La question des savoirs locaux suscite de nombreux débats sur la valeur et la considération que les uns et les autres leur accordent. Au-delà des aspects les plus vulgarisés que sont l’environnement et à la pharmacopée, cet article met en évidence une conception plus holiste des savoirs locaux et montre que leur valorisation est un enjeu de justice cognitive. À cette fin, l’auteur propose une stratégie numérique en quatre points adaptée au contexte camerounais : l’acquisition de compétences numériques par les (...) citoyens pour en faire des enregistreurs de savoirs locaux, les logiciels libres pour les stocker, le libre accès pour les diffuser et les politiques gouvernementales. (shrink)

La conception de l’Un unitrine de Nicolas de Cues fait de l’unité de l’Un un résultat. L’unité résulte d’un mouvement infini, d’une conversion : unitas, aequalitas, connexio. L’unité comme résultat n’est pas l’Un neutre et immédiat, l’unitas initiale, mais l’Un médiatisé qui s’est égalisé sans se diviser en s’actuant comme relation infinie à soi. L’Un vit de sa propre histoire a priori. Il se réfléchit sans être. Nous comparons cette pensée cusaine de l’Unum in se à celle, thomiste, de l’Esse (...) per se subsistens qui ne se précède pas à lui-même dans son acte d’être, qui est unique et immédiat, immuable, infini, éternel, parce qu’il est. Il n’est pas parce qu’il est un, il est un parce qu’il est. (shrink)

This article aims to establish that literature is an ideal laboratory for undertaking some phenomenological experimentations, even when not explicitly intended by the author. By considering three works (Der Zauberberg by Thomas Mann, Il deserto dei Tartari by Dino Buzzati and Le rivage des Syrtes by Julien Gracq) that all tell the story of one man gone far away from his country and isolated in a mysterious, fascinating and closed place, we propose to study the complex relations that weave (...) between space and time and between landscape and consciousness, and to deduce from it their phenomenological impact. We attempt to show that space localization and organisation influence and even modify the behaviour and the personality of humans, and induce a new relation to temporality: the mountain arouses boredom, the desert prepares the expectation and the shore brings the facing of one’s fate. (shrink)

Saint Thomas d’Aquin a témoigné d’un grand respect et d’une réelle estime pour Avicenne dont l’œuvre et la pensée ont exercé sur lui une influence féconde. Il le considère comme un Maître et se réjouit de constater une parenté de pensée et, sur certains point, l’accord de la doctrine du philosophe musulman avec sa foi chrétienne. Durant la première moitié du xxe siècle, d’excellentes études ont attiré l’attention sur les sources avicenniennes de sa pensée. Une liste de plus de (...) quatre cent cinquante citations d’Avicenne a été relevée dans les œuvres de saint Thomas. La pensée d’Avicenne est implicitement présente dans l’ensemble de l’œuvre sans que l’auteur soit nécessairement mentionné. Que nous enseigne l’ensemble de ces références sur l’influence de la pensée d’Avicenne sur celle de saint Thomas? Nous nous proposons de citer les passages les plus significatifs où la pensée de l’Aquinate révèle les options majeures de la métaphysique et de la philosophie de la connaissance prises à la lumière de l’avicennisme. Nous étudions ce qui rapproche les deux auteurs et ce qui les sépare. (shrink)

The hermeneutic context of scientific activity requires that scientific discovery be attributed not only to historical factors but also to transcendental factors (in the sense exemplified by Kant and Husserl, but without their respective idealism). Together these factors can account for a scientific discovery. This is manifest in the invention of Relativity by Einstein. Thomas Kuhn considered the first factors and neglected the seconds. As a consequence the "paradigms" are, for him, incommensurable. But this negligence is the effect of (...) a "positivism of mentalities" which replaced in Kuhn the positivism of facts. This residual positivism is not alleviated by the relativist theses that the last Kuhn borrowed from his colleague, the philosopher Quine. In the line of this positivism and relativism, the successors of Kuhn and Quine are obliged to under-estimate the value of scientific knowledge. (shrink)

L’œuvre du persan Avicenne, offre le témoignage d’une pensée de l’être qui traverse l’histoire de la philosophie et en fait le contemporain, aussi bien d’Aristote et de Plotin, que de Thomas d’Aquin et de Duns Scot, ou de Husserl et de Heidegger. Les contributions réunies dans ce volume le confirment. Les textes analysés, les thèmes traités, mettent en relief le rôle et l’apport décisif d’un auteur qui se situe à un carrefour où se croisent l’héritage aristotélicien et néo...

