The aim of this study was to gain a deeper understanding of the experience of time when living with severe incurable disease. A phenomenological and philosophical approach of description and deciphering were used. In our modern health care system there is an on-going focus on utilizing and recording the use of time, but less focus on the patient’s experience of time, which highlights the need to explore the patients’ experiences, particularly when life is vulnerable and time is limited. The empirical (...) data consisted of 26 open-ended interviews with 23 participants receiving palliative care at home, in hospital or in a nursing home in Norway. The theoretical frameworks used are mainly based upon K. Martinsens philosophy of care, K. E. Løgstrup phenomenological philosophy, in addition to C. Saunders’ hospice philosophy, L. Feigenberg’s thanatology and U. Qvarnström’s research exploring patient’s reactions to impending death. Experience of time is described as being a movement that moves the individual towards death in the field of opposites, and deciphered to be a universal, but a typical and unique experience emerging through three integrated levels: Sense of time; where time is described as a movement that is proceeding at varying speeds. Relate totime; where the awareness of limited life changes the understanding of time to be more existential. Being in time; where limited time seems to clarify the basic living conditions and phenomena of life. The existence of life when the prospect of death is present is characterized by emotional swings that move within polarizing dimensions which is reflected in the experience of time illustrated as the moves of the pendulum in a grandfather clock. The diversity of the experience of time is oscillating between going fast or slow, being busy or calm, being unpredictable but predictable, safe or unsafe and between being good or bad, depending on the embodied situation of the individual. (shrink)

The bulk of the present book has not been published previously though Chapters II and IV are based in part on two earlier papers of mine: "The Influence of Harald H!1lffding's Philosophy on Niels Bohr's Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics", which appeared in Danish Yearbook of Philosophy, 1979, and "The Bohr-H!1lffding Relationship Reconsidered", published in Studies in History and Philosophy of Science, 1988. These two papers comple ment each other, and in order to give the whole issue a more extended treatment (...) I have sought, in the present volume by drawing on relevant historical material, to substantiate the claim that H!1lffding was Bohr's mentor. Besides containing a detailed account of Bohr's philosophy, the book, at the same time, serves the purpose of making H!1lffding' s ideas and historical significance better known to a non-Danish readership. During my work on this book I have consulted the Royal Danish Library; the National Archive of Denmark and the Niels Bohr Archive, Copenhagen, in search of relevant material. I am grateful for permission to use and quote material from these sources. Likewise, I am indebted to colleagues and friends for commenting upon the manuscript: I am especially grateful to Professor Henry Folse for our many discussions during my visit to New Orleans in November-December 1988 and again here in Elsinore in July 1990. (shrink)

El presente volumen forma parte de una serie de publicaciones internacionales con un enfoque específico en el campo de los estudios hispánicos. Conforman la misma tanto estudios monográficos como volúmenes colectivos en idioma alemán, español, portugués e inglés. Los editores de este número, Angela Schrott y Jan-Henrik Witthaus, son catedráticos de la Universidad de Kassel, Alemania, en Lingüística Románica y Literatura Española e Hispanoamericana, respectivamente.

Since the Niels Bohr centenary of 1985 there has been an astonishing international surge of scholarly analyses of Bohr's philosophy. Now for the first time in Niels Bohr and Contemporary Philosophy Jan Faye and Henry Folse have brought together sixteen of today's leading authors who have helped mould this new round of discussions on Bohr's philosophy. In fifteen entirely new, previously unpublished essays we discover a surprising variety of the different facets of Bohr as the natural philosopher whose `framework of (...) complementarity' shaped the final phase of the quantum revolution and influenced two generations of the century's leading physicists. There is much on which the authors included here agree; but there are also polar disagreements, which assure us that the philosophical questions revolving around Bohr's `new viewpoint' will continue to be a subject of scholarly interest and discussion for years to come. This collection will interest all serious students of history and philosophy of science, and foundations of physics. (shrink)

What reasons and resources can Christian theology find for developing a panentheist position that is also able to engage with contemporary science? By taking its point of departure in basic human experiences, Christian theology can, even in a Trinitarian fashion, be developed as a way to understand God's presence in the world as a presence where the actual occurrences point towards God's own work. This point is especially related to the experience of love. Furthermore, God's presence can be understood as (...) sacramental in the Augustinian sense. Moreover, the contributions of the Danish philosopher of religion Knud E. Løgstrup on God's presence and transcendence, as well as Niels Henrik Gregersen's elaborations on deep incarnation. Prove to offer important reasons for considering panentheism a viable option for the articulation of Christian theology. (shrink)

