Negative self-referential processing has fruitfully been studied in unipolar depressed patients, but remarkably less in patients with bipolar disorder (BD). This exploratory study examines the relation between task-based self-referential processing and depressive symptoms in BD and their possible importance to the working mechanism of mindfulness-based cognitive therapy (MBCT) for BD. The study population consisted of a subsample of patients with BD (n = 49) participating in an RCT of MBCT for BD, who were assigned to MBCT + TAU (n = (...) 23) or treatment as usual (TAU) (n = 26). Patients performed the self-referential encoding task (SRET), which measures (1) positive and (2) negative attributions to oneself as well as (3) negative self-referential memory bias, before and after MBCT + TAU or TAU. At baseline, all three SRET measures were significantly related to depressive symptoms in patients with BD. Moreover, repeated measures analyses of variance revealed that negative self-referential memory bias diminished over time in the MBCT + TAU group, compared with the TAU group. Given the preliminary nature of our findings, future research should explore the possibly mediating role of reducing negative self-referential memory bias in preventing and treating depressive symptoms in BD through MBCT. (shrink)

De vagebond was van oudsher een randfiguur die de samenleving de rug toekeerde en in verband werd gebracht met bedelarij, maar dat veranderde in de negentiende eeuw: kunstenaars en andere kritische geesten kozen de vagebond juist als voorbeeld. Zij vestigden zich op eenzame locaties en verafschuwden hebzucht en commercie.0Deze dwarsdenkers zijn de voorboden van een trend in de wereld van vandaag. Deels omdat zij de huizenprijzen niet meer kunnen betalen, deels omdat zij het postkapitalistische systeem verwerpen, ontwikkelen jongeren alternatieve levenswijzen. (...) Ze verlaten de gebaande paden en bouwen tiny houses aan de rafelranden van de maatschappij; verbeelding, liefde voor de natuur en vrijheidszin staan voor hen centraal.0In zijn 'Handboek voor de vagebond' presenteert Léon Hanssen belangrijke vertegenwoordigers van deze manier van zwerven, wonen en denken. Van de Amerikaan Henry David Thoreau met zijn pleidooi om de bossen in te trekken, via de Oostenrijkse filosoof Ludwig Wittgenstein, die zich in een hut aan een Noorse fjord installeerde, tot de Engelse schuurbewoner en schrijfster Catrina Davies anno nu: zij staan voor een levenshouding die voor ons allemaal inspirerend kan zijn. (shrink)

BackgroundWith advances in sequencing technologies, increasing numbers of people are being informed about a genetic disease identified in their family. In current practice, probands are asked to inform at-risk relatives about the diagnosis. However, previous research has shown that relatives are sometimes not informed due to barriers such as family conflicts. Research on family communication in genetic diseases aims to explore the difficulties encountered in informing relatives and to identify ways to support probands in this.Main bodyResearch on family communication may (...) also reveal that participants did not inform their relatives about the risk of a serious genetic condition, even when preventive and treatment options are available. Researchers may then face a dilemma: Do they need to warn at-risk relatives about the finding? Or do they keep silent due to prior confidentiality agreements with study participants?ConclusionsWe believe that the absolute confidence promised to research participants outweighs the interests of their relatives, even though it can be claimed that relatives at risk of a genetic disease do, in principle, have a right to know information collected about their health. Not respecting confidentiality agreements could cause distrust between researchers and research participants and possibly harm the relationship between probands and relatives. Relatives' health interests can still be taken into account without jeopardizing participant trust, by considering alternative scenarios, including sharing general study findings on the barriers participants experience with their healthcare professionals and by offering participants psychosocial support for family communication. (shrink)

