In Darwin’s Dangerous Idea, Daniel Dennett claims that evolution is algorithmic. On Dennett’s analysis, evolutionary processes are trivially algorithmic because he assumes that all natural processes are algorithmic. I will argue that there are more robust ways to understand algorithmic processes that make the claim that evolution is algorithmic empirical and not conceptual. While laws of nature can be seen as compression algorithms of information about the world, it does not follow logically that they are implemented as algorithms by physical (...) processes. For that to be true, the processes have to be part of computational systems. The basic difference between mere simulation and real computing is having proper causal structure. I will show what kind of requirements this poses for natural evolutionary processes if they are to be computational. (shrink)

BackgroundPublic Safety Personnel are routinely exposed to human suffering and need to make quick, morally challenging decisions. Such decisions can affect their psychological wellbeing. Participating in or observing an event or situation that conflicts with personal values can potentially lead to the development of moral injury. Common stressors associated with moral injury include betrayal, inability to prevent death or harm, and ethical dilemmas. Potentially psychologically traumatic event exposures and post-traumatic stress disorder can be comorbid with moral injury; however, moral injury (...) extends beyond fear to include spiritual, cognitive, emotional or existential struggles, which can produce feelings of severe shame, guilt, and anger.ObjectiveThis scoping review was designed to identify the extant empirical research regarding the construct of moral injury, its associated constructs, and how it relates to moral distress in firefighters, paramedics, and police officers.MethodsA systematic literature search of peer-reviewed research was conducted using databases MEDLINE, EMBASE, APA PsychInfo, CINHAL PLUS, Web of Science, SCOPUS, and Google Scholar. Included studies were selected based on the inclusion criteria before being manually extracted and independently screened by two reviewers.ResultsThe initial database search returned 777 articles, 506 of which remained after removal of duplicates. Following review of titles, abstracts, and full texts, 32 studies were included in the current review. Participants in the articles were primarily police officers, with fewer articles focusing on paramedics and firefighters. There were two studies that included mixed populations. Most studies were qualitative and focused on four topics: values, ethical decision-making, organizational betrayal, and spirituality.ConclusionPublic safety organizations appear to recognize the experience of moral distress or moral injury among public safety personnel that results from disconnects between personal core values, formal and informal organizational values, vocational duties, and expectations. Further research is needed to better understand moral distress or moral injury specific to public safety personnel and inform training and treatment in support of public safety personnel mental health. (shrink)

Punktem odniesienia mojego tekstu jest wystąpienie Ryszarda Panasiuka poświęcone idei świeckości państwa, którą traktuję jako składnik nowoczesności. W kontekście kryzysu wywołanego rozwojem nowoczesności stawiam pytanie o możliwość podjęcia działań prewencyjnych. Utrzymuję, że ich skuteczność zależy od tego, czy możliwe jest spojrzenie na obecną sytuację z perspektywy zewnętrzności (transgresja), do której odnoszą się światopoglądy często pozostające ze sobą w konflikcie. Twierdzę, że świeckie państwo stwarza szansę na owocny dialog tych światopoglądów stwarzając szansę na realizację działań prewencyjnych.

Neuroethics entails investigations of neurocognitive mechanisms of morality and ethics; and studies and address of the ethical issues spawned by the use of neuroscience and its technologies to investigate cognition, emotion and actions. These two principal emphases, or what have been called “traditions” of neuroethics both mirror traditional bioethical discussions (such as debates about the safety of technological and pharmaceutical advances and ethical implications of new scientific and technological discoveries), and engage discourse about neuroscientific investigations of (proto-moral and moral) cognition, (...) emotions and behaviors, and what such findings may mean for human beliefs and conduct - from the individual to the political levels. (shrink)

This paper offers a new way to make sense of disagreement expansion from a polylogical perspective by incorporating various places in addition to players and positions into the analysis. The concepts build on prior implicit ideas about disagreement space by suggesting how to more fully account for argumentative context, and its construction, in large-scale complex controversies. As a basis for our polylogical analysis, we use a New York Times news story reporting on an oil train explosion—a significant point in the (...) broader controversy over producing oil and gas via hydraulic fracturing. (shrink)

