefördert. Auch curriculare Vorgaben bleiben zumeist sehr unspezifisch. Lehrpersonen werden so weitgehend allein gelassen mit der Aufgabe, Lernende beim (...) Erwerb argumentativer Fähigkeiten zu fördern. Die vorliegende Aufgabensammlung soll dazu beitragen, diese Lücke zu schließen. Sie bietet Lehrpersonen reichhaltige Materialien für die spiralcurricular angelegte, systematische Förderung argumentativer Fähigkeit anhand exemplarischer Inhalte. Orientiert an klaren fachlichen Standards finden sich hier Aufgaben auf vier Niveaustufen, jeweils in Verbindung mit übersichtlichen Merkblättern. Die Aufgaben der beiden unteren Niveaustufen lassen sich bereits für jüngere Lernende der Sekundarstufe einsetzen, Aufgaben der obersten Niveaustufe richten sich an Lernende von Abschlussklassen oder der Studieneingangsphase. Für die Hand der Lehrpersonen werden die Aufgaben und Merkblätter durch fachliche und didaktische Kommentare sowie Lösungshinweise ergänzt. (shrink)

Dog whistling—speech that seems ordinary but sends a hidden, often derogatory message to a subset of the audience—is troubling not just for our political ideals, but also for our theories of communication. On the one hand, it seems possible to dog whistle unintentionally, merely by uttering certain expressions. On the other hand, the intention is typically assumed or even inferred from the act, and perhaps for good reason, for dog whistles seem misleading by design, not just by chance. In this (...) paper, I argue that, to understand when and why it’s possible to dog-whistle unintentionally (and indeed, intentionally), we’ll need to recognize the structure of our linguistic practices. For dog whistles and for covertly coded speech more generally, this structure is a pair of practices, one shared by all competent speakers and the other known only to some, but deployable in the same contexts. In trying to identify these enabling conditions, we’ll discover what existing theories of communicated content overlook by focusing on particular utterances in isolation, or on individual speakers’ mental states. The remedy, I argue, lies in attending to the ways in which what is said is shaped by the temporally extended, socio-politically structured linguistic practices that utterances instantiate. (shrink)

This chapter provides a high-level introduction to the topic of propaganda. We survey a number of the most influential accounts of propaganda, from the earliest institutional studies in the 1920s to contemporary academic work. We propose that these accounts, as well as the various examples of propaganda which we discuss, all converge around a key feature: persuasion which bypasses audiences’ rational faculties. In practice, propaganda can take different forms, serve various interests, and produce a variety of effects. Propaganda can aim (...) to affect not only audiences’ beliefs and attitudes, but also their emotions and moods, and in turn how audiences subsequently reason or act. While propaganda is often thought of as false or misinformation, it can instead involve framing effects (“The war on drugs”), covert messaging (“There are Muslims among us”), emotionally charged slogans (“Make America Great Again”), or myths (“The American dream”). These forms of propaganda mislead audiences, not by introducing false information, but by making some beliefs and values, rather than others, salient. In fact, propaganda can even employ straightforwardly true claims (again, as in “There are Muslims among us”) and seemingly objective bureaucratic reports (“Crime has risen 4.2%”). To understand how these and other mechanisms enable propaganda to persuade by arational means, further study is needed. To that end, throughout the chapter we identify a number of places where the study of meaning and communication can help elucidate propaganda, as well as the places where propaganda issues challenges for the study of meaning. (shrink)

