The prospect of vaccinating children and young people (CYP) against COVID raises questions that apply more widely to vaccination in children. When can CYP consent, on their own, for vaccination? What should happen if children and their parents disagree about the desirability of a vaccine? When, if ever, should vaccination proceed despite a child’s dissent or apparent refusal? A range of ethical dilemmas may arise. (Box 1) In this article, we will address general ethical issues relating to consent for vaccination, (...) highlighting their relevance to COVID. We will not address the wider ethical questions of whether or when children should be vaccinated against COVID. (shrink)

Over the course of the last four decades, William Leon McBride has distinguished himself as one of the most esteemed and accomplished philosophers of his generation. This volume—which celebrates the occasion of his seventy-fifth birthday—includes contributions from colleagues, friends, and formers students and pays tribute to McBride’s considerable achievements as a teacher, mentor, and scholar.

Aesthetic value empiricism claims that the aesthetic value of an object is grounded in the value of a certain kind of experience of it. The most popular version of value empiricism, and a dominant view in contemporary philosophical aesthetics more generally, is aesthetic hedonism. Hedonism restricts the grounds of aesthetic value to the pleasure enjoyed in the right kind of experience. But hedonism does not enjoy any clear advantage over a more permissive alternative version of value empiricism. This alternative is (...) aesthetic liberalism. On this view, an object’s aesthetic value is fully grounded in any value—not just the hedonic value—of a correct and complete experience of its sensory features. To demonstrate the advantages of liberalism over hedonism, I apply both views to analyze the aesthetic value of the Spring Temple Buddha and Anselm Kiefer’s Seraphim. I detail four advantages of liberalism over hedonism, and I conclude by defending liberalism from two kinds of objection. (shrink)

Basic actions are those intentional actions performed not by doing any other kind of thing intentionally. Complex actions involve doing one kind of thing intentionally by doing another kind of thing intentionally. There are both basic and complex mental actions. Some complex mental actions have a striking feature that has not been previously discussed: they have several distinct contents at once. This chapter introduces and explains this feature, here called “content plurality.” This chapter also argues for the philosophical significance of (...) this feature. The existence of content plurality offers a new explanation of transparent self-knowledge and suggests a new theory of inference. It also opens up a new conception of the relation between decisions to act and judgments about what ought to be done. (shrink)

Brazilian educator, Paulo Freire, best known for his work Pedagogy of the Oppressed, challenged education plans that contributed to the marginalization of minorities and the poor. Freire believed that education should be used for liberation by helping learners reflect on their experiences historically, giving immediate reality to issues of racism, sexism, and the exploitation of workers. Known as one of the most influential theoretical innovators of the twentieth century, his views have left a significant mark on progressive thinkers about education (...) and liberation. Reinventing Paulo Freire is an homage to him by protégé Antonia Darder. Here, she explores the legacy of Freire, interviews eight former students who studied him-- now teachers themselves, and reflects on the teaching practice as demonstrated by Freire himself. The interviews take the form of first person narratives; the epilogue consists simply of a letter and a poem. (shrink)

Antonia Lolordo presents an original interpretation of John Locke's metaphysics of moral agency, in which to be a moral agent is simply to be free, rational, and a person.

Everyone cares about recognition: no one wants to be treated with disrespect, insulted, humiliated, or simply ignored. In this compelling new book, McBride examines how a basic need for recognition is the motivation behind struggles for inclusion and equality in contemporary society.

Contrary to popular philosophical belief, judgment can indeed be an intentional action. That's because an intentional judgment, even one with content p, need not be intentional as a judgment that p. It can instead be intentional just as a judgment wh- for some specific wh- question—e.g. a judgment of which x is F or a judgment whether p. This paper explains how this is possible by laying out a means by which you can perform such an intentional action. This model (...) of intentional judgment does not stand in tension with the fact that judgment is causally regulated for truth, and that it is correct only if it is true. On the contrary, the structure of intentional action explains how an intentional judgment has these features. An extended example is developed, and sufficient conditions on intentional judgment are laid out. (shrink)

Just as bodily actions are things you do with your body, mental actions are things you do with your mind. Both are different from things that merely happen to you. Where does the idea of mental action come from? What are mental actions? And why do they matter in philosophy? These are the three main questions answered in this paper. Section 1 introduces mental action through a brief history of the topic in philosophy. Section 2 explains what it is to (...) be a mental action in terms of intentional action. Section 3 argues that the fact that we can perform mental actions has some striking consequences concerning mental content. Section 4 shows how mental action helps to explain some important facts about self-knowledge and the normativity of thought. The conclusion mentions two further fruitful avenues for philosophical research on mental action. (shrink)