In In Praise of Theatre, an interview with Alain Badiou held by Nicolas Truong, Badiou answers questions about his ideas on the value and purpose of theatre. He explains that he takes ‘real theatre’ to be theatre that consists of performances that aim at making the members of the audience to reflect critically on what they have just heard or seen and, more importantly, the possibilities that were only implied by the performance. Contrary to disciplines such as philosophy, politics and (...) literature, Badiou argues, theatre is uniquely suited for this purpose, because it takes place in a ‘here and now’ that is shared by performers and audience, which places the audience in a position to ‘grasp the relation between immanence and transcendence from the view of the idea’. In addition, it uses an indirect mode of representation, instead of a direct mode of teaching. While accepting Badiou’s claim that theatre performances form a valuable means to question social conventions by communicating and transforming subjectivity, in this article I will argue that Badiou’s enthusiasm about the possibilities of theatre lead him to exaggerate its uniqueness in relation to philosophy, politics and literature. That is to say, he stretches the differences between these disciplines too far by portraying them as opposites or even rivals. In what follows, I will show for each of the comparisons that Badiou makes between theatre and these other disciplines, that they are founded on a misunderstanding of theatre’s unique position when it comes to transforming subjectivity through communication. (shrink)

The article advocates the importance of studying conceptual meaning and change in modern mass media and highlights the significance of conceptual intermediality. The article first analyzes anger in Hindi cinema as an audiovisual key concept within the framework of an Indian national ideology. It explores how anger and the Indian angry young man became popularized, politicized, and stereotyped by popular films and print media in India in the 1970s and 1980s. The article goes on to advocate for extending conceptual history (...) beyond language on theoretical grounds and identifies two major obstacles in political iconography: the methodological subordination of visuals to language in the negotiation of meaning, and the distinction of emotion and reason by assigning them functionally to different sign systems. (shrink)

Neuronal ceroid lipofuscinoses are a group of lethal inherited neurodegenerative disorders in humans and many animal species. Critical reflections on a range of ethical issues concerning NCL have been instigated by my research on sheep and cattle affected with NCL, the claim that these sheep and cattle are useful models for the disease in humans, and engagement with families and support groups. My reflections on moral status of animals and validity of animal models are outlined in this paper.

In this paper I consider emotions as the ability to grasp meaningfulness, understood as an essential component of (social) reality, which is necessary for a rational discourse and which cannot be apprehended by means of a supposedly “sober” approach. I explicitly take into account the socio-cultural situatedness of feeling subjects and put epistemically relevant emotional abilities into perspective. This approach reveals that emotions can also contribute to questioning one’s own world view and to being able to correct it if necessary. (...) The ability tobe affectively disrupted, as I call it, enables one to see the contingency of one’s emotion repertoire and habitualised schemata of grasping meaningfulness. Further, a severe affective disruption can bring about a transformation of one’s emotion repertoire and habitualised schemata, thus permanently altering the subject’s epistemic position and epistemic practice. (shrink)

University students are at elevated risk for psychological distress, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic. The aim of this study was to warmly contact our students and investigate the psychological impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the subjective wellbeing and levels of psychological symptoms of university students in Belgium. All bachelor and master students of the Vrije Universiteit Brussels were invited for a brief structured telephone interview in March, 2021. In total, 7,154 students were assessed by a structured interview, based on (...) the Kessler Psychological Distress Scale and the Anamnestic Comparative Self-Assessment. Compared to a representative sample, students considered their life during the pandemic as less satisfying compared to their life before the pandemic. Overall, all students have suffered from COVID-19 and the measures taken to contain the pandemic. Twenty percent of our sample of 7,154 VUB students scored above the K6 cutoff, indicating a heightened risk for having a diagnosable mental illness severe enough to cause functional limitations and to require treatment. This study highlights the need for psychological support for all students, during the COVID-19 pandemic. (shrink)

The Proceedings present the contributions to the 13th International Kant Congress which was held at the University of Oslo, August 6-9, 2019. The congress, which hosted speakers from more than thirty countries and five continents, was dedicated to the topic of the court of reason. The idea that reason stands before itself as a tribunal characterizes the whole of Kant's critical project. Without such a court, reason falls into conflict with itself. With such a court in place, however, it may (...) succeed in establishing the possibility and limits of metaphysics, ethics, aesthetics, law and science. The idea of reason being its own judge is not only pivotal to a proper understanding of Kant's philosophy, but can also shed light on the burgeoning fields of meta-philosophy and philosophical methodology. The 2019 Kant Congress put special emphasis on Kant's methodology, his account of conceptual critique, and the relevance of his ideas to current issues in especially political philosophy and the philosophy of law. Additional sections discussed a wide range of topics in Kant's philosophy. The Proceedings will provide anyone who is interested in exploring the variety of present-day work on Kant and Kantian themes with a wealth of fruitful inspiration. (shrink)

We answer a question of Ambos-Spies and Kuˇcera in the affirmative. They asked whether, when a real is low for Schnorr randomness, it is already low for Schnorr tests.

