Complex, multigenic biological traits are shaped by the emergent interaction of proteins being the main functional units at the molecular scale. Based on a phenomenological approach, algorithms for quantifying two different aspects of emergence were introduced (Wegner and Hao in Progr Biophys Mol Biol 161:54–61, 2021) describing: (i) pairwise reciprocal interactions of proteins mutually modifying their contribution to a complex trait (denoted as weak emergence), and (ii) formation of a new, complex trait by a set of n ‘constitutive’ proteins at (...) concentrations exceeding individual threshold values (strong emergence). The latter algorithm is modified here to take account of protein redundancy with respect to a complex trait (‘full redundancy’). Irreducibility is considered a necessary and sufficient criterion for strong biological emergence; if one constitutive protein is missing, or its concentration drops below the threshold the trait is lost. A definition based on ‘unpredictability’ is dismissed, because this criterion is irrelevant for the evolution of a complex trait, and apparent unpredictability may rather reflect our basic deficits in understanding unless we can provide an unequivocal proof for it. The phenomenological approach advocated here allows to identify hidden rules according to which strongly emergent traits may be organized. This is of high value for understanding the evolution of complex traits which seems to require the saltational advent of all constitutive proteins ‘in one turn’ to arrive at a functional trait providing for an improved fitness of the organism. Rather than being a purely random process, it may be guided by fundamental structural principles. (shrink)

Introduction: What is evil and how can we understand it? -- The theology of evil -- Theodicies -- The privation theodicy -- The free will theodicy -- The Iraenean theodicy -- The totality theodicy -- History as secular theodicy -- Job's insight-the theodicy of the hereafter -- Anthropology of evil -- Are people good or evil? -- The typologies of evil -- Demonic evil -- Evil for evil's sake -- Evil's aesthetic seduction -- Sadism -- Schadenfreude -- Subjective and objective (...) evil -- Kant and instrumental evil -- The impossibility of a "devilish" will -- The paradox of evil -- Moral rebirth -- The evil is the other-idealistic evil -- "Us" vs. "them" -- Violent individuals -- Arendt and stupid evil -- The evil and the stupid -- Radical and banal evil -- Eichmann, Hoss, and Stangl -- Normal people and extreme evil -- Thinking as opposition -- Evil people -- The problem of evil -- Theory and praxis -- Ethics of conviction and ethics of responsibility -- Politics and violence -- Evil as a concrete problem. (shrink)

Work is one of the most universal features of human life; virtually everybody spends some part of their life at work. It is often associated with tedium and boredom; in conflict with the things we would otherwise love to do. Thinking of work primarily as a burden - an activity we would rather be without - is a thought that was shared by the philosophers in ancient Greece, who generally regarded work as a terrible curse. And yet, research shows that (...) it prolongs life and is generally good for people's physical and mental health. This is perhaps why work is increasingly recognized as a crucial source of meaning and social identity. And our attitudes to work have been changing significantly in the last decades, with an increased demand for meaning and self-realization in the workplace.In this book, Lars Svendsen argues that we need to complete this reorientation of our feelings about work and collapse the differences between leisure and work. Work, like the poor, is always with us. But to overcome the sense of being burnt out, we must think of work as not only productive but recreative - in other words, a lot more like leisure. (shrink)

Background: Older, frail patients with multimorbidity are at an especially high risk for disease severity and death from COVID-19. The social restrictions proved challenging for the residents, their relatives, and the care staff. While these restrictions clearly impacted daily life in Norwegian nursing homes, knowledge about how the pandemic influenced nursing practice is sparse. Aim: The aim of the study was to illuminate ethical difficult situations experienced by Norwegian nurses working in nursing homes during the COVID-19 pandemic. Research design and (...) participants: The research design involved semistructured individual interviews conducted with 15 nurses working in 8 nursing homes in 3 health regions in Norway, within both urban and rural areas. Ethical considerations: Oral and written information about the study was provided before the participants gave their written consent. The transcribed interviews were de-identified. The study was approved by the Norwegian Centre for Research Data. Findings: Four ethical difficult situations were identified: (a) turning the nursing home into a prison; (b) using medication to maintain peace and order; (c) being left alone with the responsibility; and (d) s. impact on decision-making. Conclusions: The nurses’ ethical challenges were intertwined with external factors, such as national and local guidelines, and the nurses’ own internalized factors, which were connected to their subjective professionality. This duality inflicted emotional distress and gave nurses few opportunities to perform nursing in a professionally sound and safe manner. (shrink)

