The original article unfortunately contains error in footnote 2 due to its double entry and interchanged figures 1 and 2.

We propose a new conceptualization of pain by incorporating advancements made by phenomenologists and cognitive scientists. The biomedical understanding of pain is problematic as it inaccurately endorses a linear relationship between noxious stimuli and pain, and is often dualist or reductionist. From a Cartesian dualist perspective, pain occurs in an immaterial mind. From a reductionist perspective, pain is often considered to be “in the brain.” The biopsychosocial conceptualization of pain has been adopted to combat these problematic views. However, when considering (...) pain research advancements, paired with the work of phenomenologists’ and cognitive scientists’ advanced understanding of perception, the biopsychosocial model is inadequate in many ways. The boundaries between the biological, psychological, and social are artificial, and the model is often applied in a fragmented manner. The model has a limited theoretical foundation, resulting in the perpetuation of dualistic and reductionist beliefs. A new framework may serve to better understand and treat pain. In this paper, we conceptualize pain as a 5E process, arguing that it is: Embodied, Embedded, Enacted, Emotive, and Extended. This perspective is applied using back pain as an exemplar and we explore potential clinical applications. With enactivism at the core of this approach, pain does not reside in a mysterious immaterial mind, nor is it an entity to be found in the blood, brain, or other bodily tissues. Instead, pain is a relational and emergent process of sense-making through a lived body that is inseparable from the world that we shape and that shapes us. (shrink)

Vague existence can seem like the worst kind of vagueness in the world, or seem to be an entirely unintelligible notion. This bad reputation is based upon the rumour that if there is vague existence then there are non-existent objects. But the rumour is false: the modest brand of vague existence entailed by certain metaphysical theories of composition does not deserve its bad reputation.

If the property _being a methane molecule_ is a universal, then it is a structural universal: objects instantiate _being a methane molecule_ just in case they have the right sorts of proper parts arranged in the right sort of way. Lewis argued that there can be no satisfactory account of structural universals; in this paper I provide a satisfactory account.

Harman presents an outline of how object-oriented ontology differentiates itself from other branches of speculative realism. Can OOO steer philosophy from an epistemological project that tends to reduce the discipline to "a series of small-time drug busts"?

Posthumanism has come to synthesize philosophical, literary, and artistic responses to the pressures of technology, globalization, and mass extinction in the Anthropocene. It asks what it can mean to be human in an increasingly more-than-human world that has lost faith in the ideal of humanism, the autonomous, rational subject, and it models generative alternatives cognizant of the demands of social and ecological justice. Posthumanism in Art and Science is an anthology of indispensable statements and artworks that provide an unprecedented mapping (...) of this intellectual and aesthetic shift in a global context. It extends across a broad range of fields such as art theory, media studies, continental philosophy, natural science, literary studies, aesthetics, psychoanalysis, environmental humanities, social and political theory, and animal studies. The reader features a diverse sampling of major thinkers including Donna Haraway, Rosi Braidotti, Michael Marder, Karen Barad, Alexander Weheliye, Jay Prosser, Anna Tsing, Graham Harman, Timothy Morton, N. Katherine Hayles, Jane Bennett, Bruno Latour, Francesca Ferrando, and Cary Wolfe, as well as innovative, acclaimed artists and curators such as Yvonne Rainer, Chus Martínez, William Wegman, Nandipha Mntambo, Cassils, Pauline Oliveros, Doo-sung Yoo, and Gavin Steingo. Their provocative and compelling works, including previously unpublished interviews and essays, speak to the ongoing conceptual and political challenge of posthuman theories in a time of unprecedented cultural and environmental crises. An essential primer and reference for educators, students, artists, and art enthusiasts, this volume offers a powerful framework for rethinking anthropocentric certitudes and reenvisioning equitable and sustainable futures. (shrink)

This is a very introductory introduction to some ways in which the special and general theories of relativity may bear upon metaphysical questions about the nature of time and space, and the persistence of objects.