Situated approaches to affectivity overcome an outdated individualistic perspective on emotions by emphasizing the role embodiment and environment play in affective dynamics. Yet, accounts which provide the conceptual toolbox for analyses in the philosophy of emotions do not go far enough. Their focus falls on the present situation, abstracting from the broader historico-cultural context, and on adopting a largely functionalist approach by conceiving of emotions and the environment as resources to be regulated or scaffolds to be used. In this paper, (...) I argue that we need to take situatedness seriously: We need to acknowledge that emotions are not situated in undetermined “contexts” but in concrete socio-culturally specific practices referring to forms of living; and to agree that not only are context and emotions used for the sake of something else but also that the meaning-disclosive dimension of affective intentionality is structured by situatedness as well. To do so, I offer a multidimensional approach to situatedness that integrates the biographical and cultural dimensions of contextualization within the analysis of situated affective dynamics. This approach suggests that humans affectively disclose meaning which is at once product and producer of specific forms of living – and these are always already subjects of critique. (shrink)

The Proceedings present the contributions to the 13th International Kant Congress which was held at the University of Oslo, August 6-9, 2019. The congress, which hosted speakers from more than thirty countries and five continents, was dedicated to the topic of the court of reason. The idea that reason stands before itself as a tribunal characterizes the whole of Kant's critical project. Without such a court, reason falls into conflict with itself. With such a court in place, however, it may (...) succeed in establishing the possibility and limits of metaphysics, ethics, aesthetics, law and science. The idea of reason being its own judge is not only pivotal to a proper understanding of Kant's philosophy, but can also shed light on the burgeoning fields of meta-philosophy and philosophical methodology. The 2019 Kant Congress put special emphasis on Kant's methodology, his account of conceptual critique, and the relevance of his ideas to current issues in especially political philosophy and the philosophy of law. Additional sections discussed a wide range of topics in Kant's philosophy. The Proceedings will provide anyone who is interested in exploring the variety of present-day work on Kant and Kantian themes with a wealth of fruitful inspiration. (shrink)

In order to explore how emotions contribute positively or negatively to understanding the meaning of complex socio-culturally specific phenomena, I argue that we must take into account the habitual dimension of emotions – i.e., the emotion repertoire that a feeling person acquires in the course of their affective biography. This brings to light a certain form of alignment in relation to affective intentionality that is key to comprehending why humans understand situations in the way they do and why it so (...) often is especially hard to understand things _differently_. A crucial epistemic problem is that subjects often do not even enter a process of understanding, i.e., they do not even start to consider a specific object, theory, circumstance, other being, etc. in different ways than the familiar one. The epistemic problem at issue thus lies in an unquestioned faith in things being right the way they are taken to be. By acknowledging the habitual dimension of affective intentionality, I analyze reasons for this inability and suggest that being affectively disruptable and cultivating a pluralistic emotion repertoire are crucial abilities to overcome this epistemic problem. (shrink)

