BackgroundBiobanking biospecimens and consent are common practice in paediatric research. We need to explore children and young people’s (CYP) knowledge and perspectives around the use of and consent to biobanking. This will ensure meaningful informed consent can be obtained and improve current consent procedures.MethodsWe designed a survey, in co-production with CYP, collecting demographic data, views on biobanking, and consent using three scenarios: 1) prospective consent, 2) deferred consent, and 3) reconsent and assent at age of capacity. The survey was disseminated (...) via the Young Person’s Advisory Group North England (YPAGne) and participating CYP’s secondary schools. Data were analysed using a qualitative thematic approach by three independent reviewers (including CYP) to identify common themes. Data triangulation occurred independently by a fourth reviewer.ResultsOne hundred two CYP completed the survey. Most were between 16–18 years (63.7%, N = 65) and female (66.7%, N = 68). 72.3% had no prior knowledge of biobanking (N = 73).Acceptability of prospective consent for biobanking was high (91.2%, N = 93) with common themes: ‘altruism’, ‘potential benefits outweigh individual risk’, 'frugality', and ‘(in)convenience’.Deferred consent was also deemed acceptable in the large majority (84.3%, N = 86), with common themes: ‘altruism’, ‘body integrity’ and ‘sample frugality’. 76.5% preferred to reconsent when cognitively mature enough to give assent (N = 78), even if parental consent was previously in place. 79.2% wanted to be informed if their biobanked biospecimen is reused (N = 80).ConclusionProspective and deferred consent acceptability for biobanking is high among CYP in the UK. Altruism, frugality, body integrity, and privacy are the most important themes. Clear communication and justification are paramount to obtain consent. Any CYP with capacity should be part of the consenting procedure, if possible. (shrink)

In this book, Binder shows that at the heart of the most prominent arguments in favour of value-neutral approaches to overall freedom lies the value freedom has for human agency and development. Far from leading to the adoption of a value-neutral approach, however, ascribing importance to freedom’s agency value requires one to adopt a refined value-based approach. Binder employs an axiomatic framework in order to develop such an approach. She shows that a focus on freedom’s agency value has (...) far reaching consequences for existing results in the freedom ranking literature: it requires one to move beyond a person’s given all-things-considered preferences to the values underlying a person’s preference formation. Furthermore, it requires, as Binder argues, one to account for those differences between choice options which really matter to people. Binder illustrates the implications of her analysis for the evaluation of public policy and human development with the capability approach: only if sufficient importance is ascribed to freedom’s agency value can the capability approach keep its promises. ​. (shrink)

Metaethical constructivism aims to explain morality’s authority and relevance by basing it in agency, in a capacity of the creatures who are in fact morally bound. But constructivists have struggled to wring anything recognizably moral from an appropriately minimal conception of agency. Even if they could, basing our reasons in our individual agency seems to make other people reason-giving for us only indirectly. This paper argues for a constructivism based on a social conception of agency, on which our capacity to (...) recognize ourselves as having reasons ties us inescapably to others. It argues that mutual recognition is a pervasive feature of linguistic concepts, and builds this into a view called transformative expressivism. (shrink)

In response to the so-called “paradox of deontology,” many have argued that the agent-relativity of deontological constraints accounts for why an agent may not kill one in order to prevent five others from being killed. Constraints provide reasons for particular agents not to kill, not reasons to minimize overall killings. In this paper, I tease out the significance of an underappreciated aspect of this agent-relative position, i.e. it provides no guidance as to what an agent ought to do when faced (...) with the prospect of killing one in order to prevent herself from killing five. After rejecting mere agent-relativity, the view that agents are morally permitted to violate constraints in order to minimize their overall violations, I offer a view that this is both agent- and time-relative, and show how this view exemplifies the underlying motivations for deontological constraints while successfully responding to both the inter- and intra-personal paradoxes of deontology. (shrink)