I claim that, if persisting objects have temporal parts, then there are non-supervenient relations between those temporal parts. These are relations which are not determined by intrinsic properties of the temporal parts. I use the Kripke-Armstrong 'rotating homogeneous disc' argument in order to establish this claim, and in doing so I defend and develop that argument. This involves a discussion of instantaneous velocity, and of the causes and effects of rotation. Finally, I compare alternative responses to the rotating disc argument, (...) and consider the implications of my arguments for the doctrines of Humean Supervenience and unrestricted mereology. (shrink)

This Companion brings together a team of leading figures in contemporary philosophy to provide an in-depth exposition and analysis of Quine’s extensive influence across philosophy’s many sub-fields, highlighting the breadth of his work, and revealing his continued significance today.

Closest-continuer or best-candidate accounts of persistence seem deeply unsatisfactory, but it’s hard to say why. The standard criticism is that such accounts violate the ‘only a and b’ rule, but this criticism merely highlights a feature of the accounts without explaining why the feature is unacceptable. Another concern is that such accounts violate some principle about the supervenience of persistence facts upon local or intrinsic facts. But, again, we do not seem to have an independent justification for this supervenience claim. (...) Instead, I argue that closest continuer accounts are committed to unexplained correlations between distinct existences, and that this is their fundamental flaw. We can have independent justification for rejecting such correlations, but what the justification is depends upon much broader issues in ontology. There is no one-size-fits all objection to closest-continuer accounts of persistence. (shrink)

Purpose Cybercrime is a prevalent and serious threat to publicly traded companies. Defending company information systems from cybercrime is one of the most important aspects of technology management. Cybercrime often not only results in stolen assets and lost business but also damages a company’s reputation, which in turn may affect the company’s stock market value. This is a serious concern to company managers, financial analysts, investors and creditors. This paper aims to examine the impact of cybercrime on stock prices of (...) a sample of publicly traded companies. Design/methodology/approach Financial data were gathered on companies that were reported in news stories as victims of cybercrime. The market price of the company’s stock was recorded for several days before the news report and several days after. The percentage change in the stock price was compared to the change in the Dow Jones Industrial average to determine whether the stock price increased or decreased along with the rest of the market. Findings Stock prices were negatively affected in all time periods examined, significantly so in one period. Practical implications This paper describes cases concerning cybercrime, thereby bringing attention to the value of cybersecurity in protecting computers, identity and transactions. Cyber security is necessary to avoid becoming a victim of cybercrime. Specific security improvements and preventive measures are provided within the paper. Preventive measures are generally less costly than repairs after a cybercrime. Originality/value This is an original manuscript that adds to the literature regarding cybercrime and preventive measures. (shrink)

In his Material Beings, Peter van Inwagen distinguishes two questions about parthood. What are the conditions necessary and sufficient for some things jointly to compose a whole? What are the conditions necessary and sufficient for a thing to have proper parts? The first of these, the Special Composition Question (SCQ), has been widely discussed, and David Lewis has argued that an important constraint on any answer to the SCQ is that it should not permit borderline cases of composition. This is (...) a far-reaching claim, since many plausible-seeming accounts of composition do permit borderline cases. Ned Markosian has recently directed our attention to the second, the neglected Inverse Special Composition Question (ISCQ). I will argue that those who accept Lewis’s constraint on answers to the SCQ should accept an analogous constraint on answers to the ISCQ, and I will discuss the effects of such a constraint. (shrink)

This paper focuses on smallholder agriculture and livelihoods in north-central Tanzania. It traces changes in agricultural production and asset ownership in one community over a 28 year period. Over this period, national development policies and agriculture programs have moved from socialism to neo-liberal approaches. Using a combination of qualitative and quantitative methods, we explore how farmers have responded to these shifts in the wider political-economic context and how these responses have shaped their livelihoods and ideas about farming and wealth. This (...) case study clearly debunks the idea that rural farmers are slow to respond to “modern” farming methods or that smallholder farming is stagnant and cannot reduce poverty. While changes overall are very positive in this rural community, challenges remain as land sizes are small and markets often unreliable. This research cautions against a shift in emphasis to large-scale farming as a strategy for national development. It suggests instead that increased investment in supporting smallholder farming is critical for addressing poverty and rural well-being. (shrink)