My task here is to articulate my own novel hybrid theory of (claim-)rights, namely, the Tracking Theory of rights. While new, it has historical antecedents. There is nothing (entirely) new under the sun. Its most vivid antecedents come from the fields of epistemology, in particular Robert Nozick's work, and legal philosophy, in particular Gopal Sreenivasan's work. I am happy to stand on the shoulders of giants. Here I want to freshly articulate the theory from the ground up. So the challenge (...) will be to keep the articulation of the Tracking Theory front and centre, but, naturally, indebtedness to Nozick and Sreenivasan will be woven in at multiple junctures. My Tracking Theory will neither stand nor fall with Nozick's. The relation is more subtle. The strategy is to trade on the indubitable subtlety of Nozick's epistemology to capture the structure of a central normative concept. (shrink)

This is the first modern edition of an important work by a previously neglected early 19th century woman philosopher, Mary Shepherd. Shepherd develops a distinctive philosophical system that can be seen as a competitor to Kant's Transcendental Idealism. The edition is aimed at researchers in early modern philosophy and is also intended to be used in graduate and undergraduate courses. It contains a concise introduction as guide for the reader.

Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, EarlyView.

Background Euthanasia is a controversial practice in many countries. Since Spain’s Euthanasia Law came into effect on March 24, 2021, healthcare providers have faced a new challenge since they must inform patients, provide care, accompany them, and implement the law. It also represents a new stumbling block at universities, which must adapt to regulatory changes and educate future professionals accordingly. Little is known about the attitude of nursing students in Spain toward euthanasia since this law was implemented. Objective This study (...) aims to answer the following research questions: What is the attitude of nursing students toward euthanasia? What factors influence this attitude? Research design A cross-sectional study was conducted using an online questionnaire. Participants and research context The study population comprised all nursing students at a public university in Barcelona ( n = 444), Spain, during the 2022–2023 academic year. The validated Spanish version of the Euthanasia Attitude Scale was employed. A bivariate analysis was performed. Ethical considerations The university Ethics Committee (CEEAH 6247) approved this study. All participating students signed an informed consent form. Participation was voluntary, and data anonymity and confidentiality were guaranteed. Results Two hundred and forty-four nursing students responded to the questionnaire. The mean total score was 79.64. Participants with religious beliefs presented lower scores, indicating a more negative attitude toward euthanasia. Participants in their second, third, or fourth year of the nursing degree scored higher, demonstrating a more positive attitude. Conclusions The attitude of nursing students toward euthanasia was remarkably positive. Working on ethical content during the degree course and clinical practice are factors that help to develop a more positive attitude. In addition, nursing education should encourage professional aspects to prevail over religious beliefs in euthanasia situations. (shrink)

This chapter aims to articulate the motivation behind an insurrectionist philosophy. On this account, insurrectionist philosophy is about rejecting a world (and its norms and intervening background assumptions) and creating the possibility for transvaluation or a radical revolution of values. To shed light on this, McBride offers an account of Leonard Harris’s idiosyncratic philosophy born of strife and struggle, clarifying the role of Alain Locke’s critical pragmatism and the insurrectionist spirit needed to disavow the conventional norms and the intervening (...) background assumptions that lurk tacitly behind the dominant order of things. (shrink)

There is a Wittgensteinian use of "phenomenology" which is the grammar of the apriori possibility of facts, in contradistinction to an hermeneutical conception of language in the spirit of German phenomenology. Not only does Wittgenstein refer, as early as 1929, to such a "language" as opposed to a Husserlian "doctrine" of intuiting the phenomenal apriori, but he keeps using the term in a positive manner which does not allow us to declare that from the Tractatus to the early thirties Wittgenstein (...) shifted from a kind of ineffabilist phenomenalism to physicalism. Rather the author of the Philosophical Remarks aims at freeing "phenomenology" from the earlier assumption of an atomistic basis providing a "primary language". Yet, Wittgenstein says in the same period that there is and there is not any confrontation with the given. Two ways of speaking about the connection between language and reality according to what is to be understood by "verifying" a sentence make Wittgenstein remain the same from one conception to the other. (shrink)

This narrative review aims to contribute to the scientific literature on awe by reviewing seven perspectives on the evolutionary function of awe. Each is presented with accompanying empirical evidence and suggestions for research investigating unanswered questions. Based on the existing perspectives, this review proposes an integrated evolutionary model of awe, postulating the evolutionary selection of awe through three adaptive domains: (1) social cooperation, (2) reflective processing, and (3) signaling suitability as a potential mate.

