The comprehension of living organisms in all their complexity poses a major challenge to the biological sciences. Recently, systems biology has been proposed as a new candidate in the development of such a comprehension. The main objective of this paper is to address what systems biology is and how it is practised. To this end, the basic tools of a systems biological approach are explored and illustrated. In addition, it is questioned whether systems biology ‘revolutionizes’ molecular biology and ‘transcends’ its (...) assumed reductionism. The strength of this claim appears to depend on how molecular and systems biology are characterised and on how reductionism is interpreted. Doing credit to molecular biology and to methodological reductionism, it is argued that the distinction between molecular and systems biology is gradual rather than sharp. As such, the classical challenge in biology to manage, interpret and integrate biological data into functional wholes is further intensified by systems biology’s use of modelling and bioinformatics, and by its scale enlargement. (shrink)

Godenschemering van Daniël de Waele is een theologische cultuurgeschiedenis die de evolutie van het geloof in God uitdiept in de loop der tijd. Israël ontdekte in een polytheïstische wereld de Ene God, die door de tijd heen steeds humaner werd en dichterbij kwam. Hoe is het geloof na die grote stap geëvolueerd? Hoe past het verdampen van het geloof, dat uiteindelijk eindigde in de dood van God, in deze evolutie? En welke rol heeft het bestormen van de godenbeelden gespeeld? (...) De Waele ontwaart naast deze geloofsevolutie een andere geschiedenis: een blijvende zoektocht naar de ene God. (shrink)

This paper contains a short outline of the rationale behind a workshop aimed at seeking connections between corporate social responsibility and corporate political activity. Two ‘provocateurs’ gave their view on these connections. After this kick-off two groups of ~10 persons each engaged in lively discussions on these connections, identifying a range of issues for further research and an interest in keeping this issue on the agenda.

Presumed catholic or christian influence inside the french speaking green party of Belgium is a very strong stereotype since 1981. Nevertheless no scientific work has ever proved that supposition. Starting from a large survey among the 2 500 Ecolo's members, the authors examine and analyze the inventory of fixtures. They present the main features of the members and distinguish the outlines of catholic and non-catholic's members.

This paper analyses the actual meaning of a transcendental philosophy of biology, and does so by exploring and actualising the epistemological and metaphysical value of Kant's viewpoint on living systems. It finds inspiration in the Kantian idea of living systems intrinsically resisting objectification, but critically departs from Kant's philosophical solution in as far as it is based in a subjectivist dogmatism. It attempts to overcome this dogmatism, on the one hand by explicitly taking into account the conditions of possibility at (...) the side of the subject, and on the other hand by embedding both the living and the knowing system into an ontology of complexly organized dynamical systems. This paper fits into the transcendental perspective in acknowledging the need to analyse the conditions of knowability, prior to the contents of what is known. But it also contributes to an expansion and an actualisation of the issue of transcendentality itself by considering the conditions of possibility at the side of the object as intrinsically linked to the conditions of possibility at the side of the subject. (shrink)

Report of the symposium 'Towards a Philosophy of Systems Biology' held at the Vrije Universiteit of Amsterdam (VUA), the Netherlands, from 2 to 3 June 2005.

This study aims to understand how and why emerging adults come into contact with food media messages, and what they perceive as positive and negative outcomes related to food literacy. Seven focus groups, stratified by gender and socio-economic status, with 37 emerging adults aged between 18 and 25 were conducted. Photovoice was used to reflect on participants’ real-life food media experiences. Findings reveal that food media consumption is a combination of actively searching and incidentally encountering. The results suggest that food (...) media messages attract emerging adults’ attention by bringing content in an entertaining, engaging, and appealing way, and featuring popular food personalities. Finally, food media messages were perceived to both enhance and distort food literacy. The results show how food media messages for food literacy interventions can be designed in order to attract emerging adults’ attention and fulfill their specific needs. (shrink)

