ABSTRACTSince its origin bioethics has been a specialized, academic discipline, focussing on moral issues, using a vast set of globalized principles and rational techniques to evaluate and guide healthcare practices. With the emergence of a plural society, the loss of faith in experts and authorities and the decline of overarching grand narratives and shared moralities, a new approach to bioethics is needed. This approach implies a shift from an external critique of practices towards embedded ethics and interactive practice improvement, and (...) from a legal defence of rights towards fostering interdependent practices of responsibility. This article describes these transitions within bioethics in relation to the broader societal and cultural dynamics within Western societies, and traces the implications for the methodologies and changing roles of the bioethicist. The bioethicist we foresee is not just a clever expert but also a relationally sensitive person who engages stakeholders in reciprocal dialogues about their practice of responsibility and helps to integrate various sorts of knowledge . In order to illustrate this new approach, we present a case study. It concerns a project focusing on an innovation in elderly care, based on the participation of various stakeholders, especially older people themselves. (shrink)

Since its origin bioethics has been a specialized, academic discipline, focussing on moral issues, using a vast set of globalized principles and rational techniques to evaluate and guide healthcare practices. With the emergence of a plural society, the loss of faith in experts and authorities and the decline of overarching grand narratives and shared moralities, a new approach to bioethics is needed. This approach implies a shift from an external critique of practices towards embedded ethics and interactive practice improvement, and (...) from a legal defence of rights towards fostering interdependent practices of responsibility. This article describes these transitions within bioethics in relation to the broader societal and cultural dynamics within Western societies, and traces the implications for the methodologies and changing roles of the bioethicist. The bioethicist we foresee is not just a clever expert but also a relationally sensitive person who engages stakeholders in reciprocal dialogues about their practice of responsibility and helps to integrate various sorts of knowledge (embodied, experiential, visual, and cognitive-scientific). In order to illustrate this new approach, we present a case study. It concerns a project focusing on an innovation in elderly care, based on the participation of various stakeholders, especially older people themselves. (shrink)

This article discusses the challenging context that health care professionals are confronted with, and the impact of this context on their emotional experiences. Care ethics considers emotions as a valuable source of knowledge for good care. Thinking with care ethical theory and looking through a care ethical lens at a practical case example, the authors discern reflective questions that shed light on a care ethical approach toward the role of emotions in care practices, and may be used by practitioners and (...) facilitators for care ethical reflection on similar cases, in the particular and concrete context where issues around emotional experiences arise. The authors emphasize the importance of allowing emotions to exist, to acknowledge them and to not repress them, so that they can serve as a vehicle for ethical behavior in care practices. They stress the difference between acknowledging emotions and expressing them limitlessly. Formational practices and transformational research practices are being proposed to create moral space in care institutions and to support health care professionals to approach the emotionally turbulent practices they encounter in a way that contributes to good care for all those involved. (shrink)

Client participation in elderly care organizations requires shifting traditional power relations and establishing communicative action that involves the lifeworlds of clients and professionals alike. This article describes a particular form of client participation in which one client was part of a team of professionals in a residential care home. Their joint remit was to plan the implementation of a new personal care file for residents. We describe the interactions within this team through an ethnodrama, based on participant observations and the (...) embodied presence of the researcher (first author). The narratives and voices of all team members are dramatized in this ethnodrama. Throughout the project the team members experienced confusion relating to the confrontation between lifeworld and system, as experienced by the client and professionals in the team. We analyze these tensions by making use of a Habermasian theoretical framework. We conclude that forms for collective client participation in residential care homes should be developed based on communicative action between clients and professionals, with room for emotional engagement. (shrink)

Participation of older people in designing and improving the care and services provided in residential care settings is limited. Traditional forms of democratic representation, such as client councils, and consumer models are management-driven. An alternative way of involving older people in the decisions over their lives, grounded in notions of care ethics and deliberative democracy, was explored by action research. In line with this tradition older people engage in collective action to enhance the control over their lives and those of (...) others. In this article the theoretical background of altruistic action is presented and illustrated by a case example of a group of older women who changed the food policies within their residential home. Altruistic action is the joint and coordinated action by a group of clients based on their agenda. Such action is given in by a shared dissatisfaction and search for connections. Altruistic action may enhance the sense of self, belonging and ownership, and create a transformative movement enhancing the wellbeing and community life in residential settings. (shrink)