Since its inception, modern anthropology has stood at the confluence of two mutually constitutive modes of knowledge production: participant-observation and theoretical analysis. This unique combination of practice and theory has been the subject of recurrent intellectual and methodological debate, raising questions that strike at the very heart of the discipline. How Do We Know? is a timely contribution to emerging debates that seek to understand this relationship through the theme of evidence. Incorporating a diverse selection of case studies ranging from (...) the Tibetan emotion of shame to films of Caribbean musicians, it critically addresses such questions as: What constitutes viable anthropological evidence? How does evidence generated through small-scale, intensive periods of participant-observation challenge or engender abstract theoretical models? Are certain types of evidence inherently better than others? How have recent interdisciplinary collaborations and technological innovations altered the shape of anthropological evidence? Extending a long-standing tradition of reflexivity within the discipline, the contributions to this volume are ethnographically-grounded and analytically ambitious meditations on the theme of evidence. Cumulatively, they challenge the boundaries of what anthropologists recognise and construct as evidence, while pointing to its thematic and conceptual potential in future anthropologies. (shrink)

_Islamicate Occult Sciences in Theory and Practice_ presents the latest research on Islamic occult sciences from a variety of disciplinary perspectives, namely intellectual history, manuscript studies and material culture.

Paperwork plays a key role in a how institutions accommodate, refuse, or manage disabled people. This article develops modes for reading paperwork that build on each other, beginning with (a) recognizing the institutional pressures at work in shaping bureaucratic practices, then (b) considering how a person's relationship to disability influences how they might encounter these practices, and ultimately (c) noticing how the encounter between disabled/mad people and an institution might create something new, what the author calls archival excess. These methods (...) for reading are in conversation with disability studies, medical humanities, and document studies, and ultimately work toward a goal adapted from the principles of Disability Justice: recognizing the wholeness of disabled subjects in institutional archives. (shrink)

W 1983 roku Benjamin Libet wraz ze współpracownikami po raz pierwszy wykazał, że w prostym działaniu dobrowolnym świadoma intencja nie pełni funkcji inicjującej. Czasowy przebieg tego typu działania wskazuje również, że intencja oraz samo działanie to produkty procesów nieświadomych. Na podstawie wyniku Libeta oraz wybranych koncepcji psychologicznych Daniel Wegner zaproponował teorię pozornej mentalnej przyczynowości, w ramach której intencja to rodzaj konstruktu umożliwiającego agentowi zrozumienie własnego zachowania w kategoriach przyczynowych, gdzie jego stan mentalny (intencja) jawi mu się jako przyczyna, a działanie (...) jako skutek. Ujęcie Wegnera rodzi jednak pytanie, jaka jest faktyczna relacja pomiędzy intencjami, a celami kształtującymi nasze decyzje. Biorąc pod uwagę wyjaśnienie amerykańskiego psychologa, nie możemy być pewni, że te dwa elementy mają ze sobą jakiś związek. Może to prowadzić do zaskakującego wniosku, że nasza świadoma wola jest w gruncie rzeczy iluzją. Korzystając z wyników badań Read’a Montague nad mechanizmami ustanawiania i osiągania celów wskazuję na alternatywną możliwość rozumienia roli intencji. Zgodnie z analizą Montague, możemy postulować, że przynajmniej w wybranych przypadkach treść intencji działania oraz przebieg zachowań celowych oparte są na tej samej abstrakcyjnej reprezentacji. Znaczy to, że interpretacja świadomej woli, jako przydatnej iluzji jest za szeroka, gdyż znamy (wskazane w tekście) przypadki, kiedy treść intencji jest tożsama z reprezentacją pełniącą rolę nagrody w systemie ustanawiania i osiągania celów. (shrink)

The boundaries, openness and character of the future European society will crucially depend on the degree and scope of identity politics. Religion, culture and nationality remain strong reference frameworks for individuals in their inter-personal but also political relations and tend, in practice, to favour weak rather than strong forms of citizenship. Whether this is a viable model for large and diverse democratic societies is an old debate known primarily from the discussions and theory on multiculturalism. How this debate is played (...) out at European level and especially with respect to the role of religion is illustrated with reference to the ideas of Daniel Cohn-Bendit and Tariq Ramadan, two well-known public figures with a strong commitment to Europe and European identity, albeit from rather different perspectives and outlooks. At the substantive or philosophical level, it appears impossible to resolve the fundamental questions underlying the opposition between liberalism and communitarianism as represented by the two men. The usefulness of a middle-range pragmatic approach insofar as political solutions or societal compromises are concerned is scrutinized for its usefulness. (shrink)

