This book is a multi-faceted attempt to understand the psychological mysteries of land, space, native cultures, changing eras, and geographical dislocation. It shows us that many remote and seemingly peaceful areas of the world have their own dark and silent pasts in which their original inhabitants were often brutally wiped out. Weaving history, geography, myth, philosophy, and psychoanalysis together, this book tries to understand why such atrocities were committed, how those subjected to these 'crimes' might have perceived them, and what (...) are the long-term, trans-generational consequences of these historical events. (shrink)

Crowdfunding is increasingly common in medical research. Some critics are concerned that by adopting crowdfunding, some researchers may sidestep the established systems of review of the social and scientific value of studies, especially mechanisms of expert-based review. I argue firstly that such concerns are based on a misleading picture of how research value is assessed and secondly that crowdfunding may turn out to be an useful complement of extant funding systems. I start with the idea that medical knowledge is a (...) structured and intermediate public good and explain from this perspective that funding systems as a whole, rather than any of their parts ought to be considered devices for the discovery of the social and scientific value of research. If so, we should not be concerned with whether crowdfunding bypasses expert reviews, but with whether it may constitute an improvement of extant funding systems. In the second part, I speculate that crowdfunding may ameliorate, albeit limitedly, some recalcitrant failures of funding systems, such as the sponsorship of research on neglected diseases, and smooth funding adaptations for scientific transitions. If, after trial, such hypotheses turn out to be true, crowdfunding ought to be promoted. (shrink)

uBiome offers a gut bacteria sequencing service to consumers to entice data donation. It aims to establish a genomic repository for microbiomics. In 2013, some bloggers worried that uBiome operations had not received any Institutional Review Board ethics approval. uBiome co-founders Richman and Apte replied by effectively arguing that crony research agencies hamper innovation by requiring cumbersome for-fee IRBs to so-called “citizen science” projects. The debate soon ascended from ethics to appropriate institutional design for research and innovation. I reconstruct the (...) ethical issues underpinning the uBiome-IRB debate and situate them in the emerging context of entrepreneurial science relying on crowdsourcing. This paper contributes to the dialogue between social scientists and bioethicists promoted in this volume by offering an analysis of a case study that requires attention to the organizational and economic context and lends itself to collaboration across disciplines. (shrink)

It is well known that in the first edition of Logical Investigations , Husserl defines the research field of phenomenology as a psychological immanence. However, if we closely examine the criteria used for defining the psychological immanence, we find that they imply certain conception of transcendence of the intentional object. This conception of transcendence leads to epistemological problems concerning the relationship between the physical object and the object of perception. After all, it would be correct to say that the physical (...) object is transcendent in the same sense which it is stated that the perceived object is transcendent to the experience of perceiving? This article seeks to show how the transcendental turn of 1906/1907 and the consequent distinction between three concepts of immanence and transcendence in his work Idea of Phenomenology contributed to solving such problems. (shrink)

O objetivo deste trabalho é examinar a crítica ao psicologismo de Edmund Husserl paraavaliar sua posição no que diz respeito à psicologia empírica. Procurarei mostrar, em primeirolugar, que Husserl, em Investigações lógicas, tem como alvo o psicologismo lógico e umadeterminada forma de psicologismo epistemológico. Em segundo lugar, buscarei mostrar quea fundamentação epistemológica da lógica pura, como ciência teórica, implica em uma teoriada subjetividade. Um dos objetivos de Husserl em Investigações lógicas é empregar afenomenologia, entendida como forma peculiar de psicologia descritiva, (...) para elaborar umanova teoria da subjetividade, por meio de uma análise descritiva das vivências envolvidas naobtenção do conhecimento teórico. Depois irei discutir o lugar que a psicologia empírica passaa ocupar depois da crítica ao psicologismo em Investigações lógicas. (shrink)

