We welcome network theory as a tool for modelling the multi-directional interactions that characterise disease. However, we feel that Cramer et al. have neglected one important aspect: how diseases change over developmental time. We discuss principles such as fan in, fan out, bottlenecks, and common pathways, and argue that modelling these developmental aspects can be vital, particularly in deriving properly targeted treatments.

Er arbeitete für eine Erneuerung des Judentums auf der Grundlage der deutschen Sprache. Doch das Land, das ihm Heimat war, verjagte ihn. Nach Auschwitz sah er die Beziehung des Judentums mit Deutschland zerstört, und ist doch offen für ein neues Gespräch. Was hat es mit Martin Buber und den Deutschen auf sich? War er der vom "geistigen Deutschland anerkannter deutsche Jude" oder nur der "Jude für die Deutschen nach Auschwitz"? Dieser Essay begibt sich auf eine spannende Spurensuche. Er bringt das (...) facettenreiche Bild einer ebenso spannungsvollen wie fruchtbaren Beziehung zu Tage. (shrink)

The ethics of artificial intelligence is a widely discussed topic. There are numerous initiatives that aim to develop the principles and guidance to ensure that the development, deployment and use of AI are ethically acceptable. What is generally unclear is how organisations that make use of AI understand and address these ethical issues in practice. While there is an abundance of conceptual work on AI ethics, empirical insights are rare and often anecdotal. This paper fills the gap in our current (...) understanding of how organisations deal with AI ethics by presenting empirical findings collected using a set of ten case studies and providing an account of the cross-case analysis. The paper reviews the discussion of ethical issues of AI as well as mitigation strategies that have been proposed in the literature. Using this background, the cross-case analysis categorises the organisational responses that were observed in practice. The discussion shows that organisations are highly aware of the AI ethics debate and keen to engage with ethical issues proactively. However, they make use of only a relatively small subsection of the mitigation strategies proposed in the literature. These insights are of importance to organisations deploying or using AI, to the academic AI ethics debate, but maybe most valuable to policymakers involved in the current debate about suitable policy developments to address the ethical issues raised by AI. (shrink)

Das Buch versammelt grundlegende Studien zu Edith Stein und ihren Lektüren von Homer, mittelalterlicher Literatur, Lessing, Schleiermacher, Hauptmann und dem Expressionismus. Es geht den Lektüreeinflüssen in Tradition, Spiritualität und Begegnungen nach und untersucht dazu aktuelle Fragen um Glaube, Wissen und eine neue Phänomenologie. Ein literarisch intensiver und aus der rekonstruierten Bibliothek quellenerschlossener Bildungsgang wirkte auf die Frömmigkeitsentwicklung der späteren Karmelitin und befruchtete massgeblich ihre Denkwelt und mystisch eigene Position.

There has been much debate whether computers can be responsible. This question is usually discussed in terms of personhood and personal characteristics, which a computer may or may not possess. If a computer fulfils the conditions required for agency or personhood, then it can be responsible; otherwise not. This paper suggests a different approach. An analysis of the concept of responsibility shows that it is a social construct of ascription which is only viable in certain social contexts and which serves (...) particular social aims. If this is the main aspect of responsibility then the question whether computers can be responsible no longer hinges on the difficult problem of agency but on the possibly simpler question whether responsibility ascriptions to computers can fulfil social goals. The suggested solution to the question whether computers can be subjects of responsibility is the introduction of a new concept, called “quasi-responsibility” which will emphasise the social aim of responsibility ascription and which can be applied to computers. (shrink)

Taking account of Kant's unpublished mss., the author presents a close textual interpretation of Kant's logic of concepts.

The two main challenges of the theory of conceptual content presented by Robert Brandom in Making It Explicit are to account for a referential dimension of conceptual content and to account for the objectivity of conceptual norms. Brandom tries to meet both these challenges in chapter 8 of his book. I argue that the accounts presented there can only be understood if seen against the background of Brandom's theory of communication developed in chapter 7. This theory is motivated by the (...) well-known problem that semantic holism threatens the possibility of communication because it has the consequence that words mean different things in different mouths. Brandom offers a solution to this problem in terms of what he calls recurrence commitments. I show that chapter 8 of Making It Explicit should be understood as arguing that a practice that includes acknowledging interpersonal recurrence commitments institutes both conceptual contents with a referential dimension and objective conceptual norms. I close by raising the objection that Brandom's argument can only show that conceptual norms are communally shared and not that they are objective. I propose an emendation of this argument, having recourse to a practice Brandom refers to as rational rectification in his new book Between Saying and Doing. (shrink)