Hermeneutics should take Gadamer’s claims about experience and reality seriously, the hermeneutic urgency, described in the following concise ways: aus der Wahrheit des Erinnerns etwas entgegensetzen: das immer noch und immer wieder Wirkliche. WuM, p. XXVIeine Erfahrung, die Wirklichkeit erfährt und selber wirklich ist. WuM, p. 329.Die Erfahrung lehrt, Wirkliches anzuerkennen. WuM, p. 339.preceded by a general remark about the aim of historical knowledge:eine Erkenntnis, die versteht, daß etwas so ist, weil sie versteht, daß es so gekommen ist. WuM, p. (...) 2This indicates an ontological primacy of history, which is a singular processual event with a certain narrative dimension which can also be called history. Through this essential and at the same time particular finitude, meaning is given to us – and all the general aspects of explained reality are possible only inside such an effective history which unites event and narration. The article will elaborate the special character of historical effects compared to the effects in the modern scheme of cause and effect and suggest a way of reading the classical distinction between understanding and explanation in a way which differs somewhat from Gadamer’s, but also from Georg Henrik von Wright’s similar concerns. It is also argued that Dilthey’s notion of lived experience remains relevant inside a very much needed hermeneutic effort to include nature in history. (shrink)

Bei der Suche nach dem Geist handelt es sich seit Jahrhunderten um ein zentrales Unterfangen in der Philosophie, das u.a. durch die folgenden Fragen charakterisiert ist: Was sind Merkmale des Geistes? Welche Arten geistiger Zustände lassen sich unterscheiden? Ist eine naturwissenschaftliche oder physikalische Erklärung des Geistes möglich? Lässt sich das Geistige auf das Physikalische reduzieren? Ist das Physikalische kausal abgeschlossen? Was heißt es eigentlich, dass etwas physikalisch ist? Wie kann der Geist Handlungen bewirken? Können wir denn so handeln, wie wir (...) wollen? Ist unser Wille frei? Welche Rolle spielen neurowissenschaftliche Ergebnisse für die Entwicklung einer guten Theorie des Geistes? Und welche Rolle spielen philosophische Gedankenexperimente? Was macht überhaupt eine gute Theorie des Geistes aus? Dieser Band, der auch an Einsteiger gerichtet ist, versammelt Beiträge zur Suche nach dem Geist von Andreas Hüttemann, Holger Lyre, Jan G. Michel, Gernot Münster, Martine Nida-Rümelin, Achim Stephan und Henrik Walter. (shrink)

Finland is internationally known as one of the leading centers of twentieth century analytic philosophy. This volume offers for the first time an overall survey of the Finnish analytic school. The rise of this trend is illustrated by original articles of Edward Westermarck, Eino Kaila, Georg Henrik von Wright, and Jaakko Hintikka. Contributions of Finnish philosophers are then systematically discussed in the fields of logic, philosophy of language, philosophy of science, history of philosophy, ethics and social philosophy. Metaphilosophical reflections (...) on the nature of philosophy are highlighted by the Finnish dialogue between analytic philosophy, phenomenology, pragmatism, and critical theory. (shrink)

Present knowledge of evolutionary history challenges traditional concepts of the Christian salvation history. In order to overcome these challenges, theology needs to articulate a wider, more open and more universal approach to the understanding of God's salvific action. One way of doing this is to employ the notion of “deep incarnation” suggested by Danish theologian Niels Henrik Gregersen. His suggestion may also blur the lines that mark a sharp distinction between the history of creation and the history of salvation, (...) in a way that safeguards some of the basic tenets of classical theology. (shrink)

Johann Christoph Gottsched gehört unbestritten zu den zentralen Figuren der deutschen Frühaufklärung. Wie wohl kein anderer vor und nach ihm hat er die Entwicklung der deutschsprachigen Sprach-, Rede-, Dicht- und Bühnenkunst geprägt, geleitet von der festen Absicht, diesen Künsten wo möglich eine wissenschaftliche Begründung, eine überschaubare kritische Historie sowie eine klare und elegante Darstellung zu verleihen. Über diese Bemühungen hinaus, hat sich insbesondere die neuere Forschung weiteren Facetten seines riesigen Werkes zugewendet. So erscheint Gottsched als Vorbild zahlreicher Zeitschriftenprojekte, als wichtiger (...) Popularisator der Leibnizschen und Wolffschen Philosophie, als zentraler Reformer der zeitgenössischen Homiletik, als Drehscheibe bei der Vermittlung europäischer Dichtung und Gelehrsamkeit. Die Beiträge des vorliegenden Bandes tragen der gesamten Breite der Gottsched-Forschung Rechnung, prüfen alte Erkenntnisse und stellen neue Einschätzungen zur Diskussion. Darüber wird die Aufmerksamkeit auch auf weniger bekannte Aspekte des Gottschedschen Oeuvres gelenkt, so etwa auf Beiträge zu den Naturwissenschaften und der Staatslehre, auf die akademische Lehrtätigkeit und auf das zunehmende Interesse an anthropologischen und ästhetischen Fragen. MIT BEITRÄGEN VON: Erich Achermann, Thomas Althaus, Detlef Döring, Frank Grunert, Gerda Hassler, Peter Hesselmann, Hanspeter Marti, Christian Meierhofer, Dagmar Mirbach, Merio Scattola, Oliver Scholz, Tomas Sommadossi, Holger Steinmann, Gideon Stiening, Andres Strassberger, Dietmar Till, Klaus Weimar und Jan-Henrik Witthaus. (shrink)