The recent finding that the human version of a neurodevelopmental enhancer of the Wnt receptor Frizzled 8 (FZD8) gene alters neural progenitor cell cycle timing and brain size is a step forward to understanding human brain evolution. The human brain is distinctive in terms of its cognitive abilities as well as its susceptibility to neurological disease. Identifying which of the millions of genomic changes that occurred during human evolution led to these and other uniquely human traits is extremely challenging. Recent (...) studies have demonstrated that many of the fastest evolving regions of the human genome function as gene regulatory enhancers during embryonic development and that the human‐specific mutations in them might alter expression patterns. However, elucidating molecular and cellular effects of sequence or expression pattern changes is a major obstacle to discovering the genetic bases of the evolution of our species. There is much work to do before human‐specific genetic and genomic changes are linked to complex human traits. (shrink)

This paper looks at how the strategies of mediaand cultural studies can be applied to thehealth studies field. This relationship,however, has been met with resistance due to anumber of status debates. We argue theimportance of fostering links between these`disciplines' namely because the definition ofwhat constitutes `health' has been broadenedand is inscribed in most forms of popularmedia. Using the example of the `health andlifestyle' debate, we argue that the mediainforms cultural understandings aboutrequirements for living and is therefore acrucial area of analysis (...) for health studies(and cultural/media studies) students. We arealso concerned with analysing how the mediacontributes to the construction and regulationof `healthy' subjects making links with publichealth discourses and current debates in thefield of media and health. (shrink)

In this chapter I outline some metaphysical views about time, and about persistence, and discuss how they can help us clarify our thinking about life and death.

Volume 20, Issue 5, June 2020, Page 38-40.

In The Ambivalent State Javier Auyero and Katherine Sobering examine the fascinating world of clandestine relationships between police officers and drug dealers in Argentina. Drawing on a unique combination of ethnographic research and hundreds of pages of wiretapped phone conversations, they analyze the inner-workings of police-criminal collusion and how they shape drug markets, policing in poor urban areas, and daily life at the urban margins.

Continental philosophy is witnessing a global renaissance of speculative philosophy. And while some corners of this movement are gaining traction in art- and architecture-theoretical circles, its application to philosophical aesthetics has been forestalled in favor of metaphysical and, secondarily, epistemological inquiry. This essay tracks some of the ways that speculative aesthetics is emerging, and opening new pathways, within the renaissance. It accomplishes three primary tasks. First, it enumerates several of the ways that the name “speculative aesthetics” has been mobilized in (...) contemporary speculative philosophy. Second, it presents and develops one approach to speculative aesthetics, namely Graham Harman’s, and highlights its indebtedness to Levinas. Third, it briefly endorses a particular way forward for speculative aesthetics, one that is object-oriented and articulated in a recent essay by N. Katherine Hayles, the work of Steven Shaviro, and my book Plastic Bodies. (shrink)