Client participation in elderly care organizations requires shifting traditional power relations and establishing communicative action that involves the lifeworlds of clients and professionals alike. This article describes a particular form of client participation in which one client was part of a team of professionals in a residential care home. Their joint remit was to plan the implementation of a new personal care file for residents. We describe the interactions within this team through an ethnodrama, based on participant observations and the (...) embodied presence of the researcher (first author). The narratives and voices of all team members are dramatized in this ethnodrama. Throughout the project the team members experienced confusion relating to the confrontation between lifeworld and system, as experienced by the client and professionals in the team. We analyze these tensions by making use of a Habermasian theoretical framework. We conclude that forms for collective client participation in residential care homes should be developed based on communicative action between clients and professionals, with room for emotional engagement. (shrink)

ABSTRACT Background: From a phenomenological perspective, our body is the “from-which” we face the world. Vice versa, our body is affected by occurrences in our surroundings. Embodied resilience is understood as a quality of the dynamic relationships between our affected body and what happens in our surroundings. Objectives: This article explores the following question: How is resilience experienced bodily and how can we strengthen resilience and foster social relations? Research design: The data consists of ten in-depth interviews, personal observations and (...) reflexive dialogues with the research team on the lived experiences of the participants. Interpretative phenomenological analysis is applied, and relevant literature is outlined in the discussion and the findings are presented. Findings: We discovered three intertwined experiential dimensions of embodied resilience: the experience of (1) sensing: becoming aware of what bodily happened; (2) connecting: looking for resources; and (3) responding: moving towards a new equilibrium. Discussion and conclusion: Lived, embodied experiences play an important role in the dynamic process of resilience. The body helps us resonate with the world we live in. We recommend researching further how an affective touch can enhance embodied resilience and foster social relationships in organisations. (shrink)

About one third of patients with epilepsy have seizures refractory to the medical treatment. Electrical stimulation mapping is the gold standard for the identification of “eloquent” areas prior to resection of epileptogenic tissue. However, it is time-consuming and may cause undesired side effects. Broadband gamma activity recorded with extraoperative electrocorticography during cognitive tasks may be an alternative to ESM but until now has not proven of definitive clinical value. Considering their role in cognition, the alpha and beta bands could further (...) improve the identification of eloquent cortex. We compared gamma, alpha and beta activity, and their combinations for the identification of eloquent cortical areas defined by ESM. Ten patients with intractable focal epilepsy participated in a delayed-match-to-sample task, where syllable sounds were compared to visually presented letters. We used a generalized linear model approach to find the optimal weighting of each band for predicting ESM-defined categories and estimated the diagnostic ability by calculating the area under the receiver operating characteristic curve. Gamma activity increased more in eloquent than in non-eloquent areas, whereas alpha and beta power decreased more in eloquent areas. Diagnostic ability of each band was close to 0.7 for all bands but depended on multiple factors including the time period of the cognitive task, the location of the electrodes and the patient’s degree of attention to the stimulus. We show that diagnostic ability can be increased by 3–5% by combining gamma and alpha and by 7.5–11% when gamma and beta were combined. We then show how ECoG power modulation from cognitive testing can be used to map the probability of eloquence in individual patients and how this probability map can be used in clinical settings to optimize ESM planning. We conclude that the combination of gamma and beta power modulation during cognitive testing can contribute to the identification of eloquent areas prior to ESM in patients with refractory focal epilepsy. (shrink)

The potential public and individual health consequences of unequal access to digital technologies have been recognized in the United States for at least a decade. Unequal access to the Internet and related technologies has been characterized as a ; naturalistic trends toward broader access across the population and targeted intervention to increase access are described as progress toward The problem of the digital divide has been characterized as one of healthcare justice. The idea that everyone should have access to the (...) telecommunications gridis a central tenet of the U.S. universal service policy. With the diffusion of broadband technologies, the issue of digital access includes not only access to the Internet but also access to new levels of service, such as broadband, to support a wide range of emerging applications. (shrink)

Em diversas ocasiões, Leibniz recorre à autoridade de Aristóteles a fim de roborar sua tese da verdade como inerência do predicado ao sujeito da proposição. Não é, contudo, evidente em que medida a filosofia aristotélica poderia oferecer amparo a essa reivindica- ção. Afinal, a Aristóteles tradicionalmente se atribui uma concepção de verdade diferente, consistente em uma relação de correspondência entre a proposição e a realidade que ela se destina a descrever. Sem discutir a conhecida tese da verdade como correspondência, este (...) trabalho é dedicado a investigar em que medida os escritos de Aristóteles permitem que Leibniz respalde neles as suas afirmações. Para tanto, a presente investigação estará focada nos Primeiros e os Segundos Analíticos, obras em que Aristóteles expõe sua teoria do racio- cínio e da demonstração. Visa-se averiguar se, e sob que condições, a noção de inerência ali mobilizada pode ser assimilada à noção leibniziana de inerência. (shrink)