Hans Skjervheim har hatt stor betydning for norsk åndsliv og offentlig ordskifte. Han hadde en unik evne til å vise hvordan tidløse filosofiske problemstillinger ikke bare angår fagfilosofer, men også er til stede i den politiske debatt og i hverdagens små og store utfordringer. Mange forbinder nok Skjervheim særlig med ±positivismestriden? på 1960- og 1970-tallet. Denne antologien viser bredden i virksomheten hans, og at mange av Skjervheims tekster har noe betydelig å si om også vår egen tids utfordringer - blant (...) annet om tiltroen til vitenskapen, filosofiens rolle, forvitringen av den liberale orden, økologisk krise, algoritmestyrte sosiale medier, ±fake news? og identitetspolitikk. Forfatterne er en blanding av en eldre garde, som skrev og virket samtidig med Skjervheim, og en yngre garde bestående av toneangivende fagpersoner fra ulike fagområder i dag. De tar alle for seg en eller flere sentrale tekster av Skjervheim og leser dem inn i samtidige problemstillinger. Disse nylesningene aktualiserer og bruker av Skjervheims filosofiske og litterære arv, men peker også på blindflekker og svakheter i hans tenkning - helt i tråd med slik Skjervheim ønsket å bli lest. (shrink)

"One of the symptoms of an approaching nervous breakdown is the belief that one's work is terribly important."_ - Bertrand Russell_ Work is one of the most universal features of human life; virtually everybody spends some part of their life at work. It is often associated with tedium and boredom, in conflict with the things we would otherwise love to do. The idea of work primarily as a burden was also shared by the philosophers in ancient Greece, who generally regarded (...) work as a curse. And yet research shows that it prolongs life and is generally good for people’s physical and mental health. Why is this? What is the meaning of work? To what extent does it determine our social identity? Should we expect to find work fulfilling? In this book, Lars Svendsen explores these questions and more. He argues that we need to complete this reorientation of our feelings about work and collapse the differences between leisure and work. Work is always with us. But to overcome the sense of being burnt out, we must think of work as not only productive but recreative – in other words, a lot more like leisure. Revised and updated in light of the global financial crisis, this second edition also includes a new chapter on work and globalization. (shrink)

Artikkelen vurderer hvorvidt ID-kravet, som begrenser asylsøkeres anledning til å søke arbeid, er etisk velbegrunnet innenfor rammene av en liberal rettskultur. Videre anlegges et konsekvensetisk perspektiv fordi ID-kravet er konsekvensetisk begrunnet, og det kan da foretas en immanent kritikk. Det vises at ID-kravet innebærer en begrensning av asylsøkeres negative og positive frihet, og at forsvarere av ID-kravet dermed må bevise at kravet har så gode konsekvenser at det legitimerer en slik begrensning av asylsøkeres frihet. Både generelle overveielser av ID-kravets fordeler (...) og ulemper og konkrete data tilsier at bevisbyrden ikke er oppfylt. Følgelig må det enten frembringes empiri som tilsier at ID-kravet likevel har bedre konsekvenser, eller det bør gis en annen type begrunnelse enn den konsekvensetiske for ID-kravet, eller ID-kravet bør avskaffes.Nøkkelord: asylsøkere, arbeid, liberalt demokrati, konsekvensialismeEnglish summary: Undocumented migrants' right to apply for work. A consequentialist assessmentThe article evaluates whether the Norwegian ID-demand, which limits asylum seekers' opportunity for work, is ethically well founded within the limits of a liberal, legal culture. The argument operates within a consequentialist normative theory because the ID-demand is justified in terms of its consequences, and an immanent critique of the demand can therefore be carried out. It is argued that the ID-demand imposes restrictions on the negative and positive liberty of asylum seekers, and defenders of the ID-demand will then have a burden of proof to show that the demand has such good consequences that it will legitimise these restrictions. Both general considerations and specific data clearly indicate that this burden of proof is not satisfied. Hence, one must either provide new data that indicate that the ID-demand after all has better consequences, defend the ID-demand in terms of something other than its consequences or reject the ID-demand. (shrink)