Background: Informed consent for genetic tests is a well-established practice. It should be based on good quality information and in keeping with the patient’s values. Existing informed consent assessment tools assess knowledge and values. Nevertheless, there is no consensus on what specific elements need to be discussed or considered in the consent process for genetic tests.Methods: We performed a systematic review to identify all factors involved in the decision-making and consent process about genetic testing, from the perspective of patients. Through (...) public databases, we identified studies reporting factors that influence the decision to accept or decline genetic testing. Studies were included if they reported the perspective of patients or at-risk individuals. All articles were thematically coded.Results: 1989 articles were reviewed: 70 met inclusion criteria and 12 additional articles were identified through the references of included studies. Coding of the 82 articles led to the identification of 45 factors involved in decision-making and consent, which were initially divided into three domains: in favor of, against or with an undetermined influence on genetic testing. Each factor was also divided into three subdomains relating to the informed choice concept: knowledge, values or other. The factors in the “other” subdomain were all related to the context of testing (e.g. timing, cost, influence of family members, etc), and were present in all three domains.Conclusions: We describe the network of factors contributing to decision-making and consent process and identify the context of genetic testing as a third component to influence this process. Future studies should consider the evaluation of contextual factors as an important and relevant component of the consent and decision-making process about genetic tests. Based on these results, we plan to develop and test a more comprehensive tool to assess informed consent for genetic testing. (shrink)

Medical issues affecting health care have become everyday media events. In response to mounting public concern, growing numbers of bioethicists are being appointed to medical school faculties and public policy panels. However the ideas voiced in these forums are seldom informed by feminist perspectives. In this important book, a distinguished group of feminist scholars and activists discuss crucial bioethics topics in a feminist light. Among the subjects explored are the care/justice debates, transforming bioethics, practice, and reproduction. The book also covers (...) less commonly discussed issues, such as culturally appropriate responses to reproductive health problems in developing countries. (shrink)

This collection brings together fourteen contributions by authors from around the globe. Each of the contributions engages with questions about how local and global bioethical issues are made to be comparable, in the hope of redressing basic needs and demands for justice. These works demonstrate the significant conceptual contributions that can be made through feminists' attention to debates in a range of interrelated fields, especially as they formulate appropriate responses to developments in medical technology, global economics, population shifts, and poverty.

The views on plagiarism of 574 students at four Australian universities operating in Singapore were investigated through a survey and interviews. Analysis of students’ responses to different plagiarism scenarios revealed misconceptions and uncertainties about many aspects of plagiarism. Self-plagiarism and reuse of a friend’s work were acceptable to more than one quarter of the students, and nearly half considered collusion to be a legitimate form of collaboration. One quarter of the students also indicated that they would knowingly plagiarize. This should (...) serve as a wake-up call regarding plagiarism in transnational higher education. Seven measures are recommended to curb plagiarism and foster academic integrity. (shrink)

This article focuses on analysis of the international controversy provoked by the posthumous awarding of the 1972 Peace Prize of the German Book Trade to the Jewish-Polish physician, pedagogue and writer Janusz Korczak (1878/79–1942). The controversy, which centred around the recipient of the prize money, can be identified as an important catalyst both for the popularisation of the Korczak movement and for the institutionalisation of Korczak research in Germany, particularly in the field of pedagogical research. The article investigates the various (...) interests and goals of memory policy actors in academia, business, politics and the media, and emphasizes the very strong link between Korczak's oeuvre and Holocaust remembrance, in the light of correspondences, manuscripts and press reports about this award ceremony. The mechanisms of the reciprocal transfer of attention between scholars and the public are examined from the perspective of memory studies and the history of science, particularly with regard to their specific influence on the establishment of German-language Korczak research. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: What is Moral Status? The Moral Agency Theory The Genetic Humanity Theory The Sentience Theory The Organic Life Theory Two Relationship‐based Theories Combining these Criteria Principles of Moral Status Human Zygotes, Embryos, and Fetuses Are All Animals Equal? Machines and Artificial Life‐forms Conclusion.