A formalização dos raciocínios a que Aristóteles se consagra nos Primeiros Analíticos é restrita, como sabemos, a proposições da forma categórica. Embora reco- nheça certas especificidades formais nas proposições encerrando predicados relacionais, Aristóteles parece reservar-lhes um estatuto secundário, considerando-as, em alguma medida, redutíveis a proposições categóricas. Neste artigo, pretendo examinar algumas passagens de Categorias 7 que possam lançar alguma luz sobre o estatuto que Aristóte- les confere às atribuições relativas, visando melhor precisar as razões que o teriam conduzido a negligenciar (...) um tratamento formal mais rigoroso das proposições relacionais nos Primeiros Analíticos. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Journal of the History of Philosophy 41.1 (2003) 134-135 [Access article in PDF] Allen Speight. Hegel, Literature and the Problem of Agency. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2001. Pp. xii + 154. Cloth, $54.95. Paper, $18.95. Hegel's notorious use of literary references in his Phenomenology of Spirit has been a source of numerous interpretive difficulties, sparking disagreements not only about the actual referents of Hegel's literary allusions, but also—and (...) more importantly—about the meaning and purpose of such allusions. In this insightful, highly readable new book, Allen Speight challenges the stale orthodoxies that have pitted the Phenomenology's systematic/philosophical readers against its literary/historical ones, and offers an innovative interpretation that takes seriously the work's literary structure and allusions, while also giving due consideration to its systematic philosophical aims. Combining the rich sensibility of a literary mind with the careful rigor of a philosophical mind, Speight deftly shows how Hegel's Phenomenology is a work whose very aim, in part, is to transcend the traditional, but often limiting, dichotomy between philosophy and literature.As Speight explains it, the general purpose of this book is to make "a contribution to understanding the philosophical project of the Phenomenology and why that project requires Hegel's appropriation of literary works and forms as it does" (9-10). The book's philosophical point of departure is the critical mass of recent scholarship that sees Hegel's epistemological task in the Phenomenology as essentially Sellarsian in its critique of the "Myth of the Given." For Speight, the Hegelian critique of the myth of the given implies that all knowledge claims are essentially corrigible and socially mediated, and this implies—in turn—that any attempt to draw rigid lines of demarcation between a purely "systematic" and a purely "historical" or "anthropological" approach to philosophy and its problems must ultimately fail. From this interpretive vantage point, Speight holds, a strong case can be made for the essentially literary character of Hegel's Phenomenology, and the essentially philosophical purpose of his literary allusions. As Speight is careful to acknowledge, his own distinctive approach to the Phenomenology is not meant to rule out other, divergent emphases or interpretations, but only to provide "a way of better understanding the role that literature plays within the philosophical enterprise of the work as a whole" (18).Speight begins to deliver the details of his promised "better way" by investigating what he calls the "literary turn" or the seemingly sudden "eruption of the literary" that starts to motivate the Phenomenology's transition from the section on "Reason" to the section on "Spirit." For Speight, the shapes of Active Reason that are crucial in this transition begin to raise a new set of problems concerning human agency. Furthermore, it is not at all a coincidence that Hegel's heightened concern with agency at this juncture of the Phenomenology [End Page 134] is accompanied by an unmistakable burst of literary references. Rather, it is an indicator of Hegel's careful, deliberate, and self-conscious strategy of using literature to make a philosophical point about agency, since it is literature—according to Speight's Hegel—that gives us privileged access to the philosophical problems of agency and their potential resolution.For Speight, Hegel's use of tragedy gives us special insight into the retrospectivity of all human action; his use of comedy points to the theatricality (or what we might call the socially mediated expressivity) of all human action; and his use of the romantic novel points to the necessity (and eventually opens up the possibility) of the forgiveness implied by all human action. While Hegel had already made use of both tragedy and comedy in the Reason section of the Phenomenology, it is only in the Spirit section, Speight argues, that these literary-philosophical shapes are taken up (e.g., in Antigone and Rameau's Nephew) in a historically self-conscious way that can lead (via the "beautiful soul" novel) to the possibility of forgiveness and thereby instigate the transition to the Religion section.Speight's "better way... (shrink)