Moral sensitivity and moral reasoning are essential competencies biomedical researchers have to develop to make ethical decisions in their daily practices. Previous research has shown that these competencies can be developed through ethics education. However, it is unclear which underlying mechanisms best support the development of these competencies. In this article we argue that the development of moral sensitivity and moral reasoning can be fostered through teaching strategies that tap into students’ moral imagination. We describe how moral imagination can stimulate (...) the development of these competencies through three different merits of moral imagination. Moral imagination can help students to 1) transfer and apply abstract moral concepts to concrete situations and contexts, 2) explore the perspective of others, 3) explore and foresee the moral consequences of different decisions and actions. We explain these three merits of moral imagination in the context of biomedical research and present a theoretical model for how these merits can be used to stimulate the development of moral sensitivity and moral reasoning. Furthermore, we describe multiple teaching strategies for biomedical curricula that tap into the three merits of moral imagination. These teaching strategies can inspire teachers to design ethics education that activates students’ moral imagination for the development of moral sensitivity and moral reasoning. (shrink)

Reading is not only “cold” information processing, but involves affective and aesthetic processes that go far beyond what current models of word recognition, sentence processing, or text comprehension can explain. To investigate such “hot” reading processes, standardized instruments that quantify both psycholinguistic and emotional variables at the sublexical, lexical, inter-, and supralexical levels (e.g., phonological iconicity, word valence, arousal-span, or passage suspense) are necessary. One such instrument, the Berlin Affective Word List (BAWL) has been used in over 50 published studies (...) demonstrating effects of lexical emotional variables on all relevant processing levels (experiential, behavioral, neuronal). In this paper, we first present new data from several BAWL studies. Together, these studies examine various views on affective effects in reading arising from dimensional (e.g., valence ) and discrete emotion features (e.g., happiness ), or embodied cognition features like smelling. Second, we extend our investigation of the complex issue of affective word processing to words characterized by a mixture of affects. These words entail positive and negative valence, and/or features making them beautiful or ugly. Finally, we discuss tentative neurocognitive models of affective word processing in the light of the present results, raising new issues for future studies. (shrink)

What is it to understand another speaker’s utterance? A natural view is that such understanding requires at least the acquisition of propositional knowledge of the utterance’s meaning. This view is challenged by cases in which it correctly seems to a hearer H as though an utterance means such-and-such, but where H doesn’t form the belief that it means such-and-such due to a misleading defeater. Such cases have been claimed to be examples of understanding without belief, and a fortiori of understanding (...) without knowledge. The paper examines this argument in detail and defends a mixed verdict: While the argument succeeds in showing that there is a reading of attributions of utterance understanding on which the natural view is false, such attributions also have a different reading on which the natural view may well be true for all the argument shows. In making the case for the second half of this claim, the paper gives center stage to the close intuitive connection between utterance understanding and communicative success. (shrink)

A model of ZFC is constructed in which the distributivity cardinal h is 2 ℵ 0 = ℵ 2 , and in which there are no ω 2 -towers in [ω] ω . As an immediate corollary, it follows that any base-matrix tree in this model has no cofinal branches. The model is constructed via a form of iterated Mathias forcing, in which a mixture of finite and countable supports is used.