Many scientists regard mass and energy as the primary currency of nature. In recent years, however, the concept of information has gained importance. In this book, eminent scientists, philosophers, and theologians chart various aspects of information, from quantum information to biological and digital information, in order to understand how nature works. Beginning with a historical treatment of the topic, the book also examines physical and biological approaches to information, and the philosophical, theological, and ethical implications.

Software systems play an ever more important role in our lives and software engineers and their companies find themselves in a position where they are held responsible for ethical issues that may arise. In this paper, we try to disentangle ethical considerations that can be performed at the level of the software engineer from those that belong in the wider domain of business ethics. The handling of ethical problems that fall into the responsibility of the engineer has traditionally been addressed (...) by the publication of Codes of Ethics and Conduct. We argue that these Codes are barely able to provide normative orientation in software development. The main contribution of this paper is, thus, to analyze the normative features of Codes of Ethics in software engineering and to explicate how their value-based approach might prevent their usefulness from a normative perspective. Codes of Conduct cannot replace ethical deliberation because they do not and cannot offer guidance because of their underdetermined nature. This lack of orientation, we argue, triggers reactive behavior such as “cherry-picking,” “risk of indifference,” “ex-post orientation,” and the “desire to rely on gut feeling.” In the light of this, we propose to implement ethical deliberation within software development teams as a way out. (shrink)

This article analyses domestic and foreign reactions to a 2008 report in the British Medical Journal on the complementary and, as argued, synergistic relationship between palliative care and euthanasia in Belgium. The earliest initiators of palliative care in Belgium in the late 1970s held the view that access to proper palliative care was a precondition for euthanasia to be acceptable and that euthanasia and palliative care could, and should, develop together. Advocates of euthanasia including author Jan Bernheim, independent from but (...) together with British expatriates, were among the founders of what was probably the first palliative care service in Europe outside of the United Kingdom. In what has become known as the Belgian model of integral end-of-life care, euthanasia is an available option, also at the end of a palliative care pathway. This approach became the majority view among the wider Belgian public, palliative care workers, other health professionals, and legislators. The legal regulation of euthanasia in 2002 was preceded and followed by a considerable expansion of palliative care services. It is argued that this synergistic development was made possible by public confidence in the health care system and widespread progressive social attitudes that gave rise to a high level of community support for both palliative care and euthanasia. The Belgian model of so-called integral end-of-life care is continuing to evolve, with constant scrutiny of practice and improvements to procedures. It still exhibits several imperfections, for which some solutions are being developed. This article analyses this model by way of answers to a series of questions posed by Journal of Bioethical Inquiry consulting editor Michael Ashby to the Belgian authors. (shrink)

Philosophers, particularly moral philosophers, are increasingly being involved in public decision‐making in areas which are seen to raise ethical issues. For example, Dame Mary Warnock chaired the ‘Committee of Inquiry into Human Fertilization and Embryology’ in the UK in 1982–4; the Philosophy Department at Auckland was commissioned by the Auckland Regional Authority to report on the ethical aspects of fluoridating the public water supply in 1990; and many of us are serving on ethics committees of various sorts. Not only are (...) philosophers actually being called on or consulted, but many of us would argue that a philosophical contribution in such areas is essential.The involvement of moral philosophers in public policy decisions raises a question of professional ethics, viz, what role should a philosopher's own moral perspective or judgements play in the advice s/he gives, or contribution s/he makes, to public decision‐making on ethical issues. Like most problems in professional ethics, this prompts reflection on the nature of the profession, and in particular on the expertise we take moral philosophy to offer. It also prompts reflection on how processes of public decision making in ethically problematic areas should be understood. I explore these issues in this paper. (shrink)