Socially inspired robotics involves drawing on the observation and study of human social interactions to apply them to the design of sociable robots. As there is increasing expectation that robots may participate in social care and provide some relief for the increasing shortage of human care workers, social interaction with robots becomes of increasing importance. This paper demonstrates the potential of socially inspired robotics through the exploration of a case study of the interaction of a partially sighted social worker with (...) a support worker. This is framed within the capability approach in which the interaction of a human and a sociable robot is understood as resulting in a collaborative capability which is grounded the relationship between the human and the robot rather than the autonomous capabilities of the robot. The implications of applying the case study as an analogy for human–robot interaction are expressed through a discussion of capabilities and social practice and policy. The study is attenuated by a discussion of the technical limits of robots and the extensive complexity of the social context in which it is envisaged sociable robots may be employed. (shrink)

What does it mean to encounter a literary work of art? When we talk about them, we refer to literary works as characterizable entities. In a genuine encounter with a literary work, instead, our focus shifts to “what it is about”: we bring to mind the intentional objects it invites us to direct our attention to, typically through reading. If what we encounter is a work of art, however, we are invited to do something beyond that even, namely to attune (...) ourselves to disclose something more profound. Through shifting our focus from the individual to the typical and affectively responding to a work’s characteristics, we disclose a qualitative character that presents itself as of general relevance insofar as it characterizes a specific kind of thing potentially experienced in the world. Our focus shifts from individual intentional objects, such as a character’s view of her partner as standing in need of salvation, to the kinds of values and things manifested therein, such as the peculiar kind of ambiguity inhering a specific kind of commitment. To encounter a literary work of art, I conclude, means to follow the invitation to disclose value essentials, and thus to find a specific kind of truth. (shrink)

Purpose– The purpose of this paper is to present a novel mnemonic, ACTIVE, inspired by Mason's 1985 PAPA mnemonic, which will help researchers and IT professionals develop an understanding of the major issues in information ethics.Design/methodology/approach– Theoretical foundations are developed for each element of the mnemonic by reference to philosophical definitions of the terms used and to virtue ethics, particularly MacIntyrean virtue ethics. The paper starts with a critique of the elements of the PAPA mnemonic and then proceeds to develop (...) an understanding of each of the elements of ACTIVE ethics, via a discussion of the underpinning virtue ethics.Findings– This paper identifies six issues, described by the mnemonic, ACTIVE. ACTIVE stands for: autonomy, the ability of the individual to manage their own information and make choice; community, the ethical effect of an information systems on the community which it supports; transparency, the extent to which the derivation of content and process in an information system is made clear; identity, the social and ethical effect of an information system on the definition and maintenance of the distinctive characteristics of a person; value, the value or moral worth placed on information associated with an individual and hence on the relationship with the individual; and empathy, the ability of the information systems professional to emotionally connect with the user and the extent to which the information system distances or connects.Originality/value– The paper applies virtue ethics to developing a tool to help information professionals reflect on their ethical practice in developing and supporting information systems. (shrink)

Edgar Morin is one of the most important contemporary European philosophers. His name has recently also become well known on the American continent, especially in South America, where his works have given rise to several interesting cultural initiatives. The analysis of his pedagogical proposal can be a stimulating adventure for educators and teachers alike. Morin's proposal to link methodologically what is disjoined suggests re-establishing the connection between thought and action, in order to re-establish on rational and critical bases the ethical (...) principles of solidarity and responsibility and enable us to face the challenges of our times. (shrink)

This chapter offers a discussion of Leonard Harris’ insurrectionist philosophy, paying special attention to those places where Harris attenuates the capability and scope of human reasoning. The chapter critically engages: claims to divine reasoning, conceptual approaches to racism that rely upon totalizing accounts, the prominent conception of modernity, the notion that human apperception is unaffected by the episteme (i.e., intervening background assumptions that pervade the present epoch), and the notion that Harris’ philosophy precludes us from establishing moral imperatives and value (...) ultimates. The author argues that one must take into account the cognitive and rational limitations—the corporeality and fallibilism—of human beings to understand Harris’ proffered conception of efficacious reasoning in moral contexts. Only then will we understand the ongoing creation and transvaluation of our norms and values, and what we could be outside the Asylum walls. (shrink)

In this paper I consider Otto Neurath’s late discussion of the political and social context of Plato’s Republic, especially how Neurath conceived them in the 1940s. Neurath’s argumentation is contrasted with the ideas of Karl Popper, both with regard to the latter’s reading of Plato and to his general methodology. The distinction between Neurath’s treatments of epistemology and politics is also discussed, by highlighting how these two were interwoven in the discussion, and how they differentiated Neurath’s articles from Popper’s considerations (...) in the Open Society. (shrink)

Agrarianism, according to Paul B. Thompson, is an environmental philosophy focused on agriculture and the nurturing of food, fuel, and fiber. Agrarianism hopes to re-establish our fundamental connection to the land, helping us approach a tenable understanding of sustainability. Thompson enlists Albert Borgmann’s notion of “focal practices” to discuss farming and the culture of the table. With this comes a critique of “the device paradigm,” the modern technological way of life that alienates us from quotidian beauty, lifecycles and seasonality, and (...) vital place-based insights embedded in focal practices and obscures how techno-industrial capitalism limits our opportunities for rich, intimate experiences with our biotic communities. In this paper, the author will outline the contours of Thompson’s agrarian philosophy in light of Borgmann’s focal practices, noting the enduring wisdom in this position. But the author will evoke Sylvia Wynter’s critique of the hegemonic techno-industrial order of things to conjure alternative conceptions of decolonial agrarian futures (that will not foreground bucolic settler-colonial farms). (shrink)