When it comes to understanding the genesis and development of Heidegger’s thought, it would be rather difficult to overestimate the importance of the “Aristotle-Introduction” of 1922, Heidegger’s “Phenomenological Interpretations with Respect to Aristotle.” This text is both a manifesto which describes the young Heidegger’s philosophical commitments, as well as a promissory note which outlines his projected future work. This Aristotle-Introduction not only enunciates Heidegger’s broad project of a philosophy which is both systematic and historical; it also indicates, in particular, why (...) a principal (or fundamental) ontology can be actualized only through a destruction of the history of ontology. This text anticipates several central themes of Being and Time (e.g., facticity, death, falling), and also foreshadows some of the issues which were to occupy the later Heidegger (e.g., “truth” as a heterogenous process of unconcealment). There is no doubt that much can – and will – be written on the meaning and implications of this important text. But instead of making my own, early contribution to such a secondary literature, I have decided to limit myself in this “Preface” to a few brief remarks concerning the historical background to Heidegger’s “Phenomenological Interpretations with Respect to Aristotle.”. (shrink)

Em diversas ocasiões, Leibniz recorre à autoridade de Aristóteles a fim de roborar sua tese da verdade como inerência do predicado ao sujeito da proposição. Não é, contudo, evidente em que medida a filosofia aristotélica poderia oferecer amparo a essa reivindica- ção. Afinal, a Aristóteles tradicionalmente se atribui uma concepção de verdade diferente, consistente em uma relação de correspondência entre a proposição e a realidade que ela se destina a descrever. Sem discutir a conhecida tese da verdade como correspondência, este (...) trabalho é dedicado a investigar em que medida os escritos de Aristóteles permitem que Leibniz respalde neles as suas afirmações. Para tanto, a presente investigação estará focada nos Primeiros e os Segundos Analíticos, obras em que Aristóteles expõe sua teoria do racio- cínio e da demonstração. Visa-se averiguar se, e sob que condições, a noção de inerência ali mobilizada pode ser assimilada à noção leibniziana de inerência. (shrink)

A formalização dos raciocínios a que Aristóteles se consagra nos Primeiros Analíticos é restrita, como sabemos, a proposições da forma categórica. Embora reco- nheça certas especificidades formais nas proposições encerrando predicados relacionais, Aristóteles parece reservar-lhes um estatuto secundário, considerando-as, em alguma medida, redutíveis a proposições categóricas. Neste artigo, pretendo examinar algumas passagens de Categorias 7 que possam lançar alguma luz sobre o estatuto que Aristóte- les confere às atribuições relativas, visando melhor precisar as razões que o teriam conduzido a negligenciar (...) um tratamento formal mais rigoroso das proposições relacionais nos Primeiros Analíticos. (shrink)

One of the defining characteristics of Kant’s “critical philosophy” is what has been called the “critique of immediacy” or the rejection of the “myth of the given.” According to the Kantian position, no object can count as an object for a human knower apart from the knower’s own activity or spontaneity. That is, no object can count as an object for a human knower on the basis of the object’s givenness alone. But this gives rise to a problem: how is (...) it possible to accept the Kantian critique of immediacy while also giving an epistemologically adequate account of the constrained or finite character of human knowing (i.e., an account that does not rely on some appeal to what is simply “given”)? This paper examines how this crucial question is addressed (with more or less success) in the “critical philosophies” of Kant, Lonergan, and Fichte. (shrink)

Fetal alcohol spectrum disorders is an umbrella term covering several conditions for which alcohol consumption during pregnancy is taken to play a causal role. The benefit of individuals being identified with a condition within FASD remains controversial. The objective of the present study was to identify ethical aspects and consequences of diagnostics, interventions, and family support in relation to FASD. Ethical aspects relating to diagnostics, interventions, and family support regarding FASD were compiled and discussed, drawing on a series of discussions (...) with experts in the field, published literature, and medical ethicists. Several advantages and disadvantages in regards of obtaining a diagnosis or description of the condition were identified. For instance, it provides an explanation and potential preparedness for not yet encountered difficulties, which may play an essential role in acquiring much needed help and support from health care, school, and the social services. There are no interventions specifically evaluated for FASD conditions, but training programs and family support for conditions with symptoms overlapping with FASD, e.g. ADHD, autism, and intellectual disability, are likely to be relevant. Stigmatization, blame, and guilt are potential downsides. There might also be unfortunate prioritization if individuals with equal needs are treated differently depending on whether or not they meet the criteria for a specific condition. The value for the concerned individuals of obtaining a FASD-related description of their condition – for instance, in terms of wellbeing – is not established. Nor is it established that allocating resources based on whether individuals fulfil FASD-related criteria is justified, compared to allocations directed to the most prominent specific needs. (shrink)

