Wayfinding is generally understood as the process of purposefully navigating to distant and non-visible destinations. Within this broad framework, uninformed searching entails finding one’s way to a target destination, in an unfamiliar environment, with no knowledge of its location. Although a variety of search strategies have been previously reported, this research was largely conducted in the laboratory or virtual environments using simplistic and often non-realistic situations, raising questions about its ecological validity. In this study, we explored how extant findings on (...) searching translate to a real-world environment, using a phenomenologically informed experiment. Our findings demonstrate a previously undescribed complex and dynamic interplay of different search strategies. Importantly, our results reveal that: (i) the presence of other people is importantly entangled with the process of searching; and (ii) people frequently probe and switch between search strategies based on local environmental characteristics. Together, our results reveal that search behaviour is critically dependent on environmental features and that searching in complex real-world settings should not be conceptualised as depending on a simple singular strategy. This raises questions about the dominance of laboratory-based experiments and their narrow cognitivist framework, highlighting the value of studying wayfinding in the real world. (shrink)

Clinicians and administrators have a professional obligation to contribute to improvement of healthcare quality. At the same time, participation in embedded research poses risks to healthcare institutions. Disclosure of an institution’s sensitive information could endanger relationships with patients and undermine its reputation. The existing ethical framework for learning healthcare systems does not address the conflict between the OTC and institutional interests. Ethical guidance and policy regulation are needed to create a safe environment for embedded research. In this article we analyse (...) the EF for LHSs and the concept of professionalism. We suggest that the EF should be supplemented with an obligation to protect provider’s legitimate interests. We define legitimate interests as those that enable providers to discharge their primary duties. We argue that both the OTC and the obligation to protect legitimate interests are grounded in the concept of medical professionalism and can be understood as a matter of contract between a democratic society and medical professionals. The proposed supplemented EF can be implemented into a regulatory system in three different ways: the self-regulating: where providers decide themselves how to balance the ethical claims, the centralised: where a governmental institution decides the right balance between providers’ interests and interests of a health system; and the mediating: where medical professionals, the state and patients negotiate their interests. Our article contributes to the discussion on ethical relevance of providers’ interests and the regulatory model for weighing opposite interests in LHSs. (shrink)

Journal of Philosophy of Education, EarlyView.

Needs play a key role in many fields of social sciences and humanities, ranging from normative theories of distributive justice to conceptions of the welfare state. Over time, different conceptions of what counts as a need (i. e., what is considered a normatively relevant need) have been proposed. Many of them include (in one way or the other) needs for survival, decency, belonging, and autonomy. Little work has been done on how these kinds of needs are evaluated in terms of (...) their significance for distributive justice. To begin closing this gap, we investigate the role of the four aforementioned kinds of needs for impartial observers. We do so in two empirical studies. The first study asks participants to evaluate the importance of each of the four kinds of needs separately. We find that different levels of importance are attributed to the kinds of needs, which places them in a hierarchy. The second study asks participants to make distributive decisions. Results further support the hierarchy found in the first study and, additionally, reveal that participants tend to make coherent allocation decisions. (shrink)

Assessing the risk-benefit ratio has always been considered key in designing clinical trials. These benefits can be diverse and may include social value and psychological benefits. When it comes to...

This is a short presentation by the Guest Editors of the series of Special Issues of the journal _Philosophies_ under the common title “Contemporary Natural Philosophy and Philosophies” in which we present Part 2. The series will continue, and the call for contributions to the next Special Issue will appear shortly.

The aim of this article is to look at an early 17th-century analysis of a prince’s management of an ‘agglomerate polity’ in order to obtain a view of its chief focuses, concerns, and terms of analysis. Four main types of issues appear (apart from Grotius’ general analysis of Philip’s person and policies, which are also discussed): 1. Acceptation and legitimacy of a prince who was perceived to ignore local customs, rights and interests of his various territories; 2. The king’s representatives (...) and intermediaries, their (mis)management of their task, or the King’s (mis)management of them; 3. The conflicting demands of international politics; 4. Controlling armies and the connected issue of financial resources. The ‘Tacitean’ mode of writing history was regarded as the most ‘true’ and ‘revealing’ historiography in Grotius’ time. However Tacitean perceptiveness and analysis were not about what historians today regard as deeper historical processes and causation (like those associated with the ‘philosophic’ histories from the Enlightenment onwards, e.g. in Edward Gibbon), but about understanding personal motives and (hidden) immediate causes and intentions behind particular events and decisions. This historic differences in historical explanation should be taken into account when judging the value of Grotius’ history of his own time. (shrink)