Mario Savio is widely known as the first spokesman for the Free Speech Movement. Having spent the summer of 1964 as a civil rights worker in segregationist Mississippi, Savio returned to the University of California at a time when students throughout the country were beginning to mobilize in support of racial justice and against the deepening American involvement in Vietnam. His moral clairty, his eloquence, and his democratic style of leadership inspired thousands of fellow Berkeley students to protest (...) university regulations that had severely limited political speech and activity on campus. The nonviolent campaign culminated in the largest mass arrest in American history, drew widespread faculty support, and resulted in a revision of university rules to permit political speech and organizing. This significant advance for student freedom rapidly spread to countless other colleges and universities across the country. Mario Savio went on to become a college teacher of physics, logic, and philosophy, to speak and organize in favor of immigrant rights and affirmative action and against U.S. intervention in Central America. He died on November 6, 1996, in the middle of a struggle against California State University fee hikes that hurt working-class students. Savio had submitted this article to the Notre Dame Journal of Formal Logic before he died. Final revisions were made by Philip Clayton with the assistance of Mario's colleagues at Sonoma State University. As reader for the Journal, George Englebretsen not only provided an extensive commentary on the article--much of which has been incorporated here--but also assisted in the difficult task of making revisions without changing the substance of Mario's style or thought. It is fitting that this, Savio's final publication, would be pedagogical in orientation. For him, moral considerations were no less pertinent in logic than in philosophy's less abstract fields. The usual student confusion with Venn diagrams led him to develop the new pictorial device presented in the following pages, which he believed was more sensitive to user psychology. It is hard to miss the political overtones in Savio's closing worry that in Venn diagrams "information of real significance may occasionally appear hidden and distorted." The decision by the Notre Dame Journal of Formal Logic to publish this piece posthumously is a testimony that logic, no less than other fields of philosophy, can be a tool of free speech and political change--as powerful in its way as the rhetorical brilliance of that young man standing on top of a police car who launched a worldwide movement with the words, "There is a time when the operation of the machine becomes so odious, makes you so sick at heart, you can't take part.". (shrink)

Recent evidence of intergenerational epigenetic programming of disease risk broadens the scope of public health preventive interventions to future generations, i.e. non existing people. Due to the transmission of epigenetic predispositions, lifestyles such as smoking or unhealthy diet might affect the health of populations across several generations. While public policy for the health of future generations can be justified through impersonal considerations, such as maximizing aggregate well-being, in this article we explore whether there are rights-based obligations supervening on intergenerational epigenetic (...) programming despite the non-identity argument, which challenges this rationale in case of policies that affect the number and identity of future people. We propose that rights based obligations grounded in the interests of non-existing people might fall upon existing people when generations overlap. In particular, if environmental exposure in F0 will affect the health of F2 through epigenetic programming, then F1 might face increased costs to address F2's condition in the future: this might generate obligations upon F0 from various distributive principles, such as the principle of equal opportunity for well being. (shrink)

In recent times, in Asia and more specifically in South Asia the discourse on ethnic and religious nationalisms that attempt to redefine the identity of locals in an exclusive and adversarial manner has dominated political and mainstream exchanges. This emphasis on stringent and radical nationalism has serious ramifications for inclusive development. This article critically examines the findings of the Inclusive Development Index 2018 and link it with other reports and surveys like the Oxfam survey 2017 to find out the connections (...) between stringent forms of nationalism and development. Besides analyzing briefly the notions of nationalism as played out concretely in the South Asian nations, this article makes an in-depth analysis of the specific case of the right wing ‘Hindutva’ ideology in India. The processes, institutions and structures that lead to various forms of systemic bias and discrimination against the minorities will be identified, and the role of stringent nationalism in reinforcing these biases and thus impeding the project of inclusive development will be scrutinised. Keywords : inclusive development, radical nationalism, Hindutva, minorities, South Asia, inequality, post-colonial. (shrink)

A proper understanding of the moral and political significance of migration requires a focus on global inequalities. More specifically, it requires a focus on those global inequalities that affect people’s ability to participate in the production of economic goods and non-economic goods. We call cooperative infrastructures the complex material and immaterial technologies that allow human beings to cooperate in order to generate human goods. By enabling migrants to access high-quality cooperative infrastructures, migration contributes to the diffusion of technical and socio-political (...) innovations. In this way, it positively affects the ability of individuals from poorer countries to participate in the production of human goods, to benefit from such production, and to contribute to human development. Migration can also damage the material and immateri al components of the cooperative infrastructures accessible in both the host and sending countries; these potential downsides of migration should not be ignored, although arguably they can often be neutralized, alleviated, or compensated. (shrink)

Recent epidemiological reports of associations between socioeconomic status and epigenetic markers that predict vulnerability to diseases are bringing to light substantial biological effects of social inequalities. Here, we start the discussion of the moral consequences of these findings. We firstly highlight their explanatory importance in the context of the research program on the Developmental Origins of Health and Disease (DOHaD) and the social determinants of health. In the second section, we review some theories of the moral status of health inequalities. (...) Rather than a complete outline of the debate, we single out those theories that rest on the principle of equality of opportunity and analyze the consequences of DOHaD and epigenetics for these particular conceptions of justice. We argue that DOHaD and epigenetics reshape the conceptual distinction between natural and acquired traits on which these theories rely and might provide important policy tools to tackle unjust distributions of health. (shrink)

Sidney Hook on Pragmatism, Democracy, and Freedom collects twenty-five of Hook's most incisive essays in political philosophy, written throughout his lengthy career. Clustered into five main sections, the essays discuss pragmatism and naturalism, Marx and Marxism, democratic theory, democratic practice, and the defense of a free society.