Moderate deontologists hold that while it is wrong to kill an innocent person to save, say, five other individuals, it is indeed morally permissible to kill one if, say, millions of lives are at stake. A basic worry concerning the moderate’s position is whether the view boils down to mere philosophical wishful thinking. In permitting agents to ever kill an innocent, moderates require that agents treat persons as means, in opposition to traditional deontological motivations. Recently Tyler Cook argued that deontologists (...) can be moderate. However, there remains a gap in the literature concerning how such a view might function in practice, as well as why a deontologist might (or perhaps, should) hold the view. This paper works to fill these gaps. I first develop the view that agents can be constrained from an action even though there are instances in which an infringement of this constraint is permissible. Crucially, I appeal to the moral emotions that are fitting in cases of constraint infringements. I then go on to show how this view can be grounded in traditional deontological foundations. Respect for the dignity of persons, I argue, requires not only that we not treat others in certain ways, but also that we acknowledge the direct and indirect effects our actions and inactions have on all persons. This deontological motivation, in turn, leads to a moderate constraint on the actions of agents. (shrink)

The chapters of Judith Butler's Giving an Account of Oneself originally were given as the Spinoza Lectures for the Department of Philosophy at the University of Amsterdam in the spring of 2002. In this work, Butler returns to the problem of subjectivity and subject formation, but this time in the context of ethics and ethical philosophy. Pulling together ethical considerations and theories of the self from authors including Nietzsche, Foucault, Adorno, and Levinas, Butler deftly and successfully decenters and refocuses ethical (...) analysis by claiming that the subject is not the ground for ethics but rather the problem for ethics. Central to this thesis is the claim that the self is inherently relational, and emerges .. (shrink)

Spanish philosopher José Ortega y Gasset and German philosopher Karl Jaspers were both born in 1883, and they both maintained the position that humans are principally historical beings. Therefore, as attested by this notion itself, there are points in which their philosophy coincides. Ortega argued that human beings have no nature, only history. His argument is that history as such is human nature; what is most natural about being human is the fact of being historical and thus always having historicity. (...) Jaspers maintained the same position that in contemplating historicity, one's focus should not be on human nature in the strictly hereditary sense, because it is one's traditions, not the genetic makeup, that most make one to be human. Jaspers emphasizes the conversion of an existential historic consciousness into a consciousness of historicity that is similar to what can be understood in Ortega as historical perspectivism imbued with pragmatism. (shrink)

Two decades ago, Rolf Landauer (1991) argued that “information is physical” and ought to have a role in the scientific analysis of reality comparable to that of matter, energy, space and time. This would also help to bridge the gap between biology and mathematics and physics. Although it can be argued that we are living in the ‘golden age’ of biology, both because of the great challenges posed by medicine and the environment and the significant advances that have been made—especially (...) in genetics and molecular and cell biology—we feel that information as an essential aspect of life has been neglected, or at least misunderstood. We therefore summon Maxwell’s Demon and its distant relative the ratchet, and apply these to biology. (shrink)

In this paper we attempt to identify which peer collaboration characteristics may be accountable for conceptual change through interaction. We focus on different socio‐cognitive aspects of the peer dialog and relate these with learning gains on the dyadic as well as the individual level. The scientific topic that was used for this study concerns natural selection, a topic for which students’ intuitive conceptions have been shown to be particularly robust. Learning tasks were designed according to the socio‐cognitive conflict instructional paradigm. (...) After receiving a short instructional intervention on natural selection, paired students were asked to collaboratively construct explanations for certain evolutionary phenomena while engaging in dialectical argumentation. Two quantitative coding schemes were developed, each with a different granularity. The first assessed discrete dialog moves that pertained to dialectical argumentation and to consensual explanation development. The second scheme characterized the dialog as a whole on a number of socio‐cognitive dimensions. Results from analyses on the dyadic as well as the individual level revealed that the engagement in dialectical argumentation predicted conceptual learning gains, whereas consensual explanation development did not. These findings open up new venues for research on the mechanisms of learning in and from peer collaboration. (shrink)