L’article présente l’édition critique du Traité sur l’être de raison de François de Prato, précédée d’une introduction historico-philosophique. Ce traité est une des premières réactions italiennes à la diffusion de la philosophie du langage et de la logique de Guillaume d’Occam. François y argumente contre la réduction occamiste de l’être de raison aux actes de connaissance, entendus comme des entités existant ‘subjectivement’ dans l’intellect. En suivant Thomas d’Aquin et Hervé de Nédellec, il développe au contraire une théorie relationnelle et (...) ‘objective’ de l’être de raison. (shrink)

In this article I argue that although the prevailing interpretation within the Thomistic contemporary critical literature, claiming the inaccessibility of God’s quid sit, is faithful both to Saint Thomas and to John Capreolus’s account of Aquinas’s doctrine, it is far from being uncontroversial in the first steps of the history of Thomism. A central step in this history is marked by the Parisian Condemnation of 1277, which is at the origin of relevant debate within the Dominican Order on the (...) question of the knowledge of God’s quid sit. Aquinas’s contemporaries, indeed, interpreted the condemnation of Proposition 214 as a measure taken against Saint Thomas’s negative theology, as confirmed by John Capreolus’s testimony. Capreolus defends Aquinas, claiming that Saint Thomas’s doctrine is not a radical negative theology; in spite of this, he maintains that we cannot know God’s quiddity. In the following history of the debate, however, two influential representatives of the Dominican Order, Tommaso de Vio and Francesco Silvestri will affirm the accessibility of God’s quid sit, restoring an old doctrine by Durand of Saint Pourçain and Hervé of Nédellec. (shrink)

The increasing availability of brain data within and outside the biomedical field, combined with the application of artificial intelligence (AI) to brain data analysis, poses a challenge for ethics and governance. We identify distinctive ethical implications of brain data acquisition and processing, and outline a multi-level governance framework. This framework is aimed at maximizing the benefits of facilitated brain data collection and further processing for science and medicine whilst minimizing risks and preventing harmful use. The framework consists of four primary (...) areas of regulatory intervention: binding regulation, ethics and soft law, responsible innovation, and human rights. (shrink)

May lethal autonomous weapons systems—‘killer robots ’—be used in war? The majority of writers argue against their use, and those who have argued in favour have done so on a consequentialist basis. We defend the moral permissibility of killer robots, but on the basis of the non-aggregative structure of right assumed by Just War theory. This is necessary because the most important argument against killer robots, the responsibility trilemma proposed by Rob Sparrow, makes the same assumptions. We show that the (...) crucial moral question is not one of responsibility. Rather, it is whether the technology can satisfy the requirements of fairness in the re-distribution of risk. Not only is this possible in principle, but some killer robots will actually satisfy these requirements. An implication of our argument is that there is a public responsibility to regulate killer robots ’ design and manufacture. (shrink)

