A number of studies have demonstrated pragmatic language difficulties in people with Schizophrenia Spectrum and Other Psychotic Disorders. However, research about how people with schizophrenia spectrum and other psychotic disorders understand scalar implicatures is surprisingly rare, since SIs have generated much of the most recent literature. Scalar implicatures are pragmatic inferences, based on linguistic expressions like some, must, or, which are part of a scale of informativeness. Logically, the less informative expressions imply the more informative ones, but pragmatically people usually (...) infer that the presence of a less informative term implies that the more informative term was not applicable. In one of the few existing studies with people with schizophrenia spectrum and other psychotic disorders, Wampers et al. observed that in general, people with schizophrenia spectrum and other psychotic disorders were less likely to derive SIs than controls. The current study has three main aims. First, we want to replicate the original finding with the scalar terms some-all. Second, we want to investigate how these patients deal with different scalar terms, that is, we want to investigate if scalar diversity is also observed in this clinical group. Third, we investigate the role of working memory, often seen as another important mechanism to enable inferring SIs. Twenty-one individuals with a psychotic disorder and 21 matched controls answered 54 under-informative statements, in which seven different pairs of scalar terms were used. In addition, working memory capacity was measured. Patients with schizophrenia spectrum and other psychotic disorders did not make more logical interpretations when processing quantifiers, disconfirming Wampers et al.. However, certain scalar scales elicited more pragmatic interpretations than others, which is in line with the scalar diversity hypothesis. Additionally, we observed only partial evidence for the role of working memory. Only for the scalar scale and-or, a significant effect of working memory was observed. The implications of these results for patients with schizophrenia spectrum and other psychotic disorders are discussed, but also the role of working memory for pragmatic inferences, as well as the place of SIs in experimental pragmatics. (shrink)

The concept of ‘humane healthcare’ cannot and may not be limited to a personal virtue. For elucidating its meaning and making it functional as a critical ethical criterion for healthcare as a social institution, it is necessary to reflect on the social, cultural, and historical conditions in which modern healthcare finds its offspring and its further development. Doing this is the object and aim of social ethics. Social ethics in itself covers a broad area of different approaches. A main division (...) can be made between a liberal and a communitarian approach. This article focuses on the latter and concentrates on one of its representatives, Charles Taylor. The paper starts with two clarifying paragraphs: one about the terms humane and human, a second about the scope of social ethics. Next, because the term humane presupposes a certain view of man, attention will be paid to the lack of consensus in this respect within modernity, using some reflections of Taylor. In his view, resigning in this lack is a threat for one of the main motives behind modernity: the pursuit of a good and meaningful life. In the following section Taylor's analysis is applied to contemporary healthcare, by means of two examples. At the end the question is raised how to promote humane healthcare? In a short and conclusive sketch, three suggestions are offered for further research: scrutiny of goals and meanings within healthcare and culture, the broadening of the concept of autonomy and the upholding of human dignity as an intrinsic and imperative value. (shrink)

Solidarity belongs to the basic principles of Catholic Social Teaching (CST) and is part of the ethical repertoire of European moral traditions and European healthcare systems. This paper discusses how leaders of Catholic healthcare organizations (HCOs) can understand their institutional moral responsibility with regard to the preservation of solidarity. In dealing with this question, we make use of Taylor's philosophy of modern culture. We first argue that, just as all HCOs, Catholic ones also can embody and strengthen solidarity by just (...) doing their quintessential job, that is, to care for people with ill health. Second, we focus on the Catholic identity of these organizations and argue that this characteristic can empower a radical commitment to solidarity. Finally, we argue that CST provides a critical ethical framework for approaching solidarity from the perspective of the common good. (shrink)

In this paper the moral responsibility of a Healthcare Organization (HCO) is conceived as an inextricable aspect of the identity of the HCO. We attempt to show that by exploring this relation a more profound insight in moral responsibility can be gained. Referring to Charles Taylor we explore the meaning of the concept of identity. It consists of three interdependent dimensions: a moral, a dialogical, and a narrative one. In section two we develop some additional arguments to apply his concept (...) of personal identity to organizations. The final section works out the relationship of three dimensions of identity to some actual issues in contemporary HCOs: the tension between care and justice, the importance of dialogues about the diversity of goods, and the relevance of becoming familiar with the life-story of the HCO. Identity of an HCO is established and developed in commitments to and identification with certain goods that are central for a HCO. However, many of these goods are interwoven with everyday practices and policies. Therefore, moral responsibility asks for articulation of goods that often stay implicit and should not be reduced to a merely procedural approach. However difficult this articulation may be, if it is not tried at all HCOs run the risk of drifting away from their very identity as healthcare institutions: to offer care to patients and to do this in accordance with demands of social justice. (shrink)

In the appendix of his latest book, Incontinence of the Void, Žižek presents an account of how, according to his dialectical materialism, love can overcome death. This article situates Žižek ’s argument in the context of his ontology and his theory of the subject to explicate how Žižek arrives at this position: one that appears, on the surface, to be inconsistent with a staunch materialist and atheistic stance. Building on Žižek ’s references to Kierkegaard in this appendix, I will furthermore (...) argue that the figure of the Knight of Faith from Kierkegaard’s Fear and Trembling can be as another instantiation of the revolutionary subject of the act. This figure can be said to participate in a type of love that overcomes death insofar as its attachment to objects of desire embodies the acephalous, undead drive that is not reducible to ontic or symbolic structures of reality. (shrink)