The discussion around dignity in nursing philosophy has been underway for many years. The literature still lacks philosophical arguments that would justify the thesis that all people have dignity. Scholars who defend dignity as an intrinsic value most often refer to Kant. However, Kant does not seem to be the most suitable candidate to defend the thesis that all human beings possess dignity. In this paper, I attempt to show that Aristotle's and Aquinas's views can help justify this thesis. To (...) this end, I distinguish between actual dignity, potential dignity, and existential dignity. I state that all human beings have existential dignity or potential dignity. (shrink)

The Arabic original of the ninth-century Kitāb al-Nawāmīs has not been discovered, save for three incomplete chapters. We have access to a fuller version only through a Latin translation, often known as the Liber vaccae, a title derived from its notorious experiments which involve the gruesome slaughter and mutilation of a cow to magically produce a rational animal or bees. Recent research on the Liber vaccae has focused mostly on its reception in medieval and early modern Europe. By contrast, the (...) present article explores the Indo-Arabic tradition to which Kitāb al-Nawāmīs belongs, as a re-orientation of the Liber vaccae established on two levels: textual and theoretical. Section I, on 'Texts and Practices', introduces ʿUyūn al-ḥaqāʾiq of Abū al-Qāsim al-ʿIrāqī, a text on magical practices which contains 26 chapters that correspond to sections in the Liber vaccae, affording us a glance into the Arabic reception of Kitāb al-Nawāmīs and bringing us closer to the Arabic original. The textual connection is established further by highlighting parallels between the experiments of the Liber vaccae / Kitāb al-Nawāmīs and other texts on natural magic, namely Ghāyat al-ḥakīm of Maslama al-Qurṭubī and Kitāb al-Sumūm by Ibn Waḥshiyya. Section II investigates the theoretical bases of the Liber vaccae / Kitāb al-Nawāmīs, by associating its content with the theories of spontaneous and artificial generation in Kitāb al-Tajmīʿ attributed to Jābir ibn Hayyān, Ghāyat al-ḥakīm, Kitāb al-Sumūm and, finally, another work by Ibn Waḥshiyya, al-Filāḥa al-nabaṭiyya. Jābir's and al-Qurṭubī's works have been studied in relation to the Liber vaccae by David Pingree, Maaike Van der Lugt, Sophie Page and William Newman; their findings are re-evaluated here in light of the texts of Ibn Waḥshiyya and al-ʿIrāqī. (shrink)

Lipski's book on KOR can be read from one main perspective: how does opposition come about? This does not refer to opposition in general, but to opposition within totalitarian or nearly totalitarian conditions. Such conditions are interesting because they rule out social action by autonomous self-motivated subjects. Lipski answers the question directly in the chapter on “The Prehistory of KOR.” Birth is preceeded by a long process of formation of intellectuals' circles and the strengthening of social, occupational, and experiencial links, (...) e.g., the role of post-AK circles. In the footnotes one learns all about the “Neo-Pickwickists Club” founded after the war by Lipski and Manturzewski. Elsewhere in the text Lipski emphasizes “friendship.”. (shrink)

The lack of access to gender-affirming surgery represents a significant unmet health care need within the transgender community, frequently resulting in depression and self-destructive behavior. While some transgender people may have access to gender reassignment surgery, an overwhelming majority cannot afford facial feminization surgery. The former may be covered as a “medical necessity,” but FFS is considered “cosmetic” and excluded from insurance coverage. This demarcation between “necessity” and “cosmetic” in transgender health care based on specific body parts is in direct (...) opposition to the scientific community’s understanding of gender dysphoria and professional guidelines for transgender health. GRS affects one’s ability to function in an intimate relationship, while FFS has the same impact on social interactions an, therefore may have a far greater implication for one’s quality of life. FFS is a cost-effective intervention that needs to be covered by insurance policies. The benefits of such coverage far exceed the insignificant costs. (shrink)

