The aim of this observational longitudinal cohort study was to describe relationships over time between degrees of stress of conscience, perceptions of conscience, burnout scores and assessments of person-centred climate and social support among healthcare personnel working in municipal care of older people. This study was performed among registered nurses and nurse assistants (n = 488). Data were collected on two occasions. Results show that perceiving one’s conscience as a burden, having feelings of emotional exhaustion and depersonalization and noticing disturbing (...) conflicts between co-workers were positively associated with stress of conscience. No significant changes were observed during the year under study, but degrees of stress of conscience and burnout scores were higher than in previous studies, suggesting that downsizing and increased workloads can negatively affect healthcare personnel. Following and expressing one’s conscience in one’s work, and perceiving social support from superiors are of importance in buffering the effects of stress of conscience. (shrink)

Background: Conscience is an important concept in ethics, having various meanings in different cultures. Because a growing number of healthcare professionals are of immigrant background, particularly within the care of older people, demanding multiple ethical positions, it is important to explore the meaning of conscience among care providers within different cultural contexts. Research objective: The study aimed to illuminate the meaning of conscience by enrolled nurses with an Iranian background working in residential care for Persian-speaking people with dementia. Research design: (...) A phenomenological hermeneutical method guided the study. Participants and research context: A total of 10 enrolled nurses with Iranian background, aged 33–46 years, participated in the study. All worked full time in residential care settings for Persian-speaking people with dementia in a large city, in Sweden. Ethical considerations: The study was approved by the Regional Ethical Review Board for ethical vetting of research involving humans. Participants were given verbal and written study information and assured that their participation was voluntary and confidential. Findings: Three themes were constructed including perception of conscience, clear conscience grounded in relations and striving to keep a clear conscience. The conscience was perceived as an inner guide grounded in feelings, which is dynamic and subject to changes throughout life. Having a clear conscience meant being able to form a bond with others, to respect them and to get their confirmation that one does well. To have a clear conscience demanded listening to the voice of the conscience. The enrolled nurses strived to keep their conscience clear by being generous in helping others, accomplishing daily tasks well and behaving nicely in the hope of being treated the same way one day. Conclusion: Cultural frameworks and the context of practice needed to be considered in interpreting the meaning of conscience and clear conscience. (shrink)

Troubled conscience may jeopardize the health of healthcare personnel and, hence, the quality of care provided. Learning more about how personnel deal with their troubled conscience therefore seems important. The aim of this study was to describe personnel’s experiences of how they deal with troubled conscience generated in their daily work in municipal care of older people. Interviews were conducted with 20 care providers and analysed with a thematic content analysis. The findings show that in order to deal with troubled (...) conscience, personnel dialogued with themselves and with others. They took measures in a direction they perceived to be correct, and they expressed a need for distancing and re-energizing. It is of importance to share situations that generate troubled conscience in order to find ways to deal with them. Reconsidering one’s ways of dealing with troubled conscience may give care providers an opportunity to reach consensus within themselves. (shrink)

The Perceptions of Conscience Questionnaire (PCQ) and the Stress of Conscience Questionnaire (SCQ) have previously been developed and validated within the ‘Stress of Conscience Study’. The aim was to revalidate these two questionnaires, including two additional, theoretically and empirically significant items, on a sample of healthcare personnel working in direct contact with patients. The sample consisted of 503 healthcare personnel. To test variation and distribution among the answers, descriptive statistics, item analysis and principal component analysis (PCA) were used to examine (...) the underlying factor structure of the questionnaires. Support for adding the new item to the PCQ was found. No support was found for adding the new item to the SCQ. Both questionnaires can be regarded as valid for Swedish settings but can be improved by rephrasing some of the PCQ items and by adding items about private life to the SCQ. (shrink)