Background: In the neonatal intensive care unit, immigrant parents may experience even greater anxiety than other parents, particularly if they and the nurses do not share a common language. Aim: To explore the complex issues of trust and the nurse–mother relationship in neonatal intensive care units when they do not share a common language. Design and methods: This study has a qualitative design. Individual semi-structured in-depth interviews and two focus group interviews were conducted with eight immigrant mothers and eight neonatal (...) intensive care unit nurses, respectively. Data analysis was based on Braun and Clarke’s thematic analytic method. Ethical considerations: Approval was obtained from the hospital’s Scientific Committee and the Data Protection Officer. Interviewees were informed in their native language about confidentiality and they signed an informed consent form. Results: Trust was a focus for mothers and nurses alike. The mothers held that they were satisfied that their infants received the very best care. They seemed to find the nurses’ care and compassion unexpected and said they felt empowered by learning how to care for their infant. The nurses discussed the mother’s vulnerability, dependency on their actions, attitudes and behaviour. Discussion: Lack of a common language created a challenge. Both parties depended on non-verbal communication and eye contact. The nurses found that being compassionate, competent and knowledgeable were important trust-building factors. The mothers were relieved to find that they were welcome, could feel safe and their infants were well cared for. Conclusion: The parents of an infant admitted to the neonatal intensive care unit have no choice but to trust the treatment and care their infant receives. Maternal vulnerability challenges the nurse’s awareness of the asymmetric distribution of power and ability to establish a trusting relationship with the mother. This is particularly important when mother and nurse do not share a verbal language. The nurses worked purposefully to gain trust. (shrink)

We show that in the setting of fair-coin measure on the power set of the natural numbers, each sufficiently random set has an infinite subset that computes no random set. That is, there is an almost sure event [Formula: see text] such that if [Formula: see text] then X has an infinite subset Y such that no element of [Formula: see text] is Turing computable from Y.

A real x is -Kurtz random if it is in no closed null set . We show that there is a cone of -Kurtz random hyperdegrees. We characterize lowness for -Kurtz randomness as being -dominated and -semi-traceable.

Recent results on initial segments of the Turing degrees are presented, and some conjectures about initial segments that have implications for the existence of nontrivial automorphisms of the Turing degrees are indicated.

We show that Carmo and Jones’ condition 5 conflicts with the other conditions on their models for contrary-to-duty obligations. We then propose a resolution to the conflict.

We prove that superhigh sets can be jump traceable, answering a question of Cole and Simpson. On the other hand, we show that such sets cannot be weakly 2-random. We also study the class $superhigh^\diamond$ and show that it contains some, but not all, of the noncomputable K-trivial sets.

The article defends Heidegger’s view that the main question of Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason is the question of being. It is also argued that Heidegger special understanding of the level and method of KrV deserves serious attention. Finally it is argued that Heidegger’s phenomenological reading of the KrV is best seen as representative of an hermeneutical conception of phenomenology.

The chapter examines Kant’s conceptions of consciousness and their relation to his views on psychology as a science. Kant does not develop a philosophy of mind as such, but through his reinterpretation of metaphysics he develops different notions of consciousness. The most central and specifically Kantian concept of consciousness is that of apperception. It is argued that ‘apperception’ is not to be understood as self-consciousness or self-awareness. Rather, apperception is a capacity to be aware of one’s spontaneous activities, and it (...) can be further analyzed as the ability to respond to rules and norms. Thus understood, ‘apperception’ plays a central role not only in Kant’s theoretical philosophy but also in his moral and aesthetic theory. ‘Inner sense’ is another central concept for Kant. In the first Critique and later works, Kant distinguishes between apperception and inner sense: inner sense is the consciousness of what takes place within the mind as opposed to apperception, which is the consciousness of one’s activities. These two concepts of consciousness, ‘inner sense’ and ‘apperception’, generate two very different questions about the relation between consciousness and nature. On the one hand, there is the question of how inner or mental nature is related to physical nature; on the other hand, there is the question of how spontaneity is related to the whole of nature, inner nature as well as outer. As we shall see, Kant’s answer to the first question is closely related to his pessimism regarding the status of psychology as a science. (shrink)

Bacteria have developed an impressive ability to survive and propagate in highly diverse and changing environments by evolving phenotypic heterogeneity. Phenotypic heterogeneity ensures that a subpopulation is well prepared for environmental changes. The expression bet hedging is commonly (but often incorrectly) used by molecular biologists to describe any observed phenotypic heterogeneity. In evolutionary biology, however, bet hedging denotes a risk‐spreading strategy displayed by isogenic populations that evolved in unpredictably changing environments. Opposed to other survival strategies, bet hedging evolves because the (...) selection environment changes and favours different phenotypes at different times. Consequently, in bet hedging populations all phenotypes perform differently well at any time, depending on the selection pressures present. Moreover, bet hedging is the only strategy in which temporal variance of offspring numbers per individual is minimized. Our paper aims to provide a guide for the correct use of the term bet hedging in molecular biology. (shrink)