This study investigates the ethical use of Big Data and Artificial Intelligence (AI) technologies (BD + AI)—using an empirical approach. The paper categorises the current literature and presents a multi-case study of 'on-the-ground' ethical issues that uses qualitative tools to analyse findings from ten targeted case-studies from a range of domains. The analysis coalesces identified singular ethical issues, (from the literature), into clusters to offer a comparison with the proposed classification in the literature. The results show that despite the variety (...) of different social domains, fields, and applications of AI, there is overlap and correlation between the organisations’ ethical concerns. This more detailed understanding of ethics in AI + BD is required to ensure that the multitude of suggested ways of addressing them can be targeted and succeed in mitigating the pertinent ethical issues that are often discussed in the literature. (shrink)

The increasing use of information and communication technologies (ICT) to help facilitate neuroscience adds a new level of complexity to the question of how ethical issues of such research can be identified and addressed. Current research ethics practice, based on ethics reviews by institutional review boards (IRB) and underpinned by ethical principalism, has been widely criticised and even called ‘imperialist’. In this paper, we develop an alternative way of approaching ethics in neuro-ICT research, based on discourse ethics, which implements responsible (...) research and innovation through dialogues. We draw on our work in Ethics Support, using the Human Brain Project as empirical evidence of the viability of this approach. (shrink)

The contributors to _Constructing the Pluriverse_ critique the hegemony of the postcolonial Western tradition and its claims to universality by offering a set of “pluriversal” approaches to understanding the coexisting epistemologies and practices of the different worlds and problems we inhabit and encounter. Moving beyond critiques of colonialism, the contributors rethink the relationship between knowledge and power, offering new perspectives on development, democracy, and ideology while providing diverse methodologies for non-Western thought and practice that range from feminist approaches to scientific (...) research to ways of knowing expressed through West African oral traditions. In combination, these wide-ranging approaches and understandings form a new analytical toolbox for those seeking creative solutions for dismantling Westernization throughout the world. Contributors Zaid Ahmad, Manuela Boatcă, Hans-Jürgen Burchardt, Arturo Escobar, Sandra Harding, Ehsan Kashfi, Venu Mehta, Walter D. Mignolo, Ulrich Oslender, Isiaka Ouattara, Manu Samnotra, Aram Ziai. (shrink)

Information security can be of high moral value. It can equally be used for immoral purposes and have undesirable consequences. In this paper we suggest that critical theory can facilitate a better understanding of possible ethical issues and can provide support when finding ways of addressing them. The paper argues that critical theory has intrinsic links to ethics and that it is possible to identify concepts frequently used in critical theory to pinpoint ethical concerns. Using the example of UK electronic (...) medical records the paper demonstrates that a critical lens can highlight issues that traditional ethical theories tend to overlook. These are often linked to collective issues such as social and organisational structures, which philosophical ethics with its typical focus on the individual does not tend to emphasise. The paper suggests that this insight can help in developing ways of researching and innovating responsibly in the area of information security. (shrink)

Ethical issues of information and communication technologies (ICTs) are important because they can have significant effects on human liberty, happiness, and people’s ability to lead a good life. They are also of functional interest because they can determine whether technologies are used and whether their positive potential can unfold. For these reasons, policy makers are interested in finding out what these issues are and how they can be addressed. The best way of creating ICT policy that is sensitive to ethical (...) issues pertain to being proactive in addressing such issues at an early stage of the technology life cycle. The present paper uses this position as a starting point and discusses how knowledge of ethical aspects of emerging ICTs can be gained. It develops a methodology that goes beyond established futures methodologies to cater for the difficult nature of ethical issues. The authors outline how the description of emerging ICTs can be used for an ethical analysis. (shrink)

This paper seeks to contextualize Lycurgus' use of the historical example of King Codrus' self-sacrifice within Athenian social memory and public discourse. In doing so, it offers a solution to the puzzle of Lycurgus' calling Codrus one of the ἐπώνυμοι τῆς χώρας . I make the case that Codrus was one of the forty-two eponymous age-set heroes who played an important role in the Athenian military and socio-political system. I contend that devotion to the city's gods and heroes and knowledge (...) of their mythology were essential parts of the religious and ideological instruction of Athenian ephebes. Consequently, Lycurgus' citation of the Ephebic Oath, the self-sacrifices of King Codrus and the daughters of Erechtheus, as well as his repeated invocation of the city's gods and shrines, must be seen as integral elements of his indictment of Leocrates for cowardice and treason, behavior that is diametrically opposed to the hoplite ethos and religious devotion that were instilled into young ephebes. Lycurgus thus brings the jurors' memories of their own ephebate into the courtroom and taps into emotions and values that lie at the heart of Athenian collective identity. (shrink)