As I hope to show in this paper, Fichte’s rejection of traditional social contractarian accounts of human social relations is related to his rejection of the search for a criterion, or external standard, by which we might measure our knowledge in epistemology. More specifically, Fichte’s account of the impossibility of a normative social contract (as traditionally construed) is related to his account of the impossibility of our knowing things as they might be “in themselves,” separate from and independent of our (...) own activity in knowing them. Addressing the question of whether we finite human knowers can ever transcend the limits of our own consciousness, Fichte argues that Hume was not sufficiently critical: “…the Humean system holds open the possibility that we might someday be able to go beyond the boundary of the human mind, whereas the Critical system proves that such progress is absolutely impossible, and it shows that the thought of a thing possessing existence and specific properties in itself and apart from any faculty of representation is a piece of whimsy, a pipe dream, a nonthought.” In a very real sense, then, Fichte aims to “out-Hume” Hume on the question of whether we can ever know “things-in-themselves” or an external criterion for testing our knowledge. That is, Fichte goes beyond Hume and insists on the necessary – and not merely contingent – character of our ignorance of so-called things-in-themselves (i.e., things that supposedly exist antecedent to and independent of our consciousness of them). But unlike Hume, Fichte argues that radical skepticism regarding all possible knowledge of things-in-themselves does not undermine – but actually confirms and sustains – our belief in the emancipatory power of reason. (shrink)

One of the best-known members of the United Nations Commission which drafted the 1948 "Universal Declaration of Human Rights," Jacques Maritain, famously held that the "natural rights" or "human rights" possessed by every human being are grounded and justified by reference to the natural law.' In many quarters today, the notion of the natural law, and arguments for a set of natural rights grounded in the natural law, have come under fierce attack. One common line of attack is illustrated by (...) the arguments of some utilitarians, for whom "natural law thinking" is mistaken insofar as it implies that there is an absolute moral prohibition against violating any human being's "natural rights." Even if there is such a thing as "natural rights," these utilitarians argue, such rights - including even the natural "right to life" - are necessarily relational, and thus have meaning only within the context of a larger social whole. As a result, the argument goes, the supposed "natural rights" possessed by individual human beings are never inviolable or unconditional, but instead always negotiable and subject to being "traded away" for the sake of greater social utility. Consider just one alleged counter-example to the notion that there are inviolable or unconditional "natural rights": it is well-known that approximately 36,000 people in the United States die every year as a result of influenza infections or influenza-related complications.' There is little doubt that hundreds, and probably even thousands, of human lives would be saved every year if local governments were to pass laws requiring flu vaccinations for all members of at-risk populations (e.g., the very young and the very elderly). It would seem that there would be broad support for mandated flu vaccinations- no matter what the expense - if human lives would be saved and if the natural "right to life" is inviolable or unconditional.' And yet no such life-saving laws exist, apparently because citizens and legislators believe that the social costs and inconveniences would be too great. According to the utilitarian position, this demonstrates - contrary to what Ronald Dworkin and others say about rights' - that rights do not trump utility, but in fact are quite regularly and reasonably trumped by utility. In light of such contemporary understandings and policies, can natural law thinking about natural rights be made credible? In what follows, I shall argue that utilitarian thinkers are correct to hold that rights are intrinsically relational; but they are wrong to conclude that the relational character of rights entails that "natural rights" are not inviolable or not unconditional. (shrink)

Kant’s “moral proof” for the existence of God has been the subject of much criticism, even among his most sympathetic commentators. According to the critics, the primary problem is that the notion of the “highest good,” on which the moral proof depends, introduces an element of contingency and heteronomy into Kant’s otherwise strict, autonomy-based moral thinking. In this paper, I shall argue that Kant’s moral proof is not only more defensible than commentators have typically acknowledged, but also has some very (...) interesting implications (e.g. the moral proof is “circular” and thus implicitly self-validating). My account shall proceed in five stages: 1. Preliminary Discussion of the Moral Proof 2. the Argument of the Moral Proof 3. Critics of the Moral Proof 4. Defense of the Moral Proof 5. Implications of the Moral Proof: Circularity and Self-referentiality.” . (shrink)

The so-called problem of arguing “from what is to what ought to be” was popularized by G.E. Moore in Principia Ethica (1903), and has received much attention from modern philosophers. I would like to argue that this apparent problem rests on a false dichotomy between our knowing and our doing.