Codes of ethics are directly aimed at behavioral control, but they also affect a company’s ethical culture, which in turn concerns compliance and ethical behavior. To positively influence a company’s ethical culture, employees must be familiar with its code of ethics, perceive that top management is committed to the code, and believe that their peers also comply with the code. The evidence on whether a code’s design affects a company’s ethical culture is limited. This study’s factorial survey experiment contributes to (...) this gap in two ways: first, it investigates whether a code’s design affects how easily the code can be learned and, therefore, contributes to code familiarity. Second, it examines how a code can convey expectations regarding top management’s commitment and peers’ behavior, both of which are part of ethical culture. The results indicate that a positive tone increases code familiarity, and a code signed by top managers sends a strong signal of their commitment to the code. Finally, various implications of the results for research and practice are discussed. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:THEOLOGY AT FRIBOURG SINCE ITS FOUNDATION in 1889, the faculties of theology and of philosophy at the University of Fribourg in Switzerland have been under the auspices of the Dominican Order. Unlike the Catholic University at Lublin (Poland) where a consciously developed school of phenomenological Thomism exists, one can speak only in the broadest terms about a "Fribourg school" of philosophy or theology. The reason for this lies in (...) the fact that members of the Faculty have professionally proved themselves in varied and highly specialized areas of theology, in dogmatic and moral theorology, in exegesis, canon law, liturgy, etc. Historically this appraisal finds verification when one considers the contributions made in the first half of the century by such men as N. del Prado, F. Marin-Sola, and G. Manser in dogmatics; D. Prummer in morals; V. Zapletal and M. Sales in Scripture; and P. Mandonnet in historical theology.1 A similar list of distinguished philosophers and theologians who have taught in the more recent past or who are actually teaching at the University could be drawn up, although it would be too long to include here. The books chosen for discussion in this article have been recently published by three members of the Faculty of theology-two of whom are emeritus. Although they represent a small part of the present Faculty's scholarly output, they do provide, as the titles indicate, substantial samples of the full range of systematic theological inquiry in ethics and dogma. Nonetheless, the shared conception of theology which directs each author's approach to his respective discipline warrants joint consideration. 1 Information on the early period of the University may be found in J. Bondallaz, "Suisse" in the Dictionnaire de Theologique Oatholique, Vol. 14 (Paris, 1941) : Cols. 2733-2760. 325 326 ROMANUS CESSARIO, O.P. Broadly speaking, this shared conception derives from the strongly unified view of theology as sa.cra doctrina set forth by St. Thomas Aquinas at the very beginning of his Summa theologiae. By definition Christian theology results from intelligent reflection upon the revealed Word of God. As such it embraces within its range of concerns everything which has to do with God himself and the real world He created. Still, because of his capacity for an authentic relationship with the blessed Trinity and the special destiny implied in the status of adoptive sonship, the human person holds a privileged place among theology's interests. As a result, the starting point for theology is the words and deeds of Jesus Christ as they have been recorded in the canonical Scriptures. These acta et gesta Christi hold a unique place in the life of the Christian Church precisely because of who Jesus is, a man, one like us, hypostatically united to the divine Logos. For Aquinas theology finds its starting point in the very depths of God's Being where the Eternal Father speaks the personal Word which perfectly reflects the Godhead. In this St. Thomas reflects the clear Johannine teaching on the Trinitarian origins of all Christian life and thought, " Now they know that everything that thou hast given me is from thee; for I have given them the words thou gavest me...." (John 17 7,8). This shared conception of the nature and purpose of theology as well as the common site of their teaching careers unite the Dominican authors whose works are discussed here.2 I In his book, Theologia, which received much attention in theological educational circles, Edward Farley described a 2 Jean-Herve Nicolas, O.P., Synthese Dogmatique: De la Trinite ala Trinite (Fribourg [Suisse]: Editions Universitaires and Paris: Editions Beauchesne, 1985). Pp. xii+ 1248. FS 120,-. Servais (Th.) Pinckaers, O.P., Les sources de la morale chretienne. Sa methode, son contenu, son histoire. Etudes d'ethique chretienne, Vol. 14 (Fribourg [Suisse]: Editions Universitaries and Paris: Editions du Cerf, 1985). Pp. 523. FS 45.-. Ceslaus Spicq, O.P., Oonnaissance et Morale dans la Bible. Etudes d'ethique chretienne, Vol. 13 (Fribourg [Suisse]: Editions Universitaires and Paris: Editions du Cerf. 1985). Pp. 186. THEOLOGY AT FRIBOURG 327 process he called the fragmentation of theology.3 Arguing from within the Protestant experience, Farley points to certain historical circumstances which explain... (shrink)