ABSTRACT People suffer from a variety of cognitive shortcomings when forming and updating their political beliefs. Three pervasive shortcomings are confirmation bias, disconfirmation bias, and motivated reasoning. The emotional state of anxiety can help us overcome these biases given the open-minded, information-rich, reflective deliberation with diverse people it may promote—although mass and social media may hinder this type of deliberation.

The scene takes place in O'Higgins Park, in Santiago, Chile, on 1 October 1995. Some women have just taken their place on the stage and the enthusiastic audience is applauding, the women have started singing accompanied by a guitar, but they cannot be heard, for the audience is still applauding. One of the women gets up. Like the others, she is wearing a white blouse and a long black skirt, she is old and her hair is grey. She moves to (...) the front of the stage, chooses her place and stops, her eyes search the horizon but do not wander aimlessly, her eyes are fixed somewhere between the here and the hereafter. When she finds what she is looking for, she raises her right hand to wave a white handkerchief, and the dance begins. The audience, suddenly attentive, watches. And what do they see? Not the woman alone on the stage, but the empty space which she traces. The empty space disturbs us, as Chilean spectators, because the cueca, the national folklore dance, is danced by two people, or it is not danced at all. The invisible other is invoked by this woman's every gesture and we do not smile when faced with the absence of her man because we have a premonition that she is not pretending, we have a premonition that she can see him. The image of women dancing alone has become one of the symbols of the struggle of the families of the disappeared under the dictatorship of General Pinochet. The families are commemorating, on 1 October 1995, the twentieth anniversary of their organization into an association in 1975. The term “the disappeared” has progressively become accepted to indicate the victims of a novel, coercive practice in Chile, since the coup d’état on 11 September 1973. The forced disappearance of people differs from political assassination, as Amnesty International never ceases to indicate in the various reports which it commissions on them. In the Chilean case, this speciality is in part due to the security system which has taken on the responsibility of destroying all organized opposition to the military dictatorship: the DINA, the intelligence service created by the military junta, which is only answerable for its actions to the junta. More fundamentally, the special character of disappearance is due to the invisibility of the victim's body and to the doubt that this invisibility arouses within the victim's family circle: the disappeared is not identified as dead because his death is never certified, on the other hand his sudden and unexplained absence indicates that he is a person in danger and that this danger extends to all those who notice his absence. (shrink)

ABSTRACTAccording to interest theorists of rights, rights function to protect the right-holder's interests. True. But this leaves a lot unsaid. Most saliently here, it is certainly not the case that every agent who stands to benefit from performance of a duty gets to be a right-holder. For a theory to allow this to be the case—to allow for an explosion of right-holders—would be tantamount to a reductio thereof. So the challenge for interest theorists is to respect the core of the (...) interest theory while delimiting the set of right-holders in a principled manner. The foremost explicit attempt to do this has invoked Bentham's test. Predictably, invocation of this test has come under attack, with the ultimate aim of challenging the interest theory itself. My purpose in this paper is to render Bentham's test as clearly and accurately as possible. Doing so will raise issues of modality—ultimately in rendering Bentham's test's logical form. Ultimately a core attack on Bentham's test falls away, and, to that extent, the interest theory remains standing as a promising theory of rights. (shrink)

Background Informed consent is often cited as the “cornerstone” of research ethics. Its intent is that participants enter research voluntarily, with an understanding of what their participation entails. Despite agreement on the necessity to obtain informed consent in research, opinions vary on the threshold of disclosure necessary and the best method to obtain consent. We aimed to investigate Australian researchers’ views on, and their experiences with, obtaining informed consent. Methods Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 23 researchers from NSW institutions, working (...) in various fields of research. Interviews were analysed and coded to identify themes. Results Researchers reported that consent involved information disclosure, understanding and a voluntary decision. They emphasised the variability of consent interactions, which were dependent on potential participants’ abilities and interests, study complexity and context. All researchers reported providing written information to potential participants, yet questioned the readability and utility of this information. The majority reported using signed consent forms to ‘operationalise’ consent and reported little awareness of, and lack of support in implementing more dynamic informed consent procedures, such as verbal informed consent, that was fit for the purposes of their studies. Views on Human Research Ethics Committees varied. Some reported inconsistent, arduous inputs on the information form and consent process. Others expressed reliance on HRECs for guidance, viewing them as institutional safeguards. Conclusions This study highlights the importance of transparent relationships, both between researchers and participants, and between researchers and HRECs. Where the relationship with study participants was reported as more robust, researchers felt that they were better able to ensure participants made better, more informed decisions. Where the relationship with HRECs was reported as more robust, researchers were more likely to view them as institutional safeguards, rather than as bureaucratic hindrances. Conscientious and mindful researchers are paramount to ensuring the procedure accommodates individual requirements. This study advocates that when designing ethical informed consent practices, researchers should be integrated as autonomous players with a positive input on the process, rather than, in the worst case, predatory recruiters to be curtailed by information forms and oversight. (shrink)