This paper examines the existential context of physical and mental health. Hans Georg Gadamer and The World Health Organization’s conceptualizations are discussed, and current medicalized and idealized views on health are critically examined. The existential dimension of health is explored in the light of theories of selfhood consisting of different parts, Irvin Yalom’s approach to “ultimate concerns” and Martin Heidegger’s conceptualization of “existentials.” We often become aware of health as an existential concern during times of illness, and health and illness (...) can co-exist. The paper discusses how existential suffering in Western culture is described, to an increasing degree, as disorders or psychological deficits, and perfectionistic health goals easily can become a problem. We seek to avoid suffering rather than relate to it, with all the tension that may create. The paper argues that suffering is an unavoidable aspect of people’s experience of their lives, and actively relating to suffering must be regarded as a fundamental aspect of health. The need and usefulness of a concept of “existential health” is discussed. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: Nietzsche's (Artful) Naturalism The Subject Naturalized Nietzsche's Artful Naturalism Toward an Ethos of the Agonized Subject.

Pour la célébration des 10 ans de L'Homme. Z.F.G., en 2000, les rédactrices invitèrent lecteurs et membres du comité de soutien à revenir sur cette décennie. Les réactions furent très positives et variées et on put comparer les articles et les débats publiés dans la revue avec les buts affirmés dans le premier éditorial de 1990. « La théorie féministe et le travail empirique se développent dans la confrontation avec des disciplines bien établies, et d'abord avec l'histoire », écrivions-nous a...

In this astonishingly rich volume, experts in ethics, epistemology, philosophy of mind, political theory, aesthetics, history, critical theory, and hermeneutics bring to light the best philosophical scholarship on what is arguably Nietzsche's most rewarding but most challenging text. Including essays that were commissioned specifically for the volume as well as essays revised and edited by their authors, this collection showcases definitive works that have shaped Nietzsche studies alongside new works of interest to students and experts alike. A lengthy introduction, annotated (...) bibliography, and index make this an extremely useful guide for the classroom and advanced research. (shrink)

In teaching statistics in secondary schools and at university, two visualizations are primarily used when situations with two dichotomous characteristics are represented: 2×2 tables and tree diagrams. Both visualizations can be depicted either with probabilities or with frequencies. Visualizations with frequencies have been shown to help students significantly more in Bayesian reasoning problems than probability visualizations do. Because tree diagrams or double-trees (which are largely unknown in school) are node-branch-structures, these two visualizations (compared to the 2×2 table) can even simultaneously (...) display probabilities on branches and frequencies inside the nodes. This is a teaching advantage as it allows the frequency concept to be used to better understand probabilities. However, 2×2 tables and (double-) trees have a decisive disadvantage: While joint probabilities (e.g., P(AB)) are represented in 2×2 tables but no conditional probabilities (e.g., P(A|B)), it is exactly the other way around with (double-) trees. Therefore, a visualization that is equally suitable for the representation of joint probabilities and conditional probabilities is desirable. In this article, we present a new visualization—the frequency net—in which all absolute frequencies and all types of probabilities can be depicted. In addition to a detailed theoretical analysis of the frequency net, we report the results of a study with 249 university students that shows that “net diagrams” can improve reasoning without previous instruction to a similar extent as 2×2 tables and double-trees. Regarding questions about conditional probabilities, frequency visualizations (2×2 table, double-tree, or net diagram with natural frequencies) are consistently superior to probability visualizations. The frequency net performs as well as the frequency double-tree. Only the 2×2 table with frequencies—the only visualization that participants were already familiar with —led to higher performance rates. If, on the other hand, a question about a joint probability had to be answered, all implemented visualizations clearly supported participants’ performance, and no uniform format effect becomes visible. Participants reached the highest performance in the versions with probability 2×2 tables and probability net diagrams. Furthermore, after conducting a detailed error analysis, we report interesting error shifts between the two information formats and the different visualizations and give recommendations for teaching probability. (shrink)