In this brilliant work, first published in 1936, Sydney Hook seeks to resolve one of the classic problems of European intellectual history: how the political radicalism and philosophical materialism of Karl Marx issued from the mystical and conservative intellectual system of G.W.F. Hegel. This edition contains a forward by Christopher Phelps discussing Hook's career and the significance of _From Hegel to Marx_ in the history of ideas.

"In preparing this remarkable book, Ernest Hook persuaded an eminent group of scientists, historians, sociologists and philosophers to focus on the problem: why are some discoveries rejected at a particular time but later seen to be valid? The interaction of these experts did not produce agreement on 'prematurity' in science but something more valuable: a collection of fascinating papers, many of them based on new research and analysis, which sometimes forced the author to revise a previously-held opinion. The book (...) should be enthusiastically welcomed by all readers who are interested in how science works."—Stephen G. Brush, co-author of Physics, The Human Adventure: From copernicus to Einstein and Beyond "Prematurity and Scientific Discovery contains interesting and insightful papers by numerous well-known scientists and scholars. It will be of wide interest, not only to science studies scholars but also to working scientists and to science-literate general readers."—Thomas Nickles, editor of Scientific Discovery, Logic, and Rationality. (shrink)

One of the most influential philosophers of the twentieth century details the events of his career and describes meetings with people who have shaped the philosophical and political character of recent history.

Este artículo estudia los números de la Revista de Psicoanálisis publicados entre 1946 y 1955 en Argentina. En particular, analiza los artículos escritos por los psicoanalistas argentinos que allí aparecen y las notas e informaciones que se incluyen en las últimas páginas de la revista. Se propone, por un lado, rastrear qué es el psicoanálisis en esos años, pensando este saber como un objeto discursivo, y, por el otro, indagar sobre el modo en que se construye la comunidad discursiva psicoanalítica (...) de la APA. Este recorrido ha evidenciado, por un lado, que el psicoanálisis es entendido, en ese entonces, como una teoría científica y una práctica contigua a la práctica médica, limitado al tratamiento individual. Por el otro, ha identificado que la revista, además de constituir un medio de comunicación privilegiado para la institución, contribuye a la consolidación de la comunidad discursiva psicoanalítica. (shrink)

Are humans a domesticated species? How is this issue related to debates on the roles of human agency in human evolution? This article discusses four views on human domestication: Darwin’s view; the view of those who link human domestication to anthropogenic niche construction and, more specifically, to sedentism; the view of those who link human domestication to selection against aggression and the domestication syndrome; and a novel view according to which human domestication can be conceived of in terms of a (...) process of political selection. The article examines and compares these views to illustrate how discussions of human domestication can contribute to debates about how, and to what extent, human agency has affected human evolution. (shrink)

In this paper we argue that there is a duty to inform consumers about the environmental impact of foods, and discuss what this duty entails and to whom it falls. We analyze previous proposals that justify ethical traceability with arguments from sustainability and the respect for the autonomy of consumers, showing that they cannot ground a duty to inform. We argue instead that the duty rests on the right of consumers not to be harmed, insofar as consumers have an interest (...) in the morality of their own agency that is frustrated if they are not informed about the environmental impact of the production and transport of what they consume. Our argument detaches the regulation of labeling from substantive theories of environmental ethics or perfectionist conceptions of citizens’ responsibility, thus defending a case for labeling that is compelling also for those who take the role of the state to be limited to the prevention of harm. (shrink)

O referente trabalho tem por objetivo descrever parte das experiências obtidas mediante a participação na extensão em “Educação e Cultura Afro” desenvolvida pelo Órgão de Educação e Relações Étnicas – ODEERE. Na oportunidade, refletimos sobre as discussões obtidas nos dez módulos do curso e como essas pautas influíram diretamente nas concepções pressupostas acera da cultura afro. Em vista de se perceber o legado africano assumindo metodologias de resistência na contemporaneidade, a formação docente e discente deve procurar reaver e fortalecer de (...) forma diversificada sua identidade e seu território para combater a discriminação racial. Dessa forma, o presente trabalho discorre sobre a importância do curso para alunos, professores e a comunidade em busca de melhor formação e rompimento do status quo étnico. Entretanto, aprendendo a respeitar e valorizar a cultura, o legado africano, a educação étnico-racial, por meio de práxis realmente efetivas em seus respectivos territórios de identidade. Palavras-chave: Educação; Cultura; Afro; Saberes. (shrink)