(Spanish) RESUMEN: La libertad absoluta postulada por Viktor Emil Frankl y Jean-Paul Sartre, la Shoah y la creencia en un dios omnipotente, bueno y justo parecen contradecirse. La pregunta por el sentido del sufrimiento de las víctimas del Holocausto (la verdadera catástrofe, el mayor crimen contra la humanidad), simbolizado por Auschwitz, y como punto de inflexión en la historia, es terriblemente dolorosa y parece no tener una respuesta filosófica ni teológica. A mi juicio, es importantísimo distinguir entre las víctimas inocentes (...) de la Shoah que perecieron y las víctimas inocentes que sufrieron un verdadero infierno y perdieron a sus seres queridos, pero que lograron sobrevivir. Ambas son víctimas, por supuesto, pero así como encontrarle un posible sentido al sufrimiento de las víctimas masacradas y gaseadas podría suponer un insulto a su sufrimiento y agonía –en especial, al horror que sufrieron los niños–, el horrible sufrimiento de los supervivientes pudo dar, tal vez, de alguna manera, un sentido a sus vidas después de la liberación de los campos de concentración y exterminio, ya fuera como voz, como protesta o como simple supervivencia. Frankl apuesta por un sentido último (que abraza el sentido del sufrimiento de las víctimas), y Sartre, aunque parezca no apostar por sentido alguno, volcó su vida al compromiso político después de la Segunda Guerra Mundial, y ello parece vislumbrar una minúscula pizca de sentido después de la barbarie. La filosofía de Frankl es un sí a la vida incluso en las situaciones más extremas, un grito casi nietzscheano que exalta el valor de la vida más allá de cualquier sufrimiento. Frankl, padre de la logoterapia y superviviente del Holocausto, abre una puerta a Dios al hablar de un dios inconsciente, una dimensión suprahumana y una fe incondicional, y define la religión como espiritualidad y como la búsqueda del hombre por el sentido último. Según Frankl, la libertad no se contradice con Dios, y la religión existe no a raíz de la barbarie, sino a pesar de la barbarie. El existencialismo sartreano es una filosofía de la libertad radical y de la responsabilidad. El hombre está condenado a ser libre. El ser humano es un ser en el que la existencia precede a la esencia. Somos totalmente responsables de lo que somos. Sartre afirma que la libertad humana es incompatible con Dios. En un mundo sin Dios, la moral la construyen los hombres, con sus propias decisiones y sus acciones, y la existencia y el sufrimiento de las víctimas no tienen sentido alguno. Sartre define al hombre como libertad, responsabilidad, angustia y contingencia. Frankl define al hombre como libertad, responsabilidad, espiritualidad y búsqueda de sentido. Con esta tesis me propongo entrar en la resbaladiza dimensión del dolor, la desesperación, el sentido y sinsentido del sufrimiento de las víctimas (teniendo presente los horrores de Auschwitz, que en teología y filosofía ha simbolizado desde la liberación de los campos la muerte de Dios y la muerte de la moral). Es verdad que no solo los hombres, mujeres y niños judíos fueron víctimas de la barbarie alemana, pero, como reza el mensaje de Elie Wiesel en la exposición permanente del Block 27 del Auschwitz-Birkeanu State Museum: "Not all victims were Jewish in this place, but all Jews were victims". La Shoah no es un episodio dentro de la Segunda Guerra Mundial, sino un punto de inflexión en la historia de la humanidad, y es una catástrofe que nos concierne a todos, hombres y mujeres judíos y no judíos, religiosos e irreligiosos, creyentes e increyentes, como seres libres, responsables y morales que somos –o que deberíamos ser. Muchas de las víctimas del Holocausto, en medio de la desesperación, entraron en las cámaras de gas orando, aferrándose a la esperanza de que ese final espeluznante no era un punto final. Con esta tesis no me propongo de ninguna manera responder a la eterna pregunta de si Dios existe o no, sino que propongo interpretar ese grito hacia Dios como un desesperado anhelo de esperanza. También me propongo encontrar una coherencia en las posturas de estos dos grandes pensadores para quienes la libertad y la responsabilidad definen al hombre: Frankl (quien apuesta por una dimensión suprahumana donde existe un sentido último en el que el sufrimiento de las víctimas tiene que tener algún sentido, aunque ese sentido sea completamente incomprensible en la dimensión humana) y Sartre (el existencialista ateo por excelencia, para quien el mundo, la existencia y el sufrimiento son absolutamente contingentes). En el primer capítulo expongo la logoterapia y el existencialismo sartreano: describo las tres dimensiones del hombre y las tres búsquedas de sentido propuestas por Frankl, y expongo las cinco consecuencias de "l'existence précède l'essence", centrándome en la libertad y la responsabilidad, y hablo del suicidio. El segundo capítulo está dedicado al dios inconsciente frankleano, la dimensión suprahumana, la búsqueda por el sentido último y la fe incondicional. En el tercer capítulo ilustro la libertad sin Dios sartreana, la ontología sartreana, el ateísmo sartreano y el humanismo sartreano, y hablo sobre la responsabilidad, la mauvaise foi, la contingencia, la situation y la angustia. El cuarto capítulo es necesariamente histórico (sin dejar de ser filosófico): me pregunto por la muerte de Dios después de Auschwitz, argumento y defiendo la unicidad del Holocausto (la Shoah es un punto de inflexión en la historia de la humanidad), describo las masacres antes de los campos de exterminio (Einsatzgruppen, Ordnungspolizei y Wehrmacht), el gigantesco complejo de Auschwitz (Stammlager, Auschwitz-Birkenau y Monowitz-Buna), reflexiono sobre Dios y el mal (centrándome en los niños de Auschwitz), describo los días de Frankl en Auschwitz, hablo de Dios como esperanza, de la inmortalidad y la escatología, de la crueldad de Dios, de la relación entre el cristianismo y el antisemitismo, del islam y el antisemitismo, critico el silencio de Dios, hablo de la muerte de Dios y del juicio contra Dios. En el quinto capítulo expongo la moral frankleana (una moral que atañe al hombre y no a Dios), basándome en su teoría del amor y en su única obra de teatro (Synchronisation in Binkerwald), y la moral sartreana (una moral que atañe a una humanidad sin Dios), recordando a Dostoyevsky, analizando la famosa cita de Garcin en Huis clos "L'enfer, c'est les Autres", criticando el marxismo de Sartre y cuestionando (con la mirada de Frankl y Sartre) el verso de Brecht "Erst kommt das Fressen, dann kommt die Moral"; al final del capítulo incluyo una reflexión propia y las críticas frankleana y sartreana sobre la impunidad de los verdugos y colaboradores después del Holocausto (con el permiso de Dios). Después de la Conclusión, añado un Apéndice sobre las vidas de Frankl y Sartre, para poder entender mejor su obra. PALABRAS CLAVE: logoterapia, existencialismo