Apart from motor and behavioral dysfunctions, deficits in cognitive skills are among the well-documented sequelae of preterm birth. However, early identification of infants at risk for poor cognition is still a challenge, as no clear association between pathological findings based on neuroimaging scans and cognitive functions have been detected as yet. The Prechtl General Movement Assessment (GMA) has shown its merits for the evaluation of the integrity of the young nervous system. It is a reliable tool for identifying infants at (...) risk for neuromotor deficits. Recent studies on preterm infants demonstrate that abnormal general movements (GMs) also reflect impairments of brain areas involved in cognitive development. The aim of this systematic review was to discuss studies that included (i) the Prechtl GMA applied in preterm infants, and (ii) cognitive outcome measures in six data bases. Seven studies met the inclusion criteria and yielded the following results: (a) children born preterm with consistently abnormal GMs up to 8 weeks after term had lower intelligence quotients at school age than children with an early normalization of GMs; (b) from 3 to 5 months after term, several qualitative, and quantitative aspects of the concurrent motor repertoire, including postural patterns, were predictive of intelligence at 7–10 years of age. These findings in 428 individuals born preterm suggest that normal GMs along with a normal motor repertoire during the first months after term are markers for normal cognitive development until at least age 10. (shrink)

In this groundbreaking work, Christa Davis Acampora offers a profound rethinking of Friedrich Nietzsche’s crucial notion of the agon. Analyzing an impressive array of primary and secondary sources and synthesizing decades of Nietzsche scholarship, she shows how the agon, or contest, organized core areas of Nietzsche’s philosophy, providing a new appreciation of the subtleties of his notorious views about power. By focusing so intensely on this particular guiding interest, she offers an exciting, original vantage from which to view this (...) iconic thinker: Contesting Nietzsche. Though existence—viewed through the lens of Nietzsche’s agon—is fraught with struggle, Acampora illuminates what Nietzsche recognized as the agon’s generative benefits. It imbues the human experience with significance, meaning, and value. Analyzing Nietzsche’s elaborations of agonism—his remarks on types of contests, qualities of contestants, and the conditions in which either may thrive or deteriorate—she demonstrates how much the agon shaped his philosophical projects and critical assessments of others. The agon led him from one set of concerns to the next, from aesthetics to metaphysics to ethics to psychology, via Homer, Socrates, Saint Paul, and Wagner. In showing how one obsession catalyzed so many diverse interests, Contesting Nietzsche sheds fundamentally new light on some of this philosopher’s most difficult and paradoxical ideas. (shrink)

Scholars in both digital humanities and media studies have noted an apparent disconnect between computation and the interpretive methods of the humanities. Alan Liu has argued that literary scholars employing digital methods encounter a “meaning problem” due to the difficulty of reconciling algorithmic methods with interpretive ones. Conversely, the media scholar Friedrich Kittler has questioned the adequacy of hermeneutics as a means of studying computers. This paper argues that that this disconnect results from a set of contingent decisions made in (...) both humanistic and mathematical disciplines in the first half of the nineteenth century that delineated, with implications that continue to resonate in the present day, which aspects of human activity would come to be formalized in algorithms and which would not. I begin with a discussion of Nicolas de Condorcet, who attempted, at the height of the 1789 revolution, to turn algebra into a universal language; his work, I argue, exemplifies the form of algorithmic thinking that existed before the Romantic turn. Next, I discuss William Wordsworth’s arguments about the relationship of poetry and science. While Wordsworth is sometimes viewed as a critic of science, I argue that his polemic is specifically targeted at highly politicized projects like Condorcet’s that sought to supplant existing modes of thought with scientific rationality. Finally, I demonstrate the importance of Romantic thought for George Boole, creator of the logic system that would eventually form the basis of digital electronics. The reason Boole was able to succeed where Condorcet had failed, I argue, was that Romantic notions of culture enabled him to reconcile a mechanical view of mathematical reasoning with an organic view of the development of meaning—a dichotomy that remains a key assumption of computer interfaces in the twenty-first century. (shrink)

Commonsense morality seems to feature both agent-neutral and agent-relative elements. For a long time, the core debate between consequentialists and deontologists was which of these features should take centerstage. With the introduction of the consequentializing project and agent-relative value, however, agent-neutrality has been left behind. While I likewise favor an agent-relative view, agent-neutral views capture important features of commonsense morality.This article investigates whether an agent-relative view can maintain what is attractive about typical agent-neutral views. In particular, I argue that the (...) agent-relative reasons-wielding deontologist is ultimately able to capture those features ordinarily associated with agent-neutral views, while the agent-relative value wielding consequentialist is left with a dilemma. The consequentializer either succumbs to the concerns of her agent-neutral opponents or else abandons the distinctive and attractive features of her view. Either way, I conclude that agent-relative value is best left behind. (shrink)

