A widely touted approach to involving laypeople in science and technology policy-related decisions is the consensus conference. Virtually nothing written on the topic provides detailed discussion of the many steps from citizen recruitment to citizen report. Little attention is paid to how and why the mechanics of the consensus conference process might influence the diversity of the participants in theses fora, the quality of the deliberation in the citizen sessions, the experiences of the participants and organizers, and other outcomes that (...) affect democratic decision making within the conference and more broadly over the long term. As an aid to those interested in utilizing the consensus conference format, the authors outline in detail how they set about organizing their consensus conference on nanotechnology in the spring of 2005. They discuss what specific aspects of their consensus conference worked, and why, and also consider what they learned of relevance to future application. (shrink)

The present paper outlines the main points of Heidegger’s philosophical program starting from his early lectures of Freiburg. This program is founded in two fundamental questions. On the one hand, a thematic question: the phenomenon of life and its different forms of manifestation and apprehension. On the other hand, an eminently methodological question, namely the question of how it is possible to access in a correct manner to the primary sphere of life. This last issue conducts the young Heidegger to (...) a first and deep questioning of Husserl’s reflexive phenomenology that ends up in his hermeneutic turn of phenomenology. (shrink)