A wide range of non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPIs) have been introduced to stop or slow down the COVID-19 pandemic. Examples include school closures, environmental cleaning and disinfection, mask mandates, restrictions on freedom of assembly and lockdowns. These NPIs depend on coercion for their effectiveness, either directly or indirectly. A widely held view is that coercive policies need to be publicly justified—justified to each citizen—to be legitimate. Standardly, this is thought to entail that there is a scientific consensus on the factual propositions (...) that are used to support the policies. In this paper, we argue that such a consensus has been lacking on the factual propositions justifying most NPIs. Consequently, they would on the standard view be illegitimate. This is regrettable since there are good reasons for granting the state the legitimate authority to enact NPIs under conditions of uncertainty. The upshot of our argument is that it is impossible to have both the standard interpretation of the permissibility of empirical claims in public justification and an effective pandemic response. We provide an alternative view that allows the state sufficient room for action while precluding the possibility of it acting without empirical support. (shrink)

_Vygotsky Philosophy and Education_ reassesses the works of Russian psychologist Lev Vygotsky work by arguing that his central ideas about the nature of rationality and knowledge were informed by the philosophic tradition of Spinoza and Hegel. Presents a reassessment of the works of Lev Vygotsky in light of the tradition of Spinoza and Hegel informing his work Reveals Vygotsky’s connection with the work of contemporary philosophers such as Brandom and McDowell Draws on discussions in contemporary philosophy to revise prominent readings (...) of Vygotskian psychology and revisits educational debates where Vygotsky’s ideas were central Reveals the limitations of appropriations of Vygotsky which fail to recognize the Hegelian provenance of his work Shows the relevance of Brandom’s inferentialism for contemporary educational theory and practice. (shrink)

Belief in the afterlife is still very much alive in Western civilisation, even though the truth of its existence is no longer universally accepted. Surprisingly, however, heaven, hell and the immortal soul were all ideas which arrived relatively late in the ancient world. Originally Greece and Israel - the cultures that gave us Christianity - had only the vaguest ideas of an afterlife. So where did these concepts come from and why did they develop? In this fascinating, learned, but highly (...) readable book, Jan N. Bremmer - one of the foremost authorities on ancient religion - takes a fresh look at the major developments in the Western imagination of the afterlife, from the ancient Greeks to the modern near-death experience. (shrink)

Liberty is what libertarians advocate. Both because of the inherent value of human liberty and because of the increasing wealth and welfare it brings to all. They see the aggressive coercion of the state as the main enemy of liberty. The solution is to roll back the state until there is little or no state left. Libertarianism has been rapidly growing since the 1970s. But it is still not commonly understood or even given a proper hearing. However, you will increasingly (...) come across it. Often it will be through state enthusiasts disingenuously claiming to be libertarians . At other times it will be through state enthusiasts attacking libertarianism as an extremist ideology. And very occasionally it will be real libertarians explaining and defending their views. J C Lester is a libertarian philosopher who has been writing about why liberty is preferable to politics for many years. This book contains many of his shorter writings on the subject. These range from the populist to the philosophical. Together they function as a miscellaneous introduction to libertarianism. The various different topics and approaches should give the reader a good cross-reference grasp of the subject. (shrink)

ABSTRACT On 22 January 2001, the UK became the first country to approve of embryonic stem cell research by passing the Human Fertilisation (Research Purposes) Regulations 2001, which legislated new research purposes for which early embryos can be used, in addition to those approved by the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act 1990. Legal advisory committees, most notably the Chief Medical Officer's Expert Group and the House of Lords’ Select Committee, have offered various reasons, which can also be found in the (...) ethics literature, to justify this change. Those examined here are the views that: 1. Early embryos lack relevant qualities (or ‘the argument from lack of qualities’) and 2. Early embryos only have a potentiality to become humans with moral status (or ‘the argument from potentiality’). The validity of these arguments is questioned and a case is made for egalitarian speciesism. Embryos have moral status (used here in the restricted sense of the status possessed by all members of the class of beings which deserve the greatest moral significance in equal measure). They have more value than the value that should be assigned to nonhuman beings from the start of fertilisation. Current UK legislation on embryo research is immoral. (shrink)

Research on the relationship between corporate environmental performance and corporate financial performance has consistently grown and is gaining widespread attention. Given the vast body of CEP–CFP studies, recently scholars have begun to take stock of the cumulative results. However, no study so far has meta-analyzed the findings yielded by event studies assessing the stock market reactions to corporate environmental performance-related events. This paper sets out to close this gap by synthesizing previous empirical results regarding the stock market impact of positive (...) and negative CEP-related events. Results indicate a positive relationship across studies in terms of positive market reactions to positive events and negative reactions to negative events. Furthermore, the findings show that the market reactions are stronger for negative events than for positive events. Finally, this study examines whether methodological artifacts may explain the differences in the findings of the analyzed event studies. (shrink)

The pragmatic theory of explanation is an attempt to see explanation as a linguistic response to a cognitive problem where the content of the response depends on the context of the scientific inquiry. The present paper draws on the rhetorical situation, as it is defined by Loyld Bitzer, in order to understand how the context may influence the content as well as the acceptability of the response.