Some preliminary comments Introduction: The EDWs perspective in my article from 2005 and my book from 2008 -/- I. PHYSICS, COGNITIVE NEUROSCIENCE, PHILOSOPHY (‘REBORN DINOSAURS’ ) • (2016) Did Sean Carroll’s ideas (California Institute of Technology, USA) (within the wrong framework, the “universe”) plagiarize my ideas (2002-2010) (within the EDWs framework) on quantum mechanics, the relationship between Einstein relativity and quantum mechanics, life, the mind-brain problem, etc.? • (2016) The unbelievable similarities between Frank Wilczek’s ideas (Nobel Prize in Physics) and (...) my ideas (2002-2008, etc.) (Philosophy of Mind and Quantum Mechanics) • (2017-2019 NEW) Strong similarity between Carlo Rovelli’s ideas (Italy) in three books (2015, 2017) to my ideas (2002-2008) + commentary February 2018! • (2016) Kastner + (2017) R. E. Kastner, Stuart Kauffman, Michael Epperson “Taking Heisenberg’s Potentia Seriously”: Quite similar ideas to my ideas (2008) + • (2017) A trick: Unbelievable similarities between Lee Smolin’s ideas (2017) and my ideas (2002-2008) • (May 2018) ‘Thus spoke Zarathustra!’ - A fairy-tale with Eugen Ionesco and the Idiot about Nothingness -/- II. PHYSICS • (2011) The unbelievable similarities between Radu Ionicioiu (Physics, University of Bucharest, Romania) and Daniel R. Terno’s ideas (Physics, Macquarie University, Sydney, Australia) and my ideas (Quantum Mechanics) • (2013) Côté B. Gilbert (Oontario, Canada) Unbelievalbe similarities • (2015) The strong similarity between Pikovski Igor, Zych Magdalena, Costa Fabio, and Brukner Časlav’s ideas and my ideas (2006-2008) regarding the Schrodinger’s cat’s interactions with its environment (the gravitation of Earth) (both entities being macro-objects) (Quantum Mechanics) • (2015) The strong similarity between Elisabetta Caffau’s ideas (Center for Astronomy at the University of Heidelberg and the Paris Observatory) and my ideas (2011, 2014) regarding the appearance of Big Bang in many places (Cosmology) • (2015) Did Wolfram Schommers (University of Texas at Arlington, USA & Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, Germany) plagiarize my ideas? (Physics) • (2015) Some astrophysicists about "Dark Matter May be 'Another Dimension' - Or Even a Major Galactic Transport System" January 22, 2015 • (2016) The strong similarities between Dylan H. Mahler, Lee Rozema, Kent Fisher, Lydia Vermeyden, Kevin J. Resch, Howard M. Wiseman, and Aephraim Steinberg’s ideas (USA) and my ideas (Quantum Mechanics) • (2016) The unbelievable similarities between Bill Poirier’s ‘Many Interacting Worlds’ and my EDWs (Quantum Mechanics) • (2016 or 2017) Similarities between Adam Frank’s ideas (University of Rochester in New York , USA) (“Minding matter - The closer you look, the more the materialist position in physics appears to rest on shaky metaphysical ground”) and my ideas (2005, 2008) • (2017, 2017) Did Sebastian de Haro (HPS, Cambridge, UK) plagiarize my ideas (2002-2008) • (2017) Unbelievable similarities between Laura Condiotto’s ideas and my ideas (2002-2008) • (2016) The unbelievable similarities between Hugo F. Alrøe and Egon Noe’s (Department of Agroecology, Aarhus University, Denmark) ideas (USA) and my ideas (2002-2008) (Bohr's complementarity extended to ontology) • (2017) The unbelievable similar ideas between Federico Zalamea’s ideas and my ideas • (2018) Unbelievable similarities between Peter J. Lewis’s ideas (2018) and my ideas (2002-2008) • (2018) Timothy Hollowood, ‘Classical from Quantum’, [arXiv:1803.04700v1 [quant-ph] 13 March 2018] • (2018) Mario Hubert and Davide Romano, ‘The Wave-Function as a Multi-Field’ -/- III. COGNITIVE NEUROSCIENCE AND PHILOSOPHY OF MIND • (2011-2014) Did Georg Northoff (Psychoanalysis, Institute of Mental Health) plagiarize my ideas (2002-2008)? • (2011) The unbelievable similarities between Kalina Diego Cosmelli, Legrand Dorothée and Thompson Evan’s ideas (USA) and my ideas (Cognitive Neuroscience) • (2015) Did David Ludwig (Philosophy, University of Amsterdam) plagiarize many of my ideas? (Philosophy (of Mind) • (2016) Did Neil D. Theise (Department of Pathology, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, New York, USA) and Kafatos C. Menas (Department of Medicine, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, New York, USA) plagiarize my ideas of Physics and Cognitive Neuroscience and Philosophy (the mind-brain problem, quantum mechanics, etc.) from 2002-2008? • Did David Bourget (2018) (Director, Centre for Digital Philosophy, Western University (or University of Western Ontario) plagiarize my ideas regarding the mind-brain problem? + Chalmers • (2016) Unbelievable similarities between Dan Siegel’s ideas (Mindsight Institute, USA) and my ideas (2002-2008) -/- IV. Philosophy (of science) • (2010) The unbelievable similarities between Alexey Alyushin (Moscow, Russia) and my ideas (on Ontology) • (2013 + 2017) Did Markus Gabriel (Bonn University) plagiarize my ideas? • (2013) The unbelievable similarities between Andrew Newman’s ideas (University of Nebraska, at Omaha, USA) and my ideas (Ontology) • (2016) Did Tahko E. Tuomas (University of Helsinki, Finland) plagiarize my ideas? + Tahko E. Tuomas (‘The Epistemology of Essence’) • (2017) Did Jani Hakkarainen (University of Tampere, Finland) plagiarize my ideas (2002-2008)? + (2017) Markku Keinänen, Antti Keskinen & Jani Hakkarainen • (2017) The unbelievable similarities between Dean Rickles’s ideas (HPS, Univ. of Sydney) and my ideas (2002-2008) • (2017) Did Dirk K. F. Meijer and Hans J. H. Geesink (University of Groningen, Netherlands) plagiarize my ideas (2002-2008)? (2017) • (2018) Unbelievable similar ideas between Jason Winning’s ideas (2018) and my ideas (2002-2008) • (2018) David Mark Kovacs (Lecturer of philosophy at Tel Aviv University), ‘The Deflationary Theory of Ontological Dependence’, Philosophical Quarterly (forthcoming) -/- Conclusion [Obviously, there are other “specialists” that published UNBELIEVABLE similar ideas to my ideas but I have not discovered them yet…] Bibliography [Some people haven't read my works but they claim my ideas can be found in other works. Soon, they will discover EDWs in Shakespeare, Bach, Sophocles and ET's letter sent 10 million years ago... me vs. people who have plagiarized my ideas: on Youtube] ------------------------------------------------------------------ July 2018 -/- • Oreste M. Fiocco • Baptiste Le Bihan (University of Geneva, forthcoming) • Antonella Mallozzi (The Graduate Center – CUNY, forthcoming in Synthese, penultimate draft) • Erik C. Banks (Wright State University, 2014) • Sami Pihlström (2009) • Katherin Koslicki’s ideas (2008) The Structure of Objects, Oxford University Press) and my ideas (2002-2005-2006) -/- November 2018 • Maurizio Ferraris (2014/2012) Manifesto of New Realism -/- • Graham Harman (2017) : Object-Oriented Ontology: A New Theory of Everything (Penguin Books) ---------------------------------------------------------------- -/- January 