Eva Picardi has been one of the most influential Italian analytic philosophers of her generation. She taught for forty years at the University of Bologna, raising three generations of students. This collection of selected writings honors her work, confirming Picardi's status as one of the most important Frege scholars of her generation and a leading authority on the philosophy of Donald Davidson. Bringing together Picardi's contributions to the history of analytic philosophy, it includes her papers on major 20th-century figures such (...) as Wittgenstein, Quine, Davidson, Rorty, and Brandom. She examines their work in comparison with the philosopher Michael Dummett's, illuminating contrasts between American Neo-pragmatism and Continental philosophy. By considering key contributions made by Gadamer and Adorno and contrasting them with Davidson and Rorty's proposals, Picardi is able to bridge the Analytic and Continental divide. Featuring an introduction by Annalisa Coliva and new translations of previously unpublished papers, this collection emphasizes the significance of Picardi's work for a new generation of readers. (shrink)

This book provides a philosophical theory explicating the cognitive contribution of metaphor. Metaphor effects a transference of meaning, not between two terms, but between two structured domains of content, or ‘semantic fields’. Semantic fields, construed as necessary to a theory of word-meaning, provide the contrastive and affinitive relations that govern a term’s literal use. In a metaphoric use, these relations are projected into a second domain which is thereby reordered with significant cognitive effects. The book provides a revision and refinement (...) of ‘the semantic theory of metaphor’. Taking into account pragmatic considerations and recent linguistic and psychological studies, the book aims to forge a new understanding of the relation between metaphoric and literal meaning. It illustrates the thesis with sensitive and systematic analyses of metaphors found in literature, philosophy, science, and everyday language. Keywords:,, . (shrink)

Philosophische Familien- und Geschlechterkonzeptionen waren zu allen Zeiten ein wesentlicher Bestandteil der philosophischen Arbeit, insbesondere in der politischen Philosophie, da jede gesellschaftliche Ordnung auf einer bestimmten Familienform und darin institutionalisierten Geschlechterverhältnissen beruht. Auch Hegel hat sich intensiv mit den Begriffen Familie und Geschlecht auseinandergesetzt. Eva Bockenheimers Arbeit liefert einen Kommentar zu den dafür zentralen Abschnitten der "Phänomenologie des Geistes" und der "Grundlinien der Philosophie des Rechts" unter Einbeziehung zahlreicher Schriften und Vorlesungen, insbesondere der "Naturphilosophie" und der "Vorlesungen über die Philosophie (...) der Weltgeschichte". Ergebnis ist, dass Hegel einen ausgefeilten, systematisch eingebetteten Gedankengang zum Familien- und Geschlechterverhältnis und dessen Geschichte präsentiert, der grundlegende Einsichten bietet - auch für die Analyse der aktuellen Verhältnisse und für die Erarbeitung eines auf Emanzipation zielenden, zeitgemässen Begriffs von Familie und Geschlechtlichkeit."--Publisher's website. (shrink)

Ideas about heredity and evolution are undergoing a revolutionary change. New findings in molecular biology challenge the gene-centered version of Darwinian theory according to which adaptation occurs only through natural selection of chance DNA variations. In Evolution in Four Dimensions, Eva Jablonka and Marion Lamb argue that there is more to heredity than genes. They trace four "dimensions" in evolution -- four inheritance systems that play a role in evolution: genetic, epigenetic, behavioral, and symbolic. These systems, they argue, can all (...) provide variations on which natural selection can act. Evolution in Four Dimensions offers a richer, more complex view of evolution than the gene-based, one-dimensional view held by many today. The new synthesis advanced by Jablonka and Lamb makes clear that induced and acquired changes also play a role in evolution.After discussing each of the four inheritance systems in detail, Jablonka and Lamb "put Humpty Dumpty together again" by showing how all of these systems interact. They consider how each may have originated and guided evolutionary history and they discuss the social and philosophical implications of the four-dimensional view of evolution. Each chapter ends with a dialogue in which the authors engage the contrarieties of the fictional "I.M.," or Ifcha Mistabra -- Aramaic for "the opposite conjecture" -- refining their arguments against I.M.'s vigorous counterarguments. The lucid and accessible text is accompanied by artist-physician Anna Zeligowski's lively drawings, which humorously and effectively illustrate the authors' points. (shrink)

-- 2. Moses Mendelssohn -- 3. Hermann Cohen --.