In chapter four of his latest book, _A New German Idealism _(2019), Adrian Johnston seeks to clarify the meaning of ‘materialism’ in Žižek’s philosophy and questions what he sees as potentially problematic aspects of Žižek’s ‘materialism without materialism’. In this article, I propose a possible reply to three problematic aspects of Žižek’s materialism identified by Johnston. First, that Žižek risks losing his materialist credentials by appealing to a Pythagorean-Badiouan mathematical idealism to define matter. Second, that Žižek’s account of the emergence (...) of the subject from substance relies on the idea of a pre-subjective Nature that is whole and balanced, contradicting the key tenet of Žižek’s dialectical materialism that nature is a non-all. Third, that Žižek projects features of human subjectivity onto natural substance, and so problematically anthropomorphizes the pre-human Real, which is evident in how Žižek argues that there are similarities between the behaviour of particles in quantum physics and features of the Lacanian symbolic order. (shrink)

At times we are told that our habitual way of thinking has become obsolete given the new challenge we are facing. Some of the conceptual resources at our disposal are no longer capable of addressing the challenge at hand. Therefore, they lose their appeal and are rejected. But only in contrast to these intellectual resources does the challenge appear as a challenge. So it seems that we are confronted with a paradox: we need the intellectual resources for their uselessness. For (...) a proper understanding of this paradox and to unravel it, I will distinguish between de dicto and de re readings of philosophical texts. This distinction is borrowed from the neo-pragmatist Robert Brandom. A de dicto reading of a text is concerned with what its author says. A de re reading of a text is concerned with what its author talks about. Unpacking this distinction allows us to evaluate the method of engaging with our stock of conceptual resources as part of scholarly argument. (shrink)

ABSTRACT In genomic research the ideal standard of free, informed, prior and explicit consent is sometimes difficult to apply. This has raised concern that important genomic research will be restricted. Different consent procedures have therefore been proposed. This paper explicitly examines the question how, in genomic research, the principles of solidarity and justice can be used to justify forms of diminished individual control over personal data and bio‐samples. After a discussion of the notions of solidarity and justice and how they (...) can be related to health care and genomic research, we examine how and in which situations these notions can form a strong moral basis for demanding certain financial sacrifices. Then we examine when these principles can justify consent procedures which diverge from the ideal standard. Because much genomic research is not expected to lead to immediate (clinical) benefits we also discuss the question of whether we can be obliged to make any sacrifices for future (not yet existing) patients. We conclude with the formulation of a number of conditions that have to be met before autonomy sacrifices can be reasonably demanded in genomic research. (shrink)

In genomic research the ideal standard of free, informed, prior, and explicit consent is believed to restrict important research studies. For certain types of genomic research other forms of consent are therefore proposed which are ethically justified by an appeal to the common good. This notion is often used in a general sense and this forms a weak basis for the use of weaker forms of consent. Here we examine how the notion of the common good can be related to (...) individual health, health care, and genomic research and we use this analysis to propose more precise criteria to justify forms of consent which diverge from the ideal standard. (shrink)

A review of the recently published book Žižek: Paper Revolutionary by Mark Zlomislić. On its back cover, Marko Zlomislić’s book claims to offer a critique of Žižek’s work from a Franciscan perspective, drawing especially on the late medieval notion of haecceity or ‘individual thisness’. But one does not have to read far into this book to realise that Zlomislić is a lot more interested in insulting Žižek than he is in actually engaging with his thought. Zlomislić’s work is sadly lacking (...) in substance, and fails to convince not only because its explication is marred by an over-use of exaggerated ad hominems, but because Zlomislić has a limited understanding of the basic parameters of Žižek’s philosophy. The result is a poorly-structured and largely incoherent attack at a straw-man-Žižek that would fail to inform or persuade any reader with even a basic grasp of Žižek’s work. (shrink)

How should judges deal with the manifestation of religious symbols in public educational institutions? In light of the important role of human rights in our legal and political system, courts should grant maximum protection under the freedom of religion or belief. The central thesis of this article is that the European Court of Human Rights fails to live up to this standard. In order to reach this conclusion, the article analyzes relevant case law of the European Court and compares its (...) case law with that of the high courts of Canada and South Africa. In addition, the article assesses the case law of all three courts from the angle of interpretation theory and particularly Cass R. Sunstein’s theory of judicial minimalism. Adoption of a more consistently minimalist methodology by the European Court might lead to a greater protection granted to individuals and groups. However, a wide and deep ruling is first required to overturn the current line of reasoning. The European Court can draw inspiration from Canada and South Africa for such a judgment. (shrink)

In the recently published Papyrus Bodmer 30 one of the six poems deals with the story of Genesis 22. At many places the poem drastically deviates from the biblical text, and the editors of the papyrus are insufficiently aware of the background of these deviations. In this article the authors demonstrate that almost all of them have their background in a centuries long process of both Jewish and Christian reflection on this biblical chapter. It is the very specific ‘Wirkungsgeschichte’ of (...) Gen. 22 that explains most of the poem’s specifics. (shrink)