Migration often causes what I refer to in this paper as ‘anti-immigration backlashes’ in receiving countries. Such reactions have substantial costs in terms of the undermining of national solidarity and the diffusion of political distrust. In short, anti-immigration backlashes can threaten the social and political stability of receiving countries. Do such risks constitute a reason against permissive immigration policies which are otherwise desirable? I argue that a positive answer may depend on a skeptical view based on the alleged constraints that (...) certain political facts - especially facts about human nature - pose on political intervention. This view does not stand conceptual and empirical scrutiny in the case of anti-immigration backlashes, where feasibility comes in degree. Yet focusing on the recalcitrance to change of these facts is practically important when devising action plans. This pragmatic core of the skeptical view yields a gradualist and naturalistic way of thinking about constraints in political theorising about migration, and elsewhere. (shrink)

Viruses have generally been thought of as infectious agents. New data on mimivirus, however, suggests a reinterpretation of this thought. Earth’s biosphere seems to contain many more viruses than previously thought and they are relevant in the maintenance of ecosystems and biodiversity. Viruses are not considered to be alive because they are not free-living entities and do not have cellular units. Current hypotheses indicate that some viruses may have been the result of genomic reduction of cellular life forms. However, new (...) studies relating to the origins of biological systems suggest that viruses could also have originated during the transition from First to the Last Universal Common Ancestor. Within this setting, life has been established as chemical informational system and could be interpreted as a macrocode of multiple layers. The first entity to acquire these features was the First Universal Common Ancestor that evolved to an intermediate ancestral that could be named T-LUCA and be equated to Woese’s concept of progenotes. T-LUCA may have remained as undifferentiated subsystems with viruses-like structures. The net result is that both cellular life forms and viruses shared protein synthesis apparatuses. In short, virus is a strategy of life reached by two paths: T-LUCAs like entities and the reduction of cellular life forms. (shrink)

Viruses have generally been thought of as infectious agents. New data on mimivirus, however, suggests a reinterpretation of this thought. Earth’s biosphere seems to contain many more viruses than previously thought and they are relevant in the maintenance of ecosystems and biodiversity. Viruses are not considered to be alive because they are not free-living entities and do not have cellular units. Current hypotheses indicate that some viruses may have been the result of genomic reduction of cellular life forms. However, new (...) studies relating to the origins of biological systems suggest that viruses could also have originated during the transition from First to the Last Universal Common Ancestor. Within this setting, life has been established as chemical informational system and could be interpreted as a macrocode of multiple layers. The first entity to acquire these features was the First Universal Common Ancestor that evolved to an intermediate ancestral that could be named T-LUCA and be equated to Woese’s concept of progenotes. T-LUCA may have remained as undifferentiated subsystems with viruses-like structures. The net result is that both cellular life forms and viruses shared protein synthesis apparatuses. In short, virus is a strategy of life reached by two paths: T-LUCAs like entities and the reduction of cellular life forms. (shrink)

Microbiota-gut-brain research is a fast-growing field of inquiry with important implications for how human brain function and behaviour are understood. Researchers manipulate gut microbes to reveal connections between intestinal microbiota and normal brain functions or pathological states. Many claims are made about causal relationships between gut microbiota and human behaviour. By uncovering these relationships, MGB research aims to offer new explanations of mental health and potential avenues of treatment. So far, limited evaluation has been made of MGB's methods and its (...) core experimental findings, many of which are extensively reiterated in copious reviews of the field. These factors, plus the self-help potential of MGB, have combined to encourage uncritical public uptake of MGB discoveries. Both social and professional media focus on the potential for dietary intervention in mental health, and causal relationships are assumed to be established. Our target article has two main aims. One is to examine critically the core practices and findings of experimental MGB research and to raise questions about them for brain and behavioural scientists who may not be familiar with the field. The other is to challenge the way in which MGB findings are presented. Our positive goal is to suggest how current problems and weaknesses may be addressed, in order for both scientific and public audiences to gain a clearer picture of MGB research and its strengths and limitations. (shrink)

