Ethical approval must be obtained before medical research can start. We describe the differences in EA for an pseudonymous, non-interventional, observational European study. Sixteen European national coordinators of the international study on very old intensive care patients answered an online questionnaire concerning their experience getting EA. N = 8/16 of the NCs could apply at one single national ethical committee, while the others had to apply to various regional ECs and/or individual hospital institutional research boards. The time between applying for (...) EA and the first decision varied between 7 days and 300 days. In 9/16 informed consent from the patient was not deemed necessary; in 7/16 informed consent was required from the patient or relatives. The upload of coded data to a central database required additional information in 14/16. In 4/16 the NCs had to ask separate approval to keep a subject identification code list to de-pseudonymize the patients if questions would occur. Only 2/16 of the NCs agreed that informed consent was necessary for this observational study. Overall, 6/16 of the NCs were satisfied with the entire process and 8/16 were unsatisfied. 11/16 would welcome a European central EC that would judge observational studies for all European countries. Variations in the process and prolonged time needed to get EA for observational studies hampers inclusion of patients in some European countries. This might have a negative influence on the external validity. Further harmonization of ethical approval process across Europe is welcomed for low-risk observational studies. Getting ethical approval for low-risk, non-interventional, observational studies varies enormously across European countries. (shrink)

In the following study we shall investigate the ancient Greek ‘(all-)day runners’ (ήμεροδρόμοι) 2 from a historical as well as from a modern physiological perspective. Hemerodromoi were of some importance in Greek interstate communication, in particular in military long-distance communication, and are, accordingly, a subject of some interest for the study of interaction in the ancient Greek city-state culture. The investigation begins by considering the ancient evidence on these ‘(all-)day runners’ and moves on to a physiological consideration of this evidence, (...) with particular reference to the feat of the Athenian hemerodromos Pheidippides 3 who ran from Athens to Sparta in 490 BC, shortly before the famous battle of Marathon. (shrink)

BackgroundDecision-making in out-of-hospital cardiac arrest should ideally include clinical and ethical factors. Little is known about the extent of ethical considerations and their influence on prehospital resuscitation. We aimed to determine the transparency in medical records regarding decision-making in prehospital resuscitation with a specific focus on ethically relevant information and consideration in resuscitation providers’ documentation.MethodsThis was a Danish nationwide retrospective observational study of out-of-hospital cardiac arrests from 2016 through 2018. After an initial screening using broadly defined inclusion criteria, two experienced (...) philosophers performed a qualitative content analysis of the included medical records according to a preliminary codebook. We identified ethically relevant content in free-text fields and categorised the information according to Beauchamp and Childress’ four basic bioethical principles: autonomy, non-maleficence, beneficence, and justice. ResultsOf 16,495 medical records, we identified 759 (4.6%) with potentially relevant information; 710 records (4.3%) contained ethically relevant information, whereas 49 did not. In general, the documentation was vague and unclear. We identified four kinds of ethically relevant information: patients’ wishes and perspectives on life; relatives’ wishes and perspectives on patients’ life; healthcare professionals’ opinions and perspectives on resuscitation; and do-not-resuscitate orders. We identified some “best practice” examples that included all perspectives of decision-making. ConclusionsThere is sparse and unclear evidence on ethically relevant information in the medical records documenting resuscitation after out-of-hospital cardiac arrests. However, the “best practice” examples show that providing sufficient documentation of decision-making is, in fact, feasible. To ensure transparency surrounding prehospital decisions in cardiac arrests, we believe that it is necessary to ensure more systematic documentation of decision-making in prehospital resuscitation. (shrink)

Although the above listed works are quite different in character on other accounts, each may fairly be said to be dominated by the conceptuality of Immanuel Kant and, at the same time, to go some way toward exhibiting the line between Kant and Hegel less as one that calls for a choice between members of an either-or dichotomy than as one between conceptualities that are in important ways compatible, and over which a traffic of ideas may be seen to move (...) with some freedom in both directions. Having said that each goes some way toward doing this, I hasten to add two qualifications: Werkmeister, although, like Yovel, he presents us with a Kant interpretation that can have the effect of going very far toward preparing the reader for an easy transition to Hegel, unlike Yovel, he does not concern himself directly with Hegel; if the subsumption of Prauss' work under the foregoing characterization may perhaps give rise to protest either from, or on behalf of, the author, I shall nonetheless show grounds for doing so. With the foregoing qualifications in view, in pointing to the distinctive manner in which each author, in turn, contributes to this common character, I shall be presenting what I believe may be regarded as a trend in contemporary Kant scholarship that is deserving of attention. (shrink)