A large body of evidence supports the idea that a common fronto-parietal network is activated across a range of diverse cognitive functions. Jung & Haier's (J&H's) review demonstrates a very similar pattern of activity, which correlates with individual differences in intelligence. We propose that these converging lines of evidence are best interpreted as a general role of the fronto-parietal network in integration and control.

Danto, A. The artworld.--Dickie, G. What is art?--Margolis, J. Works of art are physically embodied and culturally emergent entities.--Kjørup, S. Art broadly and wholly conceived.--Meyer, L. B. Forgery and the anthropology of art.--Brunius, T. Theory and ideologies in aesthetics.--Tilghman, B. R. Artistic puzzlement.--Binkley, T. Deciding about art.--Alexander, H. G. On defining in aesthetics.--Iseminger, G. Appreciation, the artworld, and the aesthetic.--Glickman, J. Creativity in the arts.--Sclafani, R. The theory of art.--Lyas, C. Danto and Dickie on art.--Beardsley, M. C. Is art essentially (...) institutional? (shrink)

The films of Lars von Trier offer unique opportunities for thinking deeply about how Philosophy and Cinema speak to one another. The book addresses von Trier’s films in order of their release. The earlier chapters discuss his Golden Heart trilogy and USA: Land of Opportunities series by addressing issues of potential misogyny, ethical critique, and racial justice. The later chapters focus on his Depression Trilogy and address the undermining of gender binaries, the psychoanalytic meaning of the sacrifice of children (...) and depression, and philosophical questions provoked by the depiction of the end of the world. Taken together, the volume explores the topics of Philosophical Psychology, Social Theory, Political Theory, Theories of the Self, Philosophy of Race, and Feminist Thought, and opens a conversation about von Trier’s important work. (shrink)

The phenomenology of auditory verbal hallucinations occurring in hypnagogic and hypnopompic states has received little attention. In a sample of healthy participants, 108 participants reported H&H AVHs and answered subsequent questions on their phenomenology. AVHs in the H&H state were found to be more likely to only feature the occasional clear word than to be clear, to be more likely to be one-off voices than to be recurrent voices, to be more likely to be voices of people known to the (...) individual than unknown persons, to be more likely to talk directly to the person rather than not, and to only rarely give commands, ask questions, or to result in an interactive conversation. Their phenomenology was similar to normative AVHs in wakefulness in that the voice-hearer was usually the target of the voice, and the voice was more likely to be of a recognized person. However, H&H AVHs differed from AVHs in wakefulness in that commands and questions were rare, and there was typically no dialogical engagement with the voice. We conclude by proposing that two distinct types of H&H AVHs may exist, based on an analysis of the phenomenology of the experience, and suggest avenues for future research. (shrink)

The "morning morality effect"-the alleged phenomenon that people are more likely to act in unethical ways in the afternoon when they are tired and have less self-control than in the morning-may well be expected to influence prehospital anaesthesiologist manning mobile emergency care units (MECUs). The working conditions of these units routinely entail fatigue, hunger, sleep deprivation and other physical or emotional conditions that might make prehospital units predisposed to exhibit the "morning morality effect". We investigated whether this is in fact (...) the case by looking at the distribution of patient transports to hospital with and without physician escort late at night at the end of the shift as a surrogate marker for changing thresholds in ethical behaviour. All missions over a period of 11 years in the MECU in Odense were reviewed. Physician-escorted transports to hospital were compared with non-physician-escorted transports during daytime, evening, and night-time (which correlates with time on the 24 h shifts). In total, 26,883 patients were transported to hospital following treatment by the MECU. Of these, 27.4% (26.9%-27.9%) were escorted to the hospital. The ratio of patient transports to hospital with and without physician escort during the three periods of the day did not differ (p = 1.00). We found no evidence of changes in admission patterns over the day. Thus, no evidence of the expected "morning morality effect" could be found in a prehospital physician-manned emergency care unit. (shrink)