When there are two lines of argument that contradict each other but still end up with the same conclusion, this conclusion is called a floating conclusion. It is an open topic in skeptical defeasible reasoning if floating conclusions ought to be accepted. Inter- estingly, the answer seems to be changing for different examples. In this paper, we propose a solution for explaining the different treatments of the floating conclusion in the various examples from the literature. We collect the examples from (...) the literature, extend them with additional examples and test various hypotheses for explaining the difference by means of the examples. We will argue for a framework that accepts a floating conclusion by default but allows for reasons to deviate from the default in order to reject it. These reasons nicely explain the different underlying patterns of our intuitions. (shrink)

in a nervous system of a given species. This chapter provides a critical perspective on the role of connectomes in neuroscientific practice and asks how the connectomic approach fits into a larger context in which network thinking permeates technology, infrastructure, social life, and the economy. In the first part of this chapter, we argue that, seen from the perspective of ongoing research, the notion of connectomes as “complete descriptions” is misguided. Our argument combines Rachel Ankeny’s analysis of neuroanatomical wiring diagrams (...) as “descriptive models” with Hans-Joerg Rheinberger’s notion of “epistemic objects,” i.e., targets of research that are still partially unknown. Combining these aspects we conclude that connectomes are constitutively epistemic objects: there just is no way to turn them into permanent and complete technical standards because the possibilities to map connection properties under different modeling assumptions are potentially inexhaustible. In the second part of the chapter, we use this understanding of connectomes as constitutively epistemic objects in order to critically assess the historical and political dimensions of current neuroscientific research. We argue that connectomics shows how the notion of the “brain as a network” has become the dominant metaphor of contemporary brain research. We further point out that this metaphor shares (potentially problematic) affinities to the form of contemporary “network societies.” We close by pointing out how the relation between connectomes and networks in society could be used in a more fruitful manner. (shrink)

Crupi and Tentori (2012) propose a condition of adequacy for any Bayesian measure of explanatory power, which they call Explanatory Justice. They criticize a measure recently defended by Schupbach and Sprenger(2011) for failing to satisfy this condition, and they offer a new explanatorily just measure of explanatory power. In this paper, we investigate Explanatory Justice’s merits as a condition of adequacy. We offer three arguments against this condition, thus supporitng the idea that a measure of explanatory power should rather be (...) unjust. Then, in order to ensure that the debate advances beyond a mere battle of intuitions, we offer some new results derived from the empirical study described in (Schupbach, 2011a). All of this strengthens the case for Schupbach and Sprenger’s measure while simultaneously posing new challenges to Crupi and Tentori’s alternative proposal. (shrink)

This chapter delves into the museological side of ‘the way forward’ to conservation for planetary health bioethics. Specifically, it highlights the crucial role that museums play – their curatorial or exhibition interventions, conservation operations, development policies, or practices – which present or represent the vital relationship between human and planetary health. While it is not new to stress the significance of museums’ link to the environment and environmental education, it is necessary to re-examine recent cases in light of the rapid (...) changes brought about by climate change and the constant call for sustainability. We thus offer a review of some recent literature that appraises the museum’s role in bioethically considering the health of our living planet. Learning this role taps into relatively new themes such as ecomuseums and architectural heritage, or critical eco-museology. (shrink)

‘The mathematisation of time has limits,’ writes Derrida in ‘Ousia and Gramme.’ Taking this quote in all possible senses, this paper considers Derrida’s definition of limit as gramme, trace, and ap...