If you are anything like me, you may feel yourself unsure of what, as a critic these days, you ought to be talking about—whether literature qua literature, literature as rhetoric, literature as politics or as history, whether about the persistence of romanticism or the waxing of postmodernism, the decline of Yale or the rise of Duke. If, like me, you are puzzled by what we now ought to be about, you may also be like Paul de Man, who bespoke a (...) similar concern: “In a manner that is more acute for theoreticians of literature than for theoreticians of the natural or the social world, it can be said that they do not quite know what it is they are talking about, … that, whenever one is supposed to speak of literature, one speaks of anything under the sun except literature. The need for determination,” de Man concludes, “thus becomes all the stronger as a way to safeguard a discipline which constantly threatens to degenerate into gossip, trivia or self-obsession,”1De Man’s wishes are rarely fulfilled, and this instance is no exception. Despite the critic’s determinations, theory, it turns out, is the story of the failure of safeguards to do the job for which they are designed. There is no better instance of that ironic truth than the career of Paul de Man. No critic has fallen farther despite his determination; from a paragon of analytical rigor, he has become the most gossiped about critic of the late 1980s 1. Paul de Man, The Resistance to Theory , p. 29; hereafter abbreviated RT. Jerome Christensen teaches English at The Johns Hopkins University. He is the author of Coleridge’s Blessed Machine of language and Practicing Enlightenment: Hume and the Formation of a Literary Career . This essay is part of a work in progress entitled Prefigurations: Romantic Theory and Romantic Practice. (shrink)

In his recent book Criticism and Social Change Frank Lentricchia melodramatically pits his critical hero Kenneth Burke, advocate of the intellect’s intervention in social life, against the villainous Paul de Man, “undisputed master in the United States of what is called deconstruction.” Lentricchia charges that “the insidious effect of [de Man’s] work is not the proliferating replication of his way of reading … but the paralysis of praxis itself: an effect that traditionalism, with its liberal view of the division of (...) culture and political power, should only applaud.”1 He goes on to prophesy thatThe deconstruction of deconstruction will reveal, against apparent intention, a tacit political agenda after all, one that can only embarrass deconstruction, particularly its younger proponents whose activist experiences within the socially wrenching upheavals of the 1960s and early 1970s will surely not permit them easily to relax, without guilt and self-hatred, into resignation and ivory tower despair. [CSC, p. 40]Such is Lentricchia’s strenuous conjuration of a historical moment in which he can forcefully intervene—a summons fraught with the pathos excited by any reference to the heady days of political enthusiasm during the war in Vietnam. Lentricchia ominously figures a scene of rueful solitude where de Manian lucidity breaks into the big chill. And maybe it will. But Lentricchia furnishes no good reason why it should. De Manian deconstruction is “deconstructed” by Lentricchia to reveal “against apparent intention, a tacit political agenda.” And this revelation is advertised as a sure embarrassment to the younger practitioners of deconstruction—sweepingly characterized as erstwhile political activists who have, wide-eyed, opted for a critical approach that magically entangles its proponents in the soul-destroying delights of rhetoric and reaction. Left unexamined in Lentricchia’s story, however, is the basis for the initial rapport between radicalism and deconstruction. Why should collegiate activists have turned into deconstructionsists? Is not that, in Lentricchia’s terms, the same question as asking why political activists should have turned to literary criticism at all? If we suppose this original turn to be intentional, how could the initiates of this critical approach ever be genuinely betrayed into embarrassment by time or by its herald, Frank Lentricchia? On the face of it, the traducement of a secret intention would be unlikely to come as a surprise, since deconstructing deconstruction is not only the enterprise of Marxist critics like Lentricchia but also of Jacques Derrida, archdeconstructor, who unashamedly identified the embarrassment of intention as constitutive of the deconstructive method. If deconstruction is at once a natural outlet for activists and the first step on a slippery slope that ends in apostasy , it suggests a phenomenon with contours more suggestively intricate, if not less diabolically seductive, than the program Lentricchia outlines. And it is a phenomenon as worrisomely affiliative as it is bafflingly intricate. We need to know whether the relations between deconstruction and radical politics, between deconstruction and apostasy between deconstruction and criticism, and between apostasy and criticism are necessary or contingent, or neither and both at once. 1. Frank Lentricchia, Criticism and Social Change , p. 38; all further references to this work, abbreviated CSC, will be included in the text. Jerome Christensen, professor of English at the Johns Hopkins University, is the author of Coleridge’s Blessed Machine of Language and the forthcoming Hume’s Practice: The Career of an Enlightenment Man of Letters. He is currently at work on a study of Byron and the issue of strong romanticism. (shrink)

In Fortschritte und Rückschritte der Philosophie, Leonard Nelson sets forth an interpretation of the history of philosophy from the perspective of his own philosophy. From this perspective, the history of philosophy properly begins with the work of Kant and his own teacher, Fries. In order to explain how he arrives at this striking conclusion, it will be necessary to note certain features of Nelson's position.

