Synthetic biology is an emerging technology that aims to design and engineer DNA and molecular structures of single cell organisms. Existing organisms can be altered, novel organisms can be created. In doing so, synthetic biology makes use of specific technoscientific understandings of living beings. This volume sets out to explore and assess synthetic biology and its notions of life from philosophical, ethical, social, and legal perspectives. Contents Concepts, Metaphors, Worldviews.- Public Good and Private Ownership.Social and Legal Ramifications.- Opportunities, Risks, Governance. (...) Target Groups Scholars of sociology, philosophy, theory of science, history of science, biology, engineering Politicians and policymakers The Editor Dr. Joachim Boldt is Deputy Director at the Institut für Ethik und Geschichte der Medizin in Freiburg, Germany. (shrink)

The Historical Dictionary of Philosophy, the _Historisches Wörterbuch der Philosophie,_ is distinguished by its particular presentation of philosophical terms, ideas and concepts. Rather than providing mere defintions or descriptive and analytical explanantions the _HWPh_ strictly applies the critical method of history of concepts developed by the eminent German scholar and philosopher Joachim Ritter. By means of precise and detailed references it documents the origin, first occurrence, the historical evolution and the changes of meaning of each concept, from Ancient Greek (...) to contemporary philosophy. For the reader this presentation is of unique value: it makes traceable the importance of terms and concepts at certain periods or for a particular philosopher, as well as its changes and development of meaning. Voulmes 1–12 of the _HWPh_ comprises more than 17.000 text columns on 3.670 philosophical terms. The dictionary does not include articles on persons. Volume 13 includes, besides of a comprehensive introductory essay, three different indexes: - the Subject Index classifies the articles by disciplinary and systematic categories - the Main Index includes all philosophical keywords with more than 30.000 references to their occurrences in other articles and contexts - the Author Index lists all authors and their contributions The included CD-ROM allows full text research of the _HWPh's_ entire content. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: Introduction What is Chemistry about? Is Chemistry Reducible to Physics? Are There Fundamental Limits to Chemical Knowledge? Is Chemical Research Ethically Neutral? Conclusion References.

Recent theorizing and research concerning the pragmatics of analogy in persuasion posits that it serves two communicative functions. Specifically, rebuttal analogy instrumentally functions as argument and also as a social attack device used to demean the competence or character of opponents. The study reported here empirically investigated message receivers' perceptions of rebuttal analogy users. Participants were exposed to one of four messages employing rebuttal analogy or to one of the same four messages with a nonanalogy version of the rebuttal argument. (...) As anticipated, the findings revealed that participants perceived the communicator employing rebuttal analogy as less ethical and less competent than communicators using nonanalogy counterparts. These results are discussed and future research is proposed. (shrink)

This article presents and discusses different kinds of data documents, including data sets, data studies, data papers and data journals. It provides descriptive and bibliometric data on different kinds of data documents and discusses the theoretical and philosophical problems by classifying documents according to the DIKW model (data documents, information documents, knowl­edge documents and wisdom documents). Data documents are, on the one hand, an established category today, even with its own data citation index (DCI). On the other hand, data documents (...) have blurred boundaries in relation to other kinds of documents and seem sometimes to be understood from the problematic philosophical assumption that a datum can be understood as “a single, fixed truth, valid for everyone, everywhere, at all times”. (shrink)