This book is an extended reflection on a basic but far-reaching claim: "There are no 'bare' particulars". Because "individuals are necessarily individuals of a kind," Lowe argues, "realism with regard to particulars or individuals... implies realism with regard to sorts or kinds". A "sortal" concept is "a concept of a distinct sort or kind of individuals". Lowe's purpose in this book is to examine the meaning and implications of sortal concepts, and to challenge relativist conceptions of identity and reductivist strategies (...) in metaphysics. (shrink)

No espaço midiático, o culto à aparência corporal propaga a imagem de um corpo feminino bonito, jovem e magro. Com relação à mulher que vive no campo, a imagem difundida é de uma mulher alheia aos cuidados com a beleza, “desleixada”. O objetivo dessa pesquisa foi avaliar a satisfação com a imagem corporal e a influência dos meios de comunicação em mulheres em um assentamento rural de Jataí-Go. Foi aplicado o Body Shape Questionnaire a 25 mulheres e realizada entrevista com (...) oito mulheres. Os resultados indicam que maioria das participantes está satisfeita com a sua imagem corporal, embora afirmem que realizariam algum procedimento cirúrgico para fins estéticos. (shrink)

The Rediscovery of Jewish Christianity: From Toland to Baur. Edited by F. Stanley Jones. History of Biblical Studies, vol. 5. Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2012. Pp. xii + 248. $33.95.

E. Fr. A. Baur repräsentiert einen durch die Berliner Erwedtung, die Befreiungskriege und die in Schleiermacher, Fries und Fichte idealistisch gebrochene Aufklärung geprägten Frömmigkeitstypus. Schönheit, gefühlsmäßiges Erleben, Selbstreflexion und die Geschichtlidikeit der Gotteserfahrung sind der Bezugsrahmen für die religiöse Erfahrung, inhaltlich bestimmt durch die in der kirchenmusikalisdien Reformbewegung relgiös-ästhetisdie Stimmung von politischem Aufbruch, Patriotismus, christozentrischer Kirdilichkeit und mittelbarer Abhängigkeit vom Universum. In der erwecklidivermittlungstheologischen Predigt soll die Gemeinde in diesen Erfahrungen weitergeführt werden. Der Freiheitsgedanke und der Patriotismus werden von (...) A. Baur in der Turnbewegung Jahns lebendig gehalten. Differenzen zwischen A. Baur und Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy sind in mehrfacher Hinsicht zu verzeichnen gewesen. In der Häuslichkeit und der Freizeitgestaltung wird die städtische Bildungskultur fortgeführt, und die frauliche Existenz ist in besonderer Weise Spiegel religiöser Erfahrung. Innerhalb des kirchenrechtlich-institutionellen Spielraums gelingt eine Ausweitung der sozialen Fürsorge, und durch die zwedigebundene freie Vereinstätigkeit werden die aufkommenden Bedürfnisse kirdilich integriert und sollen analog zum Gustav-Adolph-Verein die Kultur christlich durchdringen. Die Christologie vermittelt die Kategorien für die als bedeutsam erlebten Personen. Die Teilhabe an ihrer vermittelnden und er-lösenden Tätigkeit ermöglicht die Fortsetzung der von Jesus Christus gewollten geistigen Erhebung, die in der Verklärung der Personen vorgestellt wird. Die Industrie stellt das durch sie ausgedrückte Lebensgefühl grundsätzlich in Frage. (shrink)

Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770-1831) is considered a philosopher of the Tradition, both in the sense that his work is rooted in the political, artistic, religious, and philosophical traditions of European culture and in the sense that he takes up the notion of tradition as an object of philosophical investigation. This collection examines Hegel's philosophy as it bears on the meaning and relevance of tradition - historical, legal, aesthetic, religious, and philosophical. The thirteen original essays draw upon and celebrate the (...) work of H.S. Harris, who is considered by many to be the most influential interpreter of Hegel in the English-speaking world. The collection as a whole examines Hegel's rich and nuanced relation to his own traditions, including his creative reworking of the legacies of Greece, Rome, Christianity, the Middle Ages, early modernity, and his immediate predecessors. It also shows how Hegel's thought has direct relevance for us today as we seek to understand ourselves in relation to our inherited traditions. The volume concludes with an afterword by H.S. Harris and a comprehensive bibliography of Harris's published works. This important anthology represents the first rigorous and systematic effort to apply Harris's seminal and innovative style of Hegel scholarship to a wide variety of philosophical and historical issues. It functions both as a study of Hegel's philosophy and as a commentary on Harris's vast contribution to Hegel scholarship. (shrink)