Einleitung: zur Aktualität Natorps Daß an Tiefe und Scharfsinn die deutsche akademische Philosophie des späten 19. und frühen 20. Jahrhunderts der heutigen sprachanalytischen Philosophie nicht nachsteht, läßt sich sehr schön am Beispiel von Paul Natorp zeigen, der neben seinem Lehrer, Freund und Förderer Hermann Cohen Mitbegründer des Marburger Neukantianismus war. Nämlich sowohl auf die Frage, worin die intentionale Gerichtetheit von Bewußtseinszuständen und -erlebnissen besteht, wie auch auf die Frage, was es heißt, sich der eigenen Bewußtseinszustände und -erlebnisse bewußt zu sein, (...) gibt Natorp subtile Antworten, die auch heute noch vertreten werden. Ja, in einer Hinsicht zeigt sich Natorp den ihm nahestehenden zeitgenössischen Philosophen sogar überlegen. Denn aus einer Antwort auf die Frage nach der Intentionalität des Bewußtseins, die ihn u.a. mit Davidson, Dretske und Fodor verbindet, leitet er eine zunächst frappierende Antwort auf die Frage nach dem Selbstbewußtsein ab, eine Antwort, die etwa Davidson, Dretske und Fodor nicht geben würden, die sie aber angesichts ihrer Auffassung von Intentionalität geben sollten: Selbstbewußtsein im eigentlichen Sinne ist unmöglich. (shrink)

This inclusive cross-cultural study rethinks the nexus between engineering education and context. In so doing the book offers a reflection on contextual boundaries with an overall boundary crossing ambition and juxtaposes important cases of critical participation within engineering education with sophisticated scholarly reflection on both opportunities and discontents. Whether, and in what way engineering education is or ought to be contextualized or de-contextualized is an object of heated debate among engineering educators. The uniqueness of this study is that this debate (...) is given comprehensive coverage - presenting both instrumentally inclined as well as radical positions on transforming engineering education. In contextualizing engineering education, this book offers diverse commentary from a range of disciplinary, meta- and interdisciplinary perspectives on how cultural, professional, institutional, and educational systems contexts shape histories, structural dynamics, ideologies and challenges as well as new pathways in engineering education. Topics addressed include examining engineering education in countries ranging from India to America, to racial and gender equity in engineering education and incorporating social awareness into the area. Using context as "bridge" this book confronts engineering education head on. Contending engineering ideologies and corresponding views on context are juxtaposed with contending discourses of reform. The uniqueness of the book is that it brings together scholars from the humanities, the social sciences and engineering from Europe - both East and West - with the United States, China, Brazil, India and Australia. (shrink)

In this article I try to investigate the possible insights one may reach by considering the development on the level of socio-philosophical theories as a symptom of the development taking place on the level of social practice.

This inclusive cross-cultural study rethinks the nexus between engineering education and context. In so doing the book offers a reflection on contextual boundaries with an overall boundary crossing ambition and juxtaposes important cases of critical participation within engineering education with sophisticated scholarly reflection on both opportunities and discontents. -/- Whether and in what way engineering education is or ought to be contextualized or de-contextualized is an object of heated debate among engineering educators. The uniqueness of this study is that this (...) debate is given comprehensive coverage – presenting both instrumentally inclined as well as radical positions on transforming engineering education. -/- In contextualizing engineering education, this book offers diverse commentary from a range of disciplinary, meta- and interdisciplinary perspectives on how cultural, professional, institutional and educational systems contexts shape histories, structural dynamics, ideologies and challenges as well as new pathways in engineering education. Topics addressed include examining engineering education in countries ranging from India to America, to racial and gender equity in engineering education and incorporating social awareness into the area. -/- Using context as “bridge” this book confronts engineering education head on. Contending engineering ideologies and corresponding views on context are juxtaposed with contending discourses of reform. The uniqueness of the book is that it brings together scholars from the humanities, the social sciences and engineering from Europe – both East and West – with the United States, China, Brazil, India and Australia. (shrink)