The most remarkable about the continuity in Chomsky's thought about language is that it takes place against a theoretical landscape in constant flux, the landscape of generative grammar. Chomsky introduced a central distinction between E‐languages and I‐language, the internalized knowledge of language that each speaker has and which is the result of the interaction between his or her language faculty and the (limited) experience that he or she had of his or her mother tongue during language acquisition. The Faculty of (...) Language narrowly understood corresponds to “the abstract linguistic computational system alone, independent of the other systems with which it interacts”. This chapter aims to follow the trail of Chomsky's strongly reiterated claim throughout the years that language is not primarily a tool for communication, but rather, a tool for thought. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reaching the Age of Majority:The Life Trajectory of the CIHR Institute of AgingYves Joanette, Anne Martin-Matthews, Réjean Hebert, and Joanne GoldbergThe Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) was created in 2001 under the Canadian Institutes of Health Research Act S.C. 2000, c. 6 (Government of Canada, 2000). The creation of CIHR was in follow-up to the Canadian Medical Research Council (MRC) as well as to the National Health (...) Research and Development Program of Health Canada that, up until that point in time, had supported the breadth of health research in Canada. Two important characteristics of CIHR were crucial for the development of research on aging. The first was that CIHR, unlike MRC, was entrusted with the challenge of supporting the whole spectrum of health research, from the basic biomedical perspective to clinical research, research on health services and policies as well as social aspects of health research, not to mention research on ethics and other perspectives (including the science of research). The second characteristic of the nascent CIHR that impacted the community of research on aging was the decision that a small part of the overall CIHR budget would be used to address priority-driven questions or topics (strategic competitions), while the majority of the budget would be invested in grants and awards programs that would be investigator-initiated, as in the time of the MRC (open competition). Since its inception, CIHR has included 13 institutes that are central to the priority-driven actions. Institutes not only play an important convener role within their communities and among their stakeholders, but they are also expected to listen to the needs, gaps and opportunities in their area and to introduce initiatives---most of the time involving more than one Institute---in order to tackle these needs and gaps and to seize upon the opportunities.The Institute of Aging was introduced at the same time as the other 12 Institutes and it is clear that many challenges were awaiting the new Institute since, at that time, research on aging was still in its early years. This article is about the trajectory of the CIHR Institute of Aging in its first 18 years of existence. Having now reached an age that is either the age of majority or quite close to it, it is important to be able to provide a reflection on the evolution of the priorities over this period, while also taking a peek at some of the priorities that will surely come in the near future.The Early Years (2001-2004)The founding Scientific Director of the Institute of Aging was Dr. Réjean Hébert. A well-known and prolific [End Page 1] geriatrician and researcher, Dr. Hébert was the perfect person to launch the Institute. One of his first actions was, in fact, to harmonize the French and English names of the Institute. In French, the name of the Institute focused on Aging (Institut du vieillissement) while, in English, the name of the Institute focused on Healthy Aging. The CIHR Institute of Healthy Aging thus became the CIHR Institute of Aging in all versions of its documentation. But above and beyond this important name change, the real work of Dr. Hebert, accompanied by the first Institute Advisory Board1, chaired by Prof. Dorothy Pringle, was to identify the gaps, the needs and the opportunities. After a rigorous process came the first Strategic Plan of the CIHR Institute of Aging, which was clearly influenced by Dr. Réjean Hébert's vision of the aging population as an opportunity, instead of a catastrophe, for our society that comes, of course, with its own challenges. Dr. Hébert left CIHR during his first mandate as he was called upon to become the Dean of his Faculty, and then went on to become the first CIHR Scientific Director to sit as a Minister of Health and Social Services in the Québec Government. The main outcomes of Dr. Hebert's years (2001-2004) can be summarized as follows2.• Organizing many workshops and meetings to ensure that the Institute of Aging would become the premier national convener for research on aging, bridging between disciplines... (shrink)

This article discusses ‘Notes on Language Games’, written by Harold Garfinkel in 1960 and never before published, one of three distinct versions of his famous ‘Trust’ argument, i.e., that constitutive criteria define shared events, objects, and meanings. The argument stands in contrast to an approach to cultural anthropology that was becoming popular in 1960 called ‘ethnoscience’. In this previously unknown manuscript, Garfinkel proposes that cultural events and language events are the same, in that both are created through constitutive commitments to (...) interactional systems. The best-known version of the Trust argument (Garfinkel, 1963) emphasizes Schutz, while other versions build on Parsons (Garfinkel 2019). In this third version, the Trust conditions are elaborated in terms of Wittgenstein’s language games. Various strands of Garfinkel’s thinking about culture, language and interaction are interwoven. That Garfinkel was working with Parsons in 1960 to document a contractual basis for social events and their assembly practices in ‘systems of interaction’, a constitutive practice argument with roots in Durkheim’s work, is yet another strand. The article highlights how the Trust argument is the key to everything, not only ethnomethodology, but also Garfinkel’s attempt to develop a general sociology of culture, language and interaction. (shrink)