When do people say that they are moved, and does this experience constitute a unique emotion? We review theory and empirical research on being moved across psychology and philosophy. We examine feeling labels, elicitors, valence, bodily sensations, and motivations. We find that the English lexeme being moved typically (but not always) refers to a distinct and potent emotion that results in social bonding; often includes tears, piloerection, chills, or a warm feeling in the chest; and is often described as pleasurable, (...) though sometimes as a mixed emotion. While we conclude that it is a distinct emotion, we also recommend studying it in a more comprehensive emotion framework, instead of using the ambiguous vernacular term being moved as a scientific term. (shrink)

This article develops a social epistemological analysis of Web-based search engines, addressing the following questions. First, what epistemic functions do search engines perform? Second, what dimensions of assessment are appropriate for the epistemic evaluation of search engines? Third, how well do current search engines perform on these? The article explains why they fulfil the role of a surrogate expert, and proposes three ways of assessing their utility as an epistemic tool—timeliness, authority prioritisation, and objectivity. “Personalisation” is a current trend in (...) Internet-delivered services, and consists in tailoring online content to the interests of the individual user. It is argued here that personalisation threatens the objectivity of search results. Objectivity is a public good; so there is a prima facie case for government regulation of search engines. (shrink)

Thomas Wheatland examines the influence of the Frankfurt School, or Horkheimer Circle, and how they influenced American social thought and postwar German sociology.

There is a close conceptual relation between the notions of religious disenchantment and scientific naturalism. One way of resisting philosophical and cultural implications of the scientific image and the subsequent process of disenchantment can be found in attempts at sketching a reenchanted worldview. The main issue of accounts of reenchantment can be a rejection of scientific results in a way that flies in the face of good reason. Opposed to such reenchantment is scientific naturalism which implies an entirely disenchanted worldview. (...) However, one of the main problems of scientific naturalism are placement problems. A reenchanted worldview does have the conceptual resources to avoid placement problems, yet seems to throw out the baby with the bathwater. A dilemma results: the Scylla of an undesirable scientific naturalism and the Charybdis of a rampant, seemingly prescientific reenchanted worldview. In this article I argue that there is a safe middle passage between these two options, i.e. the recently proposed liberal naturalism which allows for a moderate normative reenchantment. Liberal naturalism lets us have it both ways: avoiding the placement problems while retaining a necessary and reasonable adherence to science, thereby avoiding both an all-too restrictive scientific naturalism. (shrink)

Lookism refers to discrimination based on physical attractiveness or the lack thereof. A whole host of empirical research suggests that lookism is a pervasive and systematic form of social discrimination. Yet, apart from some attention in ethics and political philosophy, lookism has been almost wholly overlooked in philosophy in general and epistemology in particular. This is particularly salient when compared to other forms of discrimination based on race or gender which have been at the forefront of epistemic injustice as a (...) topic of research. This paper argues that lookism is associated with various forms of epistemic injustice. In the specific case of lookism, hermeneutic injustice takes the shape of the taboo of acknowledging that unattractive people are unattractive. This, on the one hand, results in a hampered understanding of one’s own situation insofar as one is deterred from seeing one’s looks as one major factor for one’s social position. On the other hand, this hermeneutic injustice serves as the backdrop of instances of a special kind testimonial injustice in which the ugly person’s burgeoning realization that their looks influence their social standing detrimentally is discounted due to the pejorative nature of ascribing someone the property of being unattractive or ugly. (shrink)

Despite its importance in various fields, analogical reasoning has not yet received a unified formal representation. Our contribution proposes a general scheme of inference that is compatible with different types of logic (deductive, probabilistic, non-monotonic). Firstly, analogical assessment precisely defines the similarity of two objects according to their properties, in a relative rather than absolute way. Secondly, analogical inference transfers a new property from one object to a similar one, thanks to an over-hypothesis linking two sets of properties. The belief (...) strength in the conclusion is then directly related to the belief strength in this meta-hypothesis. (shrink)