In the introduction to the second volume of Capitalism and Schizophrenia Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari develop, under the tide Rhizome, the principles of a new method of thinking. One could, with the certain approval of the authors, turn around the theorem of Carl Schmitt and claim that, since the “highpoints of great [philosophy] are at the same time those moments in which the enemy is sighted in concrete distinctness as an enemy,” rhizome-thinking also starts out from the definition of (...) the enemy. It is discerned in Western Rationalism, which rhizome-thinking rejects in all its historical manifestations. An argumentational strategy characteristic of rhizome-thinking is thus made visible: that it again and again reproduces the categories that it negates. (shrink)

Old High German spells are among the earliest texts in the German vernacular. At first, they were passed on as marginal entries in theological manuscripts. Based on two representative examples, the Merseburger Cod. 136, and the Trierer Hs 40/1018 8°, the relationships between the spells, other marginalia, and the main text shall be explored with regard to their content and function. The question arises whether and to what extent the formal positioning on the margins of the manuscripts equates to a (...) marginalisation in terms of content. This is of particular interest in view of the fact that the relationship between incantations and the Christian canon had always been a precarious one. In contrast to earlier research, which tended towards strict demarcation of the magical-pagan spells from the Christian main texts, this paper will explore the idea that the marginalia might function as a kind of performative frame. Thus, in the sense of Derrida’s understanding of the parergon, the spells are at the same time set apart from the (canonical) main text, yet also resemble it. This would implicate that, despite the genuine relationship between main text and marginalia, the relationship remained one of tension. (shrink)

This book integrates insights from philosophy, gender studies, political theory, and media studies to present an in depth analysis of masculinity politics in contemporary U.S. culture. While primarily a philosophical work, this book also creates a discussion committed to feminist theory and progressive gender politics.

The flourishing life, summarised by Miroslav Volf and Matthew Croasmun, identifies three interconnected components to human flourishing: the life going well, the life led well, and the life feeling as it should. Further, they, alongside many theologians with a Christocentric focus, propose that Jesus is the epitome of the flourishing life. However, according to the Gospels, life did not always go well for Jesus, nor did it always feel as it should. Despite this, Jesus still embodies the life led well. (...) Yet this raises questions about the extent to which common human beings (those not hypostasised to the second Person of the Trinity) can emulate the kind of life that Jesus leads. To explore the possible similarity and dissimilarity between the life of Jesus and mere humans who are indwelt by the Holy Spirit, this article will utilise a framework from within Self-Determination Theory as it relates specifically to human agency and motivation. The more internalised the motivation, the more agentic the person is, and the better the life is led. Yet this is not a flourishing for its own sake or for its own ends but is agency utilised for the sake of the other. (shrink)

While there has been an increase of Black women faculty in higher education institutions, the academy writ large continues to exploit, discriminate, and uphold institutionalized gendered racism through its policies and practices. Black women have navigated, negotiated, and learned how to thrive from their respective standpoint and epistemologies, traversing the academy in ways that counter typical narratives of success and advancement. This edited volume bridges together foundational and contemporary intergenerational, interdisciplinary voices to elucidate Black feminist epistemologies and praxis. Chapters highlight (...) relevant research, methodologies, and theoretical or conceptual frameworks; share experiences as doctoral students, current faculty, and academic administrators; and offer lessons learned and strategies to influence systemic and institutional change for, with, and alongside Black women. (shrink)