The paper discusses the regularity account of causation but finds it insufficient as a complete account of our notion of causality. The attractiveness of the regularity account is its attempt to understand causation in terms of empirically accessible features of the world. However, this account does not match our intuition that singular causality is prior in normal epistemic situations and that there is more to causation than mere succession. Apart from succession and regularity, the concept of causality also contains a (...) modal feature which allows us to engage in counterfactual discourses about singular causal events and to claim that a particular cause is both sufficient and necessary for its effect in the circumstances. However, we may directly observe singular causes, but the modal element is not something we can possibly observe. Rather, this element is something we add to our perception of succession. Thus, the paper suggests that the modal feature of causality is a mental construction which was originally formed by our knowledge of certain structural features of similar events in other situations. It stems not from what we actually observe but from what we have observed or may observe under different but relevant circumstances. So the concept of causation has partly an empirical content and partly a constructed one. (shrink)

I argue that meaning is a result of our biological evolution, and that language evolved from primates’ ability to grasp conceptually the most important features of their environment. I hold that natural selection and adaptation ensure that primates both sense and conceptualize their world similarly, and that they therefore think similarly, whenever they receive the same sense impressions. This cognitive similarity enabled our predecessors to learn and develop a language because of the regular association of a particular sound and a (...) particular image. The evolutionary pressure on our predecessors to develop a language was the advantage that such a language had for cooperation and survival. Finally, I argue that the old, but in wider circles frowned-upon theory of meaning, the expressive theory of language, provides the best explanation of the relationship between thought, meaning, and words, because it operates with words and not sentences as the basic semantic unit. (shrink)

This article addresses the question whether Whiteheadians should be vegetarians in two ways. First, I question whether Whitehead should have been a vegetarian to be consistent, arguing that his omnivorous diet was inconsistent with his own philosophy. Second, I evaluate the works of three distinguished Whiteheadian philosophers on the ethics of vegetarianism. I argue that Charles Birch, John Cobb, and Jay McDaniel have prioritized animals justifiably over other organisms, yet that Birch and Cobb fail to do justice to the lives (...) of other animals, and that the account provided by McDaniel fails to provide a convincing argument for minimal moral vegetarianism. (shrink)

Forms of understanding -- Understanding as organized beliefs -- On interpretation -- Representations -- Scientific explanation -- Causal explanations -- Other types of explanations -- The pragmatics of explanation -- Not just why-questions -- A rhetorical approach to explanation -- Pluralism and the unity of science.

Forms of understanding -- Understanding as organized beliefs -- On interpretation -- Representations -- Scientific explanation -- Causal explanations -- Other types of explanations -- The pragmatics of explanation -- Not just why-questions -- A rhetorical approach to explanation -- Pluralism and the unity of science.

Review text: "Es gibt Bücher, die durch ihre unprätentiöse, stille und sorgfältige Vorgehensweise auf den ersten Blick über die Sensation hinwegtäuschen, die sie bloßlegen und zur Diskussion anbieten. So ein Buch ist die "Wissenschaftphilosophie? von Jan C. Schmidt, die über die "Instabilität in Natur und Wissenschaft? handelt."Günter Altner in: Naturwissenschaftliche Rundschau 9/2009.

Starting from a Foucaultian perspective, the article draws attention to current developments that neutralise democracy through the 'governmentalisation of democracy' and processes of 'governmental subjectivation'. Here, ideas of Rancière are introduced in order to clarify how democracy takes place through the paradoxical process of 'political subjectivation', that is, a disengagement with governmental subjectivation through the verification of one's equality in demonstrating a wrong. We will argue that democracy takes place through the paradoxical process of political subjectivation, and that today's consensus (...) society tends to depoliticize all processes of subjectivation. A final step in the argumentation is to introduce the concept of 'pedagogic subjectivation'—to be understood as the experience of potentiality—that is to be distinguished from governmental subjectivation and also from political subjectivation. The concept 'pedagogic subjectivation' is proposed as a way of thinking of the school as a public place. (shrink)