Kühn, U. Thomas von Aquin und die evangelische Theologie.--Rahner, K. Über die Unbegreiflichkeit Gottes bei Thomas von Aquin.--Pieper, J. Kreatürlichkeit.--Kluxen, W. Metaphysik und praktische Vernunft.--Oeing-Hanhoff, L. Gotteserkenntnis im Licht der Vernunft und des Glaubens nach Thomas von Aquin.--Zimmermann, A. Der Begriff der Freiheit nach Thomas von Aquin.--Baur, J. Fragen eines evangelischen Theologen an Thomas von Aquin.

In the history of philosophy, Fichte's thought marks a crucial transitional stage between Kant and post-Kantian philosophy. Fichte radicalized Kant's thought by arguing that human freedom, not external reality, must be the starting point of all systematic philosophy, and in Foundations of Natural Right, thought by many to be his most important work of political philosophy, he applies his ideas to fundamental issues in political and legal philosophy, covering such topics as civic freedom, rights, private property, contracts, family relations, and (...) the foundations of modern political organization. This volume offers a complete translation of the work into English, by Michael Baur, together with an introduction by Frederick Neuhouser that sets it in its philosophical and historical context. (shrink)

ABSTRACT:Partnerships between companies and NGOs have received considerable attention in CSR in the past years. However, the role of NGO legitimacy in such partnerships has thus far been neglected. We argue that NGOs assume a status as special stakeholders of corporations which act on behalf of the common good. This role requires a particular focus on their moral legitimacy. We introduce a conceptual framework for analysing the moral legitimacy of NGOs along three dimensions, building on the theory of deliberative democracy. (...) Against this background we outline three procedural characteristics which are essential for judging the legitimacy of NGOs as potential or actual partners of corporations. (shrink)

This paper presents a report on the first Swiss Master Class in Corporate Social Responsibility, which was held between the 8th and 9th December 2006 at HEC Lausanne in Switzerland. The first section of the report introduces the topic of the master class – ‚Corporations as Political Actors – Facing the Postnational Challenge’ – as well as the concept of the master class. The second section gives an overview of papers written by nine young scholars that were selected to present (...) their research. The brief summary of each paper also includes a summary of comments from the masters, practitioners, and NGO representatives at the event. The third section brings in the perspectives of one master and one NGO representative on the discussed issues. The final section offers a brief wrap-up of the discussed topics and outlines ways to structure future conceptual and empirical research. (shrink)

This paper presents a report on the first Swiss Master Class in Corporate Social Responsibility, which was held between the 8th and 9th December 2006 at HEC Lausanne in Switzerland. The first section of the report introduces the topic of the master class – ‚Corporations as Political Actors – Facing the Postnational Challenge’ – as well as the concept of the master class. The second section gives an overview of papers written by nine young scholars that were selected to present (...) their research. The brief summary of each paper also includes a summary of comments from the masters, practitioners, and NGO representatives at the event. The third section brings in the perspectives of one master and one NGO representative on the discussed issues. The final section offers a brief wrap-up of the discussed topics and outlines ways to structure future conceptual and empirical research. (shrink)

An emerging discourse about automated agricultural machinery imagines farms as places where farmers and workers do not need to be, but also implicitly frames farms as intolerable places where people do not want to be. Only autonomous machines, this story goes, can relieve farmers and workers of this presumed burden by letting them ‘farm at a distance’. In return for this distanced autonomy, farmers are promised increased control over their work-life balance and greater farm productivity from letting ‘smart’ robots assume (...) control over the operational environment. Drawing upon the ways that these machines are promoted by manufacturers in various media, we trace the nascent contours of what we term a liberatory sociotechnical imaginary for agricultural automation across three cases—automated milking systems, self-driving tractors, and robotic strawberry pickers. We show how promises for new freedoms and autonomy are flexibly deployed to respond to distinct frictions that farmers, workers, and even farm animals experience in different modes of industrial agriculture. However, underlying these promises is the purposefully understated self-interest of manufacturers, who stand to gain further control over farms if automated technologies assume a central role in agriculture. Through the liberatory rhetoric, we contend, the imaginary seeks to enroll farmers into a socio-technical network that creates new relations of dependence upon the companies who design, sell, maintain, and often retain ownership over automated technologies. While potentially powerful, this imaginary may nonetheless fail to coalesce as farmers, workers, and agroecosystems exert their own agency on automated imaginaries and technological futures for agriculture. (shrink)