ABSTRACT Ernst Fraenkel’s seminal study about Nazi law, in which he described the co-existence of a ‘normative state’ and a ‘prerogative state’ as principles of government, is to be rediscovered in the new age of the prerogative. Through a critical reading of The Dual State and other important texts by Fraenkel, this article seeks to contribute to the contemporary debate on regime types and governmental power in three regards: first, by clarifying Fraenkel’s concept of and perspective on law; second, by (...) discussing the methodological demands for the beneficial application of the dual state concept; and, third, by showing the usefulness of such an application, even beyond the field of authoritarian states in the narrower sense. Law-eroding prerogative developments cannot only be witnessed in hybrid regimes, but also in democratic states, which resort to reflections and practices of an ‘enemy criminal law’, and in the European Union’s recent crisis politics. (shrink)

This book is not a list or an overview of various theories of ethics. Nor is it a didactic manual for specific teaching units on moral education aimed at some group based on age or a particular theme (although some educational frameworks will be proposed). As the title suggests, the book intends to seek the starting points or foundations without which no moral education would be possible. The goal is to formulate and tackle the key questions that precede all moral (...) education. What makes ""good vs. evil"" language possible and meaningful? Can virtue be taught and learned? What makes our actions good? What is the condition of human nature? Are we naturally good, or evil? What constitutes an educator's right to morally influence anyone else (not just a child)? What is the goal of moral education? What does a morally educated person look like? And how can we ensure the coveted moral result? Or--in the words of Jan Amos Comenius, the ""teacher of nations""--how to educate a person to not only know what is good, but also to want what is good, and to do what is good ""even when no one is looking?"" ""I wish I would have had Jan Habl's concise, passionate, and eminently readable book available as a text for my ethics courses during my thirty-six years of teaching at colleges and universities in Canada. Habl not only raises the alarm about a moral crisis in Western societies today, but also provides a careful treatment of some oft-neglected presuppositions of moral education. The concluding chapter introduces us to Jan Amos Comenius, a seventeenth century Czech philosopher, theologian, and pedagogue, from whom we have much to learn about a better approach to moral education."" --Elmer Thiessen, Emmanuel Bible College ""With a sound and broad grasp of ethical (moral) theorists, Jan Habl incisively critiques the fallacies of popular theories, rendering them ineffectual if not dangerous. Then, drawing on Czech educator/philosopher Comenious, he persuasively advances a theistic proposal for nurturing moral persons and communities. Immensely timely, never more needed, a rich, compelling read for our contemporary societies if we wish for a civil and peaceful existence for ourselves and future generations. Highly recommended."" --Duane H. Elmer, Trinity International University ""You have in your hands a text by someone I take to be one of the very serious young moral philosophers of our time. The profundity of his analysis of the need for moral education reminds me of the style of analysis of one of the great moral philosophers of the final decades of the twentieth century, Alasdair MacIntyre."" --Thomas K. Johnson, World Evangelical Alliance Jan Habl is a professor of pedagogy at universities in Hradec Kralove and Usti nad Labem (Czech Republic). He has taught systematic theology and ethics at the Evangelical Theological Seminary in Prague. He has authored a number of books and studies in the areas of philosophy of education, ethics, and pedagogy, including On Being Human(e) (2016); Teaching and Learning Through Story, Comenius' Labyrinth and the Educational Potential of Narrative Allegory (2014). (shrink)

There is a difference between that which is and that which is to be. Anthropologically: there is a way I am, and the way I am to be, or not to be. How are we to explain this? This book presents the argument that human nature is both complex and complicated in at least two specific ways--ontologically and ethically. In our being we are indisputably good, dignified, worthy, important, or even noble. But in our morality we are ambivalent--capable of both (...) good and evil, the humane and the inhumane. In his paramount work Jan Amos Comenius expresses the goal of his lifelong endeavor: "to help keep man from falling into a non-man" (Pampaedia). If human beings are to become what they ought to be, they need to be educated towards humanity, says Comenius. But the fundamental question is, what is a human being? And what ought one to be? "Salt ought to be salty. A river ought to be clear. A knife ought to be sharp. But what ought a person to be?" What is the essence of our humanity? And how can that be cultivated or educated? This book presents Comenius's answers to these questions. (shrink)