In algorithmic randomness, when one wants to define a randomness notion with respect to some non-computable measure λ, a choice needs to be made. One approach is to allow randomness tests to access the measure λ as an oracle . The other approach is the opposite one, where the randomness tests are completely effective and do not have access to the information contained in λ . While the Hippocratic approach is in general much more restrictive, there are cases where the (...) two coincide. The first author showed in 2010 that in the particular case where the notion of randomness considered is Martin-Löf randomness and the measure λ is a Bernoulli measure, classical randomness and Hippocratic randomness coincide. In this paper, we prove that this result no longer holds for other notions of randomness, namely computable randomness and stochasticity. (shrink)

In algorithmic randomness, when one wants to define a randomness notion with respect to some non-computable measure λ, a choice needs to be made. One approach is to allow randomness tests to access the measure λ as an oracle. The other approach is the opposite one, where the randomness tests are completely effective and do not have access to the information contained in λ. While the Hippocratic approach is in general much more restrictive, there are cases where the two coincide. (...) The first author showed in 2010 that in the particular case where the notion of randomness considered is Martin-Löf randomness and the measure λ is a Bernoulli measure, classical randomness and Hippocratic randomness coincide. In this paper, we prove that this result no longer holds for other notions of randomness, namely computable randomness and stochasticity. (shrink)

Is there a nontrivial automorphism of the Turing degrees? It is a major open problem of computability theory. Past results have limited how nontrivial automorphisms could possibly be. Here we consider instead how an automorphism might be induced by a function on reals, or even by a function on integers. We show that a permutation of ω cannot induce any nontrivial automorphism of the Turing degrees of members of 2ω, and in fact any permutation that induces the trivial automorphism must (...) be computable.A main idea of the proof is to consider the members of 2ω to be probabilities, and use statistics: from random outcomes from a distribution we can compute that distribution, but not much more. (shrink)

_Critique of Violence_ is a highly original and lucid investigation of the heated controversy between poststructuralism and critical theory. Leading theorist Beatrice Hanssen uses Walter Benjamin's essay 'Critique of Violence' as a guide to analyse the contentious debate, shifting the emphasis from struggle to dialogue between the two parties. Regarding the questions of critique and violence as the major meeting points between both traditions, Hanssen positions herself _between_ the two in an effort to investigate what critical theory and (...) poststructuralism have to offer each other. In the course of doing so, she assembles imaginative new readings of Benjamin, Arendt, Fanon and Foucault, and incisively explores the politics of recognition, the violence of language, and the future of feminist theory. This groundbreaking book will be essential reading for all students of continental philosophy, political theory, social studies and comparative literature. Also available in this series: _Essays on Otherness_ Hb: 0-415-13107-3: £50.00 Pb: 0-415-13108-1: £15.99 _Hegel After Derrida_ Hb: 0-415-17104-4: £50.00 Pb: 0-415-17105-9: £15.99 _The Hypocritical Imagination_ Hb: 0-415-21361-4: £47.50 Pb: 0-415-21362-2: £15.99 _Philosophy and Tragedy_ Hb: 0-415-19141-6: £45.00 Pb: 0-415-19142-4: £14.99 _Textures of Light_ Hb: 0-415-14273-3: £42.50 Pb: 0-415-14274-1: £13.99 _Very Little... Almost Nothing_ Pb: 0-415-12821-8: £47.50 Pb: 0-415-12822-6: £15.99. (shrink)