This book consists of a series of papers "read and discussed at the first Symposium of Exact Philosophy" at Montreal in 1971. "Exact philosophy," the editor says, means "mathematical philosophy, i.e., philosophy done with the explicit help of mathematical logic and mathematics." Judging from the contents, a more accurate statement would be that "exact philosophy" means formal semantics and modal logic. Two thirds of the papers are on these topics. The others include an essay on "Concepts of Randomness" by Peter (...) Kirschenmann; a characteristically difficult paper on "Plato’s Phaedo Theory of Relations" by Hector Castañeda; a somewhat inexact discursus on "Foundations as a Branch of Mathematics" by William Hatcher with a reply by Charles Castonguay; and a paper by Raimo Tuomela on "Deductive Explanation of Scientific Laws", or, more exactly, on Ohmer’s discussion of that topic. The subject’s are highly specialized and their treatment is complex. In addition to those mentioned, other essays are "Matters of Relevance" by Hugues Leblanc, with an answer by Brian Chellas; "Translation and Reduction" by Lars Svenonius; "A Program for the Semantics of Science" by Mario Bunge; "S-P Interrogatives" by Nuel Belnap; "The Logic of Conditional Obligation" by Bas C. Van Frassen with commentary by Harry Beaty; and "The Intuitive Background of Normative Legal Discourse and Its Formalization" by Carlos E. Alchourron.—M.H. (shrink)

Mu‘tezilî düşünür Amr b. Bahr el-Câhız’ın (ö. 255/869) tercüme faaliyetleri sonucu Antikite (Antik Çağ) Yunanca metinlerden yaptığı aktarımlar canlılar hakkındaki fikirlerini etkilemiştir. Böylece Yunan zoolojisinde ortaya koyulan görüşlere Kitâbü’l-Hayevân eserinde geniş bir şekilde yer vermiştir. Ayrıca diğer eserlerinde az da olsa Yunan düşünürlerin hayvanlar hakkındaki görüşleri mevcuttur. Ancak Yunan zoolojisinden tevarüs eden birikimin Câhız’ın Kitâbü’l-Hayevân eseri olmak üzere hangi bağlamda ve ne düzeyde alımlandığı tam olarak bilinmemektedir. Alımlanan bilgilerin Câhız’ı ne kadar etkilediği ve doğrudan mı yoksa kendi ilmî birikiminin süzgecinden (...) geçirerek mi? Aktardığı net olarak ortaya koyulmamıştır. Buradan hareketle bu çalışmada, Câhız’ın hayvanlar hakkındaki görüşleri temel alınarak Yunan zoolojisinden etki düzeyi ortaya koyulmaya çalışılacaktır. Böylece Câhız’ın “Sâhibu’l-Mantık” lakabıyla bahsettiği Aristoteles (mö. 384-322) başta olmak üzere Galen (ö. 200?) ve Polemon (Aflimun) (ö. 314) gibi Yunan düşünürlerden hangi noktalarda aktarımlar yaptığı üzerinde durulacaktır. Bu bağlamda Câhız’ın Kitâbü’l-Hayevan eseri başta olmak üzere diğer eserlerinde geçen Yunan zoolojisine dair ifadeler açığa çıkarılacaktır. Fakat özellikle Aristoteles’ten yaptığı aktarımlar oldukça fazla olduğundan dolayı Câhız’ın tam olarak anlayamadığı, araştırdığı, doğrudan etkilendiği ve test ettiği bilgiler üzerinde analiz yapılacaktır. Çalışma sonucunda Câhız’ın alımladığı bilgileri bazen doğrudan bazen doğruluğunu araştırarak hatta deney ve gözleme başvurarak aktardığı anlaşılacaktır. (shrink)