This article identifies a distinct strand of 20th-century liberal thought that was exemplified by Isaiah Berlin, Raymond Aron and, to a lesser extent, Karl Popper. I offer a stylized account of their common ideas and shared political sensibility, and argue that their primarily negative liberalism was a variety of what Judith Shklar called the `liberalism of fear' — which put the imperative to avoid cruelty and atrocity first. All three founded their liberalism on a `politics of knowledge' that was directed (...) primarily against Marxist philosophies of history and less against the idea of bureaucratic planning, as, in contrast, was the case with Friedrich von Hayek's thought. Moreover, all three subscribed to more or less explicit versions of value pluralism, and claimed that, in the circumstances of modernity, Weber's `clash of values' was exacerbated and required a particularly prudential approach to politics; this prudential management of value conflicts in turn was best entrusted to cultivated bureaucratic elites. All shared an image of a tolerant and humane society — essentially an idealized version of Britain — but said perhaps too little on the question how societies without the appropriate traditions of moderation and compromise were to be liberalized. (shrink)

Recent years have seen a rapid growth in neuroscientific research, and an expansion beyond basic research to incorporate elements of the arts, humanities and social sciences. It has been suggested that the neurosciences will bring about major transformations in the understanding of ourselves, our culture and our society. In academia one finds debates within psychology, philosophy and literature about the implications of developments within the neurosciences, and the emerging fields of educational neuroscience, neuro-economics, and neuro-aesthetics also bear witness to a (...) 'neurological turn' which is currently taking place. Neuroscience and Critique is a ground-breaking edited collection which reflects on the impact of neuroscience in contemporary social science and the humanities. It is the first book to consider possibilities for a critique of the theories, practices, and implications of contemporary neuroscience. Bringing together leading scholars from several disciplines, the contributors draw upon a range of perspectives, including cognitive neuroscience, critical philosophy, psychoanalysis, and feminism, and also critically examine several key ideas in contemporary neuroscience, including: The idea of "neural personhood" Theories of emotion in affective neuroscience Empathy, intersubjectivity and the notion of "embodied simulation" The concept of an "emo-rational" actor within neuro-economics. The volume will stimulate further debate in the emerging field of interdisciplinary studies in neuroscience, and will appeal to researchers and advanced students in a range of disciplines including critical psychology, philosophy, and critical studies. (shrink)

The Menexenus, in spite of the dearth of scholarly attention it has traditionally received compared to other Platonic texts, is an important dialogue for any consideration of Plato's views on political philosophy, history, and rhetoric - to say nothing of the dialogue's contribution to the study of civic ideology and institutions, natural law theory, and Plato's notion of race. Speeches for the Dead unites the contributions of scholars working on diverse aspects of the dialogue, growing out of a one-day workshop (...) on the same subject at the University of Pennsylvania organized by the editors. In offering a variety of perspectives on the Menexenus, the volume is the very first of its kind in any language. In addition, the volume contains an up-to-date bibliography of scholarship in English, French, German, and Italian. This makes the book a definitive guide and ideal starting point for advanced students and scholars looking for further information about the dialogue. (shrink)

It is well known that there has been a steady and significant underrepresentation of women in philosophy on different professional levels. Numerous hypotheses explaining this underrepresentation have been suggested, but empirical analyses are not yet extensive. In particular, studies of the phenomenon in different countries are nonexistent. In this paper, we present findings from an exploratory study in which we analyze the interests, abilities, beliefs, attitudes, perceptions, and goals of bachelor’s students in a semester-long philosophy of science course at a (...) major German university. We furthermore make the first attempt to compare women-only learning environments with mixed-gender learning environments. Our results suggest that while there are generally some gender differences regarding interests, abilities, beliefs, attitudes, perceptions, and goals of students in the classroom, most of the hypotheses we explore to explain dropout rates by gender differences cannot be supported. We conclude that possible factors leading to the underrepresentation of women in philosophy in Germany might be found in the social and institutional environment within which philosophy is taught. (shrink)

Political theorists tend to dismiss the concept of constitutional patriotism for two main reasons. On the one hand, constitutional patriotism — understood as a post-national, universalist form of democratic political allegiance — is rejected on account of its abstract quality. On the otherhand, it is argued that constitutional patriotism, while apprearing universalist, is in fact particular through and through. According to this genealogical critique, it is held that constitutional patriotism might have been appropriate in the context when it originated — (...) namely West Germany, a half-nation with a deeply compromised sense of nationality on account of the Nazi past — but it is not universally applicable. This article reconstructs the origins of constitutional patriotism arguing that both the ‘protective’ and state-centred patriotism of Dolf Sternberger, and the ‘purifying’ patriotism of Jurgen Habermas — focused mainly on the public sphere — can indeed be understood as relying on ‘supplements of particularily’. However, there are also normative connections between universalist constitutional morality and militant democracy on the one hand, and universalist constitutionalist morality and an imperative to remember on the other. Thus, the genealogical critique by itself is insufficient to invalidate the idea of constitutional patriotism. (shrink)

This volume brings together a group of researchers from different European countries and disciplines who are involved in Clinical Ethics Consultation. The work provides a discussion on the theories and methods underlying CEC and on the issues of implementation and evaluation.