In a city high school recently a male student completed a one day suspension for fighting with a female student. It was the only day of school he missed and the only time he got into trouble. When he returned to sit in his usual place, which was next to the female student, the teacher soon noticed and suggested the male student move to another seat. The student said this was his usual seat, he was comfortable there, and wanted to (...) know why he had to move. The teacher insisted, the student resisted, until the teacher called in the principal and security guard. After trying to persuade the student, they said, “We'll have to arrest you”; and he replied, “So?” The student was arrested. The teacher did not attempt to discuss the suggestions with the student nor ask other faculty for assistance. By being arrested and too poor to post bond, the student had to spend two nights in the city jail. Unsurprisingly, this notorious building induced greater fear in the student, whose cellmate was a convicted murderer, than any nagging public school teacher could; still, the student forced himself to stay awake for two consecutive nights. Sending a student to jail for not switching seats strikes one as insane. Even though this incident may not be typical, one should be cautioned about drawing the conclusion that it was only a freak occurrence. The insanity followed a rational routine: Teacher makes request to student; student says no, hence disobeys; teacher gives warning, calls in authorities; authorities give warning, arrest student; student goes to jail. Indeed, the final action follows a sequence in which no outlandish violation of the rules appeared. A combination of regulations, circumstances, and individuals invested with power make this insanity readily possible. And yet, as one observer put it, it could have been avoided, “All they had to do was treat him as a human being.”1. (shrink)

Published in 1933, at a time of widespread unemployment and bank failures, this book by the young Sidney Hook received great critical acclaim and established his reputation as a brilliant expositor of ideas. By "revolutionary interpretation" Hook meant quite literally that Marx's main objective was to stimulate revolutionary opposition to class society. Hook later abandoned the revolutionary views expressed in this volume, but he never abandoned his warm positive views of Marx as a thinker and a fighter (...) for freedom. He eventually concluded that 20th century history had proved both him and Marx wrong about the necessity of revolutionary means to achieve their mutual social goals. But, says his son Ernest B. Hook in an introduction, this concession of error "he did not see... as an admission of intellectual weakness, but the natural position of a reasonable person when, in the light of observation and experience, he concludes he has erred." This expanded edition makes readily available for scholars an influential work long out of print and provides critical insight into the intellectual development of one of the 20th-century's great thinkers. (shrink)

Lacanian psychoanalysis is often considered antithetical to Frantz Fanon's decolonizing political project. This paper argues, by contrast, that by exploring hitherto under-explored aspects of the F...

ABSTRACT Pierre Bayle developed an expansive theory of toleration in his Commentaire philosophique by arguing that tolerance is a universal principle of natural law. However, by situating toleration in natural law rather than positive law, Bayle was brought into theoretical conflict with the Old Testament injunction that the state should punish idolatry. To resolve this conflict, Bayle drew upon the work of early modern Hebraists, particularly the Catholic biblical scholar Richard Simon. Bayle adapted Simon’s idea that theocracy uniquely shaped the (...) institutions of ancient Israel to argue that prohibitions against idolatry should be exclusive to the Hebrew republic. Bayle argued that the Mosaic Law did not punish someone for their sincerely held religious beliefs but only prohibited treason, and these circumstantial laws should not be emulated by other states. This allowed Bayle to contend for the moral veracity of the Old Testament and the notion that toleration is an unconditional principle of natural law. Bayle’s use of Simon displayed the revolutionary potential of textual critical scholarship in the early modern period, as he adapted Simon’s critical ideas to his own aims of promoting religious toleration within the ecclesiastical and civic spheres of his own confessional context. (shrink)

This essay explores the significance and implications of the causal theory of reference for the current debate on the necessity and exchangeability of the divine title ‘Father’ in the discourse of the Church. Identifying ‘Father’ as a vocative term historically grounded in the speech of Jesus and his Apostles, the authors assert that it successfully refers to God, functioning very much like a proper name. They also identify linguistic barriers to its replacement by other terms.

According to some evolutionary theorists human prosocial dispositions emerged in a context of inter-group competition and violence that made our psychology parochially prosocial, ie. cooperative towards in-groups and competitive towards strangers. This evolutionary hypothesis is sometimes employed in bioethical debates to argue that human nature and contemporary environments, and especially large-scale societies, are mismatched. In this article we caution against the use of mismatch theories in moral philosophy in general and discuss empirical evidence that puts into question mismatch theories based (...) on parochial prosociality. Evolutionary mismatch theories play at best a rhetorical role in these moral debates and may misrepresent the status of relevant evolutionary research. We finally recommend that moral philosophers interested in the evolutionary literature also engage with dispositions such as xenophilia and social tolerance to counterbalance the focus on psychological mismatches adopted so far. (shrink)