sartreano, búsqueda de sentido, libertad, responsabilidad, moral, angustia, sufrimiento, supervivientes, víctimas, contingencia, espiritualidad, religión, Dios, esperanza, antisemitismo, culpa, Auschwitz, Holocausto, Shoah. /// (English) ABSTRACT: The absolute freedom defended by Viktor Emil Frankl and Jean-Paul Sartre, the Shoah and the belief in an omnipotent, benevolent and just God seem to contradict each other. The question of the meaning of the victims' suffering of the Holocaust (the true catastrophe, the biggest crime against humanity), simbolised by Auschwitz and as a turning point in History, is terribly painful and doesn't seem to have an answer. In my opinion, it's crucial to distinguish between the innocent victims of the Shoah who perished and the innocent victims who sufferend a real hell and lost their loved ones, but managed to survive. Both are victims, of course, but just as finding a possible meaning to the suffering of the massacred and gassed victims could result in an insult to their suffering and agony –especially to the horror that the children suffered– the gigantic suffering of the survivors could, maybe, somehow, give a meaning to their lives after the liberation of the concentration and extermination camps, either as a voice, as a protest, or as a simple survival. Frankl believes in an ultimate meaning (that embraces the meaning of the victims' suffering), and Sartre, even if it appears not to embrace any meaning, turned his life to political engagement after War World II, and that attitude seems to give a tiny glimpse of meaning after the barbarity. Frankl's philosophy says yes to life even in the most extreme situations, and it's a Nietzschean-like scream that exalts the value of life beyond any monstrous suffering. Frankl, the father of logotherapy and a Holocaust survivor, opens a door to God when he talks about an unconscious God, a supra-human dimension and an unconditional faith; he defines religion as spirituality and as man's search for ultimate meaning. According to Frankl, freedom is not contradictory with God, and religion exists not because of the barbarity but in spite of the barbarity. Sartrean existentialism is a philosophy of radical freedom and responsibility. Men are condemned to be free. We are beings where the existence precedes the essence. We are completely responsible of what we are. Sartre argues that human freedom is incompatible with God. In a godless world, morality is constructed by people, with their own choices and actions, and human existence and the suffering of the victims don't have any meaning. Sartre defines man as freedom, responsibility, Angst and contingency. Frankl defines man as freedom, responsibility, spirituality and search for meaning. With this dissertation I attempt to enter in the slippery dimension of the pain, despair, meaning and meaninglessness of the victims' suffering (having in mind the horrors of Auschwitz, that in theology and in philosophy have simbolised, since the liberation of the camps, the death of God and the death of morality). It's true that not only Jewish men, women and children were victims of the German barbarity, but, as Elie Wiesel's message from the permanent exhibition from Block 27 of the Auschwitz-Birkeanu State Museum reads: "Not all victims were Jewish in this place, but all Jews were victims". The Shoah is not an episode inside War World II, but a turning point in the history of humankind, and a catastrophe that embraces us all, Jewish and not not Jewish men and women, religious and not religious, believers and not believers, as the free, responsible and moral beings that we all are –or that we should be. A lot of the victims, in the midst of their desperation, entered into the gas chambers praying, holding to the hope that their horrifying end was not the ultimate end. With this dissertation I do not attempt to answer the eternal question of the existence of God, rather, I will try to interpret that scream to God as a longing for hope. I also intend to find a coherence between the thought of these two great thinkers for whom freedom and responsibilty define man: Frankl (who argues that there is a suprahuman dimension where an ultimate meaning exists and where the victims' suffering has to have a meaning, even if this meaning is completely incomprehensible in the human dimension) and Sartre (the atheist existentialist par excellence, for whom the world, human existence and suffering are absolutely contingent). In the first chapter I expose logotherapy and Sartrean existentialism: I describe the three dimensions of man, the three searches for meaning, the five consequences of "l'existence précède l'essence" and I speak about suicide. The second chapter delves into the unconscious God, the supra-human dimension, the ultimate meaning and the unconditional faith. In the third chapter I expose the freedom without God defended by Sartre, Sartre's ontology, Sartre's atheism, Sartre's humanism, and his ideas about responsibility, mauvaise foi, contingency, situation, and Angst. The fourth chapter is necessarily historical (while being philosophical too): I wonder about the death of God after Auschwitz, I argue and defend the uniqueness of the Holocaust (the Shoah is a turning point in the history of humankind), I describe the massacres before the extermination camps (Einsatzgruppen, Ordnungspolizei y Wehrmacht), the gigantic Auschwitz camp complex (Stammlager, Auschwitz-Birkenau y Monowitz-Buna), I reflect on God and evil (focusing on the children of Auschwitz), I describe Frankl's days in Auschwitz, I talk about God as hope, about immortality and escathology, I discuss God's cruelty, the relationship between Christianity and antisemitism and Islam and antisemitism, I question the silence of God, and I talk about the death of God and about the trial against God. In the fifth chapter I talk about the Franklean morality (a morality that concerns man and not God), on the basis of his love theory and his only work of theater (Synchronisation in Binkerwald), and the Sartrean morality (a morality that concerns a humanity without God), remembering Dostoyevsky, analysing Garcin's famous quote in Huis clos "L'enfer, c'est les Autres", crticizing Sartre's marxism and questioning (with Frankl's and Sartre's eyes) Brecht's verse "Erst kommt das Fressen, dann kommt die Moral"; at the end of the chapter I include my own reflection (and Frankl and Sartre's critique) about the impunity of the executioners and collaborators after the Holocaust (with God's permission). After the Conclusion, I add an Appendix about the lives of Frankl and Sartre, which helps understanding better their work. KEYWORDS: logotherapy, existentialism, search for meaning, freedom, responsibility, morality, Angst, suffering, survivors, victims, contingency, spirituality, religion, God, hope, antisemitism, guilt, Auschwitz, Holocaust, Shoah. (shrink)