Here I reflect on the main themes of Global Culture, Nationalism, Globalization and Modernity. On these themes, where are we 30 years later? I sidestep the fine print of the 1990 conversations and share notes in brief format on where I have come to in the decades that have passed. I round off with notes on the 2020 conjuncture.

»Pessimismus« - Das Schlagwort Pessimismus verleitet dazu, auf weitere Definitionsversuche zu verzichten. Ausgehend vom wissenschaftlichen Diskurs über Pessimismus entwickelt Jan-Paul Klünder deshalb ein idealtypisches Kategoriensetting dieses diffusen und vielschichtigen Begriffs, um die Werke von Carl Schmitt, Michel Foucault und Giorgio Agamben nicht nur zu vergleichen, sondern ebenso mit der Kontingenz ihrer jeweiligen Wirklichkeitskonstruktion zu konfrontieren. Dabei zeigt sich ein widersprüchliches Verhältnis von Optimismus und Pessimismus in allen drei Theorien, wodurch deutlich wird, wie sich pessimistische Momente in den Gesamtzusammenhang dieser Weltbeschreibungen (...) fügen. (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.

Das Buch ist eine systematische Bearbeitung der neukantischen Philosophie und enthält einen Überblick über die wichtigsten Vertreter aller sieben neukantianischen Richtungen und Schulen: physiologische, metaphysische, relativistische, psychologische, realistische, so wie auch Badische Schule und Marburger Schule.

This article is about the ontological dispute between finitists, who claim that only finitely many numbers exist, and infinitists, who claim that infinitely many numbers exist. Van Bendegem set out to solve the 'general problem' for finitism: how can one recast finite fragments of classical mathematics in finitist terms? To solve this problem Van Bendegem comes up with a new brand of finitism, namely so-called 'apophatic finitism'. In this article it will be argued that apophatic finitism is unable to represent (...) the negative ontological commitments of infinitism or, in other words, that which does not exist according to infinitism. However, there is a brand of infinitism, so-called 'apophatic infinitism', that is able to represent both the positive and the negative ontological commitments of apophatic finitism. Unfortunately, apophatic finitism cannot adopt that way without losing the ability to represent the positive ontological commitments of infinitism. (shrink)

The “Human Brain Project” (HBP) is a large-scale European neuroscience and information communication technology (ICT) project that has been a matter of heated controversy since its inception. With its aim to simulate the entire human brain with the help of supercomputing technologies, the HBP plans to fundamentally change neuroscientific research practice, medical diagnosis, and eventually the use of computers itself. Its controversial nature and its potential impacts render the HBP a subject of crucial importance for critical studies of science and (...) society. In this paper, we provide a critical exploratory analysis of the potential mid- to long-term impacts the HBP and its ICT infrastructure could be expected to have, provided its agenda will indeed be implemented and executed to a substantive degree. We analyse how the HBP aspires to change current neuroscientific practice, what impact its novel infrastructures could have on research culture, medical practice and the use of ICT, and how, given a certain degree of successful execution of the project’s aims, potential clinical and methodological applications could even transform society beyond scientific practice. Furthermore, we sketch the possibility that research such as that projected by the HBP may eventually transform our everyday world, even beyond the scope of the HBP’s explicit agenda, and beyond the isolated ‘application’ of some novel technological device. Finally, we point towards trajectories for further philosophical, historical and sociological research on the HBP that our exploratory analysis might help to inspire. Our analysis will yield important insights regardless of the actual success of the HBP. What we drive at, for the most part, is the broader dynamics of scientific and technological development of which the HBP agenda is merely one particularly striking exemplification. (shrink)