The starting-point of my essay is conviction of wide-spread crisis of western civilization. The analysis of this crisis was achieved basing on the Horkheimer's theoretical settlements which are leading to show typical of Plato character of western culture. Basing on the example of 'solar myth' presented by Plato in "Politeia", it is shown totalitarian and captivating human-beings paideia model, which is being realized till the present day in the Mediterranean culture region. Dictatorial, anti-humanistic and oppressing elements of Platonism and related (...) to it civilization, are shown from the G. Bataille's settlements point of view. In his project, ones are suspecting the chance of liberation of human-being. (shrink)

Publication date: 30 November 2016 Source: Author: Marcin Böhm The Empire of Nicaea was a successor of the Byzantium shattered in 1204. In the newly established state marine traditions of Byzantines, remain alive. The best testimony to this, are the evidence contained in the chronicle of Georgios Akropolites, devoted to activities of the rulers of Nicaea, aimed to build their own naval forces. In this paper I'll also try to answer, where was beating the heart of the Nicean shipbuilding (...) industry and how large was the navy of this state. This is important from point of view of the maritime history, because of the fleet of the Empire of Nicaea, filled the gap created after the fall of Constantinople and the Byzantine Empire, which was the local naval power in previous centuries. Akropolites give us a clear and direct answer to a question, where we should search for a center of Nicaean shipbuilding industry. Georgios Akropolites suggest us, that was in two towns, Holkos and Smyrna. The above-mentioned fleet consisted of the few squadrons, each counting 5-6 ships. We can only guess that a fleet of the John III, could count about 50 warships, whose quality was worse to that belonging to the Venetians. We must say that the fleet of the Empire of Nicaea, which we see in the chronicle of Akropolites, was the force, that lent itself to the support of ground forces. And in this role worked well. The situation was different when it comes to clashing with the Venetians, with the experienced crews of their ships, who surpassed Nicaean in this matter. Even with the advantage of numbers, Nicaean was unable to overcome at the sea, the citizens of the Republic of St. Mark. The plan to build their own naval forces, which was taken by the emperors of Nicaea, was a good direction. (shrink)

This article, based on grandparents' narratives collected in a doctoral research project, aims to weave together reflections on childhood, intergenerational bonding, and love. Seven grandmothers and three grandfathers, between fifty-one and seventy-one years old, participated in the research; nine residents of the city of Rio de Janeiro and one of Niterói, Brazil. In addition, narratives were collected from six of their grandchildren, all of them between five and twelve years old, and residents of Rio de Janeiro, Niterói, Brasília and Montevideo, (...) Uruguay. Conducted during the Covid-19 pandemic, our methodological strategy involved interviews conducted on Zoom. Interviews with the adults were conducted individually, and collectively with the children. The themes that emerged in the grandparents' narratives led to reflections on the relationship between adults and children that are emblematic of the conception of childhood found in Walter Benjamin's work, as well as the philosophical anthropology of Martin Buber and the psychoanalysis of Donald Winnicott. The emphasis of the research participants was on affective security, built on the basis of small, everyday gestures, which result in an atmosphere of mutual support between children and adults. From these affectionate encounters between the youngest and the oldest, what we characterize as a “childlike force” is established—an energy field that produces new existential possibilities. The narratives collected here teach us new ways of being adult through our relationships with children: in our encounter with the lifeworlds of the youngest among us, we re-encounter our own deeper sensibilities, and regain the ability to play, to create, and to reinvent ourselves in relearning the joy of beginnings. (shrink)

Our new journal Philosophies is devoted to the search for a synthesis of philosophical and scientific inquiry. It promotes philosophical work derived from the experience of diverse scientific disciplines. [...].