2019 • Philip Ball (2018): “Why everything you thought you knew about quantum physics is different” • Gerhard Grössing “Vacuum landscaping: cause of nonlocal influences without signaling” • Anne Sophie Meincke (November 2018) The Disappearance of Change (IJPS) 28. The Disappearance of Change Towards a Process Account of Persistence Forthcoming in: International Journal of Philosophical Studies DOI: 10.1080/09672559.2018.1548634 • Baptiste Le Bihana (University of Geneva) and James Read (Oxford Univ.) “Duality and Ontology” (forthcoming, in Philosophy Compass) • Baptiste Le Bihan (University of Geneva): “Space Emergence in Contemporary Physics: Why We Do Not Need Fundamentality, Layers of Reality and Emergence” in Disputatio, Vol. X, No. 49, November 2018 • Alexander Alexandrovich Antonov (2016) (Research Center of Information Technologies “TELAN Electronics”, Kiev, Ukraine): “Hypothesis of the Hidden Multiverse Explains Dark Matter and Dark Energy”, Journal of Modern Physics, 2016, 7, 1228-1246 -/- February 2019 • James Barham (2019): “The Reality of Purpose and the Reform of Naturalism” • Giorgio Lando (2017) Mereology - A Philosophical Introduction, Bloomsbury Academic • (2018) Albrecht von M¨uller • Elias Zafiris, Concept and Formalization of Constellatory Self-Unfolding - A Novel Perspective on the Relation between Quantum and Relativistic Physics • (2019) Flaminia Giacomini, Esteban Castro-Ruiz, & Časlav Brukner “Quantum mechanics and the covariance of physical laws in quantum reference frames”, Nature Communications • (2019) Valia Allori, “Scientific Realism without the Wave-Function: An Example of Naturalized Quantum Metaphysics” (to appear in J. Saatsi, S. French (eds.) “Scientific Realism and the Quantum” OUP (2019) - Department of Philosophy Northern Illinois University) • (2018) Paulo De Jesus “Thinking through enactive agency: sense-making, bio-semiosis and the ontologies of organismic worlds”, Phenom Cogn Sci • (2016) TIMOTHY MORTON, For a Logic of Future Coexistence, (Columbia University Press) • (2017) Andrew Cooper, Two directions for teleology: naturalism and idealism, Synthese . (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Christians Talk About Buddhist Meditation; Buddhists Talk About Christian PrayerSarah K. PinnockChristians Talk About Buddhist Meditation; Buddhists Talk About Christian Prayer. Edited by Rita M. Gross and Terry C. Muck. London: Continuum, 2003. 157 pp.It is popularly assumed that meditation enhances well-being and relieves stress. In the West, Asian practices are taught to persons from mainly Christian and Jewish backgrounds as new forms of spirituality, often presented as (...) dramatically different from monotheistic traditions. Yet some practitioners consider meditation and other forms of Asian spirituality as enhancing rather than replacing worship of God.This book presents essays by twelve authors that explore similarities and differences between Buddhist meditation and Christian prayer. The book reprints pieces that originally appeared in the journal Buddhist-Christian Studies in 2001 and 2002. It is thoroughly dialogical in format. Part 1 contains five Christian reflections on Buddhist spiritual practice followed by two Buddhist responses, while part 2 consists of five Buddhist reflections on Christian spiritual practice with two Christian responses. Many of the contributors are connected with the Society for Buddhist-Christian Studies. Importantly, they combine academic and experiential knowledge of the two religions. The collection is framed by an introduction by Terry Muck and a conclusion by Rita Gross, the book's editors, who are Christian and Buddhist practitioners, respectively. The symmetry of the chapter layout is pleasing and apt.Sociologically, the major impetus for this dialogue is the fact that a growing number of Christians have found Buddhist meditation fruitful. However, these Christians have not left behind their original religious identification. As they interact with Buddhists, dialogue has emerged comparing the two traditions. Clearly for Christians practicing some Buddhism, the emphasis is on mutual appreciation and commonality. To examine the motivation for interreligious dialogue, it is fitting to ask, whose interests does the dialogue serve? First and foremost, the interests are Christian. While Christian authors have gained from Buddhist spiritual practice, Buddhists have not adapted Christian prayer techniques in return. But although the genealogy of dialogue has Christian origins, the editors intend to take a neutral approach. They frame the topic broadly and invite [End Page 204] contributors to remark on any facet of the other tradition, including critical points.In part 1, Frances Adeney, Mary Frohlich, Paul Ingram, Terry Muck, and Bardwell Smith express how aspects of Buddhist meditation have enriched their Christian spirituality. Adeney learned techniques of Buddhist silent meditation from a Jesuit priest in Indonesia that enable heightened awareness of God's presence. Frohlich belongs to a Catholic religious order for women and finds Buddhism helpful for developing discipline in prayer. For Ingram, Buddhist meditation is one ingredient in a spiritual journey focused on social liberation and discovering God's presence. Muck has found reflection on Theravada teaching about morality (sila) to be an impetus to overcome the theological dichotomy between faith and works and to develop the importance of spiritual readiness that cuts across religious traditions. Smith's participation in interfaith pilgrimage and meditation illustrates the spiritual discipline that Buddhism offers.There are many overlapping insights among these chapters that Grace Burford helpfully summarizes in her response essay: first, Buddhist practice can confirm aspects of Christian practice, such as silent prayer; second, the encounter with Buddhism can lead Christians to uncover untapped streams within Christianity, especially monastic and mystical traditions; third, Buddhism can offer unique new techniques to Christians, such as zazen, which provide rigor in developing mental concentration. Christian appreciation of Buddhism blurs religious boundaries but never requires abandonment of church or creed. Robert Thurman's response concludes with a comment on the postmodern insecurity about boundaries, and praises these Christian authors for resisting the hardening of religious identities. He reminds readers of the Dalai Lama's exhortation that conversion to Buddhism is not generally the best option for non-Buddhists drawn to his Tibetan tradition. Rather, he advises taking what seems good in Buddhism to enrich one's original religion, thus remaining integrated with family members, communities, and local customs.In part 2, the contributions of Buddhist authors display more academic distance because of the fact that the authors are not engaged in Christian practices in their Buddhist lives. But the essays... (shrink)