Summary This article examines the complex nature of post-war Italian political thought, stressing the importance of Italy's unusual institutional and historical political arrangements, but also the vibrancy of its political ideologies in this period. In the past it has often been argued that the dysfunctional nature of post-war Italian democracy with its rapidly changing governments, and widespread corruption—which nonetheless coexisted with the one party, the Christian Democrats, being constantly in power—led to the atrophying of political theory in general, and political (...) ideologies in particular. But this picture is strongly disputed here—on the contrary it is argued that Christian Democratic, Left and liberal political ideologies were all complex and interesting. Thus if Christian democracy should ultimately be seen as an ‘ideology of transition’ which existed to help Catholicism adapt to the parameters of modern mass democracy, and which lacked a thinker of the calibre of Jacques Maritain, it nevertheless contained within it important debates on the role of the state, between such interesting thinkers as Giuseppe Dossetti and Alcide De Gasperi. And if anything, political thinking on the Left in the post-war period was even more complex, with visceral debates within the (large) Communist Party (PCI) over whether to work within the law—between such thinkers as Palmiro Togliatti and the Il Manifesto group. Equally on the more revolutionary Left, there were important debates about how quickly capitalism could be made to collapse through revolutionary action between thinkers such as Raniero Panzieri and his more radical disciples, Mario Tronti and Antonio Negri, while later, due to the general failure of these revolutionary efforts, post-modern thinkers such as Gianni Vattimo sought to abandon grand metaphysical narratives, whilst retaining a commitment to Left of centre political commitments. Finally, although not part of a widespread mass movement, the liberal thought of Norberto Bobbio was also highly interesting and sophisticated—borrowing from Hobbes and Kelsen, he sought to advocate a modest form of liberal democracy which allowed for civilised forms of conflict, and the protection of minorities, and which rejected the contention of Marxists that civil rights could not be distinguished from economic ones. Overall, if normative aspirations in post-war Italian politics were often frustrated in practice, this was certainly not due to any lack of theoretical vibrancy. (shrink)

The view that persons are entitled to respect because of their moral agency is commonplace in contemporary moral theory. What exactly this respect entails, however, is far less uncontroversial. In this book, Van der Rijt argues powerfully that this respect for persons’ moral agency must also encompass respect for their subjective moral judgments – even when these judgments can be shown to be fundamentally flawed. Van der Rijt scrutinises the role persons’ subjective moral judgments play within the context of coercion (...) and domination. His fresh, original analysis of Kant’s third formulation of the Categorical Imperative reveals how these judgments are intimately connected to a person’s dignity. The result is an insightful new account of coercion, a novel Kantian reformulation of the republican notion of non-domination and a compelling, innovative argument in favour of retributive justice. "In this admirably clear and insightful work, Van der Rijt develops an original account of coercion and dignity. On the basis of his analysis of the relation between these two concepts, he also provides an intriguing new angle on the nature of republicanism. I recommend this book to anyone interested in freedom and power and their roles in normative political theory." Ian Carter - University of Pavia "In this carefully argued and original study Jan-Willem van der Rijt offers an analysis of coercion, a broadly Kantian argument that coercion is an affront to dignity, and an illuminating contrast with Philip Pettit's republicanism. A most welcome contribution." Thomas E. Hill, Jr. - University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill "Jan-Willem van der Rijt has written a well argued, original book that will prove to be extremely helpful for the philosophical inquiry of the relationship between coercion and human dignity as well as for the assessment of republicanism and its consequences." Ralf Stoecker - University of Potsdam. (shrink)

This paper deals with the exact constructions of the regular heptagon in Greek and Arabic geometry, which are preserved in a number of mainly unpublished Arabic manuscripts. Appended are editions of the Arabic texts and English translations of Propositions 17 and 18 of the “Book of the Construction of the Circle, Divided into Seven Equal Parts”, attributed to Archimedes, and of the “Book on the Construction of the Heptagon in the Circle and the Division of the Rectilineal Angle into Three (...) Equal Parts” by the 10th century geometer Al-Sijzi. (shrink)

After Poland gained independence in 1918, logic developed very quickly both as a scientific direction and as a taught discipline. This introduction to the special issue “Logic in Poland in the 20th Century,” published in Volume 13:1 (2024) and Volume 13:2 (2024), provides the historical context for the development of logic in the interwar period.