Concerns have been voiced about the ethical implications of patenting practices in the field of biotechnology. Some of these have also been incorporated into regulation, such as the European Commission Directive 98/44 on the legal protection of biotechnological inventions. However, the incorporation of ethically based restrictions into patent legislation has not had the effect of satisfying all concerns. In this article, we will systematically compare the richness of ethical concerns surrounding biotech patenting, with the limited scope of ethical concerns actually (...) addressed in the patent system. As sources of our analyses we will use literature and document studies and a survey with important stakeholders and experts related to Norwegian patenting in the aquacultural biotechnology sector. We will structure the analyses with an ethical matrix, developed for this purpose. Showing the misalignment of the discussions within and outside the patent system, we suggest that an important reason for the ethical controversy still surrounding patenting is that ethical questions keep being framed in a narrow way within the system. Until a richer set of ethical considerations is addressed head-on within the patent system, the patent system will continue to evoke academic and interest group criticism, potentially contributing to a legitimacy crisis of the whole system. (shrink)

Critique of Violence is a highly original and lucid investigation of the heated controversy between poststructuralism and critical theory. Leading theorist Beatrice Hanssen uses Walter Benjamin's essay 'Critique of Violence' as a guide to analyse the contentious debate, shifting the emphasis from struggle to dialogue between the two parties. Regarding the questions of critique and violence as the major meeting points between both traditions, Hanssen positions herself between the two in an effort to investigate what critical theory and (...) poststructuralism have to offer each other. In the course of doing so, she assembles imaginative new readings of Benjamin, Arendt, Fanon and Foucault, and incisively explores the politics of recognition, the violence of language, and the future of feminist theory. This groundbreaking book will be essential reading for all students of continental philosophy, political theory, social studies and comparative literature. Also available in this series: Essays on Otherness Hb: 0-415-13107-3: £50.00 Pb: 0-415-13108-1: £15.99 Hegel After Derrida Hb: 0-415-17104-4: £50.00 Pb: 0-415-17105-9: £15.99 The Hypocritical Imagination Hb: 0-415-21361-4: £47.50 Pb: 0-415-21362-2: £15.99 Philosophy and Tragedy Hb: 0-415-19141-6: £45.00 Pb: 0-415-19142-4: £14.99 Textures of Light Hb: 0-415-14273-3: £42.50 Pb: 0-415-14274-1: £13.99 Very Little ... Almost Nothing Pb: 0-415-12821-8: £47.50 Pb: 0-415-12822-6: £15.99. (shrink)

What kind of turn is the turn to ethics? A Right turn? A Left turn? A wrong turn? A U-turn? Ethics is back in literary studies, philosophy, and political theory. Where critiques of universal man and the autonomous human subject had, in recent years, produced a resistance to ethics in many fields of scholarship, today these critiques have generated a crossover among disciplines and led to theories and practices that see and do ethics otherwise. The decentering of the subject, the (...) contributors to this volume suggest, has brought about a recentering of the ethical. The philosophers, political theorists, literary critics and physician whose essays are collected here bring the particularities of their disciplines and training to a vital complex of questions. Many of these authors express concerns that the turn to ethics is a turn away from politics towards moralism. All ultimately conclude, however, that such concerns, rather than leading away from ethics, have helped to reinvigorate the intellectual field in the present moment. Contributors: Judith Butler, Homi K. Bhabha, Lawrence Buell, Nancy Fraser, John Guillory, Beatrice Hanssen, Barbara Johnson, Perri Klass, Chantal Mouffe, Doris Sommer, Rebecca Walkowitz. (shrink)

The main purpose of this dissertation is to show how Kant's critical understanding of "apperception" emerged from systematic reasoning on the problem of cognition. I argue that my inquiry yields new insights into the meaning of "transcendental apperception" which resolve problems other interpreters have had with reconciling Kant's apparently vacillating and conflicting views on the self and the awareness thereof, show that Kant has a novel and radical conception of the self, and are pivotal for a proper understanding of Kant's (...) idealism. ;Chapter 1 focuses on Kant's pre-critical writings. I suggest how Kant's explicit dissatisfaction with the Dissertation , and his move toward transcendental idealism, follow from certain arguments which are well in accord with Kant's views on thought and judgment in Spitzfindigkeit . In Chapter 2, I discuss Kant's Reflexionen in the so-called silent decade. The focus is his understanding of "I", "inner sense" and "apperception" and their relation, in his different attempts to answer that and how pure representations relate to objects. Chapter 3 offers an interpretation of the A-deduction as well as a discussion of two premises on which the deduction rests, the distinction in principle between sensibility and understanding, the existence of a priori concepts. Chapter 4 is mainly devoted to an interpretation of the B-deduction. I show how my understanding of "transcendental apperception" resolves a number of problems. It also gives rise to an interesting and original philosophical conception of thought as an act irreducible to natural processes. In Ch. 5, I show how the Dialectic in general and the Paralogisms in particular, support my reading of "transcendental apperception" as well as provide arguments which are pivotal for the proper understanding of Kant's idealism. (shrink)