Readers of Hannah Arendt’s now classic formulation of the statelessness problem in her 1951 book The Origins of Totalitarianism abound at a moment when the number of stateless peoples worldwide continues to rise exponentially. Along with statelessness, few concepts in Arendt scholarship have spawned such a volume of literature, and perhaps none have provoked as much interest outside of the field of philosophy, as ‘the right to have rights.’ Interpreting this enigmatic term exposes the heart of our beliefs about the (...) nature of the political and has important consequences for how we practice politics on a global scale because it implicitly takes plural human beings, and not the citizen, as its subjects. Arendt’s conceptualization of this problem remains unsurpassed in its diagnosis of the political situation of statelessness, as well as its intimate description of the human cost of what she refers to as ‘world loss,’ a phenomenon that the prevailing human rights and global justice discourse does not take into account. And yet, as an alternative framework for thinking about global politics, the right to have rights resists easy interpretation, let alone practical application. (shrink)

At the empirical center of James’s theory of emotion is the prediction that people induced to act emotionally will report feeling the corresponding emotion. While the research more or less inspired by James is complex, it is also large. Reisenzein and Stephan (2014) identify a number of problems in this literature, but we think, on balance, the research supports James’s hypothesis. At a minimum, there are literally hundreds of studies showing that people induced to act as if they felt an (...) emotion, an attitude, or a judgment report those feelings. Critics of James’s theory are left with the task of accounting for these findings. (shrink)