BackgroundSince 2006, the genetic testing company 23andMe has collected biological samples, self-reported information, and consent documents for biobanking and research from more than 1,000,000 individuals, through a direct-to-consumer online genetic-testing service providing a genetic ancestry report and a genetic health report. However, on November 22, 2013, the Food and Drug Administration halted the sale of genetic health testing, on the grounds that 23andMe was not acting in accordance with federal law, by selling tests of undemonstrated reliability as predictive tests for (...) medical risk factors. Consumers could still obtain the genetic ancestry report, but they no longer had access to the genetic health report in the United States. However, this did not prevent the company from continuing its health research, with previously obtained and future samples, provided that consent had been obtained from the consumers concerned, or with health reports for individuals from other countries. Furthermore, 23andMe was granted FDA authorization on February 19, 2015, first to provide reports about Bloom syndrome carrier status, and, more recently, to provide consumers with “carrier status” information for 35 genes known to cause disease.DiscussionIn this Debate, we highlight the likelihood that the primary objective of the company was probably two-fold: promoting itself within the market for predictive testing for human genetic diseases and ancestry at a low cost to consumers, and establishing a high-value database/biobank for research and personal information).SummaryBy dint of this marketing approach, a two-sided market has been established between the consumer and the research laboratories, involving the establishment of a database/DNA biobank for scientific and financial gain. We describe here the profound ethical issues raised by this setup. (shrink)

Naturalism is the current orthodoxy in analytic philosophy. Naturalism is the conjunction of the (ontological) claim that all that truly exists are the entities countenanced by the natural sciences and the (epistemological) claim that the only true knowledge is natural-scientific knowledge. Drawing on some recent work in Critical Theory, this article argues that naturalism qualifies as an ideology. This is the case because naturalism meets three key aspects shared by paradigmatic cases of ideology: (i) naturalism has practical consequences and implications (...) of a specific kind, (ii) those endorsing naturalism fall prey to a dual deception: having false meta-level beliefs about naturalism as being without alternative, and (iii) naturalism has a tendency towards self-immunisation. The article ends by suggesting we pull naturalism out of our collective cognitive backgrounds onto the main stage of critical discourse, making it a proper topic for philosophical critique again. (shrink)

This scenario-based study examines the perceptions of university students in the United States and Australia regarding the ethics and acceptability of various sales practices. Study results indicate several significant differences between U.S. and Australian university students regarding the perceptions of ethical and acceptable sales practices. These differences centered on company-salesperson and salesperson-customer relationships. The findings are significant for the employer, and have consequences for customers and competitors. They also have implications for recruiters and managers of salespeople, academics with an interest (...) in understanding cross-national differences in sales ethics, and educators preparing students for future careers as business professionals. (shrink)

Thomas Williams presents the most extensive collection of John Duns Scotus's work on ethics and moral psychology available in English. This accessible and philosophically informed translation includes extended discussions on divine and human freedom, the moral attributes of God, and the relationship between will and intellect.

I analyze the historical background and philosophical considerations of Karl Bühler and his student Karl Popper regarding the crisis of psychology. They share certain Kantian questions and methods for reflection on the state of the art in psychology. Part 1 outlines Bühler’s diagnosis and therapy for the crisis in psychology as he perceived it, leading to his famous theory of language. I also show how the Kantian features of Bühler’s approach help to deal with objections to his crisis diagnosis and (...) to aspects of his linguistic theory. Part 2 turns to Popper’s dissertation, completed in 1928 under Bühler. I analyze Popper’s disapproval of Schlick’s physicalism in psychology, as well as Popper’s attempt to extend Bühler’s Kantian strategy to the domain of the psychology of thinking. In conclusion, I indicate how these approaches to the crisis in psychology differ from Thomas Kuhn’s notions of crisis and revolution, which are still all too popular in current philosophical discussions of psychology. (shrink)