It is now—at least loosely—acknowledged that most health and clinical outcomes are influenced by different interacting causes. Surprisingly, medical research studies are nearly universally designed to study—usually in a binary way—the effect of a single cause. Recent experiences during the coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic brought to the forefront that most of our challenges in medicine and healthcare deal with systemic, that is, interdependent and interconnected problems. Understanding these problems defy simplistic dichotomous research methodologies. These insights demand a shift in our (...) thinking from ‘cause and effect’ to ‘causes and effects’ since this transcends the classical way of Cartesian reductionist thinking. We require a shift to a ‘causes and effects’ frame so we can choose the research methodology that reflects the relationships between variables of interest—one-to-one, one-to-many, many-to-one or many-to-many. One-to-one (or cause and effect) relationships are amenable to the traditional randomized control trial design, while all others require systemic designs to understand ‘causes and effects’. Researchers urgently need to re-evaluate their science models and embrace research designs that allow an exploration of the clinically obvious multiple ‘causes and effects’ on health and disease. Clinical examples highlight the application of various systemic research methodologies and demonstrate how ‘causes and effects’ explain the heterogeneity of clinical outcomes. This shift in scientific thinking will allow us to find the necessary personalized or precise clinical interventions that address the underlying reasons for the variability of clinical outcomes and will contribute to greater health equity. (shrink)

Prolegomena to Pure Logic (1900) is the definitive statement of Husserl’s early logic. But what does it say that logic is? I argue that Husserl in the Prolegomena thinks logic is its own discipline, namely the “doctrine of science” (Wissenschaftslehre), but has two conflicting ideas of what that is. One idea—expressed by the book’s general argument, and which I call Husserl’s Austrian Semanticism about logic—is that the Wissenschaftslehre is the positive science explaining what science is (which turns out just to (...) be the study of meaning) plus the dependent art that, applying the science, teaches us how to scientifically know. The other idea—expressed by the book’s opening chapter, and which I call Husserl’s German Idealism about logic—is that the Wissenschaftslehre is the purely reflective self-knowing of science, independent of science’s positive expansion. These two ideas are incompatible. Thus, the Prolegomena is ambivalent on what logic is. But since the ambivalence only deepens the significance of Husserl’s early logic, the ambivalence should be embraced. (shrink)

Algorithmic predictions are promising for insurance companies to develop personalized risk models for determining premiums. In this context, issues of fairness, discrimination, and social injustice might arise: Algorithms for estimating the risk based on personal data may be biased towards specific social groups, leading to systematic disadvantages for those groups. Personalized premiums may thus lead to discrimination and social injustice. It is well known from many application fields that such biases occur frequently and naturally when prediction models are applied to (...) people unless special efforts are made to avoid them. Insurance is no exception. In this paper, we provide a thorough analysis of algorithmic fairness in the case of insurance premiums. We ask what “fairness” might mean in this context and how the fairness of a premium system can be measured. For this, we apply the established fairness frameworks of the fair machine learning literature to the case of insurance premiums and show which of the existing fairness criteria can be applied to assess the fairness of insurance premiums. We argue that two of the often-discussed group fairness criteria, independence (also called statistical parity or demographic parity) and separation (also known as equalized odds), are not normatively appropriate for insurance premiums. Instead, we propose the sufficiency criterion (also known as well-calibration) as a morally defensible alternative that allows us to test for systematic biases in premiums towards certain groups based on the risk they bring to the pool. In addition, we clarify the connection between group fairness and different degrees of personalization. Our findings enable insurers to assess the fairness properties of their risk models, helping them avoid reputation damage resulting from potentially unfair and discriminatory premium systems. (shrink)

National governments have failed spectacularly to mitigate anthropogenic climate change and a sustainable approach to mitigation remains out of sight. This circumstance alone demonstrates t...

Doctoral students in clinical, counseling, and school psychology programs often collaborate with faculty on research projects in their training as scientist-practitioners. Yet, the determination of publications' credit and order of authorship on resulting manuscripts continues to be a major concern and challenging process for professional psychologists and student collaborators. This article describes the use of case-based learning and semi-structured interview approaches to instruct first-year clinical psychology doctoral students in publication ethics during a research seminar. The instructor models ethical decision-making with (...) 1) a discussion of four cases from his own professional experiences and 2) a description of the Authorship Eligibility Assessment form, which he developed for use with junior researchers. The authors advocate for more educational strategies to supplement the APA standards in teaching the ethics of the publication process. Implications in terms of graduate student development and research collaborations in the field of professional psychology were discussed. (shrink)

This scarce antiquarian book is a selection from Kessinger Publishing's Legacy Reprint Series. Due to its age, it may contain imperfections such as marks, notations, marginalia and flawed pages. Because we believe this work is culturally important, we have made it available as part of our commitment to protecting, preserving, and promoting the world's literature. Kessinger Publishing is the place to find hundreds of thousands of rare and hard-to-find books with something of interest for everyone!