Drawing on central research questions of memory studies, this article outlines various topics and divergent concepts about the relationship between the history of science and the public perception of scientists and scholars. The focus is on the different recurring trends and transformation processes, to which this culture of remembrance is subject and the various roles of historians in this context. The article also serves as an introduction to this special issue and its contributions, which use exemplary studies from the history (...) of medicine and pedagogy to shed light on the continual negotiation process of cultures of remembrance resulting from changing historical frames of reference, particularly in dealing with the legacy of National Socialism. (shrink)

Anne Margaret Baxley offers a systematic interpretation of Kant's theory of virtue, whose most distinctive features have not been properly understood. She explores the rich moral psychology in Kant's later and less widely read works on ethics, and argues that the key to understanding his account of virtue is the concept of autocracy, a form of moral self-government in which reason rules over sensibility. Although certain aspects of Kant's theory bear comparison to more familiar Aristotelian claims about virtue, Baxley (...) contends that its most important aspects combine to produce something different - a distinctively modern, egalitarian conception of virtue which is an important and overlooked alternative to the more traditional Greek views which have dominated contemporary virtue ethics. (shrink)

Anne Conway’s Principles of the Most Ancient and Modern Philosophy, first published in 1690, is probably the most ambitious contribution to early modern metaphysics by a woman writing in the English language. This beautifully prepared edition makes Conway’s treatise available to twentieth-century readers in an accessible English translation of the 1690 Latin text—itself a translation of an original English manuscript that has long been lost.

In recent years, there has been tension between farmers and the Dutch government regarding sustainability policy (in the efforts to reduce the harm caused by manure surplus) and how implementing this policy affects farmers (in the form of justice concerns). We interviewed Dutch farmers to uncover how they view manure policy. We identified four types of injustices: procedural, contributive, distributive, and intergenerational. We propose that a multi-tiered approach is required to overcome these kinds of ‘wicked problems’, avoid paralysis from lack (...) of action, and overcome the flaws by overestimating the effectiveness of top-down policy. (shrink)