Trichoplax adhaerens is more simply organized than any other living metazoan. This tiny marine animal looks like a irregular “hairy plate” (“tricho plax”) with a simple upper and lower epithelium and some loose cells in between. After its original description by F.E. Schulze 1883, it attracted particular attention as a potential candidate representing the basic and ancestral state of metazoan organization. The lack of any kind of symmetry, organs, nerve cells, muscle cells, basal lamina and extracellular matrix originally left little (...) doubt about the basal position of T. adhaerens. Nevertheless, the interest of zoologists and evolutionary biologists suddenly vanished for more than half a century when Trichoplax was claimed to be an aberrant hydrozoan planula larva. Recently, Trichoplax has been rediscovered as a key species for unraveling early metazoan evolution. For example, research on regulatory genes and whole genome sequencing promise insights into the genetics underlying the origin and development of basal metazoan phyla. Trichoplax offers unique potential for understanding the minimal requirements of metazoan animal organization. BioEssays 27:1294–1302, 2005. © 2005 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. (shrink)

In modern technical societies computers interact with human beings in ways that can affect moral rights and obligations. This has given rise to the question whether computers can act as autonomous moral agents. The answer to this question depends on many explicit and implicit definitions that touch on different philosophical areas such as anthropology and metaphysics. The approach chosen in this paper centres on the concept of information. Information is a multi-facetted notion which is hard to define comprehensively. However, the (...) frequently used definition of information as data endowed with meaning can promote our understanding. It is argued that information in this sense is a necessary condition of cognitivist ethics. This is the basis for analysing computers and information processors regarding their status as possible moral agents. Computers have several characteristics that are desirable for moral agents. However, computers in their current form are unable to capture the meaning of information and therefore fail to reflect morality in anything but a most basic sense of the term. This shortcoming is discussed using the example of the Moral Turing Test. The paper ends with a consideration of which conditions computers would have to fulfil in order to be able to use information in such a way as to render them capable of acting morally and reflecting ethically. (shrink)

This volume describes features of biological autonomy and integrates them into the recent discussion of factors in evolution. In recent years ideas about major transitions in evolution are undergoing a revolutionary change. They include questions about the origin of evolutionary innovation, their genetic and epigenetic background, the role of the phenotype, and of changes in ontogenetic pathways. In the present book, it is argued that it is likewise necessary to question the properties of these innovations and what was qualitatively generated (...) during the macroevolutionary transitions. The author states that a recurring central aspect of macroevolutionary innovations is an increase in individual organismal autonomy whereby it is emancipated from the environment with changes in its capacity for flexibility, self-regulation and self-control of behavior. The first chapters define the concept of autonomy and examine its history and its epistemological context. Later chapters demonstrate how changes in autonomy took place during the major evolutionary transitions and investigate the generation of organs and physiological systems. They synthesize material from various disciplines including zoology, comparative physiology, morphology, molecular biology, neurobiology and ethology. It is argued that the concept is also relevant for understanding the relation of the biological evolution of man to his cultural abilities. Finally the relation of autonomy to adaptation, niche construction, phenotypic plasticity and other factors and patterns in evolution is discussed. The text has a clear perspective from the context of systems biology, arguing that the generation of biological autonomy must be interpreted within an integrative systems approach. (shrink)

This volume contains his programmatic essay 'Towards an Analytic Pragmatism', in which Brandom shows how analytic philosophy can broaden its perspective so as ...

Bd 1. Unter deutschen Literaten -- Bd. 2. Unter deutschen Philosophen -- Bd. 3. Unter französischen Literaten -- Bd. 40. -- Unter französischen Philosophen.

Purpose: This article investigates the emergence of subsystems in societies as a solution to the double contingency problem. Context: There are two underlying paradigms: one is radical constructivism in the sense that perturbations are at the centre of the self-organising processes; the other is Luhmann’s double contingency problem, where agents learn anticipations from each other. Approach: Central to our investigation is a computer simulation where we place agents into an arena. These agents can learn to (a) collect food and/or (b) (...) steal food from other agents. In order to analyse subsystem formation, we investigate whether agents use both behaviours or just one of these, which is equivalent to determining the number of self-referential loops. This is detected with a novel measure that we call “prediction utilisation.” Results: During the simulation, symmetry breaking is observed. The system of agents divides itself up into two subsystems: one where agents just collect food and another one where agents just steal food from other agents. The ratio between these two populations is determined by the amount of food available. Key words: Social systems, constructivist paradigm, cybernetics, double contingency, symmetry breaking, emergence. (shrink)