Wspólne dla różnego typu strukturalizmów matematycznych jest stwierdzenie, że dla matematyki jako nauki prawdziwa jest koniunkcja: a) matematyka jest nauką o strukturach oraz b) matematyka jest nauką dedukcyjną. Przedstawiane są odmienne argumenty na rzecz tych dwóch własności matematyki i różnie rozumiane są pojęcia strukturalności i dedukcyjności, co skutkuje powstawaniem różnego rodzaju strukturalizmów. Twierdzimy, że przy pewnym ustalonym sposobie rozumienia tych pojęć możliwa jest ich równoważność. Argumentujemy na rzecz takiego rozumienia strukturalizmu, które streszcza się w stwierdzeniu: a) matematyka jest nauką o (...) strukturach wtedy i tylko wtedy, gdy b) matematyka jest nauką dedukcyjną. (shrink)

У статті розглянуті методологічні підходи до визначення сутності та критеріїв класифікації економічних систем. У різноманітті підходів до класифікації економічних систем виділені два основних - формаційний та цивілізаційний. Проаналізовано погляди вчених на співвідношення цих підходів. Аргументована некоректність постановки питання про необхідність доповнити формаційні критерії цивілізаційними критеріями.

The concept of a G‐quartet, a unique structural arrangement intrinsic to guanine‐rich DNA, was first introduced by Gellert and colleagues1 over 40 years ago. For decades, it has been uncertain whether the G‐quartet and the structure that it gives rise to, the G‐quadruplex, are purely in vitro phenomena. Nevertheless, the presence of signature G‐rich motifs in the eukaryotic genome, and the plethora of proteins that bind to, modify or resolve this nucleic acid structure in vitro have provided circumstantial evidence for (...) its physiological relevance. More recently, direct visualisation of G‐quadruplex DNA at native telomeres was achieved, bolstering the evidence for its existence in the cell. Furthermore, G‐quadruplex folded telomeric DNA has been found to perturb telomere function and to impede the action of telomerase, an enzyme overexpressed in >85% of human cancers, hence opening up a novel avenue for cancer therapy in the form of G‐quadruplex stabilising agents. BioEssays 29: 155–165, 2007. © 2007 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. (shrink)

Explanations in cognitive science and computational neuroscience rely predominantly on computational modeling. Although the scientific practice is systematic, and there is little doubt about the empirical value of numerous models, the methodological account of computational explanation is not up-to-date. The current chapter offers a systematic account of computational explanation in cognitive science and computational neuroscience within a mechanistic framework. The account is illustrated with a short case study of modeling of the mirror neuron system in terms of predictive coding.

Since 1989, clinical ethics consultation in form of hospital ethics committees was established in most of the transition countries of Central and Eastern Europe. Up to now, the similarities and differences between HECs in Central and Eastern Europe and their counterparts in the U.S. and Western Europe have not been determined. Through search in literature databases, we have identified studies that document the implementation of clinical ethics consultation in Central and Eastern Europe. These studies have been analyzed under the following (...) aspects: mode of establishment of HECs, character of consultation they provide, and their composition. The results show that HECs in the transition countries of Central and Eastern Europe differ from their western-European or U.S. counterparts with regard to these three aspects. HECs were established because of centrally imposed legal regulations. Little initiatives in this area were taken by medical professionals interested in resolving emerging ethical issues. HECs in the transition countries concentrate mostly on review of research protocols or resolution of administrative conflicts in healthcare institutions. Moreover, integration of non-professional third parties in the workings of HECs is often neglected. We argue that these differences can be attributed to the historical background and the role of medicine in these countries under the communist regime. Political and organizational structures of healthcare as well as education of healthcare staff during this period influenced current functioning of clinical ethics consultation in the transition countries. (shrink)

In his recent book, Daniel Dennett defends a novel account of semantic information in terms of design worth getting (Dennett, 2017). While this is an interesting proposal in itself, my purpose in this commentary is to challenge several of Dennett’s claims. First, he argues that semantic information can be transferred without encoding and storing it. Second, this lack of encoding is what makes semantic information unmeasurable. However, the argument for both these claims, presented by Dennett as an intuition pump, is (...) invalid. (shrink)

Assent is an important ethical and legal requirement of paediatric research. Unfortunately, there are significant differences between the guidelines on the details of assent.