Philosophen, Theologen und Soziologen deuteten in der ersten Hälfte des 20. Jahrhunderts die Technik als ein die gesamte Lebenswirklichkeit prägendes Phänomen. Dabei entwickelten sie sehr unterschiedliche Positionen. Walter Benjamin sah in der Technik einen Weg, die Wirklichkeit neu zu konstruieren; Rudolf Bultmann nahm die Technik zum Anlass, das Transzendente neu zu bestimmen. Der Band bietet in Teil I Rekonstruktionen klassischer Positionen der Technikdeutung: Max Weber, Ernst Troeltsch, Paul Tillich, Rudolf Bultmann, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Walter Benjamin, Martin Heidegger. Die Beiträge in Teil (...) II des Bandes thematisieren neuere theologische Zugänge zur Technik. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:How Augustinian Is Aquinas's Basic Account of Free Decision?Jamie Anne SpieringIntroductionQuestions about Augustine's influence on Thomas Aquinas are always interesting. In the previous century, leading Thomists such as Marie Dominic Chenu, Jean-Pierre Torrell, and Étienne Gilson wrote about the influence of one great master on the other. However, no one thinks the investigation is complete: the contributions of the new century have begun and are expected to continue.1 (...) In this article, I would like to consider how Augustine influenced Aquinas's account of something known to both authors as liberum arbitrium: free choice, or free decision.2 When we speak of grace and [End Page 435] human freedom, Aquinas's debt to Augustine and the extent of his fidelity to the master have been frequently explored.3 The same is true with regard to the fairly advanced question of the relation between human freedom and divine foreknowledge.4 But in this article I would like to consider Thomas's treatment of what we might call the basic questions surrounding man's ability to choose freely—questions about its essence and its existence. What is this liberum arbitrium, which Augustine repeatedly calls "a gift of nature"? How should we understand its activity? How should we understand its origin? Thomas Aquinas deals with liberum arbitrium as a power of the soul in question 83 of Summa theologiae [ST] I, in question 24 of De veritate, and in chapter 48 of Summa contra gentiles [SCG] II. These texts are not about the role of grace or the causality of God—though they prepare for the discussion—but simply about the powers of an intellectual nature. How Augustinian is Aquinas's account in these texts?5 [End Page 436] I will try to explore the question with reasonable thoroughness in this paper.6It will surprise no one to hear that my answer to "was Aquinas an Augustinian in his basic treatment of free decision?" is "in a way, no, and in a way, yes." It is both surprising and notable how significantly Aquinas departs from the Augustinian path. The first part of this paper will discuss three major ways in which Aquinas's account of liberum arbitrium breaks openly (by medieval standards) from the type of careful loyalty we see in earlier authors. In the second part of the paper, I will argue that Aquinas's account follows Augustine in distinctive ways: instead of prioritizing Augustine's context and preferred evidence for free decision, Aquinas does more to locate free decision within the quest for happiness which provided the ultimate pattern for Augustine's thought. He is an Augustinian, but of a very different kind.Aquinas's Treatment of Liberum Arbitrium Represents a Significant Break with the Augustinian TraditionIt simply was not Thomas's practice to write statements such as: "I am going to treat this topic in a way different from that of Augustine, and I plan to make significant improvements." How, then, can we understand whether, and to what extent, he made a break with Augustine's ideas? Direct comparison of the authors' works is the obvious strategy, but such comparison is complicated by our ignorance of whether Aquinas had actually seen the work in question or was only familiar with quotations from it. So I will employ an additional strategy to reveal Aquinas's breaks with Augustine: I will compare Thomas's work to that of Peter Lombard and Anselm of Canterbury. We know Aquinas had read Peter's work thoroughly, because [End Page 437] he wrote a commentary on it, and citations in De veritate reveal that Thomas knew at least the highlights of Anselm's work on free decision. Both Peter and Anselm are faithful to many aspects of Augustine's treatment: they follow him in the way they contextualize the topic, and they are careful to use Augustinian language in defining it. Aquinas does not. He radically shifts the context for the liberum arbitrium discussion and rejects definitions that use Augustine's formulations. He uses a boldly Aristotelian framework to replace a number of elements in Augustine's treatment. Finally, unlike Augustine, Peter, or Anselm, he asks about the... (shrink)

In this comment, we propose a short exploration of the differences among the declaration of death, the determination of death, and the concept of death, and how they relate to the ethics and practi...

Since the early 1980s, James Bernat’s scholarship has accompanied and shaped most scientific and policy developments on death determination. In 1981, he, Charles Culver, and Bernard Gert provided a...

This article examines how participants coordinate concurrent activities in hair salon interactions and during driving lessons. In both settings, participants devote considerable time to chatting about mundane topics. This sort of conversation has traditionally been studied as an instance of small talk. The first part of the article retraces the epistemological origins of this notion. The analytical section shows how an analysis based on talk alone may lead researchers to distinguish small talk from task-directed talk, in line with previous studies. (...) The subsequent analysis of the participants’ multimodal conduct reveals that what we call mundane talk is a social activity that participants coordinate with multiple other co-occurring courses of action. The article subsequently zeroes in on task-directed first pair parts and shows how, on occasion, participants prioritize certain activities over others. The analyses draw on video data of interactions that have taken place in French and Italian and are carried out with conversation analytic methods. (shrink)

This article identifies the dominant public narrative of AIDS in Malawi through an analysis of qualitative interview data and policy and intervention materials. The public narrative creates distinctions between “risky” and “healthy” sex that organize HIV prevention efforts around moral categories, rather than relative risk. These distinctions oppose images of backward, ignorant villagers to the protective power of “love matches”. The analysis demonstrates that the public narrative and corresponding prevention efforts only make sense in connection with the patently false assumption (...) that love, heterosexuality, and modernity effectively protect individuals from HIV. This research brings to light the unspoken assumptions of modernity in the “charmed circle” of heteronormativity, as well as the need to consider the workings of heteronormativity in studies of modernization and globalization. Furthermore, it highlights individualistic and oversimplified analytic models currently directing HIV prevention efforts and points to potentially more effective strategies. (shrink)