Naturalistic Descriptions and Normative-Intentional Interpretations Normative pragmatists about linguistic meaning such as Sellars and Brandom have to explain how norms can be implicit in practices described in purely naturalistic terms. The explanation of implicit norms usually offered in the literature commits pragmatists to equate actions with naturalistic events. Since this is an unacceptable consequence, I propose an alternative explanation of implicit norms that avoids this identification. To do so, one has to treat the normative-intentional concepts such as "norm", "action", "sanction", (...) "belief", "desire" as a holistic system, in the sense that one has to apply all of them to a given naturalistic practice simultaneously. This result might be taken to imply that the pragmatist strategy of explaining the content of assertions and beliefs in terms of norm-governed use is misguided because it presupposes that one can account for the concept "norm" independently of the concept "belief". I argue that this consequence does not follow. (shrink)

This paper addresses the question of how it is to be explained that an action or object X counts as Y. I argue that John Searle's notion of a constitutive rule should not be employed because it involves a confusion. Instead, I propose an explanatory framework containing the following three elements: 1) The X-action or object is involved in certain social practices. 2) These practices confer properties on the X-items, in addition to their physical properties. 3) In virtue of these (...) additional properties the X-items fall under the Y-concept. Moreover, I stress that the social practices mentioned under 1) look differently from case to case and involve various constellations of prescriptive rules and interpersonal patterns of intentions. To illustrate and corroborate these claims, I discuss several cases of socially constituted actions and objects, in particular, the case of money, where I reject Searle's claim that something counts as money in virtue of giving its owner the right to buy something. (shrink)

This paper set out to provide a skeptical perspective to the view that IT has the potential to bring people into the global community. While not doubting the merits of IT’s capabilities it proposed that such claims be qualified in view of disparities in the distribution of wealth between nations and between peoples. It focused attention on the plight of students at the University of Fort Hare, in the Eastern Cape, which is the poorest of South Africa’s nine provinces. It (...) argued instead that IT has the likelihood of accentuating instead of bridging existing inequalities in wealth between countries and between peoples. It contended that not‘everybody’ is predisposed to becoming a role player in the global agenda given that access to IT and online facilities is stratified by income. This, the paper posited, is most likely to exacerbate the "global digital divide"—the growing disparity in wealth between countries of the North and the South, and between peoples, the information "haves" and "have-nots". The U.S.’s 1999 expenditure on IT, which stood at $762 as opposed to South Africa’s expenditure in the same year, which was $10.6, illustrates the "divide". But while on the surface the University of Fort Hare’s situation seemed very gloomy, the paper outlined positive, but modest initiatives not only to provide access to IT and online facilities, but also to quip staff and students with requisite skills to enable them to be role players in the global agenda. (shrink)

Morality, resp. moral communication, undergoes substantial changes when it is computer‐mediated, i.e. cyberspace provides a different moral infrastructure. Firstly, there are different conditions regarding the transaction costs that frame the relation between moral motivation and the expectation of the success of a moral act. Secondly, there is the transformation of ownership and property, which are the basic content of moral actions and communications. The personal accountability of one’s and somebody else’s own is altered; a special ethic of virtual ownership is (...) developing, which finds its expression in the manifold production of public goods in virtual networks. This development is reflected in the dialectics of digital commons and anti‐commons. Thirdly, there is the ludic structure of cyberspace. The medial conditions of cyberspace are analogous to the basic principles of play. Playing as a self‐motivated action is a reason for moral behaviour in cyberspace, especially for the production of public goods. (shrink)

Was there a chant of swans? Greek and Latin poets had established the idea of the swan singing in the moment of its death as a part of their self- representation, while ancient zoologists argued for the reality of the phenomenon. How did medieval and early modern natural scientists and philosophers deal with the cantus cygnorum? Following his classical sources, a scholar like Albertus Magnus defended the singing swan in his zoology. The discussion was still alive when the Italian anatomist (...) Ulysses Aldrovandi in the late 16th century discovered the swan’s enlarged windpipe and interpreted it as the final demonstration of the chant’s reality. (shrink)

Stretching from Late Antiquity to the 18th century and including figures such as Leibniz as well as his Jesuit contemporaries, this book offers a survey of the extensive discussion devoted to the language of angels, one of the most lively and long lasting controversies in Medieval and Early Modern philosophy of language.

Name der Zeitschrift: Frühmittelalterliche Studien Jahrgang: 46 Heft: 1 Seiten: 437-484.

Biographical note: Bernd Seidensticker, Freie Universität Berlin; Martin Vöhler, Freie Universität Berlin.