A contemporary appraisal of the breadth, significance, and legacy of the work of Charlene Haddock Seigfried, this book brings together writings focused on pragmatist feminism/feminist pragmatism, contemporary pragmatism, William James and the reconstruction of philosophy, education and American philosophy in the 21st century. Charlene Haddock Seigfried is a looming figure in American thought and feminist theory who coined the phrase 'pragmatist feminist' which has become an increasingly important concept in contemporary philosophy. Haddock Siegfried argues that pragmatism and its rich history (...) is a natural ally for feminism and that the creative combination of these two traditions can pave the way for a genuinely emancipatory feminist practice. Pragmatist Feminism and the Work of Charlene Haddock Seigfried explores and pushes this theory and brings it into conversation with some of the most vibrant strands of current philosophy. (shrink)

Este texto analiza el modelo de masculinidad transferido por las narrativas icónicas de los libros de texto de Ciencias Sociales de 5º de E. Primaria. Partiendo de la coeducación como herramienta transformadora de los patrones masculinos hegemónicos tradicionales asociados a la agresividad, la competitividad y la violencia, se abordan los estudios de género sobre la historia escolar, a fin de realizar un diagnóstico sobre la situación actual en torno a las investigaciones de las masculinidades en la Didáctica de las Ciencias (...) Sociales. Se ha creado una ficha multivariable, fácil y sencilla, a fin de que pueda ser aplicada por el propio alumnado de Primaria en sus propios libros de texto, los cuales pasan de ser instrumentos transcriptores de relatos históricos construidos, a ser herramientas de discusión y reflexión crítica sobre género en el pasado y el presente. (shrink)