It is often argued that our obligations to address structural injustice are collective in character. But what exactly does it mean for ‘ordinary citizens’ to have collective obligations visà- vis large-scale injustice? In this paper, I propose to pay closer attention to the different kinds of collective action needed in addressing some of these structural injustices and the extent to which these are available to large, unorganised groups of people. I argue that large, dispersed and unorganised groups of people are (...) often in a position to perform distributive collective actions. As such, ordinary citizens can have massively shared obligations to address structural injustice through distributive action, but, ultimately, such obligations are ‘collective’ only in a fairly weak sense. (shrink)

This paper examines the ethical conundrum between a hospital's ethos of relieving distress, investigation and treatment, and its concurrent duties under English law to administer tests of decision-making capacity and safeguarding protection where it believes the patient may lack this capacity. Delirium, characterised by a precipitous decline in mental functioning exhibiting the shared symptomology of recoverable depressive disorders and terminal dementia, is not uncommon after emergency admission of elderly patients into acute medical hospital wards. The use of functional capacity testing (...) as a benchmark for decision-making capacity for post-discharge residence has been criticised as outdated, conceptually floored, subjective, lacking central guidance, transparent process, and accountability. A study of patient experience demonstrates the potential for hospital misuse of capacity testing, the failure of functional testing to differentiate decision making capacity from the disability of partial cognitive impairment, and how hospital capacity processes can interact and amplify patient pathology thereby decreasing recovery prospects. Prioritisation of mental capacity obligations above thorough investigation of emergent mental pathology and relief of patient anguish, results in extended detention in medical wards lacking bespoke facilities. Further understanding of patient experience is needed to inform policy with interventions tailored to avoid harm and increase wellbeing. (shrink)

Pourquoi faut-il que nous nous interrogions sans relâche? Qu'un seul veille et le monde est sans repos, libre à nouveau de toute réponse, comme si ni l'histoire ni la mémoire n'avaient tracé les signes, multiples et réitérés au long des siècles, de nos balbutiements devant l'énigme de l'être. D'aussi loin que les textes nous parviennent, la philosophie s'est érigée contre la superstition, la croyance vaine, l'opinion. Elle a fait œuvre de discernement en direction de la question de l'être, du monde, (...) du sujet. Pourquoi alors défendre l'idée d'une vocation prophétique de la philosophie? Parce qu'il y aurait à répondre de, avant même que la réflexion philosophique puisse, comme telle, être légitime. La vocation serait l'espace de toute réponse possible. Et la philosophie, dès lors, s'inscrirait à partir de ce lieu où la réponse est toujours différée, parce qu'elle est cette ouverture radicale sur l'absolument autre qui empêche le discours de se clore sur lui-même. Quels penseurs ont anticipé notre présente détresse? A moins que la détresse ne soit elle-même qu'un état transitoire dont il ne faudrait pas s'affliger puisque nos démocraties sont, à tout prendre, les moins barbares des sociétés de droit. Les penseurs prophétiques frayent un chemin de veille, non pour perpétuer une trace, un enseignement, mais pour risquer plus loin la question de l'humanité de l'homme. (shrink)

Bien qu'incontournables, les ouvrages Cinéma I et II de Gilles Deleuze présentent de nombreuses failles philosophiques. Car si la question du rapport entre l'image et le signe hante Deleuze, celui-ci n'a pas véritablement utilisé les théories pourtant fondamentales de Charles Sanders Peirce pour y répondre. Il a préféré établir une "sémiotique filmique" mi-bergsonienne mi-peircienne, qui tente de concilier le pouvoir immersif du cinéma et la force cognitive de ses représentations. Cette théorie phénoménologique est-elle valable? Telle est la question que nous (...) voulons poser dans cet ouvrage. C'est d'ailleurs à nos yeux la question de base des Cinéma deleuziens. (shrink)

Chapter 5 of an e-book 'Handbook for Logotherapists' 2024 (Niiles-Mäki Anne). Institute for Purpose-centered Philosophy Finland.