Via a historical reconstruction, this paper primarily demonstrates how the societal debate on genetically modified organisms (GMOs) gradually extended in terms of actors involved and concerns reflected. It is argued that the implementation of recombinant DNA technology out of the laboratory and into civil society entailed a “complex of concerns.” In this complex, distinctions between environmental, agricultural, socio-economic, and ethical issues proved to be blurred. This fueled the confusion between the wider debate on genetic modification and the risk assessment of (...) transgenic crops in the European Union. In this paper, the lasting skeptical and/or ambivalent attitude of Europeans towards agro-food biotechnology is interpreted as signaling an ongoing social request – and even a quest – for an evaluation of biotechnology with Sense and Sensibility. In this (re)quest, a broader-than-scientific dimension is sought for that allows addressing the GMO debate in a more “sensible” way, whilst making “sense” of the different stances taken in it. Here, the restyling of the European regulatory frame on transgenic agro-food products and of science communication models are discussed and taken to be indicative of the (re)quest to move from a merely scientific evaluation and risk-based policy towards a socially more robust evaluation that takes the “non-scientific” concerns at stake in the GMO debate seriously. (shrink)

In this article we explore how female sympathy and solidarity can be forged between transnational subjects and spectators. In particular, we place cinematic depictions of minority female suffering in the contexts of current feminist and postcolonial praxes. The aim is to demonstrate the ways in which world cinema can produce a transnational feminist solidarity through forms and narratives that reflect the experiences of women as gendered postcolonial subjects. Amongst the female and feminist theorists drawn upon, central to our understanding of (...) a transnational feminist solidarity is Sandra Lee Bartky's ‘mitgefühl’. From this understanding we suggest bonds of sympathetic solidarity between audiences and diegetic female subjects that bridge their ontological separation, without conflating the two, in relation to Rachida and Frontière. In combining film-philosophy, cinematic affect and feminist theory we formulate a radically new way of understanding and envisioning the construction of female suffering onscreen: as a means of producing transnational forms of spectator solidarity. (shrink)

Background Maternal mental health during the peripartum period is critically important to the wellbeing of mothers and their infants. Numerous studies and clinical trials have focused on various aspects of interventions and treatments for perinatal mental health from the perspective of researchers and medical health professionals. However, less is known about women’s experiences of participating in perinatal mental health research, and the ethical issues that arise. Aim To systematically review the literature on the ethical issues that emerge from pregnant and/or (...) postpartum women’s experiences of taking part in perinatal mental health-related research. Methods Systematic review of nine bibliographic databases, from inception to July 2021. Qualitative, quantitative and mixed method studies were included if they reported on ethical issues experienced by perinatal women. Research ethical issues encompassed any issue relating to women’s experiences of being offered study information, recruitment, consent, retention and respect for autonomy. Titles, abstracts and full text screening, appraisal of the methodological quality of included studies, and data extraction, were conducted independently by two reviewers. Ethical considerations Ethical approval was not required for this systematic review. Findings A total of 9830 unique citations was retrieved. Six studies met the inclusion criteria. Studies were clinically and methodologically heterogenous, and only one was purposively designed to explore women’s experiences. The key finding was the establishment of trust between the researcher and participant in all stages of the research process. Findings are presented according to recruitment and consent processes, participation and retention, and study follow-up and completion. Conclusion The establishment of trust between the researcher and perinatal women leads to a dynamic with research ethical implications relevant to all stages of perinatal mental health-related research. Further research on the research ethical issues experienced by perinatal women is required because of the limited literature. (shrink)

This Special Issue commemorates the 60th anniversary of Business & Society with nine rigorous literature reviews that address important societal problems and provide opportunities for theory development in the business and society field; in this introduction we present an overview of the Special Issue. With the theme “Building on Its Past,” the nine articles address a host of contemporary issues, including climate change, wicked problems, business and human rights, human health, certifications standards, the governance of artificial intelligence, stakeholder engagement, stakeholder (...) theory, and corporate political activity. Together, these reviews offer a wealth of suggested themes, theories and approaches that can drive our research forward for the next decades in business and society research and practice. Using the lens of a miner-prospector continuum to categorize the diversity of articles within this special issue, a common theme emerges across the portfolio of reviews: they all call for a more systemic and integrative perspective toward studying the complex interactions that link business and society actors and issues. Building on these findings, we encourage future scholars to fill long-standing researched gaps through a more open systems approach, which supports both contextually sensitive and multi-level and multi-disciplinary approaches to address grand societal challenges. We conclude with specific suggestions as to how business and society scholars might use an open systems approach, including embracing methodologies to address complex causal pathways, theorizing with a view towards spanning external and internal elements of an organization, and reflecting on the temporal and spatial dynamics of complex systems. (shrink)