Für ökonomische Evaluationen medizinischer Leistungen steht ein etabliertes Methodenspektrum zur Verfügung. Ziel der Arbeit ist, anhand ausgewählter Aspekte herauszuarbeiten, inwieweit diese Methoden für den derzeit viel diskutierten Bereich der Personalisierten Medizin anwendbar sind bzw. welche Besonderheiten dabei auftreten und wie diese adressiert werden können. Für die vorliegende Arbeit wurde eine explorative Literaturrecherche durchgeführt. In Abgrenzung zur herkömmlichen Medizin kann je nach Blickwinkel die Personalisierte Medizin entweder hinsichtlich der physiologischen Unterschiede oder hinsichtlich der individuellen Präferenzen der Beteiligten betrachtet werden. Je nach (...) Betrachtungsweise ergeben sich unterschiedliche methodische Herausforderungen an gesundheitsökonomische Evaluationen. Verbesserte Ausrichtung der Versorgung an physiologischen Unterschieden stellt die Evaluation beispielsweise vor das Problem, dass aufgrund des oftmals kleinen Stichprobenumfangs häufig Evidenz zur Parametrisierung von Entscheidungsmodellen fehlt. Informationswertanalysen können Hinweise über den potenziellen Nutzen weiterer Forschung geben. Das Konzept des „Expected Value of Individualized Care“ bietet einen den Informationswertanalysen sehr ähnlichen Ansatz, um den potenziellen Wert eines Einbezugs individueller Präferenzen in die Versorgung zu quantifizieren. Welfarismus und Extra-Welfarismus bieten unterschiedliche Lösungsansätze, wie Nutzen Biomarker-basierter Information im Sinne von „Empowerment“ in Evaluationen einbezogen werden können. Generell sind die Methoden der gesundheitsökonomischen Evaluation auch auf den Bereich der Personalisierten Medizin anwendbar. Es stellen sich jedoch eine Reihe spezifischer Herausforderungen, zu deren Lösung weiterer Forschungsbedarf besteht. (shrink)