Anne Conway was an extraordinary figure in a remarkable age. Her mastery of the intricate doctrines of the Lurianic Kabbalah, her authorship of a treatise criticising the philosophy of Descartes, Hobbes, and Spinoza, and her scandalous conversion to the despised sect of Quakers indicate a strength of character and independence of mind wholly unexpected (and unwanted) in a woman at the time. Translated for the first time into modern English, her Principles of the Most Ancient and Modern Philosophy is (...) the most interesting and original philosophical work written by a woman in the seventeenth century. Her radical and unorthodox ideas are important not only because they anticipated the more tolerant, ecumenical, and optimistic philosophy of the Enlightenment, but also because of their influence on Leibniz. This fully annotated edition includes an introduction which places Conway in her historical and philosophical contexts, together with a chronology of her life and a bibliography. (shrink)

In this paper, I present the conjunction between a) a new history and philosophy of science, which, under the banner of a renewed historical epistemology, articulate a new relation between conceptual history and situated history; and b) new narratives in the history of philosophy that integrate women philosophers by showing the displacements this causes in terms of corpus, objects of research, and forms of writing. By questioning the philosophical canon, new focal points are brought to light.. Then I briefly present (...) the tools of feminist epistemology as methodological instruments to, in act, proceed to these decenterings. I conclude with two examples from the Modern Age: Margaret Cavendish and Emilie du Châtelet. Until recently, these two women philosophers were mocked and little considered, but today they are part of the canon, have become mainstream in many Anglo-Saxon universities. I show how this shift changes the landscape of history and philosophy of science. (shrink)

Chapter 3 of an e-book 'Handbook for Logotherapists' 2024 (Niiles-Mäki Anne). Institute for Purpose-centered Philosophy Finland.

Ich empfinde es als eine besondere Ehre, an der Universitat Heidelberg Vorlesungen halten zu diirfen. Zugleich ist es aber fiir mich eine be­ sondere Freude, von der ehrwiirdigen Alma Mater, an der ich studiert habe und mein Doktorat gemacht habe, als Gastprofessor eingeladen zu sein. Ich muss aber gestehen, dass dies Gefiihl der Freude von einem merkwiirdigen Wunsch beeintrachtigt wird, den ich nicht ver­ jagen kann: ich wiirde es namlich vorziehen, hier wieder einmal als Student zu sein. Aber diese schone (...) Zeit ist einmalig und kehrt nicht wieder zuriick. Das Thema meiner Doktorarbeit war Platons Dialektik des Seins. Sie ist erschienen in den Heidelberger Abhandlungen tur Philosophie und ihre Geschichte, herausgegeben von Heinrich Rickert und Ernst Hoffmann, im Jahre 1927. Ein Jahr darauf kam eine andere Arbeit hier in Deutschland iiber Plotins M etaphysik des Seins von mir heraus. Es ist also begreiflich, wenn ich jetzt zu der Alma Mater zuriickge­ kehrt iiber die Grundprobleme der Philosophie Platons zu Ihnen sprechen mochte. Man kann aber iiber Platon nicht sprechen, wenn man nicht iiber die Vorsokratiker, iiber die Sophisten und iiber Sokrates einiges wenigstens vorausschickt. Denn Platon hat wie kein anderer den vorherigen Gang der griechischen Philosophie vollkommen absorbiert und sich standig mit den Gedanken seiner Vorganger auseinandergesetzt. (shrink)

Investigating the theoretical and empirical relationships between transparency and trust in the context of surveillance, this volume argues that neither transparency nor trust provides a simple and self-evident path for mitigating the negative political and social consequences of state surveillance practices. Dominant in both the scholarly literature and public debate is the conviction that transparency can promote better-informed decisions, greater oversight, and restore trust damaged by the secrecy of surveillance. The contributions to this volume challenge this conventional wisdom by considering (...) how relations of trust and policies of transparency are modulated by underlying power asymmetries, socio-historical legacies, economic structures, and institutional constraints. They study trust and transparency as embedded in specific socio-political contexts to show how, under certain conditions, transparency can become a tool of social control that erodes trust, while mistrust-rather than trust-can sometimes offer the most promising approach to safeguarding rights and freedom in an age of surveillance. The first book addressing the inter-relationship of trust, transparency, and surveillance practices, this volume will be of interest to scholars and students of surveillance studies as well as appeal to an interdisciplinary audience given the contributions come from political science, sociology, philosophy, law, and civil society. (shrink)