The majority of healthcare professionals regularly witness fragility, suffering, pain and death in their professional lives. Such experiences may increase the risk of burnout and compassion fatigue, especially if they are without self-awareness and a healthy work environment. Acquiring a deeper understanding of vulnerability inherent to their professional work will be of crucial importance to face these risks. From a relational ethics perspective, the role of the team is critical in the development of professional values which can help to cope (...) with the inherent vulnerability of healthcare professionals. The focus of this paper is the role of Communities of Practice as a source of resilience, since they can create a reflective space for recognising and sharing their experiences of vulnerability that arises as part of their work. This shared knowledge can be a source of strength while simultaneously increasing the confidence and resilience of the healthcare team. (shrink)

El estudio de dos formularios notariales del siglo vii/xiii, uno sirio y el otro andalusí, muestra que el discurso sobre las modalidades de comunicación escrita preceptuadas para los jueces refleja una estrecha relación entre la doctrina y la realidad de la práctica legal. Uno de los aspectos de esta relación es el cambio que tuvo que experimentar la doctrina discursiva bajo la presión de las prácticas judiciales cotidianas.

La autora presenta una critica a la concepcion clasica de los sentidos asumida por la mayoria de autores naturalistas que pretenden explicar el contenido mental. Esta crítica se basa en datos neurobiologicos sobre los sentidos que apuntan a que estos no parecen describir caracteristicas objetivas del mundo, sino que actuan de forma ʼnarcisita', es decir, representan informacion en funcion de los intereses concretos del organismo.El articulo se encuentra también en: Bechtel, et al., Philosophy and the Neuroscience.

Business ethics educators strive to produce graduates who not only grasp the principles of ethical decision-making, but who can apply that business ethics education when faced with real-world challenges. However, this has proven especially difficult, as good intentions do not always translate into ethical awareness and action. Complementing a behavioral ethics approach with insights from social psychology, we developed an interventional class module with both online and in-class elements aimed at increasing students’ awareness of their own susceptibility to unconscious biases (...) and, consequently, unethical behaviors. We deployed this intervention within a problem-based learning course, in which students completed real-world projects for actual business clients. Our results suggest that although students appeared universally aware of the importance of ethical issues in business and generally espoused intentions to act ethically, those who received the intervention were significantly more likely to recognize their own susceptibility to perpetuating unethical business behavior and to identify ethical issues specific to their real-world projects. These results have important implications for behavioral ethics pedagogy and provide a de-biasing interventional approach for bridging classroom knowledge with real-world skills. (shrink)

Les auteurs de cet article interrogent le meurtre conjugal à la lumière de la psychologie clinique, selon le référentiel psychanalytique. À partir d’un cas clinique, ils montrent en quoi la scène conjugale apparaît comme un autre lieu de répétition de l’expérience traumatique. Plus précisément, ils discutent l’hypothèse selon laquelle la violence et le meurtre conjugal constituent une tentative de réappropriation subjective des expériences traumatiques familiales. Les résultats de leur analyse permettent de confirmer cette hypothèse et d’apporter de nouvelles pistes de (...) réflexion pour la recherche. (shrink)

En el presente artículo se propone crear un margen conceptual para la construcción de una criminología fenomenológica que aborde el conocimiento de cómo se interpretan las conductas de las personas a través de las percepciones de otros, enfocado a la constitución de la conducta criminal, delincuencial, violenta o antisocial, que, siendo estos provenientes de la naturaleza de variadas ciencias, provoca tener horizontes amplios en el entendimiento que en la misma esencia lo vuelven complejo, la criminología actual, tiene en sí, varios (...) objetos de estudio que ha tomado de aquellas ciencias que tienen en su qué hacer lo relacionado con el crimen, de tal modo, desde el derecho, se estudia el delito y sus elementos, desde la psiquiatría y psicología, la conducta antisocial y su desarrollo, de la sociología, la conducta desviada patológica y su formación, el trabajo social, aporta otras interpretaciones, lo mismo, cuando corresponde a la antropología de la violencia, su historia, percepciones, cambios culturales, entre muchas otras. En ello radica la complejidad en la armonización de objetos de estudio que encuentran reunión en la criminología en una integración interdisciplinaria, pero esta se agota ante la abrumante realidad criminal que afecta a la aldea global, donde poco tiempo permite a la reflexión, necesitando con urgencia la intervención. El caso abordado aquí, es dar esa aproximación a una criminología fenomenológica, que pasará previo a su desarrollo, por el proceso de especialización de la criminología, soltando por momentos el paradigma clásico, para avanzar al futuro en la sistematización de teorías de otras ciencias, para generar un banco de conocimientos, que permitirán a posteriori, desarrollar sus propias concepciones e interpretaciones. No hay algo malo en la especialización, es parte de la evolución y maduración. (shrink)