Ortodoksluk mezhebi Hıristiyanlığın en kadim geleneklerinden birisi olmasına rağmen günümüzde diğerlerine göre daha az tanınmaktadır. Mezhebin en önemli Kiliselerinden birisi de İstanbul Kilisesi’dir. Bu makalenin amacı Hıristiyan Ortodoks teoloji çalışmalarına dair İstanbul’daki Kilise çevresinde oluşan XIX. ve XX. Yüzyıldaki Yunanca literatür hakkında kısa bilgi vermektir. Bu literatür, süreli yayınlar ve Patrikhanenin kurumsal yapıları olarak iki açıdan ele alınacaktır. Literatür bağlamında bir dönem doğrudan ya da dolaylı olarak Patrikhane tarafından yayınlanan dergiler şunlardır: Ekklisiastiki Alithia, Ortodoksia, The Greek Orthodox Theological Review. Bunlara (...) ek olarak Patrikhanenin yıllık yayınladığı Kilise Takvimi ve Ortodoks teoloji çalışmalarında önemli bir kaynak olarak görülen Din ve Ahlak Ansiklopedisi, ve bazı sözlüklerle diğer birkaç dergiden bahsedilecektir. Ayıca İstanbul’daki Patrikhane ile doğrudan veya dolaylı olarak ilgili olan okullar, araştırma merkezleri, enstitüler ve kütüphaneler hakkında bilgi verilecektir. Bu çalışmada ele alınan bu konular, modern dönemde Patrikhane çevresinde şekillenen Ortodoks teolojiye dair yapılacak çalışmalar için doğrudan birincil kaynak olma özelliği taşımaktadır. (shrink)

İslam hukuku tarihine baktığımızda fıkıh usûlünün bir süreç içerisinde geliştiğini söylemek mümkündür. Bu süreç içerisinde, mezhep imamları de-diğimiz müçtehitler başta olmak üzere birçok âlimin, fıkıh usûlü ilminin yapısını oluşturan katkılarından bahsedilebilir. Örneğin İmam Ebû Hanîfe’nin istihsana başvurması, İmam Mâlik’in amel-i ehli Medine ile amel etmesi ve İmam Şafiî’nin hem Ehl-i rey hem de Ehl-i hadisin fıkhını mezcederek elde ettiği formasyonla “er-Risâle” adlı eserinde bir usûl ortaya koyması fıkıh usûlü ilminin yapısını oluşturan katkıların başında gelmektedir. Bu katkıların yanında özellikle mezheplerin kurumsallaştığı (...) dönem ve sonrasında Gazalî, İbn Teymiyye, öğrencisi İbn Kayyım ve Şâtıbî gibi âlimlerin, fıkıh usulüne dinamizm kazandırmak adına söz konusu ilme yönelik birtakım yenileme çabaları ortaya koydukları bilinmektedir. Modern dönemde ise fıkıh usûlünü yenileme çabalarının klasik döneme göre daha net ve yaygın olduğu görülmektedir. Bu dönemde fıkıh usulüne yönelik yenileme çabalarını iki merhalede değerlendirmek mümkündür. Bu merhalelerin birincisi, fıkıh usûlünü yenilemeye çağrı merhalesi, ikincisi ise fıkıh usûlünü yenilemenin amelî merhalesidir. İkinci merhalede âlimlerin dinî, siyasî, sosyal ve felsefî eğilimlerine bağlı olarak kendi içinde de farklı tezler içeren “fıkhî ve usûlî yaklaşım” ve “fikrî ve felsefî yaklaşım” olmak üzere iki temel yaklaşımdan bahsedilebilir. Bu çalışmada kendi içinde de farklı eğilimlere sahip fikrî ve felsefî yaklaşımın fıkıh usûlünü yenilemeye dair görüşlerini, Fazlurrahman,, Hasan Turabî ve Muhammed Müctehid Şebusterî örnekliğinde sunmaya çalıştık. (shrink)