Some theories of goodness are descriptively rich: they have much to say about what makes things good. Neo-Aristotelian accounts, for instance, detail the various features that make a human being, a dog, a bee good relative to facts about those forms of life. Famously, such theories of relative goodness tend to be comparatively poor: they have little or nothing to say about what makes one kind of being better than another kind. Other theories of goodness—those that take there to be (...) absolute goodness—are comparatively rich: they offer grounds for judging some types of things better than others because they have more absolute goodness. Moorean accounts, for example, can tell us that humans and human experiences are superior to bees and blades of grass. But such theories tend to be descriptively poor: they struggle to tell us in virtue of what this is so. In this essay we motivate and flesh out a view that splits the difference between accounts of goodness as relative and accounts of goodness as absolute. Such a view holds promise only if the mechanics of this kind of metaphysics of goodness can be worked out. Here we present a view on which the paradigm for absolute goodness is God and the paradigm for each kind of relative goodness is a divine idea. (shrink)

The Doctrine of Signatures (DoS) figures prominently in both contemporary and historic herbal traditions across a diversity of cultures. DoS—conceptualized beyond its conventional interpretation as “like cures like”, which relies solely on plant morphology—can be viewed as a type of ecosemiotic communication system. This nuanced form of interspecies communication relies on the presence of “signatures”, or signs, corresponding to the therapeutic quality of different plants based on their morphology but also their aroma, taste, texture, and even their context in the (...) landscape. Despite its widespread contemporary dismissal by mainstream science as overly simplistic, childlike, primitive, and generally of limited value, we suggest that the recognition of “signatures” in plants may be considered as a form of communication between humans and plants. Drawing upon Indigenous thought, ecosemiotic theory, and lyric philosophy, we posit that understanding “signatures” metaphorically, as a reflection of the “shape of the world”, offers insights into the interconnectedness of all life forms—a profound affirmation of relational coherence between humans and the more-than-human. We advocate for another perspective on DoS: one which holds potential towards reorienting and restoring our relationships in the vibrant world of the Anthropocene. (shrink)

La 4ème de couverture indique : "Cet ouvrage, qui réunit juristes, sociologues, anthropologue et psychanalyste, se propose de saisir la place du genre en bioéthique à l'heure de questions sociétales liées tant aux progrès de la médecine reproductive qu'aux rôles assignés aux femmes et aux hommes à l'intérieur de la famille ou en dehors de celle-ci. Il s'agit, au travers de regards croisés, d'éclairer le débat du genre au sein de la sphère bioéthique en identifiant, au sein et au-delà des (...) thèmes de la procréation, de la parentalité et du patrimoine, les questions juridiques qui peuvent naître de la rencontre de la bioéthique et du genre. Les sujets sont nombreux, regroupés autour d'interrogations telles que : le genre est-il reçu dans le droit du vivant? Que font les lois bioéthique au genre? Y a-t-il un âge pour procréer? Existe-t-il une égalité entre les femmes et les hommes en termes d'accès aux soins? Assiste-t-on à une désexualisation du couple? Peut-on parler de patrimoine sexuel?... Éventail d'interrogations, diversité des opinions : les meilleurs spécialistes de chaque question abordée y analysent les réponses fournies par le droit en livrant des pistes de réflexion sur le traitement des inégalités ou des différences existant entre hommes et femmes dans l'exercice, parfois l'existence, des droits et libertés qui sont les leurs en ce domaine.". (shrink)

Un peu d’écart à la normale, dans n’importe quel sens, remarqué par les proches. Un accident de la vie : l’écart devient insupportable. La médecine chimiquement armée s’en mêle. Elle contient le symptôme, le refoule avec succès. Mais elle a d’autres effets, secondaires. Peu lui importe. Comment réussir sa folie?