This paper examines the psychology of existential guilt with Martin Heidegger and Rollo May’s conceptualizations as the point of departure. The concept of existential guilt describes preconditions for responsibility and accountability in life choices and the relationship to the potential given in the life of a human. It might also be used as a starting point to examine an individual’s relationship to the potential offered in their life and life context and, in this way, the hitherto unlived life of an (...) individual. The following questions are discussed in contexts of identity development, perfectionism, and current cultural shifts in conceptualizations of selfhood: How can humans relate to the fact that only limited parts of who they might be can ever be actualized? Moreover, how can they relate to the fundamental ambiguity and “groundlessness” in the contexts of life where choices are made? There are striking parallels between the role of exploration in the Eriksonian approaches to healthy identity development and the ontological groundlessness that stands out as a premise for existential guilt. There are also parallels between identity fore-closure and normative identity styles and “falling” into das Man in the existential framework. Perfectionistic ideals easily become an objectivization – and closure – of possible alternatives and choices. In contemporary theories of constructions of selfhood, the dangers of alienation from the community on the one hand and escape into what might become totalitarian collectivism on the other is pointed out. The contextualization of personal responsibility offered through the concept of existential guilt might address both dangers. It provides a perspective on how personal responsibility is embedded in contexts of human relationships, relationships to nature, and the finitude, freedom, uncertainties, and suffering that is given through human existence. Existential guilt can wake sorrow and regret over opportunities overlooked and lost. However, most of all, it can be seen as a drive toward repair in the relationship toward both oneself and the other. It takes the form of receptivity, an openness to a life not yet lived, and creative use of imagination. (shrink)

Die zentrale Stellung des Po-Konzepts in der polynesischen Religion steht somit fest. Für die Polynesier war Po eine geistige Realität, etwas überaus Heiliges. Es war eine heilige Zeit am Urbeginn der Welt. Es war ewig und allgegenwärtig, ein erhabenes Kontinuum, das in der Nacht und im Kult weiter bestand. Po und Ao bildeten das Ordnungsprinzip der Welt; "Po gehörte den Göttern, Ao den Menschen"48. Mit Konsequenz und logischer Klarheit konstituierten Po und Ao die Ordnung aller Lebensphänomene. Sie erklärten den Ursprung (...) alles auf Erden Bestehenden und gaben allen Wesen, Dingen und Institutionen Sinn und Bedeutung. Sie bildeten ein holistisches Prinzip, das alle Lebensbereiche von Religion bis Sex umfaßte und durchdrang und Urzeit und Gegenwart, Zeit und Raum, Götter und Menschen, das Sakrale und das Profane, Fürsten und Volk, Lebende und Tote, Geburt und Tod in einem großartigen geistig-religiösen System zusammenschloß. (shrink)

Spanish Philosopher José Ortega y Gasset advanced a number of strong criticisms of American pragmatism, yet some pragmatist notions can also be detected in his own philosophy. Within Ortega’s pragmatist perspectivism one can locate the possibility of overcoming one of the principal perceived problems of pragmatism: namely, its tendency toward relativism. This paper focuses on the ways in which Ortega’s discussion of pragmatism pertains to history and historiography. Ortega’s position that history is written from a select number of perspectives is (...) congenial to pragmatist pluralism. What is recorded and continues to thrive in the annals of history is, within a pragmatist framework, whatever continues to be interesting, relevant, useful, and meaningful because it makes a difference – from and for these perspectives. The more of these perspectives we study, the closer we approach what, on Ortega’s view, constitutes the “eternal truth which every period has lived,” because materials initially gathered and framed for pragmatic reasons can later on provide important opportunities for the reflexive analysis of historical knowledge. (shrink)

Franz Brentanos (1838-1917) Psychologie vom empirischen Standpunkte aus dem Jahre 1874 gehört zu den Klassikern der Philosophie und der Psychologie. Mit diesem Werk, das den Ausgangspunkt sowohl für die phänomenologische Tradition als auch für die heutige Philosophie des Geistes markiert, konnte sich Brentano im damaligen philosophischen Panorama durchsetzen - sein Name ist auch heute noch unauflöslich mit diesem Werk verknüpft. Die Entdeckung bzw. Wiederentdeckung der Grundstruktur psychischer Phänomene, d. h. deren Intentionalität, stellt wohl den wichtigsten Beitrag Brentanos zum Aufbau einer (...) Analytik des Geistes dar. (shrink)