Research has consistently revealed gender differences in attitudes toward science and technology. One explanation is that women are more personally affected by particular technologies, so they consider them differently. However, not all women universally experience biomedical technologies. We use the concept of technological salience to address how differences in subjective implications of a technology might explain differences in women’s attitudes toward biotechnology. In a sample of U.S. women from the National Survey of Fertility Barriers, we examine how women with and (...) without a biomedical barrier to fertility evaluate biotechnology for infertility, which, we argue, reflects differences in technological salience. For women with a biomedical barrier, various experiences, beliefs, and values impacted their attitudes; yet, most of these did not affect attitudes if women had not experienced a fertility barrier. Results suggest that technological salience contextualizes women’s attitudes toward these biotechnologies and may also have broader implications for other biotechnologies. (shrink)

A recent article in this journal by Katrina Hutchison exposes and addresses the cumulative effects of implicit bias on women in surgery. We doubt that there is a single woman in any surgical field who has not experienced both implicit and explicit bias. Many of the issues facing women in surgery seem to be mirrored in both the developed and developing countries. There is little literature describing the exact situation in Africa. South African government institutions have made a concerted effort (...) to improve the representation of minorities in business, education and the health sector. In the hospital setting, hiring is done by means of a quota system based on demographics within that particular sector. This has also resulted in a number of unforeseen epistemic biases. This policy-driven ‘forced’ hiring of female candidates also led to feelings of doubt in the candidates themselves about their merits and competence and capabilities. This epistemic bias can then filter down, feeding the already prevalent imposter syndrome and confidence issues felt by many female surgical trainees. Not only do we need to aim to change the culture in surgical departments by changing the image of the ‘stereotypical surgeon’, we need to extend this message out into our training institutions, communities and peoples’ homes. We believe that this is the only way to change a culture steeped in implicit bias, to be more inclusive of women and other minority groups and shed the assumption that they are lesser. (shrink)

The lifeworld of the classroom -- Getting deep : the integrative biology of teaching and learning -- Preparation for teaching : "what can they experience in class?" -- Teaching as improvisational jazz : "to go somewhere to answer a big question" -- Free to learn : a radical aspect of our approach -- Student experiences of other students : "all together in this space" -- Transcending the classroom : student reports of personal and professional change -- Messing up and messing (...) about : student needs and teachers' adaptation of our phenomenological approach -- The contribution of our existential phenomenological approach to higher education pedagogy : implications for theory, research, and practice. (shrink)

This article contributes to existing feminist technoscience analyses by proposing a new tool for examining how norms governing viable and unviable bodies are discursively constructed in an increasingly technologized world. This tool is the result of synthesizing two existing concepts: white noise from the field of media theory/information studies, and the abject from psychosemiotics/gender studies. Synthesizing these two concepts produces an enriched term for detecting interrelations between discursive disturbances and disturbances in bodily norms. In this article, the synthesized concept is (...) used as a tool to analyse material concerning the assignment of International Nonproprietary Names to biotechnological drugs. Biotech offers itself as a prime testing ground for this new tool, replete as it is with bodily anxieties, powerful discourses and innovative technologies. This article compares three versions of an INN guidance document showing how anxieties about bodily norms are reflected in, and managed through, these documents. (shrink)

A review of Peter Unger's Empty Ideas (OUP 2014).

This is a critical study of Ted Sider's book 'Four-Dimensionalism' . Oxford university press 2001. ISBN 0 19 924443 X, hardback; ISBN 0 19 926352 3, paperback.

This interview with N. Katherine Hayles, one of the foremost theorists of the posthuman, explores the concerns that led to her seminal book How We Became Posthuman, the key arguments expounded in that book, and the changes in technology and culture in the ten years since its publication. The discussion ranges across the relationships between literature and science; the trans-disciplinary project of developing a methodology appropriate to their intersection; the history of cybernetics in its cultural and political context ; (...) the changed role for psychoanalysis in the technoscientific age; and the altering forms of mediated ‘embodiment’ in the posthuman context. (shrink)

Christoph Cox and Jenny Jaskey interview philosopher Graham Harman about his metaphysical and epistemological position and its relationship to art and aesthetics.