It is commonly assumed that Kant is indebted to Aristotle not to Plato. In this paper we argue, however, that the following four central topics in Kant's philosophy must be recognized as having Platonic roots. 1. The idea that metaphysics is a system of synthetic apriori judgements and the idea that such judgments require pure intuition. 2. The idea that geometrical objects have a certain purposiveness. 3. The notion of dialectic. 4. The notion of ideas and their role in the (...) sphere of cognition and morality. (shrink)

The Proceedings present the contributions to the 13th International Kant Congress which was held at the University of Oslo, August 6-9, 2019. The congress, which hosted speakers from more than thirty countries and five continents, was dedicated to the topic of the court of reason. The idea that reason stands before itself as a tribunal characterizes the whole of Kant's critical project. Without such a court, reason falls into conflict with itself. With such a court in place, however, it may (...) succeed in establishing the possibility and limits of metaphysics, ethics, aesthetics, law and science. The idea of reason being its own judge is not only pivotal to a proper understanding of Kant's philosophy, but can also shed light on the burgeoning fields of meta-philosophy and philosophical methodology. The 2019 Kant Congress put special emphasis on Kant's methodology, his account of conceptual critique, and the relevance of his ideas to current issues in especially political philosophy and the philosophy of law. Additional sections discussed a wide range of topics in Kant's philosophy. The Proceedings will provide anyone who is interested in exploring the variety of present-day work on Kant and Kantian themes with a wealth of fruitful inspiration. (shrink)

Long considered to be an impenetrable, hermetic treatise, Walter Benjamin's The Origin of German Tragic Drama has rarely received the attention it deserves as a key text, central to a full understanding of his work. In this critically acclaimed study, distinguished Benjamin scholar Beatrice Hanssen unlocks the philosophical and ethical dimensions of his thought with great clarity and sophisitication.

We consider two axioms of second-order arithmetic. These axioms assert, in two different ways, that infinite but narrow binary trees always have infinite paths. We show that both axioms are strictly weaker than Weak König's Lemma, and incomparable in strength to the dual statement (WWKL) that wide binary trees have paths.

We divide the class of infinite computable trees into three types. For the first and second types, 0' computes a nontrivial self-embedding while for the third type 0'' computes a nontrivial self-embedding. These results are optimal and we obtain partial results concerning the complexity of nontrivial self-embeddings of infinite computable trees considered up to isomorphism. We show that every infinite computable tree must have either an infinite computable chain or an infinite Π01 antichain. This result is optimal and has connections (...) to the program of reverse mathematics. (shrink)

This article is based on an empirical study regarding ethical challenges in intercultural nursing. The focus is on autonomy and disclosure. Autonomy is a human capacity that has become an important ethical principle in nursing. Although the relationship between autonomy and patients’ possibly harmful choices is discussed, the focus is on ‘forced’ autonomy. Nurses seem to equate respect with autonomy; it seems to be hard to cope with the fact that there are patients who voluntarily undergo treatment but who actively (...) participate neither in the treatment offered nor in making choices regarding that treatment. Nurses’ demand for patients to be autonomous may in some cases jeopardize the respect, integrity and human worth that the ethical principle of autonomy is meant to ensure. Even though respect for a person’s autonomy is also respect for the person, one’s respect for the person in question should not depend on his or her capacity or aptitude to act autonomously. Is autonomy necessarily a universal ethical principle? This article negates this question and, through the issues of culture, individualism versus collectivism, first- and second- order autonomy, communication and the use of family interpreters, and respect, an attempt is made to explain why. (shrink)