Media outlets, industry researchers, and policy-makers are today busily extolling new robotic advances that promise to transform agriculture, bringing us ever closer to self-farming farms. Yet such techno-optimist discourse ignores the cautionary lessons of past attempts to mechanize farms. Adapting the Social Construction of Technology framework, we trace the history of efforts to replace human labor with machine labor on fruit, nut, and vegetable farms in California between 1945 and 1980—a place and time during which a post-WWII culture of faith (...) in the beneficence of technoscience applications to agriculture reached an apex. The degree to which and forms whereby mechanization gains momentum hinges on whether, how, and among whom a technological frame for mimicking human capabilities and supplanting workers coalesces. These frames, we find, vary considerably across crops, reflecting complex interactions of biology, farmer and farm worker behavior, industry supply chains, agricultural research and development, financial flows, and beliefs about labor, race, gender, and immigration. To tease out these complex dynamics, we draw directly from archival evidence to follow the development of cultivation and harvest machines through four cases spanning a spectrum of outcomes—tomatoes, nuts, peaches, and lettuce. In comparing across these cases, we find that although agricultural engineers, scientists, and their boosters framed mechanization as a triumphal narrative of progress in ‘human vs. nature’ conflicts, this techno-optimist rhetoric camouflaged deeper ‘human vs. human’ conflicts, particularly among agribusiness, farmers, and farm workers. We conclude with several insights that this historical study brings to the study of agricultural automation today. (shrink)

Previous research indicates that the depletion of self-regulatory resources can promote unethical behavior that benefits the self. Extending this literature, we focus on norm-transgressing behavior that is intended to primarily benefit others. In particular, we predicted a differing effect of self-regulatory resource depletion on dishonesty that benefits one’s group, depending on the degree of identification with the group. Following a dual process approach, we argue that if identification with the group is strong, then people may have an automatic inclination to (...) benefit their group even perhaps by lying. In contrast, if identification with the group is weak, then the default, uncontrolled impulse may be to tell the truth. Accordingly, identification with the social group should interact with self-regulatory resource depletion in predicting group-benefiting dishonesty. Focusing on pro-organizational dishonesty, we tested our hypotheses in one field study with 1269 employees and in one experimental study with 71 university students. As predicted, the results revealed a highly significant interaction of organizational identification and self-control strength: Depletion of self-regulatory resources increased the level of pro-organizational dishonesty among those who identify highly with the organization, but decreased the level of such behavior among those who identify less. (shrink)

More and more companies are publicly taking a stand on social and political issues such as gay marriage legislation. This paper argues that this type of engagement, which can be called “corporate political advocacy,” raises new conceptual and normative challenges especially for theories of corporate responsibility. Furthermore, it poses practical challenges for managers who are confronted with it. This paper addresses all three challenges: first, it defines and conceptualizes corporate political advocacy and distinguishes it from other forms of corporate political (...) involvement. Second, it makes normative sense of corporate advocacy as an element of corporate responsibility. Third, it reflects on the practical implications for managers dealing with this issue. (shrink)

The beta thymosins are a highly conserved family of strongly polar 5 kDa polypeptides that are widely distributed among vertebrate classes; most are now known to bind to monomeric actin and inhibit its polymerization. One beta thymosin, beta four, (Tβ4) is the predominant form in mammalian cells, present at up to 0.5 mM. Many species are known to produce at least two beta thymosin isoforms, in some cases in the same cell. Their expression can be separately regulated. When present outside (...) the cell, the N‐terminal tetrapeptide of beta four appears to affect cell cycle regulation; beta thymosins or smaller fragments derived from them may have additional regulatory functions. We suggest that many developmental changes in beta thymosin levels within cells and tissues may be related to changes in G‐actin pool size. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: Kant's Anti‐Cartesianism Kant on the Highest Good and the Practical Necessity of Belief in God's Existence The Moral Proof at the Tübinger Stift and Its Fate Self‐Positing and the “Only True and Thinkable Creation out of Nothing” The Way to Absolute Knowing in Hegel's Phenomenology.

By way of engagement with the thought of Plato, Aristotle, Aquinas, Heidegger, Lonergan, and neo-Thomism more broadly, Michael Baur and Gadamer discuss historicity, the Enlightenment and scientism, the epistemic implications of hylomorphism, and the nature of human finitude and death.