One of the central but yet unresolved problems in evolutionary biology concerns the origin of novel complex traits. One hypothesis is that complex traits derive from pre‐existing gene regulatory networks (GRNs) reused and modified to specify a novel trait somewhere else in the body. This simple explanation encounters problems when the novel trait that emerges in a body is in a region that is known to harbor a latent or repressed trait that has been silent for millions of years. Is (...) the novel trait merely a re‐emerged de‐repressed trait or a truly novel trait that emerged via a novel deployment of an old GRN? A couple of new studies sided on opposite sides of this question when investigating the origin of horns in dung beetles and helmets in treehoppers that develop in the first thoracic segment (T1) of their bodies, a segment known to harbor a pair of repressed/modified wings in close relatives. Here, I point to some key limitations of the experimental approaches used and highlight additional experiments that could be done in future to resolve the developmental origin of these and other traits. (shrink)

In the thirteenth-century Bibles moralisées there appears a new iconographical type in which God the Father, and figures depicted in moralising illustrations, are shown with a compass. This article argues that these images throw light on the medieval concept of reason and its role in the Divine Economy. In these French Capetian Bibles, the compass is the symbol of divine or human reason, depending on the context where it occurs. When depicted in the scene of Creation in the frontispieces, the (...) compass is the instrument of Christ-Logos as Divine Reason, used to impose God’s rational order on formless matter, but also to initiate the Divine Economy. The compass is depicted again, in the same sense, at the beginning of the New Testament, as a ‘dynamic sign’ which links the start of God’s plan for humankind salvation during Creation with the re-enactment of the Divine Economy through the Incarnation. When a compass occurs elsewhere, in a moralised image for a biblical story which takes place in the earthly realm, the instrument becomes the tool used by human reason to discern between good and evil. The analysis which leads to this interpretation is borne out by an examination of related themes in the Bibles moralisées: those of the sleep of mortal reason, and of the endurance of Divine Reason as a guide to true knowledge. (shrink)

Devant une relation d'incompatibilité entre couleurs, nous posons la question de savoir quelle solution le phénoménologue husserlien et le philosophe wittgensteinien de la grammaire apportent respectivement au problème que pose le vécu d'incompatibilité correspondant. Il est frappant de constater qu'à un même problème chacun répond par une conception différente du « grammatical ». A l'encontre d'une troisième voie - en réalité ineffectuable et purement métaphorique - impliquant une soi-disant pénétration de lois d'essence, l'issue wittgensteinienne est celle de la saisie d'un (...) a priori dans le langage, en bref une sorte d'intuition sémantique. The philosophically well-known conflictual case of incompatible colours confronts us with two kinds of solutions : the phenomenological issue which is Husserl's one leads to a sort of intuitive and unique grasp of laws of relations of possibility and impossibility underlying language with the help of which one can ultimately justify his awareness of an « intuitive conflict ». This solution calls for a conception of the grammatical to which Wittgensteins own conception is opposed. Our contention here is to elicit Wittgenstein i « semantic intuition » of an a priori in language. (shrink)

In October 2013, the Declaration of Helsinki was revised a seventh time in its 50 year history. While it is the most widely accepted set of ethical principles for the protection of patients participating in medical research, the Declaration of Helsinki has also been subject of constant controversy. In particular, its paragraph on the use of placebo controls in clinical trials divides the research community into active-control and placebo orthodox proponents, both continuously demanding revisions of the Declaration of Helsinki in (...) favour of their position. The goal of the present project is to compare the mainly theoretical controversy with regulatory implementation. We distributed a questionnaire to national drug regulatory authorities from different countries to collect information on the authorities’ respective approaches to interpretation and implementation of the Declarations’ placebo paragraph in the conduct of medical research. Our findings suggest that the majority of drug regulatory authorities have established a practice of a middle ground, allowing placebo controls in some instances. Various interpretations of “serious harm” and “methodological reasons” are proposed as well as safeguards to avoid abuse of the option to use placebo-controls. Leaving the placebo paragraph open to various interpretation is a result of the Declaration of Helsinki’s character as a guidance document. With the current version controversy will continue. The Declaration should be continued to be strengthened to enforce the appreciation of conducting medical research with the highest ethical standard. (shrink)