The question of whether global democracy requires a world state has with few exceptions been answered with an unequivocal ‘No’. A world state, it is typically argued, is neither feasible nor desirable. Instead, different forms of global governance arrangements have been suggested, involving non-hierarchical and multilayered models with dispersed authority. The overall aim of this paper is to addresses the question of whether global democracy requires a world state, adopting a so-called ‘function-sensitive’ approach. It is shown that such an approach (...) is equipped to resist the predominant binary view of a world state and offer a more differentiated and nuanced answer to this question. In brief, a basic presumption of a function-sensitive approach is that the content, justification and status of principles of democracy are dependent on the aim they are set out to achieve, what functions they are intended to regulate (e.g., decision-making, implementation, enforce... (shrink)

In der Öffentlichkeit häufig als Auswanderungsland wahrgenommen, unternahm China in den letzten Jahren verstärkt Bemühungen, qualifizierte Fachkräfte aus dem Ausland für den chinesischen Arbeitsmarkt zu gewinnen. Die Einführung eines Fachkräfteeinwanderungssystem mit abgestuften Rechten für Arbeitsmigrant:innen sollte diese Entwicklung fördern. Die vorliegende Analyse zeigt, dass diese Reform des Einwanderungssystems die Gerichtspraxis nicht verändert hat. Abseits der politischen Diskurse um die Anwerbung von internationalen Talenten und der Propagierung Chinas als Wissenssupermacht, bleibt China aufgrund der existierenden Probleme im bestehenden Rechtssystems für Arbeitsmigrant:innen unattraktiv.

Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel und die Weiter- und Höherenentwicklung seiner Ideen, von A. Abusch.-G.W.F. Hegel und seine Zeit (1770-1831). Eine Chronik.-G.W.F. Hegels Werke in Erstausgaben.-Aus Werken Hegels.-Marx, Engels, Lenin über Hegel.-Hegel Literatur in der DDR 1949-1969.-Hegel Literatur zum Hegel Jahr 1970.-Veranstaltungen aus Anlass des 200. Geburtstages von G.W.F. Hegel am 27. August 1970.

With regard to current debates on the ethical implementation of AI, especially two demands are linked: the call for explainability and for ultimate human responsibility. In the medical field, both are condensed into the role of one person: It is the physician to whom AI output should be explainable and who should thus bear ultimate responsibility for diagnostic or treatment decisions that are based on such AI output. In this article, we argue that a black box AI indeed creates a (...) rationally irresolvable epistemic situation for the physician involved. Specifically, strange errors that are occasionally made by AI sometimes detach its output from human reasoning. Within this article it is further argued that such an epistemic situation is problematic in the context of ultimate human responsibility. Since said strange errors limit the promises of explainability and the concept of explainability frequently appears irrelevant or insignificant when applied to a diverse set of medical applications, we deem it worthwhile to reconsider the call for ultimate human responsibility. (shrink)

Is musical practice 'real' - and how is it connected with everyday life? Eva-Maria Houben shows that making music changes as soon as its meaning is not sought in a purpose-oriented production of results, but in performing music as an activity - indeed, as play. Musical practice, Eva-Maria Houben contends, should be understood as open and never finished. Such an emphasis on repetition can free us from perfection, productivity, and purpose, allowing meaning to unfold in specific situations, places, and relationships. (...) Thus understood, musical practice can become a form of life and a reality in its own right. (shrink)

'...a challenging and useful book, both because it provokes a careful scrutiny of one's own basic ideas regarding evolutionary theory, and because it cuts across so many biological disciplines.' -The Quarterly Review of Biology 'In my view, this work exemplifies Theoretical Biology at its best...here is rampant speculation that is consistently based on cautious reasoning from the available data. Even more refreshing is the absence of sloganeering, grandstanding, and 'isms'.' -Biology and Philosophy 'Epigenetics is fundamental to understanding both development and (...) gene expression, and not surprisingly, evolutionary biologists have long been fascinated with its proper place in evolutionary theory...Enter Jablonka and Lamb, who provide a thoughtful review of the recent molecular literature and suggest a number of potential consequences.' -EvolutionSince first publication of this controversial book, much of the initial opposition to the ideas it contained has been replaced by a general, although often grudging, acceptance of them. Advances in knowledge, especially at the molecular level, have enhanced general awareness and interest in epigenetics and the evolution of systems that store and transmit information and put any of the authors' speculations on a more solid basis. This paperback edition contains a new Preface that sets out the major changes in the scientific world and in the authors' own thinking that have occurred since the book was published. A new Appendix provides a selected bibliography of the many books and articles about epigenetic inheritance and its role in evolution that have appeared since first publication. (shrink)