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

There is a need to consider the impact of the new resident-hours regulations on the variety of aspects of medical education and patient care. Most existing literature about this subject has focused on the role of fatigue in resident performance, education, and health care delivery. However, there are other possible consequences of these new regulations, including a negative impact on decision ownership. Our main assumption of is that increased shift work in medicine can decrease ownership of treatment decisions and impact (...) negatively on quality of care. We review some potential components of decision ownership in treatment context and suggest possible ways in which the absence of decision ownership may decrease the quality of medical decision making. The article opens with the definition of decision ownership and the overview of some contextual factors that may contribute to the development of ownership in medical residency. The following section discusses decision ownership in medical care from the perspe... (shrink)

The purpose of this paper is to analyse and compare two concepts which tend to be treated as synonymous, and to show the difference between them: these are critical thinking and logical culture. Firstly, we try to show that these cannot be considered identical or strictly equivalent: i.e. that the concept of logical culture includes more than just critical thinking skills. Secondly, we try to show that Christian philosophers, when arguing about philosophical matters and teaching philosophy to students, should not (...) focus only on critical thinking skills, but rather also consider logical culture. This, as we argue, may help to improve debate both within and outside of Christian philosophy. (shrink)

Despite the continuous emphasis on globalization, we witness increasing divisions and divisiveness in all domains of human activities. One of the reasons, if not the main one, is the intellectual fragmentation of humanity, compared in the title to the failed attempt at building the Biblical Tower of Babel. The attempts to reintegrate worldview, fragmented by the specialization of education and expected to be achieved through reforms in curricula at all levels of education, were based on the assumption that the design (...) of a curriculum should focus on the wide distribution of subjects of study, as if the distribution was the goal. The key point is not the distribution of themes, but the development of skills in the integration of knowledge. The quantitative assessment of the width of knowledge by the number of disciplines is of secondary importance. We cannot expect the miracle that students without any intellectual tools developed for this purpose would perform the job of integration, which their teachers do not promote or demonstrate, and which they cannot achieve for themselves. There are many other reasons for the increasing interest in making inquiries interdisciplinary, but there is little progress in the methodology of the integration of knowledge. This paper is a study of the transition from multidisciplinarity to interdisciplinarity, and further, to transdisciplinarity, with some suggestions regarding the use of methodological tools of structuralism and the choice of a conceptual framework. (shrink)

The paper deals with the contemporary state of semiotic ethnology in Poland (connected with New Polish Ethnology group), its internal and external influences, its specifics, subjects and its reaction to the other theoretical propositions. The “neotribe” of New Polish Ethnology was established by few younger scholars, ethnologists in the early 1980s, in an opposition to the dominant stream of positivistic ethnology. Today they have become classics of Polish anthropology, masters that have educated a new generation of their students, and lead (...) some anthropological institutes. The most inspiring set of theories that influenced the group and its heirs was taken from Soviet semiotics of culture (Lotman, Uspensky, Toporov, Ivanov), and French structural-semiotics (Levi-Strauss, Barthes), but there are some individual differences also. On that basis they have developed a specific scope, aim and methods of interpretation with as its key terms myth and mythical thinking. They have explained many cultural events (relation we-others, body image, commercials, and anthropology itself) within the framework ofmythical thinking, making it the most productive and attractive frame of interpretation within Polish humanities and social sciences. In the 1990s they had to face critical ethnography, deconstruction and postmodern anthropology and they did it with perfect flexibility that even strengthened their project, because the potential of reflexivity and self-consciousness lied within semiotics from its beginning. (shrink)

This article presents the works of great Polish philosopher, Mieczysław Albert Krąpiec, whose creative output can be applied to professional nursing practice. Krąpiec's philosophical heritage is extensive and encompasses many philosophical fields: metaphysics, philosophical anthropology, philosophy of law, philosophy of culture, philosophy of politics and philosophy of language. Krąpiec created an original philosophical synthesis characterized by a realistic approach. In this paper, I present only one of several original philosophical concepts developed by Krąpiec: the theory of the person based on (...) seven essential characteristics, that is the ability for cognition, love, freedom, religion, legal subjectivity, completeness and dignity. I attempt to show how these personal characteristics correspond to various patient needs. I argue that the qualitative deficit of any personal characteristics indicated by Krąpiec corresponds to a patient's real need that must be satisfied. I also stress that the skilful diagnosing of all—not only selected—qualitative deficits of characteristics can be defined as holistic care in the nursing profession. (shrink)