Networks for the exchange and/or sharing of genetic data are developing in many countries. We focus here on the situations in the US and France. We highlight some recent and remarkable differences between these two countries concerning the mode of access to, and the storage and use of genetic data, particularly as concerns two-sided markets and dynamic consent or dynamic electronic informed consent. This brief overview suggests that, even though the organization and function of these two-sided markets remain open to (...) criticism, dynamic e-IC should be more widely used, especially in France, if only to determine its real effectiveness. (shrink)

The practice and development of modern medicine requires large amounts of data, particularly in the domain of cancer. The future of personalized medicine lies neither with “genomic medicine” nor with “precision medicine”, but with “data medicine”. The establishment of this DM has required far-reaching changes, to establish four essential elements connecting patients and doctors: biobanks, databases, bioinformatic platforms and genomic platforms. The “transformation” of scientific research areas, such as genetics, bioinformatics and biostatistics, into clinical specialties has generated a new vision (...) of care. Molecular tumor boards are one response to these changes and are now providing better access to next-generation sequencing and new cancer treatments to patients with inoperable or metastatic cancers, and those for whom the usual treatment has failed. However, MTB face a crucial ethical challenge: maintaining and improving the trust of patients, clinicians, researchers and industry in academic medical centers supported by private or public funding rather than providing genetic data directly to private companies. We believe that, in this era of DM, appropriate modern digital communication networks will be required to maintain this trust and to improve the organization and effectiveness of the system. There is, therefore, a need to reconsider the form and content of informed consent documents at all academic medical centers and to introduce dynamic and electronic informed consent. (shrink)

This paper considers Aquinas's accounts of the end of human action and the structure of human action, examines the debate between intellectualist and voluntarist interpretations of Aquinas, and corrects mistaken accounts of Aquinas's views on freedom, necessitation, and causation.

The Reformed theological tradition has maintained that faith consists in trust, with that trust involving belief of certain doctrinal propositions. This paper has two aims. First, it contributes towards rehabilitating this conception of faith. I start, accordingly, by setting out the Reformers’ basic case: faith consists in trust because faith is a response to the promises of God, by which the Christian receives God’s forgiveness and is united with God. This argument is independent of any commitment to nondoxasticism or doxasticism (...) about faith. Second, it argues for a methodological commitment which the Reformers’ conception of faith-as-trust complies with, which I think is independently compelling, and which has significant implications for contemporary debates on faith: the kind of faith that matters is that which enables the individual to stand justified, or righteous, before God. Philosophical accounts of faith are unavoidably entangled with theological disputes about justification. (shrink)

In der 1970 gegründeten Reihe erscheinen Arbeiten, die philosophiehistorische Studien mit einem systematischen Ansatz oder systematische Studien mit philosophiehistorischen Rekonstruktionen verbinden. Neben deutschsprachigen werden auch englischsprachige Monographien veröffentlicht. Gründungsherausgeber sind: Erhard Scheibe (Herausgeber bis 1991), Günther Patzig (bis 1999) und Wolfgang Wieland (bis 2003). Von 1990 bis 2007 wurde die Reihe von Jürgen Mittelstraß mitherausgegeben.

Loneliness is commonly conceived of as a topic under the purview of psychology. Empirical research on loneliness utilizes a definition of psychology as essentially subjective, i.e. as a first-personal mental property an individual can have. As a first-personal mental property, subjects have, as it were, privileged access to their state of being lonely. Rehearsing some well-known arguments from later Wittgenstein, I argue that loneliness – contrary to an unargued assumption present in several academic engagements – is not subjective in the (...) sense that whether or not a person is lonely does not in all cases hinge on that person’s subjective mental states. This becomes apparent when considering cases of alienation from self-knowledge (Moran 2001). Using Heidegger’s notion of being-in-the-world and being-with I argue that such cases from alienation point towards the notion that loneliness is not merely a subjective feeling, but a categorically different privation of the fundamental mode of being with others. (shrink)