In this paper, I survey in some depth three issues arising from the connection between imagination and fiction: (i) whether fiction can be defined as such in terms of its prescribing imagining; (ii) whether imagining in response to fiction is de se, or de re, or both; (iii) the phenomenon of ‘imaginative resistance’ and various explanations for it. Along the way I survey, more briefly, several other prominent issues in this area too.

ABSTRACT Throughout the early modern period, the most widely read astronomical textbooks were Johannes de Sacrobosco's De sphaera and the Theorica planetarum, ultimately in the new form introduced by Georg Peurbach. This essay argues that the images in these texts were intended to develop an “intelligent eye.” Students were trained to transform representations of specific heavenly phenomena into moving mental images of the structure of the cosmos. Only by learning the techniques of mental visualization and manipulation could the student “see” (...) in the mind's eye the structure and motions of the cosmos. While anyone could look up at the heavens, only those who had acquired the intelligent eye could comprehend the divinely created order of the universe. Further, the essay demonstrates that the visual program of the Sphaera and Theorica texts played a significant and hitherto unrecognized role in later scientific work. Copernicus, Galileo, and Kepler all utilized the same types of images in their own texts to explicate their ideas about the cosmos. (shrink)

ABSTRACT Throughout the early modern period, the most widely read astronomical textbooks were Johannes de Sacrobosco's De sphaera and the Theorica planetarum, ultimately in the new form introduced by Georg Peurbach. This essay argues that the images in these texts were intended to develop an “intelligent eye.” Students were trained to transform representations of specific heavenly phenomena into moving mental images of the structure of the cosmos. Only by learning the techniques of mental visualization and manipulation could the student “see” (...) in the mind's eye the structure and motions of the cosmos. While anyone could look up at the heavens, only those who had acquired the intelligent eye could comprehend the divinely created order of the universe. Further, the essay demonstrates that the visual program of the Sphaera and Theorica texts played a significant and hitherto unrecognized role in later scientific work. Copernicus, Galileo, and Kepler all utilized the same types of images in their own texts to explicate their ideas about the cosmos. (shrink)

Examining the lives and works of three iconic personalities —Germaine de Staël, Stendhal, and Georges Cuvier—Kathleen Kete creates a groundbreaking cultural history of ambition in post-Revolutionary France. While in the old regime the traditionalist view of ambition prevailed—that is, ambition as morally wrong unless subsumed into a corporate whole—the new regime was marked by a rising tide of competitive individualism. Greater opportunities for personal advancement, however, were shadowed by lingering doubts about the moral value of ambition. Kete identifies three (...) strategies used to overcome the ethical “burden” of ambition: romantic genius, secular vocation, and post-mythic destiny. In each case, success would seem to be driven by forces outside one’s control. She concludes by examining the still relevant conundrum of the relationship of individual desires to community needs, which she identifies as a defining characteristic of the modern world. (shrink)

Teilhard's words divided into a "Book of Hours" of eight days, according to Dawn, Day, Dusk, and Dark.

This article discusses the response of our ethics consultation service to an exceptional request by a patient to have his implantable cardioverter defibrillator removed. Despite assurances that the device had saved his life on at least two occasions, and cautions that without it he would almost certainly suffer a potentially lethal cardiac event within 2 years, the patient would not be swayed. Although the patient was judged to be competent, our protracted consultation process lasted more than 8 months as we (...) consulted, argued with, and otherwise cajoled him to change his mind, all to no avail. Justifying our at times aggressive paternalistic intervention helped us to reflect on the nature of autonomy and the dynamics of the legal, moral, and personal relationships in the clinical decision-making process. (shrink)