Time and the body -- Time and the mind -- Time and culture -- Time in our time.

В сборнике представлены работы, посвященные опыту истории государственно-конфессиональных отношений в России, а также проблемам свободомыслия в истории религиозной и общественно-политической жизни, теории и практике марксистско-ленинского атеизма.

Cursory review of the reception of Adorno's unfinished Aesthetic Theory up to the present suggests that an introduction to the book's major concerns, its structure (or lack thereof), and its concepts is missing to this date. Going back to Fredric Jameson's watershed contribution Late Marxism: Adorno, Or, the Persistence of the Dialectic (1990), the article attempts to provide the introduction missing to date. It is organized around key concepts of Adorno's Aesthetic Theory, beginning with the guiding juxtaposition of Kant's formalist (...) aesthetics vs. Hegel's content aesthetics and the various notions of the End of Art, followed by two sections on art and its respective others (from the culture industry and art appreciation to nature and natural beauty), and concluding with the axiom of suffering and its impact on the key notions of semblance, expression, and mimesis. (shrink)

“Red tide” has become a familiar shorthand for unusual changes in the color of ocean waters. It is intimately related both to blooms of creatures like dinoflagellates and to the devastating effects they pose to coastal fisheries. This essay tracks the early twentieth century emergence of discolored water as an aquacultural problem, known in Japan as akashio, and its trans-oceanic transformation into the terms and practices of “red tide” in the post-World War II United States. For Japan’s “Pearl King” Mikimoto (...) Kōkichi and his contacts in diverse marine scientific communities, the years-long cycle of guarding and cultivating a pearl oyster went together with the ascription of moral qualities to tiny creatures that posed a threat to farmed bayscapes of pearl monoculture. As akashio, discolored water went from curiosity to marine livestock pest, one that at times left dead pearl oysters in its wake. Red tide arose from the sustained study of the mechanisms by which changes in the biological and chemical composition of seawater might become deadly to exclusively-claimed shellfish along Japanese coastlines, but came to be seen as a way to understand aquatic manifestations of harm in other parts of the littoral world. (shrink)

The scientific study of consciousness or subjective experiencing is a rapidly expanding research program engaging philosophers of mind, psychologists, cognitive scientists, neurobiologists, evolutionary biologists and biosemioticians. Here we outline an evolutionary approach that we have developed over the last two decades, focusing on the evolutionary transition from non-conscious to minimally conscious, subjectively experiencing organisms. We propose that the evolution of subjective experiencing was driven by the evolution of learning and we identify an open-ended, representational, generative and recursive form of associative (...) learning, which we call Unlimited Associative Learning (UAL), as an evolutionary transition marker of minimal consciousness. This evolutionary marker provides evidence that the evolutionary transition to consciousness has gone to completion and allows reverse-engineering from this learning capacity to the system that enables it – making possible the construction of a toy model of UAL. The model allows us to identify some of the key processes and structures that constitute minimal consciousness, points its taxonomic distribution and the ecological context in which it first emerged, highlights its function and suggests a framework for exploring developmental and evolutionary modifications of consciousness. We point to ways of experimentally testing the relationship between UAL and consciousness in human and in non-human animals and discuss the theoretical and ethical implications of our approach. The framework we offer allows the exploration of the evolutionary changes in agency, value systems, selective processes and goals that were involved in the transition to subjective experiencing from a perspective that resonates with the approaches of bio-semioticians. (shrink)

Eva Brann delves into Heraclitus's famously cryptic saying, "all things come to be in accordance with this Logos.".