Einleitung: zur Aktualität Natorps Daß an Tiefe und Scharfsinn die deutsche akademische Philosophie des späten 19. und frühen 20. Jahrhunderts der heutigen sprachanalytischen Philosophie nicht nachsteht, läßt sich sehr schön am Beispiel von Paul Natorp (1854–1924) zeigen, der neben seinem Lehrer, Freund und Förderer Hermann Cohen (1842–1918) Mitbegründer des Marburger Neukantianismus war. Nämlich sowohl auf die Frage, worin die intentionale Gerichtetheit von Bewußtseinszuständen und -erlebnissen besteht, wie auch auf die Frage, was es heißt, sich der eigenen Bewußtseinszustände und -erlebnisse bewußt (...) zu sein, gibt Natorp subtile Antworten, die auch heute noch vertreten werden. Ja, in einer Hinsicht zeigt sich Natorp den ihm nahestehenden zeitgenössischen Philosophen sogar überlegen. Denn aus einer Antwort auf die Frage nach der Intentionalität des Bewußtseins, die ihn u.a. mit Davidson, Dretske und Fodor verbindet, leitet er eine zunächst frappierende Antwort auf die Frage nach dem Selbstbewußtsein ab, eine Antwort, die etwa Davidson, Dretske und Fodor nicht geben würden, die sie aber angesichts ihrer Auffassung von Intentionalität geben sollten: Selbstbewußtsein im eigentlichen Sinne ist unmöglich. (shrink)

Why is there such a striking discrepancy between the flexibility, democracy and empowerment that the Bologna process aims for, and the superficial educational activities that it actually results in? Our answer is based on the ritual theory of the American anthropologist Roy Rappaport and the psychoanalytical framework of the Austrian philosopher Robert Pfaller. Interpreting schoolified education as a ritual, we argue that both the reform initiative and its ensuing educational activities should be interpreted as mainly productive of a certain appearance, (...) of compliance with prominent norms of modern society: the norms are articulated in policy documents and enacted in educational activity. We take schoolified education to be a normal ritual, in that this appearance is accepted ‘as if’ it corresponded with reality, while at the same time most people are aware (in a certain sense) of its superficial and ritualistic character. A twist, however, is added by the fact that modern society is distinctly anti-ritualistic, and therefore constantly tries to make education work ‘for real’. Drawing on Pfaller’s distinction between belief and faith, we show that this pursuit of de-ritualisation actually makes education progressively more formalised and coercive. (shrink)

Why is there such a striking discrepancy between the flexibility, democracy and empowerment that the Bologna process aims for, and the superficial educational activities that it actually results in? Our answer is based on the ritual theory of the American anthropologist Roy Rappaport and the psychoanalytical framework of the Austrian philosopher Robert Pfaller. Interpreting schoolified education as a ritual, we argue that both the reform initiative and its ensuing educational activities should be interpreted as mainly productive of a certain appearance, (...) of compliance with prominent norms of modern society: the norms are articulated in policy documents and enacted in educational activity. We take schoolified education to be a normal ritual, in that this appearance is accepted ‘as if’ it corresponded with reality, while at the same time most people are aware (in a certain sense) of its superficial and ritualistic character. A twist, however, is added by the fact that modern society is distinctly anti-ritualistic, and therefore constantly tries to make education work ‘for real’. Drawing on Pfaller’s distinction between belief and faith, we show that this pursuit of de-ritualisation actually makes education progressively more formalised and coercive. (shrink)

Edited collection on Wittgensteinian ethics. With contributions by Oskari Kuusela, Edward Harcourt, Anne-Marie Christensen, Sabina Lovibond, Alexander Miller, Benjamin De Mesel, Cora Diamond, Lars Hertzberg, Jeremy Johnson, Craig Taylor, Alice Crary, Lynette Reid.

Introduction to our edited volume on Wittgensteinian ethics with papers by Oskari Kuusela, Edward Harcourt, Anne-Marie Christensen, Sabina Lovibond, Alexander Miller, Benjamin De Mesel, Cora Diamond, Lars Hertzberg, Jeremy Johnson, Craig Taylor, Alice Crary, Lynette Reid.

Carleton B. Christensen, Self and World: From Analytic Philosophy to Phenomenology Content Type Journal Article DOI 10.1007/s10743-010-9078-2 Authors Morten S. Thaning, Department of Philosophy, Politics, and Management, Copenhagen Business School, Solbjerg Plads 3, 2000 Frederiksberg, Denmark Journal Husserl Studies Online ISSN 1572-8501 Print ISSN 0167-9848 Journal Volume Volume 26 Journal Issue Volume 26, Number 3.

Résumer pour des lecteurs de langue française le noble livre qu'ont publié l'an dernier John King-Farlow et William N. Christensen sur les rapports de la foi — entendez la foi Judéochrétienne — et la raison vivante — entendez la raison telle que la cultive de nos jours la philosophic analytique — n'est certes pas chose aisée, surtout quand le rédacteur de la chronique a été nourri et éduqué, comme c'est le cas, dans la tradition de la philosophic française! En (...) effet Faith and the Life of Reason procède d'une série d'articles qui ont paru successivement, au cours des quinze dernières années, dans d'importantes revues américaines, irlandaises ou anglaises et dont ce nouvel ouvrage constitue en quelque sorte la reprise, en même temps que la refonte, selon une perspective ordonnée. (shrink)