While Wittgenstein’s work has been extensively investigated in relation to many other important and influential philosophers, there is very little scholarly work that positively investigates the relationship between the work of Wittgenstein and Wilhelm Dilthey. To the contrary, some commentators like Hacker (2001a) suggest that Dilthey’s work (and that of other hermeneuticists) simply pales or is obsolete in comparison to Wittgenstein’s own insights. Against such assessments, this article posits that Wittgenstein’s and Dilthey’s thought most crucially intersects at the related topics (...) of scientism on the one hand and scientific and philosophical method on the other. In reconstructing Dilthey’s conceptions of understanding versus explaining and central points of Wittgenstein’s Remarks on Frazer’s Golden Bough, it becomes apparent that they share a staunch rejection of scientism and use the notion of understanding as a means to prevent methodologies from the natural sciences encroaching onto the human sciences (in Dilthey’s case) and philosophy (in Wittgenstein’s case). Notwithstanding a number of central ways in which these thinkers differ, this article closes by suggesting that there is some evidence according to which Wittgenstein, like Dilthey, can reasonably be understood as championing some central tenets of the hermeneutical tradition. (shrink)

Several studies have explored differences between North American and European doctor patient relationships. They have focused primarily on differences in philosophical traditions and historic and socioeconomic factors between these two regions that might lead to differences in behaviour, as well as divergent concepts in and justifications of medical practice. However, few empirical intercultural studies have been carried out to identify in practice these cultural differences. This lack of standard comparative empirical studies led us to compare differences between France and the (...) USA regarding end-of-life decision-making. We tested certain assertions put forward by bioethicists concerning the impact of culture on the acceptance of advance directives in such decisions. In particular, we compared North American and French intensive care professional's attitudes toward: (1) advance directives, and (2) the role of the family in decisions to withhold or withdraw life-support. (shrink)

Background and objective: Assuming the hypothesis that the general practitioner can and should be a key player in making end-of-life decisions for hospitalised patients, perceptions of GPs’ role assigned to them by hospital doctors in making withdrawal decisions for such patients were surveyed.Design: Questionnaire survey.Setting: Urban and rural areas.Participants: GPs.Results: The response rate was 32.2% , and it was observed that 70.8% of respondents believed that their participation in withdrawal decisions for their hospitalised patients was essential, whereas 42.1% believed that (...) the hospital doctors were sufficiently skilled to make withdrawal decisions without input from the GPs. Most respondents were found to believe that they had the necessary skills and enough time to participate in withdrawal decisions. The last case of treatment withdrawal in hospital for one of their patients was described by 40% of respondents, of whom only 40.0% believed that they had participated actively in the decision process. The major factors in the multivariate analysis were the GP’s strong belief that his or her participation was essential , information on admission of the patient given to the GP by the hospital department , rural practice , visit to the patient dying in hospital and a request by the family to be kept informed about the patient .Conclusion: Strong interest was evinced among GPs regarding end-of-life issues, as well as considerable experience of patients dying at home. As GPs are more closely corrected to patients’ families, they may be a good choice for third-party intervention in making end-of-life decisions for hospitalised patients. (shrink)

There is an unresolved stand-off between ontological naturalism and phenomenological thought regarding the question whether normativity can be reduced to physical entities. While the ontological naturalist line of thought is well established in analytic philosophy, the phenomenological reasoning for the irreducibility of normativity has been largely left ignored by proponents of naturalism. Drawing on the work of Husserl, Heidegger, Schütz, Stein and others, I reconstruct a phenomenological argument according to which natural science (as the foundation of naturalization projects) is itself (...) a part of the essentially normative life-world to the effect that ontological naturalism faces a bootstrapping problem. I aim to demonstrate that this stand-off is grounded in a deep disagreement about the possibility of reduction. I close by arguing that this deep disagreement turns on the question which conception about the nature of (natural) science is true. This result pits a perfectionist model of science (implied by ontological naturalism) against a pragmatist conception of science (in favour of the phenomenological argument). The motivation is that transforming the disagreement about the controversial principle into a disagreement about conceptions of science may help to offer a foundation for different attempts at solving the stand-off. (shrink)