Based on the categorical connection between the field and the state of exception, I propose to discuss on this article Giorgio Agamben’s conception of the state of exception in its paradoxical relationship with the law, a relationship which is proper to the paradoxical structure of sovereignty. The field is to the Italian thinker the experience which is able to clarify the paradoxical dimension of the state of exception because it expresses itself at the same time as inside and outside the (...) legal system. On the contemporary experience the state of exception is no longer characterized as an exceptional experience, but it has become the norm. Based on this, we want to present the dialog between Agamben and Carl Schmitt, in order to reflect on the condition of the state of exception to present itself as anomy, whilst continuing to establish with the law a necessary relationship, even in the form of suspension. (shrink)

Socially responsible business and ethical behaviour of companies have been of interest to academia and practice for decades. But the focus has almost exclusively been on large corporations while small- and medium-sized enterprises (SME) have not received as much attention. Thus, this paper focuses on socially responsible business practices of SME entrepreneurs or owner–managers in Germany. Based on the assumption that decision-makers in SMEs are the central point where all business activities start, members of a German entrepreneurs association were approached (...) in the course of a qualitative and quantitative survey. They were asked to assess in what way their social responsibility is expressed in specific management practices towards selected stakeholder groups. These practices in turn were assumed to result in perceived positive reactions of the respective stakeholders and subsequently to positively influence the firm's financial performance, i.e. cost reductions and increase in profits. In the paper, a research model is presented that elaborates the relationship between an SME executive's social responsibility and the value creation of a firm, i.e. whether (personal) values create (economic) value. It was found that socially responsible management practices towards employees, customers and to a lesser extent society have a positive impact on the firm and its performance. As such, values can create additional value. (shrink)

Socially responsible business and ethical behaviour of companies have been of interest to academia and practice for decades. But the focus has almost exclusively been on large corporations while small- and medium-sized enterprises (SME) have not received as much attention. Thus, this paper focuses on socially responsible business practices of SME entrepreneurs or owner–managers in Germany. Based on the assumption that decision-makers in SMEs are the central point where all business activities start, members of a German entrepreneurs association were approached (...) in the course of a qualitative and quantitative survey. They were asked to assess in what way their social responsibility is expressed in specific management practices towards selected stakeholder groups. These practices in turn were assumed to result in perceived positive reactions of the respective stakeholders and subsequently to positively influence the firm's financial performance, i.e. cost reductions and increase in profits. In the paper, a research model is presented that elaborates the relationship between an SME executive's social responsibility and the value creation of a firm, i.e. whether (personal) values create (economic) value. It was found that socially responsible management practices towards employees, customers and to a lesser extent society have a positive impact on the firm and its performance. As such, values can create additional value. (shrink)

The Aleksanteri Institute of the University of Helsinki organized in 25–26 of September 2009 a special symposium Northern Lights — Facets of Enlightenment Culture with the aim to discuss form of Enlightenment thought in Sweden/Finland and Russia. The symposium, which was opened by Prof. Emeritus Matti Klinge, a renowned historian of 18th- and 19th-century Finland, had four participants from Russia, five from Finland and one from Germany; thus, it was yet a quite small event, but we hope that with it (...) the foundations of a fruitful co-operation, with annual symposia on questions of Enlightenment culture, will be laid. Of the speakers, Prof. Tatiana Artemyeva, Dr. Oili Pulkkinen and Prof. Vesa Oittinen focused on more general problems of study of Enlightenment ideas, while the other contributions dealt with different ―case studies‖ either in Sweden/Finland (Dr. Kimmo Sarje, Dr. Johan Sten), Russia (Prof. Mikhail Mikeshin, Dr. Johannes Remy, Dr. Larisa Agamalian), in France (Dr. Alla Zlatopolskaya) or Germany (Dr. Carola Häntsch). (shrink)

В книгу вошли работы Т. П. Григорьевой разных лет в обновленном виде. Автор ставит перед собой задачу показать, как соотносятся западное и восточное знание, опиравшиеся на разные мировоззренческие постулаты. Для специалистов.