Background Metaphors are central to the human understanding of complex issues; through the immediate associations they evoke and frame problems and suggest solutions. Our suggestion of Music in the Park as a metaphor for health systems reform brings to the forefront the environmentally diverse but bounded spaces of health services that offer a variety of attractors within their confines, while pushing into the background organizational and economic concerns.Reflections Parks, like health services, are embedded in their local landscape, serving their communities, (...) but most importantly parks are public spaces, publically funded, ideally offering universal access and equity and to be shared by all who want to go there.Music, like health, is tangible, technical and scientific, yet ultimately experiential and based on meaning. While it encompasses a wide range of styles and approaches, music making requires as its most important skill active listening which brings with it to be ‘in the moment’, to take personal risks and to draw energy and inspiration from the participants. Hence ‘audiences’ are equally active participants because music only has meaning if it internally resonates with the listener and only can exist in what is a co-constructed experience.Conclusions Music in the Park is a metaphor for primary health care systems based on shared values of experts and unique local communities. Health professionals are players in this arena, who develop and practise the full range of their skills in response to individual and community needs and preferences. Their leadership works through inspiration and empowerment, making patients ‘co-producers’ of their own health and ‘co-shapers’ of their health services. (shrink)

Es besteht kein Mangel an ausgezeichneten Werken zur Logik und zur Ontologie. Allerdings wird in ihnen in der Regel weder die Logik ontologisch voraussetzungslos entwickelt noch die Ontologie in einem ausreichenden Zusammenhang mit der Logik entfaltet. An dieser Stelle mochte die Untersuchung ansetzen. Sie versucht Logik und Ontologie unter syntaktischen, semantischen und pragmatischen Gesichtspunkten darzulegen, indem sie auf der einen Seite ontologische Setzungen, die bei der Entfaltung der Logik in der Regel vorgenommen werden, vermeidet und auf der anderen Seite logische (...) Zusammenhange, die bei der Entfaltung der Ontologie in der Regel ungenutzt bleiben, heranzieht. (shrink)

Was ist der Mensch? Das ist die Kernfrage dieses Buches, die aus philosophischer Sicht bearbeitet wird. Es wird dafür argumentiert, dass der Mensch mehr ist als eine sehr komplexe Ansammlung materieller Elementarteilchen, die einfach nach den normalen Gesetzen der Physik miteinander zusammenwirken. Stattdessen muss man Menschen zusätzlich spezifisch menschliche Eigenschaften zuschreiben, die nicht vollständig aus den körperlichen Eigenschaften heraus erklärbar sind. Sie verfügen über Bewusstsein und können in einem gewissen Umfang frei handeln. Das sind psycho-physische Phänomene, die mit den Gesetzen (...) der Physik nicht vollständig erfasst werden können. Deswegen ist der Materialismus wahrscheinlich falsch, wenngleich er nicht definitiv widerlegbar ist. Die beste Antwort auf das uralte Leib-Seele-Problem ist der Polare Dualismus, ein Eigenschaftsdualismus, der die Welt als grundsätzlich psycho-physisch auffasst. Psycho-physische Zusammenhänge sind keine nachträgliche Verbindung zweier eigenständiger Seinsbereiche, sondern stehen in einem polaren Verhältnis zueinander. Keiner der Bereiche ist ohne den anderen denkbar, aber es kann auch keiner auf den jeweils anderen zurückgeführt werden. (shrink)

This article develops and tests a refined feminist theory of rape. The author proposes that the short-term effect of gender equality is an increased rape rate via increased threats to the status quo, whereas the long-term effect of gender equality is reduced rape rates via an improved social climate toward women. Using panel data for 109 U.S. cities over three decades—1970, 1980, and 1990—the author's expectations are generally confirmed. Because measures of inequality are used, supportive cross-sectional coefficients are negative and (...) supportive lagged coefficients are positive. In the short term, gender inequality reduces the rape rate, whereas in the long term, higher levels of gender inequality are associated with higher levels of rape. Gender inequality in income, education, access to high-status occupations, and legal status are each positively associated with the change in rape in at least one change period. (shrink)

In natural kind debates, Boyd's famous Homeostatic Property Cluster theory (HPC) is often misconstrued in two ways: Not only is it thought to make for a normative standard for natural kinds, but also to require the homeostatic mechanisms underlying nomological property clusters to be uniform. My argument for the illegitimacy of both overgeneralizations, both on systematic as well as exegetical grounds, is based on the misconstrued view's failure to account for functional kinds in science. I illustrate the combination of these (...) two misconstruals with recent entries into the natural kind debate about emotions. Finally, I examine and reject Stich's "Kornblith-Devitt method" as a potential justification of these misconstruals. (shrink)

In "Literary Forms of Argument in Early China," Gentz and Meyer explore a new analytical approach to the study of written thinking by focusing on the argumentative function of literary patterns in early Chinese texts.

Leistungssportlerinnen, die in populären Sportarten erfolgreich sind, kommen in den Genuss hoher Einkommen und großen sozialen Ansehens. Gleichzeitig ist ihr Erfolg von Voraussetzungen abhängig, die zu einem signifikanten Teil von ihrem Genotyp bestimmt werden. Diesen Sportlern werden also durch gesellschaftliche Prozesse substantielle Vorteile aufgrund von Eigenschaften zuteil, auf deren Vorhandensein sie keinen Einfluss haben. Wir untersuchen, wie wir vor dem Hintergrund verschiedener Gerechtigkeitsvorstellungen mit diesem Phänomen umgehen sollten. Wir argumentieren, dass die konsistente Berücksichtigung von Intuitionen zur gerechten Güterverteilung an Wettkämpferinnen (...) eine deutliche Ausweitung des Einsatzes von Wettkampfklassen erfordert. Die bestehenden Ungleichverteilungen lassen sich nicht allein mit Verweis auf ein Recht auf Selbsteigentum rechtfertigen. Sie verursachen auch keine Verbesserungen der Lage von besonders schlecht gestellten Individuen im Wirkungsbereich des Leistungssports, auf die zugunsten ihres Weiterbestehens verwiesen werden könnte. Trotz des erheblichen Aufwandes und der deutlichen Veränderungen im Charakter des Leistungssports, die mit der vorgeschlagenen Differenzierung von Wettkampfklassen einhergingen, ist diese Maßnahme geboten. (shrink)

Die Dinge als Dinge sind in den letzten Jahrzehnten immer mehr ins Zentrum des Forschungsinteresses gerückt. In diesem Buch geht es darum, ob es so etwas wie eine Rhetorik der Dinge gibt, ob man eine Theorie des Stilllebens zu den Dingen im Bild formulieren kann und was all das zusammen mit der Frage nach dem Ding-Design mit Rhetorik zu tun hat.

In dieser Aufsatzsammlung wird Johann Georg Hamanns Grundthese von Gott als Schriftsteller interpretiert und in weitest reichende literarische Zusammenhange gestellt. Der Zusammenhang von Reden, Horen und Sehen wird theologisch und eschatologisch untersucht. Hamanns Gedanken zum Abendmahl und Sacrament der Sprache werden mit der Rolle des Essens und Trinkens in Beziehung gebracht. Die Narziss-Episode der Metamorphosen des Ovid deutete der Schriftsteller christologisch und als Kenner des Hebraerbriefs verfasste er eine kritische Rezension des Kommentars von J. D. Michaelis (Gottingen). Der Autor arbeitet (...) die Bedeutung Hamanns als der massgebliche theologische Sprachdenker nach Luther heraus, dessen Worttheologie u. a